[Illustration: _Julia Ward Howe._
From her last photograph, taken at Smith College a fortnight before her
death]
THE STORY OF
THE BATTLE HYMN
OF THE REPUBLIC
BY
FLORENCE HOWE HALL
DAUGHTER OF JULIA WARD HOWE
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
THE STORY OF THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published October, 1916
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to express her cordial thanks to Messrs. Houghton
& Mifflin for their courtesy in allowing her to quote a number of
passages from the _Reminiscences_ of Julia Ward Howe (published by
them in 1899) and several from _Julia Ward Howe_ (published by them in
1916).
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE ANTI-SLAVERY PRELUDE TO THE GREAT TRAGEDY OF THE
CIVIL WAR 3
II. THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS 21
III. MRS. HOWE VISITS THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 38
IV. “THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC” 49
V. THE ARMY TAKES IT UP 64
VI. NOTABLE OCCASIONS WHERE IT HAS BEEN SUNG 73
VII. HOW AND WHERE THE AUTHOR RECITED IT 88
VIII. TRIBUTES TO “THE BATTLE HYMN” 96
IX. MRS. HOWE’S LESSER POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR 107
X. MRS. HOWE’S LOVE OF FREEDOM AN INHERITANCE 121
_THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC_
_Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on._
_I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His day is marching on._
_I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”_
_He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on._
_In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on._
THE STORY OF “THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC”
I
THE ANTI-SLAVERY PRELUDE TO THE GREAT TRAGEDY OF THE CIVIL WAR
The encroachments of the slave power on Northern soil--Green Peace,
the home of Julia Ward Howe, a center of anti-slavery activity--She
assists her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, in editing the
_Commonwealth_--He is made chairman of the Vigilance Committee--Slave
concealed at Green Peace--Charles Sumner is struck down in the United
States Senate.
The “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “the crimson flower of battle,”
bloomed in a single night. It sprang from the very soil of the
conflict, in the midst of the Civil War. Yet the plant which produced
it was of slow growth, with roots reaching far back into the past.
In order to understand how this song of our nation sprang into sudden
being we must study that stormy past--the prelude of the Civil War.
How greatly it affected my mother we shall see from her own record, as
well as from the story of the events that touched her so nearly. My
own memory of them dates back to childhood’s days. Yet they moved and
stirred my soul as few things have done in a long life.
Therefore I have striven to give to the present generation some idea
of the fervor and ferment, the exaltation of spirit, that prevailed at
that epoch among the soldiers of a great cause, especially as I saw it
in our household.
* * * * *
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel.
So many years have elapsed since the evil monster of slavery was done
to death that we sometimes forget its awful power in the middle of the
last century. The fathers of the Republic believed that it would soon
perish. They forbade its entrance into the Territories and were careful
to make no mention of it in the Constitution.
The invention of the cotton-gin changed the whole situation. It was
found that slave labor could be used with profit in the cultivation
of the cotton crop. But slave labor with its wasteful methods
exhausted the soil. Slavery could only be made profitable by constantly
increasing its area. Hence, the Southern leaders departed from the
policy of the fathers of the Republic. Instead of allowing slavery
to die out, they determined to make it perpetual. Instead of keeping
it within the limits prescribed by the ancient law of the land, they
resolved to extend it.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 gave the first extension of slavery,
opening the great Territory of Missouri to the embrace of the serpent.
The fugitive-slave law was signed in 1850. Before this time the return
of runaway negroes had been an uncertain obligation. The new law took
away from State magistrates the decision in cases of this sort and gave
it to United States Commissioners. It imposed penalties on rescues and
denied a jury trial to black men arrested as fugitives, thus greatly
endangering the liberties of free negroes. The Dred Scott decision
(see page 10), denying that negroes could be citizens, was made in
1854. In 1856 the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Kansas and
Nebraska law.[1] Additional territory was thrown open to the sinister
institution which now threatened to become like the great Midgard
snake, holding our country in its suffocating embrace, as that creature
of fable surrounded the earth. It was necessary to fling off the deadly
coils of slavery if we were to endure as a free nation.
The first step was to arouse the sleeping conscience of the people. For
the South was not alone in wishing there should be no interference with
their “peculiar institution.” The North was long supine and dreaded any
new movement that might interfere with trade and national prosperity.
I can well remember my father’s pointing this out to his children, and
inveighing against the selfishness of the merchants as a class. Alas!
it was a Northern man, Stephen A. Douglas, who was the father of the
Kansas and Nebraska bill.
“The trumpet note of Garrison” had sounded, some years before this
time, the first note of anti-slavery protest. But the Garrisonian
abolitionists did not seek to carry the question into politics. Indeed,
they held it to be wrong to vote under the Federal Constitution,
“A league with death and a covenant with hell,” as they called it.
Whittier, the Quaker poet, took a more practical view than his
fellow-abolitionists and advocated the use of the ballot-box.
