Chapter VIII: Part 8

The French army, since Napoleon gave it the impress of his genius, has in many characteristics been well adapted to the peculiarities of republican institutions. A soldier can rise from the ranks to the highest command, by the exhibition of valor and ability, more easily, in fact, than he can in our own army, with which political favoritism has much to do in promotions and appointments. By a recent policy of our War Department, however, vacancies have been left in the subordinate commissioned officers of the regular army, which are to be filled exclusively from the ranks. Many deserving officers in the army have been private soldiers.

No system will be effective for providing an adequate military organization that does not include thorough instruction for officers. The prevailing feeling in our country, as remarked above, has rather been to underrate the army, and to look with some jealousy on the West Point Military Academy and its graduates. The present war has effected a change in this respect. The country owes too much to the educated regular officers for the organization and conduct of the volunteer forces, to be insensible of the merits of the system which produced them. A capable civilian can undoubtedly become just as good an officer of any rank as a graduate of West Point; but it must be through a course of study similar to that there pursued. No natural ability can supply the want of the scientific training in the military, more than in any other profession. Military science is only the result of all the experience of the past, embodied in the most comprehensive and practical form. Napoleon was a profound student of military history. In his Memoirs he observes: 'Alexander made 8 campaigns, Hannibal 17 (of which 1 was in Spain, 15 in Italy, and 1 in Africa), Cæsar made 15 (of which 8 were against the Gauls, and 5 against the legions of Pompey), Gustavus Adolphus 5, Turenne 18, the Prince Eugene of Savoy 18, and Frederic 11 (in Bohemia, Silesia, and upon the Elbe.) The history of these 87 campaigns, made with care, would be a complete treatise on the art of war. The principles one should follow, in both offensive and defensive war, flow from them as a source.'

To one familiar with the gradual progress in the organization of our armies, it is interesting to recur to the time when the first levies of volunteers were raised. Regiments were hurried into Washington half accoutred and indifferently armed. Officers and men were for the most part equally ignorant of the details, a knowledge of which enables a soldier to take care of himself in all circumstances. Staff officers knew nothing of the various departments and the methods of obtaining supplies. The Government had not been able to provide barrack accommodations for the immense irruption of 'Northern barbarians,' and the men were stowed like sheep in any unoccupied buildings that could be obtained. These were generally storehouses, without any cooking arrangements, so that when provisions were procured, no one knew what to do with them. Hundreds of men, who previously scarcely knew but that beef-steaks and potatoes grew already cooked and seasoned, could be seen every day sitting disconsolately on the curbstones cooking their pork on ramrods over little fires made with twigs gathered from the trees. Those who happened to be the lucky possessors of a few spare dimes, straggled off to restaurants. Washington, in those days, was only a great country-town, and not the immense city which the war has made it. The vague and laughable attempts of officers to assume military dignity and enforce discipline, with the careless insubordination of the men, furnished many amusing scenes. It was not easy for officer and man, who had gone to the same school, worked in the same shop, sung in the same choir, and belonged to the same base-ball club, to assume their new relations.

Privates would address their officer, 'I say, Bill, have you got any tobacco?' Officers would reply, 'Do you not know, sir, the proper method of addressing me?' Private would exclaim, 'Well, I guess now you're puttin' on airs, a'n't you?' Pompous colonels strutted about in a blaze of new uniforms, and even line officers then considered themselves of some consequence; while a brigadier-general was a sort of a demigod--a man to be revered as something infallible. Now-a-days old veterans care very little for even the two stars of a major-general, unless they know that the wearer has some other claims to respect than his shoulder straps.

As matters gradually became arranged, the troops were provided with tents, and encamped in the vicinity. Never was guard duty more vigilantly performed than in those camps around Washington. Every one of us came to the capital with the expectation of being immediately despatched to Virginia, and ordered to pitch into a miscellaneous fight with the rebels. Rebel guerillas and spies were supposed to be lurking in the surroundings of the capital, and 'taking notes' in all the camps. Woe betide the unsuspicious stranger who might loiter curiously around the encampments. With half a dozen bayonets at his breast he was hurried off in utter amazement to the guard house. At night the sentinels saw 'in every bush' a lurking rebel. Shots were pattering all night in every direction. Unfortunate straggling cows were frequently reduced to beeves by the bullets of the wary guardians. The colonel's horse broke loose one night, and, while browsing around, his long, flowing tail, the colonel's pride, was reduced to an ignominious 'bob' by a bullet, which neatly severed it near the root. Many was the trigger pulled at me, many the bullet sent whizzing at my head, as I returned to camp after an evening in the city. Fortunately, the person fired at was usually safe--any one within the circle of a hundred feet diameter was likely to receive the ball. One evening, about dusk, going into camp, I took a running jump over a ditch, and this rapid motion so frightened an honest German sentinel--probably a little muddled with lager--that he actually forgot to fire, and came at me in a more natural way with his musket clubbed. I escaped a broken head at the expense of a severely bruised arm. The rule for challenging, it used to be said, was to 'fire three times, and then cry 'halt!' instead of the reverse, as prescribed in the regulations.

