where he could obtain recruits in large numbers, not only from Tennessee
but from the adjoining States. Fugitives flocked to his standard from
Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. For the succeeding five months he
organized colored regiments so rapidly that it was with difficulty the
General commanding at Nashville could supply the necessary quota of
officers for them. His letter-writing alone rarely came to less than
twenty pages a day, and besides this he was obliged to attend personally
to innumerable details which were constantly interfering with more
important affairs. Serious questions concerning the rights and legal
position of the freedmen were continually arising, and these required a
cool head and a clear understanding for their solution.
Edward J. Bartlett, of Concord, who was one of his staff in Nashville,
stated afterwards that he never saw a man who could despatch so much
business in a day as George L. Stearns. He says:
"I shall never forget the fine appearance of the first regiment we
sent off. They were all picked men, and felt a just pride in wearing
the blue. As fast as we obtained enough recruits they were formed
into regiments, officered and sent to the front. When men became
scarce in the city we made trips into the country, often going beyond
the Union picket line, and generally reaping a harvest of slaves.
These expeditions brought an element of danger into our lives, for
our forage parties were fired into by the enemy more than once, but we
always succeeded in bringing back our men with us. The black regiments
did valuable service for the Union, leaving their dead on many a
southern battle-field. Mr. Stearns was a noble man, courteous, with
great executive ability, and grandly fitted for the work he was
engaged in."
At this time Major Stearns's friend, General Wilde, was recruiting a
colored brigade in North Carolina, and General Ullman was organizing
colored regiments in Louisiana.
Major Stearns's labors were brought to a close in February, 1864, by the
eccentric conduct of Secretary Stanton,--the reason for which has never
been explained. He obtained leave of absence to return to Boston at
Christmas time, and after a brief visit to his family went to Washington
and called upon the Secretary of War, who declined to see him three days
in succession. On the evening of the fourth day he met Mr. Stanton at an
evening party and Stanton said to him in his roughest manner: "Major
Stearns, why are you not in Tennessee?" This was a breach of official
etiquette on the part of the Secretary of War and Major Stearns sent in
his resignation at once. His reason for doing so, however, was not so
much on account of this personal slight as from the conclusion that he
had accomplished all that was essential to be done in this line. His
chief assistant at Nashville, Capt. R. D. Muzzey, was an able man and
perfectly competent to run the machine which Mr. Stearns had constructed.
The importance of his work cannot readily be measured. It was no longer
easy to obtain white volunteers. With a population ten millions less than
that of France, the Northern States were maintaining an army much larger
than the one which accompanied Napoleon to Moscow. General Thomas's right
wing, at the battle of Nashville, was formed almost entirely of colored
regiments. They were ordered to make a feint attack on the enemy, so as
to withdraw attention from the flanking movement of his veterans on the
left; but when the charge had once begun their officers were unable to
keep them in check--the feint was changed into a real attack and
contributed largely to the most decisive victory of the whole war.
In his last annual Message President Lincoln congratulated Congress on
the success of the Government's policy in raising negro regiments, and on
the efficiency of the troops organized in this way. It seems very
doubtful if the war could have been brought to a successful termination
without them.
In 1898 the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the instance of the veterans
of the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth regiments, voted to have a memorial
tablet for the public services of George Luther Stearns set up in the
Doric Hall of Boston State House, and the act was approved by Governor
Walcott, who sent the quill with which he signed it to Major Stearns's
widow.
EMERSON'S TRIBUTE TO GEORGE L. STEARNS.
