PRESS, LITERATURE AND ART.
However much of ability may have been engaged upon it, the press of the
South--up to the events just preceding the war--had scarcely been that
great lever which it had elsewhere become. It was rather a local
machine than a great engine for shaping and manufacturing public
opinion.
One main cause for this, perhaps, was the decentralization of the
South. Tracts of country surrounding it looked up only to their chief
city, and thence drew their information, and even their ideas on the
topics of the day. But there it ceased. The principal trade of the
South went directly to the North; and in return were received northern
manufactures, northern books and northern ideas. Northern newspapers
came to the South; and except for matters of local information, or
local policy, a large class of her readers drew their inspiration
chiefly from journals of New York--catholic in their scope as
unreliable in their principles.
These papers were far ahead of those of the South--except in very rare
instances--in their machinery for collecting news and gossip; for
making up a taking whole; and in the no less important knowledge of
manipulating their circulation and advertising patronage. The newspaper
system of the North had been reduced to a science. Its great object was
_to pay_; and to accomplish this it must force its circulation in
numbers and in radius, and must become the medium of communicating with
far distant points. Great competition--application of _il faut bien
vivre_--drove the drones from the field and only the real workers were
allowed to live.
In the South the case was entirely different. Even in the large cities,
newspapers were content with a local circulation; they had a
little-varying clientele which looked upon them as infallible; and
their object was to consider and digest ideas, rather than to
propagate, or manufacture them.
The deep and universal interest in questions immediately preceding the
war, somewhat changed in the scope of the southern press. People in all
sections had intense anxiety to know what others, in different
sections, felt on vital questions that agitated them; and papers were
thus forced, as it were, into becoming the medium for interchange of
sentiment.
An examination of the leading journals of the South at this period
will show that--whatever their mismanagement and want of business
success--there was no lack of ability in their editorial columns. Such
organs as the New Orleans _Delta_, Mobile _Advertiser_, Charleston
_Mercury_ and Richmond _Examiner_ and _Whig_ might have taken rank
alongside of the best-edited papers of the country. Their literary
ability was, perhaps, greater than that of the North; their discussions
of the questions of the hour were clear, strong and scholarly, and
possessed, besides, the invaluable quality of honest conviction. Unlike
the press of the North, the southern journals were not hampered by any
business interests; they were unbiased, unbought and free to say what
they thought and felt. And say it they did, in the boldest and plainest
of language.
Nowhere on the globe was the freedom of the press more thoroughly
vindicated than in the Southern States of America. And during the whole
course of the war, criticisms of men and measures were constant and
outspoken. So much so, indeed, that in many instances the operations of
the Government were embarrassed, or the action of a department
commander seriously hampered, by hostile criticism in a paper. In naval
operations, and the workings of the Conscript Law, especially was this
freedom felt to be injurious; and though it sprang from the perfectly
pure motive of doing the best for the cause--though the smallest
southern journal, printed on straw paper and with worn-out type, was
above purchase, or hush money--still it might have been better at times
had gag-law been applied.
For, with a large proportion of the population of different sections
gathered in huge army communities, their different newspapers reached
the camps and were eagerly devoured. Violent and hostile criticisms of
Government--even expositions of glaring abuses--were worse than useless
unless they could be remedied; and when these came to be the text of
camp-talk, they naturally made the soldiers think somewhat as they did.
Now, the greatest difficulty with that variously-constituted army, was
to make its individuals the perfect machines--unthinking, unreasoning,
only obeying--to which the perfect soldier must be reduced. "Johnny
Reb" _would_ think; and not infrequently, he would talk. The newspapers
gave him aid and comfort in both breaches of discipline; and in some
instances, their influence against the conscription and impressments
was seriously felt in the interior. Still these hostilities had their
origin in honest conviction; and abuses were held up to the light, that
the Government might be made to see and correct them.