When the encroachments of the slave power began to threaten seriously
free institutions throughout the country, thinking men at the North saw
that the time for political action had come. There were several early
organizations which preceded the formation of the Republican party--the
Liberty party, Conscience Whigs, Free-soilers, as they were called.
My father belonged to the two latter, and I can well remember that my
elder sister and I were nicknamed at school, “Little Free-Dirters.”
The election of Charles Sumner to the United States Senate was an
important victory for the anti-slavery men. Dr. Howe, as his most
intimate friend, worked hard to secure it. Yet we see by my father’s
letters that he groaned in spirit at the necessity of the political
dickering which he hated.
Women in those days neither spoke in public nor took part in political
affairs. But it may be guessed that my mother was deeply interested
in all that was going on in the world of affairs, and under her own
roof, too, for our house at South Boston became one of the centers of
activity of the anti-slavery agitation.
My father (who was some seventeen years older than his wife) well
understood the power of the press. He had employed it to good effect
in his work for the blind, the insane, and others. Hence he became
actively interested in the management of the _Commonwealth_, an
anti-slavery newspaper, and with my mother’s help edited it for an
entire winter. They began work together every morning, he preparing the
political articles, and she the literary ones. Burning words were sent
forth from the quiet precincts of “Green Peace.” My mother had thus
named the homestead, lying in its lovely garden, when she came there
early in her married life. Little did she then dream that the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise would disturb its serene repose some ten years
later.
The agitation had not yet become so strong as greatly to affect the
children of the household. We played about the garden as usual and
knew little of the _Commonwealth_ undertaking, save as it brought some
delightful juveniles to the editorial sanctum. The little Howes highly
approved of this by-product of journalism!
Our mother’s pen had been used before this time to help the cause of
the slave. As early as 1848 she contributed a poem to _The Liberty
Bell_, an annual edited by Mrs. Maria Norton Chapman and sold at the
anti-slavery bazars. “In my first published volume, _Passion Flowers_,
appeared some lines ‘On the Death of the Slave Lewis,’ which were wrung
from my indignant heart by a story--alas! too common in those days--of
murderous outrage committed by a master against his human chattel”
(_Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Struggle_, Julia Ward Howe).
Another method of arousing the conscience of the nation was through
the public platform. My father and his friends were anxious to present
the great question in a perfectly fair way. So a series of lectures
was given in Tremont Temple, where the speakers were alternately the
most prominent advocates of slavery at the South and its most strenuous
opponents at the North. Senator Toombs, of Georgia, and General
Houston, of Texas, were among the former.
It was, probably, at this lecture course that my father exercised his
office as chairman in an unusual way. In those days it was the custom
to open the meeting with prayer, and some of the contemporary clergymen
were very long-winded. Dr. Howe informed each reverend gentleman
beforehand that at the end of five minutes he should pull the latter’s
coat-tail. The divines were in such dread of this gentle admonition
that they invariably wound up the prayer within the allotted time.
At this time no criticism of the “peculiar institution” was allowed
at the South. Northerners traveling there were often asked for their
opinion of it, but any unfavorable comment evoked displeasure. Indeed,
a friend of ours, a Northern woman teaching in Louisiana, was called
to book because in his presence she spoke of one of the slaves as a
“man.” A negro, she was informed, was not a man, and must never be so
called. “Boy” was the proper term to use. This was a logical inference
from Judge Taney’s famous Dred Scott decision--_viz._, that “such
persons,” _i. e._, negroes, “were not included among the people” in
the words of the Declaration of Independence, and could not in any
respect be considered as citizens. Yet, to quote Abraham Lincoln
again, “Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in five
of the then thirteen States--to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina--free negroes were voters,
and in proportion to their numbers had the same part in making the
Constitution that the white people had.”
Events now began to move with ever-increasing rapidity. The scenes of
the stirring prelude to the Civil War grew ever more stormy. Men became
more and more wrought up as the relentless purpose of the Southern
leaders was gradually revealed. The deadly serpent of slavery became a
hydra-headed monster, striking north, east, and west. The hunting of
fugitive slaves took on a sinister activity in the Northern “border”
States; at the national capital the attempts to muzzle free speech
culminated in the striking down of Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber
itself; in Kansas the “border ruffians” strove to inaugurate a reign
of terror, and succeeded in bringing on a local conflict which was the
true opening of the Civil War.
The men who combated the dragon of slavery--the Siegfrieds of that
day--fought him in all these directions. In Boston Dr. Howe was among
the first to organize resistance to the rendition of fugitive slaves.
An escaped negro was kidnapped there in 1846. This was four years
before the passage by Congress of the fugitive-slave law made it the
duty (!) of the Free States to return runaway negroes to slavery. My
father called a meeting of protest at Faneuil Hall. He was the chief
speaker and “every sentence was a sword-thrust” (T. W. Higginson’s
account). I give a brief extract from his address:
“The peculiar institution which has so long been brooding over the
country like an incubus has at length spread abroad its murky wings and
has covered us with its benumbing shadow. It has silenced the pulpit,
it has muffled the press; its influence is everywhere.... Court Street
can find no way of escape for the poor slave. State Street, that drank
the blood of the martyrs of liberty--State Street is deaf to the cry
of the oppressed slave; the port of Boston that has been shut up by a
tyrant king as the dangerous haunt of free-men--the port of Boston has
been opened to the slave-trader; for God’s sake, Mr. Chairman, let us
keep Faneuil Hall free!”
Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker also spoke. John
Quincy Adams presided at the meeting.
The meeting resulted in the formation of a vigilance committee of
forty, with my father as chairman. This continued its work until
the hunting of fugitives ceased in Boston. Secrecy necessarily
characterized its proceedings. An undated note from Dr. Howe to
Theodore Parker gives us a hint of them:
[2]DEAR T. P.--Write me a note by bearer. Tell him merely whether I am
wanted to-night; if I am he will act accordingly about bringing my
wagon.
I could bring any one here and keep him secret a week and no person
except Mrs. H. and myself would know it.
Yours,
CHEV.[3]
This letter raises an interesting question. Were fugitives concealed,
unknown to us children, in our house? It is quite possible, for both
our parents could keep a secret. I remember a young white girl who was
so hidden from her drunken father until other arrangements could be
made for her. I remember also a negro girl, hardly more than a child,
who was secreted beneath the roof of Green Peace. Her mistress had
brought her to Boston as a servant. Since she was not a runaway, the
provisions of the odious fugitive-slave law did not apply to her. Here
at least we could cry:
No fetters in the Bay State!
No slave upon her land!
My father applied to the courts and in due process of time Martha was
declared free--so long as she remained on Northern soil. It may be
guessed that she did not care to return to the South!
The feeling of the community was strongly opposed to taking part in
slave-hunts. Yankee ingenuity often found a way to escape this odious
task, and yet keep within the letter of the law.
A certain United States marshal thus explained his proceedings:
“Why, I never have any trouble about runaway slaves. If I hear that one
has come to Boston I just go up to Nigger Hill [a part of Joy Street]
and say to them, ‘Do you know of any runaway slaves about here?’ And
they never do!”
This was a somewhat unique way of giving notice to the friends of the
fugitive that the officers of the law were after him.
If he could only escape over the border into free Canada he was safe.
According to the English law no slave could remain such on British
soil. The moment he “shook the Lion’s paw” he became free. Our law in
these United States is founded on the English Common Law. Alas! the
pro-slavery party succeeded in overthrowing it. No wonder that Senator
Toombs, of Georgia, boasted that he would call the roll of his slaves
under the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument. The fugitive-slave law gave
him the power to do this, and thus make our boasted freedom of the soil
only an empty mockery.
The vigilance committee did its work well, and for some time no runaway
slaves were captured in Boston. One poor wretch was finally caught. My
mother thus describes the event:
“At last a colored fugitive, Anthony Burns by name, was captured and
held subject to the demands of his owner. The day of his rendition was
a memorable one in Boston. The courthouse was surrounded by chains
and guarded with cannon. The streets were thronged with angry faces.
Emblems of mourning hung from several business and newspaper offices.
With a show of military force the fugitive was marched through the
streets. No rescue was attempted at this time, although one had been
planned for an earlier date. The ordinance was executed; Burns was
delivered to his master. But the act once consummated in broad daylight
could never be repeated” (from Julia Ward Howe’s _Recollections of the
Anti-Slavery Struggle_).
So great was the public indignation against the judge who had allowed
himself to be the instrument of the Federal Government in the return of
Burns to slavery that he was removed from office. Shortly afterward he
left Boston and went to live in Washington.
The attempts to enforce the fugitive-slave law at the East failed,
as they were bound to fail. The efforts to muzzle free speech at the
national capital were more successful for a time.
The task of Charles Sumner in upholding the principles of freedom in
the United States Senate was colossal. For long he stood almost alone,
“A voice crying in the wilderness, make straight the paths of the
Lord.” Fortunately he was endowed by nature with a commanding figure
and presence and a wonderful voice that fitted him perfectly for his
great task. My mother thus described him:
“He was majestic in person, habitually reserved and rather distant in
manner, but sometimes unbent to a smile in which the real geniality
of his soul seemed to shed itself abroad. His voice was ringing and
melodious, his gestures somewhat constrained, his whole manner, like
his matter, weighty and full of dignity.”
As an old and intimate friend, my father sometimes urged him to greater
haste in his task of combating slavery at the national capital. Thus
Charles Sumner writes to him from Washington, February 1, 1854:
DEAR HOWE--Do not be impatient with me. I am doing all that I can.
This great wickedness disturbs my sleep, my rest, my appetite.
Much is to be done, of which the world knows nothing, in rallying
an opposition. It has been said by others, that but for Chase and
Sumner this Bill would have been rushed through at once, even without
debate. Douglas himself told me that our opposition was the only
sincere opposition he had to encounter. But this is not true. There
are others here who are in earnest.
