Chapter XXI: Dead Man's Island (1)

There was one person in Ballybay at least who envied the woman that lay forever free from life's fitful fever. The day's demonstration in the town had brought no joy to Mat's heart. He had not yet learned to make any distinction between the agitators who had broken his own life and murdered the hopes of his country, and the very different class of men who had brought new life and hope to the Irish nation. The whole business of the meeting to him, therefore, appeared nothing but gabble, treason, and folly. He spent his hours, after a scornful look or two at the preparations for the speeches of the day, in wandering through the fields and streets which he had known in boyhood, and appeared to have left so very, very long ago. Every sight deepened his depression. He thought of the first day he had spent in the town long ago, when he visited Ballybay for the first time after years of absence. Then he thought that he had exhausted the possibilities of grief over the waste of a nation's life; but he now found that there were deeper depths and larger possibilities of suffering in the Irish tragedy. Famine, plague, a whirlwind, or an earthquake could not, as he thought, have worked mischief more deadly, more appalling, more complete. He saw, with a curious sinking of the heart and an overwhelming sadness, that nearly every well-remembered spot of his boyhood was marked by the ruins of a desolated home. Here was the corner where he used to turn from the one to the two mile round--as two of the walks around Ballybay were called--but where was the house with its crowd of noisy children, which he saw every morning with the same confident familiarity as a well-remembered piece of furniture in his own house? Yes: there was the little road where he remembered to have stood one day so many years ago. It was a bright, beautiful day in summer, the sky was blue, and the roses bloomed; but everything was dark to him, for Betty, his first nurse, the strongest affection of his childhood, had retired to her mother's home the day before. And as he recalled how all the world seemed to be over for him on that day, he felt the full brotherhood of sorrow, and in one moment understood all the tragic significance of the separation which emigration had caused in more than a million Irish homes. The road had changed as though the country had been turned from a civilized to a savage land. The grass was growing thick and rank, the roses had gone, thick weeds choked festering pools, and of the little cottage in which Betty had dwelt there was not even a vestige.

And so, alas, in the town. At its entrance a whole street had disappeared, black and charred the walls stood--silent and deserted. This constant recurrence of the symbols of separation, desertion, silence, death, produced a strange numbness in his mind, and he walked along in a dream that became deeper and deeper. But he saw everything with the obscurity, and still with the strange, piercing look, of the dreamer. Turning from the houses to the people, he saw as it were in a flash the true meaning of that weary look which he had first observed as the prevalent expression of most faces; he loathed and at the same time he understood the prematurely bloated and blotched faces of so many of the young men whom he met everywhere, and read the story of the hopeless struggle against daily deepening gloom which had sought desperate relief in whiskey. He understood the procession of sad, and, as in his exalted mood he thought, spectral, men and women, that flowed in a noiseless stream to the chapel. It was May, "the month of Mary," as it is so touchingly called in Ireland, and in that month there are devotions every night in honor of the Mother of God. It was with difficulty he restrained his tears as there rose from the voices of the congregation the well-known and well-remembered hymn to the Blessed Virgin--the fitting wail of a people who dwell in a land of sorrows.

"Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy. Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope, to thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears." How well he recalled the evening long ago, when the hymn first struck him as the wail from the helpless agony of a dying nation.

Then Mat went home, and, as he entered the house, he noticed with the new-born light in his eyes many things that had escaped his attention when he first entered there in the morning. His father, as he answered the door, seemed to him to have aged ten years since he had looked at him in the morning, and he saw with a pang that seemed to squeeze his heart as in a vice that his clothes were shabby, and that even his boots were patched and broken. Then he went upstairs, and, entering the parlor noiselessly, caught sight of his mother. She turned sharply around, and to his horror and surprise he saw a fierce, violent blush overspread her pale cheek. He could not help looking at the table, and there he saw the same dread sight that had met him at so many painful crises in his life, for his mother was examining bank bills and pawn tickets. Then he rushed back in memory to the days of his own childhood, when he had wondered why it was that his mother occasionally wept as she turned over these mysterious slips of blue paper and small pieces of stiff card. The abject failure of his life never appeared to him so clearly as it did at that moment, and the sense of complete disaster was aggravated by the awful feeling that he had made others suffer even more bitterly than himself. And for a moment it seemed, too, as if his mother were resolved that he should taste the full bitterness of the moral, for she looked at him fixedly as the blush died from her cheeks; but her heart was too touched by his look of pain, and in a moment she had kissed him on the cheek, after the frigid and self-restrained fashion of Ballybay.

Mat had a battle with himself as to whether he should visit Mary on this day; but after a while he felt that it would be a sort of savage triumph if he could fill the whole day with all the pain that could be packed within its hours. He had no idea as yet what he was going to do with the morrow, but it would certainly bring some new departure; this day he was, for this reason, the more resolutely ready to abandon to the luxury of woe.

Mary was alone when he visited the house; her husband had left town, for he did not dare, with all his courage, to aggravate the popular hatred by being visible on the day of the demonstration. She came into the room and shook hands with him, to his surprise, without any appearance of embarrassment. He looked at her without a word for a few moments, while she asked a few questions in a perfectly natural tone of voice about the meeting, his imprisonment, etc. As he looked he thought he saw a strange and mournful change in her face. The features seemed to have grown not merely hard, but coarse. He remembered the time when her upper lip had appeared to his eyes short, expressive, elegant; now it seemed to have grown long and vulgar. Her dark eyes were cold and impenetrable.