When the order--long anticipated--for actually invading Virginia arrived, then was there excitement. Every man felt the premonition of battle, and nerved himself for conflict. As we marched down to Long Bridge, at midnight, perfect silence prevailed. Breaths were suspended, footfalls were as light as snowflakes, orders were given in hollow whispers. We placed our feet on the 'sacred soil' with more emotion than the Normans felt when landing in England, or the Pilgrims at Plymouth. This was war--the real, genuine thing. But our expectations were not realized. As the 'grand army' advanced, the scattered rebel pickets withdrew. The only fatality of the campaign was the death of the gallant but indiscreet Ellsworth. We had our first experience of lying out doors in our blankets. How vainglorious we felt over it! Many a poor fellow complained jocosely of the hardship and exposure, whom since I have seen perfectly content to obtain a few pine boughs to keep him from being submerged in an abyss of mud. Many, alas! have gone to a couch where their sleep will be no more broken by the reveille of drum and fife and bugle--in the trenches of Yorktown, in the thickets of Williamsburg, in the morasses of the Chickahominy, on the banks of the Antietam, at the foot of those fatal heights at Fredericksburg, in the wilderness of Chancellorsville, on the glorious ridge of Gettysburg. Comrades of the bivouac and the mess! ye are not forgotten in that sleep upon the fields where swept the infernal tide of battle, obliterating so much glorious life, leaving so much desolation! Even amid the roar of cannon, exulting in their might for destruction, amid the shrieking of the merciless shells, amid the blaze of the deadly musketry, memories of you occur to us. We resolve that your lives shall not have been sacrificed in vain. And in these long, dreary, monotonous days of winter, as the sleet rattles on our frail canvas covering, and the wind roars in our rude log chimneys, while the jests go around and the song arises, thoughts of the battle fields of the past cross our minds--we recall the incidents of fierce conflicts--we say, there and there fell----, no nobler fellows ever lived! A blunt and hasty epitaph, but the desultory vicissitudes of a soldier's life permit no other--we expect no other for ourselves when our turn to follow you shall come. So we break out into our favorite chorus:

'Then we'll stand by our glasses steady,
And we'll drink to our ladies' eyes.
Three cheers for the dead already,
And huzza for the next man that dies.

Though your graves are unmarked, save by the simple broad slab from which storms have already effaced the pencilled legend, or perhaps only by the murderous fragment of iron, which lies half imbedded on the spot where you fell and where you lie, yet you live in the memory of your comrades, you live in the hearts of those who were desolated by your death, you live in that eternal record of heaven where are written the names of those who have given their lives to promote the truth and the freedom which God has guaranteed to humanity in the great charters of Nature and Revelation. For we are fighting in a holy cause. No crusade to redeem Eastern shrines from infidels, no struggle for the privilege of religious freedom, no insurrection for civil independence, has been more holy than this strife against the great curse and its abettors, who seek to make a land of freedom a land of bondage to substitute for a Union of freemen, miserable oligarchies controlled by breeders of slaves. If we die in this cause, we have lived a full life. An anomalous state of things had existed between the time of the attack on Sumter and the 'invasion' of Virginia. Although the war had in reality commenced, communication was not suspended between Washington and Alexandria. On the day following the march over the Potomac, we found the plans of intrenchments marked out by wooden forms on the spots which subsequently became Fort Corcoran, opposite Georgetown, Fort Runyon, opposite Washington, and Fort Ellsworth, in front of Alexandria. How this had so speedily been done by the engineers I did not learn until many months afterward, when one of the party who planned the works described the _modus operandi_. They went over to Virginia in a very rustic dress, and professed to the rebel pickets to be from 'down country,' come up to take a look at 'them durned Yankees.' So they walked around unmolested, selected the sites for the intrenchments, formed the plans in their minds, made some stealthy notes and sketches, and, returning to Washington, plotted the works on paper, gave directions to the carpenters about the frames, which were constructed; and, after the army crossed, these were put in their proper positions, tools were placed conveniently, and, soon after the crossing was made, the men commenced to work.

In raising these intrenchments, drilling and organizing, the army passed about a month--varied only by alarms two or three times a week at night that the rebels were coming, whereupon the troops turned out and stood in line till daylight. It was shrewdly suspected that these alarms were purposely propagated from headquarters to accustom the men to form themselves quickly at night without panic. In after times, in front of Richmond, we had such duty to perform, without any factitious reasons. It was a matter of necessary precaution to stand to our arms nightly for two or three hours before daybreak.

Until just previous to the disastrous Bull Run campaign, no higher organization than that of brigades was adopted; but a day or two before the march commenced, General McDowell organized the brigades into divisions. These were reorganized by General McClellan as the two and three years volunteers joined the army. The organization of corps was made in the spring of 1862, just before the commencement of the Peninsula campaign, and is now the organization of the army.

The complete organization is now as follows:

_Regiments_, generally of ten companies.
_Brigades_, of four or more regiments.
_Divisions_, generally of three brigades.
_Corps_, generally of three divisions.

