----It is held That valor is the chiefest virtue and Most
dignifies the haver. If it be, The man I speak of cannot in
the world Be singly counterpoised.--CORIOLANUS.
[Sidenote: REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL SUMNER.]
During the month of March, Major-General Edwin V. Sumner was in
Washington, apparently in vigorous health. He had just been appointed
to the command of the Department of the Missouri. One Saturday evening,
having received his final orders, he was about leaving for his home
in Syracuse, New York, where he designed spending a few days before
starting for St. Louis.
I went into his room to bid him adieu. Allusion was made to the
allegations of speculation against General Curtis, his predecessor in
the West. "I trust," said he, "they are untrue. No general has a right
to make one dollar out of his official position, beyond the salary
which his Government pays him." He talked somewhat in detail of the
future, remarking, "For the present, I shall remain in St. Louis; but
whenever there is a prospect of meeting the enemy, I shall take the
field, and lead my troops in person. Some men can fight battles over a
telegraph-wire, but you know I have no talent in that direction."
With his friendly grasp of the hand, and his kindly smile, he started
for home. It proved to him Home indeed. A week later the country was
startled by intelligence of his sudden death. He, who for forty-eight
years had braved the hardships of campaigning and the perils of battle,
until he seemed to have a charmed life, was abruptly cut down by
disease under his own roof, surrounded by those he loved.
"The breast that trampling Death could spare,
His noiseless shafts assail."
For almost half a century, Sumner had belonged to the Army of the
United States; but he steadfastly refused to be put on the retired
list. Entering the service from civil life, he was free from
professional traditions and narrowness. Senator Wade once asked him,
"How long were you at the Military Academy?" He replied, "I was never
there in my life."
The bluff Ohioan sprang up and shook him fervidly by the hand,
exclaiming, "Thank God for one general of the regular Army, who was
never at West Point!"
[Sidenote: HIS CONDUCT IN KANSAS.]
During the early Kansas troubles, Sumner, then a colonel, was stationed
in the Territory with his regiment of dragoons. Unscrupulous as
were the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan in their efforts to
force Slavery upon Kansas, embittered as were the people against the
troops,--generally mere tools of Missouri ruffians--their feelings
toward Sumner were kindly and grateful. They knew he was a just man,
who would not willingly harass or oppress them, and who sympathized
with them in their fiery trial.
From the outbreak of the Slaveholders' Rebellion his name was one of
the brightest in that noble but unfortunate army which illustrated
Northern discipline and valor on so many bloody fields, but had never
yet gathered the fruits of victory. He was always in the deadliest of
the fighting. He had the true soldierly temperament. He snuffed the
battle afar off. He felt "the rapture of the strife," and went into it
with boyish enthusiasm.
[Sidenote: A Thrilling Scene in Battle.]
In exposing himself, he was Imprudence personified. It was the chronic
wonder of his friends that he ever came out of battle alive. At last
they began to believe, with him, that he was invincible. He would
receive bullets in his hat, coat, boots, saddle, horse, and sometimes
have his person scratched, but without serious injury. His soldiers
related, with great relish, that in the Mexican War a ball which
struck him square in the forehead fell flattened to the ground without
breaking the skin, as the bullet glances from the forehead of the
buffalo. This anecdote won for him the _soubriquet_ of "Old Buffalo."
At Fair Oaks, his troops were trembling under a pitiless storm of
bullets, when he galloped up and down the advance line, more exposed
than any private in the ranks.
"What regiment is this?" he asked.
"The Fifteenth Massachusetts," replied a hundred voices.
"I, too, am from Massachusetts; three cheers for our old Bay State!"
And swinging his hat, the general led off, and every soldier joined in
three thundering cheers. The enemy looked on in wonder at the strange
episode, but was driven back by the fierce charge which followed.
[Sidenote: HOW SUMNER FOUGHT.]
This was no unusual scene. Whenever the guns began to pound, his
mild eye would flash with fire. He would remove his artificial teeth,
which became troublesome during the excitement of battle, and place
them carefully in his pocket; raise his spectacles from his eyes and
rest them upon the forehead, that he might see clearly objects at a
distance; give his orders to subordinates, and then gallop headlong
into the thick of the fight.
Hundreds of soldiers were familiar with the erect form, the snowy,
streaming hair, and the frank face of that wonderful old man who, on
the perilous edge of battle, while they were falling like grass before
the mower, would dash through the fire and smoke, shouting:--
"Steady, men, steady! Don't be excited. When you have been soldiers as
long as I, you will learn that this is nothing. Stand firm and do your
duty!"