For a while they talked about indifferent things, but though he had sworn to himself a thousand times that he would never utter a word about her broken troth, his nerves were still too shaken and unsteady, after his sufferings in prison and the wearing experiences through which he had passed, to allow him to maintain complete self-control.

"And so you married Cosgrave," he said, as a beginning.

She looked at him sharply, and then answered, in the same cold and perfectly collected voice, "Yes, I married Cosgrave."

"Are you happy?"

"Yes."

"You never cared for me?" he said with bitterness; and then the venom, which had been choking him from the hour when he heard that his betrothed was gone, overflowed. He went on, in a voice that grew hoarse in its vehemence: "Look! I have been four years in prison; in the company of burglars, pickpockets, murderers; I have been kept in silence and solitude and restraint; and yet in all these four years I never suffered a pang so horrible as when I heard that you had proved untrue."

"No," she answered, with a stillness that sounded strangely after the high-pitched and passionate tones of his voice; "I was not untrue, for I was faithful to my highest duty." Then she paused, and when next she spoke her voice was also passionate; but it was passion that was expressed in low and biting, and not in a loud tone. "You have known the life of a prison: but you have not passed through the hell of Irish poverty."... Then, after a pause, in which she seemed buried in an agonizing retrospect, she said--"I would marry a cripple to help my family."

She had scarcely said these words when her father entered. The father was as much changed in Mat's eyes as the daughter; he could scarcely walk; his feet seemed just able to bear him; and his hand was palsied. He did not at first recognize Mat; and when at last he knew who it was, said in the old voice, the familiar words which Mat so loathed, "Ah! the crachure! Ah! the crachure!"

Mat now had the key to the hideous tragedy which had separated him from the woman he loved, and who loved him. He looked quickly at her; but the light of momentary excitement had died out of the face, and the expression was now perfectly serene. Several reflections passed rapidly through Mat's mind. He saw clearly that the girl had not a particle of self-reproach; not a doubt of the rectitude or even the nobility of her conduct; she had immolated herself with the same inflexible resolve and unquestioning faith as the sublime murderer of Marat. Then passing rapidly in mental review the history of so many self-murdered hearts, he asked which was the more cruel--the Irish or the Indian suttee. Perhaps in that moment Mat gained more knowledge than is given to other men in years of that strangest of all, even feminine, problems--an Irish girl's heart.

For a moment the two were left alone, for the first and only time in all their lives.

"What?" said Mat, in an audible soliloquy, "is Irish life?" And then he answered the question himself as she remained silent. "A tragedy, a squalid tragedy!" But she looked at him cold, irresponsive, defiant, and he rushed away before the old man came back with the whiskey.

The wreck of this girl's nature; her acceptance in full faith of the sordid and terrible gospel of loveless marriage; the omnipotence of even a little money in a land of abject and hopeless and helpless poverty, brought the realities of Irish life with a clearness to his mind more terrible than even uprooted houses and echoless streets.

He accepted the invitation of a friend to take a row up the river, beautiful with its eternal and changeless beauty amid all this wreck of hopes and blasting of lives.

They passed a small island.

"What is that called," asked Mat of the boatman.

"Dead Man's Island."

"What did you say?"

"Dead Man's Island."

"A----h,----Dead--Man's--Island!"

THE END.

GOING ON FOOT TO ROME.--In these days, when pilgrims go to Rome and Jerusalem by railway and steamer, it is refreshing to hear that the old-fashioned pilgrim may still be found. The last of these appears to be Ignacio Martinez, a native of Valladolid, who has nearly completed his pilgrimage to the Holy Place begun two years ago.

The Boys in Green.

After reading the Reminiscences of the Ninth Massachusetts, Volunteers, published in late numbers of DONAHOE'S, it occurred to the writer that a few incidents which came under my own personal observation, in which that regiment figured, occurring over twenty-three years ago, may be of interest to the survivors of the gallant Ninth, or their descendants. It may also interest the general public, and your Irish-American readers in particular, for my experience will speak more particularly of the corps with which my fortunes were cast--Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher's Irish Brigade. It was originally composed of three regiments, viz., Sixty-Third New York, Eighty-Eighth New York, and Sixty-Ninth New York, all organized in New York City, but some of its companies hailing from Albany, Boston, etc. The writer of this was connected with the Albany Company K, Sixty-Third Regiment, in the capacity of "high private" when the regiment was organized. This paper is merely intended to give an account of a few incidents in which the brigade participated, not by any means as a history of that organization.

It is well known to those familiar with events at the beginning of the war, that the Washington authorities decided to change McClellan's base of operations in the movement against the rebel capital (Richmond, Va.), to the Peninsula. Accordingly, in the spring of 1862, over one hundred thousand men and material of the Army of the Potomac, at that time, and subsequently, the largest and best disciplined body of troops in the service of the Republic, were sent by water to Fortress Monroe, Ship Point, and adjacent places for disembarkation. Very few people in civil life have any conception of the labor attending an operation of this kind. Not alone was this immense body of men carried by water, but all the material as well: heavy and field artillery; animals for the same; horses for the cavalry; and baggage, ammunition and supply trains. Thanks to the superiority of our navy at the time, the movement was entirely successful. It is true a few sailing crafts, and some armed rebel vessels showed themselves; but they took refuge up the York, Pamunkey, Elizabeth and James Rivers, to be afterwards destroyed as the Union Army advanced.

