Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860

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And that is the way in which I stumbled into wedlock. How many others,
in their pursuit of what has seemed to them the substance, have failed
to discover, perhaps too late, that they were following a flitting
shadow,--while I, favored mortal, in my chase of a dream, stumbled upon
the greatest real good of my whole life!

* * * * *

THROUGH THE FIELDS TO SAINT PETER'S.

There's a by-road to Saint Peter's. First you swing across the Tiber
In a ferry-boat that floats you in a minute from the crowd;
Then through high-hedged lanes you saunter; then by fields and sunny
pastures;
And beyond, the wondrous dome uprises like a golden cloud.

And this morning,--Easter morning,--while the streets were thronged
with people,
And all Rome moved toward the Apostle's temple by the usual way,
I strolled by the fields and hedges,--stopping now to view the
landscape,
Now to sketch the lazy cattle in the April grass that lay.

Galaxies of buttercups and daisies ran along the meadows,--
Rosy flushes of red clover,--blossoming shrubs and sprouting vines;
Overhead the larks were singing, heeding not the bells a-ringing,--
Little knew they of the Pasqua, or the proud Saint Peter's shrines.

Contadini, men and women, in their very best apparel,
Trooping one behind another, chatted all along the roads;
Boys were pitching quoits and coppers; old men in the sun were basking:
In the festive smile of Heaven all laid aside their weary loads.

Underneath an ancient portal, soon I passed into the city;
Entered San Pietro's Square, now thronged with upward crowding forms;
Past the Cardinals' gilded coaches, and the gorgeous scarlet lackeys,
And the flashing files of soldiers, and black priests in gloomy swarms.

All were moving to the temple. Push aside the ponderous curtain!
Lo! the glorious heights of marble, melting in the golden dome,
Where the grand mosaic pictures, veiled in warm and misty softness,
Swim in faith's religious trances,--high above all heights of Rome.

Grand as Pergolesi chantings, lovely as a dream of Titian,
Tones and tints and chastened splendors wreathed and grouped in sweet
accord;
While through nave and transept pealing, soar and sink the choral
voices,
Telling of the death and glorious resurrection of the Lord.

But, ah, fatal degradation for this temple of the nations!
For the soul is never lifted by the accord of sights and sound;
But yon priest in gold and satin, murmuring with his ghostly Latin,
Drags it from its natural flights, and trails its plumage on the ground.

And to-day the Pope is heading his whole army of gay puppets,
And the great machinery round us moving with an extra show:
Genuflexions, censers, mitres, mystic motions, candle-lighters,
And the juggling show of relics to the crowd that gapes below,

Till at last they show the Pontiff, a lay figure stuffed and tinselled;
Under canopy and fan-plumes he is borne in splendor proud
To a show-box of the temple overlooking the Piazza;
There he gives his benediction to the long-expectant crowd.

Benediction! while the people, blighted, cursed by superstition,
Steeped in ignorance and darkness, taxed and starved, looks up and begs
For a little light and freedom, for a little law and justice,--
That at least the cup so bitter it may drain not to the dregs!

Benediction! while old error keeps alive a nameless terror!
Benediction! while the poison at each pore is entering deep,
And the sap is slowly withered, and the wormy fruit is gathered,
And a vampire sucks the life out while the soul is fanned asleep!

Oh, the splendor gluts the senses, while the spirit pines and dwindles!
Mother Church is but a dry-nurse, singing while her infant moans;
While anon a cake or rattle gives a little half-oblivion,
And the sweetness and the glitter mingle with her drowsy tones.

But the infant moans and tosses with a nameless want and anguish,
While, with coarse, unmeaning bushings, louder sings the hireling
nurse,--
Knows no better, in her dull and superannuated blindness,--
Tries no potion,--seeks no nurture,--but consents to worse and worse.

If such be thy ultimation, Church of infinite pretension,--
Such within thy chosen garden be the flowers and fruits you bear,--
Oh, give me the book of Nature, open wide to every creature,
And the unconsecrated thoughts that spring like daisies everywhere!

Send me to the woods and waters,--to the studio,--to the market!
Give me simple conversation, books, arts, sports, and friends sincere!
Let no priest be e'er my tutor! on my brow no label written!
Coin or passport to salvation, rather none, than beg it here!

