Chapter II: Part 2

This chapter cannot well be closed without some reference to “Millerism” and the preaching of Millerite doctrines in the winter of 1842-43. It is doubtful if any other religious movement of modern times, and certainly few in all historic time, have ever, in so short a period, awakened so vast a religious excitement and terror as the announcement and promulgation of these doctrines. Ten years before Rev. William Miller, of Pittsfield, Mass., began preaching upon the subject of the second coming of Christ, and claimed to have discovered some key to the prophecies by which the near approach of the end of the world and of the judgment day was clearly shown. His earnest manner and elaborate arguments, apparently fortified with abundant historic proof, had attracted great attention and started many followers to adopt and preach the doctrines, so that, at the period named, the excitement attending it throughout Christendom was at its highest point. The time for this holocaust had been definitely fixed by these modern interpreters. The year was 1843 and February was the month when all things were to collapse and end. Even the day was fixed by some. On that, however, all did not agree. Some fixed the 14th and others the 16th of February, and others still other days in that month for the happening of this terrible event. When we recall that the doctrine found millions of believers in the most civilized centers of the world, and for a time seriously paralyzed business in London, New York and Philadelphia, we will not wonder that with the people then living in the dreary solitudes of Dallas, such a doctrine found ready listeners and willing believers almost everywhere. The old log schoolhouse was not large enough to hold the meetings, and others were started in different places. A very large one was conducted at the “Goss” or “Corner” schoolhouse. The time was getting short, and with the nearing of the fatal day excitement increased. Half the people of the community were in some degree insane. Many people refused to do any business, but devoted themselves entirely to religious work and meditation. These meetings were started early in the fall, and were kept up continuously through the winter. The plan and intention of the leaders was to convert everyone in Dallas township, and with a few exceptions the plan succeeded. Of course there were different degrees of faith. Some were so sure of the dissolution of all things on the appointed day that they refused to make any provisions for a longer existence. One man, Christian Snyder, refused to sell corn or grain, but was willing to give it away to the needy, and only desired to keep enough for the needs of himself and family until the fixed final day. Many of the people spent that dreadful winter reading the Bible, praying and pondering over that horrible interpretation. The memorable meteoric shower which extended almost over the whole world on the night of the 12th and 13th of November, 1833, was still fresh in the memory of almost every adult, and was well calculated to prepare the mind to believe the proofs and prophecies of such a catastrophe. That never-to-be-forgotten rain of fire must have been frightfully impressive even to the most scientific man who could best understand the causes which produced it. It has no parallel in recorded history, and one can quite readily understand how such an interpretation of the holy prophecies, following immediately such a fiery manifestation in the heavens, should find easy believers.

Converts were frequently baptized that winter by immersion through holes cut in the ice, and in one instance, I am credibly informed, when a parent only succeeded in converting a doubting daughter on the night before the supposed fatal day, he took her himself on that bitter cold night to the nearest mill-pond, cut a hole in the ice and baptized her by immersion. The man was personally well known to me, and to the day of his death, which occurred only within the last decade, he remained firm in his faith in similar interpretations of the prophecies, and continued calculating and fixing new dates in the future for the coming of the end of all things. He was never disconcerted by any failures, but seriously accounted for it by saying that he had made a little error in his calculation, and gave you a new and corrected date further on. This man was Christopher Snyder.

An anecdote is told of Harris in connection with the meteoric shower above referred to, illustrating the common belief that the stars had actually fallen from the heavens. On the evening following the shower, Mr. Harris said he could see a great diminution of the number of stars in the heavens, and ventured the belief that a few more showers like the one of the evening before would use up the rest of them. So common was this belief that the stars had actually fallen, so great and memorable was the event, that to this day, among the older men about Dallas, you will occasionally hear men trying to fix the date or year of some long past occurrence, and not infrequently one will say something like this: “Well, I know it happened then because the stars fell in thirty-three, and this happened just so many years after” (or before, just as the case may be)--“now figure it up yourself.”

SOCIAL THINGS

Of “apple cuts” I can speak in lighter vein. They were generally occasions of great merriment.

It has been truly said that a country is poor indeed when it is so poor that dried apples become a luxury. Before the days of cheap sugar and canned fruits, dried apples and cider apple sauce, the latter made of apples boiled to a pulp in cider, were luxuries and necessities both in many places besides ours. Apples were always abundant and cheap in Dallas. In fact, when the forests are cleared away, apple trees are found to spring up spontaneously in some places, and only need a little trimming and protection to become good orchards. This fact was accounted for to the writer by the owner of one such orchard as follows: He said a good many people had marveled at the natural growth of his orchard, and had asked him how he could account for it. “Of course you know,” said he, “that it has always been my habit to give such things a good deal of thought. I could never be satisfied, like most folks, to just sit down and take things as they come without trying to understand them, and I always keep at them until I cipher them out. Now, you see it’s just like this about these apple trees: Some day or ’nuther, probably millions of years ago, this hull country was overflowed by the ocean. That’s plain enough to any man who takes the trouble to think about these things. Well, right about over here somewhere there has been a shipwreck some day, and a ship load of apples has sunk right here, and these apple trees have sprung from the seeds. You know a seed will keep a great while and then grow.”