The writer was at the time on detached service (recruiting) in New York City; but at the period the advanced vessels of the Flotilla reached the Peninsula he received orders to rejoin his regiment. Accordingly I left Albany (depot for recruits) April 11, 1862, in charge of twenty-two men, eleven for Sixty-Third and eleven for Eighty-Eighth Regiments, reaching Fort Monroe April 14, by steamer from Washington. I shall never forget the impression made on my civilian mind as we steamed under the frowning guns of the weather-beaten Fort, in the gray of the morning. It impressed me with awe, as the black muzzles of the "War Dogs" bade defiance in their silent grandeur to rebels in arms and European enemies, who, at the time, entertained anything but friendly feelings towards the Republic.

The achievement of the famous _Monitor_ was, at the time, in everybody's mouth. Your older readers will remember how the "Yankee Cheese-Box," the gallant Worden in command, put in appearance in Hampton Roads, a day or two after the finest wooden war ships in the government service were sent to the bottom, by the guns and ram of the rebel _Merrimac_. When the saucy, insignificant-looking craft boldly steamed for the victorious rebel iron-clad, the officers on board could not believe their senses, never having seen anything like the mysterious stranger before; but when fire and smoke belched forth from the _Monitor's_ revolving turret, they were reminded that they had better look to their guns. Not being able to damage the stranger with their British cannon, the rebel tried the effect of its powerful ram; but the "cheese-box" divining its intentions, nimbly got out of harm's way. Its powerful eleven-inch guns in the turret continued to pound the iron sides of the _Merrimac_, until the latter thought "discretion the better part of valor," and sought safety in flight by ascending the Elizabeth River to Norfolk, not before being badly damaged in the encounter. Notwithstanding the rebel had numerous guns of the most approved pattern, their shot glanced harmlessly from the _Monitor's_ revolving turret, the only object visible above water. You may think we looked upon the champion with no little pleasure as she peacefully lay in the channel, with steam up, waiting for the appearance of its powerful adversary, which never came. (The _Merrimac_ was so badly damaged in the encounter, its commander, Jones, blew her up sooner than see her in the enemy's hands.) The masts of the ill-fated _Cumberland_ and her consorts were plainly visible in the distance, where they sank with their brave tars standing nobly by their guns.

I am afraid the editor of the MAGAZINE will get impatient with my description before coming to the Ninth. The writer goes into these particulars because another generation has come on the scene since they happened, and it may interest them.

After landing with my detachment of twenty-two men, we turned our faces landward to find the army then moving towards Richmond. On the way we passed through the village of Hampton, and subsequently were much interested in looking over the battlefield of Big Bethel, where Magruder made his first fight on the Peninsula, not long previous, and where the Union troops were roughly handled. Gen. Joseph B. Carr, of Troy, N. Y., in command of the Second New York Volunteers, one of the most successful Irish-American soldiers of the late war, took a prominent part in this battle. It is thought he would have retrieved the blunders of some of the Union officers, if he had not been ordered to retire by Gen. B. F. Butler, who was in command. Gen. Carr is now serving out his third successive term as Secretary of State of New York. He recently ran for Lieutenant Governor on the Republican ticket; and although he failed to get elected, he ran nearly nine thousand votes ahead of his ticket. The rebel field works were just as they left them. The neighboring forests told the story of the desperate conflict by the manner in which they were torn from the effects of the artillery.

It was a long and tedious journey before we struck the army of "Little Mac;" and when the shades of night began to envelope us, the little squad was footsore, tired and hungry, having covered twenty-four miles since leaving the steamer. To add to our inconvenience, we had eaten nothing since leaving the vessel, and then a limited supply of "hard tack," washed down with coffee. The location of Meagher's Brigade was among the uncertainties. All our inquiries of troops in the vicinity were fruitless.

Learning from the men of a battery, encamped on the edge of a clearing, that an Irish Regiment was not far distant, inquired the name (State and number).

"I think, sergeant," said the officer addressed, "that it is an Irish Regiment from Massachusetts, but I do not know the number; they have an Irish flag anyhow." Thanking the captain for the information, we sought the locality of the Irish boys and their green flag.

"Halt! who comes there?" demanded a sentinel, pacing his beat, a few yards from the road, as the squad approached in the twilight.

"Friends!" was the response.

"Advance, friends, and give the countersign!"

We had no "countersign," and could not give it. I did the next best thing, and addressed the sentinel thus:

"We are Union soldiers, trying to find our regiment, having landed this morning at Fortress Monroe. We are tired and without anything to eat, since early this morning. Be good enough to tell us the name of that regiment yonder."

"That is the Ninth Massachusetts, Col. Tom Cass," was his response.

"Call the corporal of the guard; I would like to see the colonel."

"Corporal of the guard, Post Five!" he lustily called out, at the top of his voice.

"Corporal of the guard, Post Five!" was repeated in succession by the respective posts; bringing that officer on the run, in a few minutes to the post designated.

I repeated the request to the "corporal of the guard," a bright little man, about twenty-four years old. He requested us to remain where we were until the "officer of the guard" was consulted, "for ye know we are in the enemy's counthry, and we must be cautious." We assented, of course. Presently a lieutenant made his appearance, and after hearing our story, told us to follow him. We passed the guard and made our way to the colonel's quarters, before which a soldier was leisurely pacing. The lieutenant entered, but returned in a moment and desired me to follow him. I did so, and found myself in a group of officers. I saluted and came to "attention."

