Chapter XXV

_A Stray Nobleman_

Of the many men whom it was my good fortune to meet while on the

river as a boy, or as a young man, there was none who came nearer

to filling the bill as a nobleman than Robert C. Eden, whose memory

suggests the title of this chapter. Just what constitutes a nobleman

in the college of heraldry, I am not qualified to assert. "Bob" Eden,

as his friends fondly called him--Captain Eden, as he was known on

the river, or Major Eden as he was better known in the closing days

of the War of Secession--was the son of an English baronet. There

were several other sons who had had the luck to be born ahead of

"Bob", and his chance for attaining to the rank and title of baronet

was therefore extremely slim. However, his father was able to send

him to Oxford, from which ancient seat of learning he was graduated

with honors. As a younger son he was set apart for the ministry,

where he finally landed after sowing his wild oats, which he did

in a gentlemanly and temperate manner that comported well with the

profession for which he was destined, all his studies having been

along theological lines. The _wanderlust_ was in his blood, however,

and he declined taking holy orders until he had seen something of

the unholy world outside. Accordingly he took the portion due him,

or which his father gave him, and departed for Canada. Not finding

things just to his taste in that British appanage, possibly not rapid

enough for a divinity student, he promptly crossed the line and began

making himself into a Yankee, in all except citizenship.

In his wanderings he finally reached Oshkosh, attracted no doubt by

the euphony of the name, which has made the little "saw dust city

of the Fox" one of the best known towns, by title, in the world. If

there was any one place more than another calculated to educate

and instruct an embryo clergyman in the ways of the world, and a

particularly wicked world at that, it was Oshkosh before the war.

That he saw some of the "fun" which the boys enjoyed in those days

was evidenced by the fund of stories relating to that place and that

era, which he had in stock in later years.

I do not know how long he remained there on his first visit. When I

made his acquaintance he was journeying up the river by easy stages

on a little side-wheel steamer, having both wheels on a single

shaft--a type of steamboat which I had known on the St. Joseph River

in Michigan, but which was not common on the Mississippi. This class

was used on the Fox and Wolf Rivers, and on Lake Winnebago. Captain

Eden had bought this little steamboat, of perhaps eighty tons burden,

for the purpose of exploring at his leisure the upper Mississippi and

its tributaries. He had sailed up the Fox River to Portage, through

the canal to the Wisconsin, and down that stream to the Mississippi,

and had reached Prescott, where I met him. He wanted to go up the St.

Croix to the Falls, stopping at all the towns, and at places where

there were no towns, at his own sweet will. First-class pilots were

getting six hundred dollars a month wages in those days. Eden's boat

was not worth two months' pay of such a pilot, and he was on the

lookout for a cheaper man when he found me.

His crew consisted of himself, acting in the capacity of captain and

first and second mates; an engineer and fireman in one person; a deck

hand, and a cook. The cook is named last, but he was by no means

the least personage aboard the "Enterprise". As this was a sort of

holiday excursion, the cook was about the most important official

about the boat. He was fully up in his business, and could cook

all kinds of game and fish to perfection, as well as the ordinary

viands of civilization. It was a privilege to be catered to by this

master of his art. The captain had under him, therefore, three men,

in addition to the pilot for temporary service from time to time as

he journeyed up the river. The "Enterprise" was not a speedy boat.

She could make four or five miles an hour upstream if the current

was not too strong, and double that downstream if the current was

strong enough. She had no upper cabin answering to the "boiler deck"

of the river boats--only a little box of a pilot house on the roof,

big enough to contain a little wheel and the man who turned it.

This wheel was only about a third the diameter of a real steamboat

wheel, and instead of wheel-ropes it had chains, large enough for a

man-of-war. When the wheel was put hard up or hard down, the chains

responded with a series of groans and squeaks not unmusical, but

new and novel to one used only to the noiseless operation of the

well-oiled wheel-ropes of the river steamers. The chains were part of

the fire-proof outfit required by regulations on the great lakes. The

"Enterprise" was from Winnebago. To pull the little three-foot wheel

hard down, and hold the stumpy little steamer up to a reef from which

she wanted to run away, required the expenditure of as much muscle as

was demanded to cramp a four-hundred ton steamer over the same bar by

the use of the larger wheel and easier-running wheel-ropes.

The cabin of the "Enterprise" was all aft of the paddle-boxes. It was

so divided as to afford sleeping quarters for the crew at the forward

part, next the engine, while Captain Eden occupied the after part,

which was fitted up as a boudoir, with a little side niche, in which

he slept. His pointer dog and his retriever also slept in the same

niche. There was a fine library in the cabin--not a great number of

books, but the best books, some English, some French, some German,

and several Greek and Latin, for Captain Eden was a polyglot in his

reading. There was also a gun rack with several rifles, three or four

shot guns of big and little calibre, and a pair of duelling pistols.