Give me air, and not a prison,--love for Heart, and light for Reason!
Let me walk no slave or bigot,--God's untrammelled, fearless child!
Yield me rights each soul is born to,--rights not given and not taken,--
Free to Cardinals and Princes and Campagna shepherds wild.

Like these Roman fountains gushing clear and sweet in open spaces,
Where the poorest beggar stoops to drink, and none can say him nay,--
Let the Law, the Truth, be common, free to man and child and woman,
Living waters for the souls that now in sickness waste away!

Therefore are these fields far sweeter than yon temple of Saint Peter;
Through this grander dome of azure God looks down and blesses all;
In these fields the birds sing clearer, to the Eternal Heart are nearer,
Than the sad monastic chants that yonder on my ears did fall.

Never smiled Christ's holy Vicar on the heretic and sinner
As this sun--true type of Godhead--smiles o'er all the peopled land!
Sweeter smells this blowing clover than the perfume of the censer,
And the touch of Spring is kinder than the Pontiff's jewelled hand!

THE EXPERIENCE OF SAMUEL ABSALOM, FILIBUSTER.

[Concluded.]

Some time after the departure of the riflemen, a detail of eight or nine
men from our company was ordered off towards the lake shore, and soon
afterward another smaller one to Potosi, a little village four or five
miles to the northward of Rivas, bearing orders to Captain Finney's
rangers, who had gone to scout in that direction. The rest of us ate
supper, and then lay listening for the boom of the little field-piece,
which should tell us that the rifles had met the enemy. But the
extraordinary toils and watchings of the last fortnight were too
overpowering, and we were all soon buried in dreamless sleep.

In an hour or two I was awakened by horses' feet clattering over the
stony pavement of the _porteria_, or gateway to the square courtyard,
in one of whose surrounding corridors we usually slept,--on blankets,
cow-hides, or hard tiles, according as each man was able to furnish
himself. It was the party returning from their scout on the lake. They
unsaddled and fed their animals in the yard, and afterward set about
frying plantains and fresh stolen pork for supper. As they talked over
their provant in the room behind me, I caught most of their adventure,
without the discomfort of rising or asking questions. Near the lake they
had chased and captured some natives, whose behavior was suspicious and
showed no good-will toward the Americans. The officer of the party,
thinking them spies, had carried them part of the way to Rivas to be
examined; but, fortunately, perhaps, for the captives, he afterwards
relented and set them at liberty. They also talked of a small boy who
had peeped out of the bushes as they rode by, and shouted to them,
"_Quieren for Walker_?" (Are you for Walker?) and then adding
energetically, "_Yo no quiero filibustero god-damn!_" darted away out
of sight, before any one, who was so minded, could have shot the little
rebel.

"Be sure," said one of the men at supper,--a noted croaker and tried
coward, against whom I bear a private grudge,--"the boys have learned
this from the _old_ greasers; and we are going to have all the people of
Nicaragua to fight."

Later in the night, the other party, which had been sent to Potosi, came
in with panting mules, excited countenances, and one of their number
stained with blood from a wound on his thigh. They told us, that,
failing to find Captain Finney at Potosi, they had stretched their
orders, and gone forward to Obraja, unaware that it was occupied by the
enemy. At the entrance of the village, whilst riding on in complete
darkness, they were challenged suddenly in Spanish. Taken by surprise,
they replied in English, and, before they could turn their animals, were
stunned with the glare and crash of a musket-volley, a few feet ahead of
them. They recoiled, and fled with such precipitation that one of the
riders was tossed over his horse's head;--however, scrambling to his
feet, he found sense and good-luck to remount; and the whole party made
good their flight to Rivas, with no further damage than two slight
flesh-wounds,--one on the trooper, and one on his mule.

The excitement upon this arrival soon subsided, and I had again fallen
into unconsciousness, when a rough shake of the shoulder aroused me, and
the voice of the old sergeant dinned in my ear,--"Come here! saddle up!
saddle up! You are detailed for Obraja." In a few moments I was mounted,
and, with two others of the company, rode out of the gateway into the
street. There we found awaiting us a fourth horseman, charged with
orders for the riflemen at Obraja, and whom it was our duty to accompany
as guard.

