Sweeps like a burning flood;
A sentence rings upon mine ears,
Avenge the guiltless blood!
Sit not in health and ease,
Nor reckon loss nor gain,
When men who bear our Country’s flag
Are set upon and slain.
Of her “Poems of the War” “The Flag” ranks second in popular esteem and
has a place in many anthologies. She thus describes the circumstances
under which it was composed:[39]
“Even in gay Newport there were sad reverberations of the strife. I
shall never forget an afternoon on which I drove into town with my son,
by this time a lad of fourteen, and found the main street lined with
carriages, and the carriages filled with white-faced people, intent on
I knew not what. Meeting a friend, I asked: ‘Why are these people here?
What are they waiting for and why do they look as they do?’
“‘They are waiting for the mail. Don’t you know that we have had a
dreadful reverse?’ Alas! this was the second battle of Bull Run. I
have made some record of it in a poem entitled ‘The Flag,’ which I
dare mention here because Mr. Emerson, on hearing it, said to me, ‘I
like the architecture of that poem.’”
The opening verse is as follows:
There’s a flag hangs over my threshold, whose folds are more dear to
me
Than the blood that thrills in my bosom its earnest of liberty;
And dear are the stars it harbors in its sunny field of blue
As the hope of a further heaven, that lights all our dim lives
through.
Before the war, Newport had been a favorite resort for Southerners.
During the summer of 1861 a number were still there, and it must be
confessed some of them behaved with very little tact. According to
reports current at the time, these individuals carried politics inside
the church doors. When the prayer for the President of the United
States was read, they arose from their knees in order to show their
disapproval. At its conclusion they again knelt. Women would draw
aside the voluminous skirts then in fashion, to prevent their coming
in contact with the United States flag. I have always fancied that the
lines in “The Flag,”
Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule,
were inspired by this behavior of “The Secesh,” as we then called them.
Some of these persons, although belonging to good society, had the bad
taste to boast in our presence of how the South was going to “whip” the
North. At a certain picnic among the Paradise Rocks, my mother resolved
to give these people a lesson in patriotism. One of our number, a
quiet, elderly lady, was selected to act as America, the queen of the
occasion. She was crowned with flowers, and we all saluted her with
patriotic songs.
“The First Martyr” tells the story of a visit to the wife of John Brown
before the latter’s execution:
My five-years’ darling, on my knee,
Chattered and toyed and laughed with me;
“Now tell me, mother mine,” quoth she,
“Where you went i’ the afternoon.”
“Alas! my pretty little life,
I went to see a sorrowing wife,
Who will be widowed soon.”
* * * * *
Child! It is fit that thou shouldst weep;
The very babe unborn would leap
To rescue such as he.
“Our Country” contains no word about the civil strife, although it is
classed with “Poems of the War” in her volume entitled _Later Lyrics_.
A prize was offered for a national song while the war was in progress,
and Mrs. Howe sent in this poem, Otto Dresel composing the music. Mr.
Dresel was a prominent figure in the musical world of Boston for many
years and wrote a number of charming songs.
The prize which had been offered for the national song was never
awarded, if I remember aright, and Mr. Dresel decided to use the tune
he had composed, for the “Army Hymn” of Oliver Wendell Holmes. This was
“superbly sung by L. C. Campbell, assisted by the choir and band” at
the opening exercises of the Great Metropolitan Fair held in New York
during the Civil War, for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission.
“Our Country” thus lost its musical setting, to my mother’s regret.
OUR COUNTRY
On primal rocks she wrote her name,
Her towers were reared on holy graves,
The golden seed that bore her came
Swift-winged with prayer o’er ocean waves.
The Forest bowed his solemn crest,
And open flung his sylvan doors;
Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest
To clasp the wide-embracing shores;
Till, fold by fold, the broidered Land
To swell her virgin vestments grew,
While Sages, strong in heart and hand,
Her virtue’s fiery girdle drew.
O Exile of the wrath of Kings!
O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!
The refuge of divinest things,
Their record must abide in thee.
First in the glories of thy front
Let the crown jewel Truth be found;
Thy right hand fling with generous wont
Love’s happy chain to furthest bound.
