Soon after my return to headquarters I contracted a bad case of malaria and was sent home, which meant back to Woodstock, where I had eloped with a banker’s daughter just before going to the front. I was disgusted with the war and I expressed myself so freely, and was so outspoken in my sympathy for the South, that I made myself extremely unpopular in a very short time. It probably is true, too, as was charged against me, that I swaggered around a lot and presumed on the reputation I had made. At any rate the people set their hearts on hanging me for being a “damned copperhead,” and they might have done it if old man Wellburn, the proprietor of the hotel at which my wife and I were staying, had not helped me to stand off a mob that came after me. I met them at the door with a revolver in each hand and Wellburn was right behind me with quite an arsenal. They suggested that I come out and renounce my principles and make certain promises, or be hanged at the liberty pole. I told them I would renounce nothing and promise less. “If I am a copperhead,” I told them, “I am a fighting copperhead, while you are neither kind. If you want a fight why don’t you go to the front and get it, instead of staying home and making trouble for a better man, who has fought and bled for the cause you are shouting about? If you prefer a fight here, come on and get it. I’ve got twelve shots here and there will be just thirteen of us in hell or heaven if you try to make good your threat.” Old Wellburn was known as a fighter and the sight of his weapons added weight to my words, so the crowd concluded to let me have my way about it, and dispersed. That experience intensified my dissatisfaction with the whole business and I sent in my resignation. It was accepted, and when I had thought it all over I considered that I was lucky to have escaped a court-martial. It was fortunate for me that Governor “Dick” Yates and my father were warm friends. The Governor was thoroughly disgusted with the way I had conducted myself, but he stood by me. I then moved to Chicago, with my wife. She had a small fortune and I had come into considerable money on my twentieth birthday, so we were in easy circumstances. I bought a vinegar works on Kinzie Street; but the dull routine of business was repulsive to me and I sold it in less than a year, after having operated it at a handsome profit, and went on to New York. We stopped at the old St. Nicholas, at Broadway and Spring Street, which was the fashionable hotel in those days.