Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

There is a mile of this Long Bridge. We seemed to occupy the whole
length of it, with our files opened to diffuse the weight of our column.
We were not now the tired and sleepy squad which just a moon ago had
trudged along the railroad to the Annapolis Junction, looking up a
Capital and a Government, perhaps lost.

By the time we touched ground across the bridge, dawn was breaking,--a
good omen for poor old sleepy Virginia. The moon, as bright and handsome
as a new twenty-dollar piece, carried herself straight before us,--a
splendid oriflamme.

Lucky is the private who marches with the van! It may be the post of
more danger, but it is also the post of less dust. My throat, therefore,
and my eyes and beard, wore the less Southern soil when we halted half a
mile beyond the bridge, and let sunrise overtake us.

Nothing men can do--except picnics, with ladies in straw flats with
feathers--is so picturesque as soldiering. As soon as the Seventh halt
anywhere, or move anywhere, or camp anywhere, they resolve themselves
into a grand _tableau_.

Their own ranks should supply their own Horace Vernet. Our groups
were never more entertaining than at this halt by the roadside on the
Alexandria road. Stacks of guns make a capital framework for drapery,
and red blankets dot in the lights most artistically. The fellows lined
the road with their gay array, asleep, on the rampage, on the lounge,
and nibbling at their rations.

By-and-by, when my brain had taken in as much of the picturesque as it
could stand, it suffered the brief congestion known as a nap. I was
suddenly awaked by the rattle of a horse's hoofs. Before I had rubbed
my eyes the rider was gone. His sharp tidings had stayed behind him.
Ellsworth was dead,--so he said hurriedly, and rode on. Poor Ellsworth!
a fellow of genius and initiative! He had still so much of the boy in
him, that he rattled forward boyishly, and so died. _Si monumentum
requiris_, look at his regiment. It was a brilliant stroke to levy it;
and if it does worthily, its young Colonel will not have lived in vain.

As the morning hours passed, we learned that we were the rear-guard of
the left wing of the army advancing into Virginia. The Seventh, as the
best organized body, acted as reserve to this force. It didn't wish
to be in the rear; but such is the penalty of being reliable for an
emergency. Fellow-soldier, be a scalawag, be a bashi-bazouk, be a
Billy-Wilsoneer, if you wish to see the fun in the van!

When the road grew too hot for us, on account of the fire of sunshine
in our rear, we jumped over the fence into the Race-Course, a big field
beside us, and there became squatter sovereigns all day. I shall be
a bore, if I say again what a pretty figure we cut in this military
picnic, with two long lines of blankets draped on bayonets for parasols.

The New Jersey brigade were meanwhile doing workie work on the ridge
just beyond us. The road and railroad to Alexandria follow the general
course of the river southward along the level. This ridge to be
fortified is at the point where the highway bends from west to south.
The works were intended to serve as an advanced _tete du pont_,--a
bridge-head, with a very long neck connecting it with the bridge. That
fine old Fabius, General Scott, had no idea of flinging an army out
broadcast into Virginia, and, in the insupposable case that it turned
tail, leaving it no defended passage to run away by.

This was my first view of a field-work in construction,--also, my first
hand as a laborer at a field-work. I knew glacis and counterscarp on
paper; also, on paper, superior slope, banquette, and the other dirty
parts of a redoubt. Here they were, not on paper. A slight wooden
scaffolding determined the shape of the simple work; and when I arrived,
a thousand Jerseymen were working, not at all like Jerseymen,--with
picks, spades, and shovels, cutting into Virginia, digging into
Virginia, shovelling up Virginia, for Virginia's protection against
pseudo-Virginians.

I swarmed in for a little while with our Paymaster, picked a little,
spaded a little, shovelled a little, took a hand to my great
satisfaction at earth-works, and for my efforts I venture to suggest
that Jersey City owes me its freedom in a box, and Jersey State a basket
of its finest Clicquot.

Is my gentle reader tired of the short marches and frequent halts of
the Seventh? Remember, gentle reader, that you must be schooled by such
alphabetical exercises to spell bigger words--skirmish, battle, defeat,
rout, massacre--by-and-by.

