During this administration there was a man by the name of Dred Scott, owned by an army officer named Emerson. He took Scott into a free territory; this slave, Scott, sued for his freedom; the case was carried from court to court until it reached the Supreme Court, which handed down that opinion known throughout the world as the Dred Scott decision. It meant that a Negro had no rights that a white man was bound to respect; that he was of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relation; and so far inferior that they need not be respected, but might be reduced to slavery for the white man's benefit. This decision placed the damnation seal on the poor Negro in the United States. It left him absolutely without help. In 1856 opened the great political drama. The candidates were James Buchanan, the Democrat, John C. Fremont, Republican, and ex-Vice-President Millard Fillmore, of the Know Nothing Party. James Buchanan, the Democrat, was elected; the world knows the consequences of the next four years in and out of Congress. Death and destruction were in the path. We had John Brown's insurrection, the Christiana riot, the tragic death of Lovejoy, and hundreds of other events which I cannot mention at this time. In 1860 the Presidential campaign came off. The candidates were Abraham Lincoln, Republican, John C. Breckenridge, Southern Democrat, and S. A. Douglass, Northern Democrat, with John Bell, Union Democrat. This was a hot contest. Lincoln was elected. Then came the Great Rebellion. On April 12, 1862, in company with my brother, John H. Grant, we left our home in York Co., Pa., for Washington, D. C., then the center of war activities. Both of us found employment as teamsters in the Quartermaster's Department. On June 15 we were transferred into Gen. Pope's Army in Virginia. We were relieved of our teams and put to herding horses and mules throughout Gen. Pope's campaign. After Pope was defeated at the second battle of Bull Run, I returned to Washington and went back to driving my team. In 1863 I was transferred to the woodcutter department as an outside clerk and put to measuring wood which was cut every two weeks. I also looked after the commissary. I was there until the Confederates ran us out in June. I returned to Washington, D. C., and began my Christian and literary work. I was converted sixty-five years ago, and joined the A. M. E. Z. Church, then called Wesley Church. Rev. Abner Bishop was the pastor. The church was in Peach Bottom Township, York County, Pennsylvania.