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THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
* * * * *
VOL. III.--MAY, 1863.--No. V.
* * * * *
THE GREAT PRAIRIE STATE.
I should not wonder if some of your readers were less acquainted with
this Western Behemoth of a State than with the republic of San Marino,
which is about as large as a pocket handkerchief. The one has a history,
which the other as yet has not, and of all people in the world, our own
dear countrymen--with all their talk about Niagara, and enormous lakes,
and prodigious rivers--care the least for great natural features of
country, and the most for historical and romantic associations. When an
Englishman, landing at New York, begins at once to inquire for the
prairies, it is only very polite New Yorkers who can refrain from
laughing at him.
But it is not so much of natural features that I wish to speak at
present. Illinois has been abused lately; brought into discredit by the
misbehavior of some of her sons; but this only makes her loyal friends
love her the more, knowing well how good her heart is, how high-toned
her feeling, how determined her courage.
Looking at this State from New York, the image is that of a great green
prairie, the monotony of whose surface is scarcely broken by the rivers
which cross it here and there, and the great lines of railroad that
serve as causeways through the desperate mud of spring and winter. A
scattered people, who till the unctuous black soil only too easily, and
leave as much of the crop rotting on the ground through neglect as would
support the entire population; rude though thriving towns, where the
grocery and the tavern, the ball room and the race course are more
lovingly patronized than the church, the Sunday school, and the lyceum;
where party spirit runs high, and elections are attended to, whatever
else may be forgotten; where very unseemly jokes are current, and
language far from choice passes unrebuked in society; in short, where
what are known as 'Western characteristics' bear undisputed sway, making
their natal region anything but a congenial residence for strangers of
an unaccommodating disposition--such is the picture.
It were useless to deny that most of the points here indicated would be
recognized and placed on his map by a Moral and Social topographer who
should make the tour of the entire State from Cairo to Dunleith, both
inclusive; but it is none the less certain that if he noted only these
he would ill deserve his title. Cicero had a huge, unsightly wart on
his eloquent nose; the fair mother of Queen Elizabeth, a 'supplemental
nail' on one of her beautiful hands; Italy has her Pontine Marshes, New
York city her 'Sixth Ward'; but he must be a green-eyed monster indeed
who would represent these as characteristics. Illinois deserves an
explorer with clear, kind eyes, and a historiographer as genial as
Motley. All in good time. She will 'grow' these, probably. While we are
waiting for them, let us prepare a few jottings for their use.
A great State is a great thing, certainly, but mere extent or mere
material wealth, without intellectual and social refinement and a high
moral tone, can never excite very deep interest. Not that we can expect
to find every desirable thing actually existent in a country as soon as
it is partially settled and in possession of the first necessities of
human society. But we may expect aspirations after the best things, and
a determination to acquire and uphold them. These United States of
ours--God bless them forever!--have a constitutional provision against
the undue preponderance of physical advantages over those of a higher
kind. Rhode Island (loyal to the core), and Delaware (just loyal enough
to keep her sweet), each sends her two Senators to Congress; and huge
Illinois--whom certain ill-advised Philistines are trying to make a
blind Samson of--can send no more. If we say the State that sends the
best men is the greatest State (for the time, especially the present
time), 'all the people shall answer Amen!' for one loyal heart, just
now, is more precious than millions of fat acres. Whether Illinois could
prudently submit to this appraisal, just at the present moment, remains
to be proved; but that her heart is loyal as well as brave, there can be
no question.
Without going back, in philosophical style, to the creation of the
world, we may say that the State had a good beginning. Father Marquette
and his pious comrade Allouez, both soldiers of the Cross, explored her
northern wilds for God, and not for greed. They saw her solid and serene
beauty, and presaged her greatness, and they did all that wise and
devoted Catholic missionaries could do toward sanctifying her soil to
good ends forever. They found 'a peaceful and manly tribe' in her
interior, the name Illinois signifying 'men of men,' and the superiority
of the tribe to all the other Indians of the region justifying the
appellation. Allouez said, 'Their country is the best field for the
gospel,' and he planted it as well as he could with what he believed to
be the Tree of Life, long nourished with the prayers and tears of
himself and his successors. The Indians took kindly to the teaching of
the good and wise Frenchman, and it is said that even after troubles had
begun to arise, owing, as usual, to the misconduct of rapacious and
unprincipled white settlers, many of the Indians held fast by their
newly adopted faith, and even showed some good fruits of it in
forbearance and honesty of dealing. All this was not far from
contemporary with the period when Cotton Mather, in New England, while
teaching the principles of civil government, was persecuting Quakers and
burning witches; and in yet another part of the new country, William
Penn, neither Catholic nor Puritan, was making fair and honest treaties
with savages, and winning them, by the negative virtue of truthfulness,
to believe that white men could be friends.
The Great Colbert, minister to Louis XIV, under whose auspices the
French missionaries had been sent out, very soon came to the conclusion
that it was important to enlarge and strengthen French influence in this
great new country, particularly after he had ascertained the existence
of the 'Great River,' which Father Marquette had undertaken to explore,
and by means of which he expected to open trade with China! But the
minister of finance required rather more worldly agents than the
single-hearted and devoted ministers of religion, and he found a fitting
instrument in the young and ardent Robert de la Salle, a Frenchman of
enterprise and sagacity, worldly enough in his motives, but of
indomitable energy and perseverance. He was very successful in
establishing commerce in furs and other productions of the country, but
lost his life somewhere near the mouth of the Mississippi, which he
first explored, after escaping a thousand dangers. His name is famous in
the land, and a large town was called after it; but what would he say if
he heard his patronymic transformed into 'Lay-séll,' as it is,
universally, among the 'natives'?