The newspapers but reflected the ideas of some of the clearest thinkers
in the land; and they recorded the real and true history of public
opinion during the war. In their columns is to be found the only really
correct and indicative "map of busy life, its fluctuations and its vast
concerns" in the South, during her days of darkness and of trial.
These papers held their own bravely for a time, and fought hard against
scarcity of labor, material and patronage--against the depreciation of
currency and their innumerable other difficulties. Little by little
their numbers decreased; then only the principal dailies of the cities
were left, and these began to print upon straw paper, wall papering--on
any material that could be procured. Cramped in means, curtailed in
size, and dingy in appearance, their publishers still struggled bravely
on for the freedom of the press and the freedom of the South.
Periodical literature--as the vast flood of illustrated and
unillustrated monthlies and weeklies that swept over the North was
misnamed--was unknown in the South. She had but few weeklies; and these
were sturdy and heavy country papers--relating more to farming than to
national matters. Else they were the weekly editions of the city
papers, intended for country consumption. Few monthly magazines--save
educational, religious, or statistical ventures, intended for certain
limited classes, were ever born in the South; and most of those few
lived weakly and not long.
De Bow's _Review_, the _Southern Quarterly_, and the _Literary
Messenger_, were the most noteworthy exceptions. The business interests
of the larger towns supported the first--which, indeed, drew part of
its patronage from the North. Neither its great ability nor the taste
of its clientele availed to sustain the second; and the _Messenger_--long
the chosen medium of southern writers of all ages, sexes and
conditions--dragged on a wearisome existence, with one foot in the
grave for many years, only to perish miserably of starvation during the
war.
But any regular and systematized periodical literature the South never
had. The principal reason doubtless is, that she had not the numerous
class of readers for amusement, who demand such food in the North; and
of the not insignificant class who did indulge in it, nine-tenths--for
one reason, or another, preferred northern periodicals. This is not
altogether unnatural, when we reflect that these latter were generally
better managed and superior in interest--if not in tone--to anything
the South had yet attempted. They were gotten up with all the
appliances of mechanical perfection; were managed with business tact,
and forced and puffed into such circulation as made the heavy outlay
for first-class writers in the end remunerative.
On the contrary, every magazine attempted in the South up to that time
had been born with the seeds of dissolution already in it. _Voluntary
contributions_--fatal poison to any literary enterprise--had been
their universal basis. There was ever a crowd of men and women among
southern populations, who would write anywhere and anything for the
sake of seeing themselves in print. And while there were many able and
accomplished writers available, they were driven off by these
Free-Companions of the quill--preferring not to write in such company;
or, if forced to do it, to send their often anonymous contributions to
northern journals. These two reasons--especially the last--availed to
kill the few literary ventures attempted by more enterprising southern
publishers. The first of these two in a great measure influenced the
scarcity of book-producers, among a people who had really very few
readers among them; and even had the number of these been larger, it
seems essential to the increase of authors that there should be the
constant friction of contact in floating literature.
Good magazines are the nurseries and forcing houses for authors; and
almost every name of prominence in modern literature may be traced back
along its course, as that of magazinist, or reviewer.
The South--whether these reasons for it be just or not, the fact is
patent--had had but few writers of prominence; and in fiction
especially the names that were known could be numbered on one's
fingers. W. Gilmore Simms was at once the father of southern literature
and its most prolific exemplar. His numerous novels have been very
generally read; and, if not placing him in the highest ranks of writers
of fiction, at least vindicate the claims of his section to force and
originality. He had been followed up the thorny path by many who
stopped half-way, turned back, or sunk forgotten even before reaching
that far.
Few, indeed, of their works ever went beyond their own boundaries; and
those few rarely sent back a record. Exceptions there were, however,
who pressed Mr. Simms hard for his position on the topmost peak; and
most of these adventurous climbers were of the softer sex.
John Esten Cooke had written a very clever novel of the olden society,
called "Virginia Comedians." It had promised a brilliant future, when
his style and method should both ripen; a promise that had not, so far,
been kept by two or three succeeding ventures launched on these
doubtful waters. Hon. Jere Clemens, of Alabama, had commenced a series
of strong, if somewhat convulsive, stories of western character.
