CHAPTER XVII—A BOY AT SHILOH

THE

TAYLOR-TROTWOOD MAGAZINE

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GOVERNOR BOB TAYLOR and JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE, Editors

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Contents for February, 1907

FRONTISPIECE—From a painting by Gilbert Gaul

THE JAMESTOWN EXPOSITION _James Hines_ 455

Illustrated.

ONCE MORE THE DREAM. (Poem) _W. M. Shields_ 462

GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON _Robert L. Taylor_ 463

Illustrated.

LITTLE CITIZENS OF THE SOUTH 467

Illustrated.

HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF THE SOUTH—CHAPTER XVII. _John Trotwood Moore_ 472

AMERICANS AT THE PEACE CONGRESS _Hayne Davis_ 483

Illustrated.

FREDERICK A. BRIDGMAN _Lillian Kendrick Byrn_ 489

Illustrated.

MEN OF AFFAIRS 493

Illustrated.

THE FIRST TWO GOVERNORS OF MISSISSIPPI _A. C. Chase_ 498

Illustrated.

HOW OLD WASH PLAYED SANTA CLAUS. (Story) _Old Wash_ 505

BECAUSE. (Story) _Catherine Carr_ 508

THE SHADOW OF THE ATTACOA. (Serial Story) _Thornwell Jacobs_ 511

HISTORY OF THE HALS—CHAPTER XVII. _John Trotwood Moore_ 523

A VALENTINE TOAST. (Poem) _Ethel Morrison Lackey_ 529

NAPOLEON—PART VI. _Anna Erwin Woods_ 530

THE MEASURE OF A MAN. (Serial Story) _John Trotwood Moore_ 535

MELLIE’S MAN. (Story) _William McLeod Raine_ 540

WITH BOB TAYLOR 545

SENTIMENT AND STORY.

THE PARADISE OF FOOLS.

WITH TROTWOOD 550

WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING. (Poem.)

TWO NOVELS OF THE YEAR.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A SURPRISE.

TWO WOMEN AND A HORSE.

LITTLE MISS FIDDLE. (Poem.)

SAMUEL SPENCER AS A FACTOR IN NATIONAL AFFAIRS _Ismay Dooly_ 554

Illustrated.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS _Lillian Kendrick Byrn_ 557

Copyright, 1907, by The Taylor-Trotwood Publishing Co. All

rights reserved. Entered as second-class matter, January 12,

1907, at the post-office at Nashville, Tennessee.

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[Illustration: “As they went out they saw some firemen trying to put out

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THE TAYLOR-TROTWOOD

MAGAZINE

VOL. IV FEBRUARY, 1907 NO. 5

THE JAMESTOWN EXPOSITION

By James Hines

It would be impossible to estimate the loss to the world had the first

white English-speaking settlement, founded at Jamestown, Virginia,

in 1607, resulted in failure. Had it been abandoned, as was once the

intention of the surviving colonists, it would have had a deterrent

effect on similar and subsequent expeditions, and would have changed the

complexion of American history.

Those who comprised the first settlement encountered almost

insurmountable obstacles before reaching these shores. For months they

braved the perils of the sea, and were buffeted by storms, but their

heroism and tenacity of purpose never faltered. The real test, however,

of endurance was manifested after landing and in establishing the

settlement that definitely dates the United States.

During December, 1606, this history-making party sailed from England, and

on May 16, 1607, they landed on a peninsula which juts into the James

River. They named the place Fort James. Subsequently it was called James

City, and finally James Town. For nearly two centuries it has been an

island, and for more than two hundred years it has been abandoned. Two

fires destroyed the town, one during Bacon’s rebellion, in 1676, the

other an accident, twenty years later, after which the seat of government

was moved to Williamsburg. The ruins of the old church tower remain

on the site,—a crumbling monument of the first colonial settlement.

The excavations showing where the Governor’s mansion and the House of

Burgesses stood; the Ambler mansion, twice destroyed by fire, and the old

graveyard, with its historic tombs and inscriptions, are still to be seen.

The work of these hardy pioneers in establishing the colony was often

interrupted by savage attacks of Indians, and their energies were greatly

impaired by fever and lack of necessary sustenance. Indeed, so greatly

had their ranks been depleted that, when Newport arrived from England,

a few months later, with men and provisions, but thirty-eight of the

original party were alive. It was greatly due to John Smith, the heroic

leader, that the settlers held out as long as they did.

An untimely accident deprived the colony of the valuable services of

Smith, and caused it to come nearly to an end. Smith’s successor had

not the ability, courage or prestige to govern as he had done, and a

turbulent element began to assume an aggressive attitude toward the

Indians, who resented it. The result of this aggression was that trading

parties, bent on peaceful measures, were massacred, and, consequently, in

the spring of 1610 famine together with all its accompanying sufferings,

stared the colonists in the face.

They were a haggard, disheartened, miserable group of men and women. To

continue at James Town appeared impossible, and, by popular vote it was

decided, though the bravest could not restrain their emotion at failure,

that it must be abandoned. Accordingly, June 7, the dejected aggregation

boarded their ships and cleared for home. When they reached Hampton

Roads, a sail was observed, which proved to be the Governor’s boat. His

ships were in the Roads, and the settlers returned to their village,

and there enacted one of the most pitiful, yet dramatic, scenes in the

world’s history.

[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF JAMESTOWN EXPOSITION

_Copyright, 1906. Jamestown Official Photograph Corporation, Norfolk_]

The timely and unexpected arrival of the Governor was greeted with

frantic shouts of welcome and joy by the discouraged colonists. His

coming immediately infused new life, and their affectionate embraces of

one another gave way to fervent prayer. Their story was related to Lord

Delaware, and, as he landed, he fell upon the ground and offered thanks

to God that his arrival had saved Virginia.

Following that memorable day in 1610, there was never a question

concerning the continuance of the Virginia colony. Before the arrival

of Lord Delaware, the settlement had been ruled by more or less despotic

measures. Under Smith, the despotism had been beneficent, if not

benevolent. Following the rule of Delaware and Sir Thomas Dale, a more

liberal policy was inaugurated, with the administration of Yeardley, and

Virginia began to make gigantic strides. Cattle and sheep were raised;

crops were planted; poultry and domestic animals received attention;

horses were brought over and utilized for farming and travel. In addition

to these necessaries of life, tobacco, which was destined to become the

standard of value and exchange, was extensively cultivated. From out of

a condition of chaos, everything became plentiful, and Virginia began to

offer attractive inducements to immigrants. The pioneers had conquered

dangers and enjoyed comparative affluence.

Finally, the colonists insisted on the right of self-government, and

received limited recognition. In the old church, at James Town, June,

1619, Governor Yeardley summoned the first legislative body ever

assembled in America, and formally opened the General Assembly of

Virginia. It was modeled after the English Parliament, an upper and lower

house, called the House of Burgesses and the Council.

[Illustration: WESTERN VIEW OF COPPER, SILVER AND WOOD-WORKING SHOPS.

_Copyright, 1906. Jamestown Official Photograph Corporation, Norfolk_]

This legislative body had the effect of making the people proud of

their home and confident of themselves. From James Town grew all the

settlements that overspread Virginia, and its prosperity induced the

settlements which dotted the coast from Florida to Canada.

It is the great achievements intervening between the founding of this

settlement and the present period that the Jamestown Ter-Centennial will

commemorate by a historic, educational and industrial exhibition, in

conjunction with the greatest naval and military display ever witnessed

in the world, to be held this year on the waters and historic shores of

Hampton Roads, near Norfolk, Virginia.

The heroic deeds and collateral events in all the colonies will be fully

and faithfully portrayed, and place before the people a contrasting

picture of seventeenth century civilization with that of the nineteenth.

It will be a veritable epilogue of the nation’s development from the

little Virginia village to a republic of nearly one hundred million

people, stretched from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the

Gulf, with insular possessions in both tropics, and an empire in the

frozen Arctic.

In observing the three hundredth anniversary of this important historical

event, the State of Virginia, very properly, took the initiative,

and, by a joint resolution of the General Assembly, provided that a

fitting ceremonial should attend the event. President Roosevelt issued

a proclamation inviting all the nations of the world to participate,

and declared that “The first settlement of English-speaking people

on American soil, at Jamestown, in 1607, marks the beginning of the

United States. The three hundredth anniversary of the event must be

commemorated by the people of our Union as a whole.”

Nearly every world-power has accepted this invitation, and will send

warships, soldiers and marines to take part in the greatest naval

rendezvous ever assembled, while the troops will unite in international

drills, maneuvers and demonstrations. Aside from this participation, many

foreign countries will be represented by industrial exhibits.

[Illustration: CORNER OF MODEL SCHOOL. SCHOOL GARDEN IN THE REAR CARED

FOR BY THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF NORFOLK

_Copyright, 1906. Jamestown Official Photograph Corporation, Norfolk_]

It will be the most historical exposition ever attempted, the dominating

motive being to impress upon the visitor the history of this nation.

Situated in the most historic section of the country, amid the scenes

of great civil and naval conflicts, whose outcome have more than once

been decisive in national affairs, the very atmosphere is redolent

of the nation’s story. Congress has approved the exposition, and has

endorsed its purpose with splendid appropriations, exceeding those made

for any exposition, with the exception of the Chicago and St. Louis

World’s Fairs. Every executive department of the Government will make

an exhibit; the Smithsonian Institution and National Museum; Bureau of

American Republics; the Library of Congress, and the Fish Commission. The

Life Saving Service will give exhibitions, and a building is provided for

a separate negro exhibit. Alaska, Porto Rico and the Philippines will

also be represented in the Government display.

Nearly all of the states have joined in the celebration, and have made

liberal appropriations. In addition, others are expected to participate,

thus insuring a display of the resources of the states in such magnitude

as cannot fail to attract and interest all classes of visitors.

Within twenty minutes’ ride of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News

and Old Point Comfort is Sewell’s Point, the site of the exposition.

In this vicinity nature and man have combined to create a territory

supremely attractive and beautiful. The grounds face Hampton Roads, and

embrace more than four hundred acres in area, forming a beautiful setting

for the architecture of the exhibit buildings, which will be entirely

of the colonial period. The beautiful and commodious buildings under

construction are the Auditorium, History and Art, Education and Social

Economy, Manufactures and Liberal Arts, Virginia Manufactures, Medicine

and Sanitation, Machinery, Electricity and Ordnance, Transportation,

Marine Appliance, Foods, Agriculture and Horticulture, Forestry, Fish

and Game, Mines and Metallurgy buildings, aside from numerous special

buildings and pavilions. There are no less than six buildings devoted to

Arts and Crafts alone.

