Page images
PDF
EPUB

sop & Co., of Valparaiso, upon Messrs. H. G. Enthom & Co., London, England, payable to my order, and indorsed by me, for the sum of four hundred and ninetyseven pounds sterling, which was purchased by the amount subscribed by loyal Americans in Chili, in aid of the sick and wounded soldiers of the Union army. The amount subscribed was two thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. I also inclose a list of the names of the subscribers and the amount paid by each. You will please appropriate the proceeds to the object indicated in such manner as you may deem most advisable.

This contribution, though not large, will, it is hoped, mitigate the suffering of the brave soldiers who have perilled their lives on the battle-field in behalf of our beloved country; while, at the same time, it has given to our citizens residing in Chili an opportunity of manifesting their patriotism in this hour of our utmost need in a substantial and unequivocal mode. Other remittances for the same purpose will be made from time to time until the rebellion is crushed. I have the honor to remain your obedient servant, THOMAS W. NELSON.

by mutual consent they finally ceased cursing, and grasping their muskets, charged into each other with the most unearthly yell ever heard on any field of battle. Muskets were clubbed, bayonet met bayonet, and in many instances, when old feuds made the belligerents crazy with passion, the musket was thrown away, and at it they went, pummelling, pulling, and gouging in rough and tumble style, and in a manner that any looker-on would consider a free fight. The rebels were getting rather the better of the fight, when the Twenty-third Kentucky succeeded in giving a flanking fire, when they retreated with quite a number of prisoners in their possession. The rebels had got fairly under weigh, when the Ninth Ohio came up on the double-quick, and charging on their now disordered ranks, succeeded in capturing all their prisoners, besides taking in return a great many of the rebels. As the late belligerents were conducted to the rear they appeared to have forgotten their late animosity, and were now on the best terms imaginable, laughing, and chatting, and joking, and, as the rebels were well supplied with whiskey, the canteens were readily handed about from one to the other, until they all became as jolly as possible under the circumstances.

AN EXPEDIENT TO ABATE SHINPLASTERS HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF MEMPHIS, MEMPHIS, Nov. 26, 1862.

MR. SEWARD TO MR. NELSON. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASINGTON, March 9, 1863. SIR: I have read your despatch of the first ultimo, accompanied by a list of loyal citizens residing in Chili, who have subscribed to a fund for the relief of the sick and wounded soldiers of the Union army, and by a bill of exchange for four hundred and ninetyGENTLEMEN: I regret to notice that you propose to seven pounds sterling, remitting that fund for the pur-issue a species of currency of denominations as low as pose for which it was destined.

You will be pleased to inform the subscribers that their proceeding will be viewed at home with great sensibility, as doing honor alike to their benevolence and their patriotism. Care will be taken that their bounty shall be so disposed as to reach the most needy and worthy of those for whom it has been offered. I am, sir, your obedient servant, WM. H. SEWARD. TO THOMAS W. NELSON, Esq., etc., etc., Chili.

A COMPANY OF CHEROKEES.-Major Thomas, of the confederate States army in East-Tennessee, has in his command a full company of Cherokee Indians from the Indian settlements of North-Carolina. They make fine soldiers, obey orders promptly, make the best scouts in the world, have committed no depredations upon citizens, are perfectly orderly and docile, and have done much to rid that modern Sodom of its abolition bushwhackers and assassins. Columbus (Ga.) Sun.

ments.

[ocr errors]

INCIDENT OF STONE RIVER. In the rebel charge upon McCook's right, the rebel Third Kentucky was advancing full upon one of the loyal Kentucky regiThese two regiments were brought from the same county, and consequently were old friends and neighbors, and now about to meet for the first time as enemies. As soon as they came near enough for recognition they mutually ceased firing, and began abusing, and cursing, and swearing at each other, calling each other the most outlandish names; and all this time the battle was roaring around them without much attention from either side. It was hard to tell which regiment would come off the victor in this wordy battle. As far as I could see, both sides were terrible at swearing; but this could not always last;

To the Mayor and Common Council of the City of Memphis:

