Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
holding the rails were used, and I have known as many as forty-seven
of these to break in one night. No wonder the wrecks were frequent.
The superintendent of a division in those days was expected to run
trains by telegraph at night, to go out and remove all wrecks, and
indeed to do everything. At one time for eight days I was constantly
upon the line, day and night, at one wreck or obstruction after
another. I was probably the most inconsiderate superintendent that
ever was entrusted with the management of a great property, for, never
knowing fatigue myself, being kept up by a sense of responsibility
probably, I overworked the men and was not careful enough in
considering the limits of human endurance. I have always been able to
sleep at any time. Snatches of half an hour at intervals during the
night in a dirty freight car were sufficient.
The Civil War brought such extraordinary demands on the Pennsylvania
line that I was at last compelled to organize a night force; but it
was with difficulty I obtained the consent of my superiors to entrust
the charge of the line at night to a train dispatcher. Indeed, I never
did get their unequivocal authority to do so, but upon my own
responsibility I appointed perhaps the first night train dispatcher
that ever acted in America--at least he was the first upon the
Pennsylvania system.
Upon our return to Pittsburgh in 1860 we rented a house in Hancock
Street, now Eighth Street, and resided there for a year or more. Any
accurate description of Pittsburgh at that time would be set down as a
piece of the grossest exaggeration. The smoke permeated and penetrated
everything. If you placed your hand on the balustrade of the stair it
came away black; if you washed face and hands they were as dirty as
ever in an hour. The soot gathered in the hair and irritated the skin,
and for a time after our return from the mountain atmosphere of
Altoona, life was more or less miserable. We soon began to consider
how we could get to the country, and fortunately at that time Mr. D.A.
Stewart, then freight agent for the company, directed our attention to
a house adjoining his residence at Homewood. We moved there at once
and the telegraph was brought in, which enabled me to operate the
division from the house when necessary.
Here a new life was opened to us. There were country lanes and gardens
in abundance. Residences had from five to twenty acres of land about
them. The Homewood Estate was made up of many hundreds of acres, with
beautiful woods and glens and a running brook. We, too, had a garden
and a considerable extent of ground around our house. The happiest
years of my mother's life were spent here among her flowers and
chickens and the surroundings of country life. Her love of flowers was
a passion. She was scarcely ever able to gather a flower. Indeed I
remember she once reproached me for pulling up a weed, saying "it was
something green." I have inherited this peculiarity and have often
walked from the house to the gate intending to pull a flower for my
button-hole and then left for town unable to find one I could destroy.
With this change to the country came a whole host of new
acquaintances. Many of the wealthy families of the district had their
residences in this delightful suburb. It was, so to speak, the
aristocratic quarter. To the entertainments at these great houses the
young superintendent was invited. The young people were musical and we
had musical evenings a plenty. I heard subjects discussed which I had
never known before, and I made it a rule when I heard these to learn
something about them at once. I was pleased every day to feel that I
was learning something new.
It was here that I first met the Vandevort brothers, Benjamin and
John. The latter was my traveling-companion on various trips which I
took later in life. "Dear Vandy" appears as my chum in "Round the
World." Our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, became more and more dear
to us, and the acquaintance we had before ripened into lasting
friendship. One of my pleasures is that Mr. Stewart subsequently
embarked in business with us and became a partner, as "Vandy" did
also. Greatest of all the benefits of our new home, however, was
making the acquaintance of the leading family of Western Pennsylvania,
that of the Honorable Judge Wilkins. The Judge was then approaching
his eightieth year, tall, slender, and handsome, in full possession of
all his faculties, with a courtly grace of manner, and the most
wonderful store of knowledge and reminiscence of any man I had yet
been privileged to meet. His wife, the daughter of George W. Dallas,
Vice-President of the United States, has ever been my type of gracious
womanhood in age--the most beautiful, most charming venerable old lady
I ever knew or saw. Her daughter, Miss Wilkins, with her sister, Mrs.
Saunders, and her children resided in the stately mansion at Homewood,
which was to the surrounding district what the baronial hall in
Britain is or should be to its district--the center of all that was
cultured, refined, and elevating.
To me it was especially pleasing that I seemed to be a welcome guest
there. Musical parties, charades, and theatricals in which Miss
Wilkins took the leading parts furnished me with another means of
self-improvement. The Judge himself was the first man of historical
note whom I had ever known. I shall never forget the impression it
made upon me when in the course of conversation, wishing to illustrate
a remark, he said: "President Jackson once said to me," or, "I told
the Duke of Wellington so and so." The Judge in his earlier life
(1834) had been Minister to Russia under Jackson, and in the same easy
way spoke of his interview with the Czar. It seemed to me that I was
touching history itself. The house was a new atmosphere, and my
intercourse with the family was a powerful stimulant to the desire for
improvement of my own mind and manners.
