Complete Prose Works Part 46

We did not stop at Detroit. We are now on Lake Erie, jogging along at a good round pace. A couple of hours since we were on the river above.

Detroit seem'd to me a pretty place and thrifty. I especially liked the looks of the Canadian sh.o.r.e opposite and of the little village of Windsor, and, indeed, all along the banks of the river. From the shrubbery and the neat appearance of some of the cottages, I think it must have been settled by the French. While I now write we can see a little distance ahead the scene of the battle between Perry's fleet and the British during the last war with England. The lake looks to me a fine sheet of water. We are having a beautiful day.

_June 12_.--We stopt last evening at Cleveland, and though it was dark, I took the opportunity of rambling about the place; went up in the heart of the city and back to what appear'd to be the courthouse. The streets are unusually wide, and the buildings appear to be substantial and comfortable. We went down through Main street and found, some distance along, several squares of ground very prettily planted with trees and looking attractive enough. Return'd to the boat by way of the lighthouse on the hill.

This morning we are making for Buffalo, being, I imagine, a little more than half across Lake Erie. The water is rougher than on Michigan or Huron. (On St. Clair it was smooth as gla.s.s.) The day is bright and dry, with a stiff head wind.

We arriv'd in Buffalo on Monday evening; spent that night and a portion of next day going round the city exploring. Then got in the cars and went to Niagara; went under the falls--saw the whirlpool and all the other sights.

Tuesday night started for Albany; travel'd all night. From the time daylight afforded us a view of the country all seem'd very rich and well cultivated. Every few miles were large towns or villages.

Wednesday late we arriv'd at Albany. Spent the evening in exploring.

There was a political meeting (Hunker) at the capitol, but I pa.s.s'd it by. Next morning I started down the Hudson in the "Alida;" arriv'd safely in New York that evening.

_From the New Orleans Picayune, Jan. 25, 1887._

SMALL MEMORANDA

_Thousands lost--here one or two preserv'd_

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, _Washington, Aug. 22, 1865_.--As I write this, about noon, the suite of rooms here is fill'd with Southerners, standing in squads, or streaming in and out, some talking with the Pardon Clerk, some waiting to see the Attorney General, others discussing in low tones among themselves. All are mainly anxious about their pardons. The famous 13th exception of the President's Amnesty Proclamation of ----, makes it necessary that every secessionist, whose property is worth $20,000 or over, shall get a special pardon, before he can transact any legal purchase, sale, &c. So hundreds and thousands of such property owners have either sent up here, for the last two months, or have been, or are now coming personally here, to get their pardons.

They are from Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and every Southern State. Some of their written pet.i.tions are very abject. Secession officers of the rank of Brigadier General, or higher, also need these special pardons. They also come here. I see streams of the $20,000 men, (and some women,) every day. I talk now and then with them, and learn much that is interesting and significant. All the southern women that come (some splendid specimens, mothers, &c.) are dress'd in deep black.

Immense numbers (several thousands) of these pardons have been pa.s.s'd upon favorably; the Pardon Warrants (like great deeds) have been issued from the State Department, on the requisition of this office. But for some reason or other, they nearly all yet lie awaiting the President's signature. He seems to be in no hurry about it, but lets them wait.

The crowds that come here make a curious study for me. I get along, very sociably, with any of them--as I let them do all the talking; only now and then I have a long confab, or ask a suggestive question or two.

If the thing continues as at present, the property and wealth of the Southern States is going to legally rest, for the future, on these pardons. Every single one is made out with the condition that the grantee shall respect the abolition of slavery, and never make an attempt to restore it.

_Washington, Sept. 8, 9, &c., 1865_.--The arrivals, swarms, &c., of the $20,000 men seeking pardons, still continue with increas'd numbers and pertinacity. I yesterday (I am a clerk in the U. S. Attorney General's office here) made out a long list from Alabama, nearly 200, recommended for pardon by the Provisional Governor. This list, in the shape of a requisition from the Attorney General, goes to the State Department.

