Boston in 1862--Kind friends--Literary circles--Emerson, O. W. Holmes,
Lowell, E. P. Whipple, Agassiz, &c.--The Saturday dinners--The printed
autograph--The days of the Dark Shadow--Lowell and Hosea Biglow--I am
assured that the _Continental Magazine_ advanced the period of
Emancipation--I return to Philadelphia--My pamphlet on "Centralisation
_versus_ States Rights"--Its Results--Books--Ping-Wing--The Emergency--I
enter an artillery company--Adventures and comrades--R. W. Gilder--I see
rebel scouts near Harrisburg--The shelling of Carlisle--Incidents--My
brother receives his death-wound at my side--Theodore Fassitt--Stewart
Patterson--Exposure and hunger--The famous bringing-up of the
cannon--Picturesque scenery--The battle of Gettysburg--The retreat of
Lee--Incidents--Return home--Cape May--The beautiful Miss Vining--Solomon
the Sadducee--General Carrol Tevis--The Sanitary Fair--The oil mania--The
oil country--Colonel H. Olcott, the theosophist--Adventures and odd
incidents in Oil-land--Nashville--Dangers of the road--A friend in need--I
act as unofficial secretary and legal adviser to General Whipple--Freed
slaves--_Inter arma silent leges_--Horace Harrison--Voodoo--Captain
Joseph R. Paxton--Scouting for oil and shooting a brigand--Indiana in
winter--Charleston, West Virginia--Back and forth from Providence to the
debated land--The murder of A. Lincoln--Goshorn--Up Elk River in a dug-
out--A charmed life--Sam Fox--A close shot--Meteorological sorcery--A
wild country--Marvellous scenery--I bore a well--Robert Hunt--Horse
adventures--The panther--I am suspected of being a rebel spy--The German
apology--Cincinnati--Niagara--A summer at Lenox, Mass.--A MS. burnt.
We went to Boston early in December, 1861, and during that winter lived
pleasantly at the Winthrop House on the Common. I had already many
friends, and took letters to others who became our friends. We were very
kindly received. Among those whom we knew best were Mrs. and Mr. H.
Ritchie, Mrs. and Mr. T. Perkins, Mrs. H. G. Otis, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Ward--but I must really stop, for there was no end to
the list. Among my literary friends or acquaintances, or "people whom I
have very often met," were Emerson, Longfellow, Dr. O. W. Holmes, J. R.
Lowell, E. P. Whipple, Palfrey, G. Ticknor, Agassiz, E. Everett--in a
word, all that brilliant circle which shone when Boston was at its
brightest in 1862. I was often invited to the celebrated Saturday
dinners, where I more than once sat by Emerson and Holmes. As I had been
editor of the free lance _Vanity Fair_, and was now conducting the
_Continental_ with no small degree of audacity, regardless of friend or
foe, it was expected--and no wonder--that I would be beautifully cheeky
and New Yorky; and truly my education and antecedents in America,
beginning with my training under Barnum, were not such as to inspire
faith in my modesty. But in the society of the Saturday Club, and in the
very _general_ respect manifested in all circles in Boston for culture or
knowledge in every form--in which respect it is certainly equalled by no
city on earth--I often forgot newspapers and politics and war, and lived
again in memory at Heidelberg and Munich, recalling literature and art. I
heard, a day or two after my first Saturday, that I had passed the grand
ordeal successfully, or _summa cum magna laude_, and that Dr. Holmes, in
enumerating divers good qualities, had remarked that I was modest. Every
stranger coming to Boston has a verdict or judgment passed on him--he is
numbered and labelled at once--and it is really wonderful how in a few
days the whole town knows it.
I had met with Emerson many years before in Philadelphia, where I had
attracted his attention by remarking in Mrs. James Rush's drawing-room
that a vase in a room was like a bridge in a landscape, which he recalled
twenty years later. With Dr. Holmes I had corresponded. Lowell! "that
reminds me of a little story."
There was some "genius of freedom"--_i.e._, one who takes liberties--who
collected autographs, and had not even the politeness to send a written
request. He forwarded to me this printed circular:
"DEAR SIR: As I am collecting the autographs of distinguished
Americans, I would be much obliged to you for your signature. Yours
truly, --- ---"
While I was editing _Vanity Fair_ I received one of these circulars. I
at once wrote:--
"DEAR SIR: It gives me great pleasure to comply with your request.
CHARLES G. LELAND."
I called the foreman, and said, "Mr. Chapin, please to set this up and
pull half-a-dozen proofs." It was done, and I sent one to the autograph-
chaser. He was angry, and answered impertinently. Others I sent to
Holmes and Lowell. The latter thought that the applicant was a great
fool not to understand that such a printed document was far more of a
curiosity than a mere signature. I met with Chapin afterwards, when in
the war. He had with him a small company of printers, all of whom had
set up my copy many a time. Printers are always polite men. They all
called on me, and having no cards, left cigars, which were quite as
acceptable at that time of tobacco-famine.
Amid all the horrors and anxieties of that dreadful year, while my old
school-mate, General George B. McClellan, was delaying and demanding more
men--_mas y mas y mas_--I still had as many happy hours as had ever come
into any year of my life. If I made no money, and had to wear my old
gloves (I had fortunately a good stock gathered from one of Frank
Leslie's debtors), and had to sail rather close to the wind, I still
found the sailing very pleasant, and the wind fair and cool, though I was
_pauper in aere_.
Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis held a ladies' sewing-circle to make garments for
the soldiers, at which my wife worked zealously. There were many social
receptions, readings, etc., where we met everybody. It was very properly
considered bad form in those early days of the war to dance or give grand
dinners or great "parties." It was, in fact, hardly decent for a man to
dress up and appear as a swell at all anywhere. Death was beginning to
strike fast into families through siege and battle, and crape to blacken
the door-bells. There was a dark shadow over every life. I had been
assured by an officer that my magazine was doing the work of two
regiments, yet I was tormented with the feeling that I ought to be in the
war, as my grandfather would surely have been at my age. The officer
alluded to wrote to me that he on one occasion had read one of my
articles by camp-fire to his regiment, who gave at the end three
tremendous cheers, which were replied to by the enemy, who were not far
away, with shouts of defiance. As for minor incidents of the war-time, I
could fill a book with them. One day a young gentleman, a perfect
stranger, came to my office, as many did, and asked for advice. He said,
"Where I live in the country we have raised a regiment, and they want me
to be colonel, but I have no knowledge whatever of military matters. What
shall I do?" I looked at him, and saw that he "had it in him," and
replied, "New York is full of Hungarian and German military adventurers
seeking employment. Get one, and let him teach you and the men; but take
good care that he does not supplant you. Let that be understood." After
some months he returned in full uniform to thank me. He had got his man,
had fought in the field--all had gone well.
I remember, as an incident worth noting, that one evening while visiting
Jas. R. Lowell at his house in Cambridge, awaiting supper, there came a
great bundle of proofs. They were the second series of the Biglow Papers
adapted to the new struggle, and as I was considered in Boston at that
time as being in my degree a literary political authority or one of some
general experience, he was anxious to have my opinion of them, and had
invited me for that purpose. He read them to me, manifested great
interest as to my opinion, and seemed to be very much delighted or
relieved when I praised them and predicted a success. I do not
exaggerate in this in the least; his expression was plainly and
unmistakably that of a man from whom some doubt had been banished.
My brother Henry had at once entered a training-school for officers in
Philadelphia, distinguished himself as a pupil, and gone out to the war
in 1862. The terrible ill-luck which attended his every effort in life
overtook him speedily, and, owing to his extreme zeal and over-work, he
had a sunstroke, which obliged him to return home. He was a
first-lieutenant. The next year he went as sergeant, and was again
invalided. What further befell him will appear in the course of my
narrative.
The _Continental Magazine_ had done its work and was evidently dying. I
had never received a cent from it, and it had just met the expenses of
publication. It had done much good and rendered great service to the
Union cause. Gilmore had very foolishly yielded half the ownership to
Robert J. Walker, of whom I confess I have no very agreeable
recollections. So it began to die. But I have the best authority for
declaring that, ere it died, it had advanced the time of the Declaration
of Emancipation, which was the turning-point of the whole struggle, and
all my friends in Boston were of that opinion. This I can fully prove.
The summer of 1862 I passed in Dedham, going every day to my office in
Boston. We lived at the Phoenix Hotel, and occupied the same rooms which
my father and mother had inhabited thirty-five years before. We had many
very kind and hospitable friends. I often found time to roam about the
country, to sit by Wigwam Lake, to fish in the river Charles, and explore
the wild woods. I have innumerable pleasant recollections of that
summer.
I returned in the autumn with my wife to Philadelphia, and to my father's
house in Locust Street. The first thing which I did was to write a
pamphlet on "Centralisation _versus_ States Rights." In it I set forth
clearly enough the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States
could not be interpreted so as to sanction secession, and that as the
extremities or limbs grew in power, so there should be a strengthening of
the brain or greater power bestowed on the central Government. I also
advocated the idea of a far greater protection of general and common
industries and interests being adopted by the Government.
There was in the Senate a truly great man, of German extraction, named
Gottlieb Orth, from Indiana. He was absolutely the founder of the
Bureaus of Education, &c., which are now nourishing in Washington. He
wrote to me saying that he had got the idea of Industrial bureaus from my
pamphlet. In this pamphlet I had opposed the commonly expressed opinion
that we must do nothing to "aggravate the South." That is, we should
burn the powder up by degrees, as the old lady did who was blown to
pieces by the experiment. "Do not drive them to extremes." I declared
that the South would go to extremes in any case, and that we had better
anticipate it. This brought forth strange fruit in after years, long
after the war.
While I was in Boston in 1862, I published by Putnam in New York a book
entitled "Sunshine in Thought," which had, however, been written long
before. It was all directed against the namby-pamby pessimism, "lost
Edens and buried Lenores," and similar weak rubbish, which had then begun
to manifest itself in literature, and which I foresaw was in future to
become a great curse, as it has indeed done. Only five hundred copies of
it were printed.
I was very busy during the first six months of 1863. I wrote a work
entitled "The Art of Conversation, or Hints for Self-Education," which
was at once accepted and published by Carleton, of New York. It had, I
am assured, a very large sale indeed. I also wrote and illustrated, with
the aid of my brother, a very eccentric pamphlet, "The Book of
Copperheads." When Abraham Lincoln died two books were found in his
desk. One was the "Letters of Petroleum V. Nasby," by Dr. R. Locke, and
my "Book of Copperheads," which latter was sent to me to see _and
return_. It was much thumbed, showing that it had been thoroughly read
by Father Abraham.