It is in La Salle's first _procès verbal_ for his government that we
find the first mention of the river 'Chekagou,' a lonely stream then,
but which now reflects a number of houses and stores, tall steeples,
colossal grain depots, and--the splendid edifice which fitly enshrines
the northern terminus of the Illinois Central Railroad, the greatest
railway in the world, and certainly one of the wonders which even the
ambitious and sanguine La Salle never dreamed of; a daily messenger of
light and life through seven hundred miles of country, which, without
it, would have remained a wilderness to this day.
The first settler on the banks of this now so famous river was a black
man from St. Domingo, Jean Baptiste Point-au-Sable by name, who brought
some wealth with him, and built a residence which must have seemed grand
for that time and place. He did not stay long, however, and the Indians,
who had probably suffered some things from the arrogance of their white
neighbors, thought it a good joke to say that 'the first 'white man'
that settled there was a negro.' Like some other jokes, this one seems
to have rankled deep and long, for to this day Illinois tolerates
neither negro nor Indian. The Indian, _as_ an Indian, has no foothold in
the State; and the negro, even in the guise of born and skilled laborer
in the production of the crops which form the wealth of the country, and
of the new ones which are to be transplanted hither in consequence of
the war, is forbidden, under heavy penalties, to set foot within her
boundaries--the threat of slavery, like a flaming sword, guarding the
entrance of this paradise of the laborer.
Illinois has not suffered as much in tone and character from
unprincipled speculators as some others of the new States. Her early
settlers were generally men of muscle, mental as well as bodily; men who
did not so much expect to live by their wits and other people's folly,
as by their own industry and enterprise. Among the early inhabitants of
Chicago and other important towns, were some whose talents and character
would have been valuable anywhere. Public spirit abounded, and the men
of that day evidently felt as men should feel who are destined to be the
ancestors of great cities. In 1837, when the business affairs of Chicago
were in a distressing state, and private insolvency was rather the rule
than the exception, many debtors and a few demagogues called a public
meeting, the real though not the avowed object of which was to bring
about some form of repudiation. Some inflammatory suggestions, designed
to excite to desperate thoughts those whose affairs were cruelly
embarrassed, having wrought up the assembly to the point of forgetting
all but the distresses of the moment, a call was made for the mayor, who
came forward, and in a few calm and judicious words besought all present
to pause before they ventured on dishonorable expedients. He entreated
them to bear up with the courage of men, remembering that no calamity
was so great as the loss of self-respect; that it were better for them
to conceal their misfortunes than to proclaim them; that many a fortress
had been saved by the courage of its defenders, and their determination
to conceal its weakened condition at all sacrifices. 'Above all things,'
he said, 'do not tarnish the honor of our infant city!'
These manly words called up manly thoughts, and the hour of danger
passed by.
At one time the legislature were induced, by means of various tricks,
together with some touches of that high-handed insolence by which such
things are accomplished, to pass a resolution for a convention to alter
the constitution of the State, with a view to the introduction of
SLAVERY. One of the newspapers ventured an article which exposed the
scandalous means by which the resolutions had been carried through the
House. The 'proofs' of this article were stolen from the printing
office, and the parties implicated in this larceny attempted to induce a
mob to demolish the office and the offending editor. But the pluck which
originated the stinging article sufficed for the defence of the office.
The effort to establish slavery in Illinois was kept up for a year or
more, but the bold editor and other friends of freedom labored
incessantly for the honor of the State, and succeeded at length in
procuring an overwhelming vote against the threatened disgrace.
Laws against duelling are laughed at in other States, but Illinois made
hers in earnest, affixing the penalty of death to the deliberate killing
of a man, even under the so-called code of honor. This severe law did
not suffice to prevent a fatal duel, the actors of which probably
expected to elude the penalty with the usual facility. The State,
however, in all simplicity, hung the survivor, and from that day to this
has had no further occasion for such severity.
Of late, the same Personage who has in all ages been disposed to buy
men's souls at his own delusive price, and to make his dupes sign the
infernal contract with their blood, has been very busy in certain parts
of the State, trying to get signatures, under the miserable pretence
that party pays better than patriotism, and that times of whirlwind and
disaster are those in which he, the contractor, has most power to
advance the interests of his adherents. But some of those who listened
most greedily to the glozings of the arch deceiver begin already to
repent, and are ready to call upon higher powers to interfere and efface
the record of their momentary weakness. In all _diablerie_ the _fiat_ of
a superior can release a victim, so we may hope that godlike patriotism
may not only forgive the penitent, but absolve him from the consequences
of his own rash folly. To have been instrumental in dimming for one
moment the glorious escutcheon of Illinois, requires pardon. To such
words as have been spoken by some of her sons we may apply the poet's
sentence:
'To speak them were a deadly sin!
And for having but thought them thy heart within
A treble penance must be done.'
The recent Message of Governor Yates is full of spirit, the right
spirit, a warm and generous, a courageous and patriotic one. He glories
in the great things he has to tell, but it is not 'as the fool
boasteth,' but rather as the apostle, who, when he recounts only plain
and manifest truths, says, 'Bear with me.' And truly, what wonders have
been achieved by the 'men of men'! Since the war began, Illinois, though
she has given one hundred and thirty-five thousand of her able-bodied
men to the field, and though the closing of the Mississippi has produced
incalculable loss, has sent away food enough to supply ten millions of
people, and she has now remaining, of last year's produce, as much as
can be shipped in a year. This enormous productiveness has given rise to
the idea that Illinois is principally a grain-growing State, but she
none the less possesses every requisite for commerce and manufactures.
Not content even in war time with keeping up all her old sources of
wealth, she has added to the list the production of sugar, tobacco, and
even cotton, all of which have been found to flourish in nearly every
portion of the State. The seventh State in point of population in 1850,
she was the fourth in 1860, and in the production of coal she has made a
similar advance. In railroads she is in reality the first, though
nominally only the second; possessing three thousand miles, intersecting
the State in all directions. Ten years ago the cost of all the railroad
property within her bounds was about $1,500,000; in 1860 it was
$104,944,561--an instance of progress unparalleled. But these are not
the greatest things.
