 | Memoranda During the War |  |
NOTES.
'Convulsiveness.'
—As I have look'd over the proof-sheets of the preceding Memoranda, I have once or twice fear'd that my little tract would prove, at best, but a batch of convulsively written reminiscences. Well, be it so. They are but items, parts of the actual distraction, heat, smoke and excitement of those times—of the qualities that then and there took shape. The War itself with the temper of society preceding it, can indeed be best described by that very word, Convulsiveness.
Typical Soldiers.
—Even the typical soldiers I was personally intimate with, and knew well—it seems to me if I were to make a list of them it would be like a City Directory. Some few only have I mention'd in the foregoing pages—most are dead—a few yet living. There is Reuben Farwell, of Michigan, (little 'Mitch;') Benton H. Wilson, color-bearer, 185th New York; Wm. Stansberry; Manvill Winterstein, Ohio; Bethuel Smith; Capt. Simms, of 51st New York, (kill'd at Petersburg mine explosion,) Capt. Sam. Pooley and Lieut. Fred. McReady, same Reg't. Also, same Reg't., my brother, Geo. W. Whitman—in '61 a young man working in Brooklyn as a carpenter—was not supposed to have any taste for soldiering—but volunteer'd in the ranks at once on the breaking out of the War—continued in active service all through, four years, re-enlisting twice—was promoted, step by step, (several times immediately after battles,) Lieutenant, Captain, Major and Lieut. Colonel—was in the actions at Roanoke, Newbern, 2d Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, Vicksburgh, Jackson, the bloody conflicts of the Wilderness, and at Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and afterwards around Petersburg. At one of these latter he was taken prisoner, and pass'd four or five months in Secesh military prisons, narrowly escaping with life, from a severe fever, from starvation and half-nakedness in the winter.
[What a history that 51st New York had! Went out early—march'd, fought everywhere—was in storms at sea, nearly wreck'd—storm'd forts—tramp'd hither and yon in Virginia, night and day, summer of '62—afterwards Kentucky and Mississippi—re-enlisted—was in all the engagements and campaigns, as above.]
I strengthen and comfort myself much with the certainty that the capacity for just such Regiments, (hundreds, thousands of them) is inexhaustible in the United States, and that there isn't a County nor a Township in The Republic—nor a street in any City—but could turn out, and, on occasion, would turn out, lots of just such Typical Soldiers, whenever wanted.
Before I went down to the Field, and among the Hospitals, I had my hours of doubt about These States; but not since. The bulk of the Army, to me, develop'd, transcended, in personal qualities—and, radically, in moral ones—all that the most enthusiastic Democratic-Republican ever fancied, idealized in loftiest dreams. And curious as it may seem, the War, to me, proved Humanity, and proved America and the Modern.
(I think I am perfectly well aware of the corruption and wickedness of my lands and days—the general political, business and social shams and shysterisms, everywhere. Heaven knows, I see enough of them—running foul of them continually! But I also see the noblest elements in society—and not in specimens only, but vast, enduring, inexhaustible strata of them—ruggedness, simplicity, courage, love, wit, health, liberty, patriotism—all the virtues, the main bulk, public and private.)
Attack on Fort Sumter, April, 1861.
—What ran through the Land, as if by electric nerves, and show'd itself in stupendous and practical action, immediately after the firing on the Flag at Fort Sumter—the Nation ('till then incredulous) flush'd in the face, and all its veins fiercely pulsing and pounding—the arm'd volunteers instantaneously springing up everywhere—the tumultuous processions of the regiments—Was it not grand to have lived in such scenes and days, and be absorb'd by them, and unloosen'd to them?
The news of the attack on Sumter was receiv'd in New York city late at night, (13th April, 1861,) and was immediately sent out in extras of the newspapers. I had been to the opera in Fourteenth street that night, and after the performance, was walking down Broadway toward twelve o'clock, on my way to Brooklyn, when I heard in the distance the loud cries of the newsboys, who came presently tearing and yelling up the street, rushing from side to side even more furiously than usual. I bought an extra and cross'd to the Metropolitan Hotel (Niblo's,) where the great lamps were still brightly blazing, and, with a small crowd of others, who gather'd impromptu; read the news, which was evidently authentic. For the benefit of some who had no papers, one of us read the telegram aloud, while all listen'd silently and attentively. No remark was made by any of the crowd, which had increas'd to thirty or forty, but all stood a minute or two, I remember, before they dispers'd. I can almost see them there now, under the lamps at midnight again.
The ensuing three Months—The National Uprising and Volunteering.