66 ten cents

bad money with which your community is already afshinplasters" to swell the amount of flicted. The issuing of bills of credit by way of money is, in my judgment, in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States; and I think Congress, at the last session, passed a bill prohibiting all issues below one dollar, and provided a species of currency called the "post-office currency," which will soon supplant the worthless trash which now is a disgrace to the name of money. As soon as possible, enough of this post-office money will come here, and suffice for the wants of the people.

of Mexico, rather than those high models of ancient Inasmuch as we seem to be imitating the example and modern times that we were wont to do in times past, I would suggest a simpler and better currency for the times. In Mexico soap is money, and the people do their marketing through the medium of cakes of soap. Why do you not use cotton for money? It has a very convenient price-fifty cents a pound. Put it up in pounds and fractions, and it will form a far better currency than the miserable shinplasters you propose. If cotton be king, it has the genuine stamp and makes money- is money. Therefore I suggest that, instead of little bits of paper, you set to work and put up cotton in little parcels of five, ten, twenty-five, and fifty cents.

If it be my last act, I wish to spare the people of Memphis from the curse of any more bad money. Yours in haste,

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General Commanding.

AN INCIDENT.-Rev. Robert Colyer, chaplain to one of the Western regiments, in an address in Boston, Mass., related the following:

When I was in Jefferson City, Mo., I found the hospitals in the most fearful condition you can imagine.

I cannot stop to tell you of the scenes I saw; it is enough to say that one poor fellow had lain there sick | on the hard boards, and seen five men carried away dead, one after the other, from his side. He was worn to a skeleton; worn through so that great sores were all over his back, and filthy beyond telling. One day, a little before my visit, old Hannah, a black woman who had some washing to do for a doctor, went down the ward to hunt him up. She saw this dying man and had compassion on him, and said: "O doctor! let me bring to the man my bed, to keep him off the floor." The doctor said: "The man is dying; he will be dead to-morrow." To-morrow came, and old Hannah could not rest. She went to see the man and he was still alive. Then she got some help, took her bed, put the man on it, and carried him bodily to her shanty; then she washed him all over, as a woman would a baby, and fed him with a spoon, and fought death hand to hand day and night, and beat him back and saved the soldier's life. The day before I went to Jefferson the man had gone on a furlough to his home in Indiana. He besought Hannah to go with him, but she could not spare time; there was all that washing to do. She went with him to the steamboat, got him fixed to her mind, and then she kissed him, and the man lifted up his voice as she left him and wept like a child. I say we have grown noble in our sufferings.

[ocr errors]

RICHMOND, VA., July 29. From a gentleman recently from Strasburgh, we learn that there occurred a panic among the Yankees at that place on last Wednesday week. A hurricane sweeping from the south raised a great line of dust in the road leading from Front Royal. The Yankees, some two thousand in number, thought the army of the ubiquitous Stonewall" was certainly upon them. Setting fire to all their tents and stores, they fled in confusion, the greater number of them not halting till they arrived in Winchester. The amount of property destroyed by them in this panic is estimated at between $30,000 and $40,000.-Richmond Examiner, July 29.

[blocks in formation]

The cause that was won by the blood of our sires-
The glorious emblem of Freedom they gave-
With holiest ardor each Freeman inspires,
From the hills of the North to the home of the
slave.

Undaunted by death, unmoved by defeat,
The patriot ranks return to the field,
Prepared for the foes that in battle they meet-
To bleed and to die, but never to yield.

In the God who espouses the cause of the Just,
And reigns in all lands with omnipotent power,
The Nation will ever confidingly trust,
When God by his might shall all fetters unbind,
And seek for his aid in its perilous hour.
And the claims of the free shall be rightly cs-
teemed,

THE SPIRIT OF ILLINOIS.-A few days ago Gov. The flag that we honor, unfurled to the wind,

Yates of Illinois received a letter from a town in the south part of the State, in which the writer complained that traitors in his town had cut down the American flag, and asking what ought to be done in the premises. The Governor promptly wrote him as follows: "Whenever you raise the flag on your own soil, or on the public property of the State or country, or at any public celebration, from honest love to that flag and patriotic devotion to the country which it symbolizes, and any traitor dares to lay his unhallowed hand upon it to tear it down, then I say shoot him down as you would a dog, and I will pardon you for the offence."Boston Transcript, July 25.