Let Justice with the faultless scales
Hold fast the worship of thy sons,
Thy commerce spread her shining sails
Where no dark tide of rapine runs.
So link thy ways to those of God,
So follow firm the heavenly laws,
That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed,
And storm-sped angels hail thy cause.
O Land, the measure of our prayers,
Hope of the world, in grief and wrong!
Be thine the blessing of the years,
The gift of faith, the crown of song.
The news of Lincoln’s assassination dealt a stunning blow to our
people. The rejoicings over the end of the Civil War were suddenly
changed to deep sorrow, indignation, and fear. How widely the
conspiracy spread we did not know. It will be remembered that other
officers of the Federal Government were attacked. My mother wrote that
nothing since the death of her little boy[40] had given her so much
personal pain. As usual, she sought relief for her feelings in verse.
“The Parricide,” written on the day of Lincoln’s funeral, expresses her
love and reverence for the great man, her horror of the “Fair assassin,
murder--white,” whom she bids:
With thy serpent speed avoid
Each unsullied household light,
Every conscience unalloyed.
As usual, compassion followed anger. “Pardon,” written a few days
later, after the death of Wilkes Booth, is the better poem of the two.
PARDON
WILKES BOOTH--APRIL 26, 1865
Pains the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath it was uttered,
Now thou art cold;
Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose close muttered,
Loosen their hold.
Death brings atonement; he did that whereof ye accuse him,--
Murder accurst;
But, from that crisis of crime in which Satan did lose him,
Suffered the worst.
Back to the cross, where the Saviour uplifted in dying
Bade all souls live,
Turns the reft bosom of Nature, his mother, low sighing,
Greatest, forgive!
On July 21, 1865, Harvard University held memorial exercises in honor
of her sons who had given their lives for their country. The living
graduates of that day numbered only twenty-four hundred, including the
aged, sick, and absent. Of these more than five hundred went out to
fight in behalf of the Union, many of them to return no more. Their
names may be seen engraved on the marble tablets of Memorial Hall,
Cambridge, a daily lesson in patriotism to the undergraduates who
frequent it. Full of fun and nonsense as the latter are, they will
permit no disrespect to the memory of the heroes of the Civil War. If
visitors enter without removing their hats, an instant clamor arises,
forcing them to do so.
On this Commencement day of 1865 a notable assemblage gathered at
Harvard. In addition to other distinguished people there were present,
as Governor Andrew said in his address, a “cloud of living witnesses
who have come back laden with glory from the fields where their
comrades fell.” Phillips Brooks made a prayer, Ralph Waldo Emerson and
others spoke. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rev. Charles T. Brooks, James
Russell Lowell, his brother Robert, John S. Dwight, and Mrs. Julia
Ward Howe contributed poems. The verses of the latter were read by her
friend, Mr. Samuel Eliot. The opening ones are as follows:
RETURN
They are coming, oh my Brothers, they are coming!
From the formless distance creeps the growing sound,
Like a rill-fed forest, in whose rapid summing,
Stream doth follow stream, till waves of joy abound.
These have languished in the shadow of the prison,
Long with hunger pains and bitter fever low;
Welcome back our lost, from living graves arisen,
From the wild despite and malice of the foe.
Another of her war poems speaks in the name of the sons of the old
university. When it was published in the newspapers, a careless
typesetter made some errors in setting it up. I remember how troubled
she was when the line
O give them back, thou bloody breast of Treason--
was printed “beast” of Treason.
We give a single verse of the “Harvard Student’s Song”:
Remember ye how, out of boyhood leaping,
Our gallant mates stood ready for the fray,
As new-fledged eaglets rise, with sudden sweeping,
And meet unscared the dazzling front of day?
Our classic toil became inglorious leisure,
We praised the calm Horatian ode no more,
But answered back with song the martial measure,
That held its throb above the cannon’s roar.
The other “Poems of the War” published in _Later Lyrics_ are entitled
“Requital,” “The Question,” “One and Many,” “Hymn for a Spring
Festival,” “The Jeweller’s Shop in War-time,” and “The Battle
Eucharist.”
In these we see how deeply the writer’s soul was oppressed by the
sorrow of the war and the horrors of the battle-field. We see, too, how
it turned ever for comfort and encouragement to the Cross and to the
Lord of Hosts.
