Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 by Various

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When Napoleon was called from the pursuit of Bluecher by Schwarzenberg's
advance upon Dresden, he confided the command of the army that was to
act against that of Silesia to Marshal Macdonald, a brave and honest
man, but a very inferior soldier, yet who might have managed to hold his
own against so unscientific a leader as the fighting old hussar, had it
not been for the terrible rainstorm that began on the night of the 25th
of August. The swelling of the rivers, some of them deep and rapid, led
to the isolation of the French divisions, while the rain was so severe
as to prevent them from using their muskets. Animated by the most ardent
hatred, the new Prussian levies, few of whom had been in service half as
long as our volunteers, and many of whom were but mere boys, rushed upon
their enemies, butchering them with butt and bayonet, and forcing
them into the boiling torrent of the Katzbach. Puthod's division was
prevented from rejoining its comrades by the height of the waters, and
was destroyed, though one of the best bodies in the French army. The
state of the country drove the French divisions together on the same
lines of retreat, creating immense confusion, and leading to the most
serious losses of men and _materiel_. Macdonald's blunder was in
advancing after the storm began, and had lasted for a whole night. His
officers pointed out the danger of his course, but he was one of those
men who think, that, because they are not knaves, they can accomplish
everything; but the laws of Nature no more yield to honest stupidity
than to clever roguery. The Baron Von Mueffling, who was present in
Bluecher's army, says, that, when the French attempted to protect their
retreat at the Katzbach with artillery, the guns stuck in the mud; and
he adds,--"The field of battle was so saturated by the incessant rain,
that a great portion of our infantry left their shoes sticking in
the mud, and followed the enemy barefoot." Even a brook, called the
Deichsel, was so swollen by the rain that the French could cross it at
only one place, and there they lost wagons and guns. Old Bluecher issued
a thundering proclamation for the encouragement of his troops. "In the
battle on the Katzbach," he said to them, "the enemy came to meet you
with defiance. Courageously, and with the rapidity of lightning, you
issued from behind your heights. You scorned to attack them with
musketry-fire: you advanced without a halt; your bayonets drove them
down the steep ridge of the valley of the raging Neisse and Katzbach.
Afterwards you waded through rivers and brooks swollen with rain. You
passed nights in mud. You suffered for want of provisions, as the
impassable roads and want of conveyance hindered the baggage from
following. You struggled with cold, wet, privations, and want of
clothing; nevertheless you did not murmur,--with great exertions you
pursued your routed foe. Receive my thanks for such laudable conduct.
The man alone who unites such qualities is a true soldier. One hundred
and three cannons, two hundred and fifty ammunition-wagons, the enemy's
field-hospitals, their field-forges, their flour-wagons, one general of
division, two generals of brigade, a great number of colonels, staff
and other officers, eighteen thousand prisoners, two eagles, and other
trophies, are in your hands. The terror of your arms has so seized upon
the rest of your opponents, that they will no longer bear the sight of
your bayonets. You have seen the roads and fields between the Katzbach
and the Bober: they bear the signs of the terror and confusion of your
enemy." The bluff old General, who at seventy had more "dash" than all
the rest of the leaders of the Allies combined, and who did most of the
real fighting business of "those who wished and worked" Napoleon's fall,
knew how to talk to soldiers, which is a quality not always possessed
by even eminent commanders. Soldiers love a leader who can take them to
victory, and then talk to them about it. Such a man is "one of them."

Napoleon never recovered from the effects of the losses he experienced
at Kulm and on the Katzbach,--losses due entirely to the wetness of the
weather. He went downward from that time with terrible velocity, and was
in Elba the next spring, seven months after having been on the Elbe. The
winter campaign of 1814, of which so much is said, ought to furnish
some matter for a paper on weather in war; but the truth is, that that
campaign was conducted politically by the Allies. There was never a
time, after the first of February, when, if they had conducted the war
solely on military principles, they could not have been in Paris in a
fortnight.