—I have said in another place that the three Presidentiads preceding 1861 show'd how the weakness and wickedness of rulers are just as eligible here in America under republican, as in Europe under dynastic influences. But what can I say of that prompt and splendid wrestling with Secession-Slavery, the arch enemy personified, the instant he unmistakably show'd his face?......The volcanic upheaval of the Nation, after that firing on the flag at Charleston, proved for certain something which had been previously in great doubt, and at once substantially settled the question of Disunion. In my judgment it will remain as the grandest and most encouraging spectacle yet vouchsafed in any age, old or new, to political progress and Democracy. It was not for what came to the surface merely—though that was important; but what it indicated below, which was of eternal importance......Down in the abysms of New World humanity there had form'd and harden'd a primal hardpan of National Union Will, determin'd and in the majority, refusing to be tamper'd with or argued against, confronting all emergencies, and capable at any time of bursting all surface-bonds, and breaking out like an earthquake. It is indeed the best lesson of the century, or of America, and it is a mighty privilege to have been part of it......(Two great spectacles, immortal proofs of Democracy, unequall'd in all the history of the past, are furnish'd this War—one at the beginning, the other at its close. Those are—the general Voluntary Armed Upheaval—and the peaceful and harmonious Disbanding of the Armies, in the summer of 1865.)
Contemptuous National feeling.
—Even after the bombardment of Sumter, however, the gravity of the revolt, and the power and will of the Slave States for a strong and continued military resistance to National authority, was not at all realized through the North, except by a few. Nine-tenths of the people of the Free States look'd upon the rebellion, as started in South Carolina, from a feeling one-half of contempt and the other half composed of anger and incredulity. It was not thought it would be join'd in by Virginia, North Carolina or Georgia. A great and cautious National official predicted that it would blow over 'in sixty days,' and folks generally believ'd the prediction. I remember talking about it on a Fulton ferry-boat with the Brooklyn Mayor, who said he only 'hoped the Southern fire-eaters would commit some overt act of resistance, as they would then be at once so effectually squelch'd, we would never hear of Secession again—but he was afraid they never would have the pluck to really do anything.'.......I remember too that a couple of companies of the Thirteenth Brooklyn, who rendezvou'd at the City Armory, and started thence as Thirty Days' Men, were all provided with pieces of rope conspicuously tied to their musket barrels, with which to bring back each man a prisoner from the audacious South, to be led in a noose, on our men's early and triumphal return! [This was indeed the general feeling, and came to the surface. Still, there was a very strong Secession party at the North, as I shall mention in a Note further on.]
Battle of Bull Run, July, 1861.
—All this sort of feeling was destin'd to be arrested and cut short and revers'd by a terrible shock—the battle of First Bull Run—certainly, as we now know it, one of the most singular fights on record. (All battles, and their results, are far more matters of accident than is generally thought; but this was throughout a casualty, a chance. Each side supposed it had won, till the last moment. One had in point of fact just the same right to be routed as the other. By a fiction, or series of fictions, the National forces, at the last moment, exploded in a panic, and fled from the field.)
The troops commenced pouring into Washington, over the Long Bridge, at day-light on Monday 22d—day drizzling all through with rain.
The Saturday and Sunday of the battle, (20th, 21st,) had been parch'd and hot to an extreme—the dust, the grime and smoke, in layers, sweated in, follow'd by other layers, again sweated in, absorb'd by those excited souls—their clothes all saturated with the clay-powder filling the air—stirr'd up everywhere on the dry-roads and trodden fields, by the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery, &c.—all the men, with this coating of murk and sweat and Virginia rain—now recoiling back—pouring over the Long Bridge, a horrible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington baffled, humiliated, panic-struck!......Where are the vaunts, and the proud boasts with which you went forth? Where are your banners, and your bands of music, and your ropes to bring back your prisoners? Well, there isn't a band playing—and there isn't a flag but clings ashamed and lank to its staff.......The sun rises, but shines not. The men appear, at first sparsely and shame-faced enough—then thicker in the streets of Washington—appear in Pennsylvania avenue, and on the steps and basement entrances. They come along in disorderly mobs, some in squads, stragglers, companies. Occasionally, a rare regiment, in perfect order, with its officers (some gaps, dead, the true braves,) marching in silence, with lowering faces, stern, weary to sinking, all black and dirty, but every man with his musket, and stepping alive;—but these are the exceptions.......Sidewalks of Pennsylvania avenue, Fourteenth street, &c., crowded, jamm'd with citizens, darkies, clerks, everybody, lookers-on; women in the windows, curious expressions from faces, as those swarms of dirt-cover'd return'd soldiers there (will they never end?) move by; but nothing said, no comments; (half our lookers-on Secesh of the most venomous kind—they say nothing; but the devil snickers in their faces.)
