Death of General Lytle

NOVEMBER 14, 1863.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

727

"Let me see it, dear," said Julia. "I dare say it is nothing worth punching about." "There," said Edward. "I've marked it." Julia took the paper, and her eye fell on this short advertisement:

AILEEN AROON. — DISTRUST APPEARANCES. Looking at her with some anxiety, they saw the paper give one sharp rustle in her hands, and then quiver a little. She bowed her head over it, and every thing seemed to swim. But she never moved: they could neither of them see her face, she defended herself with the paper. The letters cleared again, and, still hiding her face, she studied, and studied the advertisement.

"Come, tell us what you think of it," said Edward. "Is it any thing? or a mere coincidence?"

"It is a pure coincidence," said Mrs. Dodd, with an admirable imitation of cool confidence.

Julia said nothing; but she now rose and put both arms round Edward's neck, and kissed him fervidly again and again, holding the newspaper tight all the time.

"There," said Mrs. Dodd: "see what you have done."

"Oh, it is all right," said Edward, cheerfully. "The British fireman is getting hugged no end. Why what is the matter? have you got the hiccough, Ju?"

"No; no! You are a true brother. I knew all along that he would explain all if he was alive: and he is alive," kissing the 'Tiser violently more than once; this done, she fluttered away with it to her own room, ashamed to show her joy, and yet not able to hide it.

Mrs. Dodd shook her head, sorrowfully: and Edward began to look rueful and doubt whether he had done wisely. I omit the discussion that followed. But the next time his duties permitted him to visit them, Mrs. Dodd showed him the 'Tiser in her turn, and with her pretty white taper finger pointed grimly to the following advertisement:

AILEEN AROON.—I do DISTRUST APPEARANCES. But if you ever loved me explain them at once. I have something for you from your dear sister.

"Poor simple girl," said Mrs. Dodd, "not to see that, if he could explain at all, he would explain, not go advertising an enigma after such a mystification. And to think of my innocent dove putting in that she had something for him from his sister; a mighty temptation to such a wretch!"

"It was wonderfully silly," said Edward; "and such a clever girl, too; but you ladies can't stick to one thing at a time; begging your pardon, mamma."

Mrs. Dodd took no notice of this remark.

"To see her lower herself so!" she said, "O, my son, I am mortified." And Mrs. Dodd leaned her cheek against Edward's, and sighed.

"Now don't you cry, mammy," said he, sorrowfully. "I'll break every bone in his skin, for your comfort."

"Heaven forbid!" cried Mrs. Dodd, anxiously. "What, are you not aware she would hate you?"

"Hate me! her brother!"

"She would hate us all, if we laid a finger on that wretch. Pray interfere no more, love; foolish child, talking to me about women, and it is plain you know nothing of their hearts: and a good thing for you." She then put on maternal authority (nobody could do it more easily) and solemnly forbade all violence.

He did not venture to contradict her now; but cherished his resolution all the more, and longed for the hour when he might take "the wretch" by the throat, and chastise him, the more publicly the better.

Now, the above incident that revealed Julia's real heart, which she had been hiding more or less all this time from those who could not sympathize with her, took eventually a turn unfavorable to "the wretch." So he might well be called. Her great and settled fear had always been that Alfred was dead. Under the immediate influence of his father's cunning, she had for a moment believed he was false; but so true and loving a heart could not rest in that opinion. In true love, so long as there is one grain of uncertainty, there is a world of faith and credulous ingenuity. Now, as Alfred had never been seen since, as nobody could say he was married to another, there was a grain of uncertainty as to his unfaithfulness, and this her true heart magnified to a mountain.

But now matters wore another face. She was sure he had written the advertisement. Who but he, out of the few that take the words of any song to heart, admired Aileen Aroon? Who but he, out of the three or four people who might possibly care for that old song, had appearances to explain away? and who but he knew they took in the Morning Advertiser? She waited then for the explanation she had invited. She read the advertising column every day over and over.

Not a word more.

Then her womanly pride was deeply wounded. What, had she courted an explanation where most ladies would have listened to none; and courted it in vain!

Her high spirit revolted. Her heart swelled against the repeated insults she had received: this last one filled the bitter cup too high.

And then her mother came in and assured her he had only inserted that advertisement to keep her in his power. He has heard you are recovering, and that you are admired by others more worthy of your esteem.

Julia cried bitterly at these arguments, for she could no longer combat them.

And Mr. Hurd was very attentive and kind. And when he spoke to Julia, and Julia turned away, her eye was sure to meet Mrs. Dodd's eye imploring her secretly not to discourage the young man too much. And so she was gently

pulled by one, and gently thrust by another, away from her first lover and toward his successor.

