Mr. Seward invited me to a dinner at his residence, the historic house where later the assassin tried to kill him, where General Sickles killed Philip Barton Key, and which in more recent years was occupied by James G. Blaine. Most of the members of the cabinet were present. I was asked to describe some of the scenes of my recent travels, and told about Chinese dinners, to their great amusement. Afterward I told them a story then current about Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist. Phillips was once in Charleston, South Carolina, and returned late to dinner at his hotel. As he approached the door, it was held open by a negro slave. Phillips said haughtily that he had never permitted a slave to wait on him, and that he would not do so now. "How long have you been a slave?" asked Mr. Phillips. The negro replied: "I ain't got no time to talk erbout dat now, wid only five minits fur dinner." Mr. Phillips told the slave to leave the room, that he would not let him serve him at the table; he would wait on himself. "I cain't do dat, suh; I is 'sponsible for de silber on de table, suh!" Loud laughter greeted this story. In the very midst of the uproar the door was burst open, and Secretary Stanton appeared, his face white with emotion. In a choking voice, that was scarcely audible and would not have been heard had not every nerve in our bodies been strained to catch the momentous words we expected, he said: "A battle is raging at Antietam! Ten thousand men have been killed, and the rebels are now probably marching on Washington!" There was a hush, and we told no more stories that night. It is remarkable that almost all the great battles hung long in the scales of victory. Neither side knew whether it had won until some time after the fighting had ceased. It was so at Antietam, and had been so in the case of Bull Run or Manassas. The true tidings came in slowly. I took no part in the war on the battlefield, because as soon as I looked into the causes of the war and its continuance, I saw that it was a contract war. I came back to this country fully expecting to serve. I had been assured of a high commission; but could not conscientiously take part in a struggle in which thousands of lives were being sacrificed to greed. Such was my honest belief, and such was my course. CHAPTER XXIII BUILDING THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY 1862-1870 When the Englishmen tore up my street-railways in England, I made a speech in which I told them I would build a railway across the Rocky Mountains and the Great American Desert which would ruin the old trade routes across Egypt to China and Japan. I pointed out then that this route would be far shorter in time than the old route, and that Europe would soon be traversing America to reach the Orient. This was no new idea, sprung at the moment in a feeling of resentment. I had suggested this route across America ten years earlier, at Melbourne, Australia.