During the forenoon Washington gets motley with the dirt-cover'd soldiers—queer-looking objects, strange eyes and faces, drench'd (the steady rain drizzles on all day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard, blister'd in the feet. Good people (but not over-many of them either,) hurry up something for their grub. They put wash-kettles on the fire, for soup, for coffee. They set tables on the side-walks—wagon loads of bread are purchas'd, swiftly cut in stout chunks. Here are two aged ladies, beautiful, the first in the city for culture and charm, they stand with store of eating and drink at an improvised table of rough plank, and give food, and have the store replenish'd from their house every half-hour all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active, silent, white-hair'd, and give food, though the tears stream down their cheeks, almost without intermission, the whole time.
Amid the deep excitement, crowds and motion, and desperate eagerness, it seems strange to see many, very many, of the soldiers sleeping—in the midst of all, sleeping sound. They drop down anywhere, on the steps of houses, up close by the basements or fences, on the sidewalk, aside on some vacant lot, and deeply sleep. A poor seventeen or eighteen year old boy lies there, on the stoop of a grand house; he sleeps so calmly, so profoundly! Some clutch their muskets firmly even in sleep. Some in squads; comrades, brothers, close together—and on them, as they lay, sulkily drips the rain.
As afternoon pass'd, and evening came, the streets, the bar-rooms, knots everywhere, listeners, questioners, terrible yarns, bugaboo, mask'd batteries, our regiment all cut up, &c.,—stories and story-tellers, windy, bragging, vain centres of street-crowds. Resolution, manliness, seem to have abandon'd Washington. The principal hotel, Willard's, is full of shoulder-straps—thick, crush'd, creeping with shoulder-straps. (I see them, and must have a word with them. There you are, shoulder-straps!—but where are your companies? where are your men? Incompetents! never tell me of chances of battle, of getting stray'd, and the like. I think this is your work, this retreat, after all. Sneak, blow, put on airs there in Willard's sumptuous parlors and bar-rooms, or anywhere—no explanation shall save you. Bull Run is your work; had you been half or one-tenth worthy your men, this would never have happen'd.)
Meantime, in Washington, among the great persons and their entourage, a mixture of awful consternation, uncertainty, rage, shame, helplessness, and stupefying disappointment! The worst not only imminent, but already here. In a few hours—perhaps before the next meal—the Secesh generals, with their victorious hordes, will be upon us. The dream of Humanity, the vaunted Union we thought so strong, so impregnable—lo! it is smash'd like a china plate. One bitter, bitter hour—perhaps proud America will never again know such a bitter hour. She must pack and fly—no time to spare. Those white palaces—the dome-crown'd Capitol there on the hill, so stately over the trees—shall they be left—or destroy'd first?.......For it is certain that the talk among the magnates and officers and clerks and officials everywhere, for twenty-four hours in and around Washington, after Bull Run, was loud and undisguised for yielding out and out, and substituting the Southern rule, and Lincoln promptly abdicating and departing. If the Secesh officers and forces had immediately follow'd, and by a bold Napoleonic movement, had enter'd Washington the first day, (or even the second,) they could have had things their own way, and a powerful faction North to back them. One of our returning officers express'd in public that night, amid a swarm of officers and gentlemen in a crowded room, the opinion that it was useless to fight, that the Southerners had made their title clear to their own terms, and that the best course for the National Government to pursue was to desist from any further attempt at stopping them, and admit them again to the lead on the best terms they were willing to grant. Not a voice was rais'd against this judgment amid that large crowd of officers and gentlemen. (The fact is, the hour was one of the three or four of those crises we had during the fluctuations of four years, when human eyes appear'd at least just as likely to see the last breath of the Union as to see it continue.)
But the hour, the day, the night pass'd, and whatever returns, an hour, a day, a night like that can never again return. The President, recovering himself, begins that very night—sternly, rapidly sets about the work of reorganizing his forces, and placing himself in positions for future and greater work. If there were nothing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with, it is enough send him with his wreath to the memory of all future time, that he endured that hour, that day, bitterer than gall—indeed a crucifixion day—that it did not conquer him—that he unflinchingly stemm'd it, and resolv'd to lift himself and the Union out of it.
Then the great New York papers at once appear'd, (commencing that very evening, and following it up the next morning, and incessantly through many days afterwards,) with leaders that rang out over the land, with the loudest, most reverberating ring of clearest, wildest bugles, full of encouragement, hope, inspiration, unfaltering defiance. Those magnificent editorials! they never flagg'd for a fortnight. The Herald commenced them—I remember the articles well. The Tribune was equally cogent and inspiriting—and the Times, Evening Post, and other principal papers, were not a whit behind. They came in good time, for they were needed. For in the humiliation of Bull Run, the popular feeling North, from its extreme of superciliousness, recoil'd to the depth of gloom and apprehension.
