Complete Prose Works Part 8

During those three years in hospital, camp or field, I made over six hundred visits or tours, and went, as I estimate, counting all, among from eighty thousand to a hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need. These visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night; for with dear or critical cases I generally watch'd all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch'd there several nights in succession. Those three years I consider the greatest privilege and satisfaction, (with all their feverish excitements and physical deprivations and lamentable sights,) and, of course, the most profound lesson of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I comprehended all, whoever came in my way, northern or southern, and slighted none. It arous'd and brought out and decided undream'd-of depths of emotion. It has given me my most fervent views of the true _ensemble_ and extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all the States, North and South, without exception. I was with many from the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found, during those lurid years 1862-63, far more Union southerners, especially Tennesseans, than is supposed. I was with many rebel officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I was among the army teamsters considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what I could for them.

THE MILLION DEAD, TOO, SUMM'D UP

The dead in this war--there they lie, strewing the fields and woods and valleys and battle-fields of the south--Virginia, the Peninsula--Malvern hill and Fair Oaks--the banks of the Chickahominy--the terraces of Fredericksburgh--Antietam bridge--the grisly ravines of Mana.s.sas--the b.l.o.o.d.y promenade of the Wilderness--the varieties of the _strayed_ dead, (the estimate of the War department is 25,000 national soldiers kill'd in battle and never buried at all, 5,000 drown'd--15,000 inhumed by strangers, or on the march in haste, in hitherto unfound localities--2,000 graves cover'd by sand and mud by Mississippi freshets, 3,000 carried away by caving-in of banks, &c.,)--Gettysburgh, the West, Southwest--Vicksburgh--Chattanooga--the trenches of Petersburgh--the numberless battles, camps, hospitals everywhere--the crop reap'd by the mighty reapers, typhoid, dysentery, inflammations--and blackest and loathesomest of all, the dead and living burial-pits, the prison-pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle-Isle, &c., (not Dante's pictured h.e.l.l and all its woes, its degradations, filthy torments, excell'd those prisons)--the dead, the dead, the dead--_our_ dead--or South or North, ours all, (all, all, all, finally dear to me)--or East or West--Atlantic coast or Mississippi valley--somewhere they crawl'd to die, alone, in bushes, low gullies, or on the sides of hills--(there, in secluded spots, their skeletons, bleach'd bones, tufts of hair, b.u.t.tons, fragments of clothing, are occasionally found yet)--our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us--the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend from the dear friend--the cl.u.s.ters of camp graves, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and in Tennessee--the single graves left in the woods or by the roadside, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated)--the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the upper Potomac, after the cavalry engagements, the pursuit of Lee, following Gettysburgh)--some lie at the bottom of the sea--the general million, and the special cemeteries in almost all the States--the infinite dead--(the land entire saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes' exhalation in Nature's chemistry distill'd, and shall be so forever, in every future grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that grows, and every breath we draw)--not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil--thousands, aye tens of thousands, of Southerners, crumble to-day in Northern earth.

And everywhere among these countless graves--everywhere in the many soldier Cemeteries of the Nation, (there are now, I believe, over seventy of them)--as at the time in the vast trenches, the depositories of slain, Northern and Southern, after the great battles--not only where the scathing trail pa.s.sed those years, but radiating since in all the peaceful quarters of the land--we see, and ages yet may see, on monuments and gravestones, singly or in ma.s.ses, to thousands or tens of thousands, the significant word UNKNOWN.

(In some of the cemeteries nearly all the dead are unknown. At Salisbury, N. C., for instance, the known are only 85, while the unknown are 12,027, and 11,700 of these are buried in trenches. A national monument has been put up here, by order of Congress, to mark the spot--but what visible, material monument can ever fittingly commemorate that spot?)

THE REAL WAR WILL NEVER GET IN THE BOOKS

And so good-bye to the war. I know not how it may have been, or may be, to others--to me the main interest I found, (and still, on recollection, find,) in the rank and file of the armies, both sides, and in those specimens amid the hospitals, and even the dead on the field. To me the points ill.u.s.trating the latent personal character and eligibilities of these States, in the two or three millions of American young and middle-aged men, North and South, embodied in those armies--and especially the one-third or one-fourth of their number, stricken by wounds or disease at some time in the course of the contest--were of more significance even than the political interests involved. (As so much of a race depends on how it faces death, and how it stands personal anguish and sickness. As, in the glints of emotions under emergencies, and the indirect traits and asides in Plutarch, we get far profounder clues to the antique world than all its more formal history.)

