1875
LETTERS FROM MRS. SHERMAN AND THE GENERAL--HE TELLS ME HE IS
WRITING HIS LIFE--THE NEGRO QUESTION--A CHATEAU BY LAKE
ZURICH--I WRITE A BOOK ON SWITZERLAND--ALSO WRITE A PLAY--
A CITY OF DEAD KINGS--GO TO LONDON--MEET COLONEL FORNEY--
DINNER AT GEO. W. SMALLEY’S--KATE FIELD--VISIT BOUCICAULT--
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE NEWER SHAKESPEARE--THE BEAUTIFUL MINNIE
WALTON--BREAKFAST AT HER HOME--PROF. FICK--HIS HOUSE BUILT
IN THE OLD ROMAN WALL--LECTURES--HOLIDAYS AT THE CONSULATE--
MRS. CONGRESSMAN KELLEY--A STUDENT COMMERS--BEER DRINKING--
DUKES OF THE REPUBLIC--DUELS--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--
PRUSSIAN ARMY MANEUVERS.
_March 24, 1875._--Received a welcome and gossipy letter from Mrs.
General Sherman. It reads:
“ST. LOUIS, MO., March 12, 1875.
“MY DEAR MAJOR:--Your welcome letter would have been answered
immediately, but I have not been well. My general health is very
good, but the weather this Winter has been exceptionally cold.
“Minnie and her good husband, with whom she is very happy, live
a few squares from us, and we see them every day; Minnie having
learned to be a great walker, during her sojourn in Europe. We
find our circle of friends and acquaintances very large, and we
find that almost as much time has to be devoted to visiting
here as in Washington. We are delightfully situated in the home
we occupied for several years, before we removed to Washington,
and which belongs to us. We have plenty of spare room for
friends, and shall certainly claim a good, long visit from you
and Mrs. Byers and the children, when you return to your own
country. Should the next Administration be Democratic, that may
not be very long hence. Pray remember that I shall expect you.
“I have seen, and admire very much, your poem on ‘The Sea’ in the
‘Navy Journal.’
“I am very glad you were gratified to receive the pretty copy of
your grand song, ‘When Sherman Marched Down to the Sea.’ I shall
have something else to send you soon. The General’s Memoirs are
in the hands of the publishers, Appleton & Co., of N. Y., and
will be out in May. It will be in two volumes, excellent print,
and I am sure you will find it entertaining. I will see that
you get an early copy. Please write to me when you receive it,
without waiting to read it, because I shall be anxious to know
if it has gone safely. Should you not receive it by the last of
May, let me know. Do not buy a copy, for I wish to send you one.
The book begins in 1846 and extends to the close of the war. The
chapters that I have read are _highly interesting_.
“The General seems to be growing older in appearance, but his
health is good, and his spirits are the same; his vivacity has
not sensibly diminished. To-night he is off to the theater, to
see Charlotte Cushman, who makes her last appearance in St.
Louis to-morrow. We have had a great many attractive actors and
actresses here this Winter, and we have yet in store a greater
treat than all. Ristori is playing in New York and will be here
some time during the Spring. The General and Lizzie both admired
Albani exceedingly, and think her a superior actress to Nielson
and as good a singer. I did not see her, as the weather was bad
and my cold was severe during her stay here.
“St. Louis is a city of great commercial enterprise and has a
wonderful future before her. Perhaps you will select this as a
place of residence on your return home. We would be very glad to
have you here.
“I hope Mrs. Byers and the children are well and that your own
health grows stronger. Lizzie joins me in best love to all. She
and I are alone to-night. Elly and Rachel are away at school,
Minnie in a home of her own, and Cumpsy in bed.
“Believe me very truly and warmly your friend,
“ELLEN EWING SHERMAN.”
I find this in my diary. On returning from Italy, we went over to
“Wangensbach” by Kussnacht, on Lake Zurich, to live for a Summer or
two. Wangensbach is an old chateau, or half castle-place, built by the
Knights of St. John in the long, long ago. The walls are three feet
thick, in places more, and there are all sorts of vaulted wine cellars
and mysterious, walled-in places, under the building. The view from the
windows and terrace, of blue lake and snowy mountains, is superb in the
extreme. The chateau is now owned by Conrad Meyer, the Swiss poet and
novelist. It is six miles to my office in the city, and I walk in and
out daily, though I could go on the pretty steamers for a sixpence.
Here, on a May day, “Baby Hélène” came into the world, to gladden eight
sweet years for us.
[Illustration: Wangensbach.--_Page 106._]
Spite of Joaquin Miller’s prognostications at Rome about plays, I was
foolish enough to go ahead, and write a melodrama in blank verse.