(Of all the days of the War, there are two especially I can never forget. Those were the day following the news, in New York and Brooklyn, of that first Bull Run defeat, and the day of Abraham Lincoln's death. I was home in Brooklyn on both occasions. The day of the murder we heard the news very early in the morning. Mother prepared breakfast—and other meals afterward—as usual; but not a mouthful was eaten all day by either of us. We each drank half a cup of coffee; that was all. Little was said We got every newspaper morning and evening, and the frequent extras of that period, and pass'd them silently to each other.)
Sherman's Army's Jubilation, 1865—Its sudden stoppage.
—When Sherman's Armies, (long after they left Atlanta,) were marching through South and North Carolina—after leaving Savannah, the news of Lee's capitulation having been receiv'd—the men never mov'd a mile without from some part of the line sending up continued, inspiriting shouts and cries. At intervals every little while, all day long, sounded out the wild music of those peculiar army cries. They would be commenc'd by one regiment or brigade, immediately taken up by others, and at length whole corps and Armies would join. in these wild triumphant choruses. It was one of the characteristic expressions of the western troops, and became a habit, serving as relief and outlet the men—a vent for their feelings of victory, returning peace, &c. Morning, noon, and afternoon, spontaneous, for occasion, or without occasion, these huge, strange cries, differing from any other, echoing though the open air for many a mile, expressing youth, joy, wildness, irrepressible strength, and the ideas of advance and conquest, sounded along the swamps and uplands of the South, floating to the skies. ('There never were men that kept in better spirits, in danger or defeat—what then could they do in victory?'—said one of the 15th. Corps to me, afterwards.)
This exuberance continued till the Armies arrived at Raleigh. There the news of the President's murder was receiv'd. Then no more shouts or yells, for a week. All the marching was comparatively muffled. It was very significant—hardly a loud word or laugh in many of the regiments. A hush and silence pervaded all.
Attitude of Foreign Governments toward the U.S. during the War of 1861-'65.
—Looking over my scraps, I find I wrote the following during 1864, or the latter part of '63:
The happening to our America, abroad as well as at home, these years, is indeed most strange. The Democratic Republic has paid her to-day the terrible and resplendent compliment of the united wish of all the nations of the world that her Union should be broken, her future out off, and that she should be compell'd to descend to the level of kingdoms and empires ordinarily great! There is certainly not one government in Europe but is now watching the war in this country, with the ardent prayer that the United States may be effectually split, crippled, and dismember'd by it. There is not one but would help toward that dismemberment, if it dared. I say such is the ardent wish to-day of England and of France, as governments, and of all the nations of Europe, as governments. I think indeed it is to-day the real, heartfelt wish of all the nations of the world, with the single exception of Mexico—Mexico, the only one to whom we have ever really done wrong, and now the only one who prays for us and for our triumph, with genuine prayer.
Is it not indeed strange? America, made up of all, cheerfully from the beginning opening her arms to all, the result and justifier of all, of Britain, Germany, France and Spain—all here—the accepter, the friend, hope, last resource and general house of all—she who has harm'd none, but been bounteous to so many, to millions, the mother of strangers and exiles, all nations—should now I say be paid this dread compliment of general governmental fear and hatred?.......Are we indignant? alarm'd? Do we feel wrong'd? jeopardized? No; help'd, braced, concentrated, rather. We are all too prone to wander from ourselves, to affect Europe, and watch her frowns and smiles. We need this hot lesson of general hatred, and henceforth must never forget it. Never again will we trust the moral sense nor abstract friendliness of a single government of the old world.
No good Portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
—Probably the reader has seen physiognomies (often old farmers, sea-captains, and such) that, behind their homeliness, or even ugliness, held superior points so subtle, yet so palpable, defying the lines of art, making the real life of their faces almost as impossible to depict as a wild perfume or fruit-taste, or a passionate tone of the living voice..... and such was Lincoln's face, the peculiar color, the lines of it, the eyes, mouth, expression, &c. Of technical beauty it had nothing—but to the eye of a great artist it furnished a rare study, a feast and fascination.......The current portraits are all failures—most of them caricatures.
The War, though with two sides, really ONE IDENTITY (as struggles, furious conflicts of Nature, for final harmony.)—The Soil it bred and ripen'd from—the North as responsible for it as the South.
—Of the War of Attempted Secession—the greatest National event of the first Century of the United States, and one among the great events of all Centuries—the main points of its origin, and the conditions out of which it arose, are full of lessons, full of warnings yet to the Republic, and always will be. The underlying and principal of those points are yet singularly ignored. The Northern States were really just as responsible for that War, (in its precedents, foundations, instigations,) as the South. Let me try to give my view.
