THE GLORIES OF EUROPE.
After four years of strenuous activity of body and brain, it was not
easy for Carleton to settle down at once to commonplace routine.
Having exerted every nerve and feeling in so glorious a cause as our
nation's salvation, every other cause and question seemed trivial in
comparison. Succeeding such a series of excitements, it was difficult
to lessen the momentum of mind and nerve in order to live, just like
other plain people, quietly at home. One could not be drinking strong
coffee all the time, nor could battle shocks come any longer every few
weeks. The sudden collapse of the Confederacy, and the ending of the
war, was like clapping the air-brakes instantaneously upon the Empire
State Express while at full speed. While the air pressure might stop
the wheels, there was danger of throwing the cars off their trucks.
It took Carleton many months, and then only after strong exertion of
the will, careful study of his diet and physical habits, to get down
to the ordinary jog-trot of life and enjoy the commonplace. He
occupied himself during the latter part of 1865 in completing his
first book, which he entitled "My Days and Nights upon the Battle
Field." This was meant to be one in a series of three volumes. He had
written most of this, his first book, in camp and on the field. In
form, it was an illustrated duodecimo of 312 pages, and was published
by Ticknor and Fields, and later republished by Estes and Lauriat.
It carries the story of the war, and of Carleton's personal
participation in it in the Potomac and Mississippi River regions, down
to the fall of Memphis in the summer of 1862.
After this, followed another volume, entitled "Four Years of
Fighting," full of personal observation in the army and navy, from the
first battle of Bull Run to the fall of Richmond. This was a more
ambitious work, of five hundred and fifty-eight, with an introduction
of fifteen, pages. It contained a portrait and figure of the war
correspondent, with pencil and note-book in hand. Published by
Ticknor and Fields, it was reissued in 1882, by Estes and Lauriat,
under the title of "Boys of '61." Carleton completed a careful
revision of this work about a fortnight before his golden wedding, for
another edition which appeared posthumously in October, 1896.
Meanwhile, Mr. Coffin had reentered the work of journalism in Boston.
This, with his books and public engagements, as a lecturer and
platform speaker, occupied him fully. In the summer of 1866 the
shadows of coming events in Europe began to loom above the horizon of
the future. The great Reform movement in England was in progress. The
triumph of the American war for internal freedom, the vindication of
Union against the pretensions of State sovereignty, the release of
four million slaves, the implied honor put upon work, as against those
who despised workmen as "mudsills," had had a powerful reaction upon
the people of Great Britain. These now clamored for the rights of man,
as against privileged men. British liberty was once more "to broaden
down from precedent to precedent." In France, the World's Exposition
was being held. Prussia and Austria had rushed to arms.
The evolution of a modern German empire had begun. Austria and Hungary
were being drawn together. Should Prussia humble her Austrian foe,
then Italy would throw off the yoke, and the Italians, once more
united as a nation, would see the temporal power of the Pope vanish.
Victor Emmanuel's troops would enter Venice and perhaps even the
Eternal City.
To tell the story of storm and calm, of war and peace, Carleton was
again summoned by the proprietors of the Boston _Journal_, and at a
salary double that received during the war. This time his wife
accompanied him, to aid him in his work and to share his pleasure. On
one of the hottest days of the summer, they sailed on the Cunard
steamer _Persia_, from New York. This was to be Carleton's first
introduction to a foreign land. The chief topic of conversation during
the voyage was the Austro-Prussian War, which, it was generally
believed, would involve all Europe. The storm-cloud seemed to be vast
and appalling.
They arrived in Liverpool, the cloud had burst and disappeared, and
the sky was blue again. The battle of Sadowa had been fought. Prussian
valor and discipline in handling the needle-gun had won on the field.
Bismarck and diplomacy were soon to settle terms of peace, and change
the map of Europe.
Carleton hastened on to London to hear the debate in Parliament on the
extension of the suffrage, to see the uprising of the people, and to
notice how profoundly the great struggle in America and its results
had affected the English people. Great Britain's millions were
demanding cheaper government, without so many costly figureheads, both
temporal and spiritual, and manhood suffrage. The long period of
nearly constant war from 1688 to 1830 had passed. In area of peace,
men were thinking of, and discussing openly, the relation of the
middle classes and the laboring men to the nobility and landed
estates. Agitated crowds thronged the streets, singing "John Brown's
Soul is Marching on."