[Illustration: COMMEMORATIVE MONUMENT TO JOHN SMITH, ERECTED BY THE

UNITED STATES, AT JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA.

_Copyright, 1906. Jamestown Official Photograph Corporation, Norfolk_]

The whole group will suggest the baronial structures of the seventeenth

century in England. With massive Corinthian columns, surrounded by

verdant trees, they will constitute an everlasting picture of grandeur

and beauty. Several enlarged replicas of old American homes will preserve

the identical outlines, and will conform in proportion. The Arts and

Crafts Village will be a scene of active interest, where skilled

hand-workers will display the possibilities of the finished products in

metals and wood, in which machinery has no part.

Within sight of the exposition are forts, a navy yard, and one of

the largest shipbuilding plants in the world; while on the banks of

the James river stand the finest examples of colonial architecture

in America. Hampton, just across the Roads, is the oldest continuous

settlement of Englishmen in America. The most famous naval encounter of

the Civil War, between the Monitor and Merrimac, took place within sight

of the exposition grounds. This naval duel revolutionized battleship

construction and naval warfare. Upon these same historic waters will

ride at anchor the greatest fleet of warships, representing every

type of fighting machine in the navies of the world. The evolution of

shipbuilding will be interestingly illustrated by the reproduction of

the three ships, _Susan Constant_, the _Godspeed_ and _Discovery_, which

brought the Jamestown colonists to this country. This display of marine

architecture of different periods makes possible a comprehensive study of

its development. The shores hereabout are crowded with earthworks erected

by Southern and Federal troops during the Civil War. There is hardly a

strategic position near these waters which does not bear evidence of

fortifications, and the final negotiations which ended the conflict were

concluded at a conference on Hampton Roads between President Lincoln,

Mr. Seward and Alexander Stephens. Hence, it is possible to traverse the

ground consecrated by those patriots whose names are household words in

American history; to view the monuments commemorative of events from the

first landing of the colonists in 1607, through the stirring events of

1776, through the later historical epoch of 1812 and 1860, Yorktown and

Great Bridge, and to 1865, when this section was enriched by the blood

of heroes who fought with Lee, Jackson and Grant in the most sanguinary

strife ever recorded.

Another distinguishing feature of the exposition will be the military

display of the United States, the troops of which, together with those of

foreign countries, will form a permanent encampment during the exhibition.

The horticultural and cut flower exhibit will surpass in design and

beauty all previous attempts along this line. Displays of flowers and

potted plants will be made in the Court of the States, where will be

shown in profusion of number and variety—asters, chrysanthemums, dahlias,

gladioli, peonies, rhododendrons, sweet peas, roses, etc. The work of

transplanting trees, plants and shrubs in the general decorative scheme

has been practically completed. A unique feature is the floral fence,

which forms a semi-circle around the exposition grounds. The frame

is of wire, upon which crimson rambler, honeysuckle and trumpet vine

intertwine in artistic effect. Monster oaks, tall pines, cedars, maples,

willows and elms are on the grounds to afford ample shade, while native

flower-bearing and evergreen shrubs and fruit trees will enter into the

general scheme of landscape beautification.

By comparison, from a monetary standpoint, with the St. Louis Exposition,

the management of the latter expended $50,000,000, while the Jamestown

will hardly exceed $5,000,000. But it must be remembered that the amount

spent at St. Louis produced everything at the fair by purchase. There

were no monuments of national or historic interest, hence, the wide

discrepancy in the amount invested. The sum expended by the Jamestown

Exposition will simply pay for the exhibit buildings, beautifying

the site and adorning the water front. An estimate by a competent

statistician places the money value to be represented at this exposition

at no time less than $150,000,000, while the foreign display on the water

will probably represent twice the sum, or $300,000,000, six times the

cost of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The difference is at once

strikingly obvious.

The Jamestown Exposition will differ from the St. Louis Fair in that

it will be historic, while the latter was mainly industrial. Every

conceivable object of historic interest which can be secured will be on

view at the Ter-Centennial, and as the surrounding country is a prolific

source from which to gather this class of exhibits, it will far excel in

historic interest.

A few of the distinctive features of the exposition will include: the

first international submarine races; prize drills by regiments of all

countries; the largest motor boat regatta ever held; yacht races in which

all nations will compete; more naval and military bands than were ever

before gathered together; the highest tower ever erected in America, if

not in the world; the largest parade ground; sea bathing at the border

of the grounds; dirigible airships for commercial uses; an enclosed sea

basin with an area of 1,280,000 square feet; an exact reproduction of old

Jamestown; stupendous pyrotechnic reproduction of war scenes and unique

night harbor illumination.

Norfolk, the exposition city and “Golden Gate of the Atlantic,”

penetrated by the salt air of the ocean, is free from climatic

complaints. Its geographical location and the fortunes of war add to its

interest and prominence, and it is replete with reminiscent features. It

is a great commercial center, within twelve hours’ ride of more than

21,000,000 population, and within twenty-four hours’ ride of 39,000,000

people. Possibly its most historic structure standing, in a well

preserved condition, is old St. Paul’s Church, erected in 1739, twice

fired on by the British, and still retaining, imbedded in its walls, a

shell fired by Lord Dunmore’s fleet, January 1, 1776.

The descendants of hardy settlers contemporaneous with Captain John Smith

and his associates, followed by the cavaliers that settled Virginia, are

to be found now, as then, foremost in business, social, religious and

political affairs. From them have issued those who have made names that

are referred to with pride in the conduct of state and national affairs.

Although the “Mother of States,” and foremost in the making of American

history, all of her children did not yield to the temptation of forsaking

their birthright of fair lands, and it is the present generation that

has made possible the splendid celebration commemorative of the first

settlement of this country by their ancestors.

It is small wonder, then, that all roads this year will lead to Tidewater

Virginia and the Jamestown Ter-Centennial, which will throw open its

gates to the world April 26.

A PLEA

Take you such gold as I have, old Time;

’Tis a trifling thing that you win;

For what is gold but a sordid lure,

All blotched with the blood of men?

’Tis little I care for the filthy stuff,

And less is my need thereof;

Take you such gold as I have, old Time,

But leave me a little love!

Take you the cold world’s praise, old Time;

’Tis hollow and false, I know;

For Honor, at best, is an empty name,

And Fame but a trumpet the foolish blow;

Take them and bid them fly fast from me,

Fly fast as a homing dove;

Take you the cold world’s praise, old Time,

But leave me a little love!

Yea, leave me a little love, old Time,

And take you all else you prize;

For Love will sweeten the saddest heart

Like a blossom from Paradise.

’Tis the goodliest gift of God to man,

A treasure fine gold above;

So, take you all else you prize, old Time,

But leave me a little love!

_Hilton R. Greer._

ONCE MORE THE DREAM

By W. M. Shields

Once more the dream! Once more the dream!

That brings with undiminished gleam

The light that shone upon my youth

From regions of untarnished Truth.

Before this stoic mockery,

Called wisdom of maturity,

Could dim the luster of its glow.

Or ere its cares could stem the flow

Of love from thy great heart to me—

Thy heart of hills, my Tennessee.

Once more the dream! Once more the dream!

And all old things unaltered seem;

Restored are joys I counted lost

Beyond a time all worry-tossed.

The streams yet wear a silver sheen

Despite the years of change between;

The bird songs have their olden thrill,

The woods are cool upon the hill,

And partial Nature smiles on thee,

Who art her queen, my Tennessee.

Once more the dream! Once more the dream!

And floats to me upon the stream

From Memory’s generous spring some form

Or voice I loved beyond the storm.

And thus does Memory surely prove

Herself an angel, born of Love.

’Tis not a dead past that she brings,

For past is present when she sings.

And thus old joys once known with thee,

I live again, my Tennessee.

Thus let me dream! Thus let me dream!

Nor Time deprive me of a beam.

For, oh, that heart is happiest

Which dwells on pleasures past and best!

And that heart bides in saddest gloom

That broods upon some ill to come.

Let these old joys and loves be mine

Till life shall drift beyond the line

From heaven that is to heaven to be,

From thy warm heart, my Tennessee.

GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON

Born at Longwood, Prince Edward County, Virginia, February 3, 1807

Died at Washington, District of Columbia, March 21, 1891

By Robert L. Taylor

When the restless spirit of Johnston took its flight from earth the

South bade farewell to as brave a knight as ever shivered a lance “when

knighthood was in flower.” His death following so quickly that of

William T. Sherman, was a dramatic coincidence. They had fought a long

and bloody duel—hilt to hilt and toe to toe, and the arena extended

from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean. Sherman advanced with

sword and torch in the hands of his splendid army; Johnston met him with

strategy and the stubborn resistance of his thin lines of gray; the duel

ended only when the resources of military art were exhausted and the

shattered remnant of Johnston’s weary columns was overthrown by Sherman’s

overwhelming numbers. When the conflict was ended and the battle flags

were furled, these two great captains met in the capital of the republic

and shook hands across the bloody chasm. Sherman died in February, 1891,

and Johnston, broken in health and feeble with age, was one of his

pall-bearers, an office which he had also performed at the funeral of his

friend, General Grant. A month later he joined the silent hosts to which

these antagonists on many a field of glory had preceded him.

Joseph Johnston was the eighth son of Judge Peter Johnston and Mary

Woods, of Virginia, whose Scotch ancestors had lived and prospered

and passed away on the old plantation at Osborne’s Landing. The boy

was a born soldier and foreshadowed his brilliant career, even when a

child at his mother’s knee. The story is told that his father took him

coon-hunting one night, and he became so interested in describing and

illustrating military tactics to the negro boy who attended him that

they became separated from the hunters, and fell so far behind that they

could not reach them with their voices. Jo made the boy dismount and

kneel on the ground with his gun presented, in imitation of a hollow

square of infantry. Then he withdrew and re-appeared as a regiment of

cavalry, charging down upon the hollow square; but his horse was not a

war-steed and was totally untrained in battle, and suddenly shying from

the squatted infantry, threw the cavalry regiment to the ground. His

biographer, Robert M. Hughes, says, “of course he was wounded—he always

was on every available occasion.”[1]

The growth and development of the lad increased his determination to be a

soldier. So marked was his predilection that his father, who had served

under “Light Horse Harry Lee” in the Revolution, gave him his sword,

although he was next to the youngest son. Young Johnston treasured it,

and kept it bright till 1861, when the tocsin of Civil War was sounded,

and, like Lee, he drew it in defense of his native State, although, like

Lee, he was opposed to secession.