Likewise there were rods, reels, landing nets, and fly-hooks without

number, rubber boots and mackintoshes for rough weather, and all the

paraphernalia of a gentleman sportsman. It was evident at a glance

that Captain Eden was not in financial straits, and it was equally

evident that he was not steamboating for profit.

As I knew the St. Croix River well enough to navigate it with a

far larger boat than Captain Eden's, and in addition knew also a

great deal more about the haunts of bear, deer, prairie chickens,

brook trout, and indeed all species of fish inhabiting the waters

of the Mississippi River and its tributaries; and further, had a

speaking and dining acquaintance with sundry red men, both Sioux and

Chippewa, with whom Captain Eden also wished to become acquainted

for purposes of original investigation and study, I was deemed a

valuable acquisition. On my side a reasonable salary as pilot, with

a free run of the guns, fishing tackle, and books was an attractive

presentation of the case, and it took but a short time to arrange the

details of an engagement.

A day's work on this model craft consisted in steering the boat

five or six miles up or down the river or lake to the most inviting

hunting or fishing grounds, or to the vicinity of an Indian camp,

finding a sheltered place in which to tie up, and then taking a tramp

of ten or a dozen miles after deer, bear, or prairie chickens, or

a walk of three or four miles up some favorite trout stream, and

fishing back to the boat. In that day bear and deer abounded within a

very few miles of Prescott, Hudson, or other points. Indeed, as late

as 1876 bears were quite common about River Falls, one or two having

come right into the village to pick up young pigs and lambs; and deer

were also numerous within a few miles of the same place.

This in itself was an ideal occupation. But added to it was the

privilege of an intimate association with, and the conversation of,

a man from across the ocean, whose father was a baronet, who had

himself been schooled in Oxford, who had lived in London, and Paris,

and Berlin, and had seen men and things of whom and which I had read

in books, but which were all very far removed from the backwoods farm

of Michigan where I was born, and from the still wilder surroundings

of the upper Mississippi in the middle fifties.

I had been a persistent reader from the time I had learned my

letters, and was now seventeen years old. The volumes to which I

had had access were principally school books, with here and there a

history or biography, and an occasional novel. At one period only,

while working in the printing office, had I the run of a well-chosen

library belonging to the lawyer-editor. Here, however, was something

better than books. I could question this man on points that the books

might have passed over, and he could answer. His mind was quick, his

powers of observation trained, his brain well stored with the lore

of books--history, poetry, eloquence, and in addition he had seen

much of the world which lay so far beyond and outside the life of a

Western-bred country lad. It was better than any school I had ever

attended, and he was a rare teacher. He didn't realize that he was

teaching, but I did.

It was not a case of absorption alone on my part, however. In my

own field I had much to communicate--the lore of woods and streams,

the ways of the red men, the moods and legends of the Great River,

matters which seemed of little value to me, but which this stranger

from an older civilization was as solicitous to hear about as I was

to listen to the stories of his larger life. While I deemed myself

fortunate indeed in making the acquaintance of this cosmopolitan man

of the world, I was pleased to know that there were some things that

I knew better than my more widely-travelled employer. One of these

things, insignificant in itself, was the fact that the pilot could

catch ten trout to the captain's one, after giving him all possible

advantages of first chances at good "holes", and likely riffles, and

the first chance in wading ahead down the stream. This was for a

long time one of the mysteries to the captain--why a trout would not

bite at one man's hook just as readily as at another's, when they

were exactly alike as to lures, whether natural or artificial. The

fact remains that there is a difference in the manner in which you

approach them with the temptation; until you get the "hang of the

thing" you will not catch the trout that the more astute disciple of

the good Walton catches out of the same stream, in the same hour.

Thrown together as we both were on board the boat and on these

excursions, the relation of employer and servant was soon forgotten,

and the closer and more intimate relation of friend to friend was

established, a relation which lasted as long as Captain Eden remained

in America. Two months were passed in idling along the St. Croix, in

hunting, fishing, exploring, studying the beautiful, if not grand,

rock formations of the Dalles, and in visiting the Indians in their

haunts around Wood Lake and the upper St. Croix. Then Captain Eden

turned the prow of his little steamboat toward home, descending the

river to Prairie du Chien, ascending the Wisconsin, portaging through

the canal to the Fox, and thence steaming down to Oshkosh. Disposing

of his steamboat there, he entered the office of the _Northwestern_

newspaper, first as a reporter and later as an editorial writer. Not

many suburban newspapers fifty years ago could boast of an Oxonian

among their editorial writers. But very few people outside of his

immediate friends ever knew that the quiet man who represented the

_Northwestern_ was either an Oxonian or the son of an English baronet.

In the autumn of 1863 the men of the North were gathering themselves

together for the mightiest struggle of modern times--the battle

summer of 1864. In Wisconsin, the Thirty-seventh Regiment of

Infantry was in process of enrollment, and the whilom Englishman

was one of those engaged in recruiting for this regiment, putting

his money as well as his time into the work. Captain Eden was so

successful in enlisting men for the service, that when the regiment

was organized he was commissioned as major. In the strenuous days

immediately following the battle of Cold Harbor the writer again met

his old employer. The difference in rank between the enlisted man

and the commissioned officer was no bar to the recognition of the

former friendship existing between the steamboat captain and his

pilot--friendship broadened and strengthened by companionship in

woods and along streams by mutual interest and respect.