The various staffs have gradually been organized, until they now stand (in the Army of the Potomac) as follows:

At the headquarters of the army:

_A Chief of Staff._
_An Assistant Adjutant-General._
_A Chief Quartermaster._
_A Chief Commissary._
_A Chief of Artillery._
_An Assistant Inspector-General._
_A Medical Director._
_A Judge Advocate-General._
_An Ordnance Officer._
_A Provost Marshal-General._
_A Chief Engineer._
_A Signal Officer._
_Aides-de-Camp._

The rank of these officers, as the staff is now composed, is as follows: The chief of staff, a major-general; the assistant adjutant-general, chief of artillery, and provost marshal, brigadier-generals; assistant inspector-general, a colonel; medical director, chief engineer, judge advocate-general, majors; the signal officer, chief commissary, and ordnance officer, captains; the aides, of various ranks, lieutenants, captains, and majors. Most of these officers do not derive their rank from their position on the staff, but it has been given them in the volunteer organization, or pertains to them in the line of the regular or volunteer army. All the department officers (meaning all except aides) have a number of assistants, and the general officers have staffs and aides of their own, to which they are entitled by law. The total number of officers on duty at the headquarters may amount to fifty or more, and there is plenty of work for all of them during a campaign. Besides the regular staff, constituted as above related, there are the officers of an infantry regiment which furnishes guards and escorts, and officers of cavalry squadrons detailed to furnish orderlies. The headquarters of the army is therefore a town of considerable population.

At the headquarters of the different corps the staffs are as follows:

_An Assistant Adjutant-General_--Lieutenant-colonel.
_A Chief Quartermaster_--Lieutenant-colonel.
_A Chief Commissary_--Lieutenant-colonel.
_An Assistant Inspector-General_--Lieutenant-colonel.

[These officers derive their rank from their position, under a law of Congress.]

_A Medical Director_--being detailed from
the senior surgeons of the regular or
Volunteer army, and ranking as a
major.

_A Commissary of Musters._
_A Provost Marshal._
_A Signal Officer._

[These officers are detailed from the line, and have the ranks which there belongs to them. The signal corps is, however, now being organized, with ranks prescribed by law.]

_Aides-de-Camp_--one with the rank of major, and two with the rank of captain. Besides these, additional aides are sent to the corps from those created under an act of Congress of 1861--now repealed--and are detailed from the line.

* * * * *

The quartermaster, commissary, and medical director generally have assistant officers. There is a squadron of cavalry and usually a company of infantry at each corps headquarters.

The staffs of divisions and brigades resemble those of the corps, except that the regular staff officers usually rank only as captains, except in cases where a major-general commands; he is entitled to an assistant adjutant-general with the rank of major. Officers detailed from the line to act on any staff in any capacity, bring with them the rank they hold in the line. They are not entitled, except the authorized aides and in some other particular cases, when ordered by the War Department, to additional allowances; but if they are foot officers, and are properly detailed for mounted duty, the quartermaster of the staff on which they serve is obligated to furnish them a horse and equipments. Divisions usually have an _ordnance officer_, whose duty it is to take charge of the ammunition of the division, keep the quantity ordered, and supply the troops in time of battle. By law the chief of artillery at corps headquarters is the chief ordnance officer for the corps, but this arrangement has been found impracticable. In the Army of the Potomac the chief of artillery does not remain at corps headquarters, but is assigned directly to the command of the artillery, where he also has a staff, including an ordnance officer, who supplies ammunition and other articles pertaining to his department, exclusively to the artillery.

The _staff_, it must be recollected, is to an army what the masons, carpenters, ironworkers, and upholsterers are to a building. As the latter are the agents for executing the designs of the architect, so the staff are the medium by which the commander of an army effects his purposes. Without competent staff officers in all the various grades of organization constituting an army, the most judicious plans of the ablest commander will entirely fail. If a campaign is to be made, the commanding general, having formed his general strategical plan, needs the advice of his chief of staff as to the condition of his troops, and his assistance in devising the details. His adjutant-general's office must contain full records of the numbers of the troops--effective and non-effective--armed and unarmed--sick and well--present and absent, with all reports and communications relative to the state of the army. His quartermaster must have been diligent to provide animals, wagons, clothing, tents, forage, and other supplies in his department; his commissary and ordnance officer, the same in relation to subsistence and munitions--all having made their arrangements to establish depots at the most accessible points on the proposed route of march. His chief of artillery must have bestowed proper attention to keeping the hundred batteries of the army in the most effective condition. His chief engineer must have informed himself of all the routes and the general topography of the country to be traversed; he must know at what points rivers can be best crossed, and where positions for battle can be best obtained; his pontoon trains and intrenching implements must be complete and ready for service; his maps prepared for distribution to subordinate commanders. His inspector must have seen that the orders for discipline and equipment have been complied with. His medical director must have procured a supply of hospital stores, and organized the ambulance and hospital departments. His provost marshal must have made adequate arrangements to prevent straggling, plundering, and other disorders. His aides must have informed themselves of the positions of the various commands, and become acquainted with the principal officers, so as to take orders through night and storm with unerring accuracy. They must be cool-headed, daring fellows, alert, and well posted, good riders, and have good horses under them.

