When Gary was fourteen the Civil War broke out. The story is told that the news came to the farm one evening that the Union had been attacked and Erastus Gary and his boys sat around the fire discussing the situation and what their course of action should be. But their mother had no such doubts. Walking to the fireplace the old lady took therefrom a rifle and handed it without a word to her eldest son. [Illustration: Mouth of Coal Mine--Coke Ovens in Background] The Judge himself remembers nothing of the incident and it may be a fabrication pure and simple. However this may be, the fact is that soon after the young Elbert ran away from home and joined the Union ranks. He never had the desired opportunity to fight for the Union as his father discovered his whereabouts--this was probably not difficult as he knew the boy’s spirit--and got him sent back home. Among the friends of the elder Gary, and frequent visitors at the Wheaton farm, were Col. Henry F. Vallette, an uncle, and Judge Hiram H. Cody, members of the Illinois bar and of the firm of Vallette and Cody, of Naperville, a neighboring town. They had both noticed Elbert Gary’s ability and studious habits, and when the boy was about eighteen years of age Vallette one day asked him: “Elbert, how would you like to become a lawyer?” Needless to say Gary did not wait to be asked twice. He entered the firm’s office in 1865 and while working there began to read law. Later he took a regular course in a law school at Chicago and was soon admitted to the bar of his state, where his success was rapid and pronounced. In course of time he became Judge of Du Page County and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile, he had formed, with his brother Noah and one of his former chiefs, the firm of Gary, Cody & Gary. Gary became one of the leaders of the Chicago bar, and his ability in handling difficult cases soon attracted to him a number of wealthy clients, among whom were several large corporations, and it was through his connections with one of these corporations that he eventually connected himself exclusively with the steel industry, in which he has since risen to be the most important figure.