THE WRITER OF HISTORY.
Steeped in the ancestral lore of New England, a student of the origins
of this country, a reader of, and thinker upon, the records of the
past, having seen history in its making, and, as it were, in the very
furnace and crucibles of war, having traversed the globe along the
line of its highest civilizations, having watched at the cradle of our
own nobler empire in the great West, Carleton determined to write for
the young people of this nation the story of liberty, and of liberty's
highest expression, "The American People and Their Government."
It was not a sudden impulse that came to him, it was no accident, but
the result of a deliberate purpose. Opportunity and leisure now made
the way perfectly clear. He had long been of the opinion that the
events of history might be presented vividly to the youthful mind in
a series of pictures. He would portray the experiences of individuals
whom the reader has been led to regard as persons, and not merely
parts of an army, a church, and a government. He believed this was a
better method, with young readers at least, than that usually followed
by the majority of writers of history. To form his style, he read and
re-read the very best English authors. He studied Burke especially,
and ascribed to him the strongest single literary influence he had
known. Years afterwards, when (like the swords of the Japanese
steel-smiths, Muramasa and Sanemori, which never would rest quietly in
their scabbards, but always kept flying out) Carleton's books were
nearly always usefully absent from the shelves, the librarian at
Dover, New Hampshire, in surprise made criticism to his face of
Carleton's own statement about Burke. She remarked to him that she had
not thought of Burke as a model for a person intending to write
fiction,--referring, doubtless, to "Winning His Way," and "Caleb
Krinkle."
Carleton replied that the strong, fine style of the British author
gave him the best possible lesson in presenting a subject. "Whether
writing fiction or fact, if the author wished to make and retain an
impression on the mind of his reader, let him study Burke." At a
particular time, as the chief librarian of a large public library told
him, Carleton's books were more largely read than those of any living
writer in the world.
"Caleb Krinkle" is a story of American life in which the characters,
the habits of thought, and the rich details of daily routine are given
with minuteness, accuracy of observation, and genuine sympathy. The
landscape is that of New Hampshire, but the outlook is far beyond, for
the author's purpose is to sow broadcast the seeds of true dignity,
manliness, and republicanism. The hero is a good one, but of no
uncommon type.
The young Yankee finds the battle of life hard, but also fights it
bravely, and, in good time, conquers. The secondary actor, Dan
Dishaway, is a wholly original character, a tin peddler with little
education and unpolished manners, but with a loyal heart, and a
simple, unconscious character that impressed and influenced the whole
village. The teacher of teachers, to him, was his mother. The very
foundation of the story is the value of human character, apart from
the accidents of birth or position. The plot develops rapidly, and is
illustrated by exciting incidents of river freshets, shipwreck on one
of the great lakes, and a prairie fire. Love is shown to be no
respecter of persons, but is found faithful, pure, and delicate, in
people who never heard of cosmic philosophy, or the term "altruism,"
who knew not the classics, who went sadly astray in grammar. Without
direct preaching, the story shows that the way of the transgressor is
hard, and that the hardness is not lessened by worldly prosperity.
The critic quickly notices, however, that Carleton is not so
successful in his pictures of city life as those of the country.
Nevertheless, in modern days, when the population of Boston consists
not of people born there, but chiefly of newcomers from the country,
from Canada, or from Europe, Carleton was all the more a helper. An
American who has mastered French, even though not perfect in
pronunciation, may be a better teacher of it than a native.
Bertha Wayland's success in society, and her Boston life, made a very
attractive portion of the book to a large number of readers at rural
firesides. For who in New England, and still young, does not hope some
day to live in sight of the golden dome? In later years, "Caleb
Krinkle" was republished, with some revision and in much handsomer
form, as "Dan of Millbrook," by Estes and Lauriat, of Boston.