>From the age of 21 to 40, (1840-'60,) I was interested in the political movements of the land, not so much as a participant, but as an observer, though a regular voter at the elections. I think I was conversant with the springs of action, and their workings, not only in New York city and Brooklyn, but understood them in the whole country, as I had made leisurely tours through all the Middle States, and partially through the Western and Southern, and down to New Orleans, in which city I resident for some time. (I was there at the conclusion of the Mexican War—saw and talk'd with Gen. Taylor, and the other generals and officers, who were feted and detain'd several days, on their return victorious from that expedition.)
Of course many and very contradictory things, specialties, prejudices, Constitutional views, &c., went to make up the origin of the War—but perhaps the most significant general fact can be best indicated and stated as follows: For twenty-five years previous to the outbreak, the controling 'Democratic' nominating conventions—starting from their primaries in wards or districts, and so expanding to counties, powerful cities, States, and to the great President-Naming Conventions—were getting to represent, and to be composed of, more and more putrid and dangerous materials. Let me give a schedule, or list, of one of these representative Conventions for a long time before, and inclusive of, that which nominated Buchanan. (Remember they had come to be the fountains and tissues of the American body politic, forming, as it were, the whole blood, legislation, office-holding, &c.) One of these Conventions from 1840 to '60 exhibited a spectacle such as could never be seen except in our own age and in These States. The members who composed it were, seven-eighths of them, office-holders, office-seekers, pimps, malignants, conspirators, murderers, fancy-men, custom-house clerks, contractors, kept-editors, spaniels well-train'd to carry and fetch, jobbers, infidels, disunionists, terrorists, mail-riflers, slave-catchers, pushers of slavery, creatures of the President, creatures of would-be Presidents, spies, blowers, electioneerers, bawlers, bribers, compromisers, lobbyers, sponges, ruined sports, expell'd gamblers, policy-backers, monte-dealers, duelists, carriers of conceal'd weapons, deaf' men, pimpled men, scarr'd inside with vile disease, gaudy outside with gold chains made from the people's money and harlot's money twisted together; crawling, serpentine men, the lousy combings and born freedom-sellers of the earth. And whence came they? From back-yards and bar-rooms; from out of the custom-houses, marshals' offices, post-offices, and gambling hells; from the President's house, the jail, the station-house; from unnamed by-places where devilish disunion was hatched at midnight; from political hearses, and from the coffins inside, and from the shrouds inside of the coffins; from the tumors and abscesses of the land; from the skeletons and skulls in the vaults of the federal almshouses; and from the running sores of the great cities.......Such, I say, form'd the entire personnel, the atmosphere, nutriment and chyle, of our municipal, State and National Politics—substantially permeating, handling, deciding and wielding everything—legislation, nominations, elections, 'public sentiment'. &c.,—while the great masses of the people, farmers, mechanics and traders, were helpless in their gripe. These conditions were mostly prevalent in the North and West, and especially in New York and Philadelphia cities; and the Southern leaders, (bad enough, but of a far higher order,) struck hands and affiliated with, and used them.......Is it strange that a thunder-storm follow'd such morbid and stifling strata?
I say then, that what, as just outlined, heralded and made the ground ready for Secession revolt, ought to be held up, through all the future, as the most instructive lesson in American Political History—the most significant warning and beacon-light to coming generations......I say that the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth terms of the American Presidency have shown that the villainy and shallowness of rulers (back'd by the machinery of great parties) are just as eligible to These States as to any foreign despotism, kingdom, or empire—there is not a bit of difference. History is to record those three Presidentiads, and especially the administrations of Fillmore and Buchanan, as so far our topmost warning and shame. Never were publicly display'd more deform'd, mediocre, snivelling, unreliable, false-hearted men! Never were These States so insulted, and attempted to be betray'd! All the main purposes for which the government was establish'd, were openly denied. The perfect equality of slavery with freedom was flauntingly preach'd in the North—nay, the superiority of slavery. The slave trade was proposed to be renew'd. Everywhere frowns and misunderstandings—everywhere exasperations and humiliations.......(The Slavery contest is settled—and the War is over—yet do not those putrid conditions, too many of them, still exist? still result in diseases, fevers, wounds—not of War and Army Hospitals—but the wounds and diseases of Peace?)
Out of those generic influences, mainly in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, &c., arose the attempt at disunion. To philosophical examination, the malignant fever of this war shows its embryonic sources, and the original nourishment of its life and growth, in the North. I say Secession, below the surface, originated and was brought to maturity in the Free States. I allude to the score of years preceding 1860. The events of '61 amazed everybody North and South, and burst all prophecies and calculations like bubbles. But even then, and during the whole War, the stern fact remains that (not only did the North put it down, but) the Secession cause had numerically just as many sympathizers in the Free as in the Rebel States.
