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Civil War Harper's Weekly, July 25, 1863

Welcome to our online collection of Harper's Weekly newspapers. We hope you enjoy browsing through these old newspapers. We have posted them so that they look identical to the original documents, and they allow you to step back in time and see the war unfold week by week.

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

 

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant

Draft Riots

Draft Riots

Riots

New York Riots

Fort Hill Explosion, Vicksburg

Gettysburg

Battle of Gettysburg Description

Vicksburg Explosion

Vicksburg Explosion

Peace Cartoon

Peace Cartoon

 

Siege of Vicksburg

Siege of Vicksburg

Port Hudson

Siege of Port Hudson

Carlisle

Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg

 

 

JULY 25, 1863.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

471

So that was the guise this preux chevalier took! These the Platonic theories he urged, to give himself liberty to roam.

"Selfish!" inaudibly ejaculated Miss M'Lean, as she made these conclusions. Sleeping upon it did not alter her opinion, and all the following days proved her conclusions—and her power.

III.

STRAIGHT from the dining hall went Lawrence King to the parlor. There with the Windlows and their friends, he found what he sought; and it was not many minutes before he was standing before Mabel M'Lean talking with empressement. Then breaking in upon this came her sister, and Lawrence King was satisfied. Apart stood Marchmont, savagely biting the end of his mustache, and looking out of lowering brows at the preux chevalier. How many times had just this thing happened? Just when he had commenced a sensible conversation with Miss M'Lean up starts that puppy of a King, and by stratagem wiles her away. It was very true; day after day had 'this thing' happened. What did it mean? Was Lawrence King for once modest of his own attraction, and doubting it, did he resort to stratagem, or was it a little touch of malice to foil the cynic, the sometime autocrat? What did Lawrence King care for so plain a person as Miss M'Lean, when the first beauties of a season were ready to smile at his approach? It must have been the latter of these two propositions, then. And yet how long his malice held! How absorbed he grew as he listened or talked! There was stratagem at least of some sort, and Emily M'Lean herself was the last to see it. But she did see it, though, at last. She saw it when she suddenly one day aroused to the fact that Lawrence King was using her sister as a lure; that he was more than content when it proved successful, and transferred her from his side. She had meant to do not quite so much. She had put herself up as a shield. She had set herself as a barrier, conscious of a power that, actively employed, would accomplish her desire. She only desired to avert.

How much else had she accomplished? Suddenly brought to suspicion, Miss M'Lean let this wily gentleman alone. That is, when he approached her sister she did not interrupt, she waited, apparently deeply absorbed with the cynic. In vain he "charmed and sung." She came not near him. Once, twice, thrice he tried this. When he found that it was unsuccessful, as that savage Marchmont said, "played out," he came over and disputed the field in open, resolute warfare. This was better than the other. Marchmont himself gave him credit for manly courage. Miss M'Lean, too, saw him in stouter guise.

But Mabel? Yes, the play was played out. The fine theories no longer heeded. No longer needed Lawrence King "a sister."

"Why does Lawrence King follow up Miss M'Lean so persistently?—she isn't a beauty or a belle, like her sister, though Marchmont and his friends do pay her homage," asked an observer of the somebody who had quoted:

"Gay snakes rattled, and charmed, and sung."

"Perhaps because Marchmont and his friends follow her. It would be like Lawrence King to want what other people value."

"The little M'Lean seems to have consoled herself for his neglect."

"Alayne's worth two of him; I don't wonder,"

"Alayne never looked at a pretty woman before."

The other laughed.

"No; that is the reason why a pretty woman is pleased with him. She thinks he must see something beyond her beauty, that every body can see."

So they were discussed. Those who discussed them looked to see Lawrence King flag in his new pursuit and turn to another. But no, the days went by. A new face appeared upon the scene; beauty and fortune and fashion all in one. Still he clave to the plainer, with neither fortune nor fashion. At first Lawrence King says to himself: "Why do I like the society of this Miss M'Lean? Is it that she makes me use all my energies of mind—makes me think? Or am I emulous of success where Wilkie Marchmont thinks it worth while to show esteem? What is it? I don't want to flirt with Emily M'Lean. I never think of saying a fine thing to her; but in her presence I am surprised into a higher estimate of my capabilities than I feel with others. Always at my best, is that it? And yet I am a more modest man with her. She does not flatter me with smiles or blushes. What is it?" One day he found out the secret. He carried it with him for days, for weeks, until the autumn came, and the time for the breaking up of all this summer campaigning.