His next work, which still remains the most popular of all, the one
least likely to suffer by the lapse of time, and the last probably to
reach oblivion, because it appeals to young Americans in the whole
nation, is his "Boys of '76." The first lore to which Carleton
listened after his infant lips had learned prayer, and "line upon
line, and precept upon precept," from the Bible, was from his soldier
grandfathers. These around the open fireplace told the story of
Revolutionary marches, and camps, and battles. Nothing could be more
real to the open-eyed little boy than the narratives related by the
actors themselves, especially when he could ask questions, and get
full light and explanation.
For an author who would write on the beginnings of the Revolution, no
part of our country is so rich in historic sites, and so superbly
equipped with libraries, museums, relics, and memorials, as the valley
of the Charles River, in Massachusetts. In this region lies Boston,
where not the first, though nearly the first, blood of the Revolution
was shed; where were hung for Paul Revere the lantern-beacons; which
was first the base of operations against Bunker Hill; and which
afterward suffered siege, and served as the outlet for the Tories to
Canada, when Howe and his fleet sailed away. Across the river is the
battle-road to Lexington, now nobly marked with monumental stones and
tablets, and, further on, Lexington itself, with its blood-consecrated
green and inscribed boulder, its museum, and its well-marked historic
spots. Beyond is Concord, with its bridge, well-site, and bronze
minuteman. From the crest of the green mound on Bunker Hill, at
Charlestown, rises the granite monument seen from all the country
round. Near to Boston, is Cambridge with its university, Washington's
elm, and manifold Revolutionary memories; while on the southeast, on
the rising ground close at hand, and now part of the municipality
itself, are Dorchester Heights, once fortified and bristling with
cannon. Within easy reach by rail, water, or wheel, are places already
magnetic to the tourist and traveller, because their reputations have
been richly enlarged by poet, artist, romancer, and historian. Along
the coast, or slightly inland, stood the humble homes of the ancestors
of Grant and Lincoln, and but a little further to the southeast is the
"holy ground" of Plymouth.
Even more important to the historiographer are the amazing treasures
of books and records gathered in the twin cities on the Charles,
making a wealth of material for American history, unique in the United
States. What wonder, then, that the overwhelming majority of American
writers of history have wrought here? Nor need we be surprised that,
both in their general tone and in the bulk of their writing, they have
portrayed less the real history of the United States than the history
of New England,--with a glance at parts adjacent and an occasional
distant view of regions beyond.
Graphic, powerful, and popular as are Carleton's books, he does not
wholly escape the limitations of his heredity and environment.
Generous as he is, and means to be, to other States, nationalities,
and sections in the United States, beyond those in the six Eastern
States, the student more familiar with the great constructive forces
of the Middle, the Southern, and the Western States, who knows the
power of Princeton as well as of Harvard, of Dutch as well as of
Yankee, without necessarily contesting Carleton's statements of fact,
is inclined to discern larger streams of influence, and to give
greater credit to sources and developments of power, and to men and
institutions west and south of the Hudson River, than does Carleton in
his books.
Yet to the millions of his readers, history seemed to be written in a
new way. It was different from anything to which they had been
accustomed. Peter Parley had, indeed, in his time, created a fresh
style of historical narration, which captivated unnumbered readers by
its simple and direct method of presenting subjects known in their
general outline, but not made of sufficient human or present interest.
These works had suited exactly the stage of culture which the majority
of young people in our country had reached when the Parley books were
written. It is doubtful, however, whether those same works would have
achieved a like success in the last three decades of this century.
Education had been so much improved, schools were so much more
general, the development of the press and cheap reading matter was so
great, that in the enlargement of view consequent upon the successful
issue of the great civil war, a higher order of historical narration
was a necessity. He who would win the new generation needed to be
neither a professional scholar, a man of research, nor a genius, but
he must know human nature well, and be familiar with great national
movements, the causes and the channels of power. This equipment,
together with a style fashioned, indeed, in the newspaper office, but
deepened and enriched by the study of language, of rhetoric, and of
masterly literary methods, as seen in the best English prose, made
Carleton the elect historian for the new generation, and the educator
of the youth of our own and the coming century.
