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Civil War Harper's Weekly, April 2, 1864

This site features our entire collection of Harper's Weekly newspapers published during the Civil war. The collection is an excellent resource for students and researchers interested in the Civil War. The collection presents unique insights into the war, and incredible illustrations created within hours of the events depicted.

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

 

Gettysburg Monument

Gettysburg Monument

Isaac Murphey

Governor Isaac Murphy

Lincoln on Labor

Lincoln's Position on the Labor Question

General Schofield

General Schofield

Davies

General Davies

European Ironclads

European Ironclads

Fort Powell

Bombardment of Fort Powell

Lever Watch Advertisement

Sherman's March

Sherman's March

April Fool's Day, 1864

 

 

 

 

 

 

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[APRIL 2, 1864.

214

(Previous Page) of December, 1862, raised the first colored troops of the present war. His efforts were successful beyond hope ; and after organizing and equipping two regiments of blacks, he was, at the solicitation of General GRANT, appointed by the President Brigadier-General of colored troops, and ordered by the Secretary of War to the command of all the colored troops of the State of Tennessee, with head-quarters at Memphis. General CHETLAIN'S command now numbers over 12,000 men, and is rapidly increasing. He designs recruiting his command to 18,000 men, preparatory to taking an active part in the coming campaign.

ISSUING RATIONS AT CHATTANOOGA.

THE view on page 213 illustrates an interesting feature of the war in General GRANT'S late department. Government rations are now issued daily to over five thousand inhabitants of the country about Chattanooga, hundreds of citizens who were formerly in comfortable circumstances being now wholly dependent upon the bounty of the Government. Our sketch shows the office of the Provost Marshal, where orders are given to the hungry applicants for such army rations as can be conveniently dispensed.

GENERAL WILLIAM F. SMITH.

GENERAL WILLIAM FARRAN SMITH (familiarly known throughout the army as " Baldy Smith"), whose portrait we give on page 209, was born in Vermont, February 27, 1824. He entered West Point Academy in 1841, graduating with distinguished honors in 1845, being fourth in a class containing FITZ JOHN PORTER, CHARLES P. STONE, and JOHN W. DAVIDSON. He was assigned to the Topographical Engineers as brevet Second-Lieutenant, and for nearly two years, from November 1846 to August 1848, acted as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Military Academy. In 1853 he was promoted to the full grade of First-Lieutenant, and in 1859 became Captain. At various times he was employed on surveys of the Lake Superior region, of the Rio Grande, Texas, of the military road to California, and in the Mexican Boundary Commission. When the war broke out he was Secretary of the Light-house Board at Washington. Obtaining leave of absence, he took command of the Third Vermont Volunteers, and was appointed Brigadier-General in August, 1861. During the Chickahominy campaign he commanded a division in General FRANKLIN'S corps, distinguishing him-self greatly by his bravery and skill. For his services in that campaign he was promoted to Major-General of Volunteers in July, 1862, but was not confirmed by the Senate. He participated in the battle of Antietam in September of that year, and commanded the Sixth Corps in BURNSIDE'S unfortunate assault on Fredericksburg, December 13. He was subsequently transferred with General HOOKER to GRANT'S department, then under ROSECRANS. He planned the campaign which resulted in the capture of Lookout Mountain, personally directing some of the important preliminary movements. On the 16th ult, he was a second time nominated as Major-General by the President, to take the place of General GRANT in the regular army.

General SMITH'S abilities as an officer are of the very highest order, and it is believed that but for some unfortunate circumstances he would have been placed a year ago in command of the Army of the Potomac. He possesses considerable magnetism of character, and is popular to the last degree in the army, both with officers and men. It is said that the expedition now preparing to operate in the Red River country will be under General SMITH'S command.