[Illustration: GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON]

The comparison of the characters of Johnston and Lee is most interesting.

Born in the same year, entering West Point at the same time and

graduating in the same class (that of 1829), they both saw their first

active military service under General Scott. Johnston accompanied

Scott on his arduous campaign in the Florida Indian war, and later to

Mexico. While Lee was engaged in boundary work in Texas, Johnston was

performing a similar work for his government on the Canadian line. From

early manhood they were fast friends and were bound together by the same

associations, the same surroundings and the same interests throughout all

their lives. Both came from the Mexican War with the title of colonel.

Both were opposed to secession, but both resigned their commissions in

the United States army and entered the service of the Stars and Bars

with the rank of colonel. Both supported, with consummate ability and

unfaltering courage, the cause they held dear, and when this cause

went down in defeat both met the verdict with quiet dignity. Both

refused safety and honors abroad, preferring to give their abilities to

rebuilding a united nation, and both lived to have abundant proof of the

respect and esteem in which all people held them.

It would be useless to seek to measure the relative capacity of these

two classmates. The circumstances surrounding their operations were not

the same, the generals opposing them were unlike and their methods of

campaign were necessarily different. It is safe to say that both applied,

as far as possible, the tactics and principles of war taught them at

their alma mater. “Johnston’s Narrative,” which he wrote and published

in 1875, explains his tactics and his reasons for adopting them and have

been held in high repute by students of military art on both sides of the

ocean ever since their publication.

Like Lee, Johnston never failed to gain the respect and confidence of his

men. “Although,” says Mr. Hughes in his admirable biography, “Johnston

was never allowed to retain command of one army long enough to achieve

the great results which only flow from long association ... he never

failed to win the love of his men. They trusted him because they knew

that their blood would not be wasted.... They admired him because they

knew he would not ask them to go where he would not go himself. His order

was ‘Follow,’ not ‘Go.’... They called him their Game Cock, because of

his gallantry and martial bearing, and strove to emulate him in courage

and coolness.”

“Farewell, old fellow,” was the parting salute of one of his men, “we

privates loved you because you made us love ourselves.”

Johnston’s personal character was no less admirable than his public

career. Unselfishness, modesty, purity, courtesy, charity, devotion to

home and family ties ever characterized him in public and in private.

After his surrender to Sherman at Durham’s Station, North Carolina, he

retired to Savannah, Georgia, putting the war and its issues behind

him, using his great influence to renew the national allegiance and to

cultivate a new patriotism that should embrace the whole country. In 1877

he returned to Richmond, and in the following year was elected to the

House of Representatives. On the expiration of his term he was appointed

Commissioner of Railroads by President Cleveland and continued to reside

in Washington until his death. He met here both Grant and Sherman, and,

as already said, became fast friends with his former foes and acted as

pallbearer at the funeral of each.

I sat with Jo Johnston in the Forty-sixth Congress of the United States.

I was young and he was ripe in years and experience. I sought him and

cultivated him and never tired of listening to the story from his lips

of his maneuvers in the last days of the Confederacy. He was small of

stature, square built, and straight as an arrow, with a big round

bald head and keen gray eyes that glittered like stars. Congress was

not congenial to him—he was not an orator but a soldier; he was not a

statesman, but a general. He knew how to wield an army but was helpless

on the battlefield of argument. During the fiercest fights of the two

great contending parties on the floor of the house, he daily walked to

and fro like a caged lion, his head up, his eyes sparkling and his whole

attitude one of excitement, yet taking no part in the struggle. But he

was a faithful representative of his people, and was loved by all who

knew him.

In 1887 he received a crushing blow in the death of his wife. Their

childlessness and her invalidism and the long years of army life had

drawn them together in an unusual degree, and he was never able to

recover his old time joy in life after his loss.

Naturally the distinguished veteran was in great demand on the occasion

of re-union and memorial exercises. Always averse to anything savoring of

publicity, he attempted to fill these engagements in an unobtrusive way,

but at times the enthusiasm of his old followers put all his efforts to

naught. This was shown at the memorial exercises at Atlanta in the spring

of 1890, of which an Atlanta paper gives the following account:

“As the last carriage drove away, the Governor’s Horse Guard came up the

street, forty strong, under command of Captain Miller. The company was

an escort to the hero of the day. With the Governor’s Horse Guard came a

carriage drawn by two black horses. In that carriage was General Joseph

E. Johnston. The old hero sat upon the rear seat, and beside him was

General Kirby Smith.... The carriage was covered with flowers. ‘That’s

Johnston! that’s Jo Johnston!’ yelled some one. Instantly the Governor’s

Horse Guard, horses and men, were displaced by eager, battle-scarred

veterans. The men who fought under the hero surrounded the carriage.

They raised it off the paved street, and they yelled themselves hoarse.

Words of love, praise, and admiration were wafted to the hero’s ears.

Hands pushed through the sides of the carriage and grasped the hands

of the man who defended Atlanta. The crowd grew and thickened. Captain

Ellis tried to disperse it, but could not. Then the police tried; but

the love of the old soldiers was greater than the strength of both

Captain Ellis and Atlanta’s police force. For ten minutes the carriage

stood still; then, as it began to move, some one called out, ‘Take the

horses away!’ Almost instantly both horses were unhitched, and the old

men fought for their places in the traces. Then the carriage began

to move. Men who loved the old soldier were pulling it. Up Marietta

street it went to the Custom-house, then it was turned, and back toward

the opera house it rolled. The rattle of the drum and the roll of the

music were drowned by the yell of the old soldiers; they were wild,

mad with joy; their long pent-up love for the old General had broken

loose. Just before the carriage reached the opera house door a tall,

bearded veteran on a horse rode to the side. Shoving his hand through

the open curtain, he grasped the hand of General Johnston just as a

veteran turned it loose. The General looked up. ‘General Johnston!’ cried

the veteran. General Johnston continued to look up. His face showed a

struggle. He knew the horseman, but he could not call his name. ‘Don’t

you know me, General—don’t you know me?’ exclaimed the horseman. In his

voice there was almost agony. ‘General Anderson, General,’ said Mrs.

Milledge. General Johnston heard the words, and, rising almost from his

seat, exclaimed, ‘Old Tige! Old Tige! Old Tige!’ The two men shook hands

warmly. Tears were flowing down the cheeks of each. ‘Yes, Old Tige it is,

General,’ said General Anderson, ‘and he loves you as much now as ever.’”

A simple headstone in the Greenmount Cemetery, at Baltimore, marks the

sleeping place of Johnston, beside his wife, who was Miss Lydia McLane,

of Baltimore.

[1] General Johnston. By R. M. Hughes, New York: D. Appleton & Co. Great

Commanders Series.

EVENING

Sunset; and purple mist

Upon the mountain’s crest,

And pale blue trails of smoke that slowly twist

Into the West.

Soft airs that whisper “Rest,”

And sunset clouds of gold;

A bird’s low murmur from its hidden nest

Across the wold.

Red rose leaves falling, falling,

’Neath swiftly fading skies,

The faint, far voices of dead summers calling,

All ghostly-wise.

Twilight and darkening woods;

Smell of the dew-drenched sod;

And over all, while perfect silence broods,

The peace of God.

_Allen Clark, Jr._

LITTLE CITIZENS OF THE SOUTH

[Illustration: MARGARET MCNUTT

Crossville, Tennessee

_Taylor, Nashville_]

[Illustration: CLAUDE DESHA ANDERSON, JR.

Memphis

HAMILTON PARKS, JR.

Nashville

JAMES HARBERT BENNETT

Trenton, Tennessee]

[Illustration: FLORENCE KENT WULFF

Louisville

_Standiford, Louisville_]

[Illustration: ALBERT STOCKTON LINDSEY, JR.

Jackson, Tennessee

_Strauss, St. Louis_]

[Illustration: WILLIAM STATES JACOBS, JR.

Houston, Texas

_Taylor, Nashville_

EDITH HOLT

McMinnville, Tennessee

_Southern School of Photography, McMinnville_]

HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF THE SOUTH

By John Trotwood Moore

CHAPTER XVII—A BOY AT SHILOH

By John A. Cockerill

_Mr. John Trotwood Moore, Editor of_ TAYLOR-TROTWOOD MAGAZINE:

DEAR SIR: There are many persons who credit to the pen of Mr.

John A. Cockerill the best war story ever written. As you will

remember, Mr. John A. Cockerill was the distinguished editor

of the _St. Louis Post Dispatch_, also editor-in-chief of the

_Cincinnati Enquirer_. Later he was the editor-in-chief of the

_New York World_, and altogether was one of the most brilliant

descriptive writers this country has ever produced. He died a

few years ago in Cairo, Egypt, being at the time of his death

connected with the _New York Herald_.

At the outbreak of the war in 1861, John A. Cockerill was about

fifteen years old, and the recruiting officers had refused to

enlist him in the ranks of the fighting line by reason of his

youth, but accepted him as a drummer boy in the Twenty-fourth

Ohio Infantry, in which regiment his brother was then a first

lieutenant and later captain and colonel.

It is in no way surprising to the personal friends of John A.

Cockerill that anything written by him should be the best of

its kind. The best war story ever written is on the Battle of

Shiloh, as seen by John A. Cockerill, which story I send you

herewith, with the earnest request that you permit it to occupy

a place in your interesting and valuable Historic Highways of

the South.

Yours very truly,

THEODORE F. ALLEN,

Cincinnati, Ohio.

[The editor agrees with Mr. Allen that this story is above praise and

should find an abiding place in history.]

* * * * *

Shiloh Church, April 6th, 1862.

Here is a date and a locality indelibly burned into my memory. I was then

an enlisted fourth-class musician in the Twenty-fourth Ohio Regiment, in

which my elder brother was a first lieutenant, and afterwards captain and

colonel, successively. I had campaigned in Western Virginia, and had seen

some of the terrors and horrors of war at Philippi and Rich Mountain,

and some of its actualities in a winter campaign in the Cheat Mountain

district. During the winter of 1861, my command was sent to Louisville,

Kentucky, where General Buell was organizing his splendid army of the

Ohio for active operations against Bowling Green and Nashville. My

regiment was assigned to General Nelson’s command, and the early spring

found us on the left flank of the army, on the north side of Green River.