Mr. Gladstone's bill was defeated. Earl Russell was swept out of
office, and Disraeli was made chancellor. It was a field-day in the
House of Commons when Carleton heard Gladstone, Bright, Lowe, and the
Conservative and Liberal leaders. These were the days when such men as
Governor Eyre, after incarnating the most brutish principle of that
worse England, which every American and friend of humanity hates,
could be defended, lauded, and glorified. Indeed, Eyre's bloody policy
in Jamaica was approved of by such men as John Ruskin, Charles
Kingsley, and other literary men, to the surprise and pain of
Americans who had read their books. On the other hand, the men of
science and thinking people in the middle and laboring classes
condemned the red-handed apostle of British brutishness. All through
this, his first journey in Great Britain, as in other countries years
afterward, Carleton clearly distinguished between the Great Britain
which we love, and the Great Britain which we do not love,--the one
standing for righteousness, freedom, and progress; the other allied
with cruelty, injustice, and bigotry.
After studying British finance, political corruption, the army, and
the system of purchasing commissions then in vogue, and visiting the
homes of the Pilgrims in Lincolnshire, and the county fairs, the land
of Burns, and the manufactures of Scotland, Carleton turned his face
towards Paris. Before leaving the home land of his fathers, he dined
and spent an afternoon with the great commoner, John Bright. Mrs.
Coffin accompanied him and enjoyed Mrs. Bright, who was as modest,
unassuming, kind, and genial as her husband. John Bright listened with
intense interest and profound emotion to Carleton's personal
reminiscences of Mr. Lincoln, and of his entrance into Richmond.
Before leaving for France, on the 5th of September, Carleton wrote:
"The thunder of Gettysburg is shaking the thrones of Europe. English
workmen give cheers for the United States. The people of Germany
demand unity. Louis Napoleon, to whom Maximilian had said, 'Mexico and
the Confederacy are two cherries on one stalk,' was already sending
steamers to Vera Cruz, to bring back his homesick soldiers. Monarchy
will then be at an end in North America." Maximilian's wife was in
France, expecting soon to see her husband. In a few weeks, the corpse
of the bandit-emperor, sustained by French bayonets and shot by
Mexican republicans, and an insane widow startled Carleton, as it
startled the world.
The _Journal_ correspondent passed over to Napoleon's realm, spending
a few weeks in Paris, Dijon, and other French cities. In Switzerland
he enjoyed mightily the home of Calvin and its eloquent memories, Mont
Blanc and its associated splendors, the mountains, the glaciers, the
passes, and valleys, and, above all, his study of the politics of "The
freest people of Europe." How truly prophetic was Carleton, when he
wrote, "This republic, instead of being wiped off from the map, ...
will more likely become a teacher to Europe,"--a truth never so large
as now. He rode over the Spluegen pass, and saw Milan and Verona. From
the city of Romeo and Juliet, he took a carriage in order to visit and
study, with the eye of an experienced engineer and veteran, the
details of the battle of Custozza, where, on June 24th, 1866, the
Archduke Albert gained the victory over the Italian La Marmora.
He reached Venice October 13th. In the old city proudly called the
Queen of the Adriatic, and for centuries a republic, until ground
under the heel of Austrian despotism, Carleton arrived in time to see
the people almost insane with joy. The Austrian garrison was marching
out and the Italian troops were moving in. The red caps and shirts of
the Garibaldians brightened the throng in the streets, and the old
stones of Venice, bathed in salt water at their bases, were deluged
with bunting, flags, and rainbow colors. When King Victor Emmanuel
entered, the scenes of joy and gladness, the sounds of music, the
gliding gondolas, the illuminated marble palaces and humble homes, the
worshipping hosts of people in the churches, and the singing bands in
the streets, taxed to the utmost even Carleton's descriptive powers.
The burden of joy everywhere was "Italy is one from the Alps to the
Adriatic, and Venice is free."
Turning his attention to Rome, where French bayonets were still
supporting the Pope's temporal throne, Carleton discussed a question
of world-wide interest,--the impending loss of papal power and its
probable results. Within a fortnight after his letter on this subject,
the last echoes of the French drum-beat and bugle-blast had died away.
The red trousers of the Emperor's servants were numbered among Rome's
mighty list of things vanished. In the Eternal City itself, Carleton
attended mass at St. Peter's, and then re-read and retold the story of
both the Roman and the Holy Roman Empire. Some of his happiest days
were passed in the studios of American artists and sculptors. There he
saw, in their beginning of outlines and color, on canvas or in clay,
some of the triumphs of art which now adorn American homes and cities.
Fascinated as he was in Pompeii and in Rome with the relics and
revelations of ancient life, he was even more thrilled by the rapid
strokes of destiny in the modern world. The separation of church and
state was being accomplished while Italy was waking to new life. The
Anabaptists were avenged and justified.
About the middle of February, Carleton was again in Paris, seeing the
Exposition and the Emperor of the French and his family. Then crossing
to England, he heard a great debate over the Reform measures, in which
Disraeli, Lowe, Bright, and Gladstone spoke. The results were the
humiliation of Disraeli, and the break-up of the British ministry.
