Feb. 5. Got leave of absence to attend Alexander Hamilton's funeral. Was honorary pall-bearer and dropped the last flower in the grave at Blandford a little before sunset. There were fewer depressing circumstances than on any similar occasion I ever saw. The music at the church was cheerful, there was dignity but little form and ceremony; just as Hamilton Iwould have had it.

Feb. 7. Sat up most of the night preparing some law references for my speech on child labor delivered on Jan. 26th, but withheld for revision.

Feb. 18. Constance, Madame Tournier and I go to the White House reception where I meet Mrs. Wilson (2d) for first time. Madame Tournier (a French Canadian) has spent much of her life in Paris. She said the French people regarded this war as something inevitable, that they believed they would in the end succeed, but that it would be at the sacrifice of the existing generation of French people-that life and all it held was gone for them consequently, there was none of the gaiety or enthusiasm so characteristic of these people, but a quiet and resolute dedication of themselves to public sacrifice.

Feb. 22. Flood told me today he would not be surprised to see the country at war by the 15th of March. The President told him and Senators Kern and Stone last night that he thought the Allies' position as to armed merchant ships sound international law and if the Germans again destroyed American life. by submarine, without warning and the opportunity to escape, he would end diplomatic relations with Germany; and that in that event he had been strongly advised by the German ambassador his country would declare war upon us. That if the U. S. took part, Germany would be beat by midsummer; that our war would be through navy and commerce.

Feb. 23. Great excitement in Congress among some people for fear of war, and there is strong sentiment for giving way to Germany on the submarine question. It is due to different motives. First, some have considerable German element in their constituencies. Second, some are of German blood themselves and sympathize with that cause. Third, by for the larger number do not think the country could be justified in going to war over what they consider a technical legal question-no matter what its merits.

Feb. 24. I have about come to feel that the cause of the Allies in Europe is the cause of democracy and free government in this age of the world and that if they be beaten America would be left single-handed and alone to confront the great military giant. I sent the President a letter this morning telling him I did not believe the American people wished him to recede in this controversy and that if war had to come I wished the destiny of this great free republic fixed on the side of accepted international law, of the faith of treaties, of the right of unarmed men

and of women and children to live, and on the side of democracy against military autocracy.

Feb. 25. Went to Richmond to attend meeting of Hampden-Sidney Trustees. Met Harry Houston, Speaker of the House of Delegates, for first time. Like him very much. Dr. Peter Winston in a little talk gave us delightful reminiscences of the old president's house at Hampden-Sidney, now proposed to be converted into a gymnasium.

Feb. 27. Washington. Connie and I went to supper with Alf Thom. Miss Thom, his sister, told us an interesting story about Governor Tazewell, who was her kinsman, illustrating the change in political customs. The Governor came up late from his library one night to his chamber, and his wife asked him who the gentlemen were she heard come in after she had retired, and why he received them so late. He told her it was a committee of the Legislature which had come to inform him he had been elected by that body Governor of Va. This was the first he had heard of it.

March 3. Newspapers contain notice of the death in Norfolk, Va., of Col. Walter H. Taylor, Adj. General on the staff of General Lee. He was the last survivor of those closely associated with General Lee in life. I knew Col. Taylor, having served on the Board of the Asylum at Williamsburg, Va., with him. He was a rather small, good-looking, quick, active, wellknit man; with marked executive capacity, somewhat impatient of opposition, of high character and forceful. I never heard him talk about General Lee. He was a man of pleasant, but reserved manner, and somewhat high bearing-slightly military.

March 4. No vote in the House today on the McLemore resolution to warn American citizens off belligerant merchant ships, as the President had requested. I think the house will side-step, as the Senate did on the Gore resolution. The whole proceeding is the staging of a comedy in the face of a great national tragedy.

Mr. Harry St. George Tucker and Constance took lunch with me at the Capitol. He told me that George Tucker, once professor at the University of Va., was his kinsman and born in Bermuda. That Senator Aldrich told him he regarded Mr. Tucker as being a high authority on financial legislation.

March 5. Senator Clark, of Arkansas, told me tonight he thought a considerable majority of the Senate favored the exclusion of American citizens from the merchant ships of the belligerants.

I paid Bob Southall yesterday $616.87. The last debt I owe. I have had to be in debt most of my life, and it is a great relief to get out.

March 12. Mr. G. W. Taylor told me today that Dixon H. Lewis and Benjamin Fitzpatrick, senators from Alabama, were brothers-in-law, both having married Elmores of that State,

who were his kinswomen. Their father, Mr. Elmore, went from South Carolina to Alabama-Calhoun having defeated him for the Senate in that State.

March 17. Debate began on Military preparedness bill in House. I had intended speaking but could get only fifteen minutes of the five hours allotted to Chairman Hay, and I.did not care to work in such short harness, and I did not feel fully prepared-in fact, had expected the debate to begin next week and was preparing myself accordingly.

