They were '48 men, with literary gifts of one sort and another, who certainly helped me along with my writing, but, as matters fell out, did not go far enough to influence my character, for they were a wild lot, full of taking enthusiasm and juvenile decrepitude of judgment, ripe for adventures and ready for any enterprise that promised fun and fighting.
Between John Savage and Mrs.Casneau I had the constant spur of commendation and assistance as well as affection.

I passed all my spare time in the Library of Congress and knew its arrangements at least as well as Mr.Meehan, the librarian, and Robert Kearon, the assistant, much to the surprise of Mr.Spofford, who in 1861 succeeded Mr.Meehan as librarian.
Not long after my return to Washington Col.

John W.Forney picked me up, and I was employed in addition to my not very arduous duties on the States to write occasional letters from Washington to the Philadelphia Press.

Good fortune like ill fortune rarely comes singly.

Without anybody's interposition I was appointed to a clerkship, a real "sinecure," in the Interior Department by Jacob Thompson, the secretary, my father's old colleague in Congress.