I also translated Heine's "Book of Songs." Most of these had already
been published in the "Pictures of Travel." I restored them to their
original metres. I also translated the "Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing"
from the German, and finished up, partially illustrated, and published
two juvenile works. One of these was "Mother Pitcher," a collection of
original nursery rhymes for children, which I had written many years
before expressly for my youngest sister, Emily, now Mrs. John Harrison of
Philadelphia. In this work occurs my original poem of "Ping-Wing the
Pieman's Son." Of this Poem _Punch_ said, many years after, that it was
"the best thing of the kind which had ever crossed the Atlantic." Ping-
Wing appeared in 1891 as a full-page cartoon by Tenniel in _Punch_, and
as burning up the Treaty. I may venture to say that Ping-Wing--once
improvised to amuse dear little Emily--has become almost as well known in
American nurseries as "Little Boy Blue," at any rate his is a popular
type, and when Mrs. Vanderbilt gave her famous masked ball in New York,
there was in the Children's Quadrille a little Ping-Wing. Ping travelled
far and wide, for in after years I put him into Pidgin-English, and gave
him a place in the "Pidgin-English Ballads," which have always been read
in Canton, I daresay by many a heathen Chinese learning that childlike
tongue. I also translated the German "Mother Goose."
And now terrible times came on, followed, for me, by a sad event. The
rebels, led by General Lee, had penetrated into Pennsylvania, and
Philadelphia was threatened. This period was called the "Emergency." I
could easily have got a command as officer. I had already obtained for
my brother an appointment as major with secretary's duty on Fremont's
staff, which he promptly declined. But it was no time to stand on
dignity, and I was rather proud, as was my brother, to go as "full
private" in an artillery company known as "Chapman Biddle's," though he
did not take command of it on this occasion. {252} Our captain was a
dealer in cutlery named Landis.
After some days' delay we were marched forth. Even during those few
days, while going about town in my private's uniform, I realised in a
droll new way what it was to be a _common_ man. Maid-servants greeted me
like a friend, other soldiers and the humbler class talked familiarly to
me. I had, however, no excuse to think myself any better than my
comrades, for among the hundred were nearly twenty lawyers or
law-students, and all were gentlemen as regards position in society.
Among them was R. W. Gilder, now the editor of the _Century_, who was
quite a youth then, and in whose appearance there was something which
deeply interested me. I certainly have a strange Gypsy faculty for
divining character, and I divined a genius in him. He was very brave and
uncomplaining in suffering, but also very sensitive and emotional. Once
it happened, at a time when we were all nearly starved to death and worn
out with want of sleep and fatigue, that I by some chance got a loaf of
bread and some molasses. I cut it into twelve slices and sweetened them,
intending to give one to every man of our gun. But I could only find
eleven, and, remembering Gilder, went about a long mile to find him; and
when I gave it to him he was so touched that the tears came into his fine
dark eyes. Trivial as the incident was, it moved me. Another was
Theodore Fassitt, a next-door neighbour of mine, whose mother had
specially commended him to me, and who told me that once or twice he had
stolen ears of maize from the horses to keep himself alive. Also Edward
Penington, and James Biddle, a gentleman of sixty; but I really cannot
give the roll-call. However, they all showed themselves to be gallant
gentlemen and true ere they returned home. The first night we slept in a
railroad station, packed like sardines, and I lay directly across a rail.
Then we were in camp near Harrisburg for a week--_dans la pluie et la
misere_.
We knew that the rebels were within six miles of us, at Shooter's Hill--in
fact, two of our guns went there. Penington was with them, and had a
small skirmish, wherein two of the foemen were slain, the corporal being,
however, called off before he could secure their scalps. That afternoon,
as I was on guard, I saw far down below a few men who appeared to be
scouting very cautiously, and hiding as they did so. They seemed mere
specks, but I was sure they were rebels. I called on Lieutenant Perkins,
who had a glass, but neither he nor others present thought they were of
the enemy. Long after, this incident had a droll sequel.
Hearing that the rebels were threatening Carlisle, we were sent thither
on a forced march of sixteen miles. They had been before us, and
partially burned the barracks. We rested in the town. There was a large
open space, for all the world like a stage. Ladies and others brought us
refreshments; the scene became theatrical indeed. The soldiers, wearied
with a long march, were resting or gossipping, when all at once--_whizz-
bang_--a shell came flying over our heads and burst. There were
cries--the ladies fled like frightened wild-fowl! The operatic effect
was complete!
About ten thousand rebel regulars, hearing that we had occupied Carlisle,
had returned, and if they had known that there were only two or three
thousand raw recruits, they might have captured us all. From this fate
we were saved by a good strong tremendous lie, well and bravely told.
There was a somewhat ungainly, innocent, rustic-looking youth in our
company, from whose eyes simple truth peeped out like two country girls
at two Sunday-school windows. He, having been sent to the barracks to
get some fodder, with strict injunction to return immediately, of course
lay down at once in the hay and had a good long nap. The rebels came and
roused him out, but promised to let him go free on condition that he
would tell the sacred truth as to how many of us Federal troops were in
Carlisle. And he, moved by sympathy for his kind captors, and swearing
by the Great Copperhead Serpent, begged them to fly for their lives; "for
twenty regiments of regulars, and Heaven only knew how many, volunteers,
had come in that afternoon, and the whole North was rising, and trains
running, and fresh levies pouring in."
The rebels believed him, but they would not depart without giving us a
touch of their quality, and so fired shell and grape in on us till two in
the morning. There were two regiments of "common fellows," or valiant
city roughs, with us, who all hid themselves in terror wherever they
could. But our company, though unable to fire more than a few shots,
were kept under fire, and, being all gentlemen, not a man flinched.