GENERAL HENRY E. DAVIES.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY E. DAVIES, Jun., whose portrait we give on page 209, was born in this city, July 2, 1836. In July, 1857, he graduated at Columbia College, and in the same month was admitted to the Bar. He was acquiring reputation as a lawyer and a successful business when the call of the President summoned the true friends of the Union to rally, to avenge the insult to our flag at Fort Sumter. On the 19th of April, 1861, he united with others in this city in the organization of time Duryea Zouaves, and on the 24th of April marched as Lieutenant of Company C with 800 men to Fort Schuyler. While there the regiment was fully organized, and he was promoted to the Captaincy of the Company. Time regiment left for Fortress Monroe on the 24th of May, and was in the fight at Great Bethel, Captain Davies receiving the commendations of his superior officers for his coolness and bravery under fire. Immediately after the battle of Bull Run the regiment was ordered to Baltimore. On the 19th of July, 1861, the Secretary of War gave a written authorization to J. Mansfield Davies, then Major, to Judson Kilpatrick, then Captain, in the Zouaves, and to Captain Davies, to raise a regiment of Cavalry, to be called the Harris Light Cavalry. The President immediately commissioned the former as Colonel, Kilpatrick as Lieutenant-Colonel, and Captain Davies as Major of the new regiment.

The Harris Light Cavalry formed General McClellan's body-guard in the advance on Manassas, and led the attack on the enemy at Falmouth, under General M'Dowell. On the 5th of May, 1862, Major Davies, as Provost Marshal, took possession of Fredericksburg, and raised the Stars and Stripes, over the town. The regiment was actively employed during the summer and in Pope's campaign, and added to its reputation for dash and bravery. On the resignation of Colonel Davies, in December, Kilpatrick was commissioned a Colonel, and Major Davies a Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment. This regiment was selected to make the raid to Richmond in May, 1863, which it did under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Davies. In June, 1863,

on Colonel Kilpatrick's promotion to a Brigadier-General, Lieutenant-Colonel Davies was appointed Colonel. In August he was assigned to the command of a Brigade, and led the gallant charge at Culpepper, capturing two of the enemy's guns. For this he was recommended by Generals Meade and Pleasanton as a Brigadier-General, and was commissioned as such by the President on the 16th of September last. He commanded the Cavalry, under Kilpatrick, in the late raid on Richmond. He is popular with his command, who follow with confidence wherever he leads.

THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AT
GETTYSBURG,

WE give on page 209 a view of the NATIONAL SOLDIERS' CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG, which marks at once the terrors of that bloody field, and a nation's gratitude to those who there gave their lives to its defense. This Cemetery is pleasantly situated on the north and west sides of the gently sloping Cemetery Hill, and comprises a part of the field over which the battle so fearfully raged. It contains in all an area of seventeen and one-fourth acres. It was purchased by the State of Pennsylvania, which presented each State the lot occupied by its dead. Arrangements are making to inclose the grounds with suitable and substantial iron fence and a stone wall. A general commemorative monument will be erected in the centre of the design, in which the fallen heroes are buried. An observatory, placed on time knoll in the back part of the Cemetery, will give a very extended and comprehensive view of the whole battle-field. The Evergreen Cemetery adjoining will be long remembered by our soldiers who fought so gallantly on the memorable first days of July. Its dilapidated fences, shattered head-stones, and broken grounds still tell of the fearful conflict. About 3100 bodies have been raised from the field and reinterred in the Cemetery. Each grave (known and unknown) will be marked by a stone, and the name, company, and regiment of the recognized will be substantially and neatly engraved thereon.

TIPPOO SAIB.

ALL heroes are not heros de romans. Not all prews, chevaliers would be attractive as cavaliers, and one admires many things that one does not care to appropriate.

Tippoo Saib was neither handsome, nor accomplished, nor gently bred. He was a middle-aged negro of Congo descent, and formed after the ultra type of his race, with misshapen skull, immense lips, close-curled wool, and a skin as nearly black as human skin was ever tinted. He was heavy both of motion and intellect, and entirely ignorant of almost every thing a man should know. But at the end of my story deny, if you dare, that he was a hero, a preux chevalier, a man to be admired and revered.

When North Carolina joined the rebellion and began to raise troops, Mr. John Fernald got him-self transformed into Captain John Fernald. When, furthermore, he was requested to furnish one or more negroes to labor upon the fortifications of Roanoke Island, he magnificently replied, " Certainly," and went home to consider how it was to be done. For John Fernald, the needy heir of a spendthrift sire and grandsire, owned no lands save his heavily-mortgaged plantation of Mossmoor, no stock save the fine horse who was destined to bear his master to the wars, a few cows and pigs, Tippoo Saib, his wife Marcy, their child Scipio Africanus (Mr. Fernald had a fine taste in nomenclature), and Aphrodite, commonly called Frite, a girl upon whom devolved the house-labor while Marcy wrought with her husband in the fields, except in some great domestic emergency, when she was summoned to the assistance of Frite.