All this work cannot be accomplished in a day, a week, or a month. The full preparations required to render a campaign successful must have been the result of long, patient, thoughtful consideration and organization. It is no time to teach sailors seamanship in a hurricane. They must know where to find the ropes and what to do with them, with the spray dashing in their eyes and the black clouds scurrying across the sky. It is no time for staff officers to begin their duties when a great army is to be moved. Then it is needed that every harness strap, every gun-carriage wheel, every knapsack, every soldier's shoe should have been provided and should be in serviceable order; that the men should have had their regular fare, and have been kept in the healthiest condition; that clear and explicit information be ready on all details. Prepared by the assiduous, intelligent labor of a vigilant and faithful staff, an army becomes a compact, homogeneous mass--without individuality, but pervaded by one animating will--cohesive by discipline, but pliant in all its parts--impetuous with enthusiasm, but controlled easily in the most minute operations.

These remarks, relative to the requirements for an effective staff, pertain to all grades of organization. The staff officers at the headquarters of the army organize general arrangements and supervise the operations of subordinate officers of their department at the headquarters of corps; these have more detailed duties, and, in their turn, supervise the staffs of the divisions; the duties of these again are still more detailed, and they supervise the staffs of brigades; these finally are charged with the specific details pertaining to their commands, supervising the staffs of the regiments, who are in direct communication with the officers of companies.

Prepared for service by the unremitting labors of the staff officers, it is seldom that the army cannot move in complete order at six hours' notice. Think what preparation is required for a family of half a dozen to get ready to spend a month in the country--how tailors and milliners and dressmakers are put in requisition--how business arrangements must be made--how a thousand little vexing details constantly suggest themselves which need attention. Think of a thousand families--ten thousand--making these preparations! What a vast hurly burly! What an ocean of confusion! How many delays and disappointments! During the fortnight or month which has elapsed while these families have been getting ready, an army of fifty or a hundred thousand men has marched a hundred miles, fought a battle, been reëquipped, reclothed, reorganized, and, perhaps, the order of a nation's history has experienced an entire change.

Our next paper will describe in detail the operations of the staff departments.

SLEEPING.

The purple light sleeps on the hills,
The shadowed valleys sleep between,
Down through the shadows slide the rills,
The drooping hazels o'er them lean.

The clouds lie sleeping in the sky--
The crimson beds of sleeping airs;
The broad sun shuts his lazy eye
On all the long day's weary cares.

The far, low meadows sleep in light,
The river sleeps, a molten tide;
I dream reclined, with half-shut sight--
My dog sleeps, couching at my side.

The branches droop above my head,
The motes sleep in the slanting beam,
Yon hawk sails through the sunset red--
Adieu thought, sailing through a dream!

And here upon this bank I lie,
Beneath the drooping, airless leaves,
And watch the long, low sunset die,
On silent, dreamy summer eves.

The slant light creeps the boughs among,
And drops upon the sleeping sod--
SHE lies below, in slumber long,
ASLEEP till the great morn of GOD!

DR. FOX'S PRESCRIPTION.

'None but bigots will in vain
Adore a heaven they cannot gain.'--SHERIDAN.

There is a story, familiar to most people of extensive reading, and quite frequently alluded to, of a fox that, after endeavoring in vain to possess himself of some luscious grapes which grew beyond his reach, walked composedly away, solemnly assuring himself and Mr Æsop, who overheard him, that as yet the grapes were unripe. The story, or any allusion to it, seldom fails to excite a smile. I, too, laugh when I hear it; but not so much at Reynard's inconsistency as at his wit. The faculty of discovering grave defects in that which we have failed to obtain is one for which we cannot be too thankful. It is a source of infinite comfort in this comfortless world--a principle which enables both parties in every contest to be victorious--an important article in the great law of compensation. It is as old as the human race. The great fabulist no more invented it than Lord Bacon invented inductive reasoning. Like that philosopher, he simply enunciated a principle which had been unconsciously recognized and constantly used ever since the machinery of the human mind was first set in motion. I have no doubt that when Adam found himself outside of Eden he wondered how he could have been contented to remain so long in that little garden, assorting pinks and training honeysuckles, when here lay a vast farm, well watered and fertile, needing only to be cleared, fenced, and cultivated to yield a handsome income.

It is well that pride should sometimes have a fall. But you and I, dear reader, have often seen envious people gloating over that fall in any but a Christian spirit. At such times have we not rejoiced at any circumstance which could break the force of the fall and disappoint the gratification of such malicious hopes? And what has accomplished that object so often and so effectually as Reynard's great principle?