After clearing Rivas, we clattered over the road at a fast pace, rousing
all the dogs at the _haciendas_ as we passed, and leaving them baying
behind us, until we came to where the Potosi road forked off to the
right; thenceforward, fearing an ambush, we rode slowly and with great
caution, stopping often to dismount and reconnoitre moon-lit fields
beyond the roadside hedges. At length, after passing a picket of our
riflemen, we came to a large _adobe_ house directly on the roadside,
where we found the main body of the detachment encamped and sleeping.
The house stood something under half a mile from Obraja, and was the
residence of that friendly alcalde who on the approach of the enemy
had removed with his family to Rivas, and placed General Walker on his
guard. As we rode into the yard, we had some ado to keep our horses
from treading on the sleeping soldiers, who lay scattered all round
the building, and also in its open corridor fronting toward Obraja.
Dismounting here, our courier went into the house to communicate with
Colonel O'Neal, the commander of the detachment,--leaving it to us
either to tie up, and lie where we were until morning, or pass farther
up the road, where Captain Finney's rangers were stationed. I chose to
go forward and hear the rangers' story, who, we were told, had had a
slight brush with the enemy in the beginning of the night.

After riding near quarter of a mile, I came to another _adobe_ building
on the roadside, occupied by a small party, and forming Colonel O'Neal's
advanced post, at the distance of four hundred yards or more from
Obraja. Here they told me that Captain Finney's company, whilst riding
into Obraja early in the night, had been hotly fired upon, and Captain
Finney himself was brought off struck in the breast, wounded mortally.
The riflemen had as yet made no attack, but awaited daylight. The number
of the enemy was not known; though rumor placed it between one thousand
and fifteen hundred. Whatever it was, they were apprehensive; for
throughout the night we heard them barricading the town with great hurry
and clatter; and it gave us sad discomfort to think that in the morning
there would be these walls to climb before our men could get at them. It
was the occasion of much bitter cursing that there should be delay until
this was accomplished, and of one man's protesting seriously that it
was, and had been, General Walker's endeavor, not to whip the greasers,
but to get as many Americans killed in Nicaragua as possible,--he
nourishing secret and implacable hatred against them for some cause.
However, I think this judgment weak and improbable, though plausible
enough from some points of view.

During the night there was some firing between our party and the enemy
from under cover in front, with some few wounds, and one man on our
side shot through the hat,--who thereupon, pulling off the injured
head-piece, and looking at it gravely, declared he would always
thenceforward wear his hat with a high crown; for, said he, had this one
been half an inch lower, the bullet must have struck the head:--which
drollery, in consideration of the circumstances, was allowed to pass for
an exceeding good stroke.

We passed a disturbed and rather uneasy night, fearful all the time of
being cut off or overwhelmed. But morning breaking at length, a party
of riflemen came up from Colonel O'Neal's camp below, and affairs were
immediately changed for the offensive. The riflemen moved forward
against the town, whilst the rangers were posted at several points along
the road to guard against surprise from the bushes. Among these latter
I took my stand. The squad which went forward could not have numbered
above sixty men, and was armed with Mississippi rifles only,--without
wheel-piece of any kind, or even bayonets. I took them for a party of
skirmishers, sent ahead to clear the way; yet they were not followed or
supported by any additional force that I saw then or afterwards.

As they passed up the road, I observed that the most listless and dead
amongst them were at length stirred up and thoroughly awake,--though not
with enthusiasm or martial impatience. Some seemed uneasy and careworn,
and glanced about nervously; had their countenances not been unalterably
yellow, they would certainly have been white. One fellow near the
rear was trembling sadly, and carried his rifle in an unreasonable
manner,--promising aimless discharges, and, perhaps, dodgings into the
bushes. But this one was excusable, and I may have slandered him; for
ague had shaken the life almost out of him so often that shaking
was become natural, and little else could be expected of him; and,
furthermore, a pale face or unsteady joints are not always weathercock
to a fainting spirit. In some constitutions these may come from other
emotions than fear; and it often happens that your most lamentable
shaker will stand you longer at the breach than the man of iron nerve,
with a white liver. I have seen such. However, the majority of these
were resolute and dangerous-looking men, and, though without any marks
of inordinate zeal, seemed willing enough to fight whatever appeared.
They held their rifles in the hand cocked, and, as they advanced, threw
their eyes sharply into the bushes on either side the road,--having
received orders to shoot the first greaser that showed himself, without
awaiting the word.