Napoleon's last campaign owed its lamentable decision to the peculiar
character of the weather on its last two days, though one would not look
for such a thing as severe weather in June, in Flanders. But so it was,
and Waterloo would have been a French victory, and Wellington where
_Henry_ was when he ran against _Eclipse_,--nowhere,--if the rain that
fell so heavily on the 17th of June had been postponed only twenty-four
hours. Up to the afternoon of the 17th, the weather, though very warm,
was dry, and the French were engaged in following their enemies. The
Anglo-Dutch infantry had retreated from Quatre-Bras, and the cavalry was
following, and was itself followed by the French cavalry, who pressed it
with great audacity. "The weather," says Captain Siborne, "during the
morning, had become oppressively hot; it was now a dead calm; not a leaf
was stirring; and the atmosphere was close to an intolerable degree;
while a dark, heavy, dense cloud impended over the combatants. The 18th
[English] Hussars were fully prepared, and awaited but the command to
charge, when the brigade guns on the right commenced firing, for the
purpose of previously disturbing and breaking the order of the enemy's
advance. The concussion seemed instantly to rebound through the still
atmosphere, and communicate, as an electric spark, with the heavily
charged mass above. A most awfully loud thunder-clap burst forth,
immediately succeeded by a rain which has never, probably, been exceeded
in violence even within the tropics. In a very few minutes the ground
became perfectly saturated,--so much so, that it was quite impracticable
for any rapid movement of the cavalry." This storm prevented the French
from pressing with due force upon their retiring foes; but that would
have been but a small evil, if the storm had not settled into a steady
and heavy rain, which converted the fat Flemish soil into a mud that
would have done discredit even to the "sacred soil" of Virginia, and the
latter has the discredit of being the nastiest earth in America. All
through the night the windows of heaven were open, as if weeping over
the spectacle of two hundred thousand men preparing to butcher each
other. Occasionally the rain fell in torrents, greatly distressing the
soldiers, who had no tents. On the morning of the 18th the rain ceased,
but the day continued cloudy, and the sun did not show himself until the
moment before setting, when for an instant he blazed forth in full glory
upon the forward movement of the Allies. One may wonder if Napoleon
then thought of that morning "Sun of Austerlitz," which he had so often
apostrophized in the days of his meridian triumphs. The evening sun of
Waterloo was the practical antithesis to the rising sun of Austerlitz.

The Battle of Waterloo was not begun until about twelve o'clock, because
of the state of the ground, which did not admit of the action of cavalry
and artillery until several hours had been allowed for its hardening.
That inevitable delay was the occasion of the victory of the Allies;
for, if the battle had been opened at seven o'clock, the French would
have defeated Wellington's army before a Prussian regiment could have
arrived on the field. It has been said that the rain was as baneful to
the Allies as to the French, as it prevented the early arrival of the
Prussians; but the remark comes only from persons who are not familiar
with the details of the most momentous of modern pitched battles.
Buelow's Prussian corps, which was the first to reach the field, marched
through Wavre in the forenoon of the 18th; but no sooner had its
advanced guard--an infantry brigade, a cavalry regiment, and one
battery--cleared that town, than a fire broke out there, which greatly
delayed the march of the remainder of the corps. There were many
ammunition-wagons in the streets, and, fearful of losing them, and of
being deprived of the means of fighting, the Prussians halted, and
turned firemen for the occasion. This not only prevented most of the
corps from arriving early on the right flank of the French, but it
prevented the advanced guard from acting, Buelow being too good a soldier
to risk so small a force as that immediately at his command in an attack
on the French army. It was not until about half-past one that the
Prussians were first seen by the Emperor, and then at so great a
distance that even with glasses it was difficult to say whether the
objects looked at were men or trees. But for the bad weather, it is
possible that Buelow's whole corps, supposing there had been no fire at
Wavre, might have arrived within striking distance of the French army
by two o'clock, P.M.; but by that hour the battle between Napoleon and
Wellington would have been decided, and the Prussians would have come
up only to "augment the slaughter," had the ground been hard enough for
operations at an early hour of the day. As the battle was necessarily
fought in the afternoon, because of the softness of the soil consequent
on the heavy rains of the preceding day and night, there was time gained
for the arrival of Buelow's corps by four o'clock of the afternoon of the
18th. Against that corps Napoleon had to send almost twenty thousand of
his men, and sixty-six pieces of cannon, all of which might have been
employed against Wellington's army, had the battle been fought in the
forenoon. As it was, that large force never fired a shot at the English.
The other Prussian corps that reached the field toward the close of the
day, Zieten's and Pirch's, did not leave Wavre until about noon. The
coming up of the advanced guard of Zieten, but a short time before the
close of the battle, enabled Wellington to employ the fresh cavalry of
Vivian and Vandeleur at another part of his line, where they did eminent
service for him at a time which is known as "the crisis" of the day.
Taking all these facts into consideration, it must be admitted that
there never was a more important rain-storm than that which happened on
the 17th of June, 1815. Had it occurred twenty-four hours later, the
destinies of the world might, and most probably would, have been
completely changed; for Waterloo was one of those decisive battles which
dominate the ages through their results, belonging to the same class
of combats as do Marathon, Pharsalia, Lepanto, Blenheim, Yorktown, and
Trafalgar. It was decided by water, and not by fire, though the latter
was hot enough on that fatal field to satisfy the most determined lover
of courage and glory.