"Well, sergeant, what can we do for you?" kindly asked an officer with the eagles of a colonel on his shoulders.

"We are benighted, sir; my men and I landed at the Fort this morning, and are on the way to find our regiments. We have had nothing to eat in twelve hours. We're hungry and tired, and claim your hospitality for the night."

"May I ask what command you belong to, sir?"

"My regiment is the Sixty-Third New York, colonel, and the detachment is for that regiment and the Eighty-Eighth New York."

"What! Gen. Meagher, the Irish Brigade! Consider yourself at home, sergeant. The best in our camp is at your service. You can have all you can eat and drink, and a place to rest. Orderly," addressing a soldier in front of the tent, "send Sergeant ---- to me."

"I see by your chevrons you are a non-commissioned officer. May I ask your name?" addressing me.

"Sergeant J---- D----, Company K, colonel," was my response.

The sergeant made his appearance, and Col. Cass (for we learned, subsequently, it was he) gave him directions to take Sergeant D----and his men, and give them everything they wanted for the night, and their breakfast before leaving in the morning. As we were about retiring the colonel remarked:--

"The night is chilly, sergeant; fog is heavy, malaria abroad, and you are tired. Wouldn't you like something in the way of liquid refreshments?"

"Thanks, colonel," I replied; "but the Sixty-Third is a temperance regiment.[9] We took the pledge from Father Dillon, last January, on David's Island, New York Harbor, for the war."

"Is it possible? I am glad to hear it! God bless you. I trust you will keep your pledge, not only for the war, but for all future time." I thanked him, gave him a salute and retired.

We certainly found ourselves in "the hands of our friends." Sergeant ----(unfortunately my diary is silent as to his name) took us to his quarters, and that being inadequate, lodged out some of the strangers. Coffee was made for us at the company's kitchen, and in less than half an hour there was enough of that delicious beverage steaming hot before us, with a mountain of "hard tack," to feed a company, instead of twenty-three men. The wants of the inner man being attended to (and we did the spread full justice) brier wood and tobacco were called into requisition. We found ourselves the centre of an interested crowd, for it got noised abroad that a squad of Gen. Meagher's men was in Sergeant ----'s quarters. "Taps" were sounded at the usual hour, but, by permission of the "officer of the day" the lights in the sergeant's tent, and others adjoining, were not extinguished, out of respect to the New Yorkers. During the evening song and story were in order, and at this late day it will not be giving away a secret to say that the "liquid refreshments," so kindly offered by the colonel were not ignored by many present, for the Ninth had a sutler with it, whose supply of "commissary" was yet abundant to be taken as an antidote against the malaria.

At day-break the regiment was roused from slumber by the soul-stirring sounds of the "reveille" which reverberated through the dark pine woods of the "sacred soil." The strangers were prevailed on to take a hasty cup of coffee, and as the men were forming for company drill, we bade them "good-by," and sought our own regiments, which we found in camp in a clearing, at Ship Point, nine miles from Yorktown, then held by the enemy.

The writer did not see the Ninth again until the 27th of June following (1862), and the occasion was a sad one. When McClellan's right wing was crushed like an egg shell under Gen. Fitz John Porter, on the north bank of the Chickahominy, two brigades of Sumner's Second Corps (Meagher and French's) were ordered from the centre of our lines at Fair Oaks to check the victorious march of the overwhelming masses of the enemy. After fighting like Spartans for two days, the twenty-seven thousand men under Porter were outflanked by the enemy who were sixty-five thousand strong. Porter's troops were compelled to retire, and by sundown they were in full retreat towards the temporary bridges constructed by our troops, over the Chickahominy. At this juncture the two brigades mentioned were ordered from our centre to check the advance of the now victorious enemy.

The force engaged at Gaines' Mill was: Union, 50 Regiments, 20 batteries, 27,000 men. Confederate: 129 Regiments, 19 batteries, 65,000 men. Losses: Union, killed, 894; wounded, 3,107; missing, 2,836; total, 6,837. Confederate: Somewhat larger, especially in killed and wounded. Perhaps in the whole history of the war there was no battle fought with more desperation on both sides than that of Mechanicville (June 26), and Gaines' Mill (June 27). Fitz John Porter handled his army with such ability that his inferior force repelled repeated attacks of the flower of the rebel army under Lee and Jackson; and if it were not for the blundering of the cavalry, under Gen. Cook, through whose instrumentality Porter's lines were broken, he would have repelled all efforts to drive him to the river. As an evidence of the desperate nature of the conflict, it may be mentioned that one Rebel regiment (Forty-Fourth Georgia) lost three hundred and thirty-five men.

We got there, about eight miles, at eight o'clock, having pushed on by forced marches all the way, but too late to change the fortunes of the day. We did check the advancing and exalting Rebels, who supposed a large part of the Union army had come to the rescue. Forming our lines on top of the hill (Gain's) with an Irish cheer we went down the northern side of the hill pell-mell for the enemy. The pursuers were now the pursued. The Rebels broke and fled before Irish steel. To advance in the darkness would be madness. The regiments were brought to a halt. So as to deceive the Confederates as to the number of reinforcements, the position of each regiment was constantly changed. In one of these movements, the right of the Sixty-Third struck a rebel battalion, halted in the darkness, and for a time there was temporary confusion. The grey coats were brushed aside instantly, getting a volley from the right wing of the Sixty-Third as a reminder that we meant business.