X
MRS. HOWE’S LOVE OF FREEDOM AN INHERITANCE
Stories of Gen. Francis Marion--Mrs. Howe’s kinship with the “Swamp
Fox”--The episode that saved “Marion’s Men”--The splendid sword
that rusted in its scabbard--John Ward, one of Oliver Cromwell’s
Ironsides--Samuel Ward, the only Colonial governor who refused to
enforce the Stamp Act--Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and
champion of religious liberty.
We have seen that my mother’s love of freedom was in part the result
of environment. It was also an inheritance from men who had fought for
civil and religious liberty, with the sword and with the pen, on both
sides of the Atlantic. Of the founder of the Ward family in America, we
know that he fought for the English Commonwealth and against “Charles
First, tyrant of England.” He was one of Oliver Cromwell’s Ironsides,
serving as an officer in a cavalry regiment. After the republic
perished and the Stuart line in the person of Charles II. returned to
the throne, doughty old John Ward came to America, bringing his good
sword with him. Whether it was ever used on this side of the water, the
record does not say, but it was preserved in the family for nearly a
century.
His descendants held positions of trust and responsibility under the
State, his grandson and great-grandson being each in his turn governor
of Rhode Island. The latter, Gov. Samuel Ward, has the distinction
of being the only Colonial governor who refused to take the oath to
enforce the Stamp Act. As the Chief Executive of “little Rhody” was
chosen by the people, his views were naturally more democratic than
those of governors appointed by the crown. Still, it took courage to
refuse to obey the royal mandate. He early foresaw the separation
from Great Britain and wrote to his son in 1766, “These Colonies are
destined to an early independence, and you will live to see my words
verified.” He was a member of the Continental Congresses of 1774 and
1775. The latter resolved itself into a committee of the whole almost
every day, and Governor Ward was constantly called to the chair on such
occasions, until he was seized with fatal illness, March 13, 1776,
dying soon afterward.
At this time vaccination had not been discovered, the only preventive
of the terrible scourge of smallpox being inoculation. Now Governor
Ward could not spare time for the brief illness which this process
involved. In addition to his duties in Congress he was obliged, owing
to the physical disability of his colleague, Gov. Stephen Hopkins, to
conduct all the official correspondence of the Rhode Island delegation,
with the Government and citizens of the colony. His services were
required on many committees, notably on the secret committee which
contracted for arms and munitions of war. Hence, worn down by overwork,
he fell an easy victim to smallpox. He died three months before his
colleagues signed the Declaration of Independence. As he early saw the
necessity of separation from the mother country, he would certainly
have affixed his signature to it had he lived. His descendants may be
pardoned for thinking that he made a great mistake in not taking the
time required for inoculation.
Many of Governor Ward’s letters have been preserved. These show his
ardent patriotism as well as the devout religious spirit of the men of
1776. He writes to his brother: “I have realized with regard to myself
the bullet, the bayonet, and the halter; and compared with the immense
object I have in view they are all less than nothing. No man living,
perhaps, is more fond of his children than I am, and I am not so old as
to be tired of life; and yet, as far as I can now judge, the tenderest
connections and the most important private concerns are very minute
objects. Heaven save my country! I was going to say is my first, my
last, and almost my only prayer.”
Gov. Samuel Ward was a Seventh-Day Baptist. The little church in which
he worshiped at Newport has all the charm of the best architecture of
that period. It now forms part of the Historical Society’s rooms.
His son, Lieut.-Col. Samuel Ward, grandfather of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,
joined the Continental Army when the Revolution broke out. Governor
Ward writes of “the almost unparalleled sufferings of Samuel,” and
these were indeed severe. Of the ill-fated expedition to Quebec,
Colonel Ward writes: “We were thirty days in a wilderness that none
but savages ever attempted to pass. We marched one hundred miles upon
shore with only three days’ provisions, waded over three rapid rivers,
marched through snow and ice barefoot ... moderately speaking, we have
waded one hundred miles.” The result of this exposure was “the yellow
jaundice.”
The Americans were overpowered by superior numbers, Colonel Ward being
taken prisoner with many others. He was also at Valley Forge in that
terrible winter when the American Army endured such great privations.