There the Pardon Warrants are made out, brought back here, and then sent to the President, where they await his signature. He is signing them very freely of late.

The President, indeed, as at present appears, has fix'd his mind on a very generous and forgiving course toward the return'd secessionists.

He will not countenance at all the demand of the extreme Philo-African element of the North, to make the right of negro voting at elections a condition and sine qua non of the reconstruction of the United States south, and of their resumption of co-equality in the Union.

A GLINT INSIDE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S CABINET APPOINTMENTS. ONE ITEM OF MANY.

While it was hanging in suspense who should be appointed Secretary of the Interior, (to take the place of Caleb Smith,) the choice was very close between Mr. Harlan and Col. Jesse K. Dubois, of Illinois. The latter had many friends. He was competent, he was honest, and he was a man. Mr. Harlan, in the race, finally gain'd the Methodist interest, and got himself to be consider'd as identified with it; and his appointment was apparently ask'd for by that powerful body. Bishop Simpson, of Philadephia, came on and spoke for the selection. The President was much perplex'd. The reasons for appointing Col. Dubois were very strong, almost insuperable--yet the argument for Mr. Harlan, under the adroit position he had plac'd himself, was heavy. Those who press'd him adduc'd the magnitude of the Methodists as a body, their loyalty, more general and genuine than any other sect--that they represented the West, and had a right to be heard--that all or nearly all the other great denominations had their representatives in the heads of the government--that they as a body and the great sectarian power of the West, formally ask'd Mr. Harlan's appointment--that he was of them, having been a Methodist minister--that it would not do to offend them, but was highly necessary to propitiate them.

Mr. Lincoln thought deeply over the whole matter. He was in more than usual tribulation on the subject. Let it be enough to say that though Mr. Harlan finally receiv'd the Secretaryship, Col. Dubois came as near being appointed as a man could, and not be. The decision was finally made one night about 10 o'clock. Bishop Simpson and other clergymen and leading persons in Mr. Harlan's behalf, had been talking long and vehemently with the President. A member of Congress who was pressing Col. Dubois's claims, was in waiting. The President had told the Bishop that he would make a decision that evening, and that he thought it unnecessary to be press'd any more on the subject. That night he call'd in the M.C. above alluded to, and said to him: "Tell Uncle Jesse that I want to give him this appointment, and yet I cannot. I will do almost anything else in the world for him I am able. I have thought the matter all over, and under the circ.u.mstances think the Methodists too good and too great a body to be slighted. They have stood by the government, and help'd us their very best. I have had no better friends; and as the case stands, I have decided to appoint Mr. Harlan."

NOTE TO A FRIEND

[_Written on the fly-leaf of a copy of_ Specimen Days, _sent to Peter Doyle, at Washington, June, 1883_]

Pete, do you remember--(of course you do--I do well)--those great long jovial walks we had at times for years, (1866-'72) out of Washington city--often moonlight nights--'way to "Good Hope";--or, Sundays, up and down the Potomac sh.o.r.es, one side or the other, sometimes ten miles at a stretch? Or when you work'd on the horse-cars, and I waited for you, coming home late together--or resting and chatting at the Market, corner 7th street and the Avenue, and eating those nice musk or watermelons?

Or during my tedious sickness and first paralysis ('73) how you used to come to my solitary garret-room and make up my bed, and enliven me, and chat for an hour or so--or perhaps go out and get the medicines Dr.

Drinkard had order'd for me--before you went on duty?... Give my love to dear Mrs. and Mr. Nash, and tell them I have not forgotten them, and never will.

W.W.

WRITTEN IMPROMPTU IN AN ALb.u.m

_Germantown, Phila., Dec. 26, '83_. In memory of these merry Christmas days and nights--to my friends Mr. and Mrs. Williams, Churchie, May, Gurney, and little Aubrey.... A heavy snow-storm blocking up everything, and keeping us in. But souls, hearts, thoughts, unloos'd. And so--one and all, little and big--hav'n't we had a good time?

