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Civil War Harper's Weekly, October 12, 1861

We have posted our extensive collection of Civil War Harper's Weekly newspapers on this WEB site to serve as a valuable source of original information of the War. We are hopeful that this extensive, free, online collection assists you in your research and study. These old newspaper have a wealth of eye-witness illustrations and narratives on this important part of American History. We hope you find this information useful.

(Scroll Down to see entire page, or Newspaper Thumbnails will take you to the page of interest.)

 

Privateer

Privateer

Sturgis and Price

General Sturgis

Salmon Chase

Salmon Chase Cartoon

The Battle of Lexington

Battle of Lexington

New Era

Gun-Boat "New Era"

Maysville

Maysville, Kentucky

Leesburg

Leesburg, Virginia

Privateer Attack

Attack on Privateers

Camp Benton

Camp Benton

McClellan's Cavalry

McClellan's Cavalry

Lexington Battle

The Battle of Lexington

Union Generals

Union Generals

Confederate Cartoon

Confederate Cartoon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[OCTOBER 12, 1861

642

BRIG.-GEN. S. D. STURGIS.

ON page 641 will be found a portrait (from a photograph sent us by our Western artist) of this distinguished officer, who has lately been promoted from the rank of Major in the First Cavalry to a Brigadier-Generalship, and is now actively engaged in suppressing rebellion in Northern Missouri.

GENERAL STURGIS was born in Pennsylvania in 1822, was appointed a Cadet at West Point in 1842, graduated in the same class with General McClellan in 1846, and immediately proceeded to join the army under General Taylor in Mexico the same year. He was taken prisoner on the 20th of February, 1847, two days before the battle of Buena Vista, while reconnoitring the enemy with but one man. To this act of daring is attributed much of the success of the battle of Buena Vista, as it was the first reliable information General Taylor had of the exact whereabouts of the enemy, and caused him to fall back and take the strong position which saved him the battle. After the Mexican War Lieutenant Sturgis accompanied Major Graham's command to California, and was constantly in active service there. He was promoted First Lieutenant First Dragoons in 1853, and in 1855 he was promoted to Captaincy in the First Cavalry for distinguished gallantry in a fight with the Mescalara Indians, for which he also received a vote of thanks from the Legislature of New Mexico. He was in the battle of Ojo Caliente, under Colonel Cooke, in 1854 ; also in the battle against the Cheyennes, under Colonel Sumner, in 1857. He led a column of six companies of cavalry against the Kiowas and Comanches in 1860, overtaking them after a long and tedious march through the sand in the hottest of weather for weeks, and completely routing a large force. Returning from the Plains, he suppressed the difficulties upon the Cherokee neutral lands. When lately in command of Fort Smith, all of his officers having resigned and gone South, with a garrison of two small companies of cavalry, no cannon or fortifications, he thwarted a well-contrived plan of the citizens of the city, in conjunction with the Governor of the State, to take the post, without having previously had any positive information of their intentions. He got his small force ready, and about half an hour before the Governor's forces arrived from Little Rock with ten pieces of artillery, he withdrew his command, taking all that was valuable, including twenty-five wagons, commissary stores, etc., retreating 170 miles to Fort Washita. For this he received a letter of thanks from Colonel Emory. He was promoted to the rank of Major First Cavalry, May, 1861. He commanded the column which moved down from Fort Leavenworth and joined General Lyon on Grande River, July 7, 1861. At the battle of Springfield, General Lyon, seeming to have a presentiment that all would not go well with him, told Major Sturgis to keep near him. When the General fell Major Sturgis assumed the command, and for three hours after that desperate fight continued, his little command holding out against about seven times their number. After forcing the enemy to fall back, repulsing all their desperate charges, he found his little army too much crippled to follow them without almost a certainty of losing every thing. He therefore withdrew his force to Springfield, and afterward succeeded in reaching Rolla with the entire command and a train of commissary stores valued at over one million of dollars.

THE REBEL GENERAL PRICE.

WE publish on page 641 a portrait of the REBEL GENERAL PRICE, who has just taken Lexington, Missouri—from a photograph sent us by our artist in the West.

Sterling Price is a native of Virginia, and resided for some time in Prince William County in that State. From thence he removed to Missouri, where he has resided for the last twenty years. He is by profession a lawyer, has occupied several important positions in the State service, and has also represented it in Congress. He was Governor before Robert Stewart. During the Mexican war he served in the Volunteers and rose to the rank of Colonel of Cavalry, and subsequently to that of Brigadier-General of Volunteers. When the Rebellion broke out he avowed himself a traitor, and was appointed by ex-Governor Claiborne Jackson Major-General of the State Militia of Missouri.

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1861.
OPERATIONS IN THE GULF.