The work of paring the apples and removing the cores for an ordinary family’s winter supply of dried apples and apple butter, before the days of machines for that purpose, was a task of no little magnitude. All had to be done by hand and as sometimes happened, many bushels had to be so treated. It was a task that would have occupied the working portion of an ordinary family several days, and thus much of the fruit would, from long keeping, have lost its value for cider appliance by becoming stale and partly dried. For this reason there seemed almost a necessity for calling in help sufficient to do the required amount of work in a very short period of time. The apple cut solved this difficulty successfully. When a family had once determined on having an apple cut, it was given out to the nearest neighbors, and from them it spread of its own accord for miles around. Those who heard of it could go if they chose to. No special invitations were required. The apple cut was an evening festivity, and was most “prevalent” just after buckwheat thrashing, when the nights were cool and the roads not very muddy. I am told that in later years it began to be considered “bad form” to go to an apple cut without special invitation; but apple cuts were degenerating then, and they died soon after when the apple parer in its present improved form was introduced.

The old-fashioned apple cut was a very informal affair. Each guest upon arrival was expected to take a plate and knife, select a seat and some apples, and begin work without disturbing anyone else. The “cut” usually lasted for an hour or two. Twenty or thirty people could, and did usually, accomplish a good deal in that time in the way of work as well as say and do a great many of the commonplace things that country people ordinarily indulge in when thus congenially thrown together.

After the work was finished and the _débris_ cleared away, a surreptitious fiddle was sometimes pulled from an old grain bag and started up. “Fisher’s Hornpipe,” “Money Musk” and “The Arkansaw Traveler” composed the stock of the average fiddler thereabouts in those days, and any of them was enough to set all heels, with the slightest proclivities in that way, to kicking in the French Four, Virginia Reel or Cotillion. At some houses dancing was looked upon as improper, and in its stead some simple games were played. The festivities usually broke off early, as all had long distances to go. Dissipation in the matter of late hours could not be indulged in very much, because of the very general country habit of early rising.

The gentlemen did not often forget or fail to be gallant in the matter of escorting the ladies home. Usually the demands of etiquette were satisfied with the gentleman “going only as far as the chips,” as it was commonly expressed, meaning, of course, the place where the wood was hauled in front of the house and chopped up for firewood.

“Going as far as the chips” was an expression as common and as generally understood in that day as going to the front gate would be now. The front gate then was generally a few improvised steps to assist in climbing over the rail fence at some point near the “chips” or wood pile.

“Spinning Bees” and “Quilting Bees” were exclusively feminine industries. With each invitation to a “spinning bee” was sent a bunch of tow sufficient for two or three days’ spinning, which the recipient was expected to convert into thread or yarn by or before the date fixed for the party. The acceptance of the tow was equivalent to a formal acceptance of the invitation. On the appointed day each lady took her bunch of spun tow and proceeded early in the afternoon to the house of the hostess. The afternoon was usually spent in the usually easy and unconventional manner that might be expected when a dozen or fifteen able-bodied women of the neighborhood, who had not seen each other lately, are assembled. This was, of course, long before the newspaper or magazine had reached their present perfection, and before the daily paper “brought the universe to our breakfast table.”

The surest way for a lady to avoid being the subject of comment was to be at the meeting. The gentlemen always came in time for tea and to see the ladies home.

“Quilting Bees” define themselves in their name. They were very similar to spinning bees, except that the work was done after the guests had assembled.

Of “Stoning Bees,” “Logging Bees” and “Raising Bees,” description is unnecessary. The names are almost self-explaining, though just why they were called “Bees” I cannot learn, unless it is because those who came were expected to, and usually did, imitate the industrial virtues of that insect. They were also sometimes called “frolics,” possibly for the reason that the frolicking was often as hard and as general as the work. Strong and hearty men were much inclined to playful trials of strength and other frivolities when they met at such times. This tendency was much enhanced in the earlier days by the customary presence of intoxicants.

These amusements were varied and extended far beyond those above mentioned. They exhibited and illustrate much of the character, surroundings and habits of those early people. They wanted no better amusement. It was, in their esteem, a wicked waste of time and in conflict with their necessary economies to have parties or gatherings of any kind exclusively for amusement, and unaccompanied with some economic or industrial purpose like those indicated above.

The dancing party or ball was a thing of later date, but even when it came, and for many years after, it was looked upon by the more serious people as not only wicked and degrading in a religious and moral point of view, but very wasteful in an economic sense.

Their hard sense taught them that their industrio-social gatherings, together with the church meetings and Sunday-schools, furnished ample occasions for the young to meet and become acquainted, while the elements of evil that crept into modern society elsewhere were there reduced to a minimum.

A THRIFTY STOREKEEPER

A good story is told of Joseph Hoover dating well back in the first half of the century. He went one day to the store of Mr. Jacob R----, in a neighboring town, to get a gallon of molasses, taking with him the jug usually used for that purpose. As it happened that day, the son, Isaac, who usually waited on him, was otherwise engaged, and the father, Jacob, went down cellar to draw the molasses. After being gone some time, Jacob called up from the cellar to Joseph and said that the jug did not hold a gallon. “Call Isaac,” replied Hoover, “and let him try; he has always been able to get a gallon in that jug!”

