When the first number of the Chimney-Corner appeared, the snow lay
white on the ground, the buds on the trees were closed and frozen, and
beneath the hard frost-bound soil lay buried the last year's
flower-roots, waiting for a resurrection.
So in our hearts it was winter,--a winter of patient suffering and
expectancy,--a winter of suppressed sobs, of inward bleedings,--a
cold, choked, compressed anguish of endurance, for how long and how
much God only could tell us.
The first paper of the Chimney-Corner, as was most meet and fitting,
was given to those homes made sacred and venerable by the cross of
martyrdom,--by the chrism of a great sorrow. That Chimney-Corner made
bright by home firelight seemed a fitting place for a solemn act of
reverent sympathy for the homes by whose darkness our homes had been
preserved bright, by whose emptiness our homes had been kept full, by
whose losses our homes had been enriched; and so we ventured with
trembling to utter these words of sympathy and cheer to those whom God
had chosen to this great sacrifice of sorrow.
The winter months passed with silent footsteps, spring returned, and
the sun, with ever waxing power, unsealed the snowy sepulchre of buds
and leaves,--birds reappeared, brooks were unchained, flowers filled
every desolate dell with blossoms and perfume. And with returning
spring, in like manner, the chill frost of our fears and of our
dangers melted before the breath of the Lord. The great war, which
lay like a mountain of ice upon our hearts, suddenly dissolved and was
gone. The fears of the past were as a dream when one awaketh, and now
we scarce realize our deliverance. A thousand hopes are springing up
everywhere, like spring flowers in the forest. All is hopefulness, all
is bewildering joy.
But this our joy has been ordained to be changed into a wail of
sorrow. The kind hard hand, that held the helm so steadily in the
desperate tossings of the storm, has been stricken down just as we
entered port,--the fatherly heart that bore all our sorrows can take
no earthly part in our joys. His were the cares, the watchings, the
toils, the agonies, of a nation in mortal struggle; and God, looking
down, was so well pleased with his humble faithfulness, his patient
continuance in well-doing, that earthly rewards and honors seemed all
too poor for him, so he reached down and took him to immortal glories.
"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord!"
Henceforth the place of Abraham Lincoln is first among that noble army
of martyrs who have given their blood to the cause of human freedom.
The eyes are yet too dim with tears that would seek calmly to trace
out his place in history. He has been a marvel and a phenomenon among
statesmen, a new kind of ruler in the earth. There has been something
even unearthly about his extreme unselfishness, his utter want of
personal ambition, personal self-valuation, personal feeling.
The most unsparing criticism, denunciation, and ridicule never moved
him to a single bitter expression, never seemed to awaken in him a
single bitter thought. The most exultant hour of party victory brought
no exultation to him; he accepted power not as an honor, but as a
responsibility; and when, after a severe struggle, that power came a
second time into his hands, there was something preternatural in the
calmness of his acceptance of it. The first impulse seemed to be a
disclaimer of all triumph over the party that had strained their
utmost to push him from his seat, and then a sober girding up of his
loins to go on with the work to which he was appointed. His last
inaugural was characterized by a tone so peculiarly solemn and free
from earthly passion, that it seems to us now, who look back on it in
the light of what has followed, as if his soul had already parted from
earthly things, and felt the powers of the world to come. It was not
the formal state paper of the chief of a party in an hour of victory,
so much as the solemn soliloquy of a great soul reviewing its course
under a vast responsibility, and appealing from all earthly judgments
to the tribunal of Infinite Justice. It was the solemn clearing of his
soul for the great sacrament of Death, and the words that he quoted in
it with such thrilling power were those of the adoring spirits that
veil their faces before the throne,--"Just and true are thy ways, thou
King of saints!"
Among the rich treasures which this bitter struggle has brought to
our country, not the least is the moral wealth which has come to us
in the memory of our martyrs. Thousands of men, women, and children
too, in this great conflict, have "endured tortures, not accepting
deliverance," counting not their lives dear unto them in the holy
cause; and they have done this as understandingly and thoughtfully as
the first Christians who sealed their witness with their blood.
Let us in our hour of deliverance and victory record the solemn vow,
that our right hand shall forget her cunning before we forget them and
their sufferings,--that our tongue shall cleave to the roof of our
mouth if we remember them not above our chief joy.
Least suffering among that noble band were those who laid down their
lives on the battlefield, to whom was given a brief and speedy passage
to the victor's meed. The mourners who mourn for such as these must
give place to another and more august band, who have sounded lower
deeps of anguish, and drained bitterer drops out of our great cup of
trembling.
The narrative of the lingering tortures, indignities, and sufferings
of our soldiers in Rebel prisons has been something so harrowing that
we have not dared to dwell upon it. We have been helplessly dumb
before it, and have turned away our eyes from what we could not
relieve, and therefore could not endure to look upon. But now, when
the nation is called to strike the great and solemn balance of
justice, and to decide measures of final retribution, it behooves us
all that we should at least watch with our brethren for one hour, and
take into our account what they have been made to suffer for us.
Sterne said he could realize the miseries of captivity only by setting
before him the image of a miserable captive with hollow cheek and
wasted eye, notching upon a stick, day after day, the weary record of
the flight of time. So we can form a more vivid picture of the
sufferings of our martyrs from one simple story than from any general
description; and therefore we will speak right on, and tell one story
which might stand as a specimen of what has been done and suffered by
thousands.
In the town of Andover, Massachusetts, a boy of sixteen, named Walter
Raymond, enlisted among our volunteers. He was under the prescribed
age, but his eager zeal led him to follow the footsteps of an elder
brother who had already enlisted; and the father of the boy, though
these two were all the sons he had, instead of availing himself of his
legal right to withdraw him, indorsed the act in the following letter
addressed to his captain:--
ANDOVER, MASS., _August 15, 1862_.
CAPTAIN HUNT,--My eldest son has enlisted in your company. I send
you his younger brother. He is, and always has been, in perfect
health, of more than the ordinary power of endurance, honest,
truthful, and courageous. I doubt not you will find him on trial
all you can ask, except his age, and that I am sorry to say is
only sixteen; yet if our country needs his service, take him.
Your obedient servant,