Education receives the most enlightened attention, and all that the
ruling powers can accomplish in persuading the people to avail
themselves of the very best opportunities for mental enlargement and
generous cultivation is faithfully done. It is for the people themselves
to decide whether they will be content with the mere rudiments of
education, or accept its highest gifts, gratis, at the hands of the
State. If the pursuit of the material wealth which lies so temptingly
around them should turn aside their thoughts from this far greater boon,
or so pervert their minds as to render them insensible to its value,
they will put that material wealth to shame. It is true that in some
cases the disgust felt by loyal citizens at infamous political
interference may have operated to prevent their sending their children
to school; but these evils are sectional and limited, and the schools
themselves will, before long, so enlighten the dark regions as to render
such stupidity impossible. It is to the infinite credit of the State
that since the war began there has been no diminution, but on the
contrary, an increase in schools, both private and public, in number of
pupils, teachers, school houses, and amount of school funds. Of eight
thousand two hundred and twenty-three male teachers in 1860, _three
thousand_ went to the war, showing that it is among her most intelligent
and instructed classes that we are to look for the patriotism of
Illinois. The deficiency thus created operated legitimately and
advantageously in giving employment to a greatly increased number of
female teachers.
As to patriotism, let not the few bring disgrace upon the many. It is
true that scarcely a day passes unmarked by the discovery that some
grovelling wretch has been writing to the army to persuade soldiers to
desert on political grounds; yet as these disgraceful letters, as
published in the papers, give conclusive proof of the utter ignorance of
their writers, we must not judge the spirit of the State by them, any
more than by the louder disloyal utterances of men who have not their
excuse. Governor Yates speaks for the PEOPLE when he says:
'Our State has stood nobly by the Constitution and the Union. She
has not faltered for a moment in her devotion. She has sent her
sons in thousands to defend the Flag and avenge the insults heaped
upon it by the traitor hordes who have dared to trail it in the
dust. On every battle field she has poured out her blood, a willing
sacrifice, and she still stands ready to do or die. She has sent
out also the Angel of Mercy side by side with him who carries the
flaming sword of War. On the battle field, amid the dying and the
dead; in the hospital among the sick and wounded of our State, may
be seen her sons and daughters, ministering consolation and
shedding the blessings of a divine charity which knows no fear,
which dreadeth not the pestilence that walketh by night or the
bullet of the foe by day.'
Governor Yates himself, on receiving intelligence of the battle of Fort
Donelson, repaired at once to the scene of suffering, feeling--like the
lamented Governor Harvey of Wisconsin, who lost his life in the same
service--that where public good is to be done, the State should be
worthily and effectively represented by her chief executive officer.
There on the spot, trusting to no hearsay, Mr. Yates, while distributing
the bounteous stores of which he was the bearer, ascertained by actual
observation the condition and wants of the troops, and at once set about
devising measures of relief. After Shiloh, that Golgotha of our brave
boys, the Governor organized a large corps of surgeons and nurses, and
went himself to Pittsburg Landing to find such suffering and such
destitution as ought never to exist on the soil of our bounteous land,
under any possible conjuncture of circumstances, however untoward and
unprecedented. Without surgeons or surgical appliances, without hospital
supplies, and, above all, worse than all, without SYSTEM, there lay the
defenders of our national life, their wounds baking in the hot sun,
worms devouring their substance while yet the breath of life kept their
desolate hearts beating. Doing all that could be done on the spot, and
bringing away all who could be brought, the Governor returned, sending
the adjutant-general back on the same errand, and going himself a second
time as soon as a new supply of surgeons and sanitary stores,
contributed by private kindness, could be got together. And so on, as
long as the necessity existed. The great expenses involved in the relief
and transportation of many thousands of sick and wounded, expenses
unusual and not provided for by law, were gladly borne by the State, and
careful provision was made against the recurrence of the evil. May our
Heavenly Father in His great mercy so order the future as to make these
preparations unnecessary, wise and humane though they be! Says Governor
Yates:
'I have hope for my country, because I think the right policy has
been adopted. There remains but one other thing to make my
assurance doubly sure; and that is, I want to see no divisions
among the friends of the Union in the loyal States. Could I know
that the people of the Free States were willing to ignore party,
and resolved to act with one purpose and one will for the vigorous
prosecution of the war and the restoration of the Union, then I
should have no doubt of a happy end to all our difficulties. * * *
'If the members of this General Assembly, and the press and people
of Illinois, in the spirit of lofty patriotism, could lay aside
everything of a party character, and evince to the country, to our
army, and, especially to the secession States, that we are one in
heart and sentiment for every measure for the vigorous prosecution
of the war, it would have a more marked effect upon the suppression
of the rebellion than great victories achieved over the enemy upon
the battle field. For, when the North shall present an undivided
front--a stern and unfaltering purpose to exhaust every available
means to suppress the rebellion, then the last prop of the latter
will have fallen from under it, and it will succumb and sue for
peace. Should divisions mark our councils, or any considerable
portion of our people give signs of hesitation, then a shout of
exultation will go up, throughout all the hosts of rebeldom, and
bonfires and illuminations be kindled in every Southern city,
hailing our divisions as the sure harbingers of their success. We
must stand by the President, and send up to him, and to our brave
armies in the field, the support of an undivided sentiment and one
universal cheer from the masses of all the loyal States. The stern
realities of actual war have produced unanimity among our soldiers
in the army. With them the paltry contests of men for political
power dwindle into insignificance before the mightier question of
the preservation of the national life. Coming into closer contact
with Southern men and society, the sentiments of those who looked
favorably upon Southern institutions have shifted round. They have
now formed their own opinions of the proper relations of the
Federal Government to them, which no sophistry of the mere
politician can ever change. Seeing for themselves slavery and its
effects upon both master and slave, they learn to hate it and swear
eternal hostility to it in their hearts. Fighting for their
country, they learn doubly to love it. Fighting for the Union, they
resolve to preserve, at all hazards, the glorious palladium of our
liberties.