My longing is to rally the country against the Bill[4] and I desire
to let others come forward and broaden our front.
Our Legislature ought to speak _unanimously_. Our people should
revive the old report and resolutions of 1820.[5]
At present our first wish is delay, that the country may be aroused.
“Would that night or Blücher had come!”
God bless you always!
C. S.
In the fateful spring of 1856 Dr. and Mrs. Howe were in Washington.
They saw both Charles Sumner and Preston Brooks. My mother has given us
pictures of the two men as she then saw them:
“Charles Sumner looked up and, seeing me in the gallery, greeted me
with a smile of recognition. I shall never forget the beauty of that
smile. It seemed to me to illuminate the whole precinct with a silvery
radiance. There was in it all the innocence of his sweet and noble
nature.”[6]
“At Willard’s Hotel I observed at a table near our own a typical
Southerner of that time, handsome, but with a reckless and defiant
expression of countenance which struck me unpleasantly. This was
Preston Brooks, of South Carolina.”[7]
During one of his visits to the Howes, Sumner said:
“I shall soon deliver a speech in the Senate which will occasion a good
deal of excitement. It will not surprise me if people leave their seats
and show signs of unusual disturbance.”
My mother comments thus:
“At the moment I did not give much heed to his words, but they came
back to me, not much later, with the force of prophecy. For Mr. Sumner
did make this speech, and though at the moment nothing was done against
him, the would-be assassin only waited for a more convenient season
to spring upon his victim and to maim him for life. Choosing a moment
when Mr. Sumner’s immediate friends were not in the Senate Chamber,
Brooks of South Carolina, armed with a cane of india-rubber, attacked
him in the rear, knocking him from his seat with one blow, and beating
him about the head until he lay bleeding and senseless upon the floor.
Although the partisans of the South openly applauded this deed, its
cowardly brutality was really repudiated by all who had any sense of
honor, without geographical distinction. The blow, fatal to Sumner’s
health, was still more fatal to the cause it was meant to serve, and
even to the man who dealt it. Within one year his murderous hand was
paralyzed in death, and Sumner, after hanging long between life and
death, stood once more erect, with the aureole of martyrdom on his
brow, and with the dear-bought glory of his scars a more potent witness
for the truth than ever. His place in the Senate remained for a time
eloquently empty.”[8]
Hon. Miles Taylor, of Louisiana, defended in the Senate the attack on
Sumner. A part of his speech makes curious reading:
“If this new dogma” (the evil of slavery) “should be received by
the American people with favor, it can only be when all respect
for revelation ... has been utterly swept away by such a flood of
irreligion and foul philosophy as never before set in.”
II
THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS
Border ruffians from Missouri carry Kansas elections with pistol
and bowie-knife. They prevent peaceable Free State emigrants from
entering the national territory--Dr. Howe carries out aid from
New England--Clergymen and Sharp’s rifles--Mrs. Howe’s indignant
verses--She opens the door for John Brown, the hero of the war in
Kansas--Gov. Andrew, Theodore Parker, Charles Sumner--The attack on
Fort Sumter--“The death-blow of slavery.”
These assaults by the serpent of slavery on the free institutions of
the North and East were dangerous enough, yet, like other evils, they
brought their own remedies with them. Such an open attack on free
speech as that on Sumner was sure to be resented, while the forcible
carrying-off of fugitive slaves under the shadow of old Faneuil Hall
aroused a degree of wrath that even the pro-slavery leaders saw was
ominous.
“The crime against Kansas” was still more alarming because it
threatened to turn a free Territory into a slave State. In 1854 the
Kansas and Nebraska bill had been passed, repealing the Missouri
Compromise and exposing a vast area of virgin soil to the encroachments
of the “peculiar institution.”
The Free-soil men were speedily on the alert. During that same year of
1854 two Massachusetts colonies were sent out to Kansas, others going
later.
But the leaders of the slave power had no intention of allowing men
from the free States to settle peacefully in Kansas. They had repealed
the Missouri Compromise with the express purpose of gaining a new slave
State, and this was to be accomplished by whatever means were necessary.
It was an easy matter to send men from Missouri into the adjacent
Territory of Kansas--to vote there and then to return to their homes
across the Mississippi.
The New York _Herald_ of April 20, 1855, published the following letter
from a correspondent in Brunswick, Missouri:
From five to seven thousand men started from Missouri to attend the
election, some to remove, but the most to return to their families,
with an intention, if they liked the Territory, to make it their
permanent abode at the earliest moment practicable. But they intended
to vote.... Indeed, every county furnished its quota; and when they
set out it looked like an army.... They were armed.... Fifteen
hundred wore on their hats bunches of hemp. They were resolved if a
tyrant attempted to trample upon the rights of the sovereign people
to hang him.
It will be noted that “the rights of the sovereign people” were to go
to the ballot-box not in their own, but in another State. These “border
ruffians” took possession of the polls and carried the first election
with pistol and bowie-knife.