W.W.

THE PLACE GRAt.i.tUDE FILLS IN A FINE CHARACTER

_From the Philadelphia Press, Nov. 27, 1884, (Thanksgiving number)_

_Scene_.--A large family supper party, a night or two ago, with voices and laughter of the young, mellow faces of the old, and a by-and-by pause in the general joviality. "Now, Mr. Whitman," spoke up one of the girls, "what have you to say about Thanksgiving? Won't you give us a sermon in advance, to sober us down?" The sage nodded smilingly, look'd a moment at the blaze of the great wood fire, ran his forefinger right and left through the heavy white mustache that might have otherwise impeded his voice, and began: "Thanksgiving goes probably far deeper than you folks suppose. I am not sure but it is the source of the highest poetry--as in parts of the Bible. Ruskin, indeed, makes the central source of all great art to be praise (grat.i.tude) to the Almighty for life, and the universe with its objects and play of action.

"We Americans devote an official day to it every year; yet I sometimes fear the real article is almost dead or dying in our self-sufficient, independent Republic. Grat.i.tude, anyhow, has never been made half enough of by the moralists; it is indispensable to a complete character, man's or woman's--the disposition to be appreciative, thankful. That is the main matter, the element, inclination--what geologists call the _trend_.

Of my own life and writings I estimate the giving thanks part, with what it infers, as essentially the best item. I should say the quality of grat.i.tude rounds the whole emotional nature; I should say love and faith would quite lack vitality without it. There are people--shall I call them even religious people, as things go?--who have no such trend to their disposition."

LAST OF THE WAR CASES

_Memorandized at the time, Washington, 1865-'66_

[Of reminiscences of the secession war, after the rest is said, I have thought it remains to give a few special words--in some respects at the time the typical words of all, and most definite-of the samples of the kill'd and wounded in action, and of soldiers who linger'd afterward, from these wounds, or were laid up by obstinate disease or prostration.

The general statistics have been printed already, but can bear to be briefly stated again. There were over 3,000,000 men (for all periods of enlistment, large and small) furnish'd to the Union army during the war, New York State furnishing over 500,000, which was the greatest number of any one State. The losses by disease, wounds, kill'd in action, accidents, &c., were altogether about 600,000, or approximating to that number. Over 4,000,000 cases were treated in the main and adjudicatory army hospitals. The number sounds strange, but it is true. More than two-thirds of the deaths were from prostration or disease. To-day there lie buried over 300,000 soldiers in the various National army Cemeteries, more than half of them (and that is really the most significant and eloquent bequest of the war) mark'd "unknown." In full mortuary statistics of the war, the greatest deficiency arises from our not having the rolls, even as far as they were kept, of most of the Southern military prisons--a gap which probably both adds to, and helps conceal, the indescribable horrors of those places; it is, however, (restricting one vivid point only) certain that over 30,000 Union soldiers died, largely of actual starvation, in them. And now, leaving all figures and their "sum totals," I feel sure a few genuine memoranda of such things--some cases jotted down '64, '65, and '66--made at the time and on the spot, with all the a.s.sociations of those scenes and places brought back, will not only go directest to the right spot, but give a clearer and more actual sight of that period, than anything else.

Before I give the last cases I begin with verbatim extracts from letters home to my mother in Brooklyn, the second year of the war.--W.W.]

_Washington, Oct. 13, 1863_.--There has been a new lot of wounded and sick arriving for the last three days. The first and second days, long strings of ambulances with the sick. Yesterday the worst, many with bad and b.l.o.o.d.y wounds, inevitably long neglected. I thought I was cooler and more used to it, but the sight of some cases brought tears into my eyes.

