I was fourteen when Calhoun died. For four or five years before, and afterwards until I went to the brothers' war, I heard much of Calhoun from relatives in Abbeville county and the Court House. I still recall most vividly what a paternal uncle habitually said of the brightness and unexampled impressiveness of Calhoun's eyes, and the charm and instructiveness of his conversation. In Georgia there was not a public man whose course in politics commended itself to all of my acquaintances. I had become accustomed to hearing much disparagement of Toombs and of Stephens, with whom I was most familiar. But my South Carolina relatives, and every man or woman of that State whose talk I listened to; every boy or girl with whom I talked myself, yea, all of the negroes,--always warmly maintained the rightfulness of Calhoun's politics, national or State. I thought it a good hit when a Georgia aunt of mine dubbed the Palmetto State "The Kingdom of Calhoun," and Abbeville Court House "its capital." This universal political worship was a great surprise to me. But there was a still greater one to come. That was, that according to all accounts, and without any contradiction, in spite of his living away from home the most of his time, he yet gave his planting interests and all else appertaining the very best management, and with such unvarying financial success it would be unkind to compare Webster's money-wasting and amateur farming at Marshfield. In this community, where he seemed to be known as well as he was before he removed to Fort Hill, some sixty miles distant, in 1825, he had become a far greater authority in business than he had even attained in politics. His acquaintances all sought his advice, which they followed when they got it; thus making this busiest of public servants their agricultural oracle. The reader will find in Starke's memoir and the Correspondence ample proofs of that diligent attention of Calhoun to his home affairs which made him the exceptionally successful planter that he was. Starke happily calls him "the great farmer-statesman of our country."[46] Now let us see where he made his mark as an able business man in another place. He was Monroe's secretary of war from 1817 to 1825. When he entered the office he found something like $50,000,000 of unsettled accounts outstanding, and jumble in every branch of the service. He soon brought down the accounts to a few millions. And he reduced the annual expenditure of four to two and a half millions, "without subtracting a single comfort from either officer or soldier," as he says with becoming pride. He established it, that the head of every subordinate department be responsible for its disbursements. His economy was not parsimonious. He was especially popular at West Point, for which he did great things, and with the officers and men of the army.