He was a thorough-going anti-slavery believer, speaker and writer,
(doctrinaire,) and though I took a fancy to him from the first,
.I remember I fear'd his ardent abolitionism--was afraid it would
probably keep us apart. (I was a decided and out-spoken anti-slavery
believer myself, then and always; but shy'd from the extremists, the
red-hot fellows of those times.) O'C. was then correcting the proofs
of _Harrington_, an eloquent and fiery novel he had written, and which
was printed just before the commencement of the secession war. He
was already married, the father of two fine little children, and was
personally and intellectually the most attractive man I had ever met.
Last of '62 I found myself led towards the war-field--went to
Washington city--(to become absorb'd in the armies, and in the big
hospitals, and to get work in one of the Departments,)--and there I
met and resumed friendship, and found warm hospitality from O'C. and
his noble New England wife. They had just lost by death their little
child-boy, Phillip; and O'C. was yet feeling serious about it. The
youngster had been vaccinated against the threatening of small-pox
which alarm'd the city; but somehow it led to worse results than it
was intended to ward off--or at any rate O'C. thought that proved the
cause of the boy's death. He had one child left, a fine bright little
daughter, and a great comfort to her parents. (Dear Jeannie! She grew
up a most accomplish'd and superior young woman--declined in health,
and died about 1881.
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