Re-crossing the channel to Paris, he spent eight weeks studying the
Exposition and the country, writing many letters to the _Journal_.
After examination of the great fortresses in the Duchy of Luxembourg,
he went into Germany, tarrying at Heidelberg, Nuremberg, Munich, and
Vienna. He then passed down "the beautiful blue Danube" to Buda-Pesth,
where, having been given letters and commendations from J. L. Motley,
the historian of the Netherlands and our minister at Vienna, he saw
the glittering pageant which united the crowns of Austria and Hungary.
This was performed in the parish church in Buda, an edifice built over
six hundred years ago. It had been captured by the Turks and made into
a mosque, where the muezzin supplanted the priest in calls of prayer.
After the great victory won by John Sobieski, cross and altar were
restored. Here, amid all the glittering and bewildering splendor of
tapestry, banners, dynastic colors, national flags, jewels, and
innumerable heraldic devices, "the iron crown of Charlemagne," granted
by Pope Sylvester II. in the year 1000, and called "the holy and
apostolic crown," was placed by Count Andrassy upon the head of the
Emperor Francis Joseph. The ruler of Austria practically acknowledged
the righteousness of the revolution of 1849, and his own mistake, when
he accepted the crown from the once rebel militia-leader and then
exiled Andrassy, having already given to the Hungarians the popular
rights which they clamored for. Most gracious act of all, Francis
Joseph contributed, with the Empress (whom Mrs. Coffin thought the
handsomest woman in Europe), 100,000 ducats ($200,000) to the widows
and children of those who were killed in 1849, while fighting against
the empire. At this writing, December, 1896, we read of the unveiling,
at Kormorn, of a monument to Klapka, the insurgent general of 1849.
In Berlin, Carleton saw a magnificent spectacle,--the review of the
Prussian army in welcome to the Czar. He studied the battle-fields of
Leipsig and Lutzen, and the ever continuing gamblers' war at
Weisbaden. Then sailing down the Rhine, he revisited Paris to see the
distribution of prizes at the Exposition, the array of Mohammedan and
Christian princes, and the grand review of the French troops in honor
of the Sultan. In England once more, he looked upon the great naval
review of the British fleets of iron and wood. He studied the
ritualistic movement. He attended the meeting of anti-ritualists at
Salisbury, where, midway between matchless spire and preancient
Cromlech, one can meditate on the evolution of religion. He was at the
Methodist Conference of Great Britain in the city of Bristol, whence
sailed the Cabots for the discovery of America, now four centuries
ago. He read the modern lamentations of Thomas Carlyle, who, in his
article, "Shooting the Niagara and After," foretold the death of good
government and religion in the triumph of democracy.
At the British Scientific Association's gathering in Dundee, he heard
Murchison, Baker, Lyell, Thomson, Tyndall, Lubbock, Rankine,
Fairbairn, and young Professor Herschell. He was at the Social Science
Congress held in Belfast, meeting Lord Dufferin, Dr. James McCosh,
Goldwin Smith, and others. Two months more were given to study and
observation in the countries Ireland, England and Scotland, Holland
and Belgium. Of his frequent letters to the _Journal_ a score or so
were written especially to and for young people, though all of them
interested every class of readers. He kept a keen watch upon movements
in Italy and in Spain, where the Carlists' uprising had begun.
In this manner, nearly sixteen months slipped away in parts of Europe,
and amid scenes so remote as to require hasty journeys and much
travelling. Carleton received further directions to continue his
journey around the world. He was to visit the Holy Land, Egypt, India,
China, and Japan, to cross the Pacific, and to traverse the United
States as far as possible on the Pacific railway, then in course of
construction. This was indeed "A New Voyage Around the World," not
exactly in the sense of Defoe; but was, as Carleton called it in the
book describing it, which he afterwards wrote, "Our New Way Around the
World." No one before his time, so far as known, had gone around the
globe, starting eastward from America, crossing continents, and using
steam as the motor of transportation on land and water all the way.
Making choice of three routes to the Orient, Carleton left Paris
December 9th, 1867, for Marseilles. He found much of the country
thitherward nearly as forbidding as the hardest regions of New
Hampshire. The climate was indeed easier than in the Granite State,
but from November to March the people suffered more from cold than the
Yankees. They lived in stone houses and fuel was dear. At Marseilles
the vessels were packed so closely in docks, that the masts and spars
reminded him of the slopes of the White Mountains after fire had swept
the foliage away. Although innumerable tons of grain were imported
here, he saw no elevators or labor saving appliances like those at
Buffalo, which can load or empty ships' holds in a few half hours.
Many of the imports were labelled "Service Militaire," and were for
the support of that army of eight hundred thousand men, which the
impoverished French people, even with a decreasing population, were so
heavily taxed to support. Carleton noticed that merchants of France
were planning to lay their hands on the East and win its trade.