'I believe this infernal rebellion can be, ought to be, and will be
subdued. The land may be left a howling waste, desolated by the
bloody footsteps of war, from Delaware bay to the gulf, but our
territory shall remain unmutilated--the country shall be one, and
it shall be free in all its broad boundaries, from Maine to the
gulf, and from ocean to ocean.
'In any event, may we be able to act a worthy part in the trying
scenes through which we are passing; and should the star of our
destiny sink to rise no more, may we feel for ourselves and may
history preserve our record clear before heaven and earth, and hand
down the testimony to our children, that we have done all, perilled
and endured all, to perpetuate the priceless heritage of Liberty
and Union, unimpaired to our posterity.'
And in this fervid utterance of our warm-hearted Governor, the free
choice of a free people, let us consider Illinois as expressing her
honest sentiments.
A WINTER IN CAMP.
I was painfully infusing my own 'small Latin and less Greek' into the
young Shakspeares of a Western college, when the appointment of a friend
to the command of the ----th Iowa regiment opened to me a place upon his
staff. Three days afterward, in one of the rough board-shanties of Camp
McClellan, I was making preparations for my first dress parade. The less
said of the _dress_ of that parade, the better. There was no lack of
comfortable clothing, but every man had evidently worn the suit he was
most willing to throw away when his Uncle Samuel presented him with a
new one; and a regiment of such suits drawn up in line, made but a sorry
figure in comparison with the smartly uniformed ----th, which had just
left the ground. Their colonel, in the first glory of his sword and
shoulder straps, was replaced by a very rough-looking individual, with a
shabby slouched hat pushed far back on his head, and a rusty overcoat,
open just far enough to show the place where a cravat might have been.
It was very plain, as he stood there with his arms folded, thin lips
compressed, and gray eyes hardly visible under their shaggy brows, that
whether he _looked_ the colonel or not was the last thought likely to
trouble him. I fancied that he did, in spite of all, and that he saw a
great deal of good stuff in the party-colored rows before him, which he
would know how to use when the right moment came: subsequent events
proved that I was not mistaken. The regiment had no reason to be ashamed
of their rough colonel, even when the two hundred that were left of them
laid down their arms late in the afternoon of that bloody Sabbath at
Shiloh, on the very spot where the swelling tide of rebels had beaten
upon them like a rock all day long.
But these after achievements are no part of my present story. The more
striking passages of this great war for freedom will be well and fully
told. Victories like Donelson, death-struggles like that on the plains
of Shiloh, will take their place in ample proportions on the page of
history. As years roll on they will stand out in strong relief, and be
the mountain tops which receding posterity will still recognize when all
the rest has sunk beneath the horizon. It were well that some record
should also be made of the long and dull days and weeks and months that
intervened between these stirring incidents: at least that enough should
be told of them to remind our children that they existed, and in this as
in all other wars, made up the great bulk of its toils. This indeed
seems the hardest lesson for every one but soldiers to learn. Few but
those who have had actual experience know how small a part fighting
plays in war; how little of the soldier's hardships and privations, how
little of his dangers even are met upon the battle field. Tame as
stories of barrack life must seem when we are thrilling with the great
events for which that life furnishes the substratum, it is worth our
while, for the sake of this lesson, to give them also their page upon
the record, to spread these neutral tints in due proportion upon the
broad canvas. It is partly for this reason that I turn back to sketch
the trivial and monotonous scenes of a winter in barracks. It is well to
remind you, dear young friends, feminine and otherwise, at home, that a
great many days and nights of patient labor go to one brilliant battle.
When your loudest huzzas and your sweetest smiles are showered on the
lucky ones who have achieved great deeds and walked through the red
baptism of fire, remember also how much true courage and fortitude have
been shown in bearing the daily hardships of the camp, without the
excitement of hand-to-hand conflict.
The new uniforms came at last, and all the slang epithets with which our
regiment had been received were duly transferred to the newly arrived
squads of the next in order. Then we began to speculate on the time and
mode of our departure. It was remarkable how keenly the most contented
dispositions entered into these questions. There is in military life a
monotony of routine, and at the same time a constant mental excitement,
that make change--change of some sort, even from better to worse--almost
a necessity. I had already stretched myself in my bunk one evening, and
was half asleep, when I heard joyful voices cry out, 'That's good!' and
unerring instinct told me that orders had come for the ----th to move.
On the third day again we stood in our ranks upon the muddy esplanade of
the Benton Barracks, patiently waiting for the A. A. A. G. and the P. Q.
M. to get through the voluminous correspondence which was to result in
quarters and rations. At least twenty thousand men were crowded at that
time into this dismal quadrangle. Perseverance and patience could
overcome the prevalent impression at the commissary that every new
regiment was a set of unlawful intruders, to be starved out if possible,
but could not conquer the difficulty of crowding material bodies into
less space than they had been created to fill. Two companies had to be
packed into each department intended for one. As for 'field and staff,'
they were worse off than the privates, and took their first useful
lesson in the fact that they were by no means such distinguished
individuals in the large army as they had been when showing off their
new uniforms at home. It must have been comforting to over-sensitive
privates to hear how colonels and quartermasters were snubbed in their
turn by the 'general staff.' The regimental headquarters, where these
crest-fallen dignitaries should have laid their weary heads, were
tenanted by Captains A., who had a pretty wife with him, and B., who
gave such nice little suppers, and C., whose mother was first cousin to
the ugly half-breed that blew the general's trumpet from the roof of the
great house in the centre. Wherefore the colonel, the surgeon, the
chaplain, the quartermaster, and the 'subscriber' were content to spread
their blankets for the first night with a brace of captains, on the
particularly dirty floor of Company F., and dream those 'soldier dreams'
in which Mrs. Soldier and two or three little soldiers--assorted
sizes--run down to the garden gate to welcome the hero home again, while
guardian angels clap their wings in delight and take a receipt for him
as 'delivered in good order and well-conditioned' to the deities that
preside over the domestic altar.