Major Robert C. Eden, or "Bob" Eden, as he was called at the front,

was a model officer. His family had for generations been furnishing

officers for the British army, and the fighting blood ran in his

veins. His regiment was in the hottest of the fight at the Petersburg

mine disaster, and he was at the head of his men. Through all the

long siege following the first repulse, from June, 1864, until April,

1865, constantly under fire, he proved the metal that was in his

composition. When he left England to seek his fortune, he was engaged

to a Scotch lassie from one of the old families of the borderland.

After a summer's experience of Yankee warfare, pitted against the

"Johnnies" under Lee, Longstreet, Gordon, and Wise--men of equal

courage, tenacity, and fighting ability--"Bob" concluded that another

summer of the same sort as the last might prove too much for him,

and that he might lose the number of his mess, as hundreds of his

comrades had in the summer just closed. If he hoped or wished to

leave a widow when he was called, he had better clinch the contract

at once. And so he did.

His fiancée, who also came of fighting stock, promptly responded to

the challenge and came overseas to meet her hero. They were married

across a stump in the rear of Fort Haskell (Fort Hell, the boys

called it, as opposed to Fort Damnation, immediately opposite, in

the Confederate line of works). Chaplain Hawes read the full Church

of England service for the occasion, the regiment formed in hollow

square about them, and the brigade band played the wedding march,

while an occasional shell from the Confederate works sang overhead.

Major-General O. B. Wilcox, commanding the division, gave away the

bride, and all went merry despite the warlike surroundings.

After the war, Major Eden returned to Oshkosh and resumed his

editorial labors, in which he persisted for several years. Finally

the home hunger came upon him, or perhaps more strongly upon his

wife. The wild Western society of the swiftest town of its size in

the state was not so much to her liking as that of the slower but

more refined surroundings of the land of her birth. Severing all

ties, business and otherwise, they returned to England. Once there

the influence of English kin and early associations was too strong

to permit of his return to Yankee land, and Major "Bob" assumed the

canonical robes which had so long awaited his broad shoulders.

"And now, instead of mounting barbéd steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries",

he ministers at the altar of the Prince of Peace, the calling toward

which his early education tended. His excursion into the wilds of

the Northwest, his steamboat trip up the Great River, his experience

as the editor of a frontier newspaper, and his service in an alien

army--all must have had an influence in broadening his view and

enriching his preaching.

One incident which occurred in our rambles was somewhat amusing. We

had tied up in the mouth of the Kinnickinnic River, and had walked

up the stream some eight or ten miles to the little village of River

Falls, where I was very well acquainted, and where the trout fishing

was excellent. It had been Eden's request that I should introduce

him simply as Captain Eden, without going into any particulars of

parentage, education, or nationality. As he wore a suit of Scotch

tweeds somewhat the worse for wear from numerous excursions after

deer, prairie chickens, and trout, there was nothing suggestive of

the Oxonian about him. In River Falls lived the only really educated

man of that locality--a graduate from Yale, both in law and divinity.

We called upon him and while discussing the country, its beauty, its

game, and its fishing, Captain Eden was toying with a book of Greek

tragedies, that lay open on the table. His apparent interest in the

strange characters in which the book was printed tempted the scholar

to remark, possibly with a slightly ironical inflection:

"I presume you read Greek on the river, Captain?"

"Oh, yes", was Captain Eden's response, "I am very fond of the Greek

tragedies, and I have read a good deal to keep in practice. I like

this passage that you were reading when we came in."

Taking the book, Captain Eden read in a beautifully modulated voice,

and with probably a perfect accent, the passage which the scholar

had marked, and which he had been reading when we called. I say,

"probably perfect accent". I had never seen a printed page of Greek

before, much less had I ever heard it read as fluently as I could

read English. The _amende_ which the scholar instantly made, and

the praises which he bestowed on the marine prodigy who captained a

little steamboat on the river, wore rough clothes, and read Greek

like a native, convinced me that his ministerial preparation had been

laid upon solid foundations, and that his accent was above criticism,

out in that country at least.

It was during this visit to River Falls that Captain Eden made the

acquaintance of Ellsworth Burnett, another nobleman, born among the

hills of Vermont, at whose farm we were guests while loading our

baskets with trout from the south fork of the Kinnickinnic, which

flowed through his farm and past his door. The friendship thus begun

undoubtedly led to Eden's going into the army, for Burnett was

largely instrumental in raising one of the companies of the regiment

in which Major Eden was commissioned, himself going out as a captain,

and returning at the close of the war as major.

[Illustration: RED WING, MINNESOTA. Showing Barn Bluff in the

background, with a glimpse of the river on the left.]