It is an old, old story. Fate seems to exhaust its malice on our first love. For the second the road is smoother. Matters went on so some weeks, and it was perfectly true that Mr. Hurd escorted both ladies one day to Drayton House, at Julia's request, and not Mrs. Dodd's. Indeed, the latter lady was secretly hurt at his being allowed to come with them.

One Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Dodd went alone to Drayton House, by appointment. David was like a lamb, but, as usual, had no knowledge of her. Mrs. Archbold told her a quiet, intelligent patient had taken a great fancy to him, and she thought this was adding much to his happiness. "May I see him to thank him?" asked Mrs. Dodd. "Oh, certainly," said Mrs. Archbold; "I'll inquire for him." She went out, but soon returned, saying, "He is gone out for a walk with the head keeper: we give him as much air and amusement as we can; we hope soon to send him out altogether, cured." "Truly kind and thoughtful," said Mrs. Dodd. Soon after, she kissed Mrs. Archbold, and pressed a valuable brooch upon her: and then took leave. However, at the gate she remembered her parasol. Mrs. Archbold said she would go back for it. Mrs. Dodd would not hear of that: Mrs. Archbold insisted, and settled the question by going. She was no sooner in the house than young Frank Beverley came running to Mrs. Dodd, and put the missing parasol officiously into her hand. "Oh, thank you, Sir," said she; "will you be so kind as to tell Mrs. Archbold I have it." And with this they parted, and the porter opened the gate to her, and she got into her hired cab. She leaned her head back, and, as usual, was lost in the sorrowful thoughts of what had been, and what now was. Poor wife, each visit to Drayton House opened her wound afresh. On reaching the stones there was a turnpike. This roused her up: she took out her purse and paid it. As she drew back to her seat, she saw out of the tail of her feminine eye the edge of something white under her parasol. She took up the parasol, and found a written paper pinned on to it: she detached this paper, and examined it all over with considerable curiosity. It consisted of a long slip about an inch and a quarter broad, rolled like tape, and tied with pack-thread. She could not see the inside, of course, but she read the superscription: it was firmly but clearly written, in red ink apparently.

Of the words I shall only say at present that they were strong and simple, and that their effect on the swift intelligence and tender heart of Mrs. Dodd was overpowering. They knocked at her heart; they drew from her an audible cry of pity more eloquent than a thousand speeches: and the next moment she felt a little faint; for she knew now the appeal was not in red ink, but in something very fit to pass between the heart of woe and the heart of pity. She smelt at her salts, and soon recovered that weakness: and now her womanly bosom swelled so with the milk of human kindness that her breath came short. After a little struggle, she gushed out aloud, "Ah, that I will, poor soul; this very moment." Now, by this time she was close to her own house.

She stopped the cab at the door, and asked the driver if his horse was fresh enough to carry her to the Board of Lunacy: "It is at Whitehall, Sir," said she. "Lord bless you, ma'am," said the cabman, "Whitehall? why my mare would take you to Whitechapel and back in an hour, let alone Whitehall."

Reassured on that point Mrs. Dodd went in just to give the servant an order: but, as she stood in the passage, she heard her children's voices, and also a friend's; the genial, angry tones of Alexander Sampson, M.D.

She thought, "Oh, I must just show them all the paper, before I go with it;" and so after a little buzz about dinner and things with Sarah, mounted the stairs, and arrived among them singularly apropos, as it happened.

Men like Sampson, who make many foes, do also make stancher friends than ever the Hare does, and are faithful friends themselves. The boisterous doctor had stuck to the Dodds in all their distresses; and, if they were ever short of money, it certainly was not his fault: for almost his first word, when he found them in a lodging, was, "Now, ye'll be wanting a Chick. Gimme pen and ink, and I'll just draw ye one; for a hundre." This being declined politely by Mrs. Dodd, he expostulated. "Mai—dear—Madam, how on airth can ye go on in such a place as London without a Chick?"

He returned to the charge at his next visit, and scolded her well for her pride. "Who iver hard of refusing a chick? a small inoffensive chick, from an old friend like me? Come now, behave! Just a wee chick: I'll let y' off for fifty."

"Give us your company and your friendship," said Mrs. Dodd; "we value them above gold: we will not rob your dear children while we have as many fingers on our hands as other people."