The pro-slavery leaders strove to drive out the colonists from the free
States and to prevent additional emigrants from entering the Territory.
A campaign of frightfulness was inaugurated--with the usual result.
Governor Geary of Kansas, although a pro-slavery official himself,
wrote (Dec. 22, 1856) that he heartily despised the abolitionists, but
that “_The persecutions of the Free State men here were not exceeded by
those of the early Christians._”
My father was deeply interested in the colonization of Kansas and in
the struggle for freedom within its borders. He helped in 1854 to
organize the “New England Emigrant Aid Company” which assisted parties
of settlers to go to the Territory. In 1856 matters began to look very
dark for the colonists from the free States. “Dr. Howe was stirred to
his highest activity by the news from Kansas and by the brutal assault
on Charles Sumner” (F. B. Sanborn). With others he called and organized
the Faneuil Hall meeting. He was made chairman of its committee, and
at once sent two thousand dollars to St. Louis for use in Kansas. This
prompt action had an important effect on the discouraged settlers. Soon
afterward he started for Kansas to give further aid to the colonists.
“I have traversed the whole length of the State of Iowa on horseback
or in a cart, sleeping in said cart or in worse lodgings, among dirty
men on the floor of dirty huts. We have organized a pretty good line of
communication between our base and the corps of emigrants who have now
advanced into the Territory of Nebraska. Everything depends upon the
success of the attempt to break through the _cordon infernale_ which
Missouri has drawn across the northern frontier of Kansas.”[9]
In another letter he writes:
The boats on the river are beset by spies and ruffians, are hauled up
at various places and thoroughly searched for anti-slavery men.
He thus describes the emigrants:[10]
CAMP OF THE EMIGRATION, NEBRASKA TERRITORY,
_July 29, ’56_.
The emigration is indeed a noble one; sturdy, industrious, temperate,
resolute men.... I wish our friends in the East could know the
character and behavior of these emigrants. They are and have been
for two weeks encamped out upon these vast prairies in their tents
and waggons waiting patiently for the signal to move, exhausting all
peaceful resources and negotiations before resorting to force.
There is no liquor in the whole camp; no smoking, no swearing, no
irregularity. They drink cold water, live mostly on mush and rice
and the simplest, cheapest fare. They have instruction for the
little children; they have Sunday-schools, prayer-meetings, and are
altogether a most sober and earnest community. Most of the loafers
have dropped off. The Wisconsin company, about one hundred, give a
tone to all the others. I could give you a picture of the drunken,
rollicking ruffians who oppose this emigration--but you know it. Will
the North allow such an emigration to be shut out of the National
Territory by such brigands?
In another letter he tells us that among the emigrants were
thirty-eight women and children--grandfathers and grandmothers, too,
journeying with their live stock in carts drawn by oxen to the promised
land.
He says nothing of danger to himself, but Hon. Andrew D. White tells us
that “Dr. Howe had braved death again and again while aiding the Free
State men against the pro-slavery myrmidons of Kansas.”
The strength of the movement may be judged from the fact that during
this year (1856) the people of Massachusetts sent one hundred thousand
dollars in money, clothing, and arms to help the Free State colonists.
This money did not come from the radicals only, but from “Hunkers,” as
they were then called--_i. e._, conservative and well-to-do citizens.
My father wrote: “People pay readily here for Sharp’s rifles. One lady
offered me one hundred dollars the other day, and to-day a clergyman
offered me one hundred dollars.”
My mother was greatly moved by these tragic events--the assault
on Sumner and the civil war in Kansas. In _Words for the Hour_--a
volume of her poems published in 1857--we find a record of her just
indignation. In the “Sermon of Spring” she describes Kansas as:
Wearing the green nodding plumes of the Court of the Prairie,
Gyves on her free-born limbs, on her fair arms shackles,
Blood on her garments, terror and grief in her features.
“Tremble,” she cried, “tho’ the battle seem thine for a season,
Not a drop of my blood shall be wanting to judge thee.
Tremble, thou fallen from mercy ere fallen from office.”
This poem, which is a long one, contains a tribute to Sumner, as do
also “Tremont Temple,” “The Senator’s Return,” and “An Hour in the
Senate.” I give a brief extract from the last named:
Falls there no lightning from yon distant heaven
To crush this man’s potential impudence?
Shall not its outraged patience thunder: “Hence!
Forsake the shrine where Liberty was given!”
“The strong shall rule, the arm of force have sway,
The helpless multitude in bonds abide--”
Again the chuckle and the shake of pride--
“God’s for the stronger--so great Captains say.”
* * * * *
Yet, rise to answer, chafing in thy chair,
With soul indignant stirred, and flushing brow.
Thou art God’s candidate--speak soothly now,
Let every word anticipate a prayer.
Gather in thine the outstretched hands that strive
To help thy pleading, agonized and dumb;
Bear up the hearts whose silent sorrows come
For utterance, to the voice that thou canst give.
