As soon as Lincoln was elected the attitude of the South showed clearly
that 'the irrepressible conflict', of Mr Seward's naming, had only just
begun. The Herald gave columns every day to the news of 'the coming
Revolution', as it was pleased to call it. There was loud talk of war at
and after the great Pine Street meeting of December 15. South Carolina
seceded, five days later, and then we knew what was coming, albeit, we
saw only the dim shadow of that mighty struggle that was to shake the
earth for nearly five years. The Printer grew highly irritable those
days and spoke of Buchanan and Davis and Toombs in language so violent
it could never have been confined in type. But while a bitter foe none
was more generous than he and, when the war was over, his money went to
bail the very man he had most roundly damned.
I remember that one day, when he was sunk deep in composition, a negro
came and began with grand airs to make a request as delegate from his
campaign club. The Printer sat still, his eyes close to the paper, his
pen flying at high speed. The coloured orator went on lifting his
voice in a set petition. Mr Greeley bent to his work as the man waxed
eloquent. A nervous movement now and then betrayed the Printer's
irritation. He looked up, shortly, his face kindling with anger.
'Help! For God's sake!' he shrilled impatiently, his hands flying in the
air. The Printer seemed to be gasping for breath.
'Go and stick your head out of the window and get through,' he shouted
hotly to the man.
He turned to his writing--a thing dearer to him than a new bone to a
hungry dog.
'Then you may come and tell me what you want,' he added in a milder
tone.
Those were days when men said what they meant and their meaning had more
fight in it than was really polite or necessary. Fight was in the air
and before I knew it there was a wild, devastating spirit in my own
bosom, insomuch that I made haste to join a local regiment. It grew
apace but not until I saw the first troops on their way to the war was I
fully determined to go and give battle with my regiment.
The town was afire with patriotism. Sumter had fallen; Lincoln had
issued his first call. The sound of the fife and drum rang in the
streets. Men gave up work to talk and listen or go into the sterner
business of war. Then one night in April, a regiment came out of New
England, on its way to the front. It lodged at the Astor House to leave
at nine in the morning. Long before that hour the building was flanked
and fronted with tens of thousands, crowding Broadway for three blocks,
stuffing the wide mouth of Park Row and braced into Vesey and Barday
Streets. My editor assigned me to this interesting event. I stood in the
crowd, that morning, and saw what was really the beginning of the war in
New York. There was no babble of voices, no impatient call, no sound
of idle jeering such as one is apt to hear in a waiting crowd. It stood
silent, each man busy with the rising current of his own emotions,
solemnified by the faces all around him. The soldiers filed out upon the
pavement, the police having kept a way clear for them, Still there was
silence in the crowd save that near me I could hear a man sobbing. A
trumpeter lifted his bugle and sounded a bar of the reveille. The clear
notes clove the silent air, flooding every street about us with their
silver sound. Suddenly the band began playing. The tune was Yankee
Doodle. A wild, dismal, tremulous cry came out of a throat near me.
It grew and spread to a mighty roar and then such a shout went up to
Heaven, as I had never heard, and as I know full well I shall never
hear again. It was like the riving of thunderbolts above the roar of
floods--elemental, prophetic, threatening, ungovernable. It did seem to
me that the holy wrath of God Almighty was in that cry of the people.
It was a signal. It declared that they were ready to give all that a man
may give for that he loves--his life and things far dearer to him than
his life. After that, they and their sons begged for a chance to throw
themselves into the hideous ruin of war.
I walked slowly back to the office and wrote my article. When the
Printer came in at twelve I went to his room before he had had time to
begin work.
'Mr Greeley,' I said, 'here is my resignation. I am going to the war.'
His habitual smile gave way to a sober look as he turned to me, his big
white coat on his arm. He pursed his lips and blew thoughtfully. Then he
threw his coat in a chair and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.
'Well! God bless you, my boy,' he said. 'I wish I could go, too.'