Well,--to be Xenophontic,--from the Race-Course that evening we marched
one stadium, one parasang, to a cedar-grove up the road. In the grove
is a spring worthy to be called a fountain, and what I determined by
infallible indications to be a _lager-bier_ saloon. Saloon no more! War
is no respecter of localities. Be it Arlington House, the seedy palace
of a Virginia Don,--be it the humbler, but seedy, pavilion where the
tired Teuton washes the dust of Washington away from his tonsils,--each
must surrender to the bold soldier-boy. Exit Champagne and its goblet;
exit _lager_ and its mug; enter whiskey-and-water in a tin pot. Such are
the horrors of civil war!

And now I must cut short my story, for graver matters press. As to
the residence of the Seventh in the cedar-grove for two days and two
nights,--how they endured the hardship of a bivouac on soft earth and
the starvation of coffee _sans_ milk,--how they digged manfully in the
trenches by gangs all these two laborious days,--with what supreme
artistic finish their work was achieved,--how they chopped off their
corns with axes, as they cleared the brushwood from the glacis,--how
they blistered their hands,--how they chafed that they were not
lunging with battailous steel at the breasts of the minions of the
oligarchs,--how Washington, seeing the smoke of burning rubbish, and
hearing dropping shots of target-practice, or of novices with the musket
shooting each other by accident,--how Washington, alarmed, imagined a
battle, and went into panic accordingly,--all this, is it not written
in the daily papers?

On the evening of the 26th, the Seventh travelled back to Camp Cameron
in a smart shower. Its service was over. Its month was expired. The
troops ordered to relieve it had arrived. It had given the other
volunteers the benefit of a month's education at its drills and parades.
It had enriched poor Washington to the tune of fifty thousand dollars.
Ah, Washington! that we, under Providence and after General Butler,
saved from the heel of Secession! Ah, Washington, why did you charge us
so much for our milk and butter and strawberries? The Seventh, then,
after a month of delightful duty, was to be mustered out of service, and
take new measures, if it would, to have a longer and a larger share in
the war.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS.

I took advantage of the day of rest after our return to have a gallop
about the outposts. Arlington Heights had been the spot whence the
alarmists threatened us daily with big thunder and bursting bombs. I was
curious to see the region that had had Washington under its thumb.

So Private W., tired of his foot-soldiering, got a quadruped under him,
and felt like a cavalier again. The horse took me along the tow-path of
the Cumberland Canal, as far as the redoubts where we had worked our
task. Then I turned up the hill, took a look at the camp of the New York
Twenty-Fifth at the left, and rode along for Arlington House.

Grand name! and the domain is really quite grand, but ill-kept. Fine
oaks make beauty without asking favors. Fine oaks and a fair view make
all the beauty of Arlington. It seems that this old establishment, like
many another old Virginian, had claimed its respectability for its
antiquity, and failed to keep up to the level of the time. The road
winds along through the trees, climbing to fairer and fairer reaches of
view over the plain of Washington. I had not fancied that there was any
such lovely site near the capital. But we have not yet appreciated what
Nature has done for us there. When civilization once makes up its mind
to colonize Washington, all this amphitheatre of hills will blossom with
structures of the sublimest gingerbread.

Arlington House is the antipodes of gingerbread, except that it is
yellow, and disposed to crumble. It has a pompous propylon of enormous
stuccoed columns. Any house smaller than Blenheim would tail on
insignificantly after such a frontispiece. The interior has a certain
careless, romantic, decayed-gentleman effect, wholly Virginian. It was
enlivened by the uniforms of staff-officers just now, and as they rode
through the trees of the approach and by the tents of the New York
Eighth, encamped in the grove to the rear, the _tableau_ was brilliantly
warlike. Here, by the way, let me pause to ask, as a horseman, though a
foot-soldier, why generals and other gorgeous fellows make such guys of
their horses with trappings. If the horse is a screw, cover him thick
with saddle-cloths, girths, cruppers, breast-bands, and as much brass
and tinsel as your pay will enable you to buy; but if not a screw, let
his fair proportions be seen as much as may be, and don't bother a lover
of good horseflesh to eliminate so much uniform before he can see what
is beneath.

From Arlington I rode to the other encampments,--the Sixty-Ninth, Fifth,
and Twenty-Eighth, all of New York,--and heard their several stories
of alarms and adventures. This completed the circuit of the new
fortification of the Great Camp. Washington was now a fortress. The
capital was out of danger, and therefore of no further interest to
anybody. The time had come for myself and my regiment to leave it by
different ways.

"PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE."