On the present occasion Dr. Sampson, whose affectionate respect for the leading London physicians has already displayed itself, was inveighing specially against certain specialists, whom, in the rapidity of his lusty eloquence, he called the Mad Ox. He favored Julia and Edward with a full account of the maniform enormities he had detected them in during thirty years' practice; and so descended to his present grievance. A lady, an old friend of his, was being kept in a certain asylum month after month because she had got money and relations, and had once been delirious. "And why was she delirious? because she had a brain-fever: she got well

in a fortnight." This lady had thrown a letter over the wall addressed to him; somebody had posted it: he had asked the Commissioners to let him visit her; they had declined for the present. "Yon Board always sides with the strong against the weak," said he. So now he had bribed the gardener, and make a midnight assignation with the patient; and was going to it with six stout fellows to carry her off by force. "That is my recipe for alleged Insanity," said he. "The business will be more like a mejaeval knight carrying off a namorous nun out of a convint, than a good physician saving a pashint from the Mad Ox. However, Mrs. Saampson's in the secret; I daunt say sh' approves it; for she doesn't. She says, 'Go quitely to the Board of Commissioners.' Sis I, 'My dear, Boards are a sort of cattle that go too slow for Saampson, and no match at all for the Mad Ox.' "

At this conjuncture, or soon after, Mrs. Dodd came in with her paper in her hand, a little flurried for once, and, after a hasty courtesy, said,

"Oh, Dr. Sampson, oh, my dears, what wickedness there is in the world! I'm going to Whitehall this moment; only look at what was pinned on my parasol at Drayton House."

The writing passed from hand to hand, and left the readers looking very gravely at one another. Julia was quite pale and horror-stricken. All were too deeply moved, and even shocked, to make any commonplace comment; for it looked and read like a cry from the writer's heart to their hearts.

"If you are a Christian, if

you are human, pity a sane

man here confined by fraud,

and take this to the Board of

Lunacy at Whitehall. Torn

by treachery from her I love,

my letters all intercepted, pens

and paper kept from me, I

write this with a toothpick

and my blood on a rim of the

Times. Oh Christ direct it

to some one who has suffered,

and can feel for another's

agony."

Dr. Sampson was the first to speak. "There," said he, under his breath: "didn't I tell you? This man is sane. There's sanity in every line."

"Well, but," said Edward, "do you mean to say that in the present day—"

"Mai—dears—Sirr. Mankind niver changes. Whativer the muscles of man can do in the light, the mind and conscience of man will consent to do in the dark."

Julia said never a word.

Mrs. Dodd, too, was for action, not for talk. She bade them all a hasty adieu, and went on her good work.

Ere she got to the street door she heard a swift rustle behind her; and it was Julia flying down to her, all glowing and sparkling with her old impetuosity, that had seemed dead forever. "No, no," she cried, panting with generous emotion; "it is to me it was sent. I am torn from him I love, and by some treachery I dare say: and I have suffered, oh you shall never know what I have suffered. Give it me, oh pray, pray, pray give it me. I'll take it to Whitehall."

CHATTANOOGA.

ON page 724 we reproduce a picture drawn by our special artist, Mr. Theodore R. Davis, representing LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, close to Chattanooga. On 18th Mr. Davis wrote:

"HEAD-QUARTERS OF MAJOR-GENERAL GRANGER,

CHATTANOOGA, October 18.

"For some time after the fight at Chicamauga Lookout Mountain was occupied as a signal-station by Captain Cole and Lieutenant Howgate, with a small party, who one day received notice to quit from General Forrest and his cavalry. They had then been for some time signaling over the heads of the rebels camped below.

"Since the rebels have taken possession they have built fortifications on the opening where the seminary is situated, half-way up the mountain, from which they 'semi-occasionally' shell our camps."

Since the above was written an important change has taken place, and Lookout Mountain has once more passed into our hands. A dispatch from Chattanooga, dated October 27, says: "A detachment under Colonel Stanley, of the Eleventh Ohio regiment, floated fifty pontoons down the river in face of the rebel sharp-shooters, landed at Brown's Ferry, and surprised and drove the rebels from the ridge on the south side, opening communication with Bridgeport. The rebels are flanked, and must evacuate Lookout Mountain."

A second dispatch says, "General Hazen, with two thousand of General Palmer's division, attacked the enemy on Lookout Mountain and drove him from his position."

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

ON page 725 we publish a view of BUCKLAND, Virginia, the scene of a recent cavalry skirmish, from a sketch by A. R. Waud. Mr. Waud writes: "Buckland is on the Warrenton pike, where Broad Run crosses the road. It contains about two dozen houses, a woolen factory, and a dilapidated mill, seen in the picture; altogether not an unpicturesque place. The Run is very pretty, having all the characteristics of a mountain stream. Here, on Monday the 19th October, Kilpatrick's command met the rebels under Stuart. Davies's brigade had crossed the river, and proceeded along the pike to reconnoitre, when a heavy force was discovered moving upon our left flank. Before this General Custer's brigade had to give way, recrossing the river, and taking position on the hill to the east of it. The rebels divided, Fitzhugh Lee following Davies as he retreated up the Run to find a crossing, and Stuart engaging Custer with overwhelming forces, pressing him back upon Gainesville. General Davies succeeded in getting

his men over the river at a most unpromising place; looking at it next day, it seemed almost impossible for guns to get across as they did. Considering the entire surprise of our troops, the rebels did not make much out of it, about 200, principally made prisoners, being our loss.