IT is generally understood that the Government has chartered the Baltic, Atlantic, some or all of Vanderbilt's steam fleet, and other steamships now lying in the port of New York. The event indicates the early departure of one or more of the expeditions to which we alluded in our last number but one. Common rumor asserts that two of these expeditions are to be fused together, and that a body of 15,000 men, with not less than 300 guns, will operate against a single point on the Southern coast.

Speculation is naturally rife on the subject of the point to be assailed. Not a few would be glad to hear that Charleston had been attacked and reduced. Our present troubles have arisen in great degree from the spite and malevolence of the people of Charleston. Unwilling to accept their own decline and fall as an inevitable fact, the people of South Carolina, in the vain hope of saving themselves, have involved the whole continent in bloodshed, and it would

be only a righteous retribution if Charleston were bombarded and its harbor forever closed. An attack upon Savannah is recommended by the fact that there is a large Union party in Georgia, which would become active in the event of a landing being effected by our troops. Mobile, Pensacola, and New Orleans all invite attack. The occupation of any one of the three would probably reopen the cotton trade. Pensacola could be occupied under cover of the guns of Fort Pickens without difficulty and with a small force. Mobile and New Orleans would require more men and a more elaborate expedition. But the force now being fitted out in the Northern ports would suffice. A much smaller force would be adequate to seize Beaufort, North Carolina, or Port Royal, South Carolina, or Brunswick, Georgia, or any port in Florida or Texas.

Letters from the Gulf state that we have already occupied Mississippi City, and cut off the communication between New Orleans and Mobile. Various points at the mouth of the Mississippi have likewise been occupied by men detached from our ships of war. These landings, considered in connection with the preparations of General Fremont in the West, would seem to indicate the mouth of the Mississippi as the probable destination of the great expedition which is expected to sail southward ; though of course nothing is known on the subject, and it is quite likely that the Government may have encouraged the belief that an attack was intended to be made at New Orleans, when, in reality, Charleston, or Savannah, or Pensacola, or Mobile were the points in view.

The importance of the capture and occupation of one or more Southern ports entirely depends on the nature of the occupation. Merely to hold Charleston, or Mobile, or New Orleans, and there administer the laws of the State of South Carolina, or Alabama, or Louisiana, would not inconvenience the rebels, and would not tend to bring the rebellion to a close. All the rebels who could would leave for the interior ; the others would submit under protest, and, while trying to make as much money as they could out of our army, and devolving upon us the duty of doing their police duty at our expense, would hold themselves prepared to assist the rebels of the interior in expelling us as soon as it was safe to do so. In this country the interior does not follow the dominion of the sea-board. During the revolutionary war, Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston were generally in the hands of the British, and yet, from first to last, their cause was desperate. If we are to gain any substantial advantage by the occupation of Southern ports, that occupation must involve intolerable inconveniences and dangers to the Southern people; then they will begin to weigh the policy of submission to the Government ; and overtures for reconciliation by the surrender of their ring-leaders and the return of the people to their allegiance may fairly be expected.

PUBLISHER'S NOTICES.

THE public are reminded that Messrs. Harper & Brothers employ no TRAVELING AGENTS. Parties who desire to subscribe to Harper's Magazine or Harper's Weekly had better remit direct to the Publishers, or pay their subscription to some Postmaster or General Agent with whom they are acquainted, and of whose responsibility they are assured.

The OLD POSTAGE STAMPS being no longer available at the Post-office, Messrs. Harper & Brothers can no longer receive them in payment of subscriptions or copies of the Weekly or Magazine.

THE LOUNGER.

THE POST OF DUTY.

THERE seems at length to be a real effort to call men who are not mercenary politicians into the public service. Of course it is an incident of the war, nor is it likely to last forever. Yet we shall have had a sharp lesson, and it will be remembered for a generation at least.

The names of well-known citizens are mentioned as probable candidates for the Assembly, the Senate, etc. The nomination will be a test of patriotism. Men of large and various relations in life can not easily go to Albany. Merchants, bankers, lawyers, manufacturers of immense business, can only go there at a sore sacrifice of time, money, and inclination.

But is not that the very sacrifice which the times demand ? Can they show more plainly their hearty devotion to the great cause, or their clear perception of its peculiar wants at the moment, than by accepting the offices that may be offered them?

It has always been our national reproach that our best and wisest men abstained from active interest in public affairs. The political constitution of other countries compels the cooperation of the great proprietors, and invites, by every prize that can allure ambition, the efforts of gifted and sagacious men. But with us political service, while it may readily be prostituted to venal ends, offers but an elusive prize to ambition. We must serve for duty's sake. It is the tax we must pay. And who loves to pay taxes ?

Gentlemen who may be called upon to serve, and who recoil from the hard service, let your friends and constituents see, in your ready acceptance, that the great system we are all trying to save is fully worth saving,

IN PEACE PREPARE FOR WAR.