Once or twice in my life I have seen a smile on a female face under circumstances which made it impossible to doubt that the smile was gotten up for my especial benefit. On such occasions my sense of gratitude (which is quite large) and my vanity (which is very small) have conspired to exalt women in my estimation to perhaps an undue elevation. They have seemed to me to be angels visiting poor, weak, degraded man from pure motives of love and sympathy. And I have felt a sort of chagrin that we have only such a dirty, ill-constructed world to ask them into. But let us suppose that a short time afterward I see on the same face a decided frown or a look of chilling disdain (I do not say that I ever did), under circumstances which indicate that this also is displayed with reference to, and out of a kind regard for, myself. Here, it should seem, the premises are established which compel me to admit a very disagreeable conclusion. This I cannot think of doing. How shall I escape? Why, deny one of the premises, of course. But the frown--I saw it plainly, alas, too plainly! I cannot dispute the evidence of my senses. For a moment I falter; and again that ghastly conclusion stares me in the face. But now I remember that a shrewd debater sometimes gains a point by denying the premise which he is expected to concede. Can it be done in this case? Certainly! Human judgment, you know, is fallible. Not that mine can be at fault _now_; but it may have been so heretofore. All men have erred; but no man errs. There is the point! I was in error when I said women were angels. They are, they must be, mortal. There are unmistakable signs that they are but human--indeed, some of them might almost be called inhuman. The world is plenty good enough for them--a little too good for some I could name. The Mussulman is quite right in excluding them from heaven. What should we want of them when we get there? Won't there be plenty of houris there, with all their beauty and virtue, but without their extravagance and wilfulness? To say the least, they are the weaker vessels, though they carry the most sail. Am I, then, to drop my lip and hang my head and put my finger in my eye, because one of them, for some cause or no cause, chooses to turn up her nose at me? The proposition is absurd.--Thus, thus only, I save my self-respect without sacrificing my logic. Am I inconsistent? Nay, verily. For what is the highest consistency but correspondence with truth? And have I not at length hit upon the exact truth? Before, I was deceived; then, I was inconsistent. But now--now I am thoroughly, beautifully consistent. But all this is simply Dr. Fox's method of treating half the ills which flesh is heir to, reduced to logical forms and written out in plain English.

Had Lord Byron but availed himself of this panacea after his adventure in Jack Muster's vineyard, it might, perhaps, have rendered his life happier, and imparted a 'healthy, moral tone' to his writings.

Every science, in its true progress, works toward simplicity. And mankind will acknowledge at some future time that the 'sour grapes' at which they were wont to sneer, contain a powerful stimulant for drooping ambition--the only infallible remedy for damaged honor and wounded pride. When the scales shall have fallen from our eyes in that happy day, politics will become a delightful profession, the contentious spirit of man will cease from its bickerings, the tongue of woman will settle down into a steady and respectable trot, the golden age of duelling will retreat into the shadowy past until it shall seem contemporary with the half-fabulous chivalry of the middle ages, distracted maidens will no longer die of broken hearts, nor disappointed lovers of unbroken halters.

As the parties to a lawsuit have the privilege of challenging peremptorily a certain number of jurymen, so every man should be allowed to enjoy a reasonable number of whims and prejudices without being called upon to give reasons for them. Then let us hear no more derisive laughter when it is hinted that an unfortunate brother has resorted to the sour-grape remedy. We all, at times, would be glad to find relief in a similar way, but are deterred sometimes by ignorance of the true principles of therapeutics, but oftener by a false pride of consistency. Let us rather say that he has simply fallen back upon a final privilege, and exercised a God-given faculty.

LITERARY NOTICES.

HISTORICAL MEMOIR OF JOAN OF ARC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS.
Compiled from Authentic Sources. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1864

Our attention was first drawn to this work by a notice of it in that sprightly paper, the _Round Table_. The writer of the notice therein says: 'I am at a loss where to award its authorship, since it comes anonymously, but from internal evidence it seems to be a translation from the German, and to have been rendered likewise into French. It seems also to have been written before the official publication of the documentary evidence given on Joan's trial, which was committed to the press for the first time in 1847, and which within ten years thereafter was the occasion of an address to the present Emperor of the French, accompanied by elaborate historical notes, praying him to take the preliminary steps to secure the canonization of the Maid. It is always to be regretted that a book is put forth, like the present, without any vouchers for its authenticity, especially when the knowledge of its origin dimly presents itself to the reader upon perusal.' We can imagine no possible reason for the suppression of the name of the careful and conscientious author of the work under consideration. Such suppressions and literary piracies expose the writers and translators of America to suspicion and censure. Have we any right to defraud an author of his just fame, or to use his works to fill our own pockets, without at least giving the name of the man to whose labors we stand indebted for our whole tissue? We think our publishers should frown upon all such attempts, bearing as they do upon the just claims of foreign authors. The work in question is a translation from the German of Guido Görres, the son of the great Görres, author of 'The History of Mysticism.' So far as we have examined it, it gives the original without abridgment until the thirtieth chapter, when, in the most interesting part of the whole life, condensation and omissions begin. The ten last chapters of the original are crowded into three. We have thirty-three chapters in the translation, and forty in the original. Many of the most characteristic, exciting, and intensely interesting passages of the wonderful trial are excluded.

