Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2
My election to Congress in 1862 was contested by Judge Benjamin F. Thomas, who was then a Republican member from the Norfolk district. The re-districting of the State brought Thomas and Train into the same district. I was nominated by the Republican Convention, and Thomas then became the candidate of the "People's Party," and at the election he was supported by the Democrats. His course in the Thirty-seventh Congress on the various projects for compromise had alienated many Republicans, and it had brought to him the support of many Democrats. My active radicalism had alienated the conservative Republicans. As a consequence, my majority reached only about 1,400 while in the subsequent elections, 1864-'66-'68 the majorities ranged from five to seven thousand.