"Mustang Gray" and "Bernard Lile," scenting strongly of camp-fire and
pine-top, yet had many advantages over the majority of successful
novels, then engineered by northern publishers. Marion Harland, as her
_nom de plume_ went, was, however, the most popular of southern writers.
Her stories of Virginia home-life had little pretension to the higher
flights of romance; but they were pure, graphic and not unnatural
scenes from every-day life. They introduced us to persons we knew, or
might have known; and the people read them generally and liked them.
Mrs. Ritchie (Anna Cora Mowatt) was also prolific of novels, extracted
principally from her fund of stage experience. Piquant and bright, with
a dash of humor and more than a dash of sentiment, Mrs. Ritchie's books
had many admirers and more friends. The South-west, too, had given us
the "Household of Bouverie" and "Beulah;" and it was reserved for Miss
Augusta Evans, author of the latter, to furnish the _only_ novel--almost
the only book--published within the South during continuance of the
war. The only others I can now recall--emanating from southern pens and
entirely made in the South--were Mrs. A. de V. Chaudron's translation
of Muelbach's "Joseph II.," and Dr. Wm. Sheppardson's collection of "War
Poetry of the South."
This is not an imposing array of prose writers, and it may be
incomplete; but it is very certain that there are not many omissions.
In poetry, the warmer clime of the South would naturally have been
expected to excel; but, while the list of rhymsters was longer than
Leporello's, the _poets_ hardly exceeded in number the writers of
prose. Thompson, Meek, Simms, Hayne, Timrod and McCord were the few
names that had gone over the border. Up to that time, however, the
South had never produced any great poem, that was to stand _aere
perennius_. But that there was a vast amount of latent poetry in our
people was first developed by the terrible friction of war.
In the dead-winter watches of the camp, in the stricken homes of the
widow and the childless, and in the very prison pens, where they were
crushed under outrage and contumely--the souls of the southrons rose in
song.
The varied and stirring acts of that terrible drama--its trying
suspense and harrowing shocks--its constant strain and privations must
have graven deep upon southern hearts a picture of that time; and there
it will stand forever, distinct--indelible--etched by the mordant of
sorrow!
Where does history show more stirring motives for poetry? Every rood of
earth, moistened and hallowed with sacred blood, sings to-day a noble
dirge, wordless, but how eloquent! No whitewashed ward in yonder
hospital, but has written in letters of life its epic of heroism, of
devotion, and of triumphant sacrifice!
Every breeze that swept from those ravished homes, whence peace and
purity had fled before the sword, the torch and that far
blacker--nameless horror!--each breeze bore upon its wing a pleading
prayer for peace, mingled and drowned in the hoarse notes of a stirring
cry to arms!
But not only did our people feel all this. They spoke it with universal
voice--in glowing, burning words that will live so long as strength and
tenderness and truth shall hold their own in literature.
For reasons thus roughly sketched, no great and connected effort had
been made at the South before the war. Though there had been sudden and
fitful flashes of rare warmth and promise, they had died before their
fire was communicated. That the fire was there, latent and still, they
bore witness; but it needed the rough and cruel friction of the war to
bring it to the surface.
What the southron felt he spoke; and out of the bitterness of his trial
the poetry of the South was born. It leaped at one bound from the
overcharged brain of our people--full statured in its stern defiance
mailed in the triple panoply of truth.
There was endless poetry written in the North on the war; and much of
it came from the pens of men as eminent as Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier
and Holmes. But they wrote far away from the scenes they spoke
of--comfortably housed and perfectly secure. The men of the North wrote
with their pens, while the men of the South wrote with their hearts!