With unexpected suddenness Nelson’s division was sent back one day in

March to the Ohio River, where it was placed on transports and headed

for the Cumberland River to participate in Grant’s movement against

Fort Donelson. Before reaching that point, intelligence was received of

the capture of that stronghold, and our flotilla proceeded to Paducah,

Kentucky. At that point General W. T. Sherman was organizing his recruits

from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois for the forward movement up the Tennessee

River. I had been taken ill on the steamer _en route_, and my father,

who at that time commanded the Seventieth Ohio, stationed at Paducah,

took me in his personal charge. Two days later my regiment sailed up the

Cumberland River and was with the first brigade to enter Nashville.

When I had reached the convalescent stage, I asked permission to rejoin

my command, but General Sherman said the armies of Grant and Buell would

form a coalition somewhere up the Tennessee River, and I would be better

off in my father’s care than elsewhere.

Thus it happened that I was with the army of General Sherman when it

felt its way up the turbid Tennessee as far as Pittsburg Landing, and it

so happened that I was at Shiloh Church on the morning of that terrible

onslaught by General Johnston’s army on Sherman’s division, which held

the advance of Grant’s army.

I have often wondered what sort of a soldier I must have appeared at

that time. I can remember myself as a tall, pale, hatchet-faced boy, who

could never find in the Quartermaster’s department a blouse or a pair

of trousers small enough for him, nor an overcoat cast on his lines.

The regulation blue trousers I used to cut off at the bottom, and the

regulation overcoat sleeves were always rolled up, which gave them the

appearance of having extra military cuffs, which was a consolation to me.

The headquarters mess had finished its early breakfast, and I had just

taken my place at the table on Sunday morning, April 6th, when I heard

ominous shots along our adjacent picket lines. In less than ten minutes

there was a volley firing directly in our front, and from my knowledge of

campaigning I knew that a battle was on, though fifteen minutes before I

had no idea that any considerable force of the enemy was in the immediate

front of our cantonment. The Seventieth Ohio Regiment, and the brigade

to which it was attached, commanded by Colonel Buckland, of Ohio, formed

on its color lines under fire, and although composed of entirely new

troops, made a splendid stand. At the first alarm, I dropped my knife

and fork and ran to my father’s tent, to find him buckling on his sword.

My first heroic act was to gather up a beautiful Enfield rifle which he

had saved at the distribution of arms to his regiment because of its

beautiful curly maple stock. I had been carrying it myself on one or two

of the regimental expeditions to the front, and had some twenty rounds of

cartridges in a box which I had borrowed from one of the boys of Company

I. By the time I had adjusted my cartridge box and seized my rifle, my

father was mounted outside, and, with a hurried good-bye, he took his

place with his regiment. By this time the bullets were whistling through

the camp and shells were bursting overhead.

Not exactly clear in my mind what I intended to do, I ran across to the

old log Shiloh Church, which stood on the flank of my father’s regiment.

On my right the battle was raging with great ferocity, and stretching

away to my left and front one of the most beautiful pageants I have ever

beheld in war was being presented. In the very midst of the thick wood

and rank undergrowth of the locality was what is known as a “deadening,”

a vast, open, unfenced district, grown up with rank, dry grass, dotted

here and there with blasted trees, as though some farmer had attempted to

clear a farm for himself and had abandoned the undertaking in disgust.

From out of the edge of this great opening came regiment after regiment,

and brigade after brigade of the Confederate troops. The sun was just

rising in their front, and the glittering of their arms and equipments

made a gorgeous spectacle for me. On the farther edge of this opening,

two brigades of Sherman’s command were drawn up to receive the onslaught.

As the Confederates sprang into this field, they poured out their

deadly fire, and, half obscured by their smoke, advanced as they fired.

My position behind the old log church was a good one for observation.

I had just seen General Sherman and his staff pushing across to the

Buckland brigade. The splendid soldier, erect in his saddle, looked a

veritable war eagle, and I knew history was being made in that immediate

neighborhood. Just then a field battery from Illinois, which had been

cantoned a short distance in the rear, came galloping up with six guns

and unlimbered three of them between Shiloh Church and the left flank

of the Seventieth Ohio. This evolution was gallantly performed. The

first shot from this battery, directed against the enemy on the right

opposite, drew the fire of a Confederate battery and the old log church

came in for a share of its compliments. This duel had not lasted more

than ten minutes when a Confederate shell struck a caisson in our battery

and an explosion took place, which made things in that spot exceedingly

uncomfortable. The captain was killed, and his lieutenant, thinking he

had done his duty, and, doubtless, satisfied in his own mind that the war

was over so far as he was concerned, limbered up his remaining pieces,

and, with such horses as he had, galloped to the rear and was not seen at

any other time, I believe, during the two days’ engagement.

By this time the enemy was pressing closely on my left flank, and

Shiloh Church, with its ancient logs, was no longer a desirable place

for military observation. I hurried over to my father’s camp, taking

advantage of such friendly trees as presented themselves on the line of

my movement, and there found a state of disorder. The tents were pretty

well ripped with shells and bullets, and wounded men were being carried

past me to the rear. As I stood there, debating in my mind whether

to join my father’s command or continue my independent action, three

men approached, carrying a sorely wounded officer in a blanket. They

called me to assist them, and as my place really was with the hospital

corps, being a non-combatant musician, I complied with their request.

We carried the poor fellow some distance to the rear, through a thick

wood, and found there a scene of disorder amounting to panic. Men were

flying in every direction, commissary wagons were struggling through the

underbrush, and the roads were packed with fugitives and baggage trains,

trying to carry off the impedimenta of the army. Finding a comparatively

empty wagon, we placed our wounded officer inside, and then, left at

liberty, I started on down toward the river. I had not proceeded more

than a mile when I encountered a brigade of Illinois troops, drawn up in

battle array, apparently waiting for orders. It was General McArthur’s

Highland Brigade, the members of which wore Scotch caps, and I must say

that a handsomer body of troops I never saw. These fellows had been at

Fort Donelson, and they counted themselves as veterans. They had their

regimental band with them, their flags were all unfurled, and they were

really dancing impatiently to the music of the battle in front of them.

As I sauntered by a chipper young lieutenant, sword in hand, stopped me

and said: “Where do you belong?”

“I belong to Ohio,” was my reply.

“Well, Ohio is making a bad show of herself here to-day,” he said. “I

have seen stragglers from a dozen Ohio regiments going past here for

half an hour. Ohio expects better work from her sons than this.” As

I was one of Ohio’s youngest sons, my state pride was touched. “Do

you want to come and fight with us?” he asked. I responded that I was

willing to take a temporary berth in his regiment. He asked me my name

and especially inquired whether I had any friends on the field. I gave

him my father’s name and regiment, and saw him make a careful entry in

a little pass book, which he afterward placed in the bosom of his coat,

as he rather sympathetically informed me that he would see, in case

anything should happen to me, that my friends should know of it. Thus I

became temporarily attached to Company B, of the Ninth Illinois Regiment,

McArthur’s brigade. Several other men from other regiments who had been

touched by this young officer’s patriotic appeals also took places in our

ranks.

Rather a strange situation that for a boy—enlisting on a battle field, in

a command where there was not a face that he had ever seen before; only

one face indeed, that had the least touch of sympathy in it, and that

belonging to the young officer who had mustered him.

We waited here for three-quarters of an hour before receiving the command

to move. During that time, one of the regimental bands played “Hail,

Columbia.” It was the first and only time that I heard music on a battle

field. Finally the order came to move to the front. By this time the

stream of fugitives on the road rendered it almost impassable, but we

forced our way through them, and in due time reached the point where our

men were being severely driven. At first we were sent to strengthen the

line from point to point, and twice that morning our brigade was moved

up to support field batteries, which service, I must say from my brief

experience, is the most annoying in modern warfare. These batteries drew

not only the artillery file of the enemy, but they furnished a point for

the concentrated fire of all the infantry in front. To be in supporting

position was to receive all the bullets that were aimed at the battery,

and which, of course, usually vexed the rear. The shells intended for the

battery in your front have a habit always of flying too high or bursting

just high enough in air to make it pleasant for the troops who are held

in comparative inactivity. Under these conditions, we hugged the ground

very closely, and fallen timber of every kind was most gratefully and

thankfully recognized. It is amazing how slowly time passes under these

circumstances. I am sure there were occasions that morning when twenty

minutes’ exposure to fire behind these field batteries seemed to me an

entire week. Everything looked weird and unnatural. The very leaves on

the trees, though scarcely out of bud, seemed greener than I had ever

seen leaves, and larger. The faces of the men about me looked like no

faces that I had ever seen on earth. The roar and din of the battle in

all its terror outstripped my most fanciful dreams of pandemonium. The

wounded and butchered men who came out of the blue smoke in front of

us and were dragged or sent hobbling to the rear, seemed like bleeding

messengers come to tell us of the fate that awaited us.

It was with the greatest sense of relief that we received orders to move

to the left, to face again that awful wave of fire which seemed to be

all the morning moving toward our flank. The Confederate divisions came

into action at Shiloh Church by the right, with a view to penetrating

to the river, and taking us in flank and rear. It was along in the

afternoon some time that we were pushed over to the extreme left of the

forward line. I had no watch, and could have no idea of the hour of the

day, except as I saw the shadows formed by the sun. Up to this time our

command had suffered but little, but a dreadful baptism of fire was

awaiting us. For a moment I realized that we were on the extreme left

of our army; that my regiment was the left of the brigade; that I was

temporarily attached to Company B of the regiment, which practically

placed me on the left flank of that heroic army. I know all this because

there was no firing in our front, and no sound of battle to our left,

but steady, steady, steady from the right of us rolled the volleys which

told us that the enemy was working around to our vicinity. I saw General

McArthur, our commander, at this point, and as I remember, his hand

was wrapped with a handkerchief, as though he had been wounded. By his

orders, we pushed across a deep ravine which ran parallel with our front,

and in five minutes we had taken up a position on its opposite bank,

facing the enemy. Everybody felt that the critical moment had come. The

terrible nervous strain of that day was nothing compared with the feeling

that now the time had come for us to show our mettle. The faces of that

regiment were worth studying at that moment. Not one that was not pale;

not a lip that was not close shut; not an eye that was not wild; not a

hand that did not tremble in this awful, anxious moment. Presently the

messengers came—pattering shots from out the dense growth in our front,

telling of the advance of the skirmish line. On our part, no response.

