General Prentiss and General Williams

 

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Civil War Harper's Weekly, July 27, 1861

This Harper's Weekly newspaper features eye-witness pictures and stories describing a number of important events at the early stages of the Civil War. It has a nice picture of the Battle of Winchester, and the Battle of Hoke's Run. It also features a nice full page picture of Washington DC, showing the unfinished US capitol dome.

(Scroll Down to See full page, or Newspaper Thumbnails will take you to the page of interest)

 

Boonville

Boonville, Missouri

Prentiss Williams

General Prentiss and Williams

Rich Mountain

Battle of Rich Mountain

Louisiana Zouaves

Louisiana Zouaves

Hoke's Run

The Battle of Hoke's Run

Troop Review

Review of New York Troops

French Lady

French Lady Cartoon

 

The Battle of Rich Mountain

Wilson's Zouaves

Wilson's Zouaves

Fourth of July Celebration

Fourth of July Celebration

Camp Life

Civil War Camp Life

Washington D. C.

Washington D.C. Pictures

Horses

Civil War Army Horses

 

 

 

 

 

 

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[JULY 27, 1861.

466

MY HERO.

MY hero came to say farewell to me:

There was no school-boy burst

Of needless speech from him. He simply said,

" The country's call was first."

I looked from him—so full of life and fire—Up to the grave, calm face of Washington Upon the wall above us, and replied,

"Go, fight like him, until your cause be won!" Oh ! he'll be foremost in the ranks, I know, And yet I could not ask him not to go ! For I would rather yield my life to-day Than see the dear old Stars and Stripes give way! My woman heart should teach me how to die. Shall he—my hero—be less brave than I?

I think sometimes that when the trump of peace Again our land shall fill,

And treason shall be crushed from out the soil, He may be living still.

I sit and muse of him hour after hour,

Until I almost fancy I can see

His well-known form and hear his springing step. Ah! how my heart longs then for victory ! How I would weep for joy ! how proudly then I'd bid him welcome to my arms again, And whisper, while the orange flowers I'd twine, " Thou hast obeyed thy country's call—hear mine!"

Yet many a woman nearer God than I,

With mingled pride and pain

Awaits in seeming calmness news of those
Who may ne'er come again ;

And when the tidings of some battle ring Upon the startled air,

With me they ask, " Did our side win ?" and then If he were fighting there.

And many a loving one shall look with dread Upon the sad list of Columbia's dead,

To see one name—the dearest and the best, It may be—who in battle sunk to rest.

But, God knows, with no base, unworthy tear We'll desecrate the patriot's honored bier,

Nor mourn for those who, when from earth they rise, Shall waft our banner nearer to the skies!

WEATHERSFIELD, VERMONT.   S. J. A.

GENERAL PRENTISS.

ON page 465 we publish a portrait of GENERAL PRENTISS, Commanding the Illinois Volunteers at Cairo, Illinois. Of General Prentiss's previous career but little is known. He was a very distinguished officer in the Mexican war, having served in Colonel Hardin's regiment, and been present at the battles of General Taylor's campaign. At Buena Vista he was particularly conspicuous for gallantry. When Hardin fell Prentiss was with him, and received from the dying hero his sash, which he still wears. At the outbreak of the present war General Prentiss was one of the first men in Illinois to tender his services to the Government, and he was at once elected to the post of Brigadier-General. His dispositions at Cairo are said to evince equal judgment and vigor.

GEN. EDWARD C. WILLIAMS.

GENERAL EDWARD C. WILLIAMS, whose portrait we give on the preceding page, was born on the 10th of February, 1820, in the city of Philadelphia, where he resided until the year 1838. In the spring of 1838, being then but a youth of 18 years, he removed to the city of Harrisburg, there to commence the journey of life. Upon his arrival he at once found employment in the book-bindery of the Messrs. Canteens. Here he remained for some time. Quiet and industrious in manner, he became extremely useful to his employers.

But the quiet of life was not compatible with his disposition. In December, 1846, he left the city of Harrisburg in command of the Cameron Guards, Second Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, to join our army, then in Mexico. At the head of his company he took an active part in the capture of Vera Cruz, thence through the different battles which took place upon the lines of our veteran Commander-in-chief. Being wounded at Chapultepec, in the hottest of the fight, he did not leave his command, but bravely led them to the taking of the castle, upon the top of which, with his own hand, he hoisted the stars and stripes. Again, at the city of Mexico, his hand was the first to grasp the halliards to which was attached the first American flag that floated over the Mexican capital. At the close of the war he returned to the city of Harrisburg, since which time he has filled different offices of trust with credit to himself and his constituents. At the breaking out of the war we find him among the first to offer his sword for the preservation of our Union.