Fitz John Porter pays this tribute to the brigade as to the part it took on this occasion: "French and Meagher's brigades of Sumner's corps, all that the corps commanders deemed they could part with, were sent forward by the commanding general.... All soon rallied in rear of the Adams House behind Sykes and the brigades of French and Meagher sent to our aid, and who now with hearty cheers greeted our battalions as they retired and reformed."

While resting on our arms the dead and wounded were thick all around--friend and foe. Alas! not a few were our brothers of the Ninth Massachusetts. They told us in whispers how they repelled the enemy all day, and not until they were flanked by the Rebels did they give way before their repeated charges. The remnant of the regiment I subsequently saw next morning, in the rear, few in numbers, but with its spirit unbroken.

Having held the enemy in check to permit our broken battalions and the wounded to recross the Chickahominy, the two brigades silently left the field before dawn the next morning, blowing up the bridge behind us, thus stopping the pursuit. The two brigades occupied their old places behind the breastwork, at four the next morning, completely exhausted, but gratified that we were instrumental in checking the enemy, and saving from capture a large part of the army.

Four days later, July 1st, the bloody conflict of Malvern Hill was fought--the last of the Seven Days' Battles. Meagher's brigade, at that time consisting of the Sixty-Third, Eighty-Eighth, and Sixty-Ninth New York and one regiment from Massachusetts (Twenty-Ninth), had arms stacked in a beautiful valley, in the rear of the struggling hosts. All day long the storm of battle raged, and the men of the brigade were congratulating themselves that for once, at least, we would not be called upon to participate. Each regiment was ordered to kill several sheep and beeves, found the same day on the lands of a rich Virginian. While the companies were being served, a staff officer was seen riding at full speed to Gen. Meagher's head-quarters, his horse wet with foam. The men knew what that meant. We had seen it before. In a few minutes the "long roll" sounded in every regiment, and in less time than it takes to write these lines, the brigade was on the march. We knew from the sound of the guns that we were not going from but nearing the combat. Turning a ridge in the south-east, a fearful sight met our view. Thousands of wounded streamed to the rear, in the direction of Harrison Landing, on the James. Men with shattered arms and legs, some limping, all bloody and powder-stained. Many defiant, but the badly wounded moaning with agony. The head of the column, with Gen. Meagher and staff in front, turned sharply to the right, with difficulty forcing our way through the wounded crowds. We learned, subsequently, that after repelling the enemy with fearful slaughter all day, towards nightfall they pressed our left and attempted to seize the roads on our line of retreat to the James. Not till then were Meagher's men called on, and promptly they responded. While hurrying to the front, the Sixty-Third being the third regiment was halted. At this moment a volley from the left between us and the river, swept through our ranks. Seventeen men of the regiment fell, among them being Col. John Burke, who received a ball in the knee. He fell from his horse, but the mishap was for the moment kept from the men. Lieut.-Col. Fowler assumed command, and before the Rebel regiment had time to reload, four hundred smooth bores sent a withering volley crashing through their ranks. This put a quietus upon them.

"What regiment is this?" demanded an officer on horseback, surrounded by his staff, who came galloping up as the men reloaded.

"This is the Sixty-Third New York, general," responded Lieut.-Col. Fowler of that regiment.

"I am Gen. Porter, in command of this part of the field. I order you to remain here to support a battery now on its way to this spot. Do you understand, sir?"

"Yes, general; the Sixty-Third always obeys orders," was the lieutenant colonel's prompt response, and Gen. Porter disappeared to the front.

While halted here for the appearance of the battery, a crowd of men coming from the front, in the now gathering darkness, attracted my attention. I should say there were not more than fifty men all told--perhaps not more than thirty. They were grouped around their colors, which I discovered to be a United States flag and a green standard. The men were the most enthusiastic I ever saw. They were cheering, and their voices could be plainly heard over the roar of battle. Some were without caps, many were wounded, and all grimy from powder, and every few moments some one of them called for "three cheers for the stars and stripes."

"Let us give three for the green flag, boys."

"Give the Rebels h---- boys!" To one officer in front cheering, who had his cap on the point of his sword, I inquired:

"What regiment is this, captain?"

"Why, don't you know?

"This is all that is left of the old Ninth Massachusetts--all that is left of us boys!

"Our dead and wounded are in the woods over there!

"Oh! we lost our colonel, boys; the gallant Cass, one of the best fighters and bravest man in the army!

"We saved our colors, though, and we had to fight to do it!

"Go in, Irish Brigade! Do as well as the Ninth did!

"Three cheers for the stars and stripes!

"Give three for the old Bay State!

"Hurrah!"

And the remnant of the splendid regiment filed to the rear in the darkness; but still their cheers could be heard for quite a distance over the rattle of musketry and the sound of the guns.

"The battery! The battery! Here comes the battery!" was heard from a hundred throats, as it wildly thundered and swept from the rear, regardless of the dead and dying, who fairly littered the field. God help the dying, for the dead cared not! The iron wheels of the carriages, and feet of the horses, discriminate not between friend and foe. It will never be known how many were ground to pulp that July evening as Capt. J. R. Smead's Battery K, Fifth United States Artillery came in response to the command of the gallant Porter, who saw the danger of having his left turned. Three batteries were ordered up by Gen. Porter, viz: Capt. J. R. Smead; Capt. Stephen H. Weed, Battery I, Fifth United States Artillery; and Capt. J. Howard Carlisle, Battery E, Second United States Artillery.

