James Brown, who, by his Carolina fireside, fashioned his remonstrance slowly, and at last put his life upon the issue. Governor Brown and General Toombs started under circumstances in accordance with the suggestions of the foregoing. General Toombs’s father had a fine estate, given him by the State of Georgia, and his son had a fine education and started in life in liberal trim. Governor Brown had nothing, and for years hauled wood to Dahlonega; and sold vegetables from a basket to the hotel and what others would buy. Young Toombs made money rapidly, his practice for the first five years amounting to much over $50,000. He conquered by the grace of his genius, and went easily from triumph to triumph. Young Brown moved ahead laboriously but steadily. He made only about $1200 his first year, and then pushed his practice to $2000 or $3000. He made no brilliant reputation, but never lost a client, and added to his income and practice. His progress was the result of hard labor and continuous work. He lived moderately and his habits were simple. General Toombs has lived in princely style all his life, and has always been fond of wine and cards. Both men are rich, and both are well preserved for their time of life. General Toombs is seventy-one and Governor Brown fifty-nine. Each had a lucky stroke early in life, and in both cases it was in a land investment. General Toombs bought immense tracts of Texas land, of which he has sold perhaps $100,000 profit and still holds enough to yield double or treble that much more. Governor Brown, when very young, paid $450 for a piece of land, and afterward sold a half interest in a copper mine thereon for $25,000. This he invested in farms, and thus laid the basis of his fortune. The first time these men met was in Milledgeville, in 1851 or ’52, when Governor Brown was a young Democratic State Senator and General Toombs was a Whig Congressman—then the idol of his party and the most eloquent man in Georgia. They were then just such men physically as one who had never seen them would imagine from reading their lives. General Toombs was, as Governor Brown has told me, “the handsomest man he ever saw.” His physique was superb, his grand head fit for a crown, his presence that of a king, overflowing with vitality, his majestic face illumined with his divine genius. Governor Brown was then pallid, uncomely—his awkward frame packed closely with nerve and sinew, and fed with a temperate flow of blood. They met next at Marietta, where Toombs had a fiery debate with that rare master of discussion, the late Robert Cowart. Governor Brown was deeply impressed with the power and genius of that wonderful man, but General Toombs thought but little of the awkward young mountaineer. For later, when in Texas, hearing that Joe Brown was nominated for Governor, he did not even remember his name, and had to ask a Georgia-Texan “who the devil it was.”