General Polk Biography

OCTOBER 25, 1862.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

687

(Previous Page) from the unrequited toil of these slaves, and its foundation will be undermined.

2. It is the most humane method of putting down the rebellion, the history of which has clearly proved that the fears of slave insurrections and massacres are entirely unfounded. While the slaves earnestly desire freedom, they have shown no disposition to injure their masters; they will cease to work for them without wages, but they will form throughout the Southern States the most peaceful and docile peasantry on the face of the earth. The slaveowners once compelled to work for their own support the war must cease, and its appalling carnage come to an end.

3. The emancipation once effected, the Northern States would be forever relieved, as it is right that they should be, from the fears of a great influx of African laborers, disturbing the relations of those Northern industrial classes who have so freely given their lives to the support of the Government.

This done, and the whole African population will drift to the South, where it will find a congenial climate and vast tracts of land never yet cultivated.

I forbear to enter into the discussion of the great increase of trade to the Northern States and the whole commercial world which would result from the wants of four millions of free and paid laborers over the same number held as heretofore in slavery.

I forbear also to enter into the question of the ultimate vast increase in the production of the great Southern staples. This is not a time to consider questions of profit. It will long be remembered, to the great honor of the merchants, bankers, and manufacturers of the North, that giving the lie to the calumnies of slave-breeding aristocrats, who charge them with being degraded and controlled by the petty profits of traffic, they have met the numerous sacrifices of this great struggle with a cheerfulness and promptness of which history furnishes no parallel.

Nor is the question now before us one of philanthropy alone, sacred as are the principles therein involved; nor is it a question of abstract ideas, involving an unprofitable discussion of the equality of races. It is simply a question of war, of National life or death, and of the mode in which we can most surely and effectually uphold our Government and maintain its unity and supremacy.

Our foreign enemies, for it is not to be disguised that we have such, reproach us with waging a territorial war. So we do; but that territory is our country. For maintaining its greatness and power among the nations of the earth, by holding it together, they hate us. We can bear it; but if we were to yield to their suggestions, and submit to its dismemberment, they would forever despise us.

This Great domain, from the lakes to the gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, one country; governed by one idea —freedom—is yet destined to dictate terms, if need be, to the world in arms, and I hold that man to be a traitor and a coward, who, under any defeats, any pressure of adversity however great, any calamities however dire, would give up one acre of it.

BUELL'S ARMY ON THE MARCH.

WE publish on page 684 a picture which represents BUELL'S ARMY CROSSING SALT RIVER, KENTUCKY, from a sketch by Mr. Mosler. The bridge over the river was destroyed some time since, but the water is so low that it was easily forded, and as soon as Buell's skirmishers cleared the way the army crossed in heavy column. The result of the expedition, or at least one of its results, will be found recorded in another column.

THE REBEL BISHOP-GENERAL
POLK.

THE debates in the Episcopal House of Bishops on the subject of the rebel BISHOP-GENERAL POLK, have induced us to present our readers with a portrait of the personage in question on page 685.

Leonidas Polk was born in North Carolina about the year 1805. He entered West Point in 1823, and graduated in the artillery in 1827. Six months' service in the army quenched his military aspirations, and resigning his commission he studied for the Church. In 1831 he was ordained an Episcopal minister, and officiated regularly in the Southwest for seven years. In 1838 he was appointed "Missionary Bishop" of Arkansas and the Indian Territory, and discharged the functions of that office for three years. In 1811, the Episcopal See of Louisiana falling vacant, he was elected to fill it, and continued to do so until the rebellion broke out. He sympathized so ardently with the rebel leaders that he was induced in an evil moment to resign his bishopric, and accepted from Jeff Davis a commission in the rebel army as Major-General. His service has chiefly been in the Southwest. He was in command for some time at Columbus, Kentucky, and took part in the Battle of Shiloh. His present station we hardly know.

Report says that since Bishop Polk became a soldier he has doffed the decent manners of the episcopate for the habits of a trooper—that he drinks, swears, etc., etc.

BURIED ALIVE.

MY name is Karoly Varga. I worked in the salt-mines, as my father and brother do, and as my grandfather did, and his father before him. On the 17th August, 1723, I dressed myself as usual and descended into the mine, taking with me a box of candles, which were to be used for a purpose I shall mention presently. My orders were to make a careful examination of the arches that had been erected, and the blocks that had been placed round the pools of water to prevent the expected visitors from falling in, for it was intended to give a concert and entertainment in honor of the director of the mine and his wife, who would complete twenty-five years of married life on the twenty-fifth day of the month mentioned. I had also to select a place in which to establish the orchestra, of which I was myself one of the members, the rest having deputed me to make this choice in consequence of my experience in working the mine, care being always requisite in choosing the position, from the danger of the vibration causing a fall. Having performed the first part of my duty I climbed up into a gallery, which had been cut long before the mine had reached its present depth, to select the position in which the orchestra was to establish itself. The spot that seemed most suitable was a recess, lofty at the entrance but of no great depth. Its shape was so good for the purpose that I fetched the box of candles and put it in the recess ready for use. It was not till I had done this that it occurred to me to sound my horn and try the effect produced. I blew it first at the entrance, then drew back farther and farther, sounding