A singular commentary upon this has been given us by Mr. Richard Grant
White--himself a member of the committee. In April, 1861, a committee
of thirteen New Yorkers--comprising such names as Julian Verplanck,
Moses Grinnell, John A. Dix and Geo. Wm. Curtis--offered a reward of
five hundred dollars for a National Hymn! What hope, feeling,
patriotism and love of the cause had failed to produce--for the lineal
descendants of the "Star Spangled Banner" were all in the South,
fighting under the bars instead of the stripes--was to be drawn out by
the application of a greenback poultice! The committee advertised
generally for five hundred dollars' worth of pure patriotism, to be
ground out "in not less than sixteen lines, nor more than forty."
Even with this highest incentive, Mr. White tells us that dozens of
barrelfuls of manuscript were rejected; and not one patriot was found
whose principles--as expressed in his poetry--were worth that much
money! Were it not the least bit saddening, the contemplation of this
attempt to buy up fervid sentiment would be inexpressibly funny.
Memory must bring up, in contrast, that night of 1792 in Strasbourg,
when the gray dawn, struggling with the night, fell upon the pale face
and burning eyes of Rouget de Lisle--as with trembling hand he wrote
the last words of the _Marseillaise_. The mind must revert, in
contrast, to those ravished hearths and stricken homes and decimated
camps, where the South wrought and suffered and sang--sang words that
rose from men's hearts, when the ore of genius fused and sparkled in
the hot blast of their fervid patriotism!
Every poem of the South is a National Hymn!--bought not with dollars,
but with five hundred wrongs and ten times five hundred precious lives!
To one who has not studied the subject, the vast number of southern war
poems would be most surprising, in view of restricted means for their
issue. Every magazine, album and newspaper in the South ran over with
these effusions and swelled their number to an almost countless one.
Many of them were written for a special time, event, or locality; many
again were read and forgotten in the engrossing duties of the hour. But
it was principally from the want of some systematized means of
distribution that most of them were born to blush unseen.
Before my little collection--"South Songs, from the Lays of Later
Days"--went to press, over nineteen hundred poems had accumulated on my
hands! And since that time the number has greatly increased. There were
battle odes, hymns, calls to arms, paeans and dirges and prayers for
peace--many of them good, few of them great; and the vast majority,
alas! wretchedly poor. Any attempted notice of their authors in limits
like this would be sheer failure; and where many did so well, it were
invidious to discriminate. The names of John R. Thompson, James
Randall, Henry Timrod, Paul Hayne, Barron Hope, Margaret Preston, James
Overall, Harry Lyndon Flash and Frank Ticknor had already become
household words in the South, where they will live forever.
Wherever his people read anything, the classic finish of his "Latane,"
the sweet caress of his "Stuart" and the bugle-blast of his "Coercion"
and "Word with the West," had assured John R. Thompson's fame. The
liltful refrain of "Maryland, my Maryland" echoed from the Potomac to
the Gulf; and the clarion-call James R. Randall so nobly used--"There's
Life in the Old Land Yet!"--warmed every southern heart, by the dead
ashes on its hearth. Who does not remember "Beechenbrook," that pure
Vestal in the temple of Mars? Every tear of sympathy that fell upon its
pages was a jewel above rubies, in the crown of its gentle author.
Paul Hayne had won already the hearts of his own readers; and had
gained transatlantic meed, in Tennyson's declaration that he was "the
sonneteer of America!" And the yearning sorrow in all eyes that looked
upon the fresh mound, above what was mortal of tender Henry Timrod, was
more eloquent of worth than costly monument, or labored epitaph.
But not only the clang of action and the freedom of stirring scenes
produced the southern war-poems. Camp Chase and forts Warren and
Lafayette contributed as glowing strains as any written. Those grim
bastiles held the bodies of their unconquered inmates; while their
hearts lived but in the memory of those scenes, in which their fettered
hands were debarred further portion. Worn down by confinement, hunger
and the ceaseless pressure of suspense; weakened by sickness and often
oppressed by vulgar indignity--the spirit of their cause still lingered
lovingly around them; and its bright gleams warmed and lighted the
darkest recesses of their cells.