The only subject upon which there was always a decided, though silent,
antagonism between the Wilkins family and myself was politics. I was
an ardent Free-Soiler in days when to be an abolitionist was somewhat
akin to being a republican in Britain. The Wilkinses were strong
Democrats with leanings toward the South, being closely connected with
leading Southern families. On one occasion at Homewood, on entering
the drawing-room, I found the family excitedly conversing about a
terrible incident that had recently occurred.
"What do you think!" said Mrs. Wilkins to me; "Dallas" (her grandson)
"writes me that he has been compelled by the commandant of West Point
to sit next a negro! Did you ever hear the like of that? Is it not
disgraceful? Negroes admitted to West Point!"
"Oh!" I said, "Mrs. Wilkins, there is something even worse than that.
I understand that some of them have been admitted to heaven!"
There was a silence that could be felt. Then dear Mrs. Wilkins said
gravely:
"That is a different matter, Mr. Carnegie."
By far the most precious gift ever received by me up to that time came
about in this manner. Dear Mrs. Wilkins began knitting an afghan, and
during the work many were the inquiries as to whom it was for. No,
the dear queenly old lady would not tell; she kept her secret all the
long months until, Christmas drawing near, the gift finished and
carefully wrapped up, and her card with a few loving words enclosed,
she instructed her daughter to address it to me. It was duly received
in New York. Such a tribute from such a lady! Well, that afghan,
though often shown to dear friends, has not been much used. It is
sacred to me and remains among my precious possessions.
I had been so fortunate as to meet Leila Addison while living in
Pittsburgh, the talented daughter of Dr. Addison, who had died a short
time before. I soon became acquainted with the family and record with
grateful feelings the immense advantage which that acquaintance also
brought to me. Here was another friendship formed with people who had
all the advantages of the higher education. Carlyle had been Mrs.
Addison's tutor for a time, for she was an Edinburgh lady. Her
daughters had been educated abroad and spoke French, Spanish, and
Italian as fluently as English. It was through intercourse with this
family that I first realized the indescribable yet immeasurable gulf
that separates the highly educated from people like myself. But "the
wee drap o' Scotch bluid atween us" proved its potency as usual.
Miss Addison became an ideal friend because she undertook to improve
the rough diamond, if it were indeed a diamond at all. She was my best
friend, because my severest critic. I began to pay strict attention to
my language, and to the English classics, which I now read with great
avidity. I began also to notice how much better it was to be gentle in
tone and manner, polite and courteous to all--in short, better
behaved. Up to this time I had been, perhaps, careless in dress and
rather affected it. Great heavy boots, loose collar, and general
roughness of attire were then peculiar to the West and in our circle
considered manly. Anything that could be labeled foppish was looked
upon with contempt. I remember the first gentleman I ever saw in the
service of the railway company who wore kid gloves. He was the object
of derision among us who aspired to be manly men. I was a great deal
the better in all these respects after we moved to Homewood, owing to
the Addisons.
CHAPTER VIII
CIVIL WAR PERIOD
In 1861 the Civil War broke out and I was at once summoned to
Washington by Mr. Scott, who had been appointed Assistant Secretary of
War in charge of the Transportation Department. I was to act as his
assistant in charge of the military railroads and telegraphs of the
Government and to organize a force of railway men. It was one of the
most important departments of all at the beginning of the war.
The first regiments of Union troops passing through Baltimore had been
attacked, and the railway line cut between Baltimore and Annapolis
Junction, destroying communication with Washington. It was therefore
necessary for me, with my corps of assistants, to take train at
Philadelphia for Annapolis, a point from which a branch line extended
to the Junction, joining the main line to Washington. Our first duty
was to repair this branch and make it passable for heavy trains, a
work of some days. General Butler and several regiments of troops
arrived a few days after us, and we were able to transport his whole
brigade to Washington.
I took my place upon the first engine which started for the Capital,
and proceeded very cautiously. Some distance from Washington I noticed
that the telegraph wires had been pinned to the ground by wooden
stakes. I stopped the engine and ran forward to release them, but I
did not notice that the wires had been pulled to one side before
staking. When released, in their spring upwards, they struck me in the
face, knocked me over, and cut a gash in my cheek which bled
profusely. In this condition I entered the city of Washington with the
first troops, so that with the exception of one or two soldiers,
wounded a few days previously in passing through the streets of
Baltimore, I can justly claim that I "shed my blood for my country"
among the first of its defenders. I gloried in being useful to the
land that had done so much for me, and worked, I can truly say, night
and day, to open communication to the South.
I soon removed my headquarters to Alexandria,[20] Virginia, and was
stationed there when the unfortunate battle of Bull Run was fought. We
could not believe the reports that came to us, but it soon became
evident that we must rush every engine and car to the front to bring
back our defeated forces. The closest point then was Burke Station. I