If space permitted, we could bring forward many other facts to show the
influence of weather on the operations of war. We could show that it was
owing to changes of wind that the Spaniards failed to take Leyden, the
fall of which into their hands would probably have proved fatal to the
Dutch cause; that a sudden thaw prevented the French from seizing the
Hague in 1672, and compelling the Dutch to acknowledge themselves
subjects of Louis XIV.; that a change of wind enabled William of Orange
to land in England, in 1688, without fighting a battle, when even
victory might have been fatal to his purpose; that Continental
expeditions fitted out for the purpose of restoring the Stuarts to the
British throne were more than once ruined by the occurrence of tempests;
that the defeat of our army at Germantown was in part due to the
existence of a fog; that a severe storm prevented General Howe from
assailing the American position on Dorchester Heights, and so enabled
Washington to make that position too strong to be attacked with hope
of success, whereby Boston was freed from the enemy's presence; that a
heavy fall of rain, by rendering the River Catawba unfordable, put
a stop, for a few days, to those movements by which Lord Cornwallis
intended to destroy the army of General Morgan, and obtain compensation
for Tarleton's defeat at the Cowpens; that an autumnal tempest compelled
the same British commander to abandon a project of retreat from
Yorktown, which good military critics have thought well conceived, and
promising success; that the severity of the winter of 1813 interfered
effectively with the measures which Napoleon had formed with the view of
restoring his affairs, so sadly compromised by his failure in Russia;
that the "misty, chilly, and insalubrious" weather of Louisiana, and its
mud, had a marked effect on Sir Edward Pakenham's army, and helped us to
victory over one of the finest forces ever sent by Europe to the West;
that in 1828 the Russians lost myriads of men and horses, in the
Danubian country and its vicinity, through heavy rains and hard frosts;
that the November hurricane of 1854 all but paralyzed the allied forces
in the Crimea;--and many similar things that establish the helplessness
of men in arms when the weather is adverse to them. But enough has been
said to convince even the most skeptical that our Potomac Army did not
stand alone in being forced to stand still before the dictation of the
elements. Our armies, indeed, have suffered less from the weather than
it might reasonably have been expected they would suffer, having simply
been delayed at some points by the occurrence of winds and thaws; and
over all such obstacles they are destined ultimately to triumph, as
the Union itself will bid defiance to what Bacon calls "the waves and
weathers of time."

* * * * *

LINES

WRITTEN UNDER A PORTRAIT OF THEODORE WINTHROP.

O Knightly soldier bravely dead!
O poet-soul too early sped!
O life so pure! O life so brief!
Our hearts are moved with deeper grief,
As, dwelling on thy gentle face,
Its twilight smile, its tender grace,
We fill the shadowy years to be
With what had been thy destiny.
And still, amid our sorrow's pain,
We feel the loss is yet our gain;
For through the death we know the life,
Its gold in thought, its steel in strife,--
And so with reverent kiss we say
Adieu! O Bayard of our day!

HINDRANCE.