This work was first translated into English by Martha Walker Cook, and was given to the public without abridgment in 1859, in the pages of the _Freeman's Journal_, published in New York. The title page ran thus: 'Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. An Authentic Life from Contemporaneous Chronicles. From the German of Guido Görres. By Mrs. Martha Walker Cook.' Mrs. Cook's translation has never appeared in book form. The rendering of the work in question differs in many important points from that given by Mrs. Cook. The life in the original is one of exceeding interest. The standpoint of its author is a Catholic one, he being a firm believer in the divinity of the mission of the maiden. Her career was full of marvels, every step marked by the wildest romance united to the strangest truths. Chained and exposed to the fury and brutality of the English soldiery, defenceless and alone, she yet knew how to preserve her virgin sanctity; the hero of the battle field, the deliverer of her country from the rule of the foreigner, she shed not human blood; deserted by her friends, she never ceased to pray for them; bewildered, betrayed, tried and condemned by the clergy of her own church, her firm faith never wavered. Her answers to the subtle metaphysical questions propounded to her by her judges on purpose to entrap her during her painful trial, are models of simplicity, innocence, and faith, mingled with keen intellect and intuitive perception of their bearing upon her fate. Maligned and persecuted by the English, deserted by the French, forgotten by the king she saved and crowned, betrayed and condemned by the ecclesiastics of the church she honored--she perished in the flames with the name of the Saviour she worshipped upon her pure, young lips. Her fame brightens with the increasing light of our own century, and her canonization is now loudly demanded from the Church. She has been celebrated in the most opposite domains of human intelligence, by historians, romancers, theologians, jurisconsults, philosophers, writers on tactics, politicians, genealogists, heralds, preachers, orators, epic, tragic, and lyric poets, magnetizers, demonologists, students of magic, rhapsodists, biographers, journalists, and critics, and yet we have never met with a single writer who appeared to comprehend her aright, or who was able to do justice to the marvellous simplicity, truth, modesty, and force of her character. A French author has drawn up a list of four hundred works dedicated to her history, but as yet this uncultured girl of nineteen has puzzled all her delineators!

THE NATIONAL ALMANAC AND ANNUAL RECORD FOR THE YEAR 1864.
Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 628 & 630 Chestnut street. For sale
by J. Bradburn, 49 Walker street, New York.

The value of this compilation as a book of reference can scarcely be overestimated. Almost every question likely to be asked about officers, offices, governments, finances, elections, education, armies, navies, commerce, navigation, or public affairs, at home or abroad, is answered herein. There are 600 pages of compactly and clearly printed matter, and it is marvellous how much has been included in them through a judicious system of condensation. Stores of information relating to the volunteers furnished by the several States to the United States army; names, dates, figures in detail of all the regimental organizations from all the States and Territories; valuable records of the events of the war, presented in a twofold form, first by tracing the operations of each of the great armies, and then by noting the events in chronological order--are given in these pages, where millions of figures and names occur, with wonderful accuracy. Particulars of every vessel, with name, armament, tonnage, &c., and details of the internal revenue system, are placed before us. We cannot offer even an outline of the contents of this volume, because the details are so multifarious that we could compress their index into no reasonable space. A copy of this book should be in the hands of every reader, thinker, and business man in the country. It is indeed a 'little library,' a 'photograph of the world' for the last two years of its rapid course.

MY CAVE LIFE IN VICKSBURG, WITH LETTERS OF TRIAL AND
TRAVEL. By a Lady. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 and 445
Broadway.

We are a magnanimous people, and we doubt not this simple record of a woman's sufferings and terror will be read with interest, although she is the wife of a Confederate officer. It gives us, indeed, the only picture we have as yet seen of the interior of Vicksburg during its ever-memorable siege; the only sketch of the hopes and fears of its inhabitants. Its dedication is as follows: 'To one who, though absent, is ever present, this little waif is tenderly and affectionately dedicated.'

NEIGHBOR JACKWOOD. By J. T. Trowbridge. Boston: J. E.
Tilton & Company. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

A novel from Mr. Trowbridge, the author of 'Cudjo's Cave,' will always command attention. He gives us no wayside episodes, rambling details, or useless explanations. He seizes his story at the outset, and sustains its interest to the close. His action is rapid, and every step is a direct one to the final _dénouement_. He holds his reins with a firm hand, and big incidents never swerve from an air-line track. His books are characteristically American, and he uses the events and characters of the hour with ability. Poor Charlotte, the heroine, is well drawn, and her tale is one appealing to all human sympathies, yet, perhaps in consequence of old and persistent prejudices, we cannot say we like this work as well as 'Cudjo's Cave.' Many of our readers may like it better. Grandmother Rigglesty is inimitable, and should be studied by all the peevish, selfish, and exacting old women in the land.

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In consequence of the space occupied by our Index, the remaining notices of new books are unavoidably postponed until the issue of the ensuing number.--ED. CON.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE METROPOLITAN FAIR.

This noble and humane enterprise has nearly reached its conclusion, and the results, we believe, are quite commensurate with the expectations of the Executive Committee. It is not possible as yet to arrive at the net proceeds, but the entire receipts will exceed one million dollars. The names and reputation of the chiefs of the Sanitary Commission are sufficient guarantee that the funds thus raised will be applied to the purpose for which they were given, and many a poor soldier will have reason to bless the zeal of the energetic men and women who have so efficiently labored to soothe suffering and furnish to the sick and wounded the very best aid their country can offer.