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC

A PAGE OF HISTORY CORRECTED

III

HALLECK AND POPE

The fourth letter[13] contains a sentence which almost takes one’s breath. It is bunglingly constructed--a thing unusual in Pope’s communications. He had received a letter from Halleck, dated November 7, intimating that the Secretary of War would order a court of inquiry, and he answers, conveying the following:

“The overt act at Alexandria, during the engagement near Centreville, can be fully substantiated by letters from many officers since I have been here [St. Paul], it is quite certain [Now mark!] _that my defeat was predetermined_, [Now mark again!] and I think you must now be conscious of it.”

Pope does not even intimate who predetermined that “overt act,” although he intimates rather clearly that Halleck is conscious of the facts. It is difficult to see, however, how either McClellan, Porter or Griffin could “predetermine” either a victory or a defeat at that time.

On the 25th day of November, 1862, the very day set by General Pope, Major-General Halleck ordered a general court-martial for the trial of Major-General Fitz-John Porter, and on that same day he made his official report of the battle in which he certified to Pope’s efficiency, as the latter had demanded in those uncanny letters. And on the 5th day of December, Major-General Pope declared under oath:

“This is all I have yet done”: _i. e._, “in my official reports of the operations of the army, to set forth all the facts as they transpired on the field. I have not preferred charges against him. I have merely set forth facts in my official reports,” etc.

The “Official Records” referred to show that he “set forth” certain facts [or fancies] in his private letters to Halleck, which, by some mysterious influence have found their way into print, and suggest that an explanation is in order to reconcile his sworn testimony with the fact that he was urging General Halleck to action, by military court, and even threatening him in case he should neglect such action.

He says: “No man knows better than yourself the constancy, the energy, and the zeal with which I endeavored to carry out your programme in Virginia. Your own letters and dispatches, from beginning to end, are sufficient evidence of this fact, and also of the fact that I not only committed no mistake, but that every act and movement met with your heartiest concurrence.”

[_Note._--This statement is fully corroborated by the “Official Records.” It is as certain as anything can be that Halleck formulated the plan and that Pope executed it. If he appeared to be making mistakes, he was obeying orders, and Halleck should be chargeable.]

Pope continues: “Your own declarations to me up to the last hour I remained in Washington bore testimony that I had shown every quality to command success.”...

“Having, at your own urgent request [Mark that well! and what follows also. This paragraph shows that Halleck himself was the instigator of the charges against Porter], and from a sense of duty [!] laid before the Government, the conduct of McClellan, Porter and Griffin, and substantiated the facts stated by their own written documents, I am not disposed to push the matter further, unless the silence of the Government [this means Halleck, as has been shown Halleck was the only objector to the gratification of Pope’s wishes], in the midst of the unscrupulous slander and misrepresentation purposely put in circulation against me and the restoration of these officers, without trial, to their commands, coupled with my banishment to a distant and unimportant department, render it necessary as an act of justice to myself.”

How keenly Pope feels his disgrace, having been used as a tool and then flung aside, is shown clearly. He continues:

“As I have already said, I challenge and seek examination of my campaign in Virginia in all its details, and unless the Government by some high mark of public confidence, such as they have given to me in private, relieves me from the atrocious injury done to my character as a soldier ... justice to myself and to all connected with me demands that I should urge the court of inquiry.... This investigation, under the circumstances above stated, I shall assuredly urge in every way. If it cannot be accomplished by military courts, it will undoubtedly be the subject of the inquiry in Congress.”

Then follows a darkly ominous hint: “It is especially hard, in view of my relations with you [Note that!] that I should be compelled even to ask at your hands the justice which it is your duty to assure to every officer of the army.... I tell you frankly that by the time Congress meets such influences as can not be resisted will be brought to bear on this subject.... I prefer greatly that you should do me this justice of your own accord.”[14]

Altogether this letter is a rare specimen of the chiaroscuro in the art epistolary; it tells of Halleck’s acts of injustice which Pope will right by every means in his power. At times it breathes hatred and vengeance, and closes with such a loving assurance as this:

“I write you this letter with mixed feelings. Personal friendship and interest in your welfare, I think, predominate. I am not so blinded as not to know that it gave you pain to allow such scandal against me and to take such action as you thought the peculiar circumstances required. Much as I differ with you on the subject, I am not ready to blame you or to feel bitterly.”

Then follows that warning: “I impress upon you the necessity for your own sake of considering carefully the suggestions I have presented,” and closes with the assurance, “I shall not again address you a letter on such a subject.”

This assurance was not fulfilled. Indeed, Pope wrote several letters on the subject, as will appear. Queer letters were they, to be written by a major-general commanding a department, to his superior, the general-in-chief, to whom he administers the medicine _à la cheval de trait_.

To summarize: Pope makes these charges against Halleck.

(1) That the plan of campaign was Halleck’s.[15]

(2) That Pope was but an instrument in the hands of the general-in-chief.[16]

(3) That Pope faithfully executed Halleck’s plans.[17]

(4) That the latter fully approved every act of the former, thereby making himself responsible, so far as Pope was concerned, for the final result.[18]

Here a pause. These charges are fully substantiated by letters and telegrams passing between Halleck and Pope, which appear in parts II and III, of Vol. XII, of the Official Records. Pope was regularly advising Halleck of his movements, and Halleck was as regularly approving the same. And as late as August 26, 11:45 A. M., Halleck wired Pope: “Not the slightest dissatisfaction has been felt in regard to your operations on the Rappahannock,” etc.