As to slavery, abstractly and practically, (its idea, and the determination to establish and expand it, especially in the new Territories, the future America,) it is too common, I say, to identify it exclusively with the South. In fact down to the opening of the War, the whole country had about an equal hand in it. The North had at least been just as guilty, if not more guilty; and the East and West had. The former Presidents and Congresses had been guilty—the Governors and Legislatures of every Northern State had been guilty, and the Mayors of New York and other northern cities had all been guilty—their hands were all stain'd.
So much for that point, and for the North......As to the inception and direct instigation of the War, in the South itself, I shall not attempt interiors or complications. Behind all, the idea that it was from a resolute and arrogant determination on the part of the extreme Slaveholders, the Calhounites, to carry the States Rights' portion of the Constitutional Compact to its farthest verge, and Nationalize Slavery, or else disrupt the Union, and found a new Empire, with Slavery for its corner-stone, was and is undoubtedly the true theory. (If successful, this attempt would of course have destroy'd not only our American Republic, in anything like first-class proportions, in itself and its prestige, but for ages at least, the cause of Liberty and Equality everywhere, and would have been the greatest triumph of reaction, and the severest blow to political and every other freedom, possible to conceive. Its worst results would have inured to the Southern States themselves.)
That our National-Democratic experiment, principle, and machinery, could triumphantly sustain such a shock, and that the Constitution could weather it, like a ship a storm, and come out of it as sound and whole as before, is by far the most signal proof yet of the stability of that experiment, Democracy, and of those principles, and that Constitution. But the case is not fully stated at that. It is certain to me that the United States, by virtue of the Secession War and its results, and through that and them only, are now ready to enter, and must certainly enter, upon their genuine career in history, as no more torn and divided in their spinal requisites, but a great Homogeneous Nation,—Free States all—a moral and political unity in variety, such as Nature shows in her grandest physical works, and as much greater than any mere work of Nature, as the moral and political, the work of man, his mind, his soul, are, in their loftiest sense, greater than the merely physical......Out of that War not only has the Nationality of The States escaped from being strangled, but more than any of the rest, and, in my opinion, more than the North itself, the vital heart and breath of the South have escaped as from the pressure of a general nightmare, and are now to enter on a life, development, and active freedom, whose realities are certain in the future, notwithstanding all the Southern vexations and humiliations of the hour—a development which could not possibly have been achiev'd on any less terms, or by any other means than that War, or something equivalent to it. And I predict that the South is yet to outstrip the North.
Then another fact, never hitherto broach'd, Nationally—probably several facts, perhaps paradoxical—needing rectification—(for the whole sense and justice of the War must not be supposed to be confined to the Northern point of view.) Is there not some side from which the Secession cause itself has its justification? Was there ever a great popular movement, or revolt, revolution, or attempt at revolution, without some solid basis interwoven with it, and supporting it? at least something that could be said in behalf of it?......We are apt to confine our view to the few more glaring and more atrocious Southern features—the arrogance of most of the leading men and politicians—the fearful crime of Slavery itself—But the time will come—perhaps has come—to begin to take a Philosophical view of the whole affair.
Already, as I write this concluding Note to my Memoranda, (Summer, 1875,) a new, maturing generation has swept in, obliterating with oceanic currents the worst reminiscences of the War; and the passage of time has heal'd over at least its deepest scars. Already, the events of 1861-65, and the seasons that immediately preceded, as well as those that closely follow'd them, have lost their direct personal impression, and the living heat and excitement of their own time, and are being marshall'd for casting, or getting ready to be cast, into the cold and bloodless electrotype plates of History. Or, if we admit that the savage temper and wide differences of opinion, and feelings of wrongs, and mutual recriminations, that led to the War, and flamed in its mortal conflagration, may not have yet entirely burnt themselves out, the embers of them are dying embers, and a few more winters and summers, a few more rains and snows, will surely quench their fires, and leave them only as a far off memory. Already the War of Attempted Secession has become a thing of the past.
And now I have myself, in my thought, deliberately come to unite the whole conflict, both sides, the South and North, really into One, and to view it as a struggle going on within One Identity. Like any of Nature's great convulsions, wars going on within herself—not from separated sets of laws and influences, but the same—really, efforts, conflicts, most violent ones, for deeper harmony, freer and larger scope, completer homogeneousness and power.
What is any Nation, after all—and what is a human being—but a struggle between conflicting, paradoxical, opposing elements—and they themselves and their most violent contests, important parts of that One Identity, and of its development?
Results South—Now and Hence.