Future years will never know the seething h.e.l.l and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and interiors, (not the official surface-courteousness of the Generals, not the few great battles) of the Secession war; and it is best they should not--the real war will never get in the books. In the mushy influences of current times, too, the fervid atmosphere and typical events of those years are in danger of being totally forgotten. I have at night watch'd by the side of a sick man in the hospital, one who could not live many hours. I have seen his eyes flash and burn as he raised himself and recurr'd to the cruelties on his surrender'd brother, and mutilations of the corpse afterward.

(See in the preceding pages, the incident at Upperville--the seventeen kill'd as in the description, were left there on the ground. After they dropt dead, no one touch'd them--all were made sure of, however. The carca.s.ses were left for the citizens to bury or not, as they chose.)

Such was the war. It was not a quadrille in a ball-room. Its interior history will not only never be written--its practicality, minutia; of deeds and pa.s.sions, will never be even suggested. The actual soldier of 1862-'65, North and South, with all his ways, his incredible dauntlessness, habits, practices, tastes, language, his fierce friendship, his appet.i.te, rankness, his superb strength and animality, lawless gait, and a hundred unnamed lights and shades of camp, I say, will never be written--perhaps must not and should not be.

The preceding notes may furnish a few stray glimpses into that life, and into those lurid interiors, never to be fully convey'd to the future.

The hospital part of the drama from '61 to '65, deserves indeed to be recorded. Of that many-threaded drama, with its sudden and strange surprises, its confounding of prophecies, its moments of despair, the dread of foreign interference, the interminable campaigns, the b.l.o.o.d.y battles, the mighty and c.u.mbrous and green armies, the drafts and bounties--the immense money expenditure, like a heavy-pouring constant rain--with, over the whole land, the last three years of the struggle, an unending, universal mourning-wail of women, parents, orphans--the marrow of the tragedy concentrated in those Army Hospitals--(it seem'd sometimes as if the whole interest of the land, North and South, was one vast central hospital, and all the rest of the affair but f.l.a.n.g.es)--those forming the untold and unwritten history of the war--infinitely greater (like life's) than the few sc.r.a.ps and distortions that are ever told or written. Think how much, and of importance, will be--how much, civic and military, has already been--buried in the grave, in eternal darkness.

AN INTERREGNUM PARAGRAPH

Several years now elapse before I resume my diary. I continued at Washington working in the Attorney-General's department through '66 and '67, and some time afterward. In February '73 I was stricken down by paralysis, gave up my desk, and migrated to Camden, New Jersey, where I lived during '74 and '75, quite unwell--but after that began to grow better; commenc'd going for weeks at a time, even for months, down in the country, to a charmingly recluse and rural spot along Timber creek, twelve or thirteen miles from where it enters the Delaware river.

Domicil'd at the farm-house of my friends, the Staffords, near by, I lived half the time along this creek and its adjacent fields and lanes.

And it is to my life here that I, perhaps, owe partial recovery (a sort of second wind, or semi-renewal of the lease of life) from the prostration of 1874-'75. If the notes of that outdoor life could only prove as glowing to you, reader dear, as the experience itself was to me. Doubtless in the course of the following, the fact of invalidism will crop out, (I call myself _a half-Paralytic_ these days, and reverently bless the Lord it is no worse,) between some of the lines--but I get my share of fun and healthy hours, and shall try to indicate them. (The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.)

NEW THEMES ENTERED UPON

_1876, '77_.--I find the woods in mid-May and early June my best places for composition.[9] Seated on logs or stumps there, or resting on rails, nearly all the following memoranda have been jotted down. Wherever I go, indeed, winter or summer, city or country, alone at home or traveling, I must take notes--(the ruling pa.s.sion strong in age and disablement, and even the approach of--but I must not say it yet.) Then underneath the following excerpta--crossing the _t's_ and dotting the _i's_ of certain moderate movements of late years--I am fain to fancy the foundations of quite a lesson learn'd. After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on--have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear--what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons--the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night. We will begin from these convictions. Literature flies so high and is so hotly spiced, that our notes may seem hardly more than breaths of common air, or draughts of water to drink. But that is part of our lesson.

Dear, soothing, healthy, restoration-hours--after three confining years of paralysis--after the long strain of the war, and its wounds and death.

Note:

[9] Without apology for the abrupt change of field and atmosphere--after what I have put in the preceding fifty or sixty pages--temporary episodes, thank heaven!--I restore my book to the bracing and buoyant equilibrium of concrete outdoor Nature, the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life.

Who knows, (I have it in my fancy, my ambition,) but the pages now ensuing may carry ray of sun, or smell of gra.s.s or corn, or call of bird, or gleam of stars by night, or snow-flakes falling fresh and mystic, to denizen of heated city house, or tired workman or workwoman?--or may-be in sick-room or prison--to serve as cooling breeze, or Nature's aroma, to some fever'd mouth or latent pulse.