Returning to the charges:

(5) That Pope had made the charges against Generals McClellan, Porter and Griffin “at Halleck’s own urgent request.”[19] Halleck was the real instigator.

(6) That Halleck had not assigned him [Pope] to command of the western department, which, as Pope says, “would at once have freed me [Pope] from the odium and abuse which have so shamefully and unjustly been heaped upon me by the papers and people,” etc.[20]

(7) That he found himself banished to the frontier.[21]

(8) That his character and reputation as a soldier had been deeply and irretrievably injured.[22]

(9) That the Government refused to allow him to publish the facts[23] and

(10) That General-in-Chief Halleck declined to acknowledge his services publicly.

All through the letters are insinuations and charges against McClellan, Porter and Griffin. And he makes categorical demand in these words:

“I said, and say now, that one of three things I was entitled to; any one of them would have satisfied me. The dictates of the commonest justice gave me the right to expect one of them at least:

1st. That the court of inquiry be at once held and the blame be fixed where it belongs. It is now too late for that, as the delay has already made the worst impression against me that is possible.

2d. That the Government should acknowledge publicly, as it had done privately, my services in Virginia, or

3d. That in case neither of these things could be done, then that the Government bestow upon me some mark of public confidence, as its opinion of my ability warranted.

None of these things have been done,” etc.

He continues: “You know me well enough I think, to understand that I will never submit if I can help it. The court of inquiry, which you inform me has been ordered, will amount to nothing for several reasons. It is too late, so far as I am concerned. Its proceedings, I presume, will be secret, as in Harper’s Ferry business. The principal witnesses are here with me, and I myself should be present. The Mississippi River closes by the 25th of November [Note that date!]; frequently sooner than that. It is then next to impossible to get away from this place. A journey through the snow of 200 miles is required to communicate with any railroad.”[24]

And on the very day which Pope had named, November 25, 1862, General-in-Chief Halleck issued his order for the court-martial of Fitz-John Porter, and issued his report certifying to the efficiency of General Pope, thus avoiding the court of inquiry which Pope had threatened to demand.

Such a court, if honestly conducted, would have laid bare the truth, and shown to the world that Halleck himself had prevented the reinforcements from reaching Pope, caused the defeat of Second Bull Run, imperiled the national capital, and opened the door of Maryland to Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

This conclusion is supported both by Halleck’s official report and by his testimony before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. In the former, he says: “Had the Army of the Potomac arrived a few days earlier, the rebel army could have been easily defeated and, perhaps, destroyed.” His testimony before that committee, on March 11, 1863.[25]

“Question. To what do you attribute the disastrous result of General Pope’s campaign?

Answer. I think our troops were not sufficiently concentrated so as to be all brought into action on the field of battle; and there was great delay in getting reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac to General Pope’s assistance.

Question. To what is that delay attributable?

Answer. Partly, I think, to accidents, and partly to a want of energy in the troops, or their officers, in getting forward to General Pope’s assistance. I could not say that that was due to any particular individual. It may have resulted from the officers generally not feeling the absolute necessity of great haste in re-enforcing General Pope. The troops, after they started from the Peninsula, were considerably delayed by heavy storms that came on at that time.”

[_Note._--General Halleck has not told that committee, what his own letters and telegrams conclusively prove, that the principal delay of those reinforcements was due to his own wilfully false telegrams to Generals McClellan, Burnside, and Porter, and that he also prevented General Franklin and the Sixth Army Corps from reaching Pope from Alexandria by refusing to provide transportation. The next question and answer fixes the blame directly upon Halleck himself]:

“Question. Had the Army of the Peninsula [_i. e._, the army under McClellan, which embraced both Porter’s and Franklin’s corps] been brought to co-operate with the Army of Virginia [under the command of Pope] with the utmost energy that circumstances would have permitted, in your judgment as a military man, would it not have resulted in our victory instead of our defeat?

Answer. I thought so at the time, and still think so.”

And this is the opinion of all military critics who have pronounced judgment in the case. It is also certainly true that Halleck’s own orders and telegrams prove that he himself, and apparently purposely, prevented such co-operation, and it throws a peculiar significance on Pope’s charge in his letter to Halleck, dated November 20, 1862, before quoted, “_It is quite certain that my defeat was predetermined, and I think you must now be conscious of it_.”[26]

The consequences which followed the defeat of Pope were not immediately and fully appreciated at the time in the North, on account of the censorship of the press, nor do they seem to be so at this day. Orders were given to prepare for the evacuation of Washington; vessels were ordered to the arsenal to receive the munitions of war for shipment northward; one warship was anchored in the Potomac, ready to receive the President, the Cabinet and the more important archives of the Government: Secretary Stanton advised Mr. Hiram Barney, then Collector of the Port of New York, to leave Washington at once, as communication might be cut off before morning;[27] Stanton and Halleck assured President Lincoln that the Capital was lost.