Much that is in itself undesirable occurs in obedience to a general law
which is not only desirable, but of infinite necessity and benefit. It
is not desirable that Topper and Macaulay should be read by tens of
thousands, and Wilkinson only by tens. It is not desirable that a
narrow, selfish, envious Cecil, who could never forgive his noblest
contemporaries for failing to be hunchbacks like himself, should steer
England all his life as it were with supreme hand, and himself sail on
the topmost tide of fortune; while the royal head of Raleigh goes to the
block, and while Bacon, with his broad and bountiful nature,--Bacon,
one of the two or three greatest and humanest statesmen ever born to
England, and one of the friendliest men toward mankind ever born into
the world,--dies in privacy and poverty, bequeathing his memory "to
foreign nations and the next ages." But it is wholly desirable that
he who would consecrate himself to excellence in art or life should
sometimes be compelled to make it very clear to himself whether it be
indeed excellence that he covets, or only plaudits and pounds sterling.
So when we find our purest wishes perpetually hindered, not only in the
world around us, but even in our own bosoms, many of the particular
facts may indeed merit reproach, but the general fact merits, on the
contrary, gratitude and gratulation. For were our best wishes not, nor
ever, hindered, sure it is that the still better wishes of destiny
in our behalf would be hindered yet worse. Sure it is, I say, that
Hindrance, both outward and inward, comes to us not through any
improvidence or defect of benignity in Nature, but in answer to our
need, and as part of the best bounty which enriches our days. And to
make this indubitably clear, let us hasten to meditate that simple and
central law which governs this matter and at the same time many others.

And the law is, that every definite action is conditioned upon a
definite resistance, and is impossible without it. We walk in virtue of
the earth's resistance to the foot, and are unable to tread the elements
of air and water only because they are too complaisant, and deny the
foot that opposition which it requires. Precisely that, accordingly,
which makes the difficulty of an action may at the same time make its
possibility. Why is flight difficult? Because the weight of every
creature draws it toward the earth. But without this downward
proclivity, the wing of the bird would have no power upon the air.
Why is it difficult for a solid body to make rapid progress in water?
Because the water presses powerfully upon it, and at every inch of
progress must be overcome and displaced. Yet the ship is able to float
only in virtue of this same hindering pressure, and without it would not
sail, but sink. The bird and the steamer, moreover,--the one with
its wings and the other with its paddles,--apply themselves to this
hindrance to progression as their only means of making progress; so
that, were not their motion obstructed, it would be impossible.

The law governs not actions only, but all definite effects whatsoever.
If the luminiferous ether did not resist the sun's influence, it could
not be wrought into those undulations wherein light consists; if the
air did not resist the vibrations of a resonant object, and strive
to preserve its own form, the sound-waves could not be created and
propagated: if the tympanum did not resist these waves, it would not
transmit their suggestion to the brain; if any given object does not
resist the sun's rays,--in other words, reflect them,--it will not be
visible; neither can the eye mediate between any object and the brain
save by a like opposing of rays on the part of the retina.

These instances might be multiplied _ad libitum_, since there is
literally _no_ exception to the law. Observe, however, what the law is,
namely, that _some_ resistance is indispensable,--by no means that this
alone is so, or that all modes and kinds of resistance are of equal
service. Resistance and Affinity concur for all right effects; but it is
the former that, in some of its aspects, is much accused as a calamity
to man and a contumely to the universe; and of this, therefore, we
consider here.

Not all kinds of resistance are alike serviceable; yet that which is
required may not always consist with pleasure, nor even with safety. Our
most customary actions are rendered possible by forces and conditions
that inflict weariness at times upon all, and cost the lives of many.
Gravitation, forcing all men against the earth's surface with an energy
measured by their weight avoirdupois, makes locomotion feasible; but by
the same attraction it may draw one into the pit, over the precipice, to
the bottom of the sea. What multitudes of lives does it yearly destroy!
Why has it never occurred to some ingenious victim of a sluggish liver
to represent Gravitation as a murderous monster revelling in blood?
Surely there are woful considerations here that might be used with the
happiest effect to enhance the sense of man's misery, and have been too
much neglected!

Probably there are few children to whom the fancy has not occurred, How
convenient, how fine were it to weigh nothing! We smile at the little
wiseacres; we know better. How much better do we know? That ancient
lament, that ever iterated accusation of the world because it opposes a
certain hindrance to freedom, love, reason, and every excellence which
the imagination of man can portray and his heart pursue,--what is it, in
the final analysis, but a complaint that we cannot walk without weight,
and that therefore climbing _is_ climbing?