Carleton is a maker of pictures. He turns types into prismatics, and
paragraphs into paintings. He lifts the past into the present. The
event is seen as though it happened yesterday, and the persons, be
they kings or plough-boys, appear as if living to-day. Their hearts,
affections, motives, thoughts, are just like those of men and women in
our time. Their clothing and way of living may be different, but they
are the sort of human beings with which we are acquainted. Better yet,
it is not only the men with crowns on their heads, or the women who
wear jewelled and embroidered robes, or riders locked up in steel, or
men under tonsure or tiara, that did great things and made the world
move. Carleton shows how the milk-maid, the wagoner, the blacksmith,
the spinster with the distaff, the rower of the boat, the common
soldier on foot, the student in his cell, and the peddler with his
pack, all had a part in working out the wonderful story.
Had a part, did I say? No, in Carleton's story he _has_ a part. No
writer more frequently and with keener effect uses the historical
present. Compare Carleton's straightforward narration and marching
chapters with the average British writer of history, and at once we
see the difference between chroniclers,--who give such enormous space
to kings, queens and ecclesiastical and military figureheads, almost
to the extent (in the eye of the philosophic student, at least) of
caricature,--and this modern scribe, to whom every true man is a
sovereign, while a king is no more than a man. While well able to
measure personalities and forces, to divine causes, and to discern and
emphasize in the foreground of his pictures, even as an artist does,
the important figure, yet Carleton is never at a loss to do this
because the real hero may be of humble birth or in modest apparel.
In travelling, the little child from the car window will notice many
things in the landscape and about the houses passed, belonging to his
lowly world of experience, no higher than the top of a yardstick, to
which the average adult is blind. Carleton looked with the child's eye
over history's field. He brings before the front lights of his stage
what will at once catch the attention of the young people, to whom the
deeper things of life may be invisible mystery. Yet, Carleton's books
are always enjoyable to the mature man, for he discerns beneath the
vivid picturing and simple rhetoric, so pleasing to the child, a
practical knowledge and a philosophic depth which shows that the
writer is a master of the art of reading men and events as well as of
interpreting history.
Mr. Coffin's more serious productions are his arguments before
Congressional and State legislative committees; his pamphlets on the
labor question, railways, and patents; his addresses before general
audiences and gatherings of scientific, commercial, and religiously
interested men; his life of Garfield, as well as that of Lincoln; and
those voluminous contributions made to the daily or weekly press, and
to magazines, and to reviews. Editors often turned to him for that
kind of light and knowledge that the public needed when grave issues
were before the church, the city, the commonwealth, the nation. In
speaking or writing thus, he used a less ornate style, less fervid
rhetoric, and spoke or wrote with direct, business-like precision. In
a word, he suited his style to the work in hand. But, because he
attracted and delighted, while teaching, his young readers, that
critic must be blind or unappreciative who cannot see also the
purpose of a master mind. The mature intellect of Carleton which
animates and informs the pretty stones, educated also up and on to the
nobler heights of historical reading.
Strictly speaking, in the light of the more rigid canons of historical
knowledge and the research demanded in our days, and when tested by
stern criticism, Mr. Coffin was not a historical scholar of the first
order. Nor did he make any such pretension. No one, certainly not
himself, would dream of ranging his name in the same line with those
of the great masters, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, or Parkman,--men of
wealth and leisure, as well as of ability. He painted his pictures
without going into the chemistry of colors, or searching into the
mysteries of botany, to be absolutely sure as to the classification of
the fibres which made his canvas. His first purpose was to make an
impression, and his second, to fix that impression inerasably on the
mind. For this, he trusted largely the work of those who had lived
before him, and he made diligent and liberal use of materials already
accumulated. He would paint his own picture after making the drawings
and arranging his tints, perspective, lights, and shadows.