—The present condition of things (1875) in South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other parts of the former Slave States—the utter change and overthrow of their whole social, and the greatest coloring feature of their political institutions—a horror and dismay, as of limitless sea and fire, sweeping over them, and substituting the confusion, chaos, and measureless degradation and insult of the present—the black domination, but little above the beasts—viewed as a temporary, deserv'd punishment for their Slavery and Secession sins, may perhaps be admissible; but as a permanency of course is not to be consider'd for a moment. (Did the vast mass of the blacks, in Slavery in the United States, present a terrible and deeply complicated problem through the just ending century? But how if the mass of the blacks in freedom in the U. S. all through the ensuing century, should present a yet more terrible and more deeply complicated problem?)
The conquest of England eight centuries ago, by the Franco-Normans—the obliteration of the old, (in many respects so needing obliteration)—the Domesday Book, and the repartition of the land—the old impedimenta removed, even by blood and ruthless violence, and a new, progressive genesis establish'd, new seeds sown—Time has proved plain enough that, bitter as they were, all these were the most salutary series of revolutions that could possibly have happen'd. Out of them, and by them mainly, have come, out of Albic, Roman and Saxon England—and without them could not have come—not only the England of the 500 years down to the present, and of the present—but These States. Nor, except for that terrible dislocation and overturn, would These States, as they are, exist to-day.
Extricating one's-self from the temporary gaucheries of the hour. can there be anything more certain than the rehabilitated prosperity of the Southern States, all and several, if their growing generations, refusing to be dismay'd by present embarrassments and darkness, accept their position in the Union as an immutable fact, and like the Middle and Western States, "fly the flag of practical industry and business, and adopting the great ideas of America with faith and courage, developing their resources, providing for education, abandoning old fictions, leave the Secession war and its bygones behind, and resolutely draw a curtain over the past"?
I want to see the Southern States, in a better sense than ever, and under the new dispensation, again take a leading part in what is emphatically their Nationality as much as anybody's. Soon, soon, it will begin to be realized that out of the War, after all, they have gained a more substantial victory than anybody.
Future History of the United States, growing out of the War—(My Speculations.) Our Nation's ending Century, thus far—even with the great struggle of 1861-'65—I do not so much call the History of the United States. Rather, our preparation, or preface. As the chief and permanent result of those four years, and the signal triumph of Nationalism at the end of them, now commence that History of the United States, which, grandly developing, exfoliating, stretching through the future, is yet to be enacted, and is only to be really written hundreds of years hence.
And of the events of that Future—as well as the Present and the Past, or war or peace—have they been, and will they continue to be, (does any one suppose?) a series of accidents, depending on either good luck or bad luck, as may chance to turn out? Rather, is there not, behind all, some vast average, sufficiently definite, uniform and unswervable Purpose, in the development of America, (may I not say divine purpose? only all is divine purpose,) which pursues its own will, maybe unconscious of itself—of which the puerilities often called history, are merely crude and temporary emanations, rather than influences or causes? and of which the justification is only to be look'd for in the formulations of centuries to come? (Let us not be deceiv'd by flatulent fleeting notorieties, political, official, literary and other. In any profound, philosophical consideration of our politics, literature, &c., the best-known names of the day and hitherto—the parties, and their oftenest-named leaders—the great newspapers and magazines—the authors and artists, and editors—even the Presidents, Congresses, Governors, &c.—are only so many passing spears or patches of grass on which the cow feeds.)
Is there not such a thing as the Philosophy of American History and Politics? And if so—what is it?.......Wise men say there are two sets of wills to Nations and to persons—one set that acts and works from explainable motives—from teaching, intelligence, judgment, circumstance, caprice, emulation, greed, &c.—and then another set, perhaps deep, hidden, unsuspected, yet often more potent than the first, refusing to be argued with, rising as it were out of abysses, resistlessly urging on speakers, doers, communities, Nations, unwitting to themselves—the poet to his fieriest words—the Race to pursue its loftiest ideal.......Indeed the paradox of a Nation's life and career, with all its wondrous contradictions, can probably only be explain'd from these two wills, sometimes conflicting, each operating in its sphere, combining in races or in persons, and producing strangest results.
Let us hope there is, (Indeed, can there be any doubt there is?) this great, unconscious and abysmic second will also, running through the average Nationality and career of America. Let us hope that amid all the dangers and defections of the present, and through all the processes of the conscious will, it alone is the permanent and sovereign force, destined to carry on the New World to fulfil its destinies in the future—to resolutely pursue those destinies, age upon age—to build far, far beyond its past vision, present thought—to form and fashion, and for the general type, Men and Women more noble, more athletic than the world has yet seen—to gradually, firmly blend, from all The States, with all varieties, a friendly, happy, free, religious Nationality—a Nationality not only the richest, most inventive, most productive and materialistic the world has yet known—but compacted indissolubly, and out of whose ample and solid bulk, and giving purpose and finish to it, Conscience, Morals, and all the Spiritual attributes, shall surely rise, like spires above some group of edifices, firm-footed on the earth, yet scaling space and heaven.