Singularly enough the designs against Washington in the East were at the same time and in the same manner being duplicated against Cincinnati, then the “Queen City of the West.”

On August 30, while Pope was fighting the second Bull Run battle in Virginia, the Confederate Major-General, E. Kirby Smith, was fighting the battle of Richmond, Ky. In his report to General Braxton Bragg, Smith says:

“The enemy’s loss during the day is about 1400 killed and wounded, and 4000 prisoners. Our loss is about 500 killed and wounded. General Miller was killed, General Nelson wounded, and General Manson taken prisoner. The remnant of the Federal force in Kentucky is making its way, utterly demoralized and scattered, to the Ohio. General Marshall is in communication with me. Our column is moving upon Cincinnati.”

On September 2, Lexington was occupied by Kirby Smith’s infantry. He reports to General Cooper that the Union killed and wounded exceed 1000; “the prisoners amount to between 5000 and 6000; the loss--besides some twenty pieces of artillery, including that taken here (Lexington) and at Frankfort--9000 small arms and large quantities of supplies.” The Confederate cavalry, he reports, pursued the Union forces to within twelve miles of Louisville; and, he adds: “I have sent a small force to Frankfort, to take possession of the arsenal and public property there. I am pushing some forces in the direction of Cincinnati, in order to give the people of Kentucky time to organize. General Heth, with the advance, is at Cynthiana, with orders to threaten Covington.”

This invasion of Kentucky was due to Halleck, as was proved before the military court appointed “to inquire into and report upon the operations of the forces under command of Major-General Buell in the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, and particularly in reference to General Buell suffering the State of Kentucky to be invaded by the rebel forces under General Bragg,” etc.

That court was in session from November 27, 1862, until May 6, 1863, with the gallant Major-General Lew Wallace presiding. Its opinion recited that Halleck had ordered General Buell to march against Chattanooga and take it, with the ulterior object of dislodging Kirby Smith and his rebel force from East Tennessee; that General Buell had force sufficient to accomplish the object if he could have marched promptly to Chattanooga; that the plan of operation prescribed by General Halleck compelled General Buell to repair the Memphis and Charleston railroad from Corinth to Decatur, and put it in running order; that the road proved of comparatively little service; that the work forced such delays that a prompt march upon Chattanooga was impossible, while they made the rebel invasion of Tennessee and Kentucky possible. Our forces were driven northward to the Ohio, leaving the Memphis and Charleston railroad in excellent condition for the use of the Confederates. Strangely enough, Halleck’s orders to Buell had inured to the benefit of the Confederates in the West, in the same manner and along the same lines as his orders to McClellan and to Pope had inured to the benefit of the Confederates in the East.

Both Washington and Cincinnati were imperiled at the same time, and by the same officer, General-in-Chief Halleck, and in the same way--by a succession of steps that appear to have been carefully planned.

Now, mark what follows.

On March 1, 1872, the House of Representatives called upon the Secretary of War for a copy of the proceedings of that military court; and on April 13 the Secretary reported to the House, “that a careful and exhaustive search among all the records and files in this Department fails to discover what disposition was made of the proceedings of the Commission,” etc.

But though the records of those proceedings which fix the blame for that campaign upon Major-General Halleck were lost or stolen from the archives of the War Department, Benn Pitman, the phonographic reporter of the court, had possession of a report of those proceedings. And, by Act of Congress, approved by President Grant on June 5, 1872, the Secretary of War was “directed to employ at once Benn Pitman to make a full and complete transcript of the phonographic notes taken by him during the said investigation, and to put the same on file among the records of the War Department, and to furnish a copy of the same to Congress.”

The report of those proceedings may now be found in “Official Records,” Series I, Vol. XVI, Part I, pp. 6 to 726, inclusive. The most melancholy part of the story lies in the fact that Porter, who certainly helped to save Washington from falling into Lee’s hands, had his life blasted by Halleck, and died without knowledge that Halleck, not Pope, was really guilty of the disaster which so nearly resulted in the abandonment of the Capital to the Confederates, and while Halleck was directing affairs in the West in such a manner as to imperil Cincinnati.

The remarkable co-operation between Pope and Buell for the surrender of those cities, and which was attempted by Halleck, does not look like a concatenation of accidental circumstances. This is accentuated by the charge against Halleck’s loyalty to the Republic which was made by the gallant Wallace after he had presided over that Buell military court. He was a careful man; and, being a good lawyer, he understood the laws and effect of evidence. Porter, who prevented the surrender of Washington, and Buell, who saved Cincinnati, were both punished. It looks as if they had interfered with Halleck’s plan of a general surrender.

L’ENVOI

In January, 1899, the writer commenced to unravel the mystery surrounding the battle of Harper’s Ferry, which culminated in the surrender of that post September 15, 1862. He was a member of that garrison, and he knew that history had not truthfully recorded the defense, some chronicles reading that “Harper’s Ferry fell without a struggle,” others that “there was no defense”; in the main, historians were a unit.