I did not, to tell the truth, like our captain; but whatever his faults
were, and he had some, cowardice was not among them. Some men are
reckless of danger; he seemed to be absolutely insensible to it, as I
more than once observed, to my great admiration. He was but a few feet
from me, giving orders to a private, when a shell burst immediately over
or almost between them. Neither was hurt, but the young man naturally
shied, when Landis gruffly cried, "Never mind the shells, sir; they'll
not hurt you till they hit you."
I was leaning against a lamp-post when a charge of grape went through the
lamp. Remembering the story in "Peter Simple," and that "lightning never
strikes twice in the same place," I remained quiet, when there came at
once another, smashing what was left of the glass about two feet above my
head.
Long after the war, when I was one day walking with Theodore Fassitt, I
told him the tale of how I had awakened the family at the fire in Munich.
And Theodore dolefully exclaimed, "I don't see why it is that _I_ can
never do anything heroic or fine like that!" Then I said, "Theodore, I
will tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a boy only eighteen
years of age, and it happened in the war that he was in a town, and the
rebels shelled it. Now this boy had charge of four horses, and the
general had told him to stay in one place, before a church; and he
obeyed. The shells came thick and fast--I saw it all myself--and by-and-
bye one came and took off a leg from one of the horses. Then he was in a
bad way with his horses, but he stayed. After a while the general came
along, and asked him 'why the devil he was stopping there.' And he
replied, 'I was ordered to, sir!' Then the general told him to get
behind the church at once."
"Why!" cried Theodore in amazement, "_I was that boy_!"
"Yes," I replied; "and the famous Roman sentinel who remained at his post
in Pompeii was no braver, and I don't think he had so hard a time of it
as you had with that horse."
I was put on guard. The others departed or lay down to sleep on the
ground. The fire slackened, and only now and then a shell came with its
diabolical scream like a dragon into the town. All at last was quiet,
when there came shambling to me an odd figure. There had been some
slight attempt by him to look like a soldier--he had a _feather_ in his
hat--but he carried his rifle as if after deer or raccoons, and as if he
were used to it.
"Say, Cap!" he exclaimed, "kin you tell me where a chap could get some
ammynition?"
"Go to your quartermaster," I replied.
"Ain't got no quartermaster."
"Well, then to your commanding officer--to your regiment."
"Ain't got no commanding officer nowher' this side o' God, nor no
regiment."
"Then who the devil are you, and where do you belong?"
"Don't belong nowher'. I'll jest tell you, Cap, how it is. I live in
the south line of New York State, and when I heard that the rebs had got
inter Pennsylvany, forty of us held a meetin' and 'pinted me Cap'n. So
we came down here cross country, and 'rived this a'ternoon, and findin'
fightin' goin' on, went straight for the bush. And gettin' cover, we
shot the darndest sight of rebels you ever _did_ see. And now all our
ammynition is expended, I've come to town for more, for ther's some of
'em still left--who want killin' badly."
"See here, my friend," I replied. "You don't know it, but you're nothing
but a bushwhacker, and anybody has a right to hang or shoot you out of
hand. Do you see that great square tent?" Here I pointed to the
general's marquee. "Go in there and report yourself and get enrolled."
And the last I saw of him he was stumbling over the sticks in the right
direction. This was my first experience of a real _guerillo_--a
character with whom I was destined to make further experience in after
days.
An earlier incident was to me extremely curious. There was in our
battery a young gentleman named Stewart Patterson, noted for his
agreeable, refined manners. He was the gunner of our cannon No. Two. We
had brass Napoleons. At the distance of about one mile the rebels were
shelling us. Patterson brought _his_ gun to bear on theirs, and the two
exchanged shots at the same instant. Out of the smoke surrounding
Patterson's gun I saw a sword-blade fly perhaps thirty feet, and then
himself borne by two or three men, blood flowing profusely. The four
fingers of his right hand had been cut away clean by a piece of shell.
At the instant I saw the blade flash in its flight, I recalled seeing
precisely the same thing long before in Heidelberg. There was a famous
duellist who had fought sixty or seventy times and never received a
scratch. One day he was acting as _second_, when the blade of his
principal, becoming broken at the hilt by a violent blow, flew across the
room, rebounded, and cut the second's lip entirely open. It was
remarkable that I should twice in my life have seen such a thing, in both
instances accompanied by wounds. Long after I met Patterson in
Philadelphia, I think, in 1883. He did not recognise me, and gave me his
left hand. I said, "Not that hand, Patterson, but the other. You've no
reason to be ashamed of it. I saw the fingers shot off."
But on that night there occurred an event which, in the end, after years
of suffering, caused the deepest sorrow of my life. As we were not
firing, I and the rest of the men of the gun were lying on the ground to
escape the shells, but my brother, who was nothing if not soldierly and
punctilious, stood upright in his place just beside me. There came a
shell which burst immediately, and very closely over our heads, and a
piece of it struck my brother exactly on the brass buckle in his belt on
the spine. The blow was so severe that the buckle was bent in two. It
cut through his coat and shirt, and inflicted a slight wound two inches
in length. But the blow on the spine had produced a concussion or
disorganisation of the brain, which proved, after years of suffering, the
cause of his death. At first he was quite senseless, but as he came to,
and I asked him anxiously if he was hurt, he replied sternly, "Go back
immediately to your place by the gun!" He was like grandfather Leland.