THE University of Michigan is the most amply endowed college in the West, and one of the most completely equipped in the country. It is situated delightfully at Ann Arbor, two or three hours west of Detroit, upon the Michigan Central Railroad. The head of the university is Dr. Tappan, an eminent scholar, a man of the most enlarged views, who has already impressed himself upon the history of education in this country. Dr. Brunnow, one of the younger astronomers who have made a name, fills the chair of astronomy. He was called to the Dudley Observatory upon the retirement of Dr. Gould ; but he is a man who goes for work rather than show, and the somewhat ornamental position at Albany was less agreeable to him than the post of labor at Ann Arbor, where he was not expected to discover a new comet every month. Andrew D. White is Professor of History and Belles Lettres : an ardent and elegant scholar, a devoted and beloved teacher, a generous and noble man. Professor Frieze is the accomplished teacher of Latin, and the body of instructors are animated by the most intelligent interest in their pursuit. The situation of their University, the pioneer of letters upon the prairies, binds this band of scholars peculiarly close. The State of Michigan, with a liberality which is no less sagacious than patriotic, has not withheld its hand ; and no seminary in the country seems to the observer so full of life and energy as the University of Michigan.

The life of the students is necessarily simple. They are drawn to the college by an earnest love of knowledge, and they willingly work their passage. They have a manly, robust quality which does not belong to all collegians, and which makes the impression of the university a little different from that of all our Eastern colleges.

At an early period of the war the military spirit showed itself among the students. They were carefully drilled, and very many of them are already at the war. Their patriotic feeling was carefully fostered, and their manly discipline promoted by the teachers. And now, when it is evident to all of us that all our schools must henceforth be, in some degree, military schools, the Board of Regents are considering a resolution to establish a permanent military department in the university, " under the conviction that this work" [of military training] "can be more economically performed for the State in this university, where civil engineering, the higher mathematics, the modern languages, the natural sciences, and other studies connected with a military education are now taught, than any where else in the State."

The plan is so admirable that it can hardly fail to be adopted in other colleges also. That we are still men, although republicans—that Governments must be defended from traitors as well as foreign enemies—and that we have entirely disregarded the warning to prepare in peace for war, are points that will no longer be doubted or discussed. How to prepare for war in peace is now the practical question: and the University of Michigan leads the way in the practical answer.

A ZONE OF FLOWERS.

ONE of the most delightful sights to a stranger in Paris is the flower market by the Madeleine. In the sunny spring mornings, as you stroll among the plants and look up at the church, you might easily fancy yourself in that ideal world which the poet Claude Lorraine loved to paint. But Paris is never contented with what it has accomplished. It must go on and fulfill its destiny of being the most magnificent metropolis and the most beautiful city in the world.

Monsieur Reydenouarde proposes now to gird Paris with a zone of flowers, without taking an inch of ground from any citizen or drawing upon the State treasury. The projector is a famous botanist and horticulturist, and has been for some years at the head of a Government commission of floral and rural science exploring in South America. His plan, as briefly stated in the London Press, is as follows :

"He proposes to the State to transform the fortifications and the earth-works facing the city, both of which are now so much unproductive waste ground, into a great pepiniere d'acclimation, or a nursery for exotics of every possible kind, whether from cold or hot countries, according to the aspects of the ditch, wall, and earth-works. The administration of this garden, which he guarantees to form with a given capital for the commencement of operations, would pay to the State a certain rate per hectare, undertake to cultivate no species of parasitical fruit or flower that would be injurious to the wall or difficult to remove in case an enemy were expected, to sell at a low market price the produce of the fortifications, and in the space of two years and a half clear all expenses that the society may incur in carrying out the project."

His friends, the Parisian savans who have a right to opinions in such matters, declare that the hygienic effects of a vast zone of flowers around the walls would be most beneficial, by absorbing the noxious gases which are bred by the city. Moreover the Emperor approves, and has opened the matter to the Council of State, which, in turn, has whispered it to the Prefect of the Seine. Still a name was wanting. The " project of M. Reydenouarde" would never do. Luckily Lamartine has a cottage near the fortifications at Antent. The projector wrote to him, describing the plan. The poet replied, thanking him, and saying that Le Jardin de Ceinture—which may be rendered the Flower Zone of the City—would become the crowning pride of the Parisians.

New York could not well have a flower zone, because she has no zone of forts ; but when are we to have a flower market ? We have beautiful flower shows, especially in Brooklyn ; and New York is girdled with gardens. At the various markets, too, there is a goodly collection of plants and flowers at certain seasons. But if there were a special place to which all flowers could be brought and to which all buyers could resort, it would be one of the most beautiful spots in the city. It should be accessible from all sides, and in a pleasant situation. Union Square would be sunny

and attractive for such a purpose ; or Stuyvesan Square, in front of St. George's. The concentration of the whole business in one spot would increase both the trade and the taste for flowers.