it at intervals, knowing there were others in the mine who would be able to tell me what the effect was in that part where the company would be assembled. I was standing at the very bottom of the cave, and was in the act of drawing a deep breath to sound a final blast, when I was stopped by a pattering sound which paralyzed me, and before I was myself again there was a fall of earth and salt, lumps of which rolled to my feet. I had a lighted torch beside me, and with this I examined the fall to see if there was any opening for escape, but there was none, the recess being blocked up to the roof. I thought I might call the attention of my fellow-miners to my position by blowing my horn, but the only result of my doing so was to cause another fall. I laid it down to think over my position, and calculate my chance of escape. I hoped that, as they would be certain to miss me within a few hours, there might be something in the slip to attract their attention. Hour after hour passed over without my hearing a sound, except that caused by the earth crumbling down as it settled into a firmer mass. The torch I had extinguished long since, to save myself from being suffocated by the smoke, and instead of it I had lighted a candle, but this melted away in a few minutes owing to the air being so hot. I was now in total darkness. The air was filled with particles of salt, which stung my eyes and made the inside of my mouth, and nose, and my throat smart painfully, besides exciting a sensation of intense thirst. As for hunger, it was long before I felt it, and when I did I had a ready means at hand for assuaging it, in the box of tallow, which, disgusting as it would have been at any other time, was a treasure to me now. There was another comforting circumstance, that air made its way to the little hollow in which I was confined: where from I could not tell, but it was sufficient in quantity to prevent me from being suffocated, though breathing was a matter of great difficulty and pain. I soon began to feel sleepy, and stretched myself on the ground, but whether I slept only a few minutes or several hours I have no idea; and so the early part of my imprisonment passed away.

All this time nothing had occurred to show that any body had discovered the place where I was buried, though I was sure I must have been missed long since. Then, for the first time, I was seized with a hopeless dread. I became intensely cold, my heart almost ceased to beat, and my tongue and the roof of my mouth became dry and hard, as if it had been burned with a red-hot iron. I curled myself in a heap on the ground, and for a time was insensible. When I again grew conscious my sufferings were much aggravated. A burning heat was gnawing at my body from head to foot. The feeling is indescribable and can not be imagined. I knew that the salt was getting into my blood, and that I must soon go raving mad if I could not keep it out of my lungs. I ate as much of the tallow as I could, or rather I put it in my mouth and let it run down my throat. This relieved me very much, and I then tore a piece off my dress and fastened it across my mouth and nose, which added to the difficulty of breathing, but kept the larger particles of salt from entering my lungs. I also found that the air was better when I was standing than when I was lying down, and front thenceforth I stood with my back resting against the side of the cave, as much as my strength allowed me. Before this I had tried to remove the earth nearest the roof, but I could find nothing to encourage me to persevere, and the exertion was so painful, and the clouds of salt dust raised were so thick, notwithstanding that I placed every handful I took out carefully at the bottom of the heap, that I desisted, thinking it better to bear my sufferings as patiently as I could till my situation was discovered than to render it worse by vain efforts to escape from it. But as they continued to increase I determined to make another attempt, whatever the consequence might be. I grouped about till I found the hole I had made, and began to rake out the earth with my hands, but with less precaution than before, for I had now become desperate, and would gladly have died to have been released from my misery. The salt forced itself through the cloth over my face, penetrated to my lungs, and caused me such torture as no words can describe. I dashed myself against the sides of my prison, I beat my head against the rock, but I was unconscious of pain from so doing; life seemed raging within me with greater strength and intensity than I had ever felt before, and it seemed to me that I could move a mountain by my own strength alone. I thrust my head and shoulders into the hole I had made, and tried to burrow my way through like a mole, and when I could endure this no longer I threw myself on the ground and rolled and writhed. In imagination I screamed and cried, but in truth I could utter no sound. I prayed, oh! how fervently I prayed, for death, but it would not come. Then I swallowed some of my provisions, and this gave me relief for a time, but only for a time, for the same tortures began again very soon, followed by a repetition of my frantic attempts at self-destruction. If I could have abstained from the only thing that gave me relief my torments must soon have been at an end; but the very intensity of my pain forced me, against my will, to resort to it. Thus my sufferings went on ebbing and flowing, but, like the rising tide, always mounting.

I was in this dreadful condition when I heard the sound of music. At first I thought it must be my imagination, that I was at last going mad. Then, as it continued, I remembered the concert in honor of the director. I searched about for my horn, and when the music was silent, I raised it to my lips and tried to sound it: I might as well have attempted to rend the rock asunder which cut me off from the light; my dry and cracked lips would not fit themselves to the instrument, and the little air my lungs were still capable of expelling wasted itself soundlessly. In my madness I beat it furiously against the ground, I bit and gnawed it, and, finally, I dashed it down, and seizing handfuls of the dirt, I thrust it into my mouth in vain efforts

to choke myself. Again and again the music was renewed, but at last it ceased altogether, and I knew that I was once more alone in the mine.