A day or two after, while we were on a forced march to intercept a party
of rebels, the effect of the wound on my brother's brain manifested
itself in a terrible hallucination. He had become very gloomy and
reserved. Taking me aside, he informed me that as he had a few days
before entered a country-house, contrary to an order issued, to buy food,
he was sure that Captain Landis meant as soon as possible to have him
shot, but that he intended, the instant he saw any sign of this, at once
to attack and kill the captain! Knowing his absolute determined and
inflexibly truthful character, and seeing a fearful expression in his
eyes, I was much alarmed. Reflecting in the first place that he was half-
starved, I got him a meal. I had brought from Philadelphia two pounds of
dried beef, and this, carefully hoarded, had eked out many a piece of
bread for a meal. I begged some bread, gave my brother some beef with
it, and I think succeeded in getting him some coffee. Then I went to
Lieutenant Perkins--a very good man--and begged leave to take my
brother's guard and to let him sleep. He consented, and my brother
gradually came to his mind, or at least to a better one. But he was
never the same person afterwards, his brain having been permanently
affected, and he died in consequence five years after.
I may note as characteristic of my brother, that, twelve years after his
death, Walt Whitman, who always gravely spoke the exact truth, told me
that there was one year of his life during which he had received no
encouragement as a poet, and so much ridicule that he was in utter
despondency. At that time he received from Henry, who was unknown to
him, a cheering letter, full of admiration, which had a great effect on
him, and inspired him to renewed effort. He sent my brother a copy of
the first edition of his "Leaves of Grass," with his autograph, which I
still possess. I knew nothing of this till Whitman told me of it. The
poet declared to me very explicitly that he had been much influenced by
my brother's letter, which was like a single star in a dark night of
despair, and I have indeed no doubt that the world owes more to it than
will ever be made known.
During the same week in which this occurred my wife's only brother,
Rodney Fisher, a young man, and captain in the regular cavalry, met with
a remarkably heroic death at Aldie, Virginia. He was leading what was
described as "the most magnificent and dashing charge of the whole
campaign," when he was struck by a bullet. He was carried to a house,
where he died within a week. He was of the stock of the Delaware
Rodneys, and of the English Admiral's, or of the best blood of the
Revolution, and well worthy of it. It was all in a great cause, but
these deaths entered into the soul of the survivors, and we grieve for
them to this day.
Our sufferings as soldiers during this Emergency were very great. I
heard an officer who had been through the whole war, and through the
worst of it in Virginia, declare that he had never suffered as he did
with us this summer. And our unfortunate artillery company endured far
more than the rest, for while pains were taken by commanding officers of
other regiments, especially the regulars, to obtain food, our captain,
either because they had the advance on him, or because he considered
starving us as a part of the military drama, took little pains to feed
us, and indeed neglected his men very much. As we had no doctor, and
many of our company suffered from cholera morbus, I, having some
knowledge of medicine, succeeded in obtaining some red pepper, a bottle
of Jamaica ginger, and whisky, and so relieved a great many patients. One
morning our captain forbade my attending to the invalids any more.
"Proper medical attendance," he said, "would be provided." It was not;
only now and then on rare occasions was a surgeon borrowed for a day.
What earthly difference it could make in discipline (where there was no
show or trace of it) whether I looked after the invalids or not was not
perceptible. But our commander, though brave, was unfortunately one of
those men who are also gifted with a great deal of "pure cussedness," and
think that the exhibiting it is a sign of bravery. Although we had no
tents, only a miserably rotten old gun-cover, and not always that, to
sleep under (I generally slept in the open air, frequently in the rain),
and often no issue of food for days, we were strictly prohibited from
foraging or entering the country houses to buy food. This, which was a
great absurdity, was about the only point of military discipline strictly
enforced.
At one time during the war, when men were not allowed to sleep in the
country houses (to protect their owners), the soldiers would very often
burn these houses down, in order that, when the family had fled, they
might use the fireplace and chimney for cooking; and so our men,
forbidden to enter the country houses to buy or beg food, stole it.
I can recall one very remarkable incident. We had six guns, heavy old
brass Napoleons. One afternoon we had to go uphill--in many cases it was
_terribly_ steep--by a road like those in Devonshire, resembling a ditch.
It rained in torrents and the water was knee-deep. The poor mules had to
be urged and aided in every way, and half the pulling and pushing was
done by us. All of us worked like navvies. So we went onwards and
upwards for sixteen miles! When we got to the top of the hill, out of
one hundred privates, Henry, I, and four others alone remained. R. W.
Gilder was one of these, besides Landis and Lieutenant Perkins--that is
to say, we alone had not given out from fatigue; but the rest soon
followed. This exploit was long after cited as one of the most
extraordinary of the war--and so it was. We were greatly complimented on
it. Old veterans marvelled at it. But what was worse, I had to lie all
night on sharp flints--_i.e._, the slag or _debris_ of an iron smeltery
or old forge out of doors--in a terrible rain, and, though tired to
death, got very little sleep; nor had we any food whatever even then or
the next day. Commissariat there was none, and very little at any time.