In a few moments after, the party having disappeared behind a turn of
the road, we suddenly heard the cracking of their rifles, mingled
with the deeper crash of more numerous musketry; and it was a vivid
sensation, new to me, that some of those bullets were surely finding
billets in the bodies of men. This seemed an encounter with a force
of the enemy outside of the town; and directly we thought, from the
movement of the noise, that our riflemen were driving them in. Then
there was a louder and more rapid volleying of musketry, which
completely drowned the rifles, and seemed to tell us that our men were
come in sight of the barricades. This lasted but a moment, when it was
succeeded by a scattered fire of fewer guns, and finally by irregular
volleys. We knew that our men had fallen back; and we had not once
thought it would be otherwise. Indeed, it had been a rarely preposterous
enemy who should allow himself to be driven from behind a rampart by
that handful of dispirited, men.

Whilst things were on this foot, the courier of last night came up with
his guard, having been sent by Colonel O'Neal, who had remained at the
alcalde's house below, to get news of the attacking party. As I was
still under his orders, I joined him, and rode forward towards the
combatants,--not without sundry misgivings, known to most men who are
about to enter a fray for the first time,--or the twentieth time,
perhaps, if the truth were confessed. We found the riflemen drawn up in
the road, protected by the raised side-bank and cactus-hedge from an
enemy concealed amongst some trees and bushes, a little distance to the
right of the road in front. Above the trees, within pistol-shot, was
visible the red roof of a church which stood on the _plaza_ of Obraja,
where were barricaded, as they said, over a thousand greaser soldiers.
All other sign of the town than this one roof was shut in from view by
the abundant foliage which embowered it. As we approached the riflemen,
we dismounted and led our horses, fearing to attract a shower from the
enemy, who lay in the bushes firing irregularly. The officer of the
party told us to report to Colonel O'Neal that he had advanced within
sight of the _plaza_, and, finding it strongly barricaded, and "swarming
with greasers," he held it folly to assail it with fifty men, and so had
retreated. He mentioned some loss,--very small for the noise that had
been made,--of which I remember the name of one Lieutenant Webster, shot
through the head. He charged us to ask Colonel O'Neal's permission to
fall back on the _adobe_ where we had passed the night, as the enemy
appeared to be moving around his right, and he was fearful of being
surrounded in the open road. But, directly after, seeing the enemy were
in earnest to cut him off, he concluded to fall back on the house upon
his own responsibility, and did so, and with the _adobe_ walls around
him probably felt secure enough against such an enemy.

We returned to the lower camp, and delivered our report to a
boyish-looking person, in unepauletted red flannel shirt, but who was
no other than Colonel O'Neal, the officer in command. He was popular
amongst his men, and reputed a brave and energetic officer. He probably
mistrusted from the first that his force was too small; and hence the
delay in the attack, and the dispatch of the little party of riflemen
merely to satisfy General Walker. Be that as it may, upon hearing our
report, he recalled the advanced party, and immediately sent off
to Rivas to say he could do nothing against the town without a
reinforcement.

In the mean time those of the men who were off guard lay about under
the trees and ate oranges, with which the alcalde's yard was stocked
plentifully, whilst such wounded as had been brought in were laid on the
floor of the house, and their wounds probed by the surgeon; whereupon,
being but young soldiers mostly, there arose loud outcries and dismal
bellowings. For my own part, I set about comforting my mule, who had
been under saddle since leaving Rivas. I unsaddled him, brought him an
armful of _tortilla_ corn from the alcalde's kitchen-loft, some water
from the well, and left him making merry as if he had nothing worse
ahead of him.

Some time after mid-day the rest of our company came out from Rivas, and
we immediately had orders to ride up the road and fire upon the enemy's
outpost,--which, as the riflemen had been withdrawn and our advanced
picket was now nearly half a mile from the town, promised to be a
service of some danger. Therefore one of our commissioned officers,
afterwards dismissed the service for cowardice, was here seized suddenly
with the colic,--so badly, that he was unable to ride with us at his
post. Other sick men being left in quarters at Rivas, we counted now but
little over twenty men,--armed with Mississippi or Sharpe's rifles, and
some of us with the revolvers we had brought from California. After
passing the _adobe_ building, garrisoned last night, but now empty, we
advanced with great care, our leader taking often the precaution to
dismount and peer with bared head over the cactus-hedge which crowned
the right-hand bank of the road and shut us in on that side completely.
At every turn of the road he repeated his reconnoissance, so that our
advance was very slow, giving a watchful enemy almost time to place an
ambush, if they had none ready prepared. It was as sweet a place for a
trap as greaser's heart could wish. On our right was the impenetrable
cactus-hedge, with an open space beyond, terminated at the distance of
a few yards by a wood or plantain-patch. On the left was another wood,
matted with tangled underbrush and vines which no horseman could
penetrate. On either side half a dozen men might couch in ambush and
shoot us down in perfect security.