Such dreams as these were easy matters for most of us, who had no
experience. With our regimental colors fresh from the hands of the two
inevitable young ladies in white, who had presented them (with remarks
suitable to the occasion), we saw nothing before us but a march of
double quick to 'glory or the grave.' Luckily we had cooler heads among
us: men who had fought in Mexico, camped in the gulches of California,
drilled hordes of Indians in South America, led men in desperate
starving marches over the plains. These went about making us comfortable
in a very prosaic, practical way. The first call for volunteers from the
ranks was not to defend a breach or lead a forlorn hope, as we had
naturally expected, but--for carpenters. They were set to knocking down
the clumsy bunks in the men's quarters and rebuilding them in more
convenient shape, piercing the roof for ventilators, building shanties
for the dispensary and the quartermaster's stores. Colonel and chaplain
made a daily tour of the cook rooms and commissary, smelt of meat,
tasted hard bread, dived into dinner pots, examined coffee grounds to
see whether any of the genuine article had accidentally got mixed with
the post supply of burnt peas. The surgeon commenced vaccinating the
men, and taking precautions against every possible malady, old age, I
believe, included. Meanwhile the adjutant and the sergeant-major shut
themselves up in a back room like a counting house, and were kept busy
copying muster rolls, posting huge ledger-like books, making out daily
and nightly returns, receiving and answering elaborate letters from the
official personages in the next building. The company officers and men
were assigned their regular hours for drill, as well as for everything
else that men could think of doing in barracks. In short, we found
ourselves all drawn into the operations of a vast, cumbrous, slow-moving
machine, with a great many more cogs than drivers, through which no
regiment or any other body could pass rapidly. The time required in our
case was nearly three months.
How much of this delay was necessary or beneficial I leave for wiser
military critics than myself to discuss. The complaint it awakened at
the time has almost been forgotten in the glory of the achievements
which followed when the great army actually began to move. Perhaps it is
remembered only by those who mourn the brave young hearts that never
reached the battle field, but perished in the inglorious conflict with
disease and idleness. Few appreciate the fearful loss suffered from
these causes, unless they were present from day to day, watching the
regular morning reports, or meeting the frequent burial squads that
thronged the road to the cemetery. Even in a place like St. Louis, with
amply provided hospitals, and all the appliances of medical skill at
hand, men died at a rate which would have carried off half the army
before its three years' service expired. And of these deaths by far the
greater portion were the direct consequence of idleness and its
consequent evils in camp. The healthiest body of troops I saw in
Missouri were busy night and day with scouting parties, and living in
their tents upon a bleak hilltop, ten miles from the nearest hospital or
surgeon. When their regiment was concentrated after four months'
service, this company alone marched in the hundred and one men it had
brought from home, not a single man missing or on the sick list.
Perhaps another such instance could scarcely be found in the whole army.
But it was not by death alone that precious material wasted faster than
a whole series of battles could carry it off. Under such circumstances
the living rot as well as the dead. Physically and morally the men
deteriorate for want of occupation that interests them. Most of our
Western volunteers were farmers' boys, fresh from an active, outdoor
life. They were shut up in the barracks, with no exercise but three or
four hours of monotonous drill, no outdoor life but a lounge over the
level parade ground, and no amusements but cards and the sutler's shop.
Their very comforts were noxious. The warm, close barracks in which they
spent perhaps twenty hours out of the twenty-four, would enervate even a
man trained to sedentary habits; and the abundant rations of hot food,
consumed with the morbid appetite of men who had no other amusement,
rendered them heavy and listless. In our regiment, at least, it was
absolutely necessary to cut down the rations of certain articles, as for
instance of coffee, and to prevent their too frequent use. The cooks
told us that it was not an uncommon thing for a man to consume from four
to six quarts of hot coffee at the three meals of a single day.
Upon their minds the influence was even greater than upon their bodies.
More enthusiastic soldiers never assembled in the world than came up
from all parts of the country to the various rendezvous of our
volunteers. This is not merely the partial judgment of a fellow
countryman. In conversation with old European officers of great
experience, who had spent the autumn in instructing different regiments,
I have heard testimony to this effect more flattering than anything
which I, as an American, should dare to say. Of course a part of this
enthusiasm was founded on an illusion which experience must sooner or
later have dispelled; but wise policy would have husbanded it as long as
possible, by putting them into service which should at the same time
have fed their love of adventure and given them practice in arms. Even
as a matter of drill--which to some of our officers seems to be the
great end, and not merely the means of a soldier's life--this would have
been an advantage. The drill of a camp of instruction is not only
monotonous, but meaningless, because neither officers nor men are yet
alive to its practical application. Had these men been placed at once
where something _seemed_ to depend on their activity, instruction in
tactics would have been eagerly sought after, instead of being looked
upon as an irksome daily task. Nor would it have been necessary for this
purpose to place raw troops in positions of critical importance. The
vast extent of our line of operations, and the wide tracts of
disaffected country which were, or _might easily have been_, left behind
it, offered an ample field for a training as thorough as the most rigid
martinet could desire, at a safe distance from any enemy in force, but
where they would have been kept under the _qui vive_ by the belief that
something was intrusted to them. Drill or no drill, I do not think there
was a colonel in the barracks who did not know that his men would have
been worth more if marched from the place of enlistment directly into
the open field, than they were after months in a place where the whole
tendency was to chill their patriotism by making them feel useless, and
to wear off the fine edge of their patriotism by subjection to the
merest mechanical process of instruction.
