There were some amusing incidents connected with the sheriff's embarrassment which could not properly appear in my letter to the governor. Both he and the Probate judge were candidates for re-election, and it seemed certain that the aggressive Vallandigham faction in the party would control the nominations in the party convention. In such excited times extreme men are almost sure to take the lead. The sheriff saw very clearly that there was nothing profitable to him in a forcible attack upon the United States troops in barracks, and knew that a call upon the _posse_ would be responded to by nobody but ruffians of the criminal class who might like an opportunity to gather as a mob with a pretext of lawful authority. He complained to me with a comical distress that the judge had taken advantage of him to gain with the extremists of his party the credit for bold defiance of the government, whilst he, the sheriff, was left to bear the brunt of the real danger. I had told him in an earlier interview that if he called out the _posse_ it would be his duty to lead it in person, and had intimated that I should direct the soldiers to save bloodshed by carefully marking the leaders in an attack. I now suggested that if he should inform the judge that he should summon him first as one of the _posse_ and require him to march beside him, he would probably find the zeal for a collision diminished. Whatever were the reasons which controlled, there was no _posse_ summoned, and I heard no more of the arrest of Colonel Boone. Both judge and sheriff lived to look back upon the episode in their lives with other feelings than those which excited them nearly to desperation in that singular political campaign. It was not always easy to draw a satisfactory line in dealing practically with such powdery elements and social conditions as those of 1863, but the best results seemed to come from carefulness not to provoke unnecessary collision with political prejudices and not to interfere with personal liberty more than was necessary, whilst showing inexorable firmness in carrying out such measures as we had to adopt. Two cases which arose in Dayton made it necessary to distinguish between two possible courses, and though there was a good deal of difference in judgment among loyal men I thought the event fully justified us in that which we pursued.