Never seeking a dramatic effect, he sometimes displayed quiet heroism
worthy of history's brightest pages. Once, quite unconsciously
reproducing a historic scene, he repeated, almost word for word, the
address of the great Frederick to his officers, before the battle of
Leuthen. It was on the bloody field of Fair Oaks, at the end of the
second day. He commanded the forces which had crossed the swollen
stream. But before the other troops came up, the bridges were swept
away. The army was then cut in twain; and Sumner, with his three
shattered corps, was left to the mercy of the enemy's entire force.
On that Sunday night, after making his dispositions to receive an
attack, he sent for General Sedgwick, his special friend and a most
trusty soldier:--
"Sedgwick, you perceive the situation. The enemy will doubtless open
upon us at daylight. Re-enforcements are impossible; he can overwhelm
and destroy us. But the country cannot afford to have us defeated.
There is just one thing for us to do; we must stand here and die like
men! Impress it upon your officers that we must do this to the last
man--to the last man! We may not meet again; good-by, Sedgwick."
The two grim soldiers shook hands, and parted. Morning came, but the
enemy, failing to discover our perilous condition, did not renew the
attack; new bridges were built, and the sacrifice was averted. But
Sumner was the man to carry out his resolution to the letter.
[Sidenote: ORDERED BACK BY MCCLELLAN.]
Afterward, he retained possession of a house on our old line of
battle; and his head-quarter tents were brought forward and pitched.
They were within range of a Rebel battery, which awoke the general
and his staff every morning, by dropping shot and shell all about
them for two or three hours. Sumner implored permission to capture or
drive away the hostile battery, but was refused, on the ground that
it might bring on a general engagement. He chafed and stormed: "It is
the most disgraceful thing of my life," he said, "that this should be
permitted." But McClellan was inexorable. Sumner was directed to remove
his head-quarters to a safer position. He persisted in remaining for
fourteen days, and at last only withdrew upon a second peremptory order.
The experience of that fortnight exhibited the ever-recurring miracle
of war--that so much iron and lead may fly about men's ears without
harming them. During the whole bombardment only two persons were
injured. A surgeon was slightly wounded in the head by a piece of shell
which flew into his tent; and a private, while lying behind a log for
protection, was instantly killed by a shot which tore a splinter from
the wood, fracturing his skull; but not another man received even a
scratch.
After Antietam, McClellan's ever-swift apologists asserted that his
corps commanders all protested against renewing the attack upon the
second morning. I asked General Sumner if it were true. He replied,
with emphasis:--
"No, sir! My advice was not asked, and I did not volunteer it. But I
was certainly in favor of renewing the attack. Much, as my troops had
suffered, they were good for another day's fighting, especially when
the enemy had that river in his rear, and a defeat would have ruined
him forever."
[Sidenote: LOVE FOR HIS OLD COMRADES.]
At Fredericksburg, by the express order of Burnside, Sumner did not
cross the river during the fighting. The precaution saved his life. Had
he ridden out on that fiery front, he had never returned to tell what
he saw. But he chafed sadly under the restriction. As the sun went down
on that day of glorious but fruitless endeavor, he paced to and fro in
front of the Lacy House, with one arm thrown around the neck of his
son, his face haggard with sorrow and anxiety, and his eyes straining
eagerly for the arrival of each successive messenger.
He was a man of high but patriotic ambition. Once, hearing General
Howard remark that he did not aspire to the command of a corps, he
exclaimed, "General you surprise me. _I_ would command the world, if I
could!"
He was called arbitrary, but had great love for his soldiers,
especially for old companions in arms. A New York colonel told me a
laughable story of applying to him for a ten days' furlough, when the
rule against them was imperative. Sumner peremptorily refused it. But
the officer sat down beside him, and began to talk about the Peninsular
campaign--the battles in which he had done his duty, immediately under
Sumner's eye; and it was not many minutes before the general granted
his petition. "If he had only waited," said the narrator, "until I
recalled to his memory some scenes at Antietam, I am sure he would have
given me twenty days instead of ten!"
His intercourse with women and children was characterized by
peculiar chivalry and gentleness. He revived the old ideal of the
soldier--terrible in battle, but with an open and generous heart.
To his youngest son--a captain upon his staff--he was bound by unusual
affection. "Sammy" was his constant companion; in private he leaned
upon him, caressed him, and consulted him about the most trivial
matters. It was a touching bond which united the gray, war-worn veteran
to the child of his old age.
We have had greater captains than Sumner; but no better soldiers, no
braver patriots. The words which trembled upon his dying lips--"May God
bless my country, the United States of America"--were the key-note to
his life. Green be the turf above him!