From all that I learned from many intimate friends who were in the war, I
believe that we in the battery suffered to the utmost all that men can
suffer in the field, short of wounds and death. Yet it is a strange
thing, that had I not received at this time most harassing and
distressing news from home, and been in constant fear as regards my
brother, I should have enjoyed all this Emergency like a picnic. We
often marched and camped in the valley of the Cumberland and in Maryland,
in deep valleys, by roaring torrents or "on the mountains high," in
scenery untrodden by any artist or tourist, of marvellous grandeur and
beauty. One day we came upon a scene which may be best described by the
fact that my brother and I both stopped, and both cried out at once,
"Switzerland!" The beauty of Nature was to me a constant source of
delight. Another was the realisation of the sense of duty and the
pleasure of war for a noble cause. It was once declared by a reviewer
that in my Breitmann poems the true _gaudium certaminis_, or enjoyment of
battle, is more sincerely expressed than by any modern poet, because
there is no deliberate or conscious effort to depict it seriously. And I
believe that I deserved this opinion, because the order to march, the
tramp and rattle and ring of cavalry and artillery, and the roar of
cannon, always exhilarated me; and sometimes the old days of France would
recur to me. One day, at some place where we were awaiting an attack and
I was on guard, General Smith, pausing, asked me something of which all I
could distinguish was "Fire--before." Thinking he had said, "Were you
ever under fire before?" and much surprised at this interest in my
biography, I replied, "Yes, General--in Paris--at the barricades in Forty-
eight." He looked utterly amazed, and inquired, "What the devil did you
think I said?" I explained, when he laughed heartily, and told me that
his question was, "Has there been any firing here before?"
Two very picturesque scenes occur to me. One was a night before the
battle of Gettysburg. The country was mountain and valley, and the two
opposing armies were camped pretty generally in sight of one another.
There was, I suppose, nearly half a cord of wood burning for every twelve
men, and these camp-fires studded the vast landscape like countless
reflections of the stars above, or rather as if all were stars, high or
low. It was one of the most wonderful sights conceivable, and I said at
the time that it was as well worth seeing as Vesuvius in eruption.
Henry had studied for eighteen months in the British Art School in Rome,
and passed weeks in sketching the Alhambra, and, till he received his
wound, took great joy in the picturesque scenery and "points" of military
life. But it is incredible how little we ate or got to eat, and how hard
we worked. It is awful to be set to digging ditches in a soil
nine-tenths _stone_, when starving.
As we were raw recruits, we were not put under fire at Gettysburg, but
kept in Smith's reserve. But on the night after the defeat, when Lee
retreated in such mad and needless haste across the Potomac, we were
camped perhaps the nearest of any troops to the improvised bridge, I
think within a mile. That night I was on guard, and all night long I
heard the sound of cavalry, the ring and rattle of arms, and all that
indicates an army in headlong flight. I say that they went in needless
haste. I may be quite in the wrong, but I have always believed that
Meade acted on the prudent policy of making a bridge of gold for a
retreating enemy; and I always believed, too, that at heart he did not at
all desire to inflict extreme suffering on the foe. Had he been a
General Birney, he would have smote them then and there hip and thigh,
and so ended the war "for good and all," like a Cromwell, with such a
slaughter as was never seen. I base all this on one fact. At two
o'clock on the afternoon before that night I went to a farmhouse to
borrow an axe wherewith to cut some fuel; and I was told that the rebels
had carried away every axe in great haste from every house, in order to
make a bridge. Now, if I knew that at two o'clock, General Meade, if he
had any scouts at all, _must_ have known it. But--_qui vult decipi_,
_decipiatur_.
That ended the Emergency. The next day, I think, we received the welcome
news that we were no longer needed and would soon be sent home. On the
way we encamped for a week at some place, I forget where. There was no
drill now--we seldom had any--no special care of us, and no "policing" or
keeping clean. Symptoms of typhoid fever soon appeared; forty of our
hundred were more or less ill. My brother and I knew very well that the
only way to avert this was to exercise vigorously. On waking in the
morning we all experienced languor and lassitude. Those who yielded to
it fell ill. Henry was always so ready to work, that once our sergeant,
Mr. Bullard, interposed and gave the duty to another, saying it was not
fair. I always remembered it with gratitude. But this feverish languor
passed away at once with a little chopping of wood, bringing water, or
cooking.
One more reminiscence. Our lieutenant, Perkins, was a pious man, and on
Sunday mornings held religious service, which we were obliged to attend.
One day, when we had by good fortune rations of fresh meat, it was cooked
for dinner and put by in two large kettles. During the service two
hungry pigs came, and in our full sight overturned the kettles, and,
after rooting over the food, escaped with large pieces. I did not care
to dine, like St. Antonio, on pigs' leavings. My brother finding me,
asked why I looked so glum. I replied that I was hungry. "Is that all?"
he replied. "Come with me!" We went some distance until we came to a
farmhouse in the forest. He entered, and, to my amazement, was greeted
as an old friend. He had been there in the campaign of the previous
year. I was at once supplied with a meal. My brother was asked to send
them newspapers after his return. He never sought for mysteries and
despised dramatic effects, but his life was full of them. Once, when in
Naples, he was accustomed to meet by chance every day, in some retired
walk, a young lady. They spoke, and met and met again, till they became
like friends. One day he saw her in a court procession, and learned for
the first time that she was a younger daughter of the King. But he never
met her again.