But without dwelling longer on a subject still so delicate as this, let
it be said that the advantages of the camp of instruction were
principally with the officers. These really learned many things they
needed to know, and perhaps unlearned some that they needed as much to
forget. I have hinted already at one of these latter lessons--that of
their own insignificance. Familiarity breeds contempt, even with
shoulder straps. It did the captains and majors and colonels, each of
whom had been for a time the particular hero of his own village or
county, not a little good to find themselves lost in the crowd, and
quite overshadowed by the stars of the brigadiers. Even these latter did
not look quite so portentous and dazzling when we saw them in whole
constellations, paling their ineffectual rays before the luminary of
headquarters. Many an ambitious youth, who had come from home with very
grand though vague ideas of the personal influence he was to have upon
the country's destinies, found it a wholesome exercise to stand in the
mud at the gate all day as officer of the guard, and touch his hat
obsequiously to the general staff. If there was good stuff in him he
soon got over the first disappointment, and learned to put his shoulder
more heartily to that of his men, when he found that his time was by no
means too valuable to be chiefly spent in very insignificant
employments. Some few, it is true, never could have done this, even if
they had been brayed in a mortar. I remember one fussy little cavalry
adjutant, who never allowed a private to pass him without a salute, or
sit down in his presence. I lost sight of the fellow soon afterward, but
it was with great satisfaction that I saw his name gazetted a week or
two since, 'dismissed the service.'
As for regular instruction in tactics, there was perhaps as much as the
nature of the case admitted, to wit, none at all. Every now and then a
fine system would be organized, and promulgated in general orders.
Sometimes a series of recitations were prescribed that would have
dismayed a teachers' institute. Field officers were to say their lessons
every evening at headquarters, and head classes from their own line in
the forenoon. The company officers in turn were to teach
non-commissioned ideas how to shoot. Playing truant was strictly
forbidden; careless officers who should 'fail to acquire the lesson set
for them' were to be reported, and, I presume, the unlucky man who
missed a question would have seen 'the next' go above him till the
bright boy of each class had worked his way up to the head. These
systems did _not_ prove a failure: they simply never went at all, but
were quietly and unanimously ignored by teacher and teachee. Every man
was left to thumb his Hardee in private, and find out what he lacked by
his daily blunders on drill. These furnished ample subject for private
study, as well as for animated discussion among the other military
topics that occupied our leisure. Emulation and the fear of ridicule
kept even the most indolent at work.
It was amusing to see how rapidly the _esprit de corps_--their own
favorite word, which they took infinite pleasure in repeating on all
occasions--grew upon our newly made warriors. How learned they were upon
all the details of 'the service,' and how particularly jealous of the
honors and importance of their own particular 'arm!' I used to listen
with infinite relish to the discussion in our colonel's quarters, which
happened to be a favorite rendezvous for the field officers of some half
dozen different regiments, during the idle hours of the long winter
evenings. No matter how the conversation commenced, it was sure to come
down to this at last, and cavalry, infantry, and artillery blazed away
at each other in a voluble discussion that was like Midshipman Easy's
triangular duel multiplied by six.
'There's no use talking, colonel, you never have done anything against
us in a fair hand-to-hand fight, and you never can.'
(_You_ on this occasion may be supposed to be cavalry, personified in a
long, lantern-jawed attorney from Iowa, while _us_ stands for infantry,
represented by an ex-drover from Indiana.)
'Never done anything, eh?' replies the attorney, who, on the strength of
a commission and mustache of at least six months' date, ranks as quite a
veteran in the party; 'what did you do at Borodino? Pretty show you made
there when we came charging down upon you!'
'Oh, that was all somebody's fault--what's his name's, you know, that
commanded there. Didn't find those charges work so well at Waterloo, did
you?' Thus the ex-drover, fresh from the perusal of Halleck on Military
Science.
'Ah, but you see they could not stand our grape and canister,'
interposes artillery (Major Phelim O. Malley, now of the 99th Peoria
Battery, till last month real-estate and insurance broker, No.----
Dearborn street, basement).
'If we ploy into a hollow square'--
'Yes, but you see we come down obliquely and cut off your corners'--
'All they want then is a couple of field pieces; zounds, sir!'--(the
major has found this expletive in Lever's novels, and adopted it as
particularly becoming to a military man.)
'Echelon--charge--right guides--Buny Visty--Austerlitz'--
Meanwhile old Brazos and the Swiss major sit grimly silent, one nursing
his lame shin, where the Mexican bullet struck him, the other drawing
hard on his pipe and puffing out wreaths of smoke that hang like
Linden's 'sulphurous canopy' over the combatants. I have no doubt a
great deal of excellent tactics was displayed in these discussions;
still less, if possible, that the zeal of the disputants was all the
more creditable to them for their peaceful antecedents during their
whole lives; but the ludicrous side of the scene was brought out all the
more strongly by the silence of these old soldiers, who alone out of the
whole party had ever seen what men actually could and did do on the
battle field.
Sometimes these conversations took a high range, and dwelt upon the
causes and the policy of the contest in which we were engaged. I do not
think, however, that these were half so much talked or thought of among
the officers as in the barracks of the men; and it is only justice to
add, that among a large class of the privates I have heard them
discussed with a clearness, a freedom from all prejudices and present
interests, that surpassed the average deliberations of the shoulder
straps. There never probably was so large an army assembled in the world
where so great a proportion of the intelligence could be found in the
ranks. Marked individual instances were constantly met with. There was
at least one corporal in the ----th, who occupied his leisure hours with
the Greek Testament, that the time spent in fighting for his country
might not be all lost to his education for the ministry. I hope the
noble fellow will preach none the less acceptably without the arm that
he left at Donelson. Another of our non-commissioned officers was a
member of the Iowa Legislature. Could there be a happier illustration of
the fine compliment paid by President Lincoln in his message of last
summer to the rank and file of our army? Pity it must be added that no
representations could procure him a furlough to allow him to take his
seat during the session. Had he been a colonel, with $3,000 a year, the
path would have been wide and smooth that led from his duties in the
camp to his seat in Congress, or any other good place he was lucky
enough to fill.
This, by the way, is only one instance of the greatest defect in our
volunteer system: the broad and almost impassable gulf of demarcation
between commissioned officers and enlisted men. The character of the
army requires that this should be eradicated as soon as possible.
