University of Virginia Library

VII.—THE REST OF THE PILGRIM.

Like the Pilgrim of the olden time, who having journeyed through many
lands, gathering new memories from every shrine and fresher hopes from
every altar, ascends the summit of the last hill, and bending on his staff,
surveys afar the holiest place of all, I have reached after much joy and
toil the end of my wanderings, and in the distance behold gleaming into
light, the Jerusalem of my soul.

That Jerusalem the Altar of the American Past, the Sepulchre of the
American Dead.

I have been a Pilgrim in holy ground. On the sod of the battle-field,
where every flower blooms more beautiful from the oblation of heroic blood,
poured forth upon the hallowed soil—in old mansions where the rent walls
and blood-stained threshhold bear memory of the ancient time—amid the
shadows of the Hall of Independence, where the warm heart may see the
Signers walk again—in the dark glen where the yell of slaughter once arose,
and every rock received its bloody offering—Such have been the holy
places of my Pilgrimage into the American Past.

And as the Pilgrim of the far-gone ages, resting on the last hill, stood after
all his wanderings only in sight of the great temple of all his hopes, so does
the Pilgrim of the battle-field, rich as he is with the relics of the Past, stand
after all but on the threshhold of his hallowed work.

For this book of the Revolution, stored with Legends of the Past, gathered
from aged lips and renowned battle-fields, speaking in the language of the
iron time of Washington and his heroes, is but a page in the traditionary
history of our land. Much I have written, but a volume ten times as large
as this remains yet to be written.[2] I have but uncovered the sealed spring
of Revolutionary Legend, scarcely dipped my scallop shell into its wild, yet
deep and tranquil waters.

On this Rock of Wissahikon I pause in my pilgrimage, and write these
words to my reader. This Rock of Wissahikon which rises on the side
of a steep hill, amid thick woods—a craggy altar on whose summit worshipped

long ago, the Priests of a forgotten faith. Around me branch the
trees—glorious monuments of three hundred years—fresh with the verdure
of June. Between their leaves the sky smiles on me, dimpled only by a
floating cloud. Far below, the stream flashes and sings between its
mountain banks. Looking down a vista of trees and moss and flowers, I
behold a vision of forest homes, grouped by the waters. You that love to
lap yourself in June, and drink its odors, and feel its blessed air upon your
brows, and recline on its rocks covered with vines, musical with birds and
bees, should come hither. It is an altar for the Soul.

As I sit upon this rock—the paper on my knee, the birds, the stream, the
sky, the leaves, all ministering blessings to my soul—a strange throng of
fancies crowd tumultuously on me.

What was the name of the Race who peopled these cliffs, and roved
these woods two thousand years ago! Were they but brute barbarians, or
a people civilized with all that is noble in science or art, hallowed by the
knowledge of all that is true and beautiful in Religion? Where are their
monuments; the wrecks of City and Altar? O, that this rock could speak,
and tell to me the history of the long-forgotten People, who dwelt in this
land before the rude Indian!

Tell us, ye Ages, what mysterious tie connects the history of the red
men of the north, with the voluptuous children of the south? Speak, ye
Centuries, and reveal to us the mystic message of these monuments of the
Past, scattered over the hills and prairies of our northern America? The
mounds of the west, the fortifications rising ruggedly from the rank grass,
the deep-walled foundations of a city in Wiskonsan—a city that has been
a wreck for a thousand years—what is their Revelation? What word have
they of the mysterious bye-gone time?

Are there no Legends of the Lost Nations of America?

As I start back, awed and wondering from the fancies that crowd upon
me, there rushes on my sight a vision at once sublime and beautiful!

It is the vision of a land washed by the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific,
beautiful with vallies of fruit and flowers, grand with its snow-white peak
of Orizaba, magnificent with its cities—reared in a strange yet gorgeous
architecture—among which sits supreme, the Capitol of Montezuma! A
gorgeous vision! It swells on my sight with its altars of bloody sacrifice,
rising above the sea of roofs, with its clear deep lakes set in frames of
flowers, and the volcanic mountains hemming it in a magic circle, their pillars
of snow and fire supporting the blue dome of the sky!