No enemy could be seen, but the purple wreaths of smoke here and there

told of the men who were feeling their way toward our lines. A nervous

man, unable to stand the strain, let off his musket in our line. This

revealed our presence. With a suddenness that was almost appalling,

there came from all along our front a crash of musketry, and the bullets

shrieked over our heads and through our ranks. Then we delivered our

fire. In an instant the engagement was general at this point. There

were no breech-loaders in that command, and the process of loading and

firing was tedious. As I delivered my second shot, a musket ball struck

a small bush in my front, threw the splinters in my face, and whistled

over my shoulder. I may say that I was startled, but I kept loading and

firing without any idea whatever as to what I was firing at. Soon the dry

leaves, which covered the ground about us, were on fire, and the smoke

from them added to the general obscurity. Two or three men had fallen in

my vicinity. At this moment the young lieutenant who had my descriptive

list in his coat bosom, and who was gallantly waving his sword in the

front, was struck by a bullet and fell instantly dead, almost at my feet.

Then it was that I realized my utter isolation and shuddered at the

thought of a fate impending—“_Dead and unknown._”

By this time the fire from the enemy in our front—it was the division

of General Hardee turning the flank of the Federal position—became

so terrible that we were driven back into the ravine. Here we were

comparatively safe. We could load our pieces, crawl up the bank of

the ravine, fire and fall back, as it were. But many poor fellows who

crawled up this friendly embankment fell back dead or wounded; and in one

instance, as I crouched down loading my piece, a man who had been struck

above me, fell on top of me and died by my side. It was here, in this

terrible moment, that I, boylike, thought of the peaceful Ohio home,

where a loving, anxious mother was doubtless thinking of me, and with the

thought that perhaps my father had been killed, came a natural desire

to be well out of the scrape. Notwithstanding, I kept firing as long as

my cartridges lasted. These gone, a fierce sergeant, with a revolver in

his hand, placed its muzzle close to my ear and fiercely demanded why I

was not fighting. I told him that I had no cartridges. “Take cartridges

from the box of the man there,” he said, pointing to the dead man who

had just fallen upon me. Mine was an Enfield rifle, and my deceased

neighbor’s cartridges were for a Springfield rifle. I had clung to this

beautiful Enfield, with its maple stock, which my father had selected,

and I was determined that it should not leave my hands. While this scene

was passing, the enemy came upon us full charge, and, looking up through

the smoke of the burning leaves and beyond a washout which connected with

our ravine, I saw their gray, dirty uniforms. I heard their fierce yells,

I saw their flag flapping sullenly in the grimy atmosphere. That was a

sight which I have never forgotten; I can see the tiger ferocity in those

faces yet; I can see them in my dreams. For what might they not have

appeared to me, terrified boy that I was!

It was at this point that our blue line first wavered. Out of the

ravine, over the bank, we survivors poured, pursued by the howling

enemy. I remember my horror at the thought of being shot in the back,

as I retreated from the top of the bank and galloped as gracefully as

I could with the refluent human tide. Just by my side ran a youthful

soldier, perhaps three years my senior, who might, for all I knew,

have been recruited as I was. I heard him give a scream of agony, and,

turning, saw him dragging one of his legs, which I saw in an instant

had been shattered by a bullet. He had dropped his rifle, and as I ran

to his support he fell upon my shoulder, and begged me, for God’s sake,

to help him. I half carried him for some distance, still holding to my

Enfield rifle, with its beautiful curly stock, and then, seeing that

I must either give up the role of good Samaritan or drop the rifle, I

threw it down and continued to aid my unfortunate companion. All this

time the bullets were whistling more fiercely than at any time during

the engagement, and the woods were filled with flying men, who, to all

appearances, had no intention of rallying on that side of the Tennessee

River. My companion was growing weaker all the while, and finally I set

him down beside a tree, with his back toward the enemy, and watched him

for a few moments, until I saw that he was slowly bleeding to death.

I knew nothing of surgery at that time, and did not even know how to

staunch the flow of blood. I called to a soldier who was passing, but he

gave no heed. A second came, stood for a moment, simply remarked “he’s a

dead man,” and passed on. I saw the poor fellow die without being able

to render the slightest assistance. Passing on, I was soon out of range

of the enemy, and in a moment I realized how utterly famished and worn

out I was. My thirst was something absolutely appalling. I saw a soldier

sitting upon the rough stump of a tree gazing toward the battle, and,

observing that he had a canteen, I ran to him and begged him for a drink.

He invited me to help myself. I kneeled beside the stump, and, taking

his canteen, drained it to the last drop. He did not even deign to look

at me during the performance, but he anxiously inquired how the battle

was going in the front. I gave him information which did not please

him in the least, and moved on toward the point known as the landing,

toward which all our fugitives seemed to be tending. But my friend on the

stump—I shall never forget him. How gratefully I remember that drink of

warm water from his rusty canteen! Bless his military soul, he probably

never knew what a kindness he rendered me!

A short distance beyond the place where I had obtained my water supply

I found a squadron of jaded cavalry drawn up, and engaged in the

interesting work of stopping stragglers. In the crowd of fear-stricken

and dejected soldiers I found there, I saw a man who belonged to my

father’s regiment; I recognized him by the letters and number on his

hat. Inquiring the fate of the regiment, he told me that it had been

entirely cut to pieces, and that he had personally witnessed the death of

my father—he had seen him shot from his horse. This intelligence filled

me with dismay, and I then determined, non-combatant that I was, that I

would retire from that battlefield. Watching my opportunity, I joined

an ambulance which was passing, loaded with wounded, and by some means

escaped the vigilance of the cavalrymen, who seemed to be almost too

badly scared to be on any sort of duty. When through this line, I pushed

my way on down past the point where stragglers were being impressed and

forced to carry sand bags up from the river, to aid in the construction

of batteries for some heavy guns which had been brought up from the

transports. I passed these temporary works, by the old warehouse, turned

into a temporary field hospital, where hundreds of wounded men, brought

down in wagons and ambulances, were being unloaded, and where their arms

and legs were being cut off and thrown out to form gory, ghastly heaps.

I made my way down the plateau overlooking the river. Below lay thirty

transports at least, all being loaded with the wounded. All around me

were baggage wagons, mule teams, disabled artillery teams, and thousands

of panic-stricken men. I saw, here and there, officers gathering these

men together into volunteer companies, and marching them away to the

scene of battle. It took a vast amount of pleading to organize a company

of even fifteen or twenty, and I was particularly struck by the number

of officers who were engaged in this interesting occupation. It seemed

to me that they were out of all proportion to the number of fugitives in

the vicinity. While sitting on the bank, overlooking the road below,

between the beach and the river, I saw General Grant. I had seen him

the day before review his troops on the Purdy road, while a company of

Confederate cavalrymen, a detachment of Johnston’s army, watched the

performance from a skirt of woods some two miles away. When I saw him

at this moment he was doing his utmost to rally his troops for another

effort. It must have been about half past four in the afternoon. The

General rode to the landing, accompanied by his staff and a bodyguard of

twenty-five or thirty cavalrymen. I heard him begging the stragglers to

go back and make one more effort to redeem themselves, accompanying his

pleadings with the announcement that reinforcements would soon be on the

field, and that he did not want to see his men disgraced. Again I heard

him proclaim that if the stragglers before him did not return to their

commands he would send his cavalry down to drive them out. In less than

fifteen minutes his words were made good. A squadron of cavalry, divided

at either end of the landing, and riding towards each other with drawn

sabres, drove away every man found between the steep bank and the river.

The majority of the skulkers climbed up the bank, hanging by the roots

of the trees, and in less than ten minutes after the cavalry had passed,

they were back in their old places. I never saw General Grant again until

I saw him as President of the United States.

While sitting on the high bank of the river I looked across to the

opposite side, and saw a body of horsemen emerging from the low cane

brakes back of the river. In a moment I saw a man waving a white flag

with a red square in the center. I knew that he was signalling, for I

had seen the splendid corps of Buell’s army, and I recognized that the

men with that flag were our friends. Sitting by me were two distracted

fugitives, who also saw the movement on the other side of the river. Said

one of them to his companion: “Bill, we are gone now. There’s the Texas

cavalry on the other side of the river!” The red square had misled him.

Fifteen minutes later I saw the head of a column of blue emerge from the

woods beyond and move hurriedly down toward the river’s edge. Immediately

the empty transports moved over to that side of the river, and the first

boat brought over a figure which I recognized. The vessel was a peculiar

one, belonging in Southern waters, and had evidently been used as a

ferry boat. On its lower forward deck, which was long and protruding,

sat a man of tremendous proportions, on a magnificent Kentucky horse,

with bobbed tail. The officer was rigged out in all his regimentals,

including an enormous hat with a black feather in it. I knew that this

was General Nelson, commonly known as “Fighting Bull Nelson.” I ran down

to the point where I saw his boat was going to land, and as she ran her

prow up on the sandy beach, Nelson put spurs to his horse and jumped

him over the gunwale. As he did this, he drew his sword and rode right

into the crowd of refugees, shouting: “_Damn your souls, if you won’t

fight, get out of the way and let men come here who will!_” I realized

from the presence of Nelson that my regiment (the Twenty-fourth Ohio)

was probably in that vicinity. I asked one of the boat hands to take me

on board, and, after some persuasion, he did so. The boat recrossed, and

as soon as I got on shore, I ran down to where the troops were embarking

to cross the river to the battlefield. I soon found Ammen’s Brigade,

and my regiment. Hurrying on board one of the transports, I climbed to

the hurricane deck and there found my brother with his company. He was

looking across the river, where the most appalling sight met his vision.

The shore was absolutely packed with the disorganized, panic-stricken

troops who had fled before the terrible Confederate onslaught, which had

not ceased for one moment since early that morning. The noise of the

battle was deafening. It may be imagined that my brother was somewhat

surprised to see me. I made a hurried explanation of the circumstances

which had brought me there, and gave him news of my father’s death. Then

I asked him for something to eat. Astonished, he referred me to his negro

servant, who luckily had a broiled chicken in his haversack, together

with some hard bread. I took the chicken, and as we marched off the boat,

I held a drumstick in each hand, and kept by my brother’s side as we

forced our way through the stragglers, up the road from the landing and

on to the plateau, where the battle was even then almost concentrating.