That bugle blast, "Awake and to horse, my brothers!", Teackle Wallis
sent from the walls of Warren, when he was almost prostrated by
sickness and mental suffering. Another poem, more mournful but with a
beautiful thought of hope beyond, comes from that dismal prison-pen,
Camp Chase. Colonel W. S. Hawkins, a brave Tennesseean, who was held
there two long years, still kept up heart and ministered to his
fellow-sufferers day and night. The close of the war alone released
him, to drag his shattered frame to "his own, fair sunny land," and lay
it in the soil he loved so well. But he has left a living monument; and
the tender pathos of "The Hero without a Name"--and the flawless
poetical gem that closes his "Last of Earth," will be remembered as
long as the sacrifices of their noble author. The pent walls of other
military prisons sent forth plaintive records of misery, as well as
stirring strains of hope unconquered; but the two here named are easily
first of the rebel-prisoner poets.
Dirges for the great dead became a popular form, in which the spirit of
southern song poured itself out. I had in my collection no fewer than
forty-seven monodies and dirges on Stonewall Jackson; some dozens on
Ashby and a score on Stuart. Some of these were critically good; all of
them high in sentiment; but Flash's "Jackson"--heretofore quoted, when
noting that irremediable loss--stands incomparably above the rest.
Short, vigorous, completely rounded--it breathes that high spirit of
hope and trust, held by that warrior people; and, not alone the finest
war dirge of the South, it is excelled by no sixteen lines in any
language, for power, lilt and tenderness!
Perhaps Thompson's "Dirge for Ashby," Randall's song of triumph over
dead John Pelham and Mrs. Margaret Preston's "Ashby," may rank
side-by-side next to the "Jackson." The modest author of the last-named
did not claim it, until the universal voice of her people called for
her name; and it is noteworthy that large numbers of war-song writers
hid from their just meed, behind the sheltering anonymous. And the
universal characteristic of this dirge-poetry is not its mournful
tenderness--while nothing could be more touching than that; but its
strong expression of faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice and in the
full atonement of the martyrdom!
The battle-breeze bore back to the writers no sound of weak wailing. It
wafted only the sob of manly grief, tempered by a solemn joyousness;
and--coming from men of many temperaments, amid wide-differing scenes
and circumstance--every monody bears impress of the higher inspiration,
that has its origin far beyond the realm of the narrow house!
Sacred to one and all--in the Dixie of yesterday, in the southern half
of the cemented Union of to-day--is the memory of that past. Sweet and
bitter commingled, as it is, we clasp it to our heart of hearts and
know--that were it bitterer a thousand fold--it is ours still! So I may
not leave the field of southern song, unnoting its noblest strain--its
funeral hymn! Father Ryan's "Conquered Banner" is so complete in
fulfillment of its mission, that we can not spare one word, while yet
no word is wanting! Every syllable there finds it echo far down in
every southern heart. Every syllable has added significance, as coming
from a man of peace;--a priest of that church which ever held forth
free and gentle hand to aid the cause of struggling freedom!
In hottest flashings of the fight; in toilsome marches of winter; in
fearful famine of the trenches--the Catholic soldiers of the
Confederacy ever acted the motto of the Douglas; their deeds ever
said--"Ready! aye, ready!"
And, in fetid wards of fever hospital; in field-tents, where the busy
knife shears through quivering flesh; on battle-ground, where shattered
manhood lies mangled almost past semblance of itself; at hurried
burial, where gory blanket, or rough board, makes final rest for some
"Hero without a name;"--there ever, and ever tender and tireless, the
priest of Rome works on his labor of love and consolation! And the
gentlest daughter of the eldest church was there as well. All southern
soldiers were brothers, in her eyes; children of the One Father. And
that noble band of Sisters of Mercy--to which our every woman belonged;
giving light and hope to the hospital, life itself to the cause--that
band knew no confines of ministry--no barriers of faith, which made
charity aught but one common heritage!
Over the border, too; in struggling Maryland, in leaguered Missouri,
and far into the North, the Catholic clergy were friends of the
southern cause. They ceased never openly to defend its justice; quietly
to aid its sympathizers. They helped the self-exiled soldier to bear
unaccustomed hardships, on the one side; carried to his lonely mother,
on the other, tidings of his safety, or his glory, that "caused the
heart of the widow to sing for joy!"
Fitting, then, it was that a father of that church should chant the
requiem for the dead cause, he had loved and labored for while living;
that Father Ryan should bless and bury its conquered banner, when the
bitter day came that saw it "furled forever."
But is that proud flag--with the glory and the pride wrought into its
folds, by suffering, honor and endurance unexcelled--really "furled
forever?" The dust of centuries may sift upon it, but the moth and the
mold may harm it not. Ages it may lie, furled and unnoted; but in her
own good time, historic Justice shall yet unfold and throw it to the
breeze of immortality; pointing to each glorious rent and to each holy
drop that stains it!
The war-poetry of the South has been dwelt upon, perhaps, at too great
length. But it was, in real truth, the literature of the South. To sum
it up may be repeated, after a lapse of twenty-five years--that
sentence from the preface to my "South Songs," which raised such ire
among irreconcilables of the southern press:--"In prose of all kinds,
the South stood still, during the war; perhaps retrograded. But her
best aspiration, 'lisped in numbers, for the numbers came!'"
Even then her poetry proved that there was life--high, brave life--in
the old land yet; even then it gave earnest that, when the bitter
struggle for bread gave time for thought, reason and retrospect,
southern literature would rise, in the might of a young giant, and
shake herself wholly free from northern domination and convention.
In art and her twin sister, music, the South displayed taste and
progress truly remarkable in view of the absorbing nature of her
duties. Like all inhabitants of semi-tropic climes, there had ever been
shown by her people natural love and aptitude for melody. While this
natural taste was wholly uncultivated--venting largely in plantation
songs of the negroes--in districts where the music-master was
necessarily abroad, it had reached high development in several of the
large cities. Few of these were large enough, or wealthy enough, to
support good operas, which the wealth of the North frequently lured to
itself; but it may be recalled that New Orleans was genuinely enjoying
opera, as a necessary of life, long before New York deemed it essential
to study bad translations of librettos, in warmly-packed congregations
of thousands.
Mobile, Charleston, Savannah and other cities also had considerable
latent music among their amateurs; happily not then brought to the
surface by the fierce friction of poverty. And what was the musical
talent of the Capital, has elsewhere been hinted. When the tireless
daughters of Richmond had worked in every other way, for the soldiers
themselves, they organized a system of concerts and dramatic evenings
for benefit of their families. At these were shown evidences of
individual excellence, truly remarkable; while their average displayed
taste and finish, which skilled critics declared would compare
favorably with any city in the country.
The bands of the southern army--so long as they remained existent as
separate organizations--were indisputably mediocre, when not
atrociously bad. But it must be recalled that there was little time to
practice, even in the beginning; literally no chance to obtain new
music, or instruments; and that the better class of men--who usually
make the best musicians--always preferred the musket to the bugle. Nor
was there either incentive to good music, or appreciation for it, among
the masses of the fighters. The drum and fife were the best they had
known "at musters;" and they were good enough still, to fight by. So,
recalling the prowess achieved constantly, in following them, it may be
wondered what possible results might have come from inspiration of a
marine band, a Grafulla, or a Gilmore!
Likewise, in all art matters, the South was at least a decade behind
her northern sisterhood. Climate, picturesque surrounding and natural
warmth of character had awakened artistic sense, in many localities.
But its development was scarcely appreciable, from lack of opportunity
and of exemplar. The majority of southern girls were reared at their
own homes; and art culture--beyond mild atrocities in crayon or
water-color, or terrors bred of the nimble broiderer's needle--was a
myth, indeed. A large number of young men--a majority, perhaps, of
those who could afford it--received education at the North. Such of
these as displayed peculiar aptitude for painting, were usually sent
abroad for perfecting; and returning, they almost invariably settled in
northern cities, where were found both superior opportunities and
larger and better-paying class of patrons. But, when the tug came, not
a few of these errant youths returned, to share it with their native
states; and some of them found time, even in the stirring days of war,
to transfer to canvas some of its most suggestive scenes.
Of them, the majority were naturally about Richmond; not only as the
great army center, but as the center of everything else. Among the
latter were two favorite pupils of Leutze, William D. Washington and
John A. Elder. Both Virginians, by birth and rearing, they had the
great advantage of Dusseldorf training, while they were thoroughly
acquainted and sympathetic with their subjects. Some of Washington's
figure-pieces were very successful; finding ready sale at prices which,
had they continued, might have made him a Meissonnier in pocket, as
well as in local fame. His elaborate picture, illustrating the "Burial
of Latane"--a subject which also afforded _motif_ for Thompson's
most classic poem--attracted wide attention and favorable verdict from
good critics. Mr. Washington also made many and excellent studies of
the bold, picturesque scenery of his western campaigning, along the
Gauley and Kanawha.
Elder's pictures--while, perhaps, less careful in finish than those of
his brother student--were nothing inferior as close character-studies
of soldier-life. Their excellence was ever emphasized by prompt sale;
and "The Scout's Prize" and the "Raider's Return"--both horse and
landscape studies; as well as a ghastly, but most effective picture of
the "Crater Fight" at Petersburg, made the young artist great reputation.
Washington's "Latane" had _post-bellum_ reproduction, by the graver;
becoming popular and widely-known, North and South. The three of
Elder's pictures, named here, were purchased by a member of the British
parliament; but, unfortunately, were destroyed in the fire of the _Dies
irae_. The two first were duplicated, after the peace; and they gained
praise and successful sale in New York.
Mr. Guillam, a French student, worked carefully and industriously, at
his Richmond studio; producing portraits of Lee, Jackson and others;
which, having exaggerated mannerisms of the French school, still
possessed no little merit. A remarkable life-size picture of General
Lee, which produced much comment in Richmond, was done by a deaf-mute,
Mr. Bruce. It was to have been bought by the State of Virginia;
possibly from sympathy with the subject and the condition of the
artist, rather than because of intrinsic merit as an art-work.
But, perhaps, the most strikingly original pictures the war produced
were those of John R. Key, a Maryland lieutenant of engineers; one of
those descendants of "The Star Spangled Banner," early noted in this
chapter. Young, ambitious and but little educated in art, Mr. Key made
up that lack in boldness of subject and treatment. His school was
largely his own; and he went for his subjects far out of the beaten
track, treating them afterward with marked boldness and dash.
"Drewry's Bluff" was a boldly-handled sketch of what the northern army
persisted in calling "Fort Darling." It showed the same venturesome
originality in color-use, the same breadth and fidelity that marked Mr.
Key's later pictures of Sumter, Charleston harbor and scenes on the
James river.
These pictures named in common, with minor sketches from pencils less
known at that time--among them that of William L. Sheppard, now famous
as graphic delineator of southern scenes--illustrate both the details
of the unique war, and the taste and heart of those who made it. Amid
battles, sieges and sorrows, the mimic world behind the Chinese wall
revolved on axis of its own. War was the business of life to every man;
but, in the short pauses of its active strife, were shown both the
taste and talent for the prettiest pursuits of peace. And the
apparently unsurmountable difficulties, through which these were
essayed, makes their even partial development more remarkable still.
The press, the literature and the art of the Southern
Confederacy--looked at in the light of her valor and endurance, shining
from her hundred battle-fields--emphasize strongly the inborn nature of
her people. And, while there were many whom the limits of this sketch
leave unnamed, that sin of omission will not be registered against the
author; for the men of the South--even in minor matters--did their work
for the object and for the cause; not for self-illustration.