{ "basler-IV-0294": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Farewell address at Springfield, 11 Feb 1861 (AD)", "text": "My friends \u2014 No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe every thing. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now2 leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good,3 let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell B.", "parents": [ "basler-IV-0294" ], "words": 154 }, "basler-IV-0931": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Mrs. John C. Fremont, 12 Sept 1861 (ADfS)", "text": "\u2014 Your two notes of to-day are before me. I answered the letter you bore me from Gen. Fremont, on yesterday; and not hearing from you during the day, I sent the answer to him by mail. It is not exactly correct, as you say you were told by the elder Mr. Blair, to say that I sent Post-Master-General Blair to St. Louis to examine into that Department, and report. Post-Master-General Blair did go, with my approbation, to see and converse with Gen. Fremont as a friend. I do not feel authorized to furnish you with copies of letters in my possession without the consent of the writers. No impression has been made on my mind against the honor or integrity of Gen. Fremont; and I now enter my protest against being understood as acting in any hostility towards him.", "parents": [ "basler-IV-0931" ], "words": 144 }, "basler-VII-0606#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864 (ADfS)", "text": "You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows: \"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0606" ], "words": 163 }, "basler-VII-0606#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864 (ADfS)", "text": "I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every in-dispensable means, that government \u2014 that nation \u2014 of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0606" ], "words": 143 }, "basler-VII-0606#2": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864 (ADfS)", "text": "Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July 1862 I made earnest, and successive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation, and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0606" ], "words": 165 }, "basler-VII-0606#3": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864 (ADfS)", "text": "They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this, I was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military force, \u2014 no loss by it any how or any2 where. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men; and we could not have had them without the measure.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0606" ], "words": 138 }, "basler-VII-0606#4": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864 (ADfS)", "text": "\" And now let any Union man who complains of the measure, test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking these hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he can not face his case so stated, it is only because he can not face the truth. \" I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0606" ], "words": 203 }, "basler-VII-0654#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, 18 April 1864 (AD)", "text": "Ladies and Gentlemen \u2014 Calling to mind that we are in Baltimore, we can not fail to note that the world moves. Looking upon these many people, assembled here, to serve, as they best may, the soldiers of the Union, it occurs at once that three years ago, the same soldiers could not so much as pass through Baltimore. The change from then till now, is both great, and gratifying. Blessings on the brave men who have wrought the change, and the fair women who strive to reward them for it. But Baltimore suggests more than could happen within Baltimore. The change within Baltimore is part only of a far wider change. When the war began, three years ago, neither party, nor any man, expected it would last till now. Each looked for the end, in some way, long ere to-day.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0654" ], "words": 141 }, "basler-VII-0654#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, 18 April 1864 (AD)", "text": "Neither did any anticipate that domestic slavery would be much affected by the war. But here we are; the war has not ended, and slavery has been much affected \u2014 how much needs not now to be recounted. So true is it that man proposes, and God disposes. But we can see the past, though we may not claim to have directed it; and seeing it, in this case, we feel more hopeful and confident for the future. The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's APRIL l8, 1864 labor.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0654" ], "words": 172 }, "basler-VII-0654#2": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, 18 April 1864 (AD)", "text": "Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name \u2014 liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and in-compatable names \u2014 liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0654" ], "words": 153 }, "basler-VII-0654#3": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, 18 April 1864 (AD)", "text": "Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary, has been repudiated. It is not very becoming for one in my position to make speeches at great length; but there is another subject upon which I feel that I ought to say a word. A painful rumor, true I fear, has reached us of the massacre, by the rebel forces, at Fort Pillow, in the West end of Tennessee, on the Mississippi river, of some three hundred colored soldiers and white officers, who had just been overpowered by their assailants.2 There seems to be some anxiety in the public mind whether the government is doing it's duty to the colored soldier, and to the service, at this point. At the beginning of the war, and for some time, the use of colored troops was not contemplated; and how the change of purpose was wrought, I will not now take time to explain.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0654" ], "words": 172 }, "basler-VII-0654#4": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, 18 April 1864 (AD)", "text": "Upon a clear conviction of duty I re-solved to turn that element of strength to account; and I am re-sponsible for it to the American people, to the Christian world, to history, and on my final account to God. Having determined to use the negro as a soldier, there is no way but to give him all the protection given to any other soldier. The difficulty is not in stating the principle, but in practically applying it. It is a mistake to suppose the government is indifferent to this matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to it. We do not to-day know that a colored soldier, or white officer commanding colored soldiers, has been massacred by the rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it, believe it, I may say, but we do not know it.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0654" ], "words": 144 }, "basler-VII-0654#5": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, 18 April 1864 (AD)", "text": "To take the life of one of their prisoners, on the assumption that they murder ours, when it is short of certainty that they do murder ours, might be too serious, too cruel a mistake. We are having the Fort-Pillow affair thorough- APRIL l85 1864 ly investigated; and such investigation will probably show conclusively how the truth is