We have more than once been pained by hearing the words 'humbug,' 'great advertizing establishment,' etc., applied to the New York Fair, as well as to fairs in general. Now, nothing could be more unjust than the first term; and as to the latter, we have only to say that, if human nature were perfect, fairs would be unnecessary, and a subscription all that any just enterprise would require for success. Beneficence on a large scale, however, requires the money of the selfishly munificent as well as of the purely generous, and fairs not only procure purchasers for such articles as givers can spare with the least detriment to themselves, but also make known the names and quality of wares of various dealers. The man who might have _subscribed_ ten dollars, is content to pay one hundred for an object contributed from the time and labor of some individual devoid of other commodities. If the wares in question become more widely known, and benefit hence accrue to the giver, the consequence is surely a legitimate one, and even a fortunate condition of the facts, as increasing the size of the fund received. They who give simply with the idea of doing good, will doubtless receive their appropriate reward; and they who give with mixed motives know well that the alleviation purchased by their contribution will be as welcome to the sick soldier as that procured by the more unselfish donation. Our admiration for the individual may vary with our knowledge of his springs of action, but if love of self can be made to minister to the wants of the suffering, all the better, especially as no man can (without certain knowledge) dare to sit in judgment upon the motives of his fellow men.

Each department has done well, and none better than that devoted to painting, statuary, engraving, and photography. Large sums have been realized upon the pictures presented by the artists--generous gifts indeed from men (and women) not usually overburdened with this world's gear. M. Knoedler, of the Art Committee, merits the especial gratitude of the community, not only for the generous but unobtrusive zeal displayed by him, but also for large contributions in engravings and photographs.

The gift department of the picture gallery comprised works from all our best-known names, as well as from some hitherto unknown. The artists' albums were also a special feature in this domain. Judging merely as outsiders (having owned no certificate of subscription), we thought the anti-raffling rule might either have been suspended in their favor, or should certainly have been enforced upon the first day, before the burden of so many subscriptions had fallen upon the shoulders of the energetic artists having them in charge.

The general exhibition, although by no means a complete representation of all that has been accomplished by painting in America (several of our best artists having been represented only by their gift pictures), was nevertheless very interesting. Opportunity was offered for close and immediate comparison between some of the renowned works that have adorned our annals, namely, Bierstadt's 'Rocky Mountains,' and Church's 'Andes of Ecuador' and 'Heart of the Andes,' also, Gignoux's and Church's 'Niagaras.'

The 'arms and trophies' made a very splendid and inspiring array. The book store, the nautical room, the machine shop, the New York fire, police, and New Jersey departments, and the grouping and general arrangement of the Seventeenth-street building, were but a few of the tasteful and admirable results of the labors of the executive and minor committees.

Last, but not least, come the Indians, who contributed to the Fair one of its most attractive features. Good pictures may often be seen, fancy articles every day, but the advent of these children of the forest has left a vivid memory of their appearance and of some of their customs, their musical instruments, songs, and dances, with many who have never heretofore come in contact with them, and whose grandchildren may perhaps cross the continent from New York to San Francisco without meeting a single one of the original denizens of mountain, vale, prairie, or table land. Great thanks are due to M. Bierstadt for the almost herculean labors he must have undergone in presenting to us these living fossils. Keeping them in a good humor must have been one of his most serious tasks, as they doubtless encountered many contrarieties calculated to chafe hot blood and annoy men unaccustomed to the confinement of city life.

Again, thanks to him, and also to them; thanks, indeed, to all the patriotic men and women who have done so much in New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and other smaller places, and also to those who are making similar noble efforts in Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburg, etc., etc. War is a sad phase in the history of humanity, and yet it has ever had the glory of developing some of the highest of human virtues.

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KNOUT, PLETE, AND GANTLET.

The peasants of Poland do not seem very amiably disposed toward the great Russian czar. Having been already emancipated by their own leaders, they do not appear to be aware of his superhuman benevolence in their behalf. They have issued a manifesto against him. They propose to raise a peasant army of a million of men, from the ages of sixteen to sixty, to assault Warsaw and other Polish cities held by the Russians. They treat with scorn the offered emancipation, and determine to resist 'the odious, fierce, greedy, and astute Muscovite, and to organize _en masse_ under their own captains, while their own National Government will designate the day upon which the general movement will take place.' Having accomplished their object--the deliverance of Poland--the peasants will elect chiefs to arrange the repartition of taxes, and a national diet will undertake the management of the affairs of the country. Prussia and Austria will then be called in again to aid in the subjugation of Poland. This will throw the firebrand of war and revolution over Western Europe, the oppressed peoples will rise in their might, and Liberty be inscribed on the banner of the world. In the indignant refusal of the Polish peasants to receive as a boon from the foreigner what they already possess as a right from their own leaders; in the devoted patriotism they are now evincing, they rob Russia of the vast advantage she hoped to gain in depriving Poland of what has made part of her marvellous force, the moral sympathies of the civilized world. For can any one be weak enough to believe that the ukase of emancipation originated in the magnanimity of Russia? The design was evidently to divide the peasants from the nobles, to light the flames of civil war, to murder by the hands of her own sons that unhappy country, which, deserted by all the nations of the earth, has again and again risen from her bloody grave to startle her oppressors with the old hymns of faith and triumph. But, if uncultured, because the iron heel of the tyrant has been on the heart of the murdered mother, the Polish peasant is faithful and devoted. He knows the nature of Russian rule. He has seen women knouted, childred murdered, boys imprisoned, and men exposed to the tortures of Siberia. Have our readers any true conception of what it is to be knouted? We will place before them a translation from Piotrowski of three modes of punishment used by Russia.