In the same volume are verses entitled “Slave Eloquence” and “Slave
Suicide.”
How did the children of the household feel during this period of “Sturm
und Drang”? To the older ones, at least, it was a most exciting time.
While we did not by any means know of all that was going on, we felt
very strongly the electric current of indignation that thrilled through
our home, as well as the stir of action. My father early taught us to
love freedom and to hate slavery. He gave us, in brief, clear outline,
the story of the aggressions of the slave power. We knew of the
iniquity of the Dred Scott decision before we were in our teens. Child
that I was, I was greatly moved when he repeated Lowell’s well-known
lines:
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,--
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
My father had always something of the soldier about him--a quick,
active step, gallant bearing, and a voice tender, yet strong, “A voice
to lead a regiment.” This was the natural consequence of his early
experiences in the Greek War of Independence, when he served some
seven years as surgeon, soldier, and--most important of all--almoner
of America’s bounty to the peaceful population. The latter would have
perished of starvation save for the supplies sent out in response to
Dr. Howe’s appeals to his countrymen. The greater part of his life was
devoted to the healing arts of the good physician. Yet the portraits of
him, taken during the tremendous struggle of the anti-slavery period,
show a sternness not visible in his younger nor yet in his later days.
In her poem “A Rough Sketch” my mother described him as he seemed to
her at this time:
A great grieved heart, an iron will,
As fearless blood as ever ran;
A form elate with nervous strength
And fibrous vigor,--all a man.
Charles Sumner came often to Green Peace when he was in Boston. We
children greatly admired him. He seemed to us, and doubtless to others,
a species of superman. I can hardly think of those days without the
organ accompaniment of his voice--deeper than the depths, round and
full. When our friend was stricken down in the Senate, great was our
youthful indignation. Many were the arguments held with our mates at
school and dancing-school, often the children of the “Hunker” class.
They sought to justify the attack, and we replied with the testimony
of an eye-witness to the scene (Henry Wilson, afterward Vice-President
of the United States) and the fact that a colleague of Brooks stood,
waving a pistol[11] in each hand, to prevent any interference in behalf
of Sumner. We had heard about the cruel “Mochsa” with which his back
was burned in the hope of cure, and we lamented his sufferings.
John A. Andrew, afterward the War Governor of the State, was another
intimate of our household, a great friend of both our parents.
Genial and merry, as a rule, he yet could be sternly eloquent in the
denunciation of slavery.
Indeed, it was a speech of this nature which first brought him into
prominence. In the Massachusetts Legislature of 1858 the most striking
figure was that of Caleb Cushing. He had been Attorney-General in
President Franklin Pierce’s Cabinet and was one of the ablest lawyers
in the United States. When all were silent before his oratory and
no one felt equal to opposing this master of debate, Andrew, a young
advocate, was moved, like another David, to attack his Goliath. In a
speech of great eloquence he vindicated the action of the Governor and
the Legislature in removing from office the judge who had sent Anthony
Burns back into slavery and thus outraged the conscience of the Bay
State. As a lawyer he sustained his opinion by legal precedents.
“When he took his seat there was a storm of applause. The House was
wild with excitement. Some members cried for joy; others cheered,
waved their handkerchiefs, and threw whatever they could find into the
air.”[12]
And so, like David, he won not only the battle of the day, but the
leadership of his people in the stormy times that soon followed.
When a box of copperhead snakes was sent to our beloved Governor we
were again indignant. (Political opponents had not then learned to send
gifts of bombs.)
From Kansas itself Martin F. Conway came to us, full of fiery zeal for
the Free State cause, although born south of Mason and Dixon’s line.
He later represented the young State in Congress. Samuel Downer
and George L. Stearns we often saw; both were very active in the
anti-slavery cause. The latter was remarkable for a very long and
beautiful beard, brown and soft, like a woman’s hair and reaching to
his waist.
We heard burning words about the duty of Massachusetts during these
assaults of the slave power. Could she endure them, or should she not
rather seek to withdraw from the Union?
These words sound strangely to us now, but it must be remembered that
in the fifties we had seen our fair Bay State made an annex to slave
territory. Men might well ask one another, “Can the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts endure the disgrace of having slave-hunts within her
borders?” “The Irrepressible Conflict” had come. When the pro-slavery
leaders forced the fugitive-slave law through Congress they struck a
blow at the life of the nation as deadly as that of Fort Sumter. The
latter was the inevitable sequel of the former.
We saw often at Green Peace another intimate friend of our
parents--Theodore Parker, the famous preacher and reformer. As he
wore spectacles and was prematurely bald, he did not leave upon our
childish minds the impression of grandeur inseparably connected with
Charles Sumner. Yet the splendid dome of his head gave evidence of his
great intellect, while his blue eyes looked kindly and often merrily
at us. Having no children of his own, he would have liked to adopt our
youngest sister, could our parents have been persuaded to part with her.
