As soon as the news of the call for volunteers reached Galena, posters
were stuck up calling for a meeting of the citizens at the court-house
in the evening. Business ceased entirely; all was excitement; for a
time there were no party distinctions; all were Union men, determined to
avenge the insult to the national flag. In the evening the court-house
was packed. Although a comparative stranger I was called upon to
preside; the sole reason, possibly, was that I had been in the army and
had seen service. With much embarrassment and some prompting I made out
to announce the object of the meeting. Speeches were in order, but it
is doubtful whether it would have been safe just then to make other than
patriotic ones. There was probably no one in the house, however, who
felt like making any other. The two principal speeches were by B. B.
Howard, the post-master and a Breckinridge Democrat at the November
election the fall before, and John A. Rawlins, an elector on the Douglas
ticket. E. B. Washburne, with whom I was not acquainted at that time,
came in after the meeting had been organized, and expressed, I
understood afterwards, a little surprise that Galena could not furnish a
presiding officer for such an occasion without taking a stranger. He
came forward and was introduced, and made a speech appealing to the
patriotism of the meeting.
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