"Forward, Sixty-Third! Double quick! march!" shouted Capt. O'Neil, the senior line officer, who was now in command.

"Forward! Double quick!" was repeated by each company commander, and the Sixty-Third followed the lead of the battery into the very jaws of death, many of them to meet their brothers of the Ninth, who just passed over the silent river, on the crimson tide of war![10]

Had the repeated and desperate efforts of the enemy succeeded in turning the Union left, as was feared towards nightfall, a dire disaster awaited the splendid army of McClellan. How near we came to it may be judged from the fact that all the reserves were brought into action, including the artillery under Gen. Henry J. Hunt. The instructions to Smead, Carlisle and Mead, when hurried up to defend the narrow gorge, with their artillery, through which the Confederates must force their way on to the plateau, were to fire on friend and foe, if the emergency demanded it. This is confirmed by a letter to the writer from Fitz John Porter. "These batteries were ordered up," he says, "to the narrow part of the hill, to be used in saving the rest of the army, if those in front were broken, driven in and pursued, by firing, if necessary, on friend as well as foe, so that the latter should not pass them. I went forward with you to share your fate if fortune deserted us, but I did not expect disaster, and, thank God, it did not come!"

These are the words of as brave and loyal an American as ever drew his sword for the Republic. Few men, perhaps none, in the army at that time, with our limited experience in war, could have handled his troops as Gen. Porter did at Gaine's Mill and Malvern. He desperately contested every inch of ground on the north bank of the Chickahominy, although his force was only twenty-seven thousand against sixty-five thousand of the enemy. Again at Malvern, the Rebels, maddened with successive defeats, were determined to annihilate the grand army of the Potomac with a last superhuman effort. They probably would have succeeded had a less able soldier been placed in command at that critical point. But, as will be seen from the above extract, the General never for a moment lost hope of being able to successfully repulse the enemy, for no man knew the material he had to do it with better than he.

What a pity that the services of such an able soldier should have been lost to the army and the country, a few weeks later, through the petty jealousies of small men, who wanted a scape-goat to cover up their own shortcomings. For over twenty years this grand American soldier, the soul of honor, who would at any moment sacrifice his life sooner than be guilty of an act inconsistent with his noble profession, has been permitted to live under the unjust stigma cast upon him. The day will surely come, and it is not far distant, when the American people will blush for the great wrong done Fitz John Porter. They will agree with the late general of our armies, a man whose memory will be forever held in grateful remembrance by his country (U. S. Grant), who, after careful and mature investigation of his conduct at the Second Battle of Bull Run, said deliberately, that Fitz John Porter should not be censured for the mismanagement of that ill-fated battle. In military affairs Gen. Grant was always a safe guide to follow.

After a careful review of Gen. Porter's case, Gen Grant wrote President Arthur, under date of December 22, 1881, as follows:

"At the request of Gen. Fitz John Porter, I have recently reviewed
his trial, and the testimony held before the Schofield court of
inquiry held in 1879.... The reading of the whole record has
thoroughly convinced me that for these nineteen years I have been
doing a gallant and efficient soldier a very great injustice in
thought and sometimes in speech. I feel it incumbent upon me now to
do whatever lies in my power to remove from him and from his family
the stain upon his good name.... I am now convinced that he
rendered faithful, efficient and intelligent service.... I would
ask that the whole matter be laid before the attorney-general for
his examination and opinion, hoping that you will be able to do
this much for an officer who has suffered for nineteen years a
punishment that never should be inflicted upon any but the most
guilty."

It was many months before I again saw the Ninth Massachusetts; but what a contrast to its appearance on that glorious April morning, in 1862, when I was the recipient of its warm hospitality among the pines on the threshold of the advance on the rebel capital.

JOHN DWYER.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: While the Sixty-Third was in Camp of Instruction on David's Island, in the East River, opposite New Rochelle, N. Y., it was under the spiritual care of Father Dillon, an enthusiastic young priest. He was an ardent advocate of temperance. Like all green troops, the Sixty-Third had some reckless members, who frequently took a "dhrop" too much. Before leaving for the seat of war, at the conclusion of a powerful temperance discourse, he proposed to the assembled regiment that every man and officer take the temperance pledge, "for the war." One thousand uplifted hands responded, and while he slowly read the words of the pledge the men repeated them; and this was how the Sixty-Third became "a temperance regiment."]

