ANDREW CARNEGIE 99 ing out to new and larger things, he continued to hold on to the old. On the outbreak of the Civil War, Colonel Scott was ap- pointed Assistant Secretary of War and invited young Car- negie to Washington. The outcome was that Carnegie was put in control of the military railroad and government tele- graphs. He had just entered his twenty-fourth year. Those were stirring times, such as rouse vigorous men. Andrew Carnegie was preeminently a man of this type. He saw the opportunities before him ; he foresaw what was surely coming as soon as peace once more prevailed ; namely, a great outburst of industrial activity in every direction. To a man of Mr. Carnegie 's deep perceptions and large out- look, already possessed of experience in railroading matters, it was evident that there was an immense and inmiediate future before the iron business, more particularly along the line of manufacturing. As quick in action as in perception, he at once set to work to organize — and no greater organizer ever lived in the business world — the Keystone Bridge Co. Such was his indomitable pluck, industry, and sweep of out- look that, within a comparatively short space of time, he con- trolled seven great plants, all operating within five miles of Pittsburgh: the Homestead, the Edgar Thomson, and the Duquesne steel works and furnaces, the Lucy furnaces, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Upper Union Rolling Mills, and the Lower Union Rolling Mills. Pittsburgh! Yes, Pittsburgh, the city in which the **wee laddie first settled when he arrived in this country, is the same city in which he served^his apprenticeship, made his vast fortune, and ended by munificently endowing. Andrew Car- negie never was a ** rolling stone" — he did not accumulate
- mo88," but he acquired wealth beyond the dream of avarice.
Nobly he earned it, and right nobly has he spent it in the cause of mankind, to serve which has ever been, from youth to venerable age, the highest ambition of his life. Mr. Carnegie never missed an opportunity. He seized it in flight and made the most of it before others well realized its