'The _Knout_ is a long narrow thong of leather, which is steeped and boiled in a chemical solution until it becomes thickly coated with metallic filings and deposit. Prepared in this way, the thong acquires considerable weight and hardness. Before it cools and hardens, however, they take care to turn the edges, made thin for this purpose, up toward each other, thus forming a groove extending through the whole length of the metal-coated thong, with the exception of the extremity, which is left limber that it may be wound round the hand of the executioner, while a strong iron hook is appended to the other extremity. The scaffold on which the victim suffers is called in Russian 'Kobyla,' literally a mare. It is an inclined plane, on which the sufferer is tied, his back is stripped naked, his arms embrace the higher end of the plank, his hands are tied under it, his feet are fastened on the lower end, all movement being thus rendered impossible. Hacking down upon the naked back of the victim, the knout falls with its concave side upon the skin, which the metalized edge of the instrument cuts like a knife, the blades of the groove burying themselves in the flesh; the instrument is not lifted up by the operator, but is drawn horizontally toward himself, tearing away, by means of the hook, the severed flesh in long strings. If the operator performs his part conscientiously, the sufferer loses consciousness after the third blow, and frequently expires with the fifth. Peter the Great fixed the maximum of the number to be given at one hundred and one--of course, this was a sentence of death. It is a singularity of the Russian laws that the number of blows decreed for the knout is always uneven. As soon as the wretched victim has received the prescribed number, he is untied, forced to kneel, and submit to the punishment of the brand. This brand consists of the three letters VOR (robber, criminal), cut in iron points upon a stamp, and is struck by the executioner into the forehead and cheeks of the sufferer. While the blood is still flowing, a black fluid, partly composed of gunpowder, is injected into the wounds. When the wounds heal, the letters assume a dark blue tint, and are forever after indelible. After the infliction of the brand, it was formerly the custom to tear out the nostrils, but this horrible barbarity was definitely abolished toward the close of the reign of Alexander I. I have, however, met more than one Siberian exile thus hideously disfigured, no doubt belonging to the time anterior to the publication of the ukase. I have met an incalculable number of men bearing upon cheeks and forehead the triple inscription VOR. I do not think the brand is applied to woman; at least I have never seen one thus desecrated.

'The _Plète_, which is often and wrongfully confounded with the knout, is a far less formidable instrument. It is composed of three strong leathern thongs, terminated at the one end by balls of lead; the other is wrapped round the hand of the executioner. In accordance with the Russian law, this instrument should weigh from five to six pounds. It strikes like a triple lash upon the naked back of the sufferer. It does not plough or tear up the flesh like the knout, but the skin of course breaks under the heavy blows inflicted upon the spinal column and the sides. Phthisis is a common complaint with those who have been subjected to the punishment of the plète, the strokes frequently detaching the viscera from their living walls. In order to give more force to the blow, the executioner takes a leap and run, only striking as he reaches his victim. If possible to gain him by a bribe, he may diminish the punishment without detection. He may manage not to use his little finger on the instrument, which softens the force of the blow, without attracting the attention of the superintending officer. If the number of lashes is to be great, the operator is often bribed to give all his available force to the first blows, directing them principally toward the sides, in order to put as short a term as possible to the torture and life of the miserable sufferer.

'A third kind of punishment is that of the _Skvoz-stroï_, literally, _through the ranks_. This is generally used for soldiers only, though many Polish patriots have been subjected to it after condemnation for political offences. It is thus inflicted: Long rods are taken, freshly cut and well soaked in water to render them perfectly flexible, and given to the men who are to operate. A company of soldiers range themselves, facing each other, in a double file, placing themselves at such a distance from one another that they may be able to strike with their whole force without being in the way of each other. The sufferer is stripped to the waist, his hands are tied before him to a gun, the bayonet of which rests on his breast, while the butt end of it is carried by the soldier appointed to lead him through the ranks charged with the duty of inflicting his punishment. He is led slowly forward through the files, receiving the lashes on his back and shoulders. When he faints or falls on the ground, he is raised up and urged to move on. Peter the Great fixed the maximum of blows at twelve thousand, but unless they intend to make an example of some offender, more than two thousand are rarely administered. If more are decreed, the patient is usually carried to the hospital and cured of his wounds ere he is forced to undergo the rest of the sentence.