_Delivered in the First Parish Church of Medford on the Sunday
following Major Stearns's death, April 9, 1867._
"We do not know how to prize good men until they depart. High virtue has
such an air of nature and necessity that to thank its possessor would be
to praise the water for flowing or the fire for warming us. But, on the
instant of their death, we wonder at our past insensibility, when we see
how impossible it is to replace them. There will be other good men, but
not these again. And the painful surprise which the last week brought us,
in the tidings of the death of Mr. Stearns, opened all eyes to the just
consideration of the singular merits of the citizen, the neighbor, the
friend, the father, and the husband, whom this assembly mourns. We recall
the all but exclusive devotion of this excellent man during the last
twelve years to public and patriotic interests. Known until that time in
no very wide circle as a man of skill and perseverance in his business;
of pure life; of retiring and affectionate habits; happy in his domestic
relations,--his extreme interest in the national politics, then growing
more anxious year by year, engaged him to scan the fortunes of freedom
with keener attention. He was an early laborer in the resistance to
slavery. This brought him into sympathy with the people of Kansas. As
early as 1855 the Emigrant Aid Society was formed; and in 1856 he
organized the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, by means of which a
large amount of money was obtained for the 'free-State men,' at times of
the greatest need. He was the more engaged to this cause by making in
1857 the acquaintance of Captain John Brown, who was not only an
extraordinary man, but one who had a rare magnetism for men of character,
and attached some of the best and noblest to him, on very short
acquaintance, by lasting ties. Mr. Stearns made himself at once necessary
to Captain Brown as one who respected his inspirations, and had the
magnanimity to trust him entirely, and to arm his hands with all needed
help.
"For the relief of Kansas, in 1856-57, his own contributions were the
largest and the first. He never asked any one to give so much as he
himself gave, and his interest was so manifestly pure and sincere that he
easily obtained eager offerings in quarters where other petitioners
failed. He did not hesitate to become the banker of his clients, and to
furnish them money and arms in advance of the subscriptions which he
obtained. His first donations were only entering wedges of his later;
and, unlike other benefactors, he did not give money to excuse his entire
preoccupation in his own pursuits, but as an earnest of the dedication of
his heart and hand to the interests of the sufferers,--a pledge kept
until the success he wrought and prayed for was consummated. In 1862, on
the President's first or preliminary Proclamation of Emancipation, he
took the first steps for organizing the Freedman's Bureau,--a department
which has since grown to great proportions. In 1863, he began to recruit
colored soldiers in Buffalo; then at Philadelphia and Nashville. But
these were only parts of his work. He passed his time in incessant
consultations with all men whom he could reach, to suggest and urge the
measures needed for the hour. And there are few men of real or supposed
influence, North or South, with whom he has not at some time
communicated. Every important patriotic measure in this region has had
his sympathy, and of many he has been the prime mover. He gave to each
his strong support, but uniformly shunned to appear in public. For
himself or his friends he asked no reward: for himself, he asked only to
do the hard work. His transparent singleness of purpose, his freedom from
all by-ends, his plain good sense, courage, adherence, and his romantic
generosity disarmed first or last all gainsayers. His examination before
the United States Senate Committee on the Harper's Ferry Invasion, in
January, 1860, as reported in the public documents, is a chapter well
worth reading, as a shining example of the manner in which a truth-
speaker baffles all statecraft, and extorts at last a reluctant homage
from the bitterest adversaries.
"I have heard, what must be true, that he had great executive skill, a
clear method, and a just attention to all the details of the task in
hand. Plainly he was no boaster or pretender, but a man for up-hill work,
a soldier to bide the brunt; a man whom disasters, which dishearten other
men, only stimulated to new courage and endeavor.
"I have heard something of his quick temper: that he was indignant at
this or that man's behavior, but never that his anger outlasted for a
moment the mischief done or threatened to the good cause, or ever stood
in the way of his hearty co-operation with the offenders, when they
returned to the path of public duty. I look upon him as a type of the
American republican. A man of the people, in strictly private life, girt
with family ties; an active and intelligent manufacturer and merchant,
enlightened enough to see a citizen's interest in the public affairs, and
virtuous enough to obey to the uttermost the truth he saw,--he became, in
the most natural manner, an indispensable power in the State. Without
such vital support as he, and such as he, brought to the government,
where would that government be! When one remembers his incessant service;
his journeys and residences in many States; the societies he worked with;
the councils in which he sat; the wide correspondence, presently enlarged
by printed circulars, then by newspapers established wholly or partly at
his own cost; the useful suggestions; the celerity with which his purpose
took form; and his immovable convictions,--I think this single will was
worth to the cause ten thousand ordinary partisans, well-disposed enough,
but of feebler and interrupted action.
"These interests, which he passionately adopted, inevitably led him into
personal communication with patriotic persons holding the same views,--
with two Presidents, with members of Congress, with officers of the
government and of the army, and with leading people everywhere. He had
been always a man of simple tastes, and through all his years devoted to
the growing details of his prospering manufactory. But this sudden
association now with the leaders of parties and persons of pronounced
power and influence in the nation, and the broad hospitality which
brought them about his board at his own house, or in New York, or in
Washington, never altered one feature of his face, one trait in his
manners. There he sat in the council, a simple, resolute Republican, an
enthusiast only in his love of freedom and the good of men; with no pride
of opinion, and with this distinction, that, if he could not bring his
associates to adopt his measure, he accepted with entire sweetness the
next best measure which could secure their assent. But these public
benefits were purchased at a severe cost. For a year or two, the most
affectionate and domestic of men became almost a stranger in his
beautiful home. And it was too plain that the excessive toil and
anxieties into which his ardent spirit led him overtasked his strength
and wore out prematurely his constitution. It is sad that such a life
should end prematurely; but when I consider that he lived long enough to
see with his own eyes the salvation of his country, to which he had given
all his heart; that he did not know an idle day; was never called to
suffer under the decays and loss of his powers, or to see that others
were waiting for his place and privilege, but lived while he lived, and
beheld his work prosper for the joy and benefit of all mankind,--I count
him happy among men.
"Almost I am ready to say to these mourners, Be not too proud in your
grief, when you remember that there is not a town in the remote State of
Kansas that will not weep with you as at the loss of its founder; not a
Southern State in which the freedmen will not learn to-day from their
preachers that one of their most efficient benefactors has departed, and
will cover his memory with benedictions; and that, after all his efforts
to serve men without appearing to do so, there is hardly a man in this
country worth knowing who does not hold his name in exceptional honor.
And there is to my mind somewhat so absolute in the action of a good man,
that we do not, in thinking of him, so much as make any question of the
future. For the Spirit of the Universe seems to say: 'He has done well;
is not that saying all?'"
This monograph was printed in the _Boston Commonwealth_, April 20,
1867, and has never been republished. It is exceptional in Emerson's
writings as the account of a man with whom he was personally and
intimately acquainted.
ELIZUR WRIGHT
The influence of Ohio in the United States of America during the past
half century may be compared to that of Virginia during the first forty
years of the Republic. All of our Presidents, elected as such since 1860,
have come from Ohio, or adjacent territory. Cleveland came from beyond
the Alleghenies, and Lincoln was born on the southern side of the Ohio
River. General Grant and General Sherman came from Ohio; and so did
Salmon P. Chase, and John Brown, of Harper's Perry celebrity. Chase gave
the country the inestimable blessing of a national currency; and even the
Virginians admitted that John Brown was a very remarkable person.
The fathers of these men conquered the wilderness and brought up their
sons to a sturdy, vigorous manliness, which resembles the colonial
culture of Franklin, Adams, and Washington.
Sitting in the same school-house with John Brown, in 1816, was a boy
named Elizur Wright who, like Brown, came from Connecticut, and to whom
the people of this country are also somewhat under obligation. Every
widow and orphan in the United States who receives the benefit of a life-
insurance policy owes a blessing to Elizur Wright, who was the first to
establish life insurance in America on a strong foundation, and whose
reports on that subject, made during his long term as Insurance
Commissioner for Massachusetts, have formed a sort of constitution by
which the policy of all life-insurance companies is still guided. His
name deserves a place beside those of Horace Mann and William Lloyd
Garrison.
[Illustration: ELIZUR WRIGHT]
Apart from this, his biography is one of the most interesting, one of the
most picturesque, when compared with those of the many brilliant men of
his time. His grandfather was a sea captain, and his father, who was also
named Elizur, was a farmer in Canaan, Connecticut. His mother's name was
Clarissa Richards, and he was born on the twelfth of February, 1804. In
the spring of 1810 the family moved to Talmage, Ohio, making the journey
in a two-horse carriage with an ox-team to transport their household
goods. Their progress was necessarily slow, and it was nearly six weeks
before they reached Talmage, as it was generally necessary to camp at
night by the way-side. This romantic journey, the building of their log-
cabin, the clearing of the forest, and above all his solitary watches in
the maple-orchard (where he might perhaps be attacked by wolves), made a
deep poetic impression on young Elizur, and furnished him with a store of
pleasant memories in after life.
They lived at first in a log-cabin, and afterwards his father built a
square frame-house with a piazza and veranda in front, which is still
standing. The school where Elizur, Jr., met John Brown was at a long
distance for a boy to walk. He does not appear to have made friends with
John, remarkably alike as they were in veracity, earnestness, and
adherence to principle; but John was somewhat the elder, and two or three
years among boys counts for more than ten among grown people. In later
life, however, Mr. Wright told an interesting anecdote of young Brown,
which runs as follows:
John was the best-behaved boy in the school, and for this reason the
teacher selected him to occupy a vacant place beside the girls. Some
other boys were jealous of this, and after calling Brown a milk-sop,
attacked him with snowballs. John proved himself as good a fighter then
as he did afterwards at Black Jack. He made two or three snow-balls,
rushed in at close quarters, and fought with such energy that he finally
drove all the boys before him.
Elizur Wright may have taken note of this affair, and it served him when
he entered Yale College in 1822. He had never heard of hazing, and when
the Sophomores came to his room to tease him, he received them with true
Western cordiality. He found out his mistake quickly enough, and at the
first insult he rose in wrath and ordered them out with such furious
looks that they concluded it was best to go.
He helped to support himself during his college course not only by
teaching in winter, but by making fires, waiting on table, and ringing
the recitation bell. In spite of these menial services, he was popular in
his class and had a number of aristocratic friends,--among them Philip
Van Rensselaer. He was one of the best scholars in his class,--first in
mathematics, and so fluent in Greek that to the end of his life he could
read it with ease.
He did not wait for graduation. In May, 1826, the Groton Academy suddenly
wanted a teacher, and Elizur Wright was invited to take the position. The
college faculty sent him his degree a month later,--which they might not
have done if they had known how little he cared for it. In his school at
Groton was a pretty, dark-eyed girl named Susan Clark, who, for two years
previously, had been at school with Margaret Fuller and was very well
acquainted with her. Elizur Wright became interested in Miss Clark, and
three years later they were married.
One day, while he was living at Groton, Mr. Wright went by the Boston
stage to Fitchburg, and on his return held a long conversation with a
fellow-passenger, a tall, slender young man with aquiline features, who
gave his name as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mr. Wright found him an exceedingly
interesting gentleman, but of so fragile an appearance that it seemed
impossible that he should live many years.
From this time the paths of these two young scholars diverged. Emerson
became an idealist and an ethical reformer. Elizur Wright became a
realist and a political reformer. Realism seems to belong to the soil of
Ohio.
Ill health came next in turn, a natural consequence of his severe life at
Yale College. He was obliged to leave his school, and for an occupation
he circulated tracts for the American Congregational Society, making a
stipulation, however, which was characteristic of him, that he should not
distribute any that ran contrary to his convictions. In this itinerant
fashion he became sufficiently recuperated at the end of a year to marry
Miss Clark, September 13, 1829, and accept the professorship of
mathematics at Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio. There he
remained till 1833, strengthening himself in the repose of matrimony for
the conflict that lay before him,--a conflict that every justice-loving
man feels that he will have to face at one time or another.
This probably came sooner than he expected. Some anti-slavery tracts,
circulated by Garrison, reached Western Reserve College and set the place
in a ferment. Elizur Wright became the champion of the anti-slavery
movement, not only in the town of Hudson but throughout the State. What
Garrison was in New England he became in the West. In the spring of 1833
he resigned his professorship and spent the next five months delivering
lectures on the slavery question. In December of the same year the first
national anti-slavery convention met in Philadelphia, and Elizur Wright
was unanimously chosen secretary of it. After that he went to New York to
edit a newspaper, the _Anti-Slavery Reporter_, remaining until 1839.