I should have been glad to stay and see my comrades through to their
departure; but there was a Massachusetts man down at Fortress Monroe,
Butler by name,--has any one heard of him?--and to this gentleman it
chanced that I was to report myself. So I packed my knapsack, got my
furlough, shook hands with my fellows, said good-bye to Camp Cameron,
and was off, two days after our month's service was done.

FAREWELL TO THE SEVENTH.

Under Providence, Washington owes its safety, 1st, To General Butler,
whose genius devised the circumvention of Baltimore and its rascal rout,
and whose utter bravery executed the plan;--he is the Grand Yankee of
this little period of the war. 2d, To the other Most Worshipful Grand
Yankees of the Massachusetts regiment who followed their leader, as he
knew they would, discovered a forgotten colony called Annapolis, and
dashed in there, asking no questions. 3d, And while I gladly yield the
first places to this General and his men, I put the Seventh in, as
last, but not least, in saving the capital. Character always tells. The
Seventh, by good, hard, faithful work at drill, had established its fame
as the most thorough militia regiment in existence. Its military and
moral character were excellent. The mere name of the regiment carried
weight. It took the field as if the field were a ball-room. There were
myriads eager to march; but they had not made ready beforehand. Yes,
the Seventh had its important share in the rescue. Without our support,
whether our leaders tendered it eagerly or hesitatingly, General
Butler's position at Annapolis would have been critical, and his forced
march to the capital a forlorn hope,--heroic, but desperate.

So, honor to whom honor is due.

Here I must cut short my story. So good-bye to the Seventh, and thanks
for the fascinating month I have passed in their society. In this pause
of the war our camp-life has been to me as brilliant as a permanent
picnic.

Good-bye to Company I, and all the fine fellows, rough and smooth, cool
old hands and recruits verdant but ardent! Good-bye to our Lieutenants,
to whom I owe much kindness! Good-bye, the Orderly, so peremptory on
parade, so indulgent off! Good-bye, everybody!

And so in haste I close.

BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER.

(A BIRTHDAY POEM, WITH ROSES.)

To her whose birth and being
Touch summer out of spring,
These roses, reaching forward
From May to June, I bring.

To her whose fragrant friendship
Sweetens the life I live,
These flowers, Love's message hinting
With perfumed breath, I give.

The violet and the lily
Shall stand for these and those;
But give her roses only
Whose soul suggests the rose,--

Whose Life's idea ranges
Through all of sweet and bright,
A vernal flow of feeling,
A summer day of light.

I bless the child whose coming
Sheds grace around us, where
Her voice falls soft as music,
Her step drops light as air:

Fair grace, to good related
In her, sweet sisters twin;
As in this House of Roses
The fruits and flowers are kin.

* * * * *

ELLSWORTH.

The beginnings of great periods have often been marked and made
memorable by striking events. Out of the cloud that hangs around the
vague inceptions of revolutions, a startling incident will sometimes
flash like lightning, to show that the warring elements have begun their
work. The scenes that attended the birth of American nationality formed
a not inaccurate type of those that have opened the crusade for its
perpetuation. The consolidation of public sentiment which followed the
magnificent defeat at Bunker's Hill, in which the spirit of indignant
resistance was tempered by the pathetic interest surrounding the fate
of Warren, was but a foreshadowing of the instant rally to arms which
followed the fall of the beleaguered fort in Charleston harbor, and of
the intensity of tragic pathos which has been added to the stern purpose
of avenging justice by the murder of Colonel Ellsworth.

Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth was born in the little village of
Mechanicsville, on the left bank of the Hudson, on the 23d day of April,
1837. When he was very young, his father, through no fault of his own,
lost irretrievably his entire fortune, in the tornado of financial ruin
that in those years swept from the sea to the mountains. From this
disaster he never recovered. Misfortune seems to have followed him
through life, with the insatiable pertinacity of the Nemesis of a Greek
tragedy. And now in his old age, when for a moment there seemed to shine
upon his path the sunshine that promised better days, he finds that
suddenly withdrawn, and stands desolate, "stabbed through the heart's
affections, to the heart." His younger son died some years ago, of
small-pox, in Chicago, and the murder at Alexandria leaves him with his
sorrowing wife, lonely, amid the sympathy of the world.