Crowd your wonders of the old world into one panorama, pile Babylon
on Palmyra, and crown them both with Rome, and yet you cannot match
the luxury, the magnificence, the splendor that dazzles, and the mystery
that bewilders, of this strange land.

The tamest word in its history is a Romance—the wildest dreams of Romance,
hollow and meaningless, compared with its plainest fact.

And the name of the vision that breaks upon me is—Mexico.

Behold three lines of its history in the course of six hundred years!

—Six hundred years ago a barbarous horde from the far north of America,
the tribes of the Aztec people, precipitated themselves on this beautiful valley,
conquered the race who dwelt there, and swelled into the civilized Empire
of Montezuma.

—Three hundred years ago, a wandering adventure who came from an
unknown land, with a band of white men clad in iron at his back—only six
hundred homeless men—overturned the splendid dominion of Montezuma,
and founded the Empire of Cortes.

—Now in the year eighteen-hundred and forty-seven, even while I write,
the white race of North America, the children of the Revolution and countrymen
of Washington, are thronging the vallies, darkening the mountains
of this land, bearing in their front amid a tide of sword and bayonet the
Banner of the Stars, which they have determined to plant on the Hall of
Montezuma and Cortez, thus establishing in the valley of Mexico, a new
dominion—THE EMPIRE OF FREEDOM.

Shall we not write the traditions of this land? Shall we not follow the
Banner of the Stars from the bloody heighth of Bunker Hill, from the
meadow of Brandywine, to the snow-clad heighth of Orizaba and the
golden city of [3] Tenochtitlan?

Yes, we will do it; the beautiful traditions of that land speak to us in a
voice that we may not disregard. In one work, we will combine the tradition,
the history, the battles and the religions of this wonderful land. We
will traverse its three Eras, gathering a wild excitement as we go. First,
the Era of the Aztec Invasion, six hundred years ago. Then the Era of
Cortez, three hundred years back into time. Last of all, the Era of Freedom,
when the bloody fields of Palo Alto, Resaca, the three days fight of
Monterey, the terrible contest of Buena Vista, the seige of Vera Cruz and
glorious rout of Cerro Gordo, made new leaves in our history and linked
with Cortez and Montezuma, the names of Scott and Taylor!

To you, reader, who perused with deep sympathy, the Legends of the
Revolution, let us present the traditions of another scene; “the Legends
of Mexico.”

—Let me tell you, how the idea of writing the legends of the golden and
bloody Land, first dawned upon me.

One day, not long ago, as I sat in my room, my table strewn with the
manuscript of Washington and his Generals, there appeared on the threshhold
a young man, clad in a plain military undress, his pale face, scarred
forehead and fiery eye, denoting the ravages of the battle and the fever.

He advanced, greeted me by name, and I soon knew him as one of the
disbanded volunteers of Mexico.

I must confess that he was a magnificent looking young man. Six feet
high, his figure light, agile, and muscular, his head placed proudly on his
shoulders—despite the withered cheek and scarred brow—he was a noble
man for the eyes to behold.

In short plain words, he told me his story, which was afterwards corroborated
by others who knew the stranger. But a year ago he had left his
home, in one of the dear vallies of the west, left a mother and sister, joined
the army of Taylor, shared in the perils of Palo Alto, Resaca and Monterey.
You should have seen his lip quiver, his pale cheek glow, his full
eye flash, as he spoke of the terrible storming of the Bishop's Palace. It
made the blood run cold, to hear him talk of the sworn comrade of his
heart, whose skull was peeled off, by an escoppette ball, as they advanced
side by side along the Plaza of Monterey.

Altogether the history of this young man, the story of his life from the
hour when he kissed “farewell” on his sister's lips, and beheld his mother's
white hairs gleaming from the threshhold of Home, until the moment when
disbanded with the other volunteers, he lay fevered and dying in the Hospital
of New Orleans, affected me with every varying interest; I felt my
heart swell, my eyes fill with tears.

At last, I ventured to ask him how he knew my name—

“I came,” said the soldier, mentioning my name with an emphasis, that
made my heart bound—“I came from the field of Monterey, to thank you
for myself and my comrades!”

“Thank me?”

