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White House In 1881: Last Years. After keeping his pledge to serve only one term, Hayes left the White House in 1881. He thereafter eschewed further participation in politics. For the dozen remaining years of his life he devoted himself to promoting such causes as public education (especially in the South), prison reform, aid to Negroes, manual training, and the welfare of various universities, notably Ohio State. Interestingly, he began more definitely to express social ideas that classed him as a rather advanced liberal for his day.
Elected speaker of the House of Representatives in 1876, he did much to codify its rules before the Republicans returned to power in 1881. With the House once more in Democratic hands in 1883, he resumed his chairmanship of the Committee on Appropriations. His consistent advocacy of a protective tariff eventually cost him the support of President Grover Cleveland, however, and in 1888 he lost control of the Pennsylvania Democratic organization. Thereafter his influence in Congress was slight.
On 14 June Halleck ordered General Dix, commanding at Fort Monroe, to send an expedition to threaten Richmond and destroy the railroad bridges over the South and North Anna rivers. Dix drew troops from Suffolk and Norfolk, and on the 24th Colonel Spear, with about 1,200 men of the llth Pennsylvania, 2d Massachusetts and 12th Illinois cavalry, was sent by water up York River, landed at White House on the 25th, marched through Hanover Court House and on the 26th attacked and captured about 100 men of the 44th North Carolina at the bridge of the Virginia Central Railroad over the South Anna, burned the bridge and returned to White House on the morning of the 27th. |
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