It was a brilliant morning, just at the last of September, and Lawrence King came in from a solitary walk to find a solitary occupant of the piazza. It was Emily M'Lean. She was walking up and down in the sunshine.

He looked at her as she came toward him. Her dress was of the hue of late violets, and she had stuck carelessly in her bosom somebody's morning offering—a bunch of cardinals. "How lovely she is!" he thought. Then it flashed across him the memory of a morning when she had come up that same piazza a stranger, and their comments about her. He understood now what little Queen Mab had meant when she said, "It couldn't have been Em; Em is lovely." There was neither bloom nor regularity of outline, he confessed; but a soft, subtle charm of presence, a grace, of motion, of expression, that you felt was the expression of a royal womanhood. Lawrence King felt it now as he went to meet her. He joined her—not fluent, as usual. but silent, distrait. Whet was on his mind? In this royal presence did he feel the weight of his misdoing? Did he feel that he had sinned against her and hers? And was he about to make confession?

He made confession, but not for absolution. He confessed, not of penitence, but of passion. He loved her. She was the only woman in the world

to him. And telling her so, be asked her to marry him.

Remembering little Queen Mab, you think that now was Emily M'Lean's hour of just retribution; that she turned upon him with scorn and withering reproach; that her eyes flashed, that her cheek flamed, and that she asked him "how he dared?" etc. No; this was not Emily M'Lean's way. She must have had some deeper test of nature than most persons—some well-spring of tenderness for every human being.

She waited before she replied, looking out toward the sea, with her somewhat sad face growing sadder as she pondered. At length she said, gravely,

"I have been waiting for words that will most kindly express what I wish to say—"

"No, no!" he interrupted, vehemently, putting away, as it were, the rejection he anticipated, with a gesture of his hand.

"I am sorry," she went on, "to give any one so much pain. I had not looked for this end, you may be sure; but I can not marry you, Mr. King."

He caught eagerly at these last words. She had not said, "I do not love you." Perhaps—and with ardor he urged his suit. He would wait. And as a special claim he said:

"I have never loved a woman before, Miss M'Lean."

She looked at him a moment before she replied:

"I should know that. To have loved makes us tender of others, fearful of inflicting suffering. I knew it when you amused yourself with my little sister, Mr. King."

His face changed. "Ah, you will judge me hardly there, but consider. I met your sister as the young beauty of the season. She received my attentions, my society in the manner of all young belles. She was arch, gay, and piquante—some might have said coquettish. I think we understood each other."

"Mr. King, my sister is seventeen. You can judge how much chance she has had for judging the world, and to understand men of society like yourself. Last year she left school. In six months she finds herself in the midst of fine people, who, instead of speaking to her with the serene simplicity of a conventual Pensionnaire, meet her with subtle compliment of word and manner. Her own manner, which you suggest as coquettish, is perfectly unlearned—the mere natural result of a young and imaginative mind. You are mistaken if you suppose she understood you, Mr. King. I will tell you frankly—because I think it is better for her dignity and for your experience to know—that when my sister blushed at your name when alone with me, it was not for vanity. It is a grave and solemn thing to stir the conscious depths of a young girl's heart; for though she may outwardly accept any version of Platonism which those older and wiser in the world's ways may suggest, it is only outwardly. The sensibility of her own nature contradicts such theories."

A vivid color suffused her listener's face as she spoke. He remembered himself in this suggestion. How meanly at this moment of real feeling did his own past conduct appear! In this clear and noble presence how wasted seemed his former days!

"At least," he said, after a short pause, "I have not permanently disturbed your sister's heart. Alayne—"

"Mr. King, you have taught Mabel her first lesson of unbelief. She has learned from you the meaning of 'trifling.' It was a shock which might have proved fatal to her nature, making her the heartless, unbelieving coquette which you prematurely presumed her to be; but in the reaction Mr. Alayne's simple truth of character convinced her that her ideal was not altogether illusive. I am happy to say, Mr. King, that she accepted Robert Alayne last night. I am sure you will be glad to know this."

"I am sincerely glad. I hope you will believe me to this extent. But—but if you would but allow me to convince you too that my life may not be so far apart from yours: that I may at some time-"

"Pardon me, Mr. King, for what I am going to say; but love does not grow by waiting between two such lives as yours and mine. You are thirty; I am twenty-six. Since I was twenty life has been to me costly and sacred. To you—forgive me if I seem harsh—it has been a play, an amusement, which often palled upon you. You have lived exteriorly, I interiorly. Do not think I arrogate any thing to myself; but we are unlit for each other. You have it in your power to do much that is fine and splendid; but your place is in the world—mine is not."