Theodore Parker advocated the anti-slavery cause with great eloquence
in the pulpit. He also belonged to my father’s vigilance committee
and harbored fugitive slaves in his own home. To one couple of
runaway negroes he presented a Bible and a sword--after marrying them
legally--a thing not always done in the day of slavery. My father
succeeded in sending away from Boston the man who attempted to carry
them back to the South, and William and Ellen Croft found freedom in
England.
Theodore Parker’s sermons had a powerful influence on his great
congregation, of which my mother was for some time a member. In one of
her tributes to him she tells us how he drew them all toward the light
of a better day and prepared them also for “the war of blood and iron.”
“I found that it was by the spirit of the higher humanity that he
brought his hearers into sympathy with all reforms and with the better
society that should ripen out of them. Freedom for black and white,
opportunity for man and woman, the logic of conscience and the logic
of progress--this was the discipline of his pulpit.... Before its [the
Civil War’s] first trumpet blast blew his great heart had ceased to
beat. But a great body of us remembered his prophecy and his strategy
and might have cried, as did Walt Whitman at a later date, ‘O captain,
my captain!’”[13]
Rev. James Freeman Clarke, our pastor for many years, was among those
whose visits gave pleasure and inspiration as well to our household. He
did not hesitate to preach anti-slavery doctrines, unpopular as they
were, from his pulpit. My mother says of him at this time:
“In the agitated period which preceded the Civil War and in that which
followed it he in his modest pulpit became one of the leaders, not
of his own flock alone, but of the community to which he belonged. I
can imagine few things more instructive and desirable than was his
preaching in those troublous times, so full of unanswered question and
unreconciled discord.”[14]
Her beloved minister was among those who accompanied my mother on the
visit to the army which inspired “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
This was written to the tune of:
John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on.
“Old Ossawotamie Brown” was the true hero of the bloody little war in
Kansas, where the Free State men finally prevailed, though many lives
were lost. He has been called “Savior of Kansas and Liberator of the
Slave.” He came at least once to Green Peace. My mother has described
her meeting with him. My father had told her some time previously about
a man who “seemed to intend to devote his life to the redemption of
the colored race from slavery, even as Christ had willingly offered
His life for the salvation of mankind.” One day he reminded her of
the person so described, and added: “That man will call here this
afternoon. You will receive him. His name is John Brown.”...
Later, my mother wrote of this meeting:
“At the expected time I heard the bell ring, and, on answering it,
beheld a middle-aged, middle-sized man, with hair and beard of amber
color streaked with gray. He looked a Puritan of the Puritans,
forceful, concentrated, and self-contained. We had a brief interview,
of which I only remember my great gratification at meeting one of whom
I had heard so good an account. I saw him once again at Dr. Howe’s
office, and then heard no more of him for some time.”[15]
Elsewhere she has written apropos of his raid at Harper’s Ferry:
“None of us could exactly approve an act so revolutionary in its
character, yet the great-hearted attempt enlisted our sympathies
very strongly. The weeks of John Brown’s imprisonment were very sad
ones, and the day of his death was one of general mourning in New
England.”[16]
With the election of Lincoln we seemed to come to smoother times. We
young people certainly did not realize that we were on the brink of
civil war, although friends who had visited the South warned us of the
preparations going on there. If there should be any struggle, it would
be a brief one, people said.
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky, came the firing
on Sumter. My father came triumphantly into the nursery and called out
to his children: “Sumter has been fired upon! That’s the death-blow
of slavery.” Little did he or we realize how long and terrible the
conflict would be. But he knew that the serpent had received its
death-wound. All through the long and terrible war he cheered my mother
by his unyielding belief in the ultimate success of our arms.
So the prelude ended and the greater tragedy began. The conflict of
ideas, the most soul-stirring period of our history, passed into the
conflict of arms. In the midst of its agony the steadfast soul of a
woman saw the presage of victory and gave the message, a message never
to be forgotten, to her people and to the world.
III
MRS. HOWE VISITS THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC
The Civil War breaks out--Dr. Howe is appointed a member of the
Sanitary Commission--Mrs. Howe accompanies him to Washington--She
makes her maiden speech to a Massachusetts regiment--She sees the
watch-fires of a hundred circling camps--She visits the army and her
carriage is involved in a military movement--She is surrounded by
“Burnished rows of steel.”
“The years between 1850 and 1857, eventful as they were, appear to me
almost a period of play when compared with the time of trial which was
to follow. It might have been likened to the tuning of instruments
before some great musical solemnity. The theme was already suggested,
but of its wild and terrible development who could have had any
foreknowledge?”
In her _Reminiscences_ my mother thus compares the Civil War and its
prelude. Again she says of the former:
“Its cruel fangs fastened upon the very heart of Boston and took from
us our best and bravest. From many a stately mansion father or son
went forth, followed by weeping, to be brought back for bitterer
sorrow.”
Mercifully she was spared this last. My father was too old for military
service and no longer in vigorous health, being in his sixtieth year
when the war broke out; my eldest brother was just thirteen years of
age. Nevertheless she was brought into close touch with the activities
of the great struggle from the beginning.