There were two or three boys of good family, none above sixteen, who had
sworn themselves in as of age--recruiting officers were not
particular--and who soon developed brilliant talents for "foraging,"
looting, guerilla warfare, horse-stealing, pot-hunting rebels, and all
those little accomplishments which appear so naturally and pleasingly in
youth when in the field. For bringing out the art of taking care of
yourself, a camp in time of war is superior even to "sleeping about in
the markets," as recommended by Mr. Weller. Other talents may be
limited, but the amount of "devil" which can be developed out of a
"smart" boy as a soldier is absolutely infinite. College is a Sunday-
school to it. One of these youths had "obtained" a horse somewhere,
which he contrived to carry along. Many of our infantry regiments
gradually converted themselves into cavalry by this process of
"obtaining" steeds; and as the officers found that their men could walk
better on horses' legs, they permitted it. This promising youngster was
one day seated on a caisson or ammunition waggon full of shells, &c.,
when it blew up. By a miracle he rose in the air, fell on the ground
unhurt, and marching immediately up to the lieutenant and touching his
hat, exclaimed, "Please, sir, caisson No. Two is blown to hell; please
appoint me to another!" That oath was not recorded. Poor boy! he died
in the war.
There was one man in our corps, a good-natured, agreeable person, a
professional politician, who astonished me by the fact that however
starved we might be, he had always a flask of whisky wherewith to treat
his friends! Where or how he always got it I never could divine. But in
America every politician always has whisky or small change wherewith to
treat. _Always_. Money was generally of little use, for there was
rarely anything to buy anywhere. I soon developed here and there an
Indian-like instinct in many things, and this is indeed deep in my
nature. I cannot explain it, but it is _there_. I became expert when we
approached a house at divining, by the look of waggons or pails or
hencoops, whether there was meal or bread or a mill anywhere near. One
day I informed our lieutenant that a detachment of rebel cavalry had
recently passed. He asked me how I knew it. I replied that rebel
horses, being from mountainous Virginia, had higher cocks and narrower to
their shoes, and one or two more nails than ours, which is perfectly
true. And where did I learn that? Not from anybody. I had noticed the
difference as soon as I saw the tracks, and guessed the cause. One day,
in after years in England, I noticed that in coursing, or with beagles,
the track of a gypsy was exactly like mine, or that of all Americans--that
is, Indian-like and _straight-forward_. I never found a Saxon-Englishman
who had this step, nor one who noticed such a thing, which I or an Indian
would observe at once. Once, in Rome, Mr. Story showed me a cast of a
foot, and asked me what it was. I replied promptly, "Either an Indian
girl's or an American young lady's, whose ancestors have been two hundred
years in the country." It was the latter. Such feet _lift_ or leap, as
if raised every time to go over entangled grass or sticks. Like an
Indian, I instinctively observe everybody's _ears_, which are unerring
indices of character. I can sustain, and always could endure, incredible
fasts, but for this I need coffee in the morning. "Mark Twain"--whom I
saw yesterday at his villa, as I correct this proof--also has this
peculiar Indian-like or American faculty of observing innumerable little
things which no European would ever think of. There is, I think, a great
deal of "hard old Injun" in him. The most beautiful of his works are the
three which are invariably bound in silk or muslin. They are called "The
Three Daughters, or the Misses Clemens."
It occurred to me, after I had recorded the events of our short but truly
vigorous and eventful campaign, to write to R. W. Gilder and ask
him--_quid memoriae datum est_--"what memories he had of that great war,
wherein we starved and swore, and all but died." There are men in whose
letters we are as sure to find genial _life_ as a _spaccio di vino_ or
wine-shop in a Florentine street, and this poet-editor is one of them.
And he replied with an epistle not at all intended for type, which I
hereby print without his permission, and in defiance of all the custom or
courtesy which inspires gentlemen of the press.
"_May_ _8th_, _1893_.
"EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT, THE CENTURY MAGAZINE,
"UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK.
"MY DEAR LELAND: How your letter carries me back! Do you know that
one night when I was trudging along in the dark over a road-bed where
had been scattered some loose stones to form a foundation, I heard you
and another comrade talking me over in the way to which you refer in
your letter? Well, it was either you or the other comrade who said
you had given me something to eat, and I know that I must have seemed
very fragile, and at times woe-begone. I was possibly the youngest in
the crowd. I was nineteen, and really enjoyed it immensely
notwithstanding.
"I remember you in those days as a splendid expressor of our miseries.
You had a magnificent vocabulary, wherewith you could eloquently and
precisely describe our general condition of starvation, mud,
ill-equippedness, and over-work. As I think of those days, I hear
reverberating over the mountain-roads the call, 'Cannoneers to the
wheels!' and in imagination I plunge knee-deep into the mire and grab
the spokes of the caisson. {266a}
"Do you remember the night we spent at the forge? I burnt my knees at
the fire out-doors, while in my ears was pouring a deluge from the
clouds. I finally gave it up, and spent the rest of the night
crouching upon the fire-bed of the forge itself, most uncomfortably.
"You will remember that we helped dig the trenches at the fort on the
southern side of the river from Harrisburg, {266b} and that one
section of the battery got into a fight near that fort; nor can you
have forgotten when Stuart Patterson's hand was shot off at Carlisle.
As he passed me, I heard him say, 'My God, I'm shot!' That night,
after we were told to retire out of range of the cannon, while we were
lying under tree near one of the guns, an officer called for
volunteers to take the piece out of range. I stood up with three
others, but seeing and hearing a shell approach, I cried out, 'Wait a
moment!'--which checked them. Just then the shell exploded within a
yard of the cannon. If we had not paused, some of us would surely
have been hit. We then rushed out, seized the cannon, and brought it
out of range.
"By the way, General William F. Smith (Baldy Smith) has since told me
that he asked permission to throw the militia (including ourselves)
across one of Lee's lines of retreat. If he had been permitted to do
so, I suppose you and I would not have been in correspondence now.