Such reports are wholly false. The defense of that post was stubborn and prolonged, lasting from September 11, when the Confederates showed themselves in Pleasant Valley, until the 15th, when the garrison was subjected to one of the fiercest bombardments of the Civil War. Never was hope abandoned until the last shell was expended, though the little garrison of 12,500 men was besieged by what was practically the whole of Lee’s army. Starting on a new line of research, and abandoning the path beaten by others, he found many battles lost in the same manner, and the responsibility shifted from the shoulders of the guilty and carefully loaded upon those of the innocent, and all by the use of the same means, a false report by General-in-Chief Halleck, and a bogus trial by a military court.

Conspicuous among these was the battle of Second Bull Run, followed by the trial of Fitz-John Porter. That battle was certainly lost by Halleck, as shown by documents over that general’s own signature. And Pope knew it, and charged that it was premeditated. To avoid the odium which some papers were attaching to his name, the latter applied the whip and spur to the former, who, under threat of exposure, ordered the court-martial of the innocent and gallant Major-General Fitz-John Porter. The battle of Harper’s Ferry followed; the result was the same; lost by Halleck; responsibility lifted from his shoulders, and carefully divided between General McClellan (for not relieving the post) and Colonel Dixon S. Mills (for not defending it). After that came Fredericksburg, with similar results; lost by Halleck; responsibility lifted from his shoulders, and divided between Burnside and Franklin.

Study the plans adopted in one instance; the plans adopted in the others become manifest. The losing of the battles to the Union arms was accomplished by carefully prepared plans, and reduced to an exact science.

R. N. ARPE.

NEW YORK CITY.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] November 20, pp. 825-6.

[14] P. 818

[15] Page 817

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] P. 817.

[20] P. 818.

[21] Ibid.

[22] P. 921.

[23] Ibid.

[24] P. 822

[25] Vol. II, Part I, p. 454

[26] O. R., Vol. XII, Part III, p. 825.

[27] See Warden’s Chase, p. 415.

THE NORTHERN NECK OF VIRGINIA

PRESENT-DAY ASPECTS OF WASHINGTON’S BIRTHPLACE

Five Virginia counties lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock constitute the Northern Neck, the region in which George Washington, Light Horse Harry Lee, and his more famous son were born and bred. There are a scant thousand square miles in these counties of King George, Westmoreland, Richmond, Northumberland, and Lancaster, and the population of the five is under fifty-five thousand. At no point are the rivers much more than thirty miles apart, and near the northern boundary line of King George the harbors on the two streams are only nine miles apart. Washington was born on a lonely plantation in Westmoreland County, bordering the beautiful Bridges Creek, within sight of the Potomac. At Colonial Beach, two or three miles across the mouth of Monroe Creek, also in Westmoreland County, stands a house in good repair, which is declared to have been the residence of Light Horse Harry Lee before he removed to Fairfax County. Washington as an infant was taken by his parents to their new home opposite Fredericksburg, in Stafford County, and at the age of twenty he inherited from his half-brother Lawrence the fine estate of Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County. Lawrence had named his estate in honor of Admiral Vernon, with whom the young Virginian had served as an officer in the campaign against the Spanish-American stronghold of Cartagena. It was Lawrence’s acquaintance with Admiral Vernon that won for George Washington the offer of a midshipman’s commission in the royal navy, an appointment that only his mother’s strong objection prevented him from accepting.

From the birthplace of Washington to his second home opposite Fredericksburg is hardly more than fifty-five miles as the crow flies, and from the birthplace to the scene of his death at Mount Vernon is under seventy miles. The triangle enclosed by the lines connecting these points includes a tract of Virginia that is full of historic interest, and singularly rich and beautiful as an agricultural region. Most of the counties of the Northern Neck are increasing in population, but they lie far from railways, and their mode of communication with the outside world is the steamboats that ply from Baltimore up and down the two rivers.

In spite, therefore, of the rolling years, and of civil war, and emancipation, the Northern Neck of Virginia is in many respects much what it was when George Washington and Light Horse Harry Lee were born a month apart in the quaint and lovely old Westmoreland of the year 1732. The visitor to Mount Vernon comes away with a strong impression of Washington, the local magnate and world-wide hero. But Mount Vernon, in spite of its tomb and its relics, many of them actually used and handled by Washington himself, can hardly give one the eighteenth century atmosphere. To obtain that one must make a pilgrimage to the region of Washington’s birth. A fair shaft erected by the Federal Government now stands on the spot occupied by the homestead of Augustine Washington, the birthplace of his mighty son. The spot is as remote and lonely as it was when Washington’s eyes first saw the light, and the aspect of the region must be much what it was in that day. Doubtless the woodland has shrunk in area and the plowed land has widened. But there, in full view from the monument, are the land-locked tidal waters of the little stream, and eastward lies the broad lazy flood of the Potomac, idly moving beneath the soft overarching sky. Everywhere are the marks of an old civilization. The road that leads from the wharf at Wakefield on Monroe Creek to the monument is lined with cherry trees escaped from the old orchards of the neighborhood. The mockingbird sings in all the woodlands as it must have sung in the ears of Augustine Washington as he moved about his fields, and gray old log granaries of the eighteenth century pattern still stand amid piles of last year’s corncobs. Even to-day brand-new corn cribs are built in the same fashion of partly hewn logs. The crops are also those of the earlier century. The monument itself stands in the midst of a waving wheat field, and acres of Indian corn rustle green and rich as they must have rustled in the first hot summer of George Washington’s infancy.