Instead, however, of turning aside to applications, let us push forward
the central statement in the interest of applications to be made by
every reader for himself,--since he says too much who does not leave
much more unsaid. Observe, then, that objects which so utterly submit
themselves to man as to become testimonies and publications of his
inward conceptions serve even these most exacting and monarchical
purposes only by opposition to them, and, to a certain extent, in the
very measure of that opposition. The stone which the sculptor carves
becomes a fit vehicle for his thought through its resistance to his
chisel; it sustains the impress of his imagination solely through its
unwillingness to receive the same. Not chalk, not any loose and friable
material, does Phidias or Michel Angelo choose, but ivory, bronze,
basalt, marble. It is quite the same whether we seek expression or
uses. The stream must be dammed before it will drive wheels; the steam
compressed ere it will compel the piston. In fine, Potentiality combines
with Hindrance to constitute active Power. Man, in order to obtain
instrumentalities and uses, blends his will and intelligence with a
force that vigorously seeks to pursue its own separate free course; and
while this resists him, it becomes his servant.

But why not look at this fact in its largest light? For do we not here
touch upon the probable reason why God must, as it were, be offset by
World, Spirit by Matter, Soul by Body? The Maker must needs, if it be
lawful so to speak, heap up in the balance against His own pure, eternal
freedom these numberless globes of cold, inert matter. Matter is,
indeed, movable by no fine persuasions: brutely faithful to its own law,
it cares no more for AEschylus than for the tortoise that breaks his
crown; the purpose of a cross for the sweetest saint it serves no less
willingly than any other purpose,--stiffly holding out its arms there,
about its own wooden business, neither more nor less, centred utterly
upon itself. But is it not this stolid self-centration which makes it
needful to Divinity? An infinite energy required a resisting or doggedly
indifferent material, itself _quasi_ infinite, to take the impression of
its life, and render potentiality into power. So by the encountering of
body with soul is the product, man, evolved. Philosophers and saints
have perceived that the spiritual element of man is hampered and
hindered by his physical part: have they also perceived that it is the
very collision between these which strikes out the spark of thought
and kindles the sense of law? As the tables of stone to the finger of
Jehovah on Sinai, so is the firm marble of man's material nature to the
recording soul. But even Plato, when he arrives at these provinces of
thought, begins to limp a little, and to go upon Egyptian crutches. In
the incomparable apologues of the "Phaedrus" he represents our inward
charioteer as driving toward the empyrean two steeds, of which the one
is virtuously attracted toward heaven, while the other is viciously
drawn to the earth; but he countenances the inference that the earthward
proclivity of the latter is to be accounted pure misfortune. But to the
universe there is neither fortune nor misfortune; there is only the
reaper, Destiny, and his perpetual harvest. All that occurs on a
universal scale lies in the line of a pure success. Nor can the universe
attain any success by pushing past man and leaving him aside. That
were like the prosperity of a father who should enrich himself by
disinheriting his only son.

Principles necessary to all action must of course appear in moral
action. The moral imagination, which pioneers and produces inward
advancement, works under the same conditions with the imagination of
the artist, and must needs have somewhat to work _upon_. Man is both
sculptor and quarry,--and a great noise and dust of chiselling is there
sometimes in his bosom. If, therefore, we find in him somewhat which
does not immediately and actively sympathize with his moral nature, let
us not fancy this element equally out of sympathy with his pure destiny.
The impulsion and the resistance are alike included in the design of our
being. Hunger--to illustrate--respects food, food only. It asks leave to
be hunger neither of your conscience, your sense of personal dignity,
nor indeed of your humanity in any form; but exists by its own
permission, and pushes with brute directness toward its own ends. True,
the soul may at last so far prevail as to make itself felt even in
the stomach; and the true gentleman could as soon relish a lunch of
porcupines' quills as a dinner basely obtained, though it were of
nightingales' tongues. But this is sheer conquest on the part of
the soul, not any properly gastric inspiration at all; and it is in
furnishing opportunity for precisely such conquest that the lower nature
becomes a stairway of ascent for the soul.

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