The inside truth about the nomination was freely given by Mr. Blaine, who, as the convention progressed, was studying the proceedings with the surprisingly clear vision he possessed for the estimation of passing events. He soon made up his mind that his nomination could not happen, and that Sherman also was impossible. They could not unite forces without losses. Evidently there was a crisis at hand. There is something in a convention that always tells the competent observer, near or far, that decisive action is about to be taken. The evidence appears of an intolerant impatience. Mr. Conkling was relying upon the absolute solidity of his three hundred and five. Mr. Blaine was a wiser man about the force of a tempest in a convention, and would have preferred Sherman to Conkling. But Conkling was quite as bitter toward Sherman as regarding Blaine, even more so in his invective; and this grew out of the custom-house difficulty that ultimately so deeply affected General Arthur's fortunes. There had to be a break somewhere--to Grant from Sherman and Blaine, or from him to them, or a rush to Conkling, or to Garfield, whose conspicuity had constantly suggested it; and Blaine resolved that the chance to rout the third-termers was to sweep the convention by going for Garfield, and overwhelming him with the rest, thus winning a double victory over Conkling. It is a fact, and the one that makes certain the proposition that Sherman could not have been nominated, that the majority of the Blaine men from New York, turned loose by breaking the unit rule--there were nineteen of them--preferred Grant to Sherman. If the break by Blaine from himself had been attempted, for Sherman, Grant would have been nominated if one ballot had been decisive. But Blaine was able to transfer every vote cast for him to Garfield, with the exception of that of a colored delegate from Virginia; and this movement was managed so as to overthrow all who strove to stand against it. Grant was in the lead for thirty-four ballots, but on the thirty-fourth there were seventeen votes for Garfield. On the thirty-fifth ballot Garfield had three hundred and ninety-nine votes, twenty-one majority over all. Blaine by telegraph had outgeneralled Conkling, present and commanding in person. The course of the proceedings of the convention from the first was a preparation for the final scenes, the putting of Garfield against Conkling and working up a rivalry between them having a marked effect; and this was not so much for Garfield as against Conkling. Garfield grieved to think Sherman would misunderstand him, and was apprehensive as to the feeling of the New York delegation. "How do your people feel about this?" Garfield asked a New Yorker, when he had returned to his hotel the nominee. "Well, they feel badly and bitterly," was the reply.