286 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



success until 1877, when he was called to another sphere. 



He was married at 31, and soon thereafter a nomina- 

 tion for the Lower House of the General Assembly was 

 tendered him and he was elected by a nattering vote. He 

 served the regular and two extra sessions, 1860, 1861, and 

 volunteered and went to the war a private, declining the 

 Captaincy of a splendid company. He served in the 

 Twenty-fifth and Forty-third North Carolina Regiments, 

 until the fall of 1864, when his comrades in the army 

 nominated him as the "Army Candidate," and elected 

 him again to the Legislature. In 1865, although he 

 earnestly besought his people not to put him forward, he 

 was triumphantly elected to the State Constitutional Con- 

 vention, called by President Johnson. On the day of 

 the election he remained at home and ploughed, and until 

 his election as Commissioner of Agriculture for his State, in 

 1877, ne was found on his farm at work not directing it, 

 but doing it. 



He took a prominent and leading part in advocating 

 the establishment of a Department of Agriculture as early 

 as 1870, and continued to agitate and discuss it until it 

 was accomplished in 1877. The Legislative Committee 

 drew him away from his farm to aid in constructing the 

 bill. He was elected, and served as Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture until 1880, when he resigned. He has been a fear- 

 less friend of the farmer and of the masses. 



In 1886 he began the publication of the Progressive 

 Farmer, and with it began the organization of Farmers' 

 Clubs; and when in 1887 ne was induced to espouse and 

 advocate the Farmers' Alliance, he had organized nearly 

 five hundred clubs in his State. His paper also began, in 

 its first issue, the agitation of an Agricultural and 

 Mechanical College and the restoration of the Land Script 

 Fund to that purpose, which was then applied to the State 

 University, and his plan was adopted against strong oppo- 



