Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1878 — Mrs- Douglas and the Backwoodsmen. [ARTICLE]

Mrs- Douglas and the Backwoodsmen.

During the life of the Little Giant there was no wife in America more devotea to a husband’s interests than the slender little beauty whom Douglas won for his second, after he had well start-id on the road to fame. A politician, an intriguer, a diplomat, she lent the aid of her woman’s tact to the cause of her leiege lord. She traveled with him on his electioneertours; she showed her sweet face at the country hustings; she kissed the country babies and praised the ruddy cheeked girls; she listened to the coarse jokes of the backwoodsmen, and took no offense at their honest familiarity; she reigned a very queen in his elegant home in Washington; she advised with wisdom, she counseled with shrewdness. I have heard that once while in the cars, two gentlemen having heard her ’mention to a passing friend that she was on her way from Washington to Pennsylvania, asked her if she had lived in Washington long. “Several years,” she replied. “Well, how is Douglas getting on now? I’ve heard that he was going to the dogs, drinking and carousing.” “I think you have been misinformed. I am sure his habits are no worse than they have been heretofore.” The gentleman during the conversation told many scandals that had been circulated relative to the sena tor from Illinois; the lady heard them with calmness, sometimes asserting that things they said were not correct, at other times answering that she knew nothing of the follies they discussed. “Your names, gentlemen?” said the traveler, sweetly, gathering her things together, at her jerney’s end. The names were given. “To whom aie we indebted for our present hour’s conversation?” returned the enraptured gents. The lady handed them each a card, on which v.uis the name “Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas.” I heard one of the gentleman relate this incident. “Maybe we didn’t feel mean,” he said. "Maybe I wouldn’t run a mile any time to keep from meeting that angelic wife of Douglas’. Maybe I didn’t learn a lesson that day; I rather think I did.”