"And you will not—"

"I can not." She held out her hand. "Will you forgive me for what I have said! Trust me that I did not say it easily or unkindly."

He took the hand, held it a moment, then said, in a low voice,

"I am glad to have known you, Emily M'Lean. I shall never forget you."

He never did. His place was in the world, as she had said. He was always where life ran in fashionable circles; but no one ever quoted for him after this,

"Gay snakes rattled, and charmed, and sung."

The charmer was charmed into finer charming.

He never forgot her nor the lesson that she taught him. And Marchmont, too—Marchmont, the cynic and the autocrat.

In early life he had learned the lesson of distrust that came so near poisoning the life of little Queen Mab. He learned it from a woman; therefore he hated women; therefore he earned the title of cynic and autocrat. Emily M'Lean revealed to him his long mistake; proved to him

"How divine a thing a woman can be made."

And when he said, "I love you, Emily M' Lean," she who had so subtly perceived the character of another recognized as well the real goodness that lay beneath the rough mask of cynicism.

"And Marchmont wins," says the shrewd observer, who has watched the summer's campaign.

And Marchmont wins.

"TEMPORA MUTANTUR."

 

"FIRST waltz? let me see; with much pleasure!"

She handed her fan to her aunt;

How we whirl'd to the deux-temps' swift measure,

I fain would describe; but I can't.

An oarsman would say that we "spurted;"

A sportsman, we "went like a bird;"

I shall merely remark that we flirted

In a manner extremely absurd.

And when all my twirling was over,

And I and my pipe were alone,

My heart, I began to discover,

Had ceased to be wholly my own.

As Paddy would say, "More by token,"

Our hearts must be made of tough clay,

For mine's been a hundred times broken,

And here it is beating to-day!

And now I sit here in my attic,

Alone, with a cold in my head,

And think, although somewhat rheumatic,

Of dancing in days that are dead.

A waltz, and but one! 'twas but little

To live in my mem'ry so long;

But, at twenty, one's heart is as brittle

As one's love of sensation is strong.

I pick'd up a flow'ret which, drooping,

Had fallen from the wreath it had graced;

At present, just fancy me stooping—

I'm over four feet round the waist!

The programme which held her sweet surname,

I gazed on with tenderest looks;

Just now, I am certain that her name

Would move me far less than my cook's.

It comes to us all, that sad season,

When a man has his waistcoats made wide,

And his wife ceases strumming the keys on,

And carries her keys by her side;

When we will go to sleep after dinner,

And perhaps at odd times in the day;

When the hair on our head's getting thinner,

And our beard and our whiskers get gray;

When we can't hold our horse with a snaffle;

When our waltzing's no longer our forte;

These sad recollections I'll baffle

With a bumper of crusted old Port.

THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG.

ON pages 472 and 473 we publish two fine illustrations of the BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG from drawings by our special artist, Mr. A. R. Waud. The best description of the battle which we have seen is the following from the Philadelphia Age, and we do not think our readers will be sorry to have it in full, long as it is:

On Wednesday morning, July 1, General Reynolds, with twenty-five thousand men, the advance of the Federal Army, approached Gettysburg from the southeast and began the great battle. The field upon which it was fought was a peculiar one. The South Mountain, a long ridge several miles west of Gettysburg, is the great landmark, and the most prominent spot near the town is the hill upon which stood the unfortunate but famous cemetery. Gettysburg is situated in a valley. Two ridges, a mile apart, parallel to each other, are on each side of the valley. It and the ridges are all curves, the concavity being toward the east. It was upon these ridges that the battle was fought, the combatants advancing and retreating through the town, and across the valley above and below it. There is but one stream of water on the field—a narrow, swampy one, a mile south of Gettysburg, which runs zigzag down the valley toward the Monocacy. The lines of battle formed by the two armies were upon these ridges, and resembled two horseshoes, one inside of the other.

The best view of the field is had from the top of the Cemetery Hill. It is a short distance south of the town. In front there is a rather steep declivity to the valley, then a gentle ascent covered with low, scrubby timber and pieces of rock, to the Seminary Hill, a mile distant. Here was the Confederate line. As the gazer stood amidst the broken tombstones he could see the entire field. The valley, the debatable ground, stretched around from right to left, almost a semicircle. He could look over the tree-tops and little patches of wood, and passing his eye up the hill on the other side, could see the seminary toward the northwest. Further to the right is the Gettysburg College, also on the Seminary Hill.