[Footnote 10: Here is Gen. Porter's tribute to the part taken by the brigade in the terrific struggle at Malvern Hill: "I sent an urgent request for two brigades. Sumner read my note aloud, and fearing he could not stand another draft on his forces, was hesitating to respond, when Heintzleman, ever prompt and generous, sprang to his feet and exclaimed: 'By Jove! if Porter asks for help, I know he needs it.' The immediate result was the sending of Meagher by Sumner, and Sickles by Heintzleman. This was the second time that Sumner had selected and sent me Meagher's gallant Irish Brigade, and each time it rendered invaluable service.... It was at this time, in answer to my call for aid that Sumner sent me Meagher, and Heintzleman sent Sickles, both of whom reached me in the height of battle, when, if ever, fresh troops would renew our confidence and insure success. While riding rapidly forward to meet Meagher, who was approaching at a double quick step, my horse fell, throwing me over his head, much to my discomfort, both of body and mind.... Advancing with Meagher's brigade, accompanied by my staff, I soon found that my forces had successfully driven back their assailants. Determined, if possible, satisfactorily to finish the contest, regardless of the risk of being fired upon by our artillery in case of defeat, I pushed on beyond our lines into the woods held by the enemy. About fifty yards in front of us, a large force of the enemy suddenly arose and opened with fearful volleys upon our advancing line. I turned to the brigade, which thus far had kept pace with my horse, and found it standing like a stone wall, and returning a fire more destructive than it received, and from which the enemy fled. _The brigade was planted._ My service was no longer needed, and I sought Gen. Sickles, whom I found giving aid to Couch. I had the satisfaction of learning that night that a Confederate detachment, undertaking to turn Meagher's left, was met by a portion of the Sixty-Ninth New York Regiment, which advancing, repelled the attack and captured many prisoners."]

Leo XIII. has sent to the Emperor of Germany and to Prince Bismarck copies, specially printed and bound, of the Encyclical. His Holiness adds to the present to the Chancellor a copy of the _Novissima Leonis XIII. Pont. Max. Carmina_. A note of very emphatic and reverent praise of the poems has been communicated to the official German press.

A Christmas Carol.

Ah, weep not, friends, that I am far from ye,
And no warm breathed words may reach my ears;
One way is shorter, nearer than by sea,
Prayers weigh with God and graces wait on tears;
As rise the mists from summer seas unseen,
To fall in freshening showers on hill and plain,
So prayer sent forth from fervent hearts makes green
The parched bowers of one whose life was vain.

Pray for me day and night these Christmas hours,
This the one gift I value all beyond;
Aid me with supplication 'fore those powers
Who have regard for prayer, th' angelic bond--
All ye who love me knock at Jesus' gate,
As for one standing outside deep in snow,
Tell him a sorrowing soul doth trembling wait,
And none but He can ease its load of woe.

Ah, friends! of whom I once asked other things,
Refuse me not this one thing asked again;
Shield me, a naked soul, with sheltering wings,
From rush of angry storms and bitter rain--
I cannot stand the gaze of mine own eyes;
That I escape myself implore our Lord--
Ah, me! I learn he only's rightly wise
Who seeks in all th' exceeding great reward.

From self that I be freed, O Father will!
Lord Jesus from the world protect me still,
Spirit paraclete, over the flesh give victory,
And o'er the devil a lasting crown to me!

JAMES KEEGAN.

The _Catholic Review_: Irish-America contributes to the new Parliament one of the strongest members of the Nationalist party, Mr. T. P. Gill, for some years past assistant editor of the _Catholic World_, and previously a prominent journalist in Ireland, where, during the imprisonment of Mr. William O'Brien, he took the editorial chair of _United Ireland_ until Mr. Buckshot Forster made it too hot for him. In the cooler climate of New York he still did good service to his party, in disabusing numbers of many ill-grounded misapprehensions and misconceptions, and in strengthening the sympathies, by increasing the information, of all well-wishers of Ireland. His work will be felt in England.

The Late Father Tom Burke.

Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., of London, have published, in two volumes, the "Life of the Very Rev. Thomas N. Burke, O.P.," by William J. Fitzpatrick, F.S.A. We give a few extracts:

"Some one complained to Father Burke one day that his sermons were too 'flowery;' but it was not just criticism if the term was intended to imply that they were florid. His answer was characteristic. 'And what should they be but floury--seeing my father was a baker?' It was also in allusion to his father's calling that he was wont to boast, when questioned as to his family, that they were 'the best-bread-Burkes' of Galway.

"'When I hear him preach,' said Bishop Moriarty, 'I rejoice that the Church has gained a prize; when I hear him tell a story, I am tempted to regret that the stage has lost him.'

"A Protestant lady listening to his lecture on divorce said: 'I am bound to become a Catholic out of self-respect and self-defence.'

"During the visit of the Prince of Wales to Rome His Royal Highness went to the Irish Dominicans and to the Irish College. Father Burke was asked to guide the prince through the crypt of St. Sebastian, his Royal Highness being, it was understood, particularly anxious to see the paintings with which the early Christians decorated the places where rested their dead. Some English ladies, mostly converts, in Rome at the time, were divided in their devotion to the Prince and to the catacomb pictures--the most memorable religious pictures of the world. That evening they begged Father Burke to tell them exactly what His Royal Highness said of the frescoes. The question was parried for some time; but when the fluttered expectation of the fair questioners had risen to a climax, Father Burke showed hesitating signs of his readiness to repeat the soul-betraying exclamations of the Prince. 'Well, what _did_ he say?' they cried, in suspense. 'He said--well, he said--'Aw!'"

