When Mr. Winser sent his report of Farragut’s passage of the forts below New Orleans (as narrated elsewhere), fearing there might be a miscarriage, he wrote a second account which was forwarded by the same steamer that carried the letters of other newspaper correspondents. This latter manuscript was returned to him and hence, when Admiral Porter wrote, asking him if he remembered the circumstances of the sudden order from Captain Porter to the flotilla to cease firing and return, Mr. Winser was able to give a transcript of the affair from his manuscript letter. It was a great grief to Mr. Winser that General Butler should have placed himself in so unpleasant a position, for he had valued him as a friend and soldier, and was most reluctantly brought into the controversy. [Illustration: Woodside As God Made It. Picture taken about 1885 from a Washington Avenue back yard. Looking south across the fields toward the Passaic.] When he settled in Woodside Mr. Winser was city editor of the Times and was deep in the investigation of the Tweed Ring. This work was so exacting that he had no time even to attend to his own private affairs, and paid little attention to Woodside politics, except in one instance. During the first year of Woodside’s independence there were no politics; no salaries attached to any of the offices, and consequently the good men were allowed to fill them. But by the time the second annual election approached there were a few soreheads who joined themselves unto the scattering Democrats and the house was divided against itself. This necessitated some electioneering, which was undertaken by Mr. Winser and Mr. Theodore G. Palmer, who went the rounds of the district canvassing for votes. The result was overwhelmingly Republican and eminently satisfactory. Mr. Winser broke down in January, 1869, and was told by the doctors that he must stop night work. He was advised by a friend to apply to General Grant for a consular position, and Sonneberg was suggested for its beauty of location and the wide field it offered for consular and other work, as it was the largest consulate in Germany. Mr. H. J. Raymond, of the New York Times, was bitterly opposed to this and refused to help in any way, declining even to write introductions to his political friends in Washington or to request their aid in the appointment. Mr. R. said: “I do not want you to leave the Times and I shall in no way help you in your desire.” But after Grant’s inauguration Mr. Winser wrote, asking for the Sonneberg post, and his was the first appointment made after March 4, 1869.