The household was a meagre one, and its affairs administered in a spirit of fretful economy, inculcated upon Frite by her master with oaths, by her mistress with peevish complaints as to its necessity.

Such scanty revenue as the farm still yielded was to be credited to Tippoo, who, with Marcy and the occasional help of hired service, both directed and executed all its operations.

This trusty auxiliary was not then to be lightly parted with, and yet he was time only chattel in Captain Fernald's possession answering to the description of the contribution he was called upon to make ; nor had he funds or available property of any kind for the purchase of a substitute. One course was left, and but one. Marcy and Scipio Africanus must be bartered for a laborer ; and Frite, who was retained as being less valuable as a piece of merchandise, and more so as a household drudge, must be urged to redoubled exertions in her own province, as Tippoo in his, to make good her place.

The plan, once resolved on, was soon executed, and Marcy and her child were attached to a coffle of slaves traveling south.

And what did Tippoo feel or say at being thus in a day bereft of wife and child, and such poor ties to home and love as a slave may know ?

What he felt the God who made him only knows. What he said was this:

" Maser, you loves lilly Missy ?"

" Of course I do, Tip."

"An' what way would you fix it to 'pear de right ting, Mas'r, dat lilly Missy should be toted off where woudn't nebber see her no more?"

"Oh well, Tip—I know, of course. But then you see, boy, it is different. You know such things are a matter of course. My child—why it is altogether another thing."

" Don' see it, Mas'r," replied Tippoo, with a slow shake of his poor, bewildered head. " Scip he brack, I know, and lilly Missy she white as an egg; but den I's brack myself, an' don'tink de wuss of my - chile fer bein' like his daddy. Don' see it nohow, Mas'r."

He stood leaning on his hoe and looking gloomily at the ground, not sullen or vindictive, only

sorrowfully seeking a solution to the terrible in-justice of his lot, dimly felt.

Captain Fernald, confusedly switching the weeds and the flowers about him, found no reply to make ; and after standing for a few moments, presenting a remarkable contrast by his nervous irritability of manner to the solemn calm of Tippoo's mood, he muttered some incoherent words of vague consolation, and sauntered away.

Nothing more was ever said between them on the subject ; but in the week intervening between that day and the one when the volunteer Captain joined his regiment he treated his silent slave with not only unwonted kindness, but in a certain apologetic and deprecatory manner, involuntary on his part, and unperceived by Tippoo's dim and preoccupied mind, but yet not without its effect on each.

The Captain joined his regiment. Tippoo Saib toiled early and late at his thankless tasks. Frite groaned and drudged unaided. And poor, feeble Mrs. Fernald took to her bed, with a complication of nervous disorders and distresses.

Only bright little Alice remained untouched by sorrow or wrong, to illuminate with the sunshine of her three summers some portion of the gloom of that dreary household.

"How's Mist's?" asked Tippoo Saib, one evening, about a month after his master's departure, as he entered the kitchen for his milking-pail.

"Wuss," responded Frite, sulkily ; and after an embarrassed pause, added, " I'se comin' out to help you milk, Tip, quick's I put lilly Missy to bed."

" You don't need to, Frite. I'd as good be (loin' as restin'," said Tippoo, heavily, as he went out. But Aphrodite, who had her own purposes to further, soon followed him, and after a little preliminary complaint of the hardships she endured, said, suddenly :

"Fs gwine off, Tip."

" Off! Whar's you gwine, Frite?"

"W'y to de Norf, or somewhere 'bout dere. You see, old Tip, Mist's she gettin' woes berry fas', an' to-night she tole' me sen' you for de doctor." "Whar's he?"

"Dere ain't none short o' Weston, an' Mist's said w'en you was dar you mout go tell her brudder's folks how she sick and not spectin' to get well no more."

" Hebbenly Marster ! Am she dat had, Frite ?"

"I reckon she am," returned Aphrodite, stoically; and immediately added, " So I's gwine to cut an' run 'fore Mas'r Charles git here. I reckon he look sharp 'nough arter us, Tip, wedder he sister dill or die. I knows whar dere's some cullud folks in de swamp waitin' for to git Norf."