Nevertheless, Mr. Coffin was not a man accustomed to take truth at
second hand. His own judgment was singularly sane, and he was not
accustomed to receive statements and to devour them unflavored by the
salt of criticism. Four years of the pursuit of letters amid arms,
while passion was hottest, and men were too excited to care for the
exact truth, had trained this cool-headed scribe to critical treatment
of rumors and reports. Furthermore, he knew the value of first
authorities and of contemporary writers and eye-witnesses. He
discounted much of the writing done after the war in controversy, for
political ends, for personal vanity, or to cover up damaged
reputations. He knew both the heating and the cooling processes of
time. I remember when, about 1890, after he had finished making a set
of scrap-books of soldiers' letters, reminiscences and newspaper
reports of the battles of the war, how heartily he laughed when, with
twinkling eyes, he remarked on the tendency of some old soldiers "to
remember a good deal that never happened." As his experience with
the pen deepened, he became more rigid in his requirements as to the
quality of the information which his books gave. Those who have read
especially his four later volumes on the war, will note that at the
end of each chapter he gives the sources of authority for his
statements and judgments. In a word, Carleton was a man who, having
mapped the irrigated country and the stream's mouth, resolutely set
his face towards the fountains to find them. There is an increasing
exactness and care in finish, as his works progressed.
The decade from 1870 to 1880 was a busy one for this author, not only
in his home study, in the Boston libraries, but also with the pen and
with voice. The formation of the Grand Army of the Republic, and the
establishments of Posts all over the country, and especially in the
Northern States, created a demand for lectures on the war. The
soldiers themselves wished to study the great subject as a whole,
while their wives and children and friends were only too glad to
support the movement for the gathering of Post libraries, or the
collection in the town public libraries of books relating to the war.
The younger generation needed instruction as to causes, as well as to
results. Carleton was everywhere a favorite, because of his
personality, as well as of his wide and profound acquaintance, from
actual observation, of the great movements which consolidated nations.
Years before becoming a war correspondent, Carleton had longed to be
an orator who could sway thousands by the magic of his eloquence. More
than once, after hearing Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, Wendell
Phillips, and such masters of audiences, he would be unable to sleep,
so excited was he by what he had heard, and still more by the power
evinced in a single mind moving the wills of thousands. In such hours
he longed to be a great orator, and thought no sacrifice too great to
make in order to achieve success. As his own opportunities for public
speaking multiplied, he became a fluent and convincing speaker, with
clear ideas, picturesque language, and the power of dramatic
antithesis. He had that gift of making pictures to the mind by which a
speaker can turn the ears of his auditors into eyes. His tall form,
luminous face, impressive sincerity, and contagious earnestness made
delighted hearers, especially among the soldiers, who everywhere
hailed him as their defender, their faithful historian, and their
steadfast friend. To take the hand of Carleton, after his address or
lecture, was a privilege for which men and women strove as a high
honor, and which children, now grown men and women, remember for a
lifetime.
Nevertheless, in the sound judgment of the critic, Carleton would not
be reckoned, as he himself knew well, in the front rank of orators.
Neither in overmastering grace of person, in power of unction, in
magnetic conquest of the mind and will, was he preeminent. When,
leaving the flowery meadows of description or rising from the
table-land of noble sentiment and inspiring precepts, he attempted to
rise in soaring eloquence, his oratorical abilities did not match the
grandeur of his thought or the splendor of his diction.
In the course of his career as a speaker, he delivered at least two
thousand lectures and addresses on formal occasions, besides
unnumbered off hand speeches. Being one of those full men, it was of
him that it could be said, _Semper paratus_. On whatever subject he
spoke, he was sure to make it interesting. Besides reports of his
addresses and orations in the newspapers, several of the most
important have been published in pamphlet form. At the centennial
celebration at Boscawen, N. H., on the 4th of July, and at the 45th
anniversary of the settlement of Rev. Edward Buxton, at the 50th
anniversary of the Historical-Genealogical Society of Boston, and at
Nantucket, before the Bostonian Society and at the Congregational
Clubs, before Press Associations, Legislative and Congressional
Committees, on Social and Labor questions, and at the Congress held in
Chicago for the promotion of international commerce between the
countries of North and South America, Carleton reached first an
audience, and then, through the types, wider circles of readers.