I had the luck yesterday, however, to do lots of good. Had provided many nourishing articles for the men for another quarter, but, fortunately, had my stores where I could use them at once for these new-comers, as they arrived, faint, hungry, f.a.gg'd out from their journey, with soil'd clothes, and all b.l.o.o.d.y. I distributed these articles, gave partly to the nurses I knew, or to those in charge. As many as possible I fed myself. Then I found a lot of oyster soup handy, and bought it all at once.

It is the most pitiful sight, this, when the men are first brought in, from some camp hospital broke up, or a part of the army moving. These who arrived yesterday are cavalry men. Our troops had fought like devils, but got the worst of it. They were Kilpatrick's cavalry; were in the rear, part of Meade's retreat, and the reb cavalry, knowing the ground and taking a favorable opportunity, dash'd in between, cut them off, and sh.e.l.l'd them terribly. But Kilpatrick turn'd and brought them out mostly. It was last Sunday. (One of the most terrible sights and tasks is of such receptions.)

_Oct. 27, 1863_.--If any of the soldiers I know (or their parents or folks) should call upon you--as they are often anxious to have my address in Brooklyn--you just use them as you know how, and if you happen to have pot-luck, and feel to ask them to take a bite, don't be afraid to do so. I have a friend, Thomas Neat, 2d N.Y. Cavalry, wounded in leg, now home in Jamaica, on furlough; he will probably call. Then possibly a Mr. Haskell, or some of his folks, from western New York: he had a son died here, and I was with the boy a good deal. The old man and his wife have written me and ask'd me my Brooklyn address; he said he had children in New York, and was occasionally down there. (When I come home I will show you some of the letters I get from mothers, sisters, fathers, &c. They will make you cry.)

How the time pa.s.ses away! To think it is over a year since I left home suddenly--and have mostly been down in front since. The year has vanish'd swiftly, and oh, what scenes I have witness'd during that time!

And the war is not settled yet; and one does not see anything certain, or even promising, of a settlement. But I do not lose the solid feeling, in myself, that the Union triumph is a.s.sured, whether it be sooner or whether it be later, or whatever roundabout way we may be led there; and I find I don't change that conviction from any reverses we meet, nor delays, nor blunders. One realizes here in Washington the great labors, even the negative ones, of Lincoln; that it is a big thing to have just kept the United States from being thrown down and having its throat cut.

I have not waver'd or had any doubt of the issue, since Gettysburg.

_8th September, '63_.--Here, now, is a specimen army hospital case: Lorenzo Strong, Co. A, 9th United States Cavalry, shot by a sh.e.l.l last Sunday; right leg amputated on the field. Sent up here Monday night, 14th. Seem'd to be doing pretty well till Wednesday noon, 16th, when he took a turn for the worse, and a strangely rapid and fatal termination ensued. Though I had much to do, I staid and saw all. It was a death-picture characteristic of these soldiers' hospitals--the perfect specimen of physique, one of the most magnificent I ever saw--the convulsive spasms and working of muscles, mouth, and throat. There are two good women nurses, one on each side. The doctor comes in and gives him a little chloroform. One of the nurses constantly fans him, for it is fearfully hot. He asks to be rais'd up, and they put him in a half-sitting posture. He call'd for "Mark" repeatedly, half-deliriously, all day. Life ebbs, runs now with the speed of a mill race; his splendid neck, as it lays all open, works still, slightly; his eyes turn back.

A religious person coming in offers a prayer, in subdued tones, bent at the foot of the bed; and in the s.p.a.ce of the aisle, a crowd, including two or three doctors, several students, and many soldiers, has silently gather'd. It is very still and warm, as the struggle goes on, and dwindles, a little more, and a little more--and then welcome oblivion, painlessness, death. A pause, the crowd drops away, a white bandage is bound around and under the jaw, the propping pillows are removed, the limpsy head falls down, the arms are softly placed by the side, all composed, all still,--and the broad white sheet is thrown over everything.