“Your works have cheered the weariness of many a sleepless night.
Gathered round our watch-fire before the battle of Monterey, one of our
number seated on a cannon, would read, while the others listened. Yes, in
the Courier we read your Legends of the Revolution! Believe me, sir,
those things made our hearts feel warm—they nerved our arms for the battle!
When we read of the old times of our Flag, we swore in our hearts,
never to disgrace it!”

As the young soldier spoke, he placed in my hand a small knife,—a very
toy of a thing—and a volume of blotted manuscript.

“This knife I took from the vest of my dead comrade in the plaza of
Monterey. Take it, sir, as a mark of gratitude from a soldier, whose lonely
hours have been cheered by your Legends. This Manuscript contains the
record of my wanderings—roughly written—yet the facts of the battles and
marches are there. Accept these tokens, the knife and the book—they are
all I have to give!”

As the brave fellow spoke, his voice grew tremulous; there was a tear
in his eye.

Shall I confess it? As I glanced from the papers on my table—newspapers
among others containing the foulest libels on my works, ever penned
by the animalculæ of the Press—to the pale face of the young soldier, I felt

my heart bound with a joy unfelt before. Far more precious to my heart,
than the praise of all the critics in the world, was that scarred soldier's tear.

Rather dwell enshrined in one honest heart like his, than enjoy the
praise of Critics, Reviewers, and all other Pigmies of the pen, whose good
opinion can be bought even as you purchase peddler's wares.

I will confess, and confess frankly, that the knife, the journal of that soldier
of Monterey, are worth more to me than a ribbon or a title bestowed
by the hands of the proudest monarch that ever lived.

From the rough heart-warm sketches of that journal, I have constructed
the basis of my “Legends of Mexico.”[4]

Do not charge me with the folly of egotism. I have journeyed far and
long with you, my reader, and never once obtruded the Author on your
sight. But at the same time that I frankly confess my thorough contempt
of the whole race of mercenary critics, whose praise I have once or twice
been so unfortunate as to receive—a praise more to be dreaded than their
slander—I must also state that the spontaneous tribute from the scarred soldier
of Monterey, spoke to my inmost heart. It showed me that my labors
were not altogether valueless; it showed more a high and holy truth, that
the memories of the Old Revolution are still with us, in the hearts of our
People, binding millions in one great bond of brotherhood, and nerving the
arms of American freemen in far distant lands, amid the horrors of savage
battles.

May—I whose greatest fault has ever been, that I could not mould myself
to the humors of a tinselled aristocracy, nor worship empty pomps and
emptier skulls, though garnished with big names and hired praise—frankly
make the record on this page, that I am proud of the unbought approbation
of that battered soldier of Monterey?

You should have heard him talk of the scenes he had witnessed, in the
strange land of Mexico.

In the battle where a few American freemen contended against the brave
hordes of the southern land. Among the mountains, whose shadows still
shelter the remnants of the Aztec People. Amid the ruins of gorgeous
cities, whose strange architecture stamped with the traces of a thousand
years, tells of a long lost civilization, whose wierd hieroglyphics are big
with History that no human eye may read; whose rainbow vegetation,
blossoming amid monument and pyramid, adorns the wreck which it cannot
save—whose solemn temples, mysterious with God and Symbol, speak of
a Religion once the barbarous Hope of millions, and now forgotten in that
awful silence, brooding over the past ages, like the serence and pathless sky
above the summit of Chimborazo!

Such had been the course of his wanderings; and wherever he turned,
he discovered the broken links of the great chain which connects the stern
Indian of the rugged North, with those children of the blossoming South,
the dwellers in the land of Mexico and Peru!

And now reader, as on this Rock of Wissahikon I write these farewell
words, while the supernatural beauty of this place is all about me, imbuing
the air as with an angel presence, permit me to hope that we do not part
forever. For the Pilgrim of the battle-fields of America will wander forth
again, and gather new relics from the Sepulchre of the Past. When next
we wander forth with staff and scallop shell, our pilgrimage will tend to
Mount Vernon; from that shrine of our history we will bring you fresh
stores of tradition, and from the grave of the American Chieftain, pour new
light upon the glorious career of the brother-heroes—Washington and his
Generals.