General Williams was married in the year 1841 to Miss Hetzel, of Harrisburg. Three brothers of this lady served with distinction through the entire Mexican war. A nephew of General Williams, just graduated at the Military Academy at West Point, is now serving his country in the city of Washington, being a second lieutenant in the First Artillery. Another nephew is still at West Point. Since the rebellion General Williams has been constantly engaged with his many duties.

DEPARTURE OF GENERAL LYON
FROM BOONVILLE.

ON page 465 we illustrate the DEPARTURE OF GENERAL LYON WITH HIS COLUMN FROM BOONVILLE, MISSOURI, FOR THE ARKANSAS BORDER, near which he expects to capture the runaway Governor Jackson, Ben McCulloch, and the other secessionist leaders in that region. At Springfield he will join Colonel Siegel's corps and Colonel Brown's command. The correspondent of the Times thus describes the preparations for the departure :

The time, since the battle at this point, has been spent in preparations for a march to the southwestern portion of the State. Not less than three thousand men will leave from here, and as thirty-seven days' rations are to be taken along, it can easily be imagined that the preparations are neither few nor small. About one hundred and fifty wagons are necessary to transport the requisite materiel, each of which will be drawn by from two to ten horses or mules. Then a large number of saddle horses is required to carry the higher officers, scouts, etc., making in all a drove of some five or six hundred draught and saddle animals necessary to the starting of our expedition. All these materials, together with forage, haversacks, canteens, and many other articles, have been procured at this point. General Lyon gave out word that he needed a certain number of horses and wagons. If they came in peaceably, good—if not, he would have to send for them. A committee, composed of three officers and two citizens, was appointed to appraise the value of the horses and wagons as they came in, and when purchased were paid for by draft on St. Louis. It was thought best not to hire the conveyances, but to buy them outright—a determination on the part of the Government that met with the entire approbation of owners irrespective of politics.


HARPER'S WEEKLY.

SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1861.

EARLY in August we shall commence the publication of Sir EDWARD LYTTON BULWER's new Tale, entitled

A STRANGE STORY.

It will be handsomely illustrated, and will be continued from week to week till it is completed.

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Two weeks before the meeting of Congress sundry people and papers tested the quality of the loyalty of this nation to its government, in other words, to itself, by suggesting either that there ought to be " peace"—by which they meant the destruction of the Government —or that the loyal citizens of the country and the rebels ought to join forces and drive all other nations off the continent. This last proposition that the Government of the United States should give up the suppression of an internal rebellion in order to engage in foreign piracy was singularly sagacious.

All these suggestions ignominiously failed. They failed more ignominiously than any political dodges in our history. They were the feeble efforts of treason to discover if it had any hope in the city of New York. And the result was the making more evident the truth that the eager enthusiasm with which this movement was inaugurated by patriot hearts has settled into a sober, solid resolution that there shall be no parley with rebellion ; that it shall voluntarily lay down its arms and surrender entirely, or be compelled to do so by the military force of the nation.

That was the first sign.

Then Congress met, and the Message and reports were published. They were all, without exception, papers of great and unusual ability. But they all assumed the resolution of suppressing rebellion at all cost as a matter of course. The President, as was proper in a message to which foreign nations would turn with peculiar interest, in a few pointed paragraphs exposed the fallacy of the doctrine upon which the traitors try to justify their treason. But he and the Secretaries quietly invited the necessary authority and assistance from Congress to bring the rebellion to speedy destruction. The possibility of any issue but that of the forcible absolute re-establishment of the national authority all over the land was not even hinted at.

That was the second sign.

Congress organized without any partisan or factious opposition. The necessary war-bills were put upon their passage. Senator Saulsbury attempted to withstand one of them in the Senate. He was assisted by two Senators from Missouri, one from Maryland, and one from Kentucky. The rebels had five votes against thirty-three. In the House, Mr. Vallandigham attempted to help rebellion and encourage treason by savagely denouncing the Government which is guilty of the effort of maintaining itself. He had four votes besides his own, one of them being that of the Honorable Benjamin Wood, of New York. The vote against Messrs. Vallandigham and Wood was one hundred and forty-nine, including Mr. Crittenden's.

This is the third sign.

While these things were happening in Washington the Government asked New York for five millions of dollars, and got it in three hours.