Right there I saw a man’s head shot off by a cannon-ball and saw,

immediately afterward, an aide on General Nelson’s staff dismounted by a

shot, which took off the rear part of his saddle and broke his horse’s

back. At the same time I did not stop eating. My nerves were settled, and

my stomach was asserting its rights. My brother finally turned to me,

and, after giving me some papers to keep, and some messages to deliver in

case of death, shook me by the hand and told me to keep out of danger,

and, above all things, to try and get back home. This part of his advice

I readily accepted. I stood and saw the brigade march by, which, in

less than ten minutes, met the advance of the victorious Confederates,

and checked the battle for that day. It was then that the gunboats in

the river, and the heavy siege guns on the bank above, added their

remonstrating voices as the sun went down, and the roar of battle ceased

entirely.

That night on the shore of the Tennessee River was one to be remembered.

Wandering along the beach among the rows of wounded men waiting to be

taken on board the transports, I found another member of the Seventieth

Ohio named Silcott. He had a harrowing tale of woe to relate, in which

nearly all his friends and acquaintances figured as corpses, and

together we sat down on a bale of hay near the river’s edge. By this

time the rain had set in. It was one of those peculiar, streaming,

drenching, semi-tropical downpours, and it never ceased for a moment

from that time until far into the next day. With darkness came untold

misery and discomfort. After my companion had related the experiences

of the day, I curled myself up on one side of the hay bale, while he

occupied one edge of it, and soon fell asleep. Every few moments I was

awakened by a terrible broadside, delivered from the two gunboats which

lay in the center of the river a hundred yards or so above me. They

were the _Lexington_ and the _A. O. Tyler_, I believe; wooden vessels,

reconstructed from western steamboats and supplied with ponderous

columbiads. These black monsters, for some reason, kept up their fire all

through the night, and the roar of this cannonading and the shrieking

of the shells, mingled with the thunders of the rainstorm, gave very

little opportunity for slumber. Still, I managed to doze very comfortably

between broadsides. And my recollection of the night is that from these

peaceful naps I was aroused every now and then by what appeared to be

a tremendous flash of lightning, followed by the most awful thunder

ever heard on the face of the earth. These discharges seemed to me to

lift me four or five inches from my water-soaked couch. To add to the

general misery the transports which were bringing over Buell’s troops

had a landing within twenty feet of my lodgment. All night long they

wheezed and groaned and came and went, with their freight of humanity,

and right by my side marched all night long the poor fellows who were

being pushed out to the front to take the places on the battle line for

the morrow. By this time the roadway was churned into mud knee deep, and

as regiment after regiment went by with that peculiar slosh, slosh of

marching men in mud, and the rattling of canteens against bayonets and

scabbards, so familiar to the ear of the soldier, I could hear in the

intervals the low complaining of the men and the urging of the officers:

“Close up, boys, close up,” until it seemed to me that if there was ever

such a thing as Hades on earth, I was in the fullest enjoyment of it.

As fast as a transport unloaded its troops, the gangway was hauled in,

the vessel dropped out, and another took the vacant place and the same

thing was gone over again. Now and then a battery of artillery would

come off the boat, the wheels would stick in the mud, and then a grand

turmoil of half an hour would follow, during which time every man found

in the neighborhood would be impressed to aid in relieving the embargoed

gun. The whipping of the horses and the cursing of the drivers was less

soothing, if anything, than those soul shattering gunboat broadsides.

There never was a night so long, so hideous, or so utterly uncomfortable.

As the gray streaks of dawn began to appear, the band of the Thirteenth

Regulars on the deck of one of the transports, came into the landing,

playing a magnificent selection from “Il Trovatore.” How inspiring that

music was! Even the poor, wounded men lying in front on the shore seemed

to be lifted up, and every soldier seemed to receive an impetus. Soon

there was light enough to distinguish objects around, and then came the

ominous patter of musketry over beyond the river’s bluff, which told

that the battle was on again. It began just as a shower of rain began

and soon deepened into a terrible hail storm, with the booming artillery

for thunder accompaniment. I was up and around and started immediately

toward the front, for everybody felt now that the battle was to be ours.

Those fresh and sturdy troops from the Army of the Ohio had furnished a

blue bulwark, behind which the incomparable one-day fighters of Grant and

Sherman were to push to victory. The whole aspect of the field in the

rear changed. The skulkers of the day before seemed to be imbued with

genuine manhood, and thousands of them returned to the front to render

good service. In addition to this, six thousand fresh men under General

Lew Wallace, who had marched from Crump’s Landing, ten miles away,

had arrived during the night, and the tide of battle was now setting

towards Corinth. I met a comrade drying himself out by a log fire, about

a quarter of a mile from the landing, who had by some process secured

a canteen of what was known as Commissary Whisky. He gave me one drink

of it and that constituted my breakfast. Cold, wet and depressed, as

I was, that whisky, execrable though it was, brought such consolation

as I had never found before. I have drunk champagne in Epernay, I have

sipped Johannisberger at the foot of its sunny mount, I have tasted the

regal Montpulsanio, but, by Jove, I never enjoyed a drink as I did that

swig of common whisky, on the morning of the 7th of April, 1862! While

drying myself by this fire I saw a motley crowd of Confederate prisoners

marched past, under guard. As they waded along the muddy road, some of

the cowardly skulkers indulged in the badinage usual on such occasions,

and one of our fellows called out to know what company that was. A proud

young chap in gray threw his head back, and replied, “_Company Q, of the

Southern Invincibles, and be damned to you._” _That was the spirit of the

day and the hour._

At 10 o’clock, the sound of the battle indicated that our lines were

being pushed forward, and I made up my mind to go to the front. I started

with my companion, and in a very short time we began to see about us

traces of the terrible battle of the day before. We were then on the

ground which had been fought over late Sunday evening. The underbrush

had literally been mowed off by the bullets and great trees had been

shattered by the terrible artillery fire. In places, the bodies of the

slain lay upon the ground so thick that I could step from one to the

other. This without exaggeration. The pallid faces of the dead men in

blue were scattered among the blackened corpses of the enemy. This to

me was a horrible revelation, and I have never yet heard a scientific

explanation of why the majority of the dead Confederates on that field

turned black. All the bodies had been stripped of their valuables,

and scarcely a pair of boots or shoes could be found upon the feet of

the dead. In most instances, pockets had been cut open, and one of the

pathetic sights that I remember was a poor Confederate, lying on his

back, while by his side was a heap of ginger cakes and sausage, which

had tumbled out of his trousers pockets, cut by some infamous thief.

The unfortunate man had evidently filled his pocket the day before with

the edibles, found in some sutler’s tent, and had been killed before he

had an opportunity to enjoy his bountiful store. There was something so

sad about this that it brought tears to my eyes. Farther on I passed by

the road the corpse of a beautiful boy in gray, who lay with his blonde

curls scattered about his face, and his hands folded peacefully across

his breast. He was clad in a bright and neat uniform, well garnished with

gold, which seemed to tell the story of a loving mother and sisters who

had sent their household pet to the field of war. His neat little hat

lying beside him bore the number of a Georgia regiment, embroidered, I

am sure, by some tender fingers, and his waxen face, washed by the rain

of the night before, was that of one who had fallen asleep, dreaming of

loved ones who waited his coming in some anxious home. He was about my

age. He may have been a drummer! At the sight of that poor boy’s corpse I

burst into tears, and started on. Here beside a great oak tree I counted

the corpses of fifteen men. One of them sat stark against the tree, and

the others lay about as though during the night, suffering from wounds,

they had crawled together for mutual assistance and there had died. The

blue and the gray were mingled together. This peculiarity I observed all

over the field. It was no uncommon thing to see the bodies of Federal and

Confederate lying side by side as though they had bled to death, while

trying to aid each other. In one spot I saw an entire battery of Federal

artillery, which had been dismantled in Sunday’s fight, every horse of

which had been killed in his harness, every tumbrel of which had been

broken, every gun of which had been dismounted, and in this awful heap

of death lay the bodies of dozens of cannoneers. One dismounted gun was

absolutely spattered with the blood and brains of the men who had served

it. Here and there in the field, standing in the mud, were the most

piteous sights of all the battlefield—poor, wounded horses, their heads

drooping, their eyes glassy and gummy, waiting for the slow coming of

death, or for some friendly hand to end their misery. How those helpless

brutes spoke in pleading testimony of the horror, the barbarism and the

uselessness of war! No painter ever did justice to a battlefield such as

this, I am sure.

As I pushed onward to the front, I passed the ambulances and the wagons

bringing back the wounded, and talked with the poor, bleeding fellows

who were hobbling toward the river, along the awful roads or through

the dismal chaparral. They all brought news of victory. Toward evening

I found myself in the neighborhood of the old Shiloh Church, but could

get no tidings of my father’s regiment. Night came on and I lay down and

fell asleep at the foot of a tree, having gathered up a blanket soaked

with water, which I could only use for a pillow. It rained all night.

The battle had practically ended at 4 o’clock that evening, and the

enemy had slowly and silently withdrawn toward Corinth. Next morning I

learned that my father’s regiment had been sent in pursuit of the enemy,

and nobody could tell when it would return. I found the camp, and oh,

what desolation reigned there! Every tent had been pillaged, and in my

father’s headquarters, the gentlemen of the enemy who had camped there

two nights before had left a duplicate of nearly everything they had

taken. They had exchanged their dirty blankets for clean ones, and had

left their old, worn brogans in the place of boots and shoes which they

had appropriated, and all about were the evidences of the feasting that

had gone on during that one night of glorious possession. I remained

there during the day, and late that evening the Seventieth Ohio came back

to its deserted quarters after three days and two nights of most terrible

fighting and campaigning.

At its head rode my father, whom I had supposed to be dead, pale, haggard

and worn, but unscathed. He had not seen me nor heard of me for sixty

hours. He dismounted, and, taking me in his arms, gave me the most

affectionate embrace my life had ever known, and I realized then how

deeply he loved me. That night we stayed in the old bullet ridden and

shot torn tent and told of our adventures, and the next day I had the

pleasure of hearing General Sherman compliment my father for his bravery,

and say, “Colonel, you have been worth your weight in gold to me.”

* * * * *

Many years after, speaking one day to General Sherman, I asked him,

“What do you regard as the bloodiest and most sanguinary battle of the

Civil War?”