Enthusiastic patriotism might make men willing to bear with it for a
time, or while the war seemed a temporary affair. But since the
conviction has settled down upon the popular mind that we are in for a
long and tedious struggle, and that a great army of American citizens
must be kept on foot during the whole of it, overshadowing all peaceful
pursuits, and remoulding the whole character of our people, there begins
to be felt also the need of organizing that army as far as possible in
conformity with the genius of our people and Government. The greenest
recruit expects to find in the army a sharp distinction of rank, and a
strict obedience to authority, to which he has been a stranger in
peaceful times. But he is disappointed and discouraged when he finds a
needless barrier erected to divide men into two classes, of which the
smallest retains to itself all the profits and privileges of the
service. He comprehends very well that a captain needs higher pay and
more liberty than a private, and a general than a captain; but he fails
to see the reason why a second lieutenant should have four or five times
the pay of an orderly sergeant, and be officially recognized all through
the army regulations as a gentleman, while he who holds the much more
arduous and responsible office is simply an 'enlisted man,' It will be
much easier for him to discover why this is so than to find any good
reason why it should remain so. We are managing an army of half a
million by the routine intended for one of ten thousand, and we are
organizing citizen volunteers under regulations first created for the
most dissimilar army to be found in the civilized world. We adopted our
army system from England, where there are widely and perpetually
distinct classes of society in peace as well as war; the nobility and
gentry furnishing all the officers, while the ranks are filled up with
the vast crowd, poor and ignorant enough to fight for sixpence a day. To
our little standing army of bygone days the system was well enough
adapted, for in that we too had really two distinct classes of men. West
Point furnished even more officers than we needed, with thorough
education, and the refined and expensive habits that education brings
with it. The ranks were filled with foreigners and broken-down men, who
had neither the ambition nor the ability to rise to anything higher. But
we have changed all that. The healthiest and best blood of our country
is flowing in that country's cause. Our army is composed of more than
half a million citizens, young, eager, ambitious, and trained from
infancy each to believe himself the equal of any man on earth. With the
privates under their command the officers have for the most part been
playmates, schoolmates, associates in business, all through life. A
trifle more of experience or of energy, or the merest accident sometimes
has made one captain, while the other has gone into the ranks; but
unless those men were created over again, you could not make between
them the difference that the army regulations contemplate. Once off
duty, there is nothing left to found it on.
'I say, Jack,' said an officer at Pittsburg Landing to an old crony who
was serving as private in another company, 'where did you get that
turkey?'
'Well, cap, I want to know first whether you ask that question as an
officer or as a friend.'
'As a friend, of course, Jack.'
'Then it's none of your d---- business, Tom!'
The difference in pay is not only too great, but is made up in a way
that shows its want of reason. Both have lived on the same fare all
their lives, and the captain knows that it is an absurdity for him to be
drawing the price of four rations a day on the supposition that he has
been luxuriously trained, while in reality he satisfies his appetite
with the same plain dishes served out to his brother in the ranks. He
knows that it is an absurdity for him to receive a large pay in order to
support his family according to their supposed rank, while the private's
wife and children are to be made comfortable out of thirteen dollars a
month; the fact being that Mrs. Captain and Mrs. Private probably live
next door to each other at home, and exchange calls and groceries, and
wear dresses from the same piece, and talk scandal about each other, all
in as neighborly a manner as they have been accustomed to do all their
lives. Indeed, whatever aristocracy of wealth and elegance was growing
up among us has been set back at least a generation by this war, which
has brought out into such prominent notice and elevated so high in our
hearts the rougher merits of the strong arm and the dextrous hand. Every
month sees a larger proportion of officers coming from among those whose
habits have been the reverse of luxury. It is hard to say which would be
more mischievous and absurd: for these to spend their extra pay and
rations in an effort to copy the traditional style of an English
Guardsman, or to keep on in their old way of life, and pocket large
savings that are supposed to be thus spent.
We need therefore to root out entirely this division of the army into
two classes. Let the scale of rank and pay rise by regular steps from
corporal to general, so that the former may be as much or as little a
'commissioned officer' as his superiors. Abolish all invidious
distinctions by a regular system of promotions from the ranks, and only
from the ranks, except so far as West Point and kindred schools furnish
men educated to commence active service at a higher round of the ladder.
Then we shall have an army into which the best class of our youth can go
as privates without feeling that they have more to dread in their own
camps than on the battle field.
No doubt there would be an outcry against such a change from those who
have been accustomed to the old system and enjoyed its benefits. This of
itself would be no great obstacle, unless supported by a vague
impression among the people at large that there must be some good reason
for the present state of things, and that civilians had better not
meddle with it. I see them sinking down covered with confusion when some
red-faced old 'regular' bursts out upon them with 'Stuff, sir! What do
_you_ know about military matters?' The best answer to this is, that
other nations, like the French, have set us the example, though by no
means so well provided with intelligent material to draw from in the
ranks; and that in fact England and the United States are about the only
countries in which the evil is allowed to exist. In both of these it has
remained from the fact that the body of the citizens have never been
interested in the rank and file of the army. In this country we have now
an entirely new state of things to provide for; and Yankee ingenuity
must hide its head for shame if a very few years do not give us a
republican army better organized and more efficient than any the world
has yet seen.
TAMMANY.
And at their meeting all with one accord
Cried: 'Down with LINCOLN and Fort Lafayette!'
But while jails stand and some men fear the LORD,
How _can_ ye tell what ye may chance to get?
IN MEMORIAM.
In the dim and misty shade of the hazel thicket,
Three soldiers, brave Harry, and Tom with the dauntless eyes,
And light-hearted Charlie, are standing together on picket,
Keeping a faithful watch 'neath the starry skies.
Silent they stand there, while in the moonlight pale
Their rifle barrels and polished bayonets gleam;
Nought is heard but the owl's low, plaintive wail,
And the soft musical voice of the purling stream;
Save when in whispering tones they speak to each other
Of the dear ones at home in the Northland far away,
Each leaving with each a message for sister and mother,
If he shall fall in the fight that will come with the day.