CHICAGO, Thursday, July 31.-The Times has a special despatch, dated Memphis, 28th instant, which says: "Late advices from the South by rebel sources are important. Ten iron-clad gunboats, built in England, and fully equipped, have arrived off Mobile harbor, and three more are on their way. These constitute a fleet ordered by the Southern Confederacy, and purchased in Europe. They mount from ten to thirty guns each, and are said to be mailed with six-inch iron. The blockade was run openly by the dint of supe

Forever shall float o'er the Nation redeemed.

MARCH ALONG.

BY GEORGE H. BOKER.

Soldiers are we from the mountain and valley-
Soldiers are we from the hill and the plain;
Under the flag of our fathers we rally;
Death, for its sake, is but living again.
Then march along, gay and strong,
March to battle with a song!
March, march along!

We have a history told of our nation-
We have a name that must never go down!
Heroes achieved it through toil and privation!
Bear it on, bright with its ancient renown!
Then march along, etc.

Who that shall dare say the flag waving o'er us,
Which floated in glory from Texas to Maine,
Must fall, where our ancestors bore it before us,
Writes his own fate on the roll of the plain!
Then march along, etc.

And education as a dower,

Look at it, traitors, and blush to behold it!
Quail as it flashes its stars in the sun!
Think you a hand in the nation will fold it,
While there's a hand that can level a gun?
Then march along; etc.

Carry it onward till victory earn it

The rights it once owned in the land of the free; Then, in God's name, in our fury we'll turn it Full on the treachery over the sea! Then march along, etc.

England shall feel what a vengeance the liar

Stores in the bosom he aims to deceive;
England shall feel how God's truth can inspire;
England shall feel it, but only to grieve.
Then march along, etc.

Peace shall unite us again and forever,

Though thousands lie cold in the graves of these

[blocks in formation]

Fail! with millions spent, with thousands slain,
With all our tears, with all our pains,
With all we've lost, with all we've won?
By Fredericksburgh! by Donelson!
By heaven, no!

Fail! never while a Bunker Hill,
Or Cowpens field is whispering still,
Or Saratoga's frowning peak,
Or Brandywine's red flowing creek,
With Yorktown battlements still speak
Of glorious deeds.

We cannot drop a single star,
While Italy looks to us afar,
While Poland lives, while Ireland hopes,
While Afric's son in slavery gropes,
And silent pleads.

Fail! never breathe such burning shame,
Sell not your birthright or your name,
He's sure a coward or a knave
Who'd heap dishonor on the grave
Of all the host of martyred brave,

For liberty.

What! twenty millions freemen fail, Whose strength is borne on every gale, Whose power is of such vast extent, That it grasps in half the continent, From sea to sea.

With plains so rich, the race can feed Or starve their enemies if need; With iron roads all o'er the land, With cities stretched on every hand, And flag unfurled from every strand, Upon the gale.

Bringing knowledge that's always power,
While maid and matron, son and sire,
Are burning with the olden fire,
They cannot fail.

With forests deep and valleys wide,
With rattling wheels on every side,
With mines of gold, with iron hills,
With giant streams and massive mills,
With hands for toil, and master wills
To move the whole.

Whose art out-rivals every one,
Whose eagle soars in every sun,

Whose name and fame and wealth are known
In every land and clime and zone,
From pole to pole.

By all the grand historic names!
By all our fathers' heaven-born aims!
By the great name of Washington!
By all the past and present won!
By all the future yet to come!
We must not fail.

Fail! never breathe the word again,
"Twill make the bones of heroes slain,
Now bleaching on Antietam's plain,
Cry out in agony of pain,

To hear the wail.

What! shall a nation great and free,
Now blazoned bright in heraldry,
Be stranded and go down in night,
Forgotten, lost to human sight,
Too base to struggle for the right,
'Gainst tyranny.

No! banish case, each pelfish god-
No! never stoop to kiss the rod-
What! shall a puny foe prevail,
And spirits of our sires bewail
Their progeny?

