[19] George B. Smith was born in New York in 1823 and came with his father to Racine, Wisconsin, in 1843. From 1844 until his death in 1877 his residence was at Madison. He was the youngest member of the first constitutional convention of the state, served as mayor of Madison several terms and several as state legislator, was attorney-general of Wisconsin for two years, and engaged in many other activities of a public nature.
[20] Moses M. Strong, author of a _History of Wisconsin_, had been since 1838 one of the leading public men of the territory and of the state. John Y. Smith had settled at Green Bay in 1828, and later at Milwaukee and at Madison. He served in the first constitutional convention and was for many years an influential editor and publicist. Smith had made a speech denouncing secession and upholding the Union and the administration at Washington. Strong also denounced secession but argued that a union held together by force was worthless and that compulsion should not be resorted to keep the South in the Union.
[21] By the chair, according to the _State Journal’s_ report of the meeting, which asserts that two-thirds of the audience voted against tabling the motion.
[22] Rev. Lathrop Taylor, pastor of this church from April, 1860, till January, 1864. Except for these three years his forty-seven years of service in the pastorate were passed in Massachusetts and in Illinois.
[23] Ezra S. Carr, professor of chemistry and natural history in the University of Wisconsin from 1856 to 1868. He later served as professor in the University of California for six years and as superintendent of public instruction of the same state.
[24] Joseph W. Curtis of Madison, Lewis Frost of Madison, William A. Wyse of Sauk City, James L. High of Black Earth, Pliny Norcross of La Grange, Edward G. Miller of Sweet Home, Henry Reed of Union Grove, and James M. Bull of Middleton. Frost became a first lieutenant in the Twenty-third Infantry. High was graduated from the university in 1864. He enlisted in the Forty-ninth Wisconsin Infantry and attained the rank of adjutant. In later years he became a leading lawyer of the Chicago bar, being granted the degree of LL.D. both by his Alma Mater and by the University of Michigan. James Bull became lieutenant-colonel of the Fifth Wisconsin Infantry. Of him Professor Butler has said: “When this stampede [of the students to enlist] took place we were engaged in Xenophon’s _Memorab lia_. My own pocket copy, Trübner’s edition, I gave to James M. Bull, one of my most zealous pupils. It was his _vade mecum_ throughout the war, and kept alive in him classical instincts…. The American soldier found the notes of the Greek soldier a congenial manual.” Bull returned to the university after the war and was graduated in 1869.