personality of this remarkable man who had been entrusted with the Democratic banner. If any one had desired information General Toombs could have given him all he needed; but the developments of the campaign, and especially the emphatic declaration of the ballot-box, had saved him this trouble by answering the worn-out question which was now buried with military honors on the battle-field:

"Who is Joe Brown?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

W

Another Cincinnatus.

HEN Joseph E. Brown received the Democratic nomination for Governor of Georgia in 1857, he was engaged like the illustrious farmer of Roman history in exemplifying the noble art of practical agriculture; but instead of driving his yoke of oxen he was binding his wheat-sheaves on his plantation near Canton, and nothing was further from his rural thoughts at this particular moment than the idea of being the standard-bearer of his party in the approaching campaign.

There were many surprised people in Georgia that day when the news began to travel the public roads. The political weather prophets had all been at fault; and the shrewdest calculations of the experts had been completely upset. None of the newspapers of the State had exploited the claims of the unexpected winner; or even mentioned his name in the most casual paragraph. Altogether it was one of those strange freaks of political astronomy which show that implicit confidence can not always be put in the signs of the zodiac.

But while the announcement was received with wideeyed wonder all over the State, no one was more completely dumbfounded than Joseph E. Brown himself.

If the ground in front of his farmhouse at Canton had

suddenly opened with the yawn of an earthquake and invited him instanter to explore the interior of the earth he could not have been more utterly amazed at the summons.

There were various men of ability throughout the State whose names had been mentioned in connection with the high office, some of them veterans in the service of the commonwealth, and men richly deserving of the coveted distinction. Why should he be singled out in preference to these able Georgians when he was not an aspirant for the place and when he lacked the experience in political affairs which others possessed in such distinguished measure?

Less than two years had elapsed since the suffrages of his fellow citizens had elevated him to the bench of the Blue Ridge circuit. He was now intent upon his judicial duties, barring, of course, such intervals of leisure as permitted him to enjoy the oversight of his plantation on the outskirts of the town. Having declined to stand for reelection when his term of office as State Senator expired in 1851, he had virtually put himself out of the path which led by the most direct route to the executive mansion; and having subsequently assumed the superior court ermine in one of the most secluded districts of the State, he may have reasoned with sound political acumen that he was in no danger of being struck by the gubernatorial lightning. What, then, was the secret of this extraordinary departure from the settled program?

Could he have looked ahead with prophetic eyes and seen the momentous events which were rapidly assuming ominous shape in the hidden womb of the future, he might have read the explanation in the fiat of an immutable decree which proceeded from some higher power than even the enthroned majesty of the people of Georgia.

He was called from the simple life of the fields to confront an eventful epoch in the history of the State; and by all his past training as well as by all his inherited gifts he was divinely qualified and equipped to master the storm which was fast gathering; whose destructive fury was soon to burst upon the State with terrific violence like an unsealed volcano; and whose maelstrom mutterings even now could be distinctly heard on the distant horizon.

Brilliant and patriotic and brave as were the countless sons of Georgia who possessed nerves of steel and hearts of oak, and who could have clutched the helm of State in this grave crisis with firm hands, Joseph E. Brown was the man whose placid temperament and sober genius were best meted to the thunders of this crucial hour.

Hence it was that in the convention he carried off the nomination over the gray heads of all the avowed candidates; and hence it was, too, that in the campaign which followed-one of the most historic which the State has ever witnessed he won the election over Georgia's peerless orator, the illustrious Benjamin H. Hill. No higher or more conclusive evidence of the divine agency employed on behalf of Joseph E. Brown could possibly be furnished than the spectacle of this exciting contest in which even the Olympian eloquence of Mr. Hill was powerless to overcome him; and concerning the marvelous oratory of this matchless Georgian it may be gravely doubted if any voice in the councils of this country has ever framed such syllables since death silenced the tongue of Daniel Webster.

But Georgia had other honors in store for this favorite son. She reserved that commanding figure and that superhuman speech for the topmost laurels of the loftiest

forums. Just now she needed another type of man in the executive chair.

Looking backward from the promontory which fifty subsequent years have built for the dispassionate survey of that period, it is now as clear as the sunbeams that the reason for the unexpected nomination which was made by the State Democratic convention at Milledgeville in 1857 was that Joseph E. Brown, if not the logical, was the providential candidate.

Approaching Canton in the fall of 1880 with a party of visitors, Governor Brown, who had then become United States Senator, pointed out the famous wheat-field and told the story of how he received the nomination.

"That," said he, "is the field I was tying wheat in when I was first nominated for Governor of Georgia," indicating an unattractive patch of ground which lay along the edge of Town Creek.

"I was then the judge of the Blue Ridge circuit," he continued, "and coming home one day, I went into the field after dinner to see how my hands were getting on. I had four men who were cutting wheat with common cradles and the binders were very much behind. So I pulled off my coat and pitched in. It was then about half-past two o'clock in the afternoon, and the day was the fifteenth of June, 1857. The weather was very warm and the beads of perspiration were coming out; but I ordered my binders to keep up with me and thus the work went briskly on.

"About sundown I went home and was just getting ready for supper when Colonel Samuel Weil, now an attorney in Atlanta, but then living in Canton, rode up