Schultz-Beuthen, a friend of Liszt and follower of Wagner, wrote
delightful music for its songs. I went up to Mannheim, and attended the
plays in the old theater where Schiller was once a director, and where
some of his best plays were brought out.
Miller wrote me about this little play of mine as follows:
“N. Y. HOTEL, N. Y., U. S. A., Feb. 11, 1879.
“MY DEAR MR. BYERS:--I remember you with pleasure, remember the
compliment you paid me in preferring a visit to me before the
good Pope.
“I have read your pretty play with pleasure, and have the opinion
of able managers. And I am bound to say, my dear boy, that it is
for the leisure, not for the stage. Like all your work, it is
well done, verses _especially_, but how on earth do you expect
to present five scenes in one act in this swift modern day? All
modern plays have, as a rule, but one scene to the act. Then you
have almost altogether omitted _humor_. Try again. By the by, I
last night brought forth a play. See enclosed bill. It was most
emphatically _damned_. Write me if I can do ought for you, and
believe me
Truly yours,
J. W. MILLER.”
My libretto and the music had pleased Minnie Hauk, the singer, and she
herself thought of using it, but the objection to the Wagner kind of
music came up. Her husband, Count Wartegg, wrote me from Paris: “The
libretto is very interesting, so original, and so well written that its
success is assured.”
[Illustration: Minnie Hauk.--_Page 107._]
Minnie Hauk was just now at the height of her fame. In Scotland and
England she was very popular. At Edinburg the college students one
night, at the close of the opera, unhitched the horses from her
carriage and pulled her to the hotel themselves. I knew her quite
well in Switzerland. In fact, her secret marriage with Count Wartegg
had taken place in my office, and I had been a part of the little
adventure. She was a wife for years before the public found it out. Her
husband had an historic old castle over in the mountains of the Tyrol.
In the meantime I had prepared another little play, and Miss Kate Field
had given them both to Genevieve Ward, who sent me this about them:
“232 RUE DE RIVOLI, PARIS, 26 Dec., 1875.
“DEAR SIR:--I received the plays you confided to Miss Field, and
read them with much pleasure. Pocahontas should be very popular
in America, and I trust you will be fortunate in having it well
produced. The sympathies of the public should also be warmly
enlisted for the ‘Princess Tula,’ a charming character, which
requires delicate handling. Miss Clara Morris would personate it
most charmingly. I regret that they are both lighter than my line
of business, which is the heaviest. I feel none the less honored
that you should have sent them to me, and again thanking you, and
wishing you every success, I remain
Yours truly,
“GENEVIEVE WARD.”
The second drama was not offered to the managers at all, and the two
plays were laid away forever.
While on the Rhine I also visited Speyer, “The City of Dead Kings.” In
one crypt seven German monarchs lie side by side. Next to Westminster
Abbey in London, and the Capuchin Church in Vienna, no one spot can
show so much royal dust, and nowhere on earth can one feel so much the
fleeting littleness of man as in these three places.
* * * * *
I had spent much time in preparing my book, called “Switzerland and the
Swiss.” Now when I asked permission of our State Department to print it
they promptly telegraphed me a refusal.
A Consul, not long before, had published a book on Turkey that was not
liked by some of the satraps of the Sultan. So a veto was put on all
books by Consuls.
My book was then printed anonymously, but received most favorable
comment. “Whoever the author is,” said the “Zurcher Zeitung,” the
principal Swiss journal, “he has shown more thorough knowledge of the
Swiss people than any foreigner who has written about us.” The large
edition was sold, spite of its being published anonymously.[3]
The London papers have much to say now about the mixed condition of
party affairs in America. Yesterday I had a letter from General Sherman
bearing on the same subject. It also tells me he is writing a history
of his life. It also gives his views of negroes voting.
“ST. LOUIS, MO., Jan. 26, 1875.
“DEAR BYERS:--Your letter of Nov. 21st, sending a copy of the
London Saturday Review, has been in my pigeon hole ‘For answer’
so long that I am ashamed. I have always intended to avail myself
of the opportunity to write you a long, gossipy letter, but have
as usual put it off from day to day, so that now I hardly know
what to tell you. We are now most comfortably established in St.
Louis, a large, growing and most dirty city, but which in my
opinion is a far better place for the children than the clean and
aristocratic Washington. Minnie, also, is domiciled near us in a
comfortable home, whilst her husband seems busy on his new work
in connection with a manufactory of wire.
“I have no doubt that General Grant and the Cabinet think me less
enthusiastic in the political management than I ought to be. And
they may be right. In some respects they have been selfish and
arrogant, and are fast losing that hold on public respect they
used to enjoy, and there is now but little doubt but that they
have thrown the political power into an opposition that the old
Democratic party will utilize for itself. The mistake began in
1865 when they gave votes to the negroes, and then legislated so
as to make the negro dominant at the South where the old Rebel
whites represent eight millions to the four of the blacks, and
the first have united solidly into a dangerous opposition. In our
form of Government, when the majority rules in local Government,
it is hard for the National Government to coerce this majority to
be docile and submissive to a party outside, however respectable.
“I had seen that article in the Review, as also many others
of mine which, on the whole, are flattering. I have, after
considerable hesitation, agreed to publish the whole, of which
that one was the conclusion. The book, still in manuscript, is
estimated to make two octavo volumes of about four hundred pages
each, and I have given the manuscript of the first volume to the
Appletons of New York, and will send the balance this week. The
whole should be out in about three months, when I trust it will
afford you a couple of days of pleasant reading. Thus far the
public has no knowledge of this thing, but I suppose I can not
conceal it much longer.
“We are all well. Give our best love to Mrs. Byers, and believe
me truly your friend,
“W. T. SHERMAN.”
After a while the book appeared, and again the General wrote about it.
“ST. LOUIS, MO., Aug. 31, 1875.
“MY DEAR FRIEND:--I have received your welcome favor of July
31st. Mrs. Sherman has since got one of later date, in which you
acknowledge the receipt of the Memoirs. I am glad, of course,
that they pleased you in form and substance. Such is the general
judgment of those who embraced the whole book, whilst others,
picking out a paragraph here and there, find great fault. When
I had made up my mind to publish, I prepared myself for the
inevitable consequences of offending some. I tried to make a
truthful picture of the case, as it was left in my mind, without
fear, favor or affection, and though it may cause bad feelings
now, will in the end be vindicated. I want no friend to eulogize
or apologize, but leave the volumes to fight out their own battle.
“We are all now at home except Minnie, who has her own home not
far from us. Her baby is growing and beginning to assume the
form of humanity, recognizing objects and manifesting a will and
purpose of his own.
“Early in September all the children will resume their
schools--Tom at Yale, Elly at Manhattanville, N. Y., the rest
here in St. Louis. With the exception of some minor excursions
I will remain close at home. Our annual meeting of the Army of
the Tennessee will be at Des Moines this year--Sept. 29-30. We
don’t expect much, only to keep it alive. We look for a stormy
political Winter, and next year another of the hurricanes that
test our strength every four years.
“My best love to Mrs. B. and the children.
“Yours,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
_January, 1875._--I went to London to see about my play. Stopped at
10 Duchess Street. General Schenck was our Minister then, and he and
Colonel John W. Forney gave me letters to theatrical people. Mr. Geo.
W. Smalley was also polite to me.
It was a nice American dinner-party I participated in at Mr.
Smalley’s home, and while there was a little air of stiffness in the
white-gloved, side-whiskered waiters, it was a hospitable, jolly
occasion. Among the guests were Kate Field, Col. Forney, Secretary
McCullough, and some English literary people. Kate Field was wide
awake, and she, and Col. Forney, one of the best talkers and best
informed men I ever knew, kept things lively till midnight. Col. Forney
was one of the handsomest men I ever met, and was loyally faithful to
friends.
One of my letters was to Dion Boucicault, the actor, probably the
biggest dramatic plagiarist since Shakespeare. His name was to about
two hundred plays, of which he certainly never wrote a dozen complete.
He was of immense talent in the way of absorbing, or transposing, or
cribbing outright other people’s work, without their even knowing it.
In a sense, he did make things his own. If what he afterward said to me
about there not being an absolutely new idea in the world is true, then
he was not a stage plagiarist, as much as a first class boiler-over.
In this Winter of 1874-5 he was the most popular actor in London, and
Joe Jefferson was playing there too, as was Henry Irving. At Drury
Lane theater, there was nothing but standing room, day or night, when
Boucicault was on the boards. His wife was playing with him. Several
times I stood up among a crowd of Londoners whose hands were too
pressed in to clap, but they made it up in crying or laughing. It was
melodrama in perfection. All the immense crowd felt themselves actual
participants in the play. What a bag full of money the English-American
must have lugged home this winter.
One evening a note came for me to call on him at his house, at 9
o’clock next morning. It was foggy and almost dark on the streets when
I rang the door bell. I was shown into a drawing room dimly lighted,
where, sitting in the half dark, by a low open fire, was a man I could
have taken for William Shakespeare. The lofty brow, the intellectual
face, the partly bald head, looked like no other. He did not see me
as I entered, nor did he turn around, but went on looking into the
fireplace. I looked at him a moment sitting there, and then said good
morning. “Ah,” he said, looking up as calmly as if his whole attitude
had been affected. “Good morning, take a seat. I read your play, it
is melodrama, it is no account; that is, as it stands, you know. You
had best hire a good stage man to go over it for you. You haven’t
studied the stage, that’s clear, and that is what is the matter of
our countrymen, Mr. ---- and Mr. ----. They can write, but they know
no more about the stage plays than new-born babes.” I sat there and
listened to him in astonishment.
He talked much of himself, and related some of his methods of making
plays _play_. But the real secret, he could not translate for me
further than to say, “The way to write a play, is to _write a play_.”
I could not help thinking, as I sat there listening to the voice by the
firelight, of the time when Boucicault had to sell a play for from $200
to $300, and of that later time when a play with his name to it brought
him almost $50,000.
I took his advice as to my melodrama and had a playwright go through it
with pencil and shears.
When I got home to Zurich a telegram asked that I forward the music at
once. A London theater had accepted my play. Shortly the theatrical
hard times set in; my theater closed doors, and that was the last of
“Pocahontas,” a melodrama.
Thomas’ orchestra took some of the music later, and played it with
success at the Philadelphia Centennial.
[Illustration: Minnie Walton.--_Page 113._]
One morning when in London, I was invited to breakfast with Minnie
Walton, the actress. She was at the “Hay-market,” playing with Byron,
I think. She was noted then as the most beautiful actress in London.
At the appointed hour I was at her house, but she was still in bed.
I entertained myself in the drawing room for half an hour with her
two pretty children. Then she herself came in, and I certainly saw a
brilliantly beautiful woman. Her features were smooth and perfect,
her complexion very fair, and her manners most captivating. She wore
a white morning dress with network bodice that outlined a form as
beautiful as her face. She had no wonderful reputation as an actress,
but her beauty attracted many Londoners to the theater. Everywhere in
the shop windows, one saw pictures of “The pretty Minnie Walton.” She
had a power in London, all her own. It was “the fatal gift of beauty,”
but a gift more attractive to women than birthrights and coronets.
_November, 1875._--Upon my return from London, we went back into town
for the winter. House rent has doubled here in four years. We now
pay 2,500 francs for a centrally located apartment of seven rooms.
Everything has grown dearer. The pension where we used to live for four
francs a day now charges seven and eight and nine francs.
Zurich too is becoming a fine, modern, commercial city. The railway
station is almost the finest in the world, and big, granite business
blocks are building, that would do credit to New York or London. Where
the city moat and a graveyard used to be, is now one of the finest
short streets in Europe.
Almost the only house on this street, left of the olden time, is the
“Ringmauer,” the home of our friend, Prof. Fick. Its front is an
absolute wall of ivy, from the pavement to the gables. The whole front
wall of the house is a part of the ancient city wall itself, built
possibly by the Romans. The rooms are low, and the windows used to be
ironed like a prison. Near by, still stands one of the old wall towers.
Inside this ivy-covered old domicile, we have spent many happy hours.
Many a time, over the walnuts and the wine, with the genial Professor
and his family, we have sat far into the night and conjured up the
people who were wining and dining here in this same room, may be a
thousand years ago. Fick, a brother-in-law of Frankland, the English
scientist, was a distinguished law professor in the University. He
originated the Swiss railroad law, and knew more of American affairs
than any German I met abroad.
In late years, he suffered horribly with rheumatism, and he had a queer
habit, when severe attacks came on, of sitting down and comparing the
severity of each attack with one in some previous month. He kept his
watch lying open before him, and carefully recorded each twang and
pain in a diary.
Spite of my sympathy for his suffering, I could at times hardly refrain
from smiling, on hearing him exclaim: “Ah! that was a whacker, that
catch was--must write that down. Let me see--lasted two minutes, pulse
80; this day, last year, minute and a half, pulse 100.” So for an hour
he would sit, his feet wrapped in flannel, and his mind occupied in
measuring and timing his pains.
“What do you do that for, Professor?” I asked him once. “My God!” he
replied, “it helps busy my mind. I would die without this watch and
diary.”
In the afternoon the attack would cease, and in the evening the
students would see the loved Professor delivering his lecture as
smilingly as if he had never had a pain in his life.
_December, 1875._--Through Fick, Kinkel, Scherr and others of our
friends among the University professors, we had free entrée to lectures
when we pleased; could come or go. Scherr’s on France, and Kinkel’s on
art, we heard throughout, as also Henne’s on Swiss history. There were
numbers of American students too in the Polytechnic and University, so
that our relations with teachers and taught were very friendly. The
American students were always at our home on all American holidays,
when the Consulate and our apartment were opened up together and
decorated with our national colors. Speeches were made, toasts drunk,
and a general good American time had. We ourselves greatly enjoyed
these reunions on a foreign soil, and the students and American
residents gave many proofs that they enjoyed them too.
I recall how just before one Christmas, Mrs. Kelley, wife of
Congressman Kelley, of Philadelphia, who was then living in Zurich,
asked me to go with her to help select a picture for an American
friend. I felt honored that she should consult my taste. A very fine
and expensive engraving of Dante at Florence was selected.
What was my surprise, on Christmas evening, to see her head the
American party to our house, with this picture and a speech to the
Consul.
The treasured gift hangs in my Iowa home, but the kind words of that
Christmas evening are stored away in the depths of our hearts. It was
the sign, not the gift itself, that gratified us most.
Most of us mortals are so constituted that to have the esteem of our
fellow beings gives us a most comfortable feeling _here_, anyway,
whatever it may do for us _hereafter_.
_December 7._--Last night Prof. Kinkel invited me to attend a Students’
Commers or festival. There must have been a thousand students present
in the big skating rink. They sat at long tables; the corps students
in high boots, and wearing their corps caps, badges and ribbons. In
front of every one stood a mighty schooner of beer. All smoked, and
the narcotic cloud was so dense I could scarcely see to the stage.
There were decorations everywhere, and a band of music in the gallery.
There were sentinels outside at the door, and whenever a particularly
popular professor was about to enter, signals were waved along the
tables and to the band. Then, as he walked blushing through the aisles
to the stage, pandemonium itself was let loose in the way of clanging
glasses, band playing, pounding tables, hurrahing and singing, until
the conquering hero was seated on the platform. It was a great time
for the professors. Lunge, the chemist; Kinkel, the poet; Hermann, the
physiologist; Scherr, the historian; Meyer, the chemist; Klebs, the
bacteriologist, and other men with names that sound all over Europe,
were literally carried to the stage on the wings of noise, smoke, music
and lager beer.
These great Zurich professors are the men whom Hepworth Dixon calls
the “Dukes of the Republic.” They are the only people in Switzerland
appointed to their places for life.
Students near me got away with a dozen and more schooners of Munich’s
best. I don’t know where it went to, but they have been known to drink
twenty glasses at a sitting. For myself, to keep up appearances I did
away with three glasses and a half, and absorbed smoke enough, without
touching a cigar, to give me the headache for a week.
Here, as at the German Universities, the corps students fought duels.
The most self-important young man in the city is the one with the
little red corps cap, the big top boots, the ribbon across his breast,
and the fresh patch of muslin on his nose, showing a recent engagement.
If the duelist has attended still other universities, he will probably
have a half a dozen welts and scars across his face. He may not know
much about text-books, but these unseemly welts on the face are signs
of great honor; and as the man of danger struts down the street with a
big-mouthed bull-dog in tow, he is a spectacle to behold. His greatest
happiness in life is to have some passer-by turn and gaze on him.
And this was what Bismarck was doing at twenty; this, and shooting off
pistols in his bedroom!
These University warriors are not so dangerous as their slit-up noses
indicate. I have known of fifty duels in the past few years and not a
soul, save one, was badly hurt. He _did_ get really killed.
The offenses for which the students bleed and die are all petty,
fanciful, and even provoked. Sometimes corps members are simply
compelled by their different societies to go out and seek a fight and
try their mettle. Ill feeling or enmity, I have noticed, has not of
necessity anything to do with student dueling.
* * * * *
_November 20._--Had this from General Sherman:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 9, 1875.
“DEAR BYERS:--I am indebted to you two letters, the last one
enclosing the comments on the Prussian Army as developed in
the Autumn maneuvers in Silesia. There is no doubt Prussia,
otherwise the German Empire, is determined to keep up the
physique, organization and instruction to meet any possible
conflict, thus necessitating much loss of labor, and constant
trouble in furnishing arms and food. We cannot attempt to follow
her example, though of course we can learn much from their
experience. General Meigs was present on the occasion of these
maneuvers and will on his return make an official report which
will be in book form, easy of preservation.
“Republican successes here this fall make the officials feel
better, but the fact that the House of Representatives is
Democratic will cause much confusion and heartburning this
Winter, and until the nominations are made next Summer.
“My best love to Mrs. Byers.
“Yours truly,
W. T. SHERMAN.”