“Shiloh,” was the prompt response.

And in this opinion I heartily concur.

NOTE—The killed and wounded in the two days’ Battle of Shiloh

numbered nearly twenty thousand Federals and Confederates,

or about thirty per cent of the entire number engaged. These

figures become the more significant when it is remembered that

a very large proportion of the troops engaged on both sides

were absolutely raw and were at Shiloh in their first baptism

of fire. These losses again become most significant when

compared with the losses in the world’s most noted battles.

Waterloo is considered one of the most desperate and bloody

fields chronicled in European history, and yet Wellington’s

casualties were less than twelve per cent. In the great battles

of Marengo and Austerlitz, sanguinary as they were, Napoleon

lost less than fifteen per cent, while at Shiloh, Americans

fighting against Americans, the killed and wounded numbered

more than twice the casualties of the Duke of Wellington’s Army

at Waterloo.

SATAN FISHING

Ole Satan went a fishin’ when de Lawd he fus’ made man,

En all de fish dat cum his way he never fail to lan’.

He had all diff’unt kind er bait to suit dey appetite,

En all de patience in de worl’ to wait fer dem to bite;

He cotch Eve wid a apple, en ole Adam wid de core,

Changed his bait en went on fishin’, en he kep’ a-ketchin’ more;

De sinners breed tremendous fas’ en cum a-swimmin’ by,

He drap de hook, dey dive en bite, he lan’ ’um high en dry.

En he sets dar still a-fishin’, wid a wicked, sinful look,

En des to hoodoo niggers, he hangs chickens on his hook,

Er a great, big watermelon, er a white man’s ’tater hill,

Er sump’n des ez certain ter be swallered pas’ de gill.

So mo’ners, turn yo’ haids away, keep lookin’ to de right,

Ef yo’ never fools aroun’ de bait you’ll never want to bite;

Turn f’um de things dat tempt de flesh en watch out fer yo’ souls

En yo’ won’t be ’mungst de suckers dat he fries upon de coals!

_W. M. Goodman._

AMERICANS AT THE PEACE CONGRESS

By Hayne Davis

Secretary of the American Delegation

The fourteenth Session of the Interparliamentary Union was notable in

many respects. First, it was held in the capital of the greatest country

in the world, not only in its area, but in the fact that it is the oldest

representative of the idea of Parliamentary Government. It was in the

year 1253 that the first Representative Parliament of England assembled

at London. This was the first appearance of this idea in the presence

of the royal families which were then reigning in Europe. Indeed, it

may be properly called the first appearance of this idea in the modern

political world, though of course parliaments have existed in other parts

of the world in previous centuries. But between those early efforts at

democratic government and the modern regime, a long period of darkness

came over the world, and it is perhaps safe to say that the modern era in

the political world began with the assembling of the first Representative

Parliament in England.

The fundamental idea of democracy is government in the affairs of

to-day by persons who are elected by the people of to-day, whereas the

fundamental proposition in all other forms of government is that the

people of the past have a right to impose their ideas upon the people

of the present, through the form of hereditary office-holding and

established religious organizations. This being true, it is nothing

but right that the United States should be strongly represented at

this great conference composed of the people’s representatives from

practically every nation in the world. The United States Congress has

been represented by a delegation at only three previous conferences of

the Interparliamentary Union, namely, the one at St. Louis, in 1904; the

one at Brussels, in 1905; and the present one. At each of these, except

this present one, the Democratic side of the American delegation has

been much weaker than the Republican side, there being as a rule only a

few Democrats in the delegation, and in no case a Democrat of national

reputation. The Democratic side of the delegation at this fourteenth

conference of the Interparliamentary Union was as large in numbers as

the Republican side, and contained the leader of the Democratic party

in Congress, Mr. John Sharpe Williams, and the leader of the Democratic

party in this country, Hon. W. J. Bryan. This fact is of great importance

to the cause of international arbitration, not only in the United States,

but also in Europe, because it has resulted in perfect unity between

Mr. Bartholdt, who is a Republican, and the leaders of the Democratic

party in the United States. Mr. Bartholdt has taken the lead in this

progressive movement, not only among the law-makers of the United States,

but of the whole world, by calling for a second conference at The Hague,

and by putting forward a proposition which has now received the express

approval of the ablest leaders of the Democratic party in the United

States. Both Mr. Williams and Mr. Bryan have expressly and powerfully

espoused the ideas which Mr. Bartholdt has put forward, and which

have now received the sanction of the Interparliamentary Conference.

Furthermore, both Mr. Williams and Mr. Bryan have come forward with

propositions of their own. With Mr. Roosevelt already committed to the

plans of the Interparliamentary Union, and with the probable Democratic

candidate at the next election committed even more strongly, the lovers

of peace and justice in the Old and in the New World have a right to

count absolutely upon the support of the next President of the United

States, not only for these progressive steps toward permanent peace which

have heretofore been advocated in Europe, but for more advanced steps

than were deemed practical at any time in the past, either in Europe or

America.

[Illustration: WILLIAM RANDAL CREWER

Originator of the Interparliamentary Union]

In the Interparliamentary Union we have an organization composed of the

most progressive statesmen in all the law-making bodies of the world,

and they have been guided with remarkable wisdom to the declaration of a

policy against which no sound argument can be raised, because it calls

for arriving at the ultimate aim of permanent peace, by walking in the

way that leads there, and by taking each step in due order. Thus no

existing condition is ignored, however much we may be opposed to it as a

permanent fact. Take, for instance, the question in regard to the arrest

or limitation of armaments, which was raised by Baron d’Estournelles. It

was inevitable that this should cause hostile comment from some quarter,

and the closing scenes of the conference brought out this comment. The

Duke of Argyll presided, and it was his privilege to respond to the toast

of all the nations represented in the Interparliamentary Conference. The

banquet was held in a hall decorated with flags of the various regiments

of the British army; and in various parts of the great building there

were figures of the men who had distinguished themselves in the countless

battles which have been fought by the British people, not only in these

islands, but in all parts of the world. The Duke of Argyll took advantage

of this ocular demonstration of the fact of war, in the distant and near

past, to express his belief that the people of England would see similar

occurrences in the future. He then proceeded to remark that perhaps it

might be better if the Interparliamentary people would fly nearer to

the ground. He did not use these words, but the idea was that there

was danger of getting in the clouds above the things that were capable

of realization. This thought is but natural when one considers more or

less carelessly the great questions which are being wrestled with by the

Interparliamentary Union, and by the various organizations which have

permanent peace as their ultimate aim. I believe, however, that a careful

consideration of the things advocated by the Interparliamentary Union

will prove that the Duke of Argyll has not differentiated between this

organization and some of the other organizations which have peace as

the object for which they struggle. Speaking from an American point of

view, it would seem as natural to say that the men who formed the United

States were idle dreamers seeking the impossible, because previous to the

organization of the United States there was no such body in existence, as

it is now to say that practical statesmen who can win and hold seats in

national parliaments and who can control the action of great political

parties are idle dreamers because they recognize the fact that existing

conditions are not right, and that there is a way out of these wrong

conditions, and that they propose to find that way. Everyone will admit

that it is not right for people on two sides of a stream ten miles wide

or twenty miles wide, or even a thousand miles wide, to continually go

to war with one another when they all know how to administer justice

through political institutions. Of course the question arises whether the

people can be induced to establish institutions on a world-wide scale,

such as have been established during past centuries, first on a small

scale, then on a comparatively large scale, and finally on a continental

scale. Passing from the abstract to the concrete, here we have in this

conference of the Interparliamentary Union two men who have held a seat

in the United States Congress for fourteen years, one a Republican and

the other a Democrat. The Republican, the Hon. Richard Bartholdt, has

proposed that an international deliberative body be formed as speedily as

possible, but without authority to enact law, in which all the nations

who have commercial dealings with each other shall have representatives.

His idea is that this body will be able to discover ways of improving the

law of nations, and the method of its administration, and that upon its

suggestions the several nations will give effect to these good ideas. He

believes also that in due time this international deliberative body will,

by the wisdom with which it acts, be able to satisfy the responsible

statesmen of all countries that they can safely trust to such a body

the declaration of general principles of law to govern the conduct of

the nations in their intercourse with each other. It is believed that

in due time, through the development of this body, the people of the

various nations will acquire the right to vote on international questions

by ballot instead of bullet. To regard this as impracticable or even

untimely is simply to ignore the essential facts of history during the

past centuries, and the speed with which good ideas can be made effectual

for large areas at the present time, on account of the great and valuable

discoveries which have been made and applied recently to the intercourse

between the people of the various nations.

Coupled with this proposition, Mr. Bartholdt has suggested as eminently

practical the formulation of a general Treaty of Arbitration, which gives

The Hague Court jurisdiction over the questions included in it, whether

there is only one or half a dozen classes of questions that are made

arbitrable according to its terms, or whether, as in the case of Denmark

and Holland, no reservation whatever is made. Mr. Bartholdt simply

proposes to let each nation designate the classes of questions which

it will consent to refer to arbitration, and to grant The Hague Court

jurisdiction over those questions, the treaty to become operative between

all nations ratifying and between each nation and all other nations, so

far as they designate the same classes of questions as arbitrable under

its terms. In the meantime all nations, according to his proposition,

shall remain free to arm themselves as heavily as they think their

interests may require.

[Illustration: LORD WEARDALE

President British Group, Interparliamentary Union]

Mr. John Sharpe Williams, who has succeeded in placing himself at the

head of the Democratic party in the Lower House in the United States

Congress, not only approves of these practical propositions made by Mr.

Bartholdt, but he proposes that the judges of The Hague Court shall be

paid ample salaries, coupled with a prohibition against their appearing

in any case that comes before this International Court, or acting as

counsel to any government in any international controversy. This will

enable these judges to devote themselves immediately to the task of

codifying the law of nations, which is certainly in a most confused

and unsatisfactory condition, owing to the fact that it contains many

contradictory doctrines announced by particular nations to fit their

interests at particular crises, and which have not received the approval

of other countries. Certainly a commission of competent jurists to codify

those principles of law which should be generally recognized by the

nations, and to bring into harmony with sound principles those doctrines

about which there is not a complete unity of opinion, can be counted upon

to do work of this kind as successfully as similar commissions for the

codification of national or State laws. Furthermore, the most capable

statesmen of the various countries can be counted on to protect their

countries’ interests as faithfully and effectually as if those gentlemen

were sent out at the head of an armed force.