Fail! traitors only breathe the word;
Let those with love of country stirred
Rise in their strength, nor fail, nor falter,
But firm around their country's altar,
United stand.

Northmen! you feel the mighty throes
Of your nation struggling with her foes;
Rise in your strength! rise in your might!
Strike! for your country and the right!
Strike! for your flag, strike treason pale,
Strike! him who dares to utter fail,
Strike! for yourselves, your hearthstone fires,
Strike! with the nerve each hope inspires,
Strike! for your sons in battle torn,
Strike! for your children yet unborn,
Strike! for mankind blows that will tell,
On time's great stream responding swell,
Strike deadly blows, none else will do,
Strike traitors till they beg and sue,
Strike crushing blows, then war will cease,
And then will fall the dews of peace
All o'er our land.

JARRETTSVILLE, June 30, 1863.

BOSTON HYMN.

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

The word of the Lord by night
To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the sea-side,
And filled their hearts with flame.

God said, I am tired of Kings,

I suffer them no more;

Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.

Think ye I made this ball

A field of havoc and war,

Where tyrants great and tyrants small
Might harry the weak and poor?

My angel-his name is Freedom-
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing.

Lo! I uncover the land

Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers his statue,
When he has wrought his best.

I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip thetr foot in the seas,
And soar to the air-borne flocks
Of clouds, and the boreal fleece.

I will divide my goods,
Call in the wretch and slave:
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.

I will have never a noble,
No lineage counted great:
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
Shall constitute a State.

Go, cut down trees in the forest,
And trim the straightest boughs;
Cut down trees in the forest,
And build me a wooden house.

Call the people together,
The young men and the sires,
The digger in the harvest-field,
Hireling and him that hires.

And here in a pine state-house
They shall choose men to rule
In every needful faculty,

In church, and state, and school.

Lo! now, if these poor men
Can govern the land and sea,
And make just laws below the sun,
As planets faithful be.

And ye shall succor men;
"Tis nobleness to serve:
Help them who cannot help again;
Beware from right to swerve.

I break your bonds and masterships,
And I unchain the slave:

Free be his heart and hand henceforth,
As wind and wandering wave.

I cause from every creature
His proper good to flow:
So much as he is and doeth,
So much he shall bestow.

But, laying his hands on another
To coin his labor and sweat,
He goes in pawn to his victim
For eternal years in debt.

VOL VII-POETRY 2

[blocks in formation]

O North! give him beauty for rags,
And honor, O South! for his shame;
Nevada! coin thy golden crags
With Freedom's image and name.

Up! and the dusky race
That sat in darkness long-
Be swift their feet as antelopes,
And as behemoth strong.

Come East, and West, and North,
By races, as snow-flakes,
And carry my purpose forth,
Which neither halts nor shakes.

My will fulfilled shall be,
For, in daylight or in dark,
My thunderbolt has eyes to see
His way home to the mark.

FORGIVEN.

"In a recent battle fell a secession colonel, the last remaining son of his mother, and she a widow. That mother had sold eleven children of an old slave mother, her servant; that servant went to her and said: 'Missus, we're even now; you sold all my children; de Lord took all yours; not one left to bury cither of us; now I forgive you.'"

A Southern widow knelt beside the bier
Of her lifeless son,

They had brought him back from the battle-field,
The field that he died upon;

And of all her children, this dead boy
Was the last remaining one.

Oh! lonely through that silent house
The wide, deserted halls;

Now never a sound of dancing feet
Across their pavement falls-

Nor the mother's voice through the summer air,
After her children calls.

One after one, from her home they went,
One after one, to the grave,

And their father was laid by the village kirk
Where the solemn cedars wave,

And this last one of her household band,
How she had hoped to save!

But that hope died out on the fatal day,
So sorrowful and black,

When strangers brought unto her door
That only darling back-
Not as he went, so strong and brave
And full of life, alack!

Oh! sad it was to hear her mourn
In that wide, lonely home;
Not a ray of comfort or of hope
To radiate the gloom,
Not a kindred step beside her own,
To follow to the tomb.

One came to her, but not of kin,
Only an aged slave,

And spoke, as she never spoke before-
Perhaps grief made her brave;
The swelling tide of a mighty grief
Impulsive accents gave.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

BY JOHN A. DORGAN.

