There were brisk Westerners from Chicago and St.Louis.If Whitelaw Reid, who had come as Greeley's personal representative, had his retinue, so had Horace White and Carl Schurz.
There were a few rather overdressed persons from New Orleans brought up by Governor Warmouth, and a motely array of Southerners of every sort, who were ready to clutch at any straw that promised relief to intolerable conditions.

The full contingent of Washington correspondents was there, of course, with sharpened eyes and pens to make the most of what they had already begun to christen a conclave of cranks.
Bowles and Halstead met me at the station, and we drove to the St.
Nicholas Hotel, where Schurz and White were awaiting us.

Then and there was organized a fellowship which in the succeeding campaign cut a considerable figure and went by the name of the Quadrilateral.

We resolved to limit the Presidential nominations of the convention to Charles Francis Adams, Bowles' candidate, and Lyman Trumbull, White's candidate, omitting altogether, because of specific reasons urged by White, the candidacy of B.Gratz Brown, who because of his Kentucky connections had better suited my purpose.
The very next day the secret was abroad, and Whitelaw Reid came to me to ask why in a newspaper combine of this sort the New York Tribune had been left out.
To my mind it seemed preposterous that it had been or should be, and I stated as much to my new colleagues.

They offered objection which to me appeared perverse if not childish.