These signs show that the people of this country are fully persuaded that as their Government is the best to live under, so it is the best to give life and fortune to maintain, if necessary. If any man wishes to know the difference between the action of a people when they are perfectly united in resolution and when they differ, let him compare the debates and conduct of this Congress, in which every thing moves with majestic harmony, and the discordant action of the Congress of 1812, which prepared for the last war.

in a recent number of Harper's Weekly, was from a photograph by Gurney, not Brady. It is considered the finest photograph of the old hero ever taken, and Messrs. Gurney & Son are fairly entitled to the credit of it.

THE LOUNGER

DIFFERING DOCTORS.

THE London Saturday Review has an article upon the letters of Dr. Russell to the London Times. It thinks that he is not equal to Thucydides. It thinks that he tells much more of what befell himself than of what he saw in the land he described. And it is persuaded that nobody who travels, under the present circumstances of this country, to give accurate information to another country, can possibly acquire that accurate information if he constantly announces his purpose and travels as an " illustrious stranger." The Saturday Review is of opinion that the English people would know as much of the real condition of the Southern States of this Union if Doctor Russell had staid at home.

The New York Tribune, on the other hand, is of opinion that the Doctor has " thus far discharged a difficult duty with such fair consideration and honorable dignity, that it is a matter of regret" that he should have fallen into any personal difference.

The truth evidently lies between these eminent Doctors. When the correspondent of the London Times arrived in this country there was a great deal of unnecessary gasconade about the embassy of the press, and of the people of England, etc., etc., the pure humbug of which Doctor Russell, being an old hand upon the press, perfectly understood. The Doctor departed very soon for the South. Bred in England, the reporter of a newspaper has a taste for the flavor of aristocracy. He found it also at the South; he enjoyed it, and he reported it. The tone of admiration and confidence in his first letters undoubtedly helped the rebellion in the public opinion of England. The worthy Doctor astutely smiled at a Constitution which you could buy in the streets for three cents. Is that the sort of thing to endure? quoth the political philosopher. Three cents ! 'Pon mee word, you know, that's a little too jolly, you know.

From this point of view the Doctor has contemplated the movement in this country ; and this determines the value of his observations. Of course that value is not great. When the Doctor says that he saw twenty guns in a fort ; that the commander gave him ice in his Champagne; and that the wind blew a gale as he sailed, as he sailed; there is no doubt of the guns, the ice, and the wind —not the least. But when he talks of causes and character and influences and opinion—a la bonne heure, Doctor. What do you think of the comet ?

Whoever has read the previous performances of Doctor Russell knows very well that he is a pictorial narrator. What his eye sees his hand can describe. That is his peculiar excellence. He has given no proof of any thing further. As a reporter of the scope and chances of a political rebellion in America his opinion can be of no possible importance. As a narrator of the events and scenery of that rebellion he is likely to be copious, lively, and detailed.

The Saturday Review, true to itself, is too flippantly severe. The Tribune, in its unqualified commendation of letters which have undoubtedly injured the Constitutional cause in this country by prejudicing England, is also true to its extraordinary policy of embarrassing the Administration.

DU CHAILLU.

THE story of Du Chaillu has all the old fascination of Mungo Park's and Captain Parry's. It is a story of wild adventure in new lands and among new dangers ; for no other known traveler has ever been threatened by the gorilla. The style of the narration is simple and spirited, and the personality of the narrator is every where just pleasantly enough conspicuous to give an individual interest to the details.

Mr. Du Chaillu passed eight years in Africa, and half of that time was devoted to the journeys and explorations of which his book is the history. In that time he traveled on foot, in the sole company of the natives, about eight thousand miles. He shot, stuffed, and brought home more than two thousand birds, of which some sixty are believed to be new species. He killed more than a thousand quadrupeds, stuffing and bringing home two hundred specimens of them, with eighty skeletons.

Upon his arrival in this country, about eighteen months since, the Lounger called attention to these specimens, which were exhibited in Broadway, and excited only a limited interest. The reason of it was, of course, that to most of us new specimens of animals differ very little from old ones of the same general kind; and one museum of natural history is, therefore, very much like another.

In Boston, however, the skilled eyes of Agassiz and Jeffries Wyman certified at once the value of the collection as a contribution of novelties to the stores of specimens ; and in England Professor Owen, perhaps the highest authority—certainly one of the highest authorities—in the world of science, made Du Chaillu famous by the warmth of his praise.

The book of the traveler will interest the public at large as much as his discoveries interested men of science. All the boys in the land will pore over it, as we who were boys once used to hang over Captain Riley's Narrative and Denham and Clapperton. And he is a happy author who writes a book that boys love to read, and which charms their parents.

ASKING A FRIEND TO BREAKFAST.

WE are certainly not fortunate, at this juncture, in our letter-writers abroad—excepting always the clear, calm, masterly hand of the historian Motley.