March 31. Paul McRae here from China. shall at Shanghai and brought prisoners here. Cumberland Court House.

He is U. S. Mar-
His home is at

Telegram from Arthur Richardson announcing the death of John Hargrave, Treasurer of Dinwiddie County.

April 2. Was called up before breakfast by Capt. A. R. Hobbs, of Prince George, who came to advise about Peter B. Halligan being appointed Treasurer of Dinwiddie County. I spent most of the day reading "A Diary from Dixie," by Mrs. General Chesnut of South Carolina. She was a clever woman and gives excellent glimpses of Confederate folks in South Carolina and at Richmond during the War.

April 9. Snow this morning. To show how far 51 years have taken us from the mighty events of the past, I have not heard a human being here speak of Lee's surrender today, nor any mention of it in a newspaper. Except for the student and occasionally the politician, the Civil War seems to be forgotten..

April 11. W. H. H. Stowell, who represented my district in Congress after the War and lived in Burkeville (a carpetbagger), came to see me this evening. Says he left before there was any very special bitterness in politics and had nothing but pleasant recollections of our people. Represented the Halifax district first, where he was first defeated by Booker, of Henry; he then beat W. L. Owen, of Halifax, who he says was a Union man. After he came to Nottoway he beat McKinney and next time Judge Mann. Says he and McKinney had joint discussions. He married a daughter of General Averill (M. C. from Minn.) and went from Nottoway to St. Paul. Now living with son, a prof. in Amherst College, Mass. Is a very prosperous and genteel man of some ability.

May 29. Col. Mosby, who has been sick at Garfield Hospital for a week or so and who had expressed a wish to see me last week, I called to see this evening but found he had been taken much worse and was in extremis. I instructed his daughter that should he appear well enough and desired to see me she should call me at any time during the night.

May 30. I called at Garfield Hospital to see Col. Mosby this morning, but he had passed away without pain about nine o'clock A. M. He was in possession of his faculties to the last. I think he had not the Christian's faith. He had become quite

poor but don't think he was in actual want. He was perhaps the most conspicuous Confederate figure left and certainly the most picturesque. Roger A. Pryor is in the same category, but his Confederate record is said by some to have failed towards the end. He still lives in New York. Col. Mosby will be buried in Warrenton. I regret not being able to go on account of the State Convention at Roanoke.

June 2. State Convention at Roanoke concluded its work in a day. Ellyson, Flood and Glass got some political capital out of the convention. I don't think anybody else did. It was intended I should be chairman of the Platform Committee (Resolutions), but nobody had arranged beforehand for my nomination and others got ahead and put up Addison, of Lynchburg, and, of course, I was unwilling to contest for it. The platform, though, was my draft, so far as the rehash of trite political generalities could be said to be anybody's.

I am nominated the third time for Congress-the last without opposition. The time for entry in the primary expired today.

June 3. Left Roanoke at 12:10 for Lynchburg and return to Washington at midnight. Saw beautiful sunset over the Blue Ridge across the hills of Nelson.

APPENDIX II.

WALTER A. WATSON

A SKETCH

By Constance Tinsley Watson, "Woodland," Nottoway

County, Va.

Walter Allen Watson was born November 25, 1867, and was the son of Meredith and Josephine Leonora (Robertson) Watson.

His family for several generations had resided in the counties over which he was to preside as circuit judge, and later to represent in the halls of Congress. His earliest ancestors came from England and Wales. Colonel Jesse Watson, who was appointed by Thomas Jefferson in 1780 lieutenant of a company of militia of Prince Edward County, Virginia, who was raised to captain in 1782 and made colonel of Virginia militia in 1803 and who served at the battles of Camden and Guilford Courthouse under a Captain Allen, was his great-grandfather.

His infancy and childhood were passed on his father's plantation, "Woodland," near Jennings Ordinary, Nottoway County, Virginia, and in his early years he was seldom more than a few miles from that neighborhood.

His education began in a primary school taught by the estimable and beloved Mrs. Lelia Shore. After a few years at this school and up to thirteen years of age he attended what was known as "old field schools," where instruction was thorough and where the relations of master to pupil were so intimate and affectionate as to enable the master, both by example and precept, to inculcate those principles of conscientious attention to duty, of purity and honor, which made of the youth of that day the intellectual and incorruptible men of later years.

He was not reared in affluence but in the unpretentious though comfortable conditions common to farming communities at that time and in a section of the State upon which the losses incident to the Civil War had fallen hardest. It became inevitable, therefore, that work upon a farm should be a part of his training; and so far as such experience must have gone towards stimulating industry, independence and originality, doubtless a deep impress was left upon his future character and habits.

It is during this period he acquired that fondness for the open, that knowledge of the habits of the denizens of the forest, and that keen sympathy and understanding of the simpler folk which as a man led him to seek his recreation in the solitude of