"You remember undoubtedly the flag of truce that came up into the town
before the bombardment began. The man was on horseback and had the
conventional white flag. The story was that Baldy Smith sent word
'that if they wanted the town they could come and take it.' {267} I
suppose you realise that we were really a part of Meade's right, and
that we helped somewhat to delay the rebel left wing. Do you not
remember hearing from our position at Carlisle the guns of that great
battle--the turning-point of the war? {268}
"I could run on in this way, but your own memory must be full of the
subject. I wish that we could sometime have a reunion of the old
battery in Philadelphia. I have a most distinct and pleasant
remembrance of your brother--a charming personality indeed, a handsome
refined face and dignified bearing. I remember being so starved as to
eat crackers that had fallen on the ground; and I devoured, too, wheat
from the fields rubbed in the hands to free it from the ear. . . .
"Sincerely,
R. W. GILDER.
"_P.S._--I could write more, but you will not need it from me."
Truly, I was that other comrade whom Gilder overheard commending him, and
it was I who gave him something to eat, I being the one in camp who
looked specially after two or three of the youngest to see that they did
not starve, and who doctored the invalids.
I here note, with all due diffidence, that Mr. Gilder chiefly remembers
me as "a splendid expressor of our miseries, with a magnificent
vocabulary" wherewith to set forth fearful adversities. I have never
been habitually loquacious in life; full many deem me deeply reticent and
owl-like in my taciturnity, but I "can hoot when the moon shines," nor is
there altogether lacking in me in great emergencies a certain rude kind
of popular eloquence, which has--I avow it with humility--enabled me
invariably to hold my own in verbal encounters with tinkers, gypsies, and
the like, among whom "chaff" is developed to a degree of which few
respectable people have any conception, and which attains to a refinement
of sarcasm, _originality_, and humour in the London of the lower orders,
for which there is no parallel in Paris, or in any other European
capital; so that even among my earliest experiences I can remember, after
an altercation with an omnibus-driver, he applied to me the popular
remark that he was "blessed if he didn't believe that the gemman had been
takin' lessons in language hof a cab-driver, _and set up o' nights to
learn_." But the ingenious American is not one whit behind the vigorous
Londoner in "de elegant fluency of sass," as darkies term it, and it
moves my heart to think that, after thirty years, and after the
marvellous experiences of men who are masters of our English tongue which
the editor of the _Century_ must have had, he still retains remembrance
of my oratory!
At last we were marched and railroaded back to Philadelphia. I need not
say that we were welcome, or that I enjoyed baths, clean clothes, and the
blest sensation of feeling decent once more. Everything in life seemed
to be _luxurious_ as it had never been before. Luxuries are very
conventional. A copy of Praetorius, for which I paid only fifteen
shillings, was to me lately a luxury for weeks; so is a visit to a
picture gallery. For years after, I had but to think of the Emergency to
realise that I was actually in all the chief conditions of happiness.
Feeling that, although I was in superb health and strength, the seeds of
typhoid were in me, I left town as soon as possible, and went with my
wife, her sister, and two half-nieces, or nieces by marriage, and child-
nephew, Edward Robins, to Cape May, a famous bathing-place by the ocean.
One of the little girls here alluded to, a Lizzie Robins, then six years
of age, is now well known as Elizabeth Robins Pennell, and "a writer of
books," while Edward has risen in journalism in Philadelphia. There as I
walked often eighteen or twenty miles a day by the sea, when the
thermometer was from 90 to 100 degrees in the shade, I soon worked away
all apprehension of typhoid and developed muscle. One day I overheard a
man in the next bathing-house asking who I was. "I don't know," replied
the other, "but if I were he, I'd go in for being a prize-fighter."
Everybody was poor in those days, so we went to a very cheap though
respectable hotel, where we paid less than half of what we had always
given at "The Island," and where we were in company quite as happy or
comfortable as we ever had been anywhere, though the death of her brother
weighed sadly on my poor wife, and her dear good mother, whom I always
loved tenderly, and with whom I never had a shade of difference of
opinion nor a whisper of even argument, and to whom I was always devoted.
I seem to have been destined to differ from other mortals in a few
things: one was, that I always loved my mother-in-law with whole heart
and soul, and never considered our _menage_ as perfect unless she were
with us. She was of very good and rather near English descent, a
Callender, and had been celebrated in her youth for extraordinary beauty.
Her husband was related to the celebrated beauty Miss Vining, whom Maria
Antoinette, from the fame of her loveliness, invited to come and join her
court. At the beginning of this century no great foreigner travelled in
America without calling on Miss Vining in Delaware. There is a life of
her in Griswold's "Republican Court." It is without any illustrative
portrait. I asked Dr. Griswold why he had none. He replied that none
existed. I said to him severely, "Let _this_ be a lesson to you never to
publish anything without submitting it first to _me_. I have a
photograph of her miniature." The Doctor submitted!
This summer at Cape May I made the acquaintance of a very remarkable man
named Solomon. He was a Jew, and we became intimate. One evening he
said to me: "You know so much about the Jews that I have even learned
something from you about them. But I can teach you something. Can you
tell the difference between the _Aschkenazim_ and the _Sephardim_ by
their eyes? No! Well, now, look!" Just then a Spanish-looking beauty
from New Orleans passed by. "There is Miss Inez Aguado; observe that the
corners of her eyes are long with a peculiar turn. Wait a minute; now,
there is Miss Lowenthal--Levi, of course--of Frankfort. Don't you see
the difference?"