Slowly and silently pass the hours of the night,
The east blushes red, and the stars fade one by one;
The sun has risen, and far away on the right
The booming artillery tells that the fight is begun.
* * * * *
'Steady, boys, steady; now, forward! charge bayonet!'
Onward they sweep with a torrent's resistless might;
With the rebels' life-blood their glittering blades are wet,
And many a patriot falls in the desperate fight.
The battle is ended--the victory won--but where
Are Harry and Charlie, and Tom with the dauntless eyes,
Who went forth in the morn, so eager to do and to dare?--
Alas! pale and pulseless they lie 'neath the starry skies.
Together they stood 'mid the storm of leaden rain,
Together advanced and charged on the traitor knaves,
Together they fell on the battle's bloody plain,
To-morrow together they'll sleep in their lowly graves.
A father's voice fails as he reads the list of the dead,
And a mother's heart is crushed by the terrible blow;
Yet there's something of pride that gleams through the tears they shed,
Pride, e'en in their grief, that their boys fell facing the foe.
And though the trumpet of fame shall ne'er tell their story,
Nor towering monument mark the spot where they lie,
Yet round their memory lingers an undying glory:
They gave all they could to their country--they only could die.
A MERCHANT'S STORY.
'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'
CHAPTER XXII.
I found Selma plunged in the deepest grief. The telegram which informed
her of Preston's death was dated three days before (it had been sent to
Goldsboro for transmission, the telegraph lines not then running to
Newbern), and she could not possibly reach the plantation until after
her father's burial; but she insisted on going at once. She would have
his body exhumed; she must take a last look at that face which had never
beamed on her but in love!
Frank proposed to escort her, but she knew he could not well be spared
from business at that season; and, with a bravery and self-reliance not
common to her years and her sex, she determined to go alone.
Shortly after my arrival at the house, she retired to her room with
Kate, to make the final arrangements for the journey; and I seated
myself with David, Cragin, and Frank, in the little back parlor, which
the gray-haired old Quaker and his son-in-law had converted into a
smoking room.
As Cragin was lighting his cigar, I said to him:
'Have you heard the news?'
'What news?'
'The dissolution of Russell, Rollins & Co.'
'No; there's nothing so good stirring. But you'll hear it some two years
hence.'
'Read that;' and I handed him the paper which Hallet had signed.
'What is it, father?' asked Frank, his face alive with interest.
'Cragin will show it to you, if it ever gets through his hair. I reckon
he's learning to read.'
'Well, I believe I _can't_ read. What the deuce does it mean?'
'Just what it says--Frank is free.'
The young man glanced over the paper. His face expressed surprise, but
he said nothing.
'Then you've heard how things have been going on?' asked Cragin.
'No, not a word. I've _seen_ that Hallet was abusing the boy shamefully.
I came on, wanting an excuse to break the copartnership.'
'Do you know you've done me the greatest service in the world? I told
Hallet, the other day, that we couldn't pull together much longer. He
refused to let me off till our term is up; but I've got him now;' and he
laughed in boyish glee.
'Of course, the paper releases you as well as Frank. It's a general
dissolution.'
'Of course it is. How did you manage to get it? Hallet must have been
crazy. He wasn't _John Hallet_, that's certain!'
'The _genuine_ John, but a _little_ excited.'
'He must have been. But I'm rid of him, thank the Lord! Come, what do
you say to Frank's going in with me? I'll pack him off to Europe at
once--he can secure most of the old business.'
'_He_ must decide about that. He can come with me, if he likes. He'll
not go a begging, that's certain. He'll have thirty thousand to start
with.'
'Thirty thousand!' exclaimed Frank. 'No, father, you can't do that; you
need every dollar you've got.'
'Yes, I do, and more too. But the money is yours, not mine. You shall
have it to-morrow.'
'Mine! Where did it come from?'
'From a relative of yours. But he's modest; he don't want to be known.'
'But I _ought_ to know, I thought I had no relatives.'
'Well, you haven't--only this one, and he's rich as mud. He gave you the
five thousand; but this is a last instalment--you won't get another red
cent.'
'I don't feel exactly like taking money in that way.'
'Pshaw, my boy! I tell you it's yours--rightfully and honestly. You
ought to have more; but he's close-fisted, and you must be content with
this.'
'Well, Frank,' said Cragin, 'what do you say to hitching horses with me?
I'll give you two fifths, and put a hundred against your thirty.
'What shall I do?' said Frank to me.
'You'd better accept. It's more than I can allow you.'
'Then it's a trade?' asked Cragin.
'Yes,' said Frank.
'Well, old gentleman, what do _you_ say--will you move the old stool?'
said Cragin, addressing David.
'Yes; I like Frank too well to stay with even his father.'
In the gleeful mood which had taken possession of the old man, the words
slipped from his tongue before he was aware of it. He would have
recalled them on the instant, but it was too late. Cragin caught them,
and exclaimed:
'His father! Well, that explains some riddles. D--d if I won't call the
new firm Hallet, Cragin & Co. I've got him all around--ha! ha!'
Frank seemed thunderstruck. Soon he plied me with questions.
'I can say nothing; I gave my word I would not. David has betrayed it;
let him explain, if he pleases.'
The old bookkeeper then told the young man his history, revealing
everything but the degradation of his poor mother. Frank walked the
room, struggling with contending emotions. When David concluded, he put
his hand in mine, and spoke a few low words. His voice sounded like his
mother's. It was again _her_ blessing that I heard.
* * * * *
Two weeks afterward, the old sign came down from the old warehouse--came
down, after hanging there three quarters of a century, and in its place
went up a black board, on which, emblazoned in glaring gilt letters,
were the two words,
'JOHN HALLET.'
On the same day, the busy crowd passing up old Long Wharf might have
seen, over a doorway not far distant, a plainer sign. It read:
'CRAGIN, MANDELL & Co.'