No more considering the United States as an incident, or series of incidents, however vast, coming accidentally along the path of Time, and shaped by casual emergencies as they happen to arise, and the mere result of modern improvements, vulgar and lucky, ahead of other nations and times, I would finally plant, as seeds, these thoughts or speculations in the growth of our Republic—that it is the deliberate culmination and result of all the Past—that here too, as in all departments of the Universe, regular laws, (slow and sure in acting, slow and sure in ripening,) have controll'd and govern'd, and will yet control and govern—and that those laws can no more be baffled or steer'd clear of, or vitiated, by chance, or any fortune or opposition, than the laws of winter and summer, or darkness and light.
The old theory of a given country or age, or people, as something isolated and standing by itself—something which only fulfils its luck, eventful or uneventful—or perhaps some meteor, brilliantly flashing on the background or foreground of Time—is indeed no longer advanced among competent minds, as a theory for History—has been supplanted by theories far wider and higher........The development of a Nation—of the American Republic, for instance, with all its episodes of peace and war—the events of the past, and the facts of the present—aye, the entire political and intellectual processes of our common race—if beheld from a point of view sufficiently comprehensive, would doubtless exhibit the same regularity of order and exactness, and the same plan of cause and effect, as the crops in the ground, or the rising and setting of the stars.
Great as they are, therefore, and greater far to be, the United States too are but a series of steps in the eternal process of creative thought. And here is to my mind their final justification, and certain perpetuity. There is in that sublime process, in the laws of the Universe—and, above all, in the moral law—something that would make unsatisfactory, and even vain and contemptible, all the triumphs of war, the gains of peace, and the proudest worldly grandeur of all the Nations that have ever existed, or that, (ours included,) now exist, except that we constantly see, through all their worldly career, however struggling and blind and lame, attempts, by all ages, all peoples, according to their development, to reach, to press, to progress on, and farther on, to more and more advanced ideals.
The glory of the Republic of The United States, in my opinion, is to be, that, emerging in the light of the Modern and the splendor of Science, and solidly based on the past, it is to cheerfully range itself, and its politics are henceforth to come, under those universal laws, and embody them, and carry them out to serve them.. ....And as only that individual becomes truly great who understands well that, (while complete in himself in a certain sense,) he is but a part of the divine, eternal scheme, and whose special life and laws are adjusted to move in harmonious relations with the general laws of Nature, and especially with the moral law, the deepest and highest of all, and the last vitality of Man or State—so those Nations, and so the United States, may only become the greatest and the most continuous, by understanding well their harmonious relations with entire Humanity and History, and all their laws and progress, and sublimed with the creative thought of Deity, through all time, past, present and future. Thus will they expand to the amplitude of their destiny, and become splendid illustrations and culminating parts of the Kosmos, and of Civilization.
Are not these—or something like these—the simple, perennial Truths now presented to the Future of the United States, out of all its Past, of war and peace? Has not the time come for working them in the tissue of the coming History and Politics of The States? And, (as gold and silver are cast into small coin,) are not, for their elucidation, entirely new classes of men, uncommitted to the past, fusing The Whole Country, adjusted to its conditions, present and to come, imperatively required, Seaboard and Interior, North and South? and must not such classes begin to arise, and be emblematic of our New Politics and our real Nationality?
Now, and henceforth, and out of the conditions, the results of the War, of all the experiences of the past—demanding to be rigidly construed with reference to the whole Union, not for a week or year, but immense cycles of time, come crowding and gathering in presence of America, like veil'd giants, original, native, larger questions, possibilities, problems, than ever before. To-day, I say, the evolution of The United States, (South, and Atlantic Seaboard, and especially of the Mississippi Valley, and the Pacific slope,) coincident with these thoughts and problems, and their own vitality and amplitude, and winding steadily along through the unseen vistas of the future, affords the greatest moral and political work in all the so-far progress of Humanity. And fortunately, to-day, after the experiments and warnings of a hundred years, we can pause and consider and provide for these problems, under more propitious circumstances, and new and native lights, and precious even if costly experiences—with more political and material advantages to illumine and solve them—than were ever hitherto possess'd by a Nation.
Yes: The summing-up of the tremendous moral and military perturbations of 1861-'65, and their results—and indeed of the entire hundred years of the past of our National experiment, from its inchoate movement down to the present day, (1775-1876)—is, that they all now launch The United States fairly forth, consistently with the entirety of Civilization and Humanity, and in main sort the representative of them, leading the van, leading the fleet of the Modern and Democratic, on the seas and voyages of the Future.
And the real History of the United States—starting from that great convulsive struggle for Unity, triumphantly concluded, and the South victorious, after all—is only to be written at the remove of hundreds, perhaps a thousand, years hence.
| Memoranda During the War | |