But the epistolary performances of the worthy Minister to Russia, and the late breakfast invitation of Mr. Tramway Train, must have produced the most ludicrous emotions in the mind of the cool British reader.

We Americans have always laughed with a good deal of impatience at the extravagance of phrase and costume with which the French and Italians adorn their praises of liberty and their republican persons. If they were not so intent upon the color of a ribbon or the form of a hat, we are wont to say, they might secure a little more of the substance of liberty.

As we grow older, we grow more expansive and explosive in our style. "On mighty pens" we soar. At least Mr. Train does in his invitation to a Bunker Hill breakfast in London, which has the true flavor of the exalted French Republican literary style :

"Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill. Will you come to a Union Dejeuner, at 2 o'clock, on the 17th of June, at the Westminster Palace Hotel? — sixty plates. Sincerely believing that there are many representative men in this garden land of free opinions who bear kind wishes for the continued unity of our people and independence of our nation, I have taken this method to bring together some of the bright minds of the age, in the hope of counteracting the evil effects of those Secession journalists and statesmen who cheer so loudly whenever the 'bursting of the republican bubble' is alluded to. Let Lancashire and Yorkshire sympathize with the Pirates' Rebellion, and stimulate the traitors on to their certain destruction ; but London, the first city of the world, is too proud and too independent to misrepresent the great English people by selling its sense of right for a bale of cotton. Nothing will please me more than to have you say ' Yes,' addressed to George Francis Train, 18 St. James's Street, Piccadilly. London, June, 1861."

It is a good rule always to speak and write in such a manner that people will believe you to be in earnest.

BLONDIN AND HUMANITY.

OUR Niagara lion of last year, Blondin, has been exciting the utmost attention in England. The nation which cherishes the prize ring was delighted with his feats. The Saturday Review ought, consistently, to have waxed rhetorically rapturous over his fulfillment of the true destiny of man, in due continuation of its last year's twaddle about Heenan and Sayers. But the Home Office thought that to wheel his child along the rope was carrying the thing a little too far; and a letter was written to the Directors of the Crystal Palace, suggesting that humanity required them to forbid the risk of human life. Being thus officially notified of the requirements of humanity, the directors interfered, and the child was not exposed.

According to the last accounts, Blondin was to wheel "Tom Sayers" along the rope. What Humanity required in this case the Home Office had apparently not informed any body. Doubtless it considers that Blondin and Sayers have both reached years of discretion, but that the young Blondin had not. Still it would seem to be a fair question at what time years of discretion commenced; and whether a man who would suffer another to wheel him in a barrow upon a tight-rope might not properly be treated as a child, and be protected by the requirements of humanity and the Home Office.

TOSSING UP A COPPER TO DECIDE.

THE Tribune proposes that the question of free popular government and of progressive human liberty and civilization shall be decided by the chance of what it calls "a fair battle." If the rebels "are beaten," it says, " they must give it up; while, if they beat us, we ought to do the same." The Tribune thinks that fifty thousand men upon each side would be the proper number for the " fair battle," and then if the rebels prove to be the stronger (in that battle), " let us frankly own it, and promptly arrest the wanton effusion of blood."

But since it is entirely impossible to have "a fair battle" between fifty thousand men upon a side, but comparatively easy to secure fairness between two people, why not settle the question by a duel between Beauregard and one of our generals?

Or, better still, why fight at all? Why not have Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Davis toss up a copper to settle the point?

The Tribune would have considered the question of our Revolution settled by the battle of Bunker Hill, which we lost; and have inveighed against the wicked inaction of Valley Forge, the gloomiest and most glorious epoch of our history.

WHAT TO DO WITH PRISONERS OF WAR.

THE question is constantly asked, What is to be done with citizens of the United States who are taken in armed rebellion against the Government?

The reply seems to be obvious enough, that the Constitution of the United States plainly defines treason, and the laws distinctly state its penalty.

But when General McClellan, or any other General, captures six hundred or six thousand soldiers in arms, shall they be tried at a drum-head court-martial and summarily hung?

Is the reply equally obvious ?

That upon their saying that there has been some mistake, and they are very sorry, and they won't do so again, they should be released upon what is facetiously called their word of honor, seems to be trifling with the lives of honest citizens.

Yet they can not well be held as prisoners. What, then, ought to be done?

The leaders of such an army, which in the eye of Justice and Liberty is a lawless mob, endangering the peace of the country and the lives of the citizens, ought to be tried, and, upon conviction, hung.

Such a course would be neither vindictive nor sanguinary. It would be exacting the penalty fairly due from the most reckless offenders against the existence of the nation. It would be a wholesome warning to the deluded followers of such men.

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