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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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