It is interesting to note that Colonel Ward assisted in raising a
colored regiment in the spring of 1778. He commanded this in the
engagement on the island of Rhode Island, near the spot where his
granddaughter and her husband established their summer home a century
later. From the peaceful windows of “Oak Glen” one sees, in the near
foreground, the earthworks of the Revolution.
In spite of all the hardships endured during the Revolutionary War,
Colonel Ward lived to be nearly seventy-six years of age. My mother
well remembered her grandfather with his courtly manner and mild,
but very observing, blue eyes. With the indulgence characteristic of
grandparents, he permitted the Ward brothers to play cards at his
house, a thing they were forbidden to do at home.
The State of Rhode Island is represented in the statue-gallery of the
national Capitol by Roger Williams, pioneer of religious liberty and
founder of the State, and by Gen. Nathaniel Greene, who rendered such
important service during the Revolutionary War. My mother was related
to both men, being a direct descendant of the former.
Whether or no Massachusetts was justified in driving out Roger
Williams, we will not attempt to decide. He was evidently a person who
delighted in controversy in a day when religious toleration was almost
unknown.
To him belongs the honor of being the first to found a State “upon the
distinctive principle of complete separation of Church and State.”
Maryland followed not long after the example set by the “State of Rhode
Island and Providence Plantations.”
Not in Massachusetts alone did people object to his doctrines. His
work, _The Bloody Tenent of Persecution_, was burned in England by the
common hangman, by order of Parliament.
_George Fox Digged Out of His Burrowe_ seems a volume of formidable
proportions to the modern reader. With Quaker doctrines Roger Williams
had small patience, although he permitted members of the persecuted
sect to live in the Colony. It seems that G. Fox did not avail himself
of an offer of disputation on fourteen proposals. His opponents
claimed that he “slily departed” to avoid the debate. It went on
just the same, being “managed three days at Newport and one day at
Providence.”
This volume, _George Fox_, etc.[41], is dedicated to Charles II. by
“Your Majestyes most loyal and affectionate Orator at the Throne of
Grace.”
One can guess how much attention the Merrie Monarch paid to the
fourteen “proposalls”[42] and the elaboration thereof.
The best testimony to the essential gentleness and goodness of this
eccentric divine is the behavior toward him of the Indians. During King
Philip’s war they marched on Providence with the intention of burning
it.
“The well-attested tradition is that Roger Williams, now an old man,
alone and unarmed, save with his staff, went out to meet the band of
approaching Indians. His efforts to stay their course were unavailing,
but they allowed him to return unmolested, such was the love and
veneration entertained for him by these savages.”
Of my mother’s ancestors on the maternal side, the most interesting was
her great-great-uncle, Gen. Francis Marion, the partisan leader of the
Revolution. She was descended from his sister Esther, “The Queen Bee of
the Marion Hive,” the general himself having no children.
Many romantic stories are told of him. He was present at a
drinking-party during the siege of Charleston when the host, determined
that no one should leave the festivities until some particularly fine
Madeira had been disposed of, locked the door and threw the key out of
the window. Marion had no notion of taking part in any excesses, so
he made his escape by jumping out of the window. A lame ankle was the
result, and the Huguenot left the city, all officers unfit for duty
being ordered to depart. Marion took refuge now with one friend, now
with another, and again he was obliged to hide in the woods, while
recovering from this lameness. The accident was a most fortunate one,
however. If he had remained in Charleston he would have been obliged to
surrender and the brigade of “Marion’s Men” might never have existed.
How he formed it in the darkest hour of the war in the South is a
matter of history. How, like so many will-o’-the-wisps, they led the
British a weary dance “thoro’ bush, thoro’ brier,” all through the
woods and the swamps of South Carolina, is a tale that delights the
heart of every school-boy.
Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The men that Marion leads,
The glitter of the rifles,
The scamper of their steeds;
’Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlit plain:
’Tis life to feel the night-wind
That lifts the tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp,
A moment and away,
Back to the pathless forest
Before the peep of day.[43]
The best-known story tells of the British officer who was brought
blindfolded into Marion’s camp and entertained at a dinner consisting
solely of sweet potatoes. Small wonder that he made up his mind the
Americans could not be conquered, since they were able to subsist on
such scanty rations!