I afterward learned that, during the concert, one of the miners in wandering through the old workings noticed a mark on the rock where I had cleared the head of the torch. The freshness of this mark drew his attention to the fall of earth, and though he was not able to distinguish whether this fall was of recent or old date, he pointed it out to others, and they determined to clear it away, that my body, if it were beneath it, might receive Christian burial. The next day the director gave them a fete in return for their entertainment, and the following day being Sunday, it was not till the succeeding day they began digging for me, which was the twelfth day of my imprisonment. On that evening I was released and carried out of the mine.

My appearance at this time was frightful. Every hair had fallen from me, my eyes had disappeared, and my body, from head to foot, was covered with crystals of salt. I was laid in warm water and kept there: warm and cold water was given me to drink as often as I could swallow it, and my sufferings soon began to diminish. In time they became endurable, but they have never left me altogether, and I shall always be a poor, blind, suffering creature such as I am now.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

Chemicals, &c.

SODA ASH, of different tests, for Soap and Glass makers, various brands, 200 Tons.

CAUSTIC SODA, in packages of 5 cwt., of the best English make. SAL SODA and Newcastle BI CARB. SODA, 250 Tons. PALM OIL, an assortment, 100 Casks of prime. CREAM TARTAR and TARTARIC ACID crystals; also powdered, perfectly pure. THOMAS ANDREWS & CO., Importers, 136 and 138 Cedar St., New York.

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Magnifies small objects 10,000 times. So simple that a child may use it. A most suitable present for any person. Price by mail $2.25; with six mounted objects $3. Address HENRY CRAIG, 182 Centre Street, New York.

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New Book of Sacred Quartets.

BAUMBACH'S SACRED QUARTETS. A Collection of Pieces for the OPENING AND CLOSE OF SERVICE. By ADOLPH BAUMBACH. Price—In cloth, $2.50; boards, $2.25. Copies mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price. OLIVER DITSON & COMPANY, Publishers, Boston. MOURNING EAR-RINGS. PINS AND BRACELETS. NEW PATTERNS. For sale by GEO. C. ALLEN, No. 415 Broadway, New York.

STEEL EAR-RINGS, PINS AND BELT CLASPS. For sale by GEO. C. ALLEN, No.415 Broadway, New York. SOLID GOOD THIMBLES. Some as low as $3 each. At G. C. ALLEN'S, No. 415 Broadway, New York. TELESCOPIC WATCH KEYS AND CHARMS, Of Lincoln, McClellan, Scott, the Lord's Prayer, &c. For sale by GEO. C. ALLEN, No. 415 Broadway, New York.

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Attention Masons and Soldiers.

I will send (as sample), on the receipt of $1, a handsome Gold Masonic Pin or Ring, or Plated Vest chain, or a fine Gold Pen and Pencil, or engraved Locket, or Bracelet, or Neck Chain, or a beautiful set of Jewelry, together with my wholesale Circular. W. A. HAYWARD, Manufacturing Jeweler, 208 Broadway, New York.

These Celebrated Engraved Cards sold only at J. EVERDELL'S Old Establishment, 302 Broadway, cor. Duane St., N.Y. Established 1840.   For Specimen by Mail, send two stamps.

FRIENDS OF SOLDIERS!

All Articles for Soldiers at Baltimore, Washington, Hilton Head, Newbern, and all places occupied by Union troops, should be sent, at half rates, by HARNDEN'S EXPRESS, No. 74 Broadway. Sutlers charged low rates.

Every Man his own Printer.

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Watches.

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Large and thriving settlement of Vineland. Rich soil. Good crops of Wheat, Corn, Peaches, &c., to be seen—only 30 miles from Philadelphia. Delightful climate—20 acre tracts of from $15 to $20 per acre, payable within 4 years. Good schools and society. Hundreds are settling. Apply to CHAS. K. LANDIS, P.M., Vineland, Cumberland Co., New Jersey. Report of Solon Robinson and Vineland Rural sent free. From Report of Solon Robinson, Ag. Ed. Tribune. "It is one of the most extensive fertile tracts, in an almost level position, and suitable condition for pleasant farming that we know of this side of the Western Prairies.

Ballard's Patent Breech-Loading Rifle.

This arm is entirely new, and is universally acknowledged to be the nearest to perfection of any Breech-Loading Rifle ever made. Length of barrel 24 inches, weight of Rifle 7 pounds. Size of Calibre adapted to Nos. 32, 38, and 44 copper water-proof Cartridges. Also,

Prescott's Cartridge Revolvers

The 8in., or Navy Size, carries a Ball weighing 38 to the lb., and the No. 32, or 4in. Revolver, a Ball 80 to the lb. By recent experiments made in the Army, these Revolvers were pronounced the best and most effective weapons in use. For particulars call or send for a Circular to MERWIN & BRAY, Sole Agents, No. 262 Broadway, N. Y. Also Agents for the SOLDIER'S BULLET-PROOF VEST.

AGENTS,,—Watches and Jewelry for Army, Navy, and Country Trade, the most salable kinds at the lowest Eastern prices. Circular of prices, &c., free. HUBBARD BROS., New York.

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