"In 1865, Father Burke succeeded the present Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster in the pulpit of Sta Maria del Popolo in Rome; and it is a little coincidence that the famous Dominican, a year or two earlier, when Prior of Tallaght, succeeded also the Cardinal's relative in the pulpit of the Catholic University. 'Father Andedon,' says Mr. Fitzpatrick, 'had been for some years a very popular preacher in the church of the Catholic University. On the retirement of Father Andedon to England, to which he was naturally attached by birth and belongings--for Dr. Manning was his uncle--Father Burke took his place in the pulpit.' It was here, by the way, that the 'Prince of Preachers' introduced the class of sermons known as 'Conferences,' and associated with Lacordaire and the pulpit of Notre Dame. Father Burke had never seen Lacordaire; but the Dean of the Catholic University, who had been listening to Lacordaire for years, was greatly struck by Father Burke's resemblance, as a preacher, to his great brother Dominican in France. The likenesses between preachers, as between faces, are sometimes subtle things! Bishop Moriarty, returning from Rome, paused in Paris, where he heard yet another Dominican orator, Pere Monsabre, preaching at Notre Dame. When next he saw Father Tom, he said to him--'Do you know Monsabre reminded me very much of you?' 'Now,' said Father Tom--telling the story to his friend, Father Greene--'this was very gratifying to me. Pere Monsabre was a great man, and I thought it an honor to be compared to him, and I told the Bishop so, adding, 'Might I ask you, my lord, what was the special feature of resemblance?' Now 'David' (the Bishop's Christian name) had a slow and deliberate and judicious way of speaking that kept me very attentive and expectant. 'Well,' he said, 'I'll tell you what struck me most. When he went up into the pulpit, he looked around him deliberately and raised up his hand and--scratched his head.'"

"In the maddest sallies of Father Tom there was generally to be found a method. His exuberances when he was Prior of San Clemente, for instance, were attributed to his desire that his tonsure might not be made to bear the weight of a mitre: 'It got whispered among the cardinals' (writes Canon Brownlow), 'that their eminences were at times the objects of his jokes, and that he even presumed to mimic those exalted personages. Some of them spoke seriously about it, and asked the Dominican Cardinal Guidi to admonish him to behave with greater gravity. Cardinal Guidi repaired to San Clemente, and proceeded to deliver his message, and Father Burke received it with becoming submission. But no sooner had the cardinal finished than Father Burke imitated his manner, accent and language, with such ludicrous exactness that the cardinal burst into a fit of laughter, and could not tell him to stop.'

"The venerable Father Mullooly was equally foiled by another phase of the young friar's freakishness, when, on being remonstrated with for what seemed to be an undue indulgence in cigars, Father Tom represented it as rather dictated by a filial duty, for the Pope, he said, had sent him a share of a chest of Havanas, worth a dollar each, which a Mexican son had forwarded to the Vatican.

"But the other side of the man came out in his sermons when he succeeded Dr. Manning--hurriedly called to England to attend the death-bed of Cardinal Wiseman--as occupant of the pulpit of Santa Maria del Popolo, and on many subsequent occasions: 'When I lift up my eyes here (he said in speaking of the 'Groupings of Calvary'), it seems as if I stood bodily in the society of these men. I see in the face of John the expression of the highest manly sympathy that comforted and consoled the dying eyes of the Saviour. It seems to me that I behold the Blessed Virgin, whose maternal heart consented in that hour of agony to be broken for the sins of men. I see the Magdalen as she clings to the cross, and receives upon that hair, with which she wiped His Feet, the drops of His Blood. I behold that heart, humbled in penance and inflamed with love--the heart of the woman who had loved much, and for whom he had prayed. It seems to me that I travel step by step to Calvary, and learn, as they unite in Him, every lesson of suffering, of peace, of hope, of joy, of love."

Our Neighbors.

The Irish in Canada.

_Montreal Gazette:_ The matter of Mr. Curran's speech on the occasion of the opening of St. Ann's Hall is worthy of more than passing notice. He chose for his theme the progress of the Irish race in Canada, and although the groundwork of his address was placed in Montreal, the deductions to be drawn from the statistics presented may, with equal propriety, be applied to any section of Canada in which the Irish colony is located. The Irish people are, for what reason it is unnecessary to inquire, essentially colonists, much more so as respects the mass than those of Scotland and England, and in no country or clime have they found a more hospitable welcome or a more prosperous resting-place than in Canada. In Nova Scotia, in New Brunswick, in Prince Edward Island, in Quebec, in Ontario, Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen are found in the front rank of the professions, of agriculture, of industrial enterprise, while in the affairs of State they exert a large and legitimate influence. Any one acquainted with the commercial life of Halifax, or Montreal, and the agricultural districts of Ontario, will bear witness that no more loyal and law-abiding, no more intelligent and progressive, no more industrious and thrifty people than the descendants of Irishmen are to be found. As to the progress of the race in Montreal, Mr. Curran was able to present many interesting facts. From a community so small that, in the expressive words of the late Dr. Benjamin Workman, a good-sized parlor carpet would cover all the worshippers in the church, they have grown, by continuous and healthy progression, into a population of thousands, possessed of wealth, of influence, of activity, of loyal citizenship, with its established schools, its district congregations, its charitable institutions, its temperance societies, which have administered the pledge to more than twenty-five thousand people. In the two facts that since 1867 the assessed value of real estate possessed by the Irish people in Montreal has increased from $3,500,000 to more than $12,000,000, and that on the books of the City and District Savings Bank there are eleven thousand Irish names, mostly of the working classes, whose deposits exceed $2,000,000, the highest testimony of the industry and opportunity of the race is found. The prosperity of the Irish is not singular in this free country, but, brought out as Mr. Curran has done, it serves to exemplify the splendid field for honest toil Canada affords.

The French in Canada.