The reality of it all is increased by the bodily presence of Washington’s own kin, men and women bearing his name, the descendants of his collateral relatives. A little boat rocking at anchor off the wharf at Wakefield is the fishing dory of Lawrence Washington, commonly called “Lal” Washington by his neighbors. He is a man of substance and dignity. But he takes delight in fishing his own pound nets, and the unpretentious fishermen of the region tell how the old man’s enthusiasm was such that he rushed waist deep into the water to help three or four young fellows drag ashore a heavily laden seine. His brother was for years State’s Attorney of a neighboring county, and other members of the family are landholders in Westmoreland. Their neighbors accept these families of historic name in a simple, matter-of-fact fashion, and with no humiliating sense of inferiority. “They’re all smart people,” said the young fisherman that sailed us across Monroe Creek to the wharf at Wakefield, and that is what Westmoreland expects of the Washingtons.

Neighboring plantations are stocked with fine old European nut and fruit trees, such as the colonists with the increasing wealth of the third and fourth generations were accustomed to import. In some places the fig is cultivated, and within the shadow of the birthplace monument is a dense colony of young fig shoots which have sprung and resprung after every severe winter for perhaps more than a century and a half. The steep bank of Bridges Creek to the southeast of the monument is lined with cherry trees that to this day bear excellent fruit, to be had merely for the picking. One gathers from all the surroundings of the place a strong sense of the dignity and simplicity that mark plantation life in Virginia.

It is a quiet life, indeed, that the people of these Westmoreland plantations lead. Even to this day sailing craft slowly worm their way far into the deep navigable inlets of the region, and carry freight to Baltimore and Washington. Each plantation has its own wharf, and each planter keeps a lookout for the coming schooner, just as their ancestors of Washington’s day must have watched for the slow and patient craft that plied up and down the Potomac, and away to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, or across the Atlantic to England, a voyage that might stretch out for six or eight, ten, or even twelve weeks.

The very speech of the people has a slightly archaic flavor, and family names are redolent of old English ancestry. Here still are the Kendalls, who like to boast that one of their ancestors was the earliest mail contractor in Virginia. The elder Kendall, a man of substance and fair education, found satisfactory reasons for selling all that he had and coming to Jamestown with Captain John Smith. In coming away he left behind a son just grown to manhood and some debts owing to the estate. The son was instructed to collect what he could of the proceeds, invest it in blankets and trinkets such as the Indians liked, and to follow the father to Jamestown. The young man obeyed the paternal instructions, but in sailing up the Potomac with his freight of gewgaws he mistook the Potomac for the James. After vainly looking for Jamestown, he concluded that the settlement had been destroyed by the Indians, and, having reached the present site of Alexandria, he made a settlement and called it Bell Haven. Some months later an Indian who visited Bell Haven made the settlers to understand that there were white men on a river further south. Young Kendall knew then that Jamestown was still in being. So he wrote a letter to his father and entrusted it to the Indian to be delivered at Jamestown, paying him for the service one gay woolen blanket. Father and son thus came into communication, but the son remained at Bell Haven, and from him are descended the Kendalls of the Northern Neck.

The whole region teems with traditions of Washington. Down in Northumberland County, the lovely little harbor of Lodge is named from the fact that here stood the Masonic lodge that Washington used to attend. The British destroyed the house during the Revolutionary War, but the cornerstone was found and opened not many years ago, and some of its treasures of old English money were placed in the cornerstone of the Masonic lodge at Kinsale, another charming little Virginia harbor. It is at Lodge that the maker of canceling dies for the Post Office Department, exiled from Washington because of the climate, has for nearly twenty years carried on his business with the aid of country youths trained for the purpose.

If the shore is much what it was in Washington’s infancy, the river and its tributaries are even more so. Those who know the Potomac at Washington or amid the mountains that hem it in further west and north, may well have no suspicion of the vast flood which it becomes in the lower part of its course. Fifty miles below Washington the river is from four to six miles wide. Sixty miles below the capital it has spread to a width of ten miles, and in the lower forty miles of its course it is from ten to eighteen miles wide, a great estuary of the Chesapeake, with tributaries, almost nameless on the map, that fairly dwarf the Hudson. The busy steamers plying these waters to carry the produce of the plantations to the markets of Baltimore and Washington leave the Potomac from time to time to lose themselves in its tortuous tributaries. Cape on cape recedes to unfold new and unexpected depths of loveliness; little harbors sit low on the tidal waters backed by wooded bluffs, behind which lie the rich plantations of Northumberland and Westmoreland. A soft-spoken race of easy-going Virginians haunts the landing-places. Fishermen, still pursuing the traditional methods of the eighteenth century, fetch in sea trout and striped bass and pike to sell them at absurdly low prices, and for nine months of the year oystermen are busy. Every planter who will can maintain his pound net in the shallows of the Potomac or one of its tributaries, and all along the lower course of the stream the planter may secure his own oysters almost without leaving the shore. The dainties that filled colonial larders in Washington’s youth are still the food of the region--oysters and clams, soft-shell crabs, wild duck, geese, and swan in winter, and a bewildering variety of fish.