"Has you seen Pete?" asked Tip, referring to a brother of Frite's, who had disappeared from a neighboring plantation some weeks previously.

"Nebber you min''bout dat, ole man," retorted Frite, nodding her head shrewdly. " On'y if you'd like to git your freedom easy, you corn' 'long o' me to-night to de Rig Swamp."

" But be you gwine to leave Mist's an' lilly Missy all 'lone," asked Tippoo, incredulously, "an' she so sick as you tell for?"

" She ain't no sicker dan I be. o' slavin' bore for noffin," returned Frite, angrily. "An' to-night's de las' chance fer jinin' dem folks. Dey spec's to move 'fore mornin'. I tole Pete I's be dar 'fore midnight."

" Be whar 'fore midnight?"

"whar I's gwine to jine him," retorted Frite, dryly. "Ef you's a min' ter go 'long, yer'll find out all 'bout it; an' ef you ain't agwine, w'y- 'tain't no matter."

"Wouldn' it do to-morrer mornin' arter I's ben to sen' de doctor to Mist's ?"

"Tell ye no, niXXer, 'twon't. Dey's gwine to start dis berry night arter moonrise, an' I ain't a gwine to gib ye no d'rections whar dey's gwine neider. Pete didn' want I should even say wot I has, but I worn't agwine to cut 'thout gibin you a chance fer to go'long too. So now say, ole Tip, right smart, wot'll ye do ?"

" Tank ye kin'ly, Frite," replied Tippoo, after a long pause, during which he softly smoothed and patted the head of Snowdrop, his favorite heifer. " Tank ye kin'ly, but I reckin I'll stop."

"Den all I's got to say is, do more fool you," responded Frite, venomously, as she lifted the full pail and turned toward the house.

" Stop a minute, honey. Don' yer fink- dat I's ongrateful for de chance, nor yet dat I doesn' keer for freedom. But dere ain't no way to get to Wes-ton an' back fore mornin', an' dat you sez is too late. Den dere ain't no house 'tween here an' dar, an' dere ain't never no one comes dis way, now Mas'r gone, and poor Mist's moat die an' lilly Missy too, 'fore any one '(I know on't."

"Mas'r wa'n't so tender o' your ole woman an' pickaninny," retorted the disappointed Frite. The thrust was unexpected, and the groat. loving, ignorant heart was unshielded by any philosophy, any hope, any faith that what seemed so wrong must yet be right. Tippoo abruptly hid his face in time white heifer's neck, and great heaving sobs began to shake his brawny frame, and the hot tears rolled down wondering Snowdrop's neck and mingled with the dust.

"I didn' mean to make you feel so had, Tip," said Frite, at last, in an awe-struck voice; "on'y I didn' see w'y year couldn' do same as Mas'r jes' done by you. Look arter yerself an' nebber min' what come to odor folks."

Tippoo stood up wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his coarse shirt, and looked at the girl with a patient smile as be replied,

'Pears like, Frite, I'd rather do de way dat I'd ha' lilted Mas'r to ha' done by me."

But do not think that Tippoo Saib; thus speaking, echoed mechanically, as so many of his white brethren do. that Golden Rule which is in all our mouths, and so few of our hearts. He had never heard of it—in fact, his religious education had progressed very little beyond that Mumbo Jumbo faith, in the odor of whose sanctity his ancestors had lived and died.

He did but speak out of the fullness of that child's heart of his, whose dumb anguish shook the uncouth frame that held it, but found no other expression

than the tears that had rolled down Snowdrop's neck.

Frite lingered a moment or two, but not finding any better argument than those she had already used, and feeling also a little injured by Tip's superiority, she finally went into the house and slammed the door violently, after which demonstration her mind relapsed into its former placidity.

Tippoo Saib went to his lonely cabin, cooked his scanty supper, and then slept as a man who labors fourteen hours out of twenty-four must sleep what-ever may be his mental disquietude.

Early in the morning he went up to the house to receive his directions for Weston from his mistress, and not without curiosity as to Frite's movements. The kitchen door stood open, and the autumn sun-shine streamed merrily in, but, except the cat purring in the ashes, no creature was visible, nor any preparations for breakfast going on.

"She's cut and lef' pore Mist's all lone," soliloquized Tip ; and his slow mind began a process of inquiry as to his own first duty in the case.