Beginning at the left hand, the Confederate line rested on the little stream, then ascended the hill and ran along at stone fence, which had been made into a rifle-pit. As it approached Gettysburg it curved around, crossing the Chambersburg and Emmettsburg road and the road to Carlisle, and passed the seminary and college, between which it crossed a serpentine railway leading to the town, called the "Tape-worm." The ridge continued the entire length, its front, except in a few cleared spots, being covered with timber. The line must have extended at least eight miles.

The ridge occupied by the Federal troops was half inclosed by the other. It was an inner circle, and was made up of much higher and bolder hills than the outer one. The Federal left rested also on the little stream, and ran along a rocky ravine, then ascended the Cemetery hill, and so on in a semicircle over one round-topped wooded hill after another until it was lost on the right in the mazes of a thick forest. Meade's line was about five miles in length, and in the battle, besides the higher ground, he had all the advantages of interior lines, and also was in it friendly country. His head-quarters were on a wooded knoll a mile east of the cemetery.

Away off behind the Confederate line, and curving around in a larger circle still, was the South Mountain.

In all the contests, excepting the opening one, the enemy attacked. On Wednesday morning General Reynolds, with the Federal advance, approached the town from the southeast, the enemy evacuating it on his arrival. He passed through and out on the west side toward Chambersburg. He marched several miles, was met by the enemy in stronger force, and after a slight contest was compelled to retire. The enemy pushed him very hard, and he came into the town on a run, his troops going along every available road, and rushing out on the east side, closely followed by the enemy. One of his brigades came along the "Tape-worm" with a Confederate brigade on each side of it. All three were abreast, running as hard as they could—the two outside ones pouring a heavy fire into the centre, out of which men dropped, killed or wounded, at almost every footstep. This Federal brigade, in running that terrible gauntlet, lost half of its men. General Reynolds was killed, and Gettysburg was lost; but the Federal troops succeeded in mounting the Cemetery Hill, and the enemy ceased pursuing. At night the enemy encamped in the town, and the Federal troops on the hill.

During Wednesday night and Thursday morning the two armies were concentrating on the two ridges, which were to be the next day's line of battle, and by noon on

Thursday each general had a force of 80,000 men at his disposal. Then began the great artillery contest, the infantry on both sides crouching behind fences and trees and in rifle-pits. The Federal soldiers in the cemetery laid many of the tombstones on the ground to prevent injury, so that many escaped. There was but little infantry fighting on Thursday, and neither party made much impression upon the other. The Confederates in the other town erected barricades, and had their sharp-shooters posted in every available spot, picking off Federal soldiers on the hills to the north of the cemetery. The cannonade was fierce and incessant, and shells from both sides flew over and into the devoted town. Beyond killing and wounding, breaking trees and shattering houses, and making an awful noise, however, this cannonade had but little effect on the result of the battle. Both sides fought with great ferocity, and neither could drive the other out of position.

On Thursday night, fearing that the enemy had flank parties which might turn his rear, General Meade had serious intentions of retreating, and he called a council of war. The advice of some of his generals, however, and the capture of the courier with dispatches from Richmond, from which it was learned that the enemy could receive no reinforcements, made him decide to remain.

On Friday morning General Lee did not desire to make the attack. He saw the superiority of the Federal position, and wished to entice them out of it, and down into the valley. With this design he withdrew all of his sharpshooters and infantry from Gettysburg. The deserted town lay there a very tempting bait, but General Meade's men hid quietly behind the fences and trees, and banks upon the hills. They could look down into the streets and see every thing which was in progress. They saw the enemy march out and retire to the seminary, but made no advance, and the Confederates gained nothing by the movement. A parting salute of musketry, however, from a knoll north of the cemetery, accelerated the Confederate retreat. For some time the town had scarcely a soldier in it. Scores of dead and wounded men and horses, with broken wagons, bricks, stones, timber, torn clothing, and abandoned accoutrements, lay there. The frightened inhabitants peered out of their windows to see what the armies were doing to cause such a lull, and, almost afraid of their own shadows, they hastened away and crouched in corners and cellars at the sound of every shot or shell.

General Lee's evacuation had no effect. Meade was neither to be enticed into the town nor into the valley. Enough dead bodies lay in the fields and streets to give him warning of what happened to poor Reynolds two days before, and he wisely determined to stay where he was and let events shape themselves. The enemy soon became impatient. They could wait no longer; and after much solicitation from his subordinates, General Lee permitted General Longstreet to send his grand division on a charge upon the cemetery. The Federal soldiers were on the alert. They were hid behind their embankments, some kneeling, and some flat on the ground. The Confederate artillery opened. It was as fierce a cannonade as the one the day before, but instead of being spread all over the line, every shell was thrown at the cemetery. Experienced soldiers soon divined what was coming, and in every portion of the Federal line the cannon were directed toward the valley in front of the cemetery. All were ready. Amidst the furious fire from the Confederate cannon scarcely a Federal shot was heard. The artillerists, implements in hand, crouched in the little ditches dug behind their cannon. With arms loaded, the infantry awaited the charge.

