Without entering into the details of the governor’s career and the great part which he took in defending the integrity of the American Union, it is sufficient to state here that it was owing to him that Abraham Lincoln received his first nomination for the presidency. Had it not been for Andrew G. Curtin, Abraham Lincoln would not have been president of the United States. Curtin, then governor of Pennsylvania, received Lincoln on his way to Washington at the boundary of the state; together they planned the manner of the president’s further journey, by which he escaped, if not assassination, the possibility of meeting men who had it in mind. When a separation of the Southern states had become a fact, Governor Curtin invited all the loyal governors to meet in conference at Altoona, Pa., where he made the statement to them, that either the war must be carried on in real and deadly earnest with all the powers of the country placed at the disposal of the president, or be dropped altogether. After due consultation the governors decided to offer all the power of the states to the president, and went to Washington to lay that decision before Lincoln; all went except Governor Bradford of Maryland. After the Altoona conference and the meeting of the governors with President Lincoln at Washington, the war became that reality which won final success. Governor Curtin’s actions during the succeeding years of the struggle were such that he, Governor Morton of Indiana and Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, were pre-eminently the great war governors, the three governors uppermost in men’s minds. Governor Curtin’s untiring work on behalf of the soldiers of his state is well known and universally remembered. It is perhaps not so well known that he founded the first Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home in the United States, that of Pennsylvania. Some time after the war he went to St. Petersburg, as Minister Plenipotentiary, where he gained the respect and esteem of Alexander II. At his last interview the Emperor presented him a full length portrait of himself. This portrait, painted in oil, was made expressly for Governor Curtin, and was sent to his home in Pennsylvania by the Russian government.