[Sidenote: Traveling Through the Northwest.]
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, _April 5, 1863_.
For the last week I have been traveling through the States of the
Northwest. The tone of the people on the war was never better. Now that
the question has become simply one of endurance, their Northern blood
tells. "This is hard pounding, gentlemen," said Wellington at Waterloo;
"but we will see who can pound the longer." So, in spite of the
Copperheads--"merely the dust and chaff on God's thrashing-floor"--the
overwhelming sentiment of the people is to fight it out to the last man
and the last dollar.
You have been wont to say: "The West can be depended on for the war.
She will never give up her great outlet, the Mississippi." True; but
the inference that her loyalty is based upon a material consideration,
is untrue and unjust. The West has poured out its best blood, not on
any petty question of navigation, or of trade, but upon the weightier
issues of Freedom and Nationality.
The New-Yorker or Pennsylvanian may believe in the greatness of the
country; the Kansan or Minnesotian, who has gone one or two thousand
miles to establish his prairie home, walks by sight and not by faith.
To him, the Great Republic of the future is no rhetorical flourish
or flight of fancy, but a living verity. His instinct of nationality
is the very strongest; his belief the profoundest. May he never need
Emerson's pungent criticism: "The American eagle is good; protect it,
cherish it; but beware of the American peacock!"
Have you heard Prentice's last, upon the bursting of the Rebel bubble
that Cotton is King? He says: "They went in for cotton, and they got
worsted!"
[Sidenote: A Visit to Rosecrans's Army.]
MURFREESBORO, TENNESSEE, _April 10_.
A visit to Rosecrans's army. I rode yesterday over the historical
battle-ground of Stone River, among rifle-pits and breastworks, great
oaks, with scarred trunks, and tops and branches torn off, and smooth
fields thickly planted with graves.
It is interesting to hear from the soldiers reminiscences of the
battle. Rosecrans may not be strong in planning a campaign, but the
thundering guns rouse him to the exhibition of a higher military genius
than any other general in our service has yet displayed. The "grand
anger of battle" makes him see at a glance the needs of the occasion,
and stimulates those quick intuitions which enable great captains, at
the supreme moment, to wrest victory from the very grasp of defeat.
Peculiarly applicable to him is Addison's description of Marlborough:--
"In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed;
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid;
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage."
[Sidenote: ROSECRANS IN A GREAT BATTLE.]
During the recent great conflict which began with disaster that would
have caused ordinary generals to retreat, he seemed omnipresent. A
devout Catholic, he performed, before entering the battle, the solemn
rites of his Church. A profound believer in destiny, he appeared like
a man who sought for death. A few feet from him, a solid shot took off
the head of Garasche, his loved and trusted chief of staff.
"Brave men must die," he said, and plunged into the battle again.
He had a word for all. Of an Ohio regiment, lying upon the ground, he
asked:--
"Boys, do you see that strip of woods?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, in about five minutes, the Rebels will pour out of it, and come
right toward you. Lie still until you can easily see the buttons on
their coats; then drive them back. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, it's just as easy as rolling off a log, isn't it?"
They laughingly assented, and "Old Rosy," as the soldiers call him,
rode along the line, to encourage some other corps.
This is an army of veterans. Every regiment has been in battle,
and some have marched three thousand miles during their checkered
campaigning. Their garments are old and soiled; but their guns are
bright and glistening, and on review their evolutions are clockwork.
They are splendidly disciplined, of unequaled enthusiasm, full of faith
in their general and in themselves.
Rosecrans is an erect, solid man of one hundred and seventy-five
pounds weight, whose forty-three years sit lightly on his face and
frame. He has a clear, mild-blue eye, which lights and flashes under
excitement; an intensified Roman nose, high cheek-bones, florid
complexion, mouth and chin hidden under dark-brown beard, hair faintly
tinged with silver, and growing thin on the edges of the high, full,
but not broad, forehead. In conversation, a winning, mirthful smile
illumines his face. As Hamlet would take the ghost's word for a
thousand pounds, so you would trust that countenance in a stranger
as indicating fidelity, reserved power, an overflowing humor, and
imperious will.
[Sidenote: A SCENE IN MEMPHIS.]
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, _April 20_.
Riding near the Elmwood Cemetery, yesterday, I witnessed a curious
feature of Southern life. It was a negro funeral--the _cortège_,
a third of a mile in length, just entering that city of the dead.
The carriages were filled with negro families, and, almost without
exception, they were driven by white men. If such a picture were
exhibited in Boston, would those who clamor in our ears about negro
equality ever permit us to hear the last of it?
III.
THE DUNGEON.