Far more lucrative positions had been offered him; salaries without work, for the mere use of his name. Solicitations came from abroad, and brilliant opportunities invited across the ocean. He took the helm at Washington College with this avowal: "I have a self-imposed task which I must accomplish. I have led the young men of the South in battle. I have seen many of them fall under my standard. I shall devote my life now to training young men to do their duty in life." Urged in 1867 to run for office, he declined, believing that his candidacy might not contribute to sectional unification. As nearly perfect was this man as men are made. Our National Capitol is the poorer because his statue is not there. If it ever is, I should like to see on its pedestal Grant's tribute: "There was no use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what was right." When the crippled and impoverished General Hood refused to receive money raised by subscription, the "Albany Evening Journal" commented: "It is the first instance we have ever seen recorded of a 'Southern gentleman' too proud or self-reliant to accept filthy lucre, come from what source it may." The "Petersburg Index-Appeal" responded: "Hood has only done what Lee did a dozen times, what Beauregard did, what Magruder did, and what President Davis did. The noble response of Magruder to the people of Texas, who contributed a handsome purse to procure him a fine plantation, was the impulse and utterance of the universal spirit of the Southern soldier: 'No, gentlemen, when I espoused the cause of the South, I embraced poverty and willingly accepted it.'" Near Columbia, on the ruins of his handsome home which Sherman burned, General Wade Hampton, clever at wood-work, built with his own hands and with the help of his faithful negroes, a lowly cottage to shelter himself and family. A section was added at a time, and, without any preconceived design on his part, the structure stood, when completed, a perfect cross. Miss Isabella Martin, looking upon it one day, exclaimed: "General, you have here the Southern Cross!" So "Southern Cross" the place was called. Here, Mrs. Wade Hampton, who, as Miss McDuffie, had been the richest heiress in South Carolina, and as such and as Hampton's wife, the guardian angel of many black folk, wrought and ruled with wisdom and with sweetness unsoured by reverses. South Carolina offered Hampton a home, as Virginia and then Washington College offered Lee, but Hampton, almost in want, refused. This is the plight in which General M. C. Butler, Hampton's aide, came out of the war: "Twenty-nine years old, with one leg gone, a wife and three children to support, seventy slaves emancipated, a debt of $15,000, and, in his pocket, $1.75 in cash." That was the situation of thousands. It took manhood to make something of it.