[Illustration: CONGRESSMAN JOHN SHARPE WILLIAMS]

Mr. William Jennings Bryan, who has twice been the candidate of a great

political party for the highest and most responsible office in one of

the greatest countries in the world, and who has himself been one of

its national law-makers, can hardly be looked upon as too idealistic

for the practical affairs of the world. Mr. Bryan now comes forward and

places his unqualified, indeed, his earnest approval, upon this plan

for the earliest possible organization of the International Conference

at The Hague upon a firm and permanent foundation, without authority

at the beginning to enact their resolutions into laws binding upon the

nations, but with the right to assemble at stated intervals, upon their

own initiative, for the discussion of such international questions as the

current of events may make paramount, and for suggesting to the various

governments of the world suitable and timely amendments to the law of

nations, and in the present method of its administration.

[Illustration: COUNT ALBERT APPONYI

President Hungarian Group, Interparliamentary Union]

Furthermore, Mr. Bryan proposed at this conference and declared his

intention of hereafter throwing the full weight of his influence in favor

of an agreement between nations to refer all questions to arbitration

in the first instance, even though the several governments reserve the

right, in matters affecting their vital interests or national honor,

to appeal from the decision of the arbitrators to a conflict upon the

battlefield. Even if the nations of Europe found themselves unable at

this moment to agree to this proposition, there is certainly nothing in

the proposition that is unwise in the abstract, and if nothing is ever

proposed which the world is not ready at the instant to adopt, it is

utterly impossible to make any progress at all. But in the light of the

salient facts of history, Mr. Bryan’s proposition is certainly entitled

to the immediate consideration of every statesman in the world, and, in

my judgment, it can count on acceptance in a comparatively short time.

The people of England have probably not yet forgotten the fact that if

the Duke of Argyll had lived previously to the twenty-second day of June,

1819, he would have had the right, under the laws of England, to prove

that he owned the estate of which he is now the distinguished possessor,

by defeating any claimant to the same on the field of personal encounter

in the presence of the judges of this great nation. I do not happen to

know how long the family of Argyll has been taking account of itself,

but I venture to say that some of the ancestors of the present duke

were among those whose sentiment against the trial by jury of questions

affecting title to land made it impracticable to substitute judicial

decisions for wage of battle in such questions several centuries ago.

But opinions change—principles never. Therefore, it is eminently wise

and practical for the progressive statesmen of to-day to put forward the

idea of judicial decisions in the place of trials by battle, in those

controversies which are international in character; and those statesmen

who dare to do this are rendering to our day and generation a service

similar in character, but greater in value, to that which was rendered

in past ages by those noble men who dared to throw themselves against

anything that was wrong, however firmly established in the customs of

their country, and who gave over the struggle to substitute Right for

Might, even though the fruition of their labors did not come in their own

lifetime.

[Illustration: H. LA FONTAINE

Member Hungarian Group, Interparliamentary Union]

It is certainly a cause for congratulation throughout the whole world

that eminent and practical statesmen in both of the great parties in

the United States have declared that, so far as the United States are

concerned, the substitution of law for war is soon to be made a part of

the practical politics of their country.

This is the time, therefore, for all men who have their country’s welfare

at heart to come forward and labor for the present realization of these

practical plans, because they are right, because they are the only way

out of wrong conditions. The world will be brought to the adoption of

these ideas quickly or after a long delay, according to the action or

inaction of the men who have their hands upon the reins of government,

and who are influential in the formation of public opinion in their own

particular countries. Under such circumstances, the part of wisdom is to

join hands in the effort to travel the right road, instead of pausing to

consider the length of the journey or the obstacles to be overcome in

taking it.

Looking over the crises which have brought the world forward, and at

the conditions which surround us at the present time, it is plain that

the prospects for achieving what is now proposed are much better than

those which surrounded the men who achieved the best things in the

past, in every country which now has a part to play in the world’s

political drama. The prospects of peace and justice not only within

the existing political organizations, but in their relations with

one another, were never so good as to-day, because the principle of

Parliamentary Representative government has been applied during the past

few centuries, to a greater or less degree, in almost every nation of

the world, and this has prepared each of these nations to participate

more easily and more effectively in the application of this principle to

the affairs common to them all. While it is certainly true that under

existing conditions each nation must make such preparation for its own

preservation and the enforcement of its rights in the world as may seem

to it necessary, considering the dangers which surround it, and while

the Duke of Argyll is only stating the truth in saying that England

will probably have to add more flags to her present array of military

decorations, it is also true that the principle which can minimize

the danger of and in due time destroy the necessity for war, has been

discovered and is now in operation, to some degree, in almost every

nation in the world. This principle has been put forward for practical

application in the affairs common to all nations, has been accepted by

men who have heretofore been entrusted with the highest positions of

responsibility in the operation of their national government, who have

demonstrated that the confidence reposed in them was not undeserved. It

is, therefore, simply a question of working out the problem according to

a known rule, as truly as when the rule in mathematics is known and the

work of solving the problem according to it is all that remains to be

done.

FREDERICK A. BRIDGMAN

By Lillian Kendrick Byrn

Without the resolution in your hearts to do good work, so long

as your right hands have motion in them, and to do it whether

the issue be that you die or live, no life worthy the name will

ever be possible to you; while in once forming the resolution

that your work is to be well done, life is really won here and

forever.—_John Ruskin._

These words of the greatest art critic of modern times have been the

inspiration of Mr. Bridgman’s work ever since, as a youth of nineteen, he

commenced his artistic career as draughtsman in the American Bank Note

Company, of New York. After six months’ experience in this department he

was transferred to the vignette department, where he displayed the same

fidelity and ability which has ever characterized his work. His hours

were from nine until five, but he rose at four and painted until eight

each morning and each evening he returned to his home to paint until a

late hour. Occupying, as he now does, the enviable position of being a

medallist of the Paris Salon several times over, not to mention medals

from Münich, London and Berlin and the decoration of the Cross of the

Legion of Honor and similar honors, Mr. Bridgman owes his eminence as

much to his indefatigable work and his determination as to his talent.

There have been artists distinguished from the fact that their genius

was bizarre or their point of view extraordinary, and others preëminent

because they solved, with the ease of genius, the general problems

of their art. It is to the latter class that this Southern painter

belongs—the class which expresses clearly and forcefully the essential

life elements, in contradistinction to the eccentric, exaggerated

striving after the weird, which marks the work of the others, whose

success is at best, ephemeral.

There is contained in a picture nothing less than all that it is capable

of inspiring to our thoughts and imagination. Art, like nature, can only

show us what we are capable of seeing and it is this faculty for showing

not only the subtle sense of atmosphere to the critics but the beauty of

life to all observers, which marks Mr. Bridgman’s pictures.

Mr. Bridgman’s studies in Paris were made at the celebrated Suisse

atelier and at the Ecôle des Beaux Arts, under Gérôme. He painted in

Brittany several years, and in 1872 he went to Algeria, where the beauty

of the African scenes inspired him to write, as well as to paint. His

_Winters in Algeria_, illustrated with his own sketches, was brought out

by a leading American publishing house and was pronounced by Sir Lambert

Playfair, thirty years British Consul at Algiers, to be the best book

ever issued on this subject. His _Burial of a Mummy on the Nile_, painted

in Africa, is owned by James Gordon Bennett. It was this picture which

brought him the Cross of the Legion of Honor, as well as a medal, when

exhibited at the Paris Exposition, 1878. At the second Exposition, held

in 1889, he was made President of the American Section of Fine Arts.

Other paintings owned by Americans are _The Family Bath_, in Mrs. Ayres’

gallery in New York, and _The Procession of the Sacred Bull Apis_, in the

Corcoran Gallery, at Washington.

[Illustration: MR. F. A. BRIDGMAN]

The Bridgman studio is one of the most interesting in Paris. The door

is devoid of bell or knocker, but on pushing it open a zither-like

instrument is struck, producing vibrant chords of harmony. A small

ante-chamber containing a Renaissance marble and casts of Donatello’s

angels opens into the studios, which consist of three rooms, charmingly

surrounding an Oriental _patio_, with mosaic pavement and blue-tiled

fountain and walled in by lattice work from Cairo. Moorish and Arabic

mosque lamps and Persian and Indian tapestries give a complete Eastern

tone to the court. The principal room is ornamented quite to the lofty

ceiling with panels, hangings and furniture of the twelfth century, or

Renaissance period. The keynote of this room is dull green, mingled

with the brown of the old woodwork and the gold of its decorations.

From this room one passes by way of the fountain, whose gold fish and

lotus flowers tempt one to linger, to a quaint stairway of carved oak,

which leads to the Egyptian and Greek rooms above. The sanctuary of the

ancient Egyptian period is announced, so to speak, by the white lotus bud

columns, supporting bas-reliefs of flamingoes and a boat carrying twenty

donkeys and two men, crossing the Nile. At each side of the entrance

statues of Isis and Osiris, in green basalt, sit as placidly as four

thousand years ago.

[Illustration: IN A GARDEN OF MUSTAPHA, ALGIERS

Paris Salon, 1906]

While a large part of Mr. Bridgman’s furnishings have been collected

during his travels, they have been supplemented by friezes, furniture

and ornaments designed by the artist in keeping with his idea of giving

each room a complete and distinct individuality. This character note is

especially dominant in the Egyptian room, with its painted and gilded

cedar wood chairs and its bas-reliefs of Egyptian life. The coloring is

dark blue, relieved by gilding in the decorations and hieroglyphics, and

lighted by electric lotus flowers.

In the Greek room a frieze of black and terra cotta, reproduced from the

old Etruscan vases, runs round the ceiling. Over the mantel stands the

frontal of a temple, copied after the lines of the Parthenon. Minerva

presides in this shrine, guarded by small Tanagra figurines on the shelf

below. There are also some fragments of Etruscan ware. It is a wonderful

place to dream in, and a hard place to leave, the more so as Mr. Bridgman

exercises hospitality on a scale of typical Southern generosity. There

is something in the personality of the man himself—a certain candor or

simplicity which, in spite of the cosmopolitan finish of world-wide

travel and experience, in spite of honors and acclamation, remains

typical of his native section. Tuskegee, Alabama, is his birthplace, his

father being a physician of note throughout the state.

[Illustration: ARAB CAVALIERS, ALGIERS]