Just across the Potomac from Washington’s birthplace is old Catholic Maryland of the Calvert Palatinate, settled almost exactly a century before his birth, and still rich in the names and traditions of that earlier time. The great width of the separating flood makes one shore invisible from the other, and the only means of communication are either the local sailing craft or the steamers that weave from side to side of the river and lengthen the voyage from Baltimore to Washington to a matter of thirty hours. Communication between Maryland and Virginia was almost as easy in Washington’s day, for the steamboats have an annoying habit of neglecting many miles of one shore or the other, and there are days when no steamer crosses the stream. A man living in one of the little harbors of the Northern Neck, being in a hurry to travel northward, found his most expeditious mode of travel to be a drive of seventy miles to a railway at Richmond. Shut in thus, the people of the Northern Neck have nursed their traditions and held hard by their old family names, so that the visiting stranger, if he have any touch of historic instinct, finds himself singularly moved with a sense of his nearness in time to George Washington and his contemporaries. The telephone, indeed, has brought these people into tenuous communication with the modern world, but he that looks out upon the sea-like flood of the Potomac from the mouth of one of its many navigable tributaries in the Northern Neck can hardly persuade himself that the capital of 80,000,000 people lies less than a hundred miles up stream. Washington the man seems vastly more real and present than Washington the city.

E. N. VALLANDIGHAM.

_Evening Post_, N. Y.

FANCIES AT NAVESINK

(The original manuscript of this unpublished poem by Walt Whitman, was sold in New York recently. Apparently it was never finished; which is to be regretted, as its few lines are in Whitman’s best manner. The scene is on the hill by the twin lighthouses at Navesink, N. J., near the entrance to New York harbor.--ED.)

FANCIES AT NAVESINK--THE PILOT IN THE MIST

(Steaming the Northern Rapids--an old St. Lawrence Reminiscence.)

A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,
Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from the hill.
Again ’tis at morning--a heavy haze contends with daybreak.
Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me--we press through
foam-dash’d rocks that almost touch.
Again I, turning, mark where aft the small, thin Indian helmsman
Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand--

THE FIGHT AT DIAMOND ISLAND

Standing upon one of the heights near the head or southern end of Lake George, the tourist looks down on the placid waters, and sees at his feet a little island covered with verdure, and glowing like an emerald in the summer sheen. This is Diamond Island,[28] one of the best known of the many exquisite isles that gem the little inland sea.

From time immemorial it has borne its present name, derived from the exquisite crystals with which the underlying rock abounds. Here is the scene of the fight which took place on this lake, September 24, 1777, an occurrence that appears to have been purposely overlooked by the Americans at the time, and which has since failed to find a chronicler.[29]

But before proceeding to give the narrative of this event it may be well to speak of several other points, and to make a brief statement of the military situation at that time.

First comes the question of the discovery of Lake George by the Europeans. According to the best knowledge that we possess, its waters were first seen by a white man in the year 1646.[30] It is true Champlain tells us that he saw the falls at the outlet of the lake in 1609, yet there is nothing whatever to indicate that he visited the lake itself, though the Indians had informed him of its existence. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that Lake George was seen for the first time by a European, May 29, 1646,[31] when it received its name, “Lake Saint Sacrament,” from the Rev. Isaac Jogues, S.J., who, in company with Jean Bourdon, the celebrated engineer, was on his way south to effect a treaty with the Mohawks. Arriving at the outlet of the lake on the evening of _Corpus Christi_, they gave it the above name in honor of this festival, which falls on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, and commemorates the alleged Real Presence of Christ in the Great Sacrament.

From this time until 1755 the lake was rarely visited by Europeans. At this period the French commenced the fortifications of Ticonderoga, while the English met the advance by the construction of Fort William Henry at the opposite end of the lake.

We pass over the struggles that took place on these waters during the French wars, and come to the period of the Revolution, when a feeble English garrison held possession of Ticonderoga, while Captain Nordberg lived in a little cottage at the head of the lake, being the nominal commander of empty Fort George. With the commencement of the struggle for liberty, Lake George resumed its former importance as a part of the main highway to the Canadas, and by this route our troops went northward, until the tide turned, and our own soil, in the summer of 1777, became the scene of fresh invasion. Then Burgoyne’s troops poured in like a flood, and for a time swept all before them. It was at this period that the fight at Diamond Island took place.

Burgoyne had pushed with his troops, by the Whitehall route, far to the southward of Lake George, being determined to strike at Albany, having left but a small force at Ticonderoga, a handful of men at Fort George, and a garrison at Diamond Island to guard the stores accumulated there. Seeing the opportunity thus broadly presented, General Lincoln, acting under the direction of Gates, resolved to make an effort to destroy Burgoyne’s line of communication, and, if possible, capture his supplies. To this end, he despatched Colonel John Brown with a force to attack Ticonderoga, an enterprise which, though attended with partial success, failed in the end. To this failure he subsequently added another, which resulted from the fight at Diamond Island.

But since the printed accounts of the attack upon Ticonderoga are almost as meagre as those of the struggle at the island, we will here give the official report, which is likewise to be found among the Gates Papers, now in the possession of the Historical Society of New York, prefacing the report, however, with the English statement of Burgoyne.

In the course of a vindication of his military policy, General Burgoyne writes as follows: