in New York City, but this work-a-day career soon became too humdrum,
and he looked about for something that promised more adventures. He had
not to look far. Colonel William Walker and his filibusters were about
to start on the celebrated expedition against Nicaragua, and with them
Ward determined to cast in his lot. Through the trial by fire which
awaited the ill-fated expedition, he passed unhurt, and escaping by some
means or other its fatal termination, returned to New York.
California next attracted his attention, but here he met with no better
success, and after a hand-to-mouth existence of a few months he turned
again to seafaring life, and shipped for China as the mate of an
American vessel. His arrival at Shanghai in 1859 was most opportune, for
there the chance for which he had been longing awaited him.
The great Tai-Ping rebellion, that half-Christian, wholly fanatical
uprising which devastated many flourishing provinces, had, at this time,
attained alarming proportions. Ching Wang, with a host of blood-crazed
rebels, had swept over the country in the vicinity of Shanghai with fire
and sword, and at the time of Ward's arrival these fanatics were within
eighteen miles of the city.
The Chinese merchants had appealed in vain to the foreign consuls for
assistance. The imperial government had made no plans for the
preservation of Shanghai. So the wealthy merchants, fearing for their
stores, resolved to take the matter into their own hands, and after a
consultation of many days, offered a reward of two hundred thousand
dollars to any body of foreigners who should drive the Tai-Pings from
the city of Sungkiang.
Salem's soldier of fortune, Frederick T. Ward, responded at once to the
opportunity thus offered. He accepted in June, 1860, the offer of Ta
Kee, the mandarin at the head of the merchant body, and in less than a
week--such was the magnetism of the man--had raised a body of one
hundred foreign sailors, and, with an American by the name of Henry
Burgevine as his lieutenant, had set out for Sungkiang. The men in
Ward's company were desperadoes, for the most part, but they were no
match, of course, for the twelve thousand Tai-Pings. This Ward realised
as soon as the skirmishing advance had been made, and he returned to
Shanghai for reinforcements.
From the Chinese imperial troops he obtained men to garrison whatever
courts the foreign legation might capture, an arrangement which left the
adventurers free to go wherever their action could be most effective.
Thus reinforced, Ward once more set out for Sungkiang. Even on this
occasion his men were outnumbered one hundred to one, but, such was the
desperation of the attacking force, the rebels were driven like sheep to
the slaughter, and the defeat of the Tai-Pings was overwhelming. It was
during this battle, it is interesting to know, that the term "foreign
devils" first found place in the Chinese vocabulary.
The promised reward was forthwith presented to the gifted American
soldier, and immediately Ward accepted a second commission against the
rebels at Singpo. The Tai-Pings of this city were under the leadership
of a renegade Englishman named Savage, and the fighting was fast and
furious. Ward and his men performed many feats of valour, and actually
scaled the city wall, thirty feet in height, to fight like demons upon
its top. But it was without avail. With heavy losses, they were driven
back.
But the attempt was not abandoned. Retiring to Shanghai, Ward secured
the assistance of about one hundred new foreign recruits, and with them
returned once more to the scene of his defeat. Half a mile from the
walls of Singpo the little band of foreign soldiers of fortune and
poorly organised imperial troops were met by Savage and the Tai-Pings,
and the battle that resulted waged for hours. The rebels were the
aggressors, and ten miles of Ward's retreat upon Sungkiang saw fighting
every inch of the way. The line of retreat was strewn with rebel dead,
and such were their losses that they retired from the province
altogether.
Later Savage was killed, and the Tai-Pings quieted down. For his
exploits Ward received the monetary rewards agreed upon, and was also
granted the button of a mandarin of the fourth degree.
He had received severe wounds during the campaigns, and was taking time
to recuperate from them at Shanghai when the jealousy of other
foreigners made itself felt, and the soldier from Salem was obliged to
face a charge before the United States consul that he had violated the
neutrality laws. The matter was dropped, however, because the hero of
Sungkiang promptly swore that he was no longer an American citizen, as
he had become a naturalised subject of the Chinese emperor!
Realising the value of the Chinese as fighting men, Ward now determined
to organise a number of Chinese regiments, officer them with Europeans,
and arm and equip them after American methods. This he did, and in six
months he appeared at Shanghai at the head of three bodies of Chinese,
splendidly drilled and under iron discipline. He arrived in the nick of
time, and, routing a vastly superior force, saved the city from capture.
After this exploit he was no longer shunned by Europeans as an
adventurer and an outlaw. He was too prominent to be overlooked. His
Ever-Victorious Army, as it was afterward termed, entered upon a
campaign of glorious victory. One after another of the rebel strongholds
fell before it, and its leader was made a mandarin of the highest grade,
with the title of admiral-general.
Ward then assumed the Chinese name of Hwa, and married Changmei, a
maiden of high degree, who was nineteen at the time of her wedding, and
as the daughter of one of the richest and most exalted mandarins of the
red button, was considered in China an exceedingly good match for the
Salem youth. According to oriental standards she was a beauty, too.
Ward did not rest long from his campaigns, however, for we find that he
was soon besieged in the city of Sungkiang with a few men. A relieving
force of the Ever-Victorious Army here came to his assistance.
He did not win all his victories easily. In the battle of Ningpo, toward
the end of the first division of the Tai-Ping rebellion, the carnage was
frightful. Outnumbered, but not outgeneralled, the government forces
fought valiantly. Ward was shot through the stomach while leading a
charge, but refused to leave the field while the battle was on. Through
his field officers he directed his men, and when the victory was
assured, fell back unconscious in the arms of his companion, Burgevine.
He was carried to Ningpo, where he died the following morning, a gallant
and distinguished soldier, although still only thirty years old.
In the Confucian cemetery at Ningpo his body was laid at rest with all
possible honours and with military ceremony becoming his rank. Over his
grave, and that of his young wife, who survived him only a few months, a
mausoleum was erected, and monuments were placed on the scenes of his
victories. The mausoleum soon became a shrine invested with miraculous
power, and a number of years after his death General Ward was solemnly
declared to be a joss or god. The manuscript of the imperial edict to
this effect is now preserved in the Essex Institute.
The command of the Ever-Victorious army reverted to Burgevine, but
later, through British intrigue, to General Gordon. It was Ward,
however, the Salem lad, who organised the army by which Chinese Gordon
gained his fame. The British made a saint and martyr of Gordon, and
called Ward an adventurer and a common sailor, but the Chinese rated him
more nearly as he deserved.
In a little red-bound volume printed in Shanghai in 1863, and translated
from the Chinese for the benefit of a few of General Ward's relatives in
this country--a work which I have been permitted to examine--the native
chronicler says of our hero:
"What General Ward has done to and for China is as yet but imperfectly
known, for those whose duty it is to transfer to posterity a record of
this great man are either so wrapped in speculation as to how to build
themselves up on his deeds of the past time, or are so fearful that any
comment on any subject regarding him may detract from their ability,
that with his last breath they allow all that appertains to him to be
buried in the tomb. Not one in ten thousand of them could at all
approach him in military genius, in courage, and in resource, or do
anything like what he did."
In his native land Ward has never been honoured as he deserves to be. On
the contrary, severe criticism has been accorded him because he was
fighting in China for money during our civil war, "when," said his
detractors, "he might have been using his talents for the protection of
the flag under which he was born."
But this was the fault of circumstances rather than of intention. Ward
wished, above everything, to be a soldier, and when he found fighting
waiting for him in China, it was the most natural thing in the world
for him to accept the opportunity the gods provided. But he did what he
could under the circumstances for his country. He offered ten thousand
dollars to the national cause--and was killed in the Chinese war before
the answer to his proffer of financial aid came from Minister Anson
Burlingame.
It is rather odd that just the amount that he wished to be used by the
North for the advancement of the Union cause has recently (1901) been
bequeathed to the Essex Institute at Salem by Miss Elizabeth C. Ward,
his lately deceased sister, to found a Chinese library in memory of
Salem's soldier of fortune. Thus is rounded out this very romantic
chapter of modern American history.
THE WELL-SWEEP OF A SONG
That the wise Shakespeare spoke the truth when he observed that "one
touch of nature makes the whole world kin" has never been better
exemplified than in the affectionate tenderness with which all sorts and
conditions of men join in singing a song like "The Old Oaken Bucket." As
one hears this ballad in a crowded room, or even as so often given--in a
New England play like "The Old Homestead," one does not stop to analyse
one's sensations; one forgets the homely phrase; one simply feels and
knows oneself the better for the memories of happy and innocent
childhood which the simple song invokes.
Dear, delightful Goldsmith has wonderfully expressed in "The Deserted
Village" the inextinguishable yearning for the spot we call "home":
"In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs--and God has given my share--
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return and die at home at last,"
and it is this same lyric cry that has been crystallised for all time,
so far as the American people are concerned, in "The Old Oaken Bucket."
The day will not improbably come when the allusions in this poem will
demand as careful an explanation as some of Shakespeare's archaic
references now call for. But even when this time does come, and an
elaborate description of the strange old custom of drawing water from a
hole in the ground by means of a long pole and a rude pail will be
necessary to an understanding of the poem, men's voices will grow husky
and their eyes will dim at the music of "The Old Oaken Bucket."
It is to the town of Scituate, Massachusetts, one of the most ancient
settlements of the old colony, that we trace back the local colour which
pervades the poem. The history of the place is memorable and
interesting. The people come of a hardy and determined ancestry, who
fought for every inch of ground that their descendants now hold. To this
fact may perhaps be attributed the strength of those associations,
clinging like ivy around some of the most notable of the ancient
homesteads.
The scene so vividly described in the charming ballad we are considering
is a little valley through which Herring Brook pursues its devious way
to meet the tidal waters of North River. "The view of it from Coleman
Heights, with its neat cottages, its maple groves, and apple orchards,
is remarkably beautiful," writes one appreciative author. The
"wide-spreading pond," the "mill," the "dairy-house," the "rock where
the cataract fell," and even the "old well," if not the original
"moss-covered bucket" itself, may still be seen just as the poet
described them.
[Illustration: OLD OAKEN BUCKET HOUSE, SCITUATE, MASS.]
In quaint, homely Scituate, Samuel Woodworth, the people's poet, was
indeed born and reared. Although the original house is no longer there,
a pretty place called "The Old Oaken Bucket House" still stands, a
modern successor to the poet's home, and at another bucket, oaken if not
old, the pilgrim of to-day may stop to slake his thirst from the very
waters, the recollection of which gave the poet such exquisite pleasure
in after years. One would fain have the surroundings unchanged--the cot
where Woodworth dwelt, the ponderous well-sweep, creaking with age, at
which his youthful hands were wont to tug strongly; and finally the
mossy bucket, overflowing with crystal nectar fresh from the cool depths
below. Yet in spite of the changes, one gets fairly well the illusion of
the ancient spot, and comes away well content to have quaffed a draught
of such excellent water to the memory of this Scituate poet.
The circumstances under which the popular ballad was composed and
written are said to be as follows: Samuel Woodworth was a printer who
had served his apprenticeship under the veteran Major Russell of the
_Columbian Centinel_, a journal which was in its day the leading
Federalist organ of New England. He had inherited the wandering
propensity of his craft, and yielding to the desire for change he was
successively in Hartford and New York, doing what he could in a
journalistic way. In the latter city he became associated, after an
unsuccessful career as a publisher, in the editorship of the _Mirror_.
And it was while living in New York in the Bohemian fashion of his
class, that, in company with some brother printers, he one day dropped
in at a well-known establishment then kept by one Mallory to take a
social glass of wine.
The cognac was pronounced excellent. After drinking it, Woodworth set
his glass down on the table, and, smacking his lips, declared
emphatically that Mallory's _eau de vie_ was superior to anything that
he had ever tasted.
"There you are mistaken," said one of his comrades, quietly; then added,
"there certainly was one thing that far surpassed this in the way of
drinking, as you, too, will readily acknowledge."
"Indeed; and, pray, what was that?" Woodworth asked, with apparent
incredulity that anything could surpass the liquor then before him.
"The draught of pure and sparkling spring water that we used to get from
the old oaken bucket that hung in the well, after our return from the
labours of the field on a sultry summer's day."
No one spoke; all were busy with their own thoughts.
Woodworth's eyes became dimmed. "True, true," he exclaimed; and soon
after quitted the place. With his heart overflowing with the
recollections that this chance allusion in a barroom had inspired, the
scene of his happier childhood life rushed upon him in a flood of
feeling. He hastened back to the office in which he then worked, seized
a pen, and in half an hour had written his popular ballad:
"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew,--
The wide-spreading pond and the mill which stood by it,
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well,--
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.
"The moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure;
For often at noon when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing!
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness it rose from the well,--
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well.
"How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As, poised from the curb, it inclined to my lips!
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
And now, far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well,--
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well."
Woodworth's reputation rests upon this one stroke of genius. He died in
1842 at the age of fifty-seven. But after almost fifty years his memory
is still green, and we still delight to pay tender homage to the spot
which inspired one of the most beautiful songs America has yet
produced.
WHITTIER'S LOST LOVE
In the life of the Quaker poet there is an unwritten chapter of personal
history full to the brim of romance. It will be remembered that Whittier
in his will left ten thousand dollars for an Amesbury Home for Aged
Women. One room in this home Mrs. Elizabeth W. Pickard (the niece to
whom the poet bequeathed his Amesbury homestead, and who passed away in
the early spring of this year [1902], in an illness contracted while
decorating her beloved uncle's grave on the anniversary of his birth),
caused to be furnished with a massive black walnut set formerly used in
the "spare-room" of her uncle's house--the room where Lucy Larcom, Gail
Hamilton, the Cary sisters, and George Macdonald were in former times
entertained. A stipulation of this gift was that the particular room in
the Home thus to be furnished was to be known as the Whittier room.
In connection with this Home and this room comes the story of romantic
interest. Two years after the death of Mr. Whittier an old lady made
application for admission to the Home on the ground that in her youth
she was a schoolmate and friend of the poet. And although she was not
entitled to admission by being a resident of the town, she would no
doubt have been received if she had not died soon after making the
application.
This aged woman was Mrs. Evelina Bray Downey, concerning whose
schoolgirl friendship for Whittier many inaccurate newspaper articles
were current at the time of her death, in the spring of 1895. The story
as here told is, however, authentic.
Evelina Bray was born at Marblehead, October 10, 1810. She was the
youngest of ten children of a ship master, who made many voyages to the
East Indies and to European ports. In a letter written in 1884, Mrs
Downey said of herself: "My father, an East India sea captain, made
frequent and long voyages. For safekeeping and improvement he sent me to
Haverhill, bearing a letter of introduction from Captain William Story
to the family of Judge Bartley. They passed me over to Mr. Jonathan K.
Smith, and Mrs. Smith gave me as a roommate her only daughter, Mary.
This was the opening season of the New Haverhill Academy, a sort of
rival to the Bradford Academy. Subsequently I graduated from the Ipswich
Female Seminary, in the old Mary Lyon days."
Mary Smith, Miss Bray's roommate at Haverhill, and her lifelong
friend--though for fifty years they were lost to each other--was
afterward the wife of Reverend Doctor S. F. Smith, the author of
"America."
Evelina is described as a tall and strikingly beautiful brunette, with
remarkable richness of colouring, and she took high rank in scholarship.
The house on Water Street at which she boarded was directly opposite
that of Abijah W. Thayer, editor of the _Haverhill Gazette_, with whom
Whittier boarded while at the academy. Whittier was then nineteen years
old, and Evelina was seventeen. Naturally, they walked to and from the
school together, and their interest in each other was noticeable.
If the Quaker lad harboured thoughts of marriage, and even gave
expression to them, it would not be strange. But the traditions of
Whittier's sect included disapproval of music, and Evelina's father had
given her a piano, and she was fascinated with the study of the art
proscribed by the Quakers. Then, too, Whittier was poor, and his gift of
versification, which had already given him quite a reputation, was not
considered in those days of much consequence as a means of livelihood.
If they did not at first realise, both of them, the hopelessness of
their love, they found it out after Miss Bray's return to her home.
About this time Mr. Whittier accompanied his mother to a quarterly
meeting of the Society of Friends at Salem, and one morning before
breakfast took a walk of a few miles to the quaint old town of
Marblehead, where he paid a visit to the home of his schoolmate. She
could not invite him in, but instead suggested a stroll along the
picturesque, rocky shore of the bay.
This was in the spring or early summer of 1828, and the poet was twenty
years old, a farmer's boy, with high ambitions, but with no outlook as
yet toward any profession. It may be imagined that the young couple,
after a discussion of the situation, saw the hopelessness of securing
the needed consent of their parents, and returned from their morning's
walk with saddened hearts. Whatever dreams they may have cherished were
from that hour abandoned, and they parted with this understanding.
In the next fifty years they met but once again, four or five years
after the morning walk, and this once was at Marblehead, along the
shore. Miss Bray had in the meantime been teaching in a seminary in
Mississippi, and Whittier had been editing papers in Boston and
Hartford, and had published his first book, a copy of which he had sent
her. There was no renewal at this time of their lover-like relations,
and they parted in friendship.
I have said that they met but once in the half-century after that
morning's walk; the truth is they were once again close together, but
Whittier was not conscious of it. This was while he was editing the
_Pennsylvania Freeman_, at Philadelphia. Miss Bray was then associated
with a Miss Catherine Beecher, in an educational movement of
considerable importance, and was visiting Philadelphia. Just at this
time a noted Massachusetts divine, Reverend Doctor Todd, was announced
to preach in the Presbyterian church, and both these Haverhill
schoolmates were moved to hear him. By a singular chance they occupied
the same pew, and sat close together, but Miss Bray was the only one who
was conscious of this, and she was too shy to reveal herself. It must
have been her bonnet hid her face, for otherwise Whittier's remarkably
keen eyes could not have failed to recognise the dear friend of his
school-days.
Their next meeting was at the reunion of the Haverhill Academy class of
1827, which was held in 1885, half a century after their second
interview at Marblehead. It was said by some that it was this schoolboy
love which Whittier commemorated in his poem, "Memories." But Mr.
Pickard, the poet's biographer, affirms that, so far as known, the only
direct reference made by Whittier to the affair under consideration
occurred in the fine poem, "A Sea Dream," written in 1874.
In the poet, now an old man, the sight of Marblehead awakens the memory
of that morning walk, and he writes:
"Is this the wind, the soft sea wind
That stirred thy locks of brown?
Are these the rocks whose mosses knew
The trail of thy light gown,
Where boy and girl sat down?
"I see the gray fort's broken wall,
The boats that rock below;
And, out at sea, the passing sails
We saw so long ago,
Rose-red in morning's glow.
* * * * *
"Thou art not here, thou art not there,
Thy place I cannot see;
I only know that where thou art
The blessed angels be,
And heaven is glad for thee.
* * * * *
"But turn to me thy dear girl-face
Without the angel's crown,
The wedded roses of thy lips,
Thy loose hair rippling down
In waves of golden brown.