During the pro-slavery riot in New York he was attacked on the sidewalk
by two men with knives, but instantly rescued by some teamsters who were
passing. When he reached his home in Brooklyn he found a note from the
Mayor advising him to leave the city for some days; to which he replied
advising the Mayor to stop the New York ferry-boats. Meanwhile, as Mrs.
Wright was too ill to be removed, he purchased an axe and prepared to
defend his house to the last extremity. The Mayor, however, adopted his
advice, and by this excellent stratagem Brooklyn was saved from the fury
of the mob. In 1837 he moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to prosecute a
similar work in Boston.
Nothing is more remarkable in Mr. Wright's life than his perfect self-
poise and peace of mind during such a long period of external agitation.
It is doubtful, in spite of his highly nervous temperament, if he ever
lost a night's sleep. When he was editing the _Chronotype_, and
waiting for the telegraphic news to arrive, he would sometimes lie down
on a pile of newspapers and go to sleep in less than half a minute. For
mental relaxation he studied the higher mathematics and wrote poetry--
much of it very good. His faith in Divine Providence was absolute. He had
the soul of a hero.
During his first years in Boston, Elizur Wright translated La Fontaine's
Fables into English verse,--one of the best metrical versions of a
foreign poet,--and it is much to be regretted that the book is out of
print. It did not sell, of course, and Elizur Wright, determined that
neither he nor the publisher should lose money on it, undertook to sell
it himself. In carrying out this plan he met with some curious
experiences. He called on Professor Ticknor, who received him kindly,
spoke well of his translation, offered to dispose of a number of copies,
but--advised him to keep clear of the slavery question.
He went to Washington with the twofold object of selling his book and
talking emancipation to our national legislators; and he succeeded in
both attempts, for there were few men who liked to argue with Elizur
Wright. His brain was a store-house of facts and his analysis of them
equally keen and cutting. One Congressman, a very gentlemanly Virginian,
said to him: "Mr. Wright, I wish you could go across the Potomac and look
over my district. I think you will find that African slavery is not half
as bad as it is represented." Elizur Wright went and returned with the
emphatic reply: "I find it much worse than I expected." Having disposed
of more than half of his edition in this manner, in the spring of 1842 he
went to England, and with the kind assistance of Browning and Pringle
succeeded in placing the rest of his books there to his satisfaction.
Having a great admiration for Wordsworth's poetry, he made a long journey
to see that celebrated author, but only to be affronted by Wordsworth's
saying that America would be a good place if there were only a few
gentlemen in it. With Carlyle he had, as might have been expected, a
furious argument on the slavery question, and "King Thomas," as Dr.
Holmes calls him, encountered for once a head as hard as his own. The
Brownings, Robert and Elizabeth, received him with true English
hospitality. More experienced than Wordsworth in the great world, they
recognized Elizur Wright to be what he was,--a man of intellect and rare
integrity. Mr. Wright always spoke of Browning as one of the most
satisfactory men with whom he had ever conversed.
In 1840, as is well known, the anti-slavery movement became divided into
those who still believed in the efficacy of "moral suasion" and those who
considered that the time had come for introducing the question into
practical politics. The Texas question made the latter course inevitable,
and Elizur Wright concluded that moral suasion had done its work. As he
expressed it, in a letter to Mrs. Maria Chapman: "Garrison has already
left his enemies thrice dead behind him." He was a delegate to the
convention of April 1, 1840, which nominated James G. Birney for the
Presidency, and took an active share in the Free-soil movement of 1844,--
a movement which produced exactly the opposite effect from that which was
intended; for the defeat of Henry Clay opened the door for the Mexican
war and the annexation of a much larger territory than Texas. If Clay had
been elected, the history of the United States must have been different
from what it has proved.