While he still stood pondering and scratching his woolly head the quick patter of small bare feet was heard along the passage, and in the open doorway stood a rosy little maid, her trailing night-dress deftly gathered in one hand, while the other " shed by the yellow hair" from her sweet but troubled face.   

" Uncle Tip, go call Frite," began she, eagerly. "Baby wants her supper, and Frite all gone. Uncle Tip make Frite come dress baby, and get baby's supper."

"Poor lilly Missy!'' was all Tip found to say, but his voice was tender as a woman's.

Lilly Missy came forward and put her morsel of a hand into his black paw, and when he knelt upon one knee and placed her upon the other she threw both arms round his neck and nestled close to his broad breast.

" Uncle Tip's good. Baby loves Uncle Tip ; but baby wants her supper," remarked she, persistently.

"Lilly Missy go and get into her bed again, an' Tip 'll go an' gist her some nice warm milk from time mooly cow, will she?"

" And give milk to poor mamma, too ; nice warm milk, for mamma all cold, and don't want to talk to baby. Mamma don't wake up at all, when baby tells she to wake up."

A sudden horror woke in Tip's bewildered mind.

"Lilly Missy, show Tip where her mammy is, an' he'll ask if she wants some milk," suggested he ; and Alice, sliding from his knee, seized his finger and led him on through the passage to the door of a large bedroom, where Mrs. Fernald had chosen to lie, after she was confined to her bed.

Standing at the door, with head reverently bared and breath suspended, Tip looked earnestly at time pale, pretty face turned toward him on the pillow. He needed not to approach. There is an unnamed sense, keener than sight, keener than touch, that unerringly warns living man of his neighborhood to death—a chill—a repugnance nervous desire to flee. Such it was that now crept through Tippoo's blood, and turned the rich brown of his honest skin to a muddy yellow. Such it was that, laying its chill hand even upon the innocent heart of the child, made her cling closer to the side of her strange comrade, murmuring :

" Baby's cold. Baby don't want stay here."

Releasing himself from her grasp, Tippoo Saib stole on tip-toe across the room, and reverently drew the fair linen sheet over that face as white as cold ; then drew down the blinds and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Come, lilly Missy," said he, soothingly, to time child, who now sat on the lower step of the stair-case, with her little trembling lip and grieved eyes, showing that the tears were close at hand.

"Come, show ole Tip whar's its little closes. an' he'll try to dress you. Den you'll go 'long wid him, milkin' de cows, an' den he'll gib you some breaksus."

" And give mamma some nice warm milk, so she feel all well again, and talk to baby?" asked the little maid.

" Mammy don' want for nothin', lilly Missy, an de nex' she cats an' drinks will be better nor any tiling we could gib her," said Tip, solemnly, with hazy visions of a very objective sort of Paradise flitting through his mind.

The child was satisfied with the vague assurance, and patted off to fetch her clothes. Theme, with much trouble and anxious effort to understand the probable intent of their construction, Tip finally adjusted, with some little aid from Alice herself, and then lifting her in ono arm, and taking his pails upon the other, he went out to milk.

This process completed, they returned to the house, and Tip, discovering some bread in a cup-board, prepared bread and milk- for a family of perhaps six hungry boys, and setting it before lilly Missy, who had forgotten all her troubles in a frolic with the cat, he bade her " eat it all up, like a blessed lamb," and she should have some more.

Then seating himself upon the door-step, with his elbows upon his knees, and his chin in the palms of his hands, Tippoo Saib unconsciously entered upon the crisis of his life.

Before him lay two courses. The one led to freedom—and remember that this word to a slave carries the same illimitable blessing that the word Heaven does to a freeman—the other to continued, nay, aggravated slavery, for Mr. Bennett, the brother of Mrs. Fernald, was well known as a hard master, and to hint, should Captain Fernald never re-turn from time war, 'rip would become thrall.

Tip raised his head and looked steadfastly North-ward, until in his dull eyes began to glow a fire, a manhood they never knew before. Then suddenly turning his head, be fixed them upon the little child, who, chattering gayly to the kitten as she fed her with the remnant of her breakfast, did not know that her own life hung in the balance, and that the untaught man whom the father had so bitterly wronged was its arbiter.

Tippoo knew the forest paths for miles about his bogie. Ile knew the course the party of fugitive would necessarily travel. He did not doubt


 

 

  

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