ENTERING A LONG FARM-LANE

As every man has his hobby-liking, mine is for a real farm-lane fenced by old chestnut-rails gray-green with dabs of moss and lichen, copious weeds and briers growing in spots athwart the heaps of stray-pick' d stones at the fence bases--irregular paths worn between, and horse and cow tracks--all characteristic accompaniments marking and scenting the neighborhood in their seasons--apple-tree blossoms in forward April--pigs, poultry, a field of August buckwheat, and in another the long flapping ta.s.sels of maize--and so to the pond, the expansion of the creek, the secluded-beautiful, with young and old trees, and such recesses and vistas.

TO THE SPRING AND BROOK

So, still sauntering on, to the spring under the willows--musical as soft clinking gla.s.ses-pouring a sizeable stream, thick as my neck, pure and clear, out from its vent where the bank arches over like a great brown s.h.a.ggy eyebrow or mouth-roof--gurgling, gurgling ceaselessly--meaning, saying something, of course (if one could only translate it)--always gurgling there, the whole year through--never giving out--oceans of mint, blackberries in summer--choice of light and shade--just the place for my July sun-baths and water-baths too--but mainly the inimitable soft sound-gurgles of it, as I sit there hot afternoons. How they and all grow into me, day after day--everything in keeping--the wild, just-palpable perfume, and the dappled leaf-shadows, and all the natural-medicinal, elemental-moral influences of the spot.

Babble on, O brook, with that utterance of thine! I too will express what I have gather'd in my days and progress, native, subterranean, past--and now thee. Spin and wind thy way--I with thee, a little while, at any rate. As I haunt thee so often, season by season, thou knowest, reckest not me, (yet why be so certain? who can tell?)--but I will learn from thee, and dwell on thee--receive, copy, print from thee.

AN EARLY SUMMER REVEILLE

Away then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long.

Away, from curtain, carpet, sofa, book--from "society"--from city house, street, and modern improvements and luxuries--away to the primitive winding, aforementioned wooded creek, with its untrimm'd bushes and turfy banks--away from ligatures, tight boots, b.u.t.tons, and the whole cast-iron civilized life--from entourage of artificial store, machine, studio, office, parlor--from tailordom and fashion's clothes--from any clothes, perhaps, for the nonce, the summer heats advancing, there in those watery, shaded solitudes. Away, thou soul, (let me pick thee out singly, reader dear, and talk in perfect freedom, negligently, confidentially,) for one day and night at least, returning to the naked source-life of us all--to the breast of the great silent savage all-acceptive Mother. Alas! how many of us are so sodden--how many have wander'd so far away, that return is almost impossible.

But to my jottings, taking them as they come, from the heap, without particular selection. There is little consecutiveness in dates. They run any time within nearly five or six years. Each was carelessly pencilled in the open air, at the time and place. The printers will learn this to some vexation perhaps, as much of their copy is from those hastily-written first notes.

BIRDS MIGRATING AT MIDNIGHT

Did you ever chance to hear the midnight flight of birds pa.s.sing through the air and darkness overhead, in countless armies, changing their early or late summer habitat? It is something not to be forgotten. A friend called me up just after 12 last night to mark the peculiar noise of unusually immense flocks migrating north (rather late this year.) In the silence, shadow and delicious odor of the hour, (the natural perfume belonging to the night alone,) I thought it rare music. You could _hear_ the characteristic motion--once or twice "the rush of mighty wings,"

but often a velvety rustle, long drawn out--sometimes quite near--with continual calls and chirps, and some song-notes. It all lasted from 12 till after 3. Once in a while the species was plainly distinguishable; I could make out the bobolink, tanager, Wilson's thrush, white-crown'd sparrow, and occasionally from high in the air came the notes of the plover.

b.u.mBLE-BEES

May-month--month of swarming, singing, mating birds--the b.u.mble-bee month--month of the flowering lilac-(and then my own birth-month.) As I jot this paragraph, I am out just after sunrise, and down towards the creek. The lights, perfumes, melodies--the blue birds, gra.s.s birds and robins, in every direction--the noisy, vocal, natural concert. For undertones, a neighboring wood-p.e.c.k.e.r tapping his tree, and the distant clarion of chanticleer. Then the fresh-earth smells--the colors, the delicate drabs and thin blues of the perspective. The bright green of the gra.s.s has receiv'd an added tinge from the last two days' mildness and moisture. How the sun silently mounts in the broad clear sky, on his day's journey! How the warm beams bathe all, and come streaming kissingly and almost hot on my face.