The days of Elmer's childhood and early youth--were passed at Troy
and in the city of New York, in pursuits various, but energetic and
laborious. There is little of interest in the story of these years. He
was a proud, affectionate, sensitive, and generous boy, hampered by
circumstance, but conscious of great capabilities,--not morbidly
addicted to day-dreaming, but always working heartily for something
beyond. He was still very young--when he went to Chicago, and associated
himself in business with Mr. Devereux of Massachusetts.[A] They managed
for a little while, with much success, an agency for securing patents to
inventors. Through the treachery of one in whom they had reposed great
confidence they suffered severe losses which obliged them to close
their business, and Devereux went back to the East. The next year of
Ellsworth's life was a miracle of endurance and uncomplaining fortitude.
He read law with great assiduity, and supported himself by copying,
in the hours that should have been devoted to recreation. He had no
pastimes and very few friends. Not a soul beside himself and the baker
who gave him his daily loaf knew how he was living. During all that
time, he never slept in a bed, never ate with friends at a social board.
So acute was his sense of honor, so delicate his ideas of propriety,
that, although himself the most generous of men, he never would accept
from acquaintances the slightest favors or courtesies which he was
unable to return. He told me once of a severe struggle between
inclination and a sense of honor. At a period of extreme hunger, he
met a friend in the street who was just starting from the city. He
accompanied his friend into a restaurant, wishing to converse with him,
but declined taking any refreshment. He represented the savory fragrance
of his friend's dinner as almost maddening to his famished senses,
while he sat there pleasantly chatting, and deprecating his friend's
entreaties to join him in his repast, on the plea that he had just
dined.

[Footnote A: Arthur F. Devereux, Esq., now in command of the Salem
Zouave Corps, Eighth Massachusetts Regiment, distinguished for the
gallant part borne by it in opening the route to Washington through
Annapolis, and in the rescue of the frigate Constitution, "Old
Ironsides," from the hands of the rebels.]

What would have killed an ordinary man did not injure Ellsworth. His
iron frame seemed incapable of dissolution or waste. Circumstance had no
power to conquer his spirit. His hearty good-humor never gave way. His
sense of honor, which was sometimes even fantastic in its delicacy,
freed him from the very temptation to wrong. He knew there was a better
time coming for him. Conscious of great mental and bodily strength, with
that bright outlook that industry and honor always give a man, he was
perfectly secure of ultimate success. His plans mingled in a singular
manner the bright enthusiasm of the youthful dreamer and the eminent
practicality of the man of affairs. At one time, his mind was fixed
on Mexico,--not with the licentious dreams that excited the ragged
_Condottieri_ who followed the fated footsteps of the "gray-eyed man of
Destiny," in the wild hope of plunder and power,--nor with the vague
reverie in which fanatical theorists construct impossible Utopias on
the absurd framework of Icarias or Phalansteries. His clear, bold, and
thoroughly executive mind planned a magnificent scheme of commercial
enterprise, which, having its centre of operations at Guaymas, should
ramify through the golden wastes that stretch in silence and solitude
along the tortuous banks of the Rio San Jose. This was to be the
beginning and the ostensible end of the enterprise. Then he dreamed of
the influence of American arts and American energy penetrating into the
twilight of that decaying nationality, and saw the natural course of
events leading on, first, Emigration, then Protection, and at last
Annexation. Yet there was no thought of conquest or rapine. The idea was
essentially American and Northern. He never wholly lost that dream.
One day last winter, when some one was discussing the propriety of an
amputation of the States that seemed thoroughly diseased, Ellsworth
swept his hand energetically over the map of Mexico that hung upon the
wall, and exclaimed,--"_There_ is an unanswerable argument against the
recognition of the Southern Confederacy."

But the central idea of Ellsworth's short life was the thorough
reorganization of the militia of the United States. He had studied with
great success the theory of national defence, and, from his observation
of the condition of the militia of the several States, he was convinced
that there was much of well-directed effort yet lacking to its entire
efficiency. In fact, as he expressed it, a well-disciplined body of five
thousand troops could land anywhere on our coast and ravage two or three
States before an adequate force could get into the field to oppose them.
To reform this defective organization, he resolved to devote whatever
of talent or energy was his. This was very large undertaking for a boy,
whose majority and moustache were still of the substance of things hoped
for. But nothing that he could propose to himself ever seemed absurd. He
attacked his work with his usual promptness and decision.