On the day when the news of the attack on Fort Sumter was received Dr.
Howe wrote to Governor Andrew, offering his services:
“Since they will have it so--in the name of God, Amen! Now let all the
governors and chief men of the people see to it that war shall not
cease until emancipation is secure. If I can be of any use, anywhere,
in any capacity (save that of spy), command me.”[17]
With what swiftness the “Great War Governor of Massachusetts” acted at
this time is matter of history. Two days after the President issued a
call for troops, three regiments started for Washington. Massachusetts
was thus the first State to come to the aid of the Union--the first,
alas! to have her sons struck down and slain.
Governor Andrew was glad to avail himself of Dr. Howe’s offer of aid.
The latter’s early experiences in Greece made his help and counsel
valuable both to the State and to the nation. Gen. Winfield Scott,
Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and Governor Andrew requested him, on
May 2, 1861, to make a sanitary survey of the Massachusetts troops in
the field at and near the national capital. Before the end of the month
the Sanitary Commission was created, Dr. Howe being one of the original
members appointed by Abraham Lincoln.
Governor Andrew was almost overwhelmed with the manifold cares and
duties of his office. Our house was one of the places where he took
refuge when he greatly needed rest. He was obliged to give up going
to church early in the war because many people followed him there,
importuning him with requests of all sorts.
Thus the questions of the Civil War were brought urgently to my
mother’s mind in her own home, just as those of the anti-slavery period
had been a year or two before.
To quote her _Reminiscences_ again:
“The record of our State during the war was a proud one. The repeated
calls for men and for money were always promptly and generously
answered. And this promptness was greatly forwarded by the energy and
patriotic vigilance of the Governor. I heard much of this at the time,
especially from my husband, who was greatly attached to the Governor
and who himself took an intense interest in all the operations of the
war.... I seemed to live in and along with the war, while it was in
progress, and to follow all its ups and downs, its good and ill fortune
with these two brave men, Dr. Howe and Governor Andrew. Neither of them
for a moment doubted the final result of the struggle, but both they
and I were often very sad and much discouraged.”
Governor Andrew was often summoned to Washington. Dr. Howe’s duties
as a member of the Sanitary Commission also took him there. Thus it
happened that my mother went to the national capital in their company
in the late autumn of 1861. Mrs. Andrew, the Governor’s wife, Rev.
James Freeman Clarke, and Mr. and Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple were also of
the party.
As they drew near Washington they saw ominous signs of the dangers
encompassing the city. Mrs. Howe noticed little groups of armed men
sitting near a fire--pickets guarding the railroad, her husband told
her. For the Confederate Army was not far off, the Army of the Potomac
lying like a steel girdle about Washington, to protect it.
This was my mother’s first glimpse of the Union Army which later made
such a deep impression upon her mind and heart. I have always fancied,
though she does not say so, that some of the vivid images of the
“Battle Hymn” were suggested by the scenes of this journey.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His day is marching on!
Arrived at Washington, the party established themselves at Willard’s
Hotel. Evidences of the war were to be seen on all sides. Soldiers on
horseback galloped about the streets, while ambulances with four horses
passed by the windows and sometimes stopped before the hotel itself.
Near at hand, my mother saw “The ghastly advertisement of an agency
for embalming and forwarding the bodies of those who had fallen in
the fight or who had perished by fever.”[18] In the vicinity of this
establishment was the office of the New York _Herald_.
Governor Andrew and Dr. Howe were busy with their official duties;
indeed, the former was under such a tremendous pressure of work and
care that he died soon after the close of the war. The latter “carried
his restless energy and indomitable will from camp to hospital, from
battle-field to bureau.” His reports and letters show how deeply he was
troubled by the lack of proper sanitation among the troops.
My mother again came in touch with the Army, visiting the camps and
hospitals in the company of Mr. Clarke and the Rev. William Henry
Channing. It need hardly be said that these excursions were made in no
spirit of idle curiosity.
In ordinary times she would not look at a cut finger if she could help
it. I remember her telling us of one dreadful woman who asked to be
shown the worst wound in the hospital. As a result this morbid person
was so overcome with the horror of it that the surgeon was obliged to
leave his patient and attend to the visitor, while she went from one
fainting fit into another!
Up to this time my mother had never spoken in public. It was from the
Army of the Potomac that she first received the inspiration to do so.
In company with her party of friends she had made “a reconnoitering
expedition,” visiting, among other places, the headquarters of Col.
William B. Greene, of the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. The
colonel, who was an old friend, warmly welcomed his visitors. Soon he
said to my mother, “Mrs. Howe, you must speak to my men.” What did he
see in her face that prompted him to make such a startling request?
* * * * *
It must be remembered that in 1861 the women of our country were, with
some notable exceptions, entirely unaccustomed to speaking in public.
A few suffragists and anti-slavery leaders addressed audiences, but my
mother had not at this time joined their ranks.