A while since the croaking of the pond-frogs and the first white of the dog-wood blossoms. Now the golden dandelions in endless profusion, spotting the ground everywhere. The white cherry and pear-blows--the wild violets, with their blue eyes looking up and saluting my feet, as I saunter the wood-edge--the rosy blush of budding apple-trees--the light-clear emerald hue of the wheat-fields--the darker green of the rye--a warm elasticity pervading the air--the cedar-bushes profusely deck'd with their little brown apples--the summer fully awakening--the convocation of black birds, garrulous flocks of them, gathering on some tree, and making the hour and place noisy as I sit near.

_Later._--Nature marches in procession, in sections, like the corps of an army. All have done much for me, and still do. But for the last two days it has been the great wild bee, the humble-bee, or "b.u.mble," as the children call him. As I walk, or hobble, from the farm-house down to the creek, I traverse the before-mention'd lane, fenced by old rails, with many splits, splinters, breaks, holes, &c., the choice habitat of those crooning, hairy insects. Up and down and by and between these rails, they swarm and dart and fly in countless myriads. As I wend slowly along, I am often accompanied with a moving cloud of them. They play a leading part in my morning, midday or sunset rambles, and often dominate the landscape in a way I never before thought of--fill the long lane, not by scores or hundreds only, but by thousands. Large and vivacious and swift, with wonderful momentum and a loud swelling, perpetual hum, varied now and then by something almost like a shriek, they dart to and fro, in rapid flashes, chasing each other, and (little things as they are,) conveying to me a new and p.r.o.nounc'd sense of strength, beauty, vitality and movement. Are they in their mating season? or what is the meaning of this plenitude, swiftness, eagerness, display? As I walk'd, I thought I was follow'd by a particular swarm, but upon observation I saw that it was a rapid succession of changing swarms, one after another.

As I write, I am seated under a big wild-cherry tree--the warm day temper'd by partial clouds and a fresh breeze, neither too heavy nor light--and here I sit long and long, envelop'd in the deep musical drone of these bees, flitting, balancing, darting to and fro about me by hundreds--big fellows with light yellow jackets, great glistening swelling bodies, stumpy heads and gauzy wings--humming their perpetual rich mellow boom. (Is there not a hint in it for a musical composition, of which it should be the back-ground? some b.u.mble-bee symphony?) How it all nourishes, lulls me, in the way most needed; the open air, the rye-fields, the apple orchards. The last two days have been faultless in sun, breeze, temperature and everything; never two more perfect days, and I have enjoy'd them wonderfully. My health is somewhat better, and my spirit at peace. (Yet the anniversary of the saddest loss and sorrow of my life is close at hand.)

Another jotting, another perfect day: forenoon, from 7 to 9, two hours envelop'd in sound of b.u.mble-bees and bird-music. Down in the apple-trees and in a neighboring cedar were three or four russet-back'd thrushes, each singing his best, and roulading in ways I never heard surpa.s.s'd. Two hours I abandon myself to hearing them, and indolently absorbing the scene. Almost every bird I notice has a special time in the year--sometimes limited to a few days--when it sings its best; and now is the period of these russet-backs. Meanwhile, up and down the lane, the darting, droning, musical b.u.mble-bees. A great swarm again for my entourage as I return home, moving along with me as before.

As I write this, two or three weeks later, I am sitting near the brook under a tulip tree, 70 feet high, thick with the fresh verdure of its young maturity--a beautiful object--every branch, every leaf perfect.

From top to bottom, seeking the sweet juice in the blossoms, it swarms with myriads of these wild bees, whose loud and steady humming makes an undertone to the whole, and to my mood and the hour. All of which I will bring to a close by extracting the following verses from Henry A.

Beers's little volume:

As I lay yonder in tall gra.s.s A drunken b.u.mble-bee went past

Delirious with honey toddy.

The golden sash about his body Scarce kept it in his swollen belly Distent with honeysuckle jelly.

Rose liquor and the sweet-pea wine Had fill' d his soul with song divine; Deep had he drunk the warm night through, His hairy thighs were wet with dew.

Full many an antic he had play'd While the world went round through sleep and shade.

Oft had he lit with thirsty lip Some flower-cup's nectar'd sweets to sip, When on smooth petals he would slip, Or over tangled stamens trip, And headlong in the pollen roll'd, Crawl out quite dusted o'er with gold; Or else his heavy feet would stumble Against some bud, and down he'd tumble Amongst the gra.s.s; there lie and grumble In low, soft ba.s.s--poor maudlin b.u.mble!

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