Not fair, for they too long have borne
The badge of shame, the lash of scorn;
Not fair, for seamed with many a scar
Their spirits like their bodies are;

Nor learned in books, nor smooth in speech,
Whom tyrants made it crime to teach;
But strong of limb and true of heart,
Behold them in their manhood smart
For this their trial-day arrayed,
The soldiers of the Black Brigade.

Forward! And with one pulse sublime,
And ringing tread of ancient rhyme,
They sweep; and forward as they sweep,
The thunders of the cannon leap
Upon them, and their bleeding host
Within the battle-cloud is lost;
Flash sword and bayonet, shot and shell
Fly screaming through that mist of hell,
But onward, onward, undismayed,
They hold their way--the Black Brigade.

And on, and on, and on they tread;
And all the field is heaped with dead,
And slippery grows the grass with gore,
But onward, onward, yet once more.
In vain! In vain! The moated wall
Mocks them, but valiantly they fall;
Anselmo dies, but to his breast
The flag he bore in life is pressed;
Or knave or fool who did not aid
The heroes of the Black Brigade.

Again, again, and yet again
They charge, but ah! too few, in vain.
The negro's courage is in vain,
Nor can atone the Saxon's brain;
The day is lost; on every side
Have Saxons fled; let none deride
Who mark them, as with footsteps slow

And eyes of rage they backward go;

And all who saw how few huzzaed

In honor of the Black Brigade.

But not for them was lost the day,
Who made like Winkelried a way,
And bridge-like o'er whose bodies dead
Shall Freedom to their brethren tread;
The sickle they shall grasp no more,
But harvest in the fields of war;
Their history shall keep the fame
Of these, who dying overcame;
Their poets in their songs shall braid
The memory of the Black Brigade.

ARM AND OUT.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

Arm and out, ye Pennsylvanians;
Leave your homesteads, arm and out!
Hear ye not the rebel foemen
Coming with a mighty shout?

In delay lose not a minute;

This is not the time for doubt

Beat your drums and load your muskets;
Pennsylvanians, arm and out!

Lee is bringing on his cohorts,

Ninety thousand strong, about;

Meet them, kill them, drive them backward,
Pennsylvanians, arm and out!

Young men, bid adieu to sweethearts,
Though they whimper, scold, and pout;
Duty calls you now, not dalliance;
Pennsylvanians, arm and out!

Husbands, quit your wives and children,
Social cares and thoughts devout,
Pleasure, work, trade, occupation;
Pennsylvanians, arm and out!

Take your hands from mines and forges,
Where free labor made them stout;
March, resistless, to the battle;
Pennsylvanians, arm and out!

Arm and out! your country orders-
Put the rebel ranks to rout;
Fight for love, and home, and Union-
Pennsylvanians, arm and out!

NEW-YORK, June 16, 1863.

CAVALRY SONG.

BY ELBRIDGE JEFFERSON CUTLER.

The squadron is forming, the war-bugles play.
To saddle, brave comrades, stout hearts for a fray!
Our captain is mounted-strike spurs, and away!
No breeze shakes the blossoms or tosses the grain;
But the wind of our speed floats the galloper's mane,
As he feels the bold rider's firm hand on the rein.

Lo! dim in the starlight their white tents appear!
Ride softly! ride slowly! the onset is near!
More slowly! more softly! the sentry may hear!

Now fall on the rebel-a tempest of flame!
Strike down the false banner whose triumph were
shame!

Strike, strike for the true flag, for freedom and fame!
Hurrah! sheathe your swords! the carnage is done.
All red with our valor, we welcome the sun.
Up, up with the stars! we have won! we have won!

A BRAVE PENNSYLVANIAN.

Cairo, June 23, 1863.-Permit me to note to you some of the incidents I witnessed at the siege before Vicksburgh.

At the battle and capture of Port Gibson, Sergeant Charles Bruner, a Pennsylvanian, of Northampton County, with a squad of fifty men of the Twenty-third [regiment Wisconsin volunteers, was the first to enter

« PreviousContinue »