The same routine of Tuesday and Friday Cabinet meetings was observed by the new official family and the President set himself to the task of combatting the handicap his election contest had entailed. Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born at Delaware, Ohio, October 4, 1822, of Scottish ancestry. A matter of pride was the possession of the names of two chiefs notable in Highland history. These were Hayes and Rutherford, who fought together with William Wallace and Robert Bruce. His parents, of old New England stock, had travelled westward in covered wagons and settled in Ohio. This boy was born a few months after his father’s death. His mother was in fair circumstances and able to send her children, Fanny and “Ruddy,” as the boy was called, through school and to give them the advantages of college education. Rutherford was graduated from Kenyon College and from Harvard Law School. It was when he was a young lawyer of great promise at Cincinnati that he met by chance at Delaware Sulphur Spring a Miss Lucy Webb, student of Wesleyan Female College, whom he had known when a boy. They renewed the acquaintance, which soon passed from friendship into love. He was the most persistent and faithful among the young men attending the college teas, suppers, and receptions. He has been quoted as declaring, “My friend Jones has introduced me to many of our city belles, but I do not see anyone who makes me forget the natural gaiety and attractiveness of Miss Lucy.” After Miss Webb was graduated, a few years later, they were married by Professor L. D. McCabe, President of the Wesleyan Female College. Miss Webb was the daughter of Doctor and Mrs. James Webb of Delaware, Ohio. Rutherford Hayes began his military career in the Civil War as Major of the Twenty-third Ohio Infantry. From the time he was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel, in 1861, until the war ended, his military service was distinguished by his valour. Promotions for gallantry in action awarded his exploits. He was wounded six times, four horses having been shot under him. Of sixteen presidents who participated in the wars of the nation, he and James Monroe were the only ones wounded in battle. Civic honours also came to him with flattering frequency and he served through the Thirty-ninth Congress, was reëlected to the Fortieth, and was three times Governor of his state. When a successor for President Grant was being politically weighed and measured, James G. Blaine of Maine, Speaker of the House of Representatives, seemed to be the strongest candidate of the Republican Convention at Cincinnati. While Robert Ingersoll’s masterly nominating speech of the “Plumed Knight” had made a profound impression, opposing influences had been at work, the high tide for Blaine passed, the other candidates combined, and with the seventh ballot came the stampede to Rutherford Hayes, Governor of Ohio.