Reversing the text of Scripture, General Marion provided his men with
swords made of saws, ammunition being scanty. He was as well known for
his humanity as for his ingenuity. It is said that once, wishing to
draw his sword, he found it rusted into the scabbard, so little had it
been used.
When my mother, as occasionally happened in her later years, would
quietly slip off on some expedition which her daughters feared was too
much for her strength, we would remember her kinship with the “Swamp
Fox.”
Of her parents, it should be said that both were deeply religious.
Her mother, Julia Cutler Ward, a woman of very lovely character and
intellectual tastes, died at the early age of twenty-seven. Her
father, Samuel Ward, one of the “Merchant Princes of Wall Street,” was
well known for his integrity, liberality, and public spirit. He was
especially interested in the causes of temperance and religion, being
“one of the foremost promoters of church-building in the then distant
West.” He was also one of the founders of the New York University, and
owned the first private picture-gallery in New York.
Thus we see that my mother, like so many of her fellow-Americans, came
from a long line of God-fearing and patriotic men and women. In the
words of the “Battle Hymn” we hear not only the voice of the Union
Army, but an echo of all the aspiring thoughts and noble deeds of the
builders of our great Republic.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Abraham Lincoln said of this law: “I look upon that enactment not
as a law, but as a violence from the beginning. It was conceived in
violence and is being executed in violence” (letter to Joshua F. Speed,
August 24, 1855).
[2] From _The Journals and Letters of Samuel Gridley Howe_. Dana, Estes
& Co.
[3] “Chev” was the abbreviation of Chevalier, a title bestowed on him
for his services in the Greek Revolution. He was called “Chev” by
certain intimate friends.
[4] The Kansas and Nebraska bill.
[5] Protesting against the Missouri Compromise.
[6] From _Reminiscences_ by Julia Ward Howe. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
[7] _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Struggle._ By Julia Ward Howe.
[8] _Ibid._
[9] Letter from Dr. S. G. Howe to Charles Sumner.
[10] _Journals and Letters of Samuel Gridley Howe._ Dana, Estes & Co.
[11] History declares that a colleague of Brooks did thus stand, to
prevent any one’s coming to Sumner’s assistance. About the pistols, I
am not sure.
[12] Sketch of John Albion Andrew by Eben F. Stone.
[13] _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Struggle._ By Julia Ward Howe.
[14] _Reminiscences_ by Julia Ward Howe.
[15] _Ibid._
[16] _Ibid._
[17] From _Journals and Letters of Samuel Gridley Howe_. Dana, Estes &
Co.
[18] _Reminiscences._
[19] _Ibid._
[20] _Ibid._
[21] _Ibid._
[22] See Chap. ii, page 33.
[23] _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Struggle._
[24] _Reminiscences_, 1899.
[25] In the reprint of the “Battle Hymn,” made in England for the use
of the soldiers during the present war, this discarded verse has,
through some misunderstanding, been included.
[26] See _Julia Ward Howe_, Vol. II, Chap. xi.
[27] This account of the day in Libby Prison is compiled from the
_Washington Star_ and from the _Life of Chaplain McCabe_.
[28] _Life of Chaplain McCabe._
[29] _Ibid._
[30] _Reminiscences_ by Julia Ward Howe.
[31] _Julia Ward Howe._ By Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott.
[32] _Life of Julia Ward Howe._
[33] See Chapter IX.
[34] In the later editions of the novel another scene is substituted
for this.
[35] _Life of Chaplain McCabe_--“the singing chaplain.”
[36] _Julia Ward Howe._ Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
[37] Mr. Howells writes in his _Literary Boston Thirty Years Ago_: “I
heard Mrs. Howe speak in public and it seemed to me that she made one
of the best speeches I had ever heard.”
[38] _Reminiscences_, p. 261.
[39] _Ibid._, p. 258.
[40] Samuel Gridley Howe, Jr., who died in May, 1863, aged three and a
half years.
[41] _George Fox Digged Out of His Burrowe._
[42] “Proposalls”--I here quote Roger Williams’ spelling.
[43] William Cullen Bryant’s “The Song of Marion’s Men.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.