We passed on, however, without disturbance, or sight of an enemy, until
we came nearly to the edge of the town and saw the glistening roof of
the church appear above the foliage,--where sat sundry carrion-loving
buzzards, elbowing each other, shuffling to and fro with outspread
wings, and chuckling, doubtless, over the promise of glorious times.
As we go on, suddenly heads appear over the bushes less than a hundred
yards in front, and we hear the vindictive whistle of Minie-balls above
us. Our leader, calling upon us to fire, began himself to blaze away
rapidly with his Colt's revolver. We huddled forward, with little care
for order, and delivered some dozen Mississippi and Sharpe's rifles.
There were nervous men in the crowd; for, after the discharge, dust
was flying from the road within thirty feet of us. However, some aimed
higher; and when we looked again, the heads had disappeared. One bold
greaser stepped out into the road and sent his Minie-ball singing
several yards above us, then darted back quickly, before any of us
could have him. We waited a moment to see others, but they seemed to be
satisfied;--and we were satisfied,--with prospect of a swarm bursting
out on us from the town; so, sinking spurs into our weary animals, we
made good pace back to the camp,--not without an alarm that a troop of
well-mounted lancers was behind us.

In the course of the afternoon, General Henningsen arrived, bringing a
fine brass howitzer, and a small reinforcement of infantry--as those
armed with rifled muskets and bayonets were called--and artillerymen;
and, after some hours' rest, he ordered a fresh attempt with the
howitzer, supported by somewhere near two hundred men. This party was
received with so fierce a fire at the barricade that they shrank back,
leaving the howitzer behind in the road,--so that the enemy were on the
point of capturing it, when a brave artilleryman touched off the piece,
loaded with grape-shot, almost in their faces, and, strewing the
earth with dead, sent the others flying back to the barricade. This
artilleryman told me that an old officer amongst the enemy stood his
ground alone after the discharge, and swore manfully at the fugitives,
but they were panic-struck and took no heed; and it was his assertion,
that, had a small part of the riflemen rallied and charged at this time,
they might have gone over the barricade without difficulty or hindrance.
As it was, the howitzer was scarcely brought off, and the attack failed
ingloriously. Whether this story of the artilleryman were true or false,
we heard in other ways, by general report, that the riflemen had behaved
badly, and quailed as the filibusters had scarcely done before; though,
after all, it will seem unreasonable to blame these two hundred or less,
disease-worn and spiritless men, for not whipping ten hundred out of a
barricaded town. It may be worth saying here, that, seeing things in
Nicaragua from a common soldier's befogged view-point, and having only
general rumor, or the tales of privates like myself, for parts of an
engagement where I was not present, I may easily make mistakes in
the numbers, and otherwise do Walker and his officers, or the enemy,
injustice. Yet I may be excused, since I am not attempting a history
of the war, but merely some account of my own experience, passive and
active.

Late in the evening our company assisted to carry some wounded to Rivas.
Amongst them was Captain Finney, mentioned before as the first man
struck by the enemy. He seemed to be a brave and uncommonly considerate
officer, and whilst being carried in on a chair, suffering with his
death-wound, he showed concern for his supporters, and insisted on
having them relieved upon the smallest sign of fatigue. He was taken to
the quarters of a friend, where he died a few days afterward. The other
wounded were carried to the hospital, and, finding no one there to take
charge of them, we left them to themselves, lying or sitting upon the
floor, dismal and uncared-for enough.

After dark we were again in the saddle and riding out to Obraja, in
charge of a commissary's party, with provisions for the detachment of
foot. But after getting a little way from the town, we were overtaken by
an order from General Walker, stopping the provisions, and directing us
to ride on and recall the detachment to Rivas; he having changed his
mind about dislodging the enemy at this tardy hour. We reached the camp
some hours into the night, and, after a little delay, calling in the
pickets, and securing some native women who lived in the vicinity, to
prevent their carrying word of our movement to the enemy, the detachment
commenced its retrograde march,--leaving the enemy victorious, and free
to go where they wished.

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