It soon came. From the woods of short, scrubby timber and the rocks near the seminary there rose a yell. It was a long, loud, unremitting, hideous screech from thousands of voices. At the yell the Federal cannon opened. Soon the enemy's columns emerged from the woods. They came on a rush down the hill, waving their arms and still screeching. They climbed the fences and rushed along, each one bent upon getting first into the cemetery. The cannon roared, and grape and canister and spherical case fell thick among them. Still they rushed onward, hundreds falling out of the line. They came within musket-shot of the Federal troops. Then the small-arms began to rattle. The Confederates approached the outer line of works. They were laboring up the hill. As they mounted the low bank in front of the rifle-pits, the Federal soldiers retreated out of the ditch behind, turning and firing as they went along. It was a hand-to-hand conflict. Every man fought by himself and for himself. Myriads of the enemy pushed forward down the hill, across into the works, and up to the cemetery. All were shouting, and screaming, and swearing, clashing their arms and firing their pieces. The enemy's shells flew over the field upon the Federal artillerists on the hills above. These, almost disregarding the storm which raged around them, directed all their fire upon the surging columns of the enemy's charge. Every available cannon on the Cemetery Hill, and to the right and left, threw its shells and shot in the valley. The fight was terrible; but despite every effort the enemy pushed up the hill and across the second line of works. The fire became hotter. The fight swayed back and forth. One moment the enemy would be at the railings of the cemetery; then a rush from the Federal side would drive them down into the valley. Then, with one of their horrid screeches, they would fiercely run up the hill again into the cemetery, and have a tierce battle among the tombstones. It was the hardest fight of the day, and hundreds were slain there. Reckless daring, however, will not always succeed. Several attempts were made to take the place, but they were not successful; and late in the afternoon, leaving dead and wounded behind them, the enemy's forces slowly retreated upon their own hill and into their woods again.

They were not routed. They can scarcely be said to have been driven. They have made an attack and been repulsed, and after renewed attempts, feeling that it was useless to try any more, they retreated. It was now General Meade's turn to make an attack. Though they had lost heavily, his soldiers felt elated. They saw hopes of a victory, and were ready to to almost any thing to secure it. Although there had been a battle in the valley below Gettysburg, yet the town was as quiet and as much deserted as ever. Shells flew over it, and now and then one of its houses would have a wall cracked or a roof broken, but neither force possessed it. General Meade turned his attention there.

The day was waning and the battle had lulled, and he determined, if possible, to drive the enmity out of the seminary. His troops were placed in order, and charged down the hill and into the town. They ran along every street, chasing a few of the enemy, still hid there, before them. They came out upon the west side, along the "Tape-worm," and the Emmettsburg and Chambersburg roads, and ascended the enemy's hills amidst a storm of grape and shell. At the seminary the Confederates were not very strong. They had weakened that portion of the line to make their attack further to the south upon the cemetery. They had but few cannon; and though they resisted some time, they finally retreated from the edge of the hill and abandoned the seminary.

The Federal troops did not chase them. The land back of the seminary was rather flat and cut up into grain fields, with here and there a patch of woods. The rifle-pits on t he brow of the hill proved an effectual aid to the Federal soldiers in maintaining their ground; and as they lay behind the bank, with the ditch in front, they could pick off the stragglers from the retreating enemy. There was but little serious fighting after that, and night put an end to Friday's struggle, the Confederates having retired about a mile on the north, near the seminary, and half a mile on the south, at a little stream.

During the night the dead in the streets of Gettysburg were buried, and the wounded on all parts of the field were collected and carried to the rear. On the next morning General Meade expected another attack; but, instead of making it, the enemy retreated further, abandoning their entire line of battle, and the pickets reported that they were intrenching at the foot of South Mountain. The Federal army was terribly crippled and sadly in want of rest, and no advance was made, although pickets were thrown out across the enemy's old line of battle, and toward the place where they were building intrenchments. All the day was spent in feeding and resting the men. Gettysburg was turned into a vast hospital, and impromptu ones were made at a dozen places on the field. The rain came, too, and with it cool air and refreshment both from wind and rain. No one could tell what the enemy were doing; every picket reported that they were intrenching, and the night of the 4th of July closed upon the field with it in the Federal possession.


 

 

 

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