When Mayor Wood came in, it was upon a distinct promise, made by his own signature in lithograph, that he would keep a single eye to the public good. Has that eye seen flowers? Ought it not to see flowers if it looks straight at what is truly good for the public? The Emperor favors the flower zone of Paris. Why should not the Mayor favor the flower market of New York?

"A STRANGE STORY."

THE popularity of Bulwer as a story-teller is only less than that of Dickens. His adroit talent, his tact, his consummate skill in all the details of author-craft, are conspicuous among all late English novelists. When you reflect also, that he is the oldest of them—that Bulwer was famous when Dickens began and Thackeray was unheard of—that Charlotte Bronte's career began and ended a mere episode in Bulwer's—that Charles Reade, and Kingsley, and Trollope, and Jack Sheppard Ainsworth himself, all began since Bulwer had a name—you can not help recurring to the days of Waverley, of whose great author Bulwer was the immediate successor. The author of "Pelham," which our fathers read with delight, as became gentlemen educated upon Byron, is also the author of "A Strange Story," which follows " Great Expectations," from week to week in these columns.

Now the fashion of a novel changes as absolutely as that of a coat. " It is permitted to a gentleman under certain conditions," says Pelham, " to wear a white waistcoat." The law which governs the character of novels may be as whimsical ; it is certainly no better understood. Bulwer has the most sensitive apprehension of a change in the fashion of a novel. He is reputed to have the same in regard to clothes. Speaking figuratively, he never ties his cravat in a bow, when brilliant scarfs are de rigueur. Other novelists get old-fashioned. Mrs. Gore, for instance, persisted in writing the old style of " society novel" to the end ; and Ainsworth can scarcely escape his medieval old clo' shop. James, too, the most amiable of men and the most classically commonplace of novelists, was never at his ease in any period later than the sixteenth or seventeenth century.

But the excellent ladies who " opened" their "fall styles" last week would as soon be guilty of offering Madame a last year's " hat" as Bulwer any other novel than one strictly a la mode. This last one upon which he is now engaged is as fresh as if he bad never written a novel before, yet it is so well done that you feel it to be the work of a long-practiced hand. For whatever may be granted or denied to Bulwer, there is an undeniable mellowness of tone in all he does. In his last story printed in the Weekly—" What will he do with it ?" —there were passages so softly penciled and delicately hued that the mind recurs to them with curious pleasure. Such were some parts of the opening and of the river-life.

In "A Strange Story" Bulwer strikes the key of "Zanoni," which was one of his most powerful and popular tales. He loves erudition and mystery. He loves a hero who is a learned man, because if the hero be a learned man, or seems to be, he must, of course, derive his learning from—well, the illustrious author of his being. Then, in addition to his learning, if there be no positive ghostliness, as there seems to be in the present novel, the hero must have a mystery, a gloomy mystery, a tragical mystery, which clouds in the gayest circles his high pale brow, and causes him to support his intellectual head upon the delicate patrician hand upon whose third finger a ring, ruby-red, seems to glow more intensely at such moments, like a flaming blush of guilt and woe and secrecy* * * !

Of course it is all clap-trap ; but the interest and skill are undeniable. You don't suppose that the Prestidigitator does actually jump into his own pocket, or pull his legs off and use them for telescopes, however he may seem to do so. It is a capital performance, and extremely cheap for twenty-five cents. No novel reader can have read the few numbers of "A Strange Story" which have thus far been published without agreeing that it is admirably done, with all the old Bulwerian skill, the sprightly knowledge of the world, the romantic sentiment, the constructive talent, and the undeniable charm of interest which, displayed in so many works of so varied but equal excellence, and for so long a period, make Bulwer, or Sir Bulwer Lytton, one of the phenomena of English literature.

THE FAST.

THERE is not often a Sunday so solemn as the late fast-day. The streets were peculiarly staid. The churches were full of earnest hearers. The pulpits were fervid with earnest speakers. And who can doubt that the praying and the preaching came nearer to the hearts of the great multitude than is the habit of the usual religious service?

Whoever reads the sketches of the sermons must be impressed with their reality. They were not formal. They were not cold. They were not cautious and apologetic. No : for we have reached a time which none of us in this generation ever saw, in which men are free to say what they think upon every great question that stirs us, and are welcomed for the frankest word they can speak.

The effort to serve the rebellion which is made by him who tries by a brisk rattling of old party slang and watch-words to distract, if not to divide, patriots, recoils inevitably upon the head of him who makes it. The man who flattered rebellion in March is very likely to be the man to do its dirty work now, if he can only screen himself. But the great body of the people who are helping to save the nation from peril ask only that a man sincerely works at that task. We all have our own views of the causes and consequences of this rebellion. We all know what the future will inevitably bring. (Next Page)


 

 

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