The conception of a great idea is no proof of a great mind; a man's
calibre is shown by the way in which he attempts to realize his idea. A
great design planted in a little mind frequently bursts it, and nothing
is more pitiable than the spectacle of a man staggering into insanity
under a thought too large for him. Ellsworth chose to begin his work
simply and practically. He did not write a memorial to the President, to
be sent to the Secretary of War, to be referred to the Chief Clerk, to
be handed over to File-Clerk No. 99, to be glanced at and quietly thrust
into a pigeon-hole labelled "Crazy and trashy." He did not haunt the
anteroom of Congressman Somebody, who would promise to bring his plan
before the House, and then, bowing him out, give general orders to his
footman, "Not at home, hereafter, to that man." He did not float, as
some theorists do, ghastly and seedy, around the _Adyta_ of popular
editors, begging for space and countenance. He wisely determined to
keep his theories to himself until he could illustrate them by living
examples. He first put himself in thorough training. He practised the
manual of arms in his own room, until his dexterous precision was
something akin to the sleight of a juggler. He investigated the theory
of every movement in an anatomical view, and made several most valuable
improvements on Hardee. He rearranged the manual so that every movement
formed the logical groundwork of the succeeding one. He studied the
science of fence, so that he could hold a rapier with De Villiers, the
most dashing of the Algerine swordsmen. He always had a hand as true as
steel, and an eye like a gerfalcon. He used to amuse himself by shooting
ventilation-holes through his window-panes. Standing ten paces from the
window, he could fire the seven shots from his revolver and not shiver
the glass beyond the circumference of a half-dollar.

I have seen a photograph of his arm taken at this time. The knotted coil
of thews and sinews looks like the magnificent exaggerations of antique
sculpture.

His person was strikingly prepossessing. His form, though
slight,--exactly the Napoleonic size,--was very compact and commanding;
the head statuesquely poised, and crowned with a luxuriance of curling
black hair; a hazel eye, bright, though serene, the eye of a gentleman
as well as a soldier; a nose such as you see on Roman medals; a light
moustache just shading the lips, that were continually curving into
the sunniest smiles. His voice, deep and musical, instantly attracted
attention; and his address, though not without soldierly brusqueness,
was sincere and courteous. There was one thing his backwoods detractors
could never forgive: he always dressed well; and sometimes wore the
military insignia presented to him by different organizations. One of
these, a gold circle, inscribed with the legend, NON NOBIS, SED PRO
PATRIA, was driven into his heart by the slug of the Virginian assassin.

He had great tact and executive talent, was a good mathematician,
possessed a fine artistic eye, sketched well and rapidly, and in short
bore a deft and skilful hand in all gentlemanly exercise.

No one ever possessed greater power of enforcing the respect and
fastening the affections of men. Strangers soon recognized and
acknowledged this power; while to his friends he always seemed like a
Paladin or Cavalier of the dead days of romance and beauty. He was so
generous and loyal, so stainless and brave, that Bayard himself would
have been proud of him. The grand bead-roll of the virtues of the Flower
of Kings contains the principles that guided his life; he used to read
with exquisite appreciation these lines:--

"To reverence the King as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as
their King,--
To break the heathen and uphold the
Christ,--
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,--
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,--
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,--
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her";

and the rest,--

"high thoughts, and amiable words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man."

Such, in person and character, was Ellsworth, when he organized, on the
4th day of May, 1859, the United States Zouave Cadets of Chicago.

This company was the machine upon which he was to experiment.
Disregarding all extant works upon tactics, he drew up a simpler system
for the use of his men. Throwing aside the old ideas of soldierly
bearing, he taught them to use vigor, promptness, and ease. Discarding
the stiff buckram strut of martial tradition, he educated them to move
with the loafing _insouciance_ of the Indian, or the graceful ease of
the panther. He tore off their choking collars and binding coats, and
invented a uniform which, though too flashy and conspicuous for actual
service, was very bright and dashing for holiday occasions, and left the
wearer perfectly free to fight, strike, kick, jump, or run.

He drilled these young men for about a year at short intervals. His
discipline was very severe and rigid. Added to the punctilio of the
martinet was the rigor of the moralist. The slightest exhibition of
intemperance or licentiousness was punished by instant degradation and
expulsion. He struck from the rolls at one time twelve of his best men
for breaking the rule of total abstinence. His moral power over them was
perfect and absolute. I believe anyone of them would have died for him.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19