"Mr. Hunton's family, consisting of his wife, three daughters, and some servants, took refuge in the cellar. Pennington's battery took position both sides of the house, and the sharp-shooters behind its corners and the trees and fences, all which show scars from the rebel bullets. No one was hurt."

THE "DUNDERBERG."

WE devote pages 728 and 729 to a large illustration of the great steam ram Dunderberg, which William H. Webb is building for the Government. She will be, when launched and armed, the most powerful man-of-war afloat. She is 378 feet long, 68 feet wide, and 32 feet deep. The armor on the side is 6 1/2 feet thick of timber and 4 1/2 inches thick of iron; on the casemate it is 3 feet of wood and 3 1/2 inches of iron. She will have two turrets, with two guns of heavy calibre in each. She will have six broadside and two pivot guns in the casemate. Her rig will be half-mast, with yards and sails. The forward part of the vessel, for 50 feet of solid timber and iron, constitutes the ram. The engines are 6000 horse-power, which will propel her probably 16 miles an hour. It is not likely that the Dunderberg will be ready for service for a year, the magnitude of her proportions requiring immense time and labor.

In contrast with the Dunderberg we reproduce, from a French paper, portraits of the leading vessels of the Imperial iron-clad fleet. The vessels are two-deckers, armed on the old style, and differing from the other vessels of the navy simply in being clad with iron and armed with a ram. The iron mail is about 4 1/2 inches thick. This squadron set sail from Cherbourg on 27th September for an experimental cruise. While at sea, some distance from Brest, it encountered a sharp blow, which seems to have astonished the captains. The vessels shipped so much water that the officers' quarters were destroyed, and most of the boats washed overboard. On the morning after the storm the squadron was dispersed, only one vessel remaining in sight of the flag-ship. It is evident that these vessels could not be trusted to cross the ocean.

THE LATE GENERAL LYTLE.

WE publish on page 732 a portrait of the late GENERAL WILLIAM H. LYTLE, who fell, gallantly leading on his men, at the fatal battle of Chickamauga, on 20th September last.

William H. Lytle was the son of a gallant soldier and distinguished orator, Robert Lytle, and was born at Cincinnati in the year 1827. He entered the army young, and served in the Mexican war as captain. At the close of the war he studied law, and served several terms in the Ohio State Legislature. At the outbreak of the war he commanded the Ohio militia at Camp Harrison, and subsequently accepted the Colonelcy of the Tenth Ohio Volunteers. At Carnifex Ferry he commanded a brigade, and largely contributed to drive Floyd and Wise out of that part of Virginia. It was there he received his first wound. For two hours his troops stood firm under the enemy's fire, when he gave the command to "charge." When they had crossed just half the distance to the rebel works their gallant leader fell. The impetus was gone. His men, with the instinct of duty, stood to their work for some time, neither advancing nor retreating, but at last fell back to the woods. The enemy, finding themselves unable to hold this position, re-crossed Carnifex, and abandoned this strong-hold. When scarcely recovered from this injury Lytle returned to the field, first, to take command of the Bardstown Camp of Instruction, and then of the Seventeenth Brigade, under General O. M. Mitchel. In September, just one year after the battle of Carnifex, Lytle was again wounded, at Perryville, fell into the hands of the enemy, and, after a week's captivity, was exchanged. It was hero that the gallant conduct of the young hero wrung applause from the bitter foe, and won the love and admiration of his own people. In the spring of 1863 his appointment as Brigadier-General of Volunteers passed the Senate, and from that time up to his death he served with General Rosecrans. Thus in each successive autumn of the war Lytle was wounded, until on that calm Sabbath afternoon the brilliant career of the young General closed on the bloody field of Chicamauga.

We have spoken of Lytle the soldier; in conclusion we may say a few words of Lytle the poet. He was always opposed to giving publicity to his writings, and consequently but few of his productions have found their way into the public journals. We give here one of his late poems, in which "he, being dead, yet speaketh," and speaks to the gay votary of pleasure, saying, "Arise, go forth, and do likewise:"

'Tis not the time for dalliance soft

In gentle ladies' bowers,

When Treason flaunts her flag aloft,

And dares to tread on ours.

Again the swords our fathers wore

Must in their scabbards rattle,

And we will sing the songs of yore,

When marching forth to battle.

From every vine-clad mountain-side,

From every dimpled valley,

Our bugles, ringing far and wide,

Invite the brave to rally.

And far to East, and far to West,

Our iron line advances,

While Freedom's flag, by freemen blessed,

In glory o'er us dances.

But when the birds of morning sing,

And all the wars are over,

Our laurels at your feet we'll fling,

And then we'll play the lover.

We all will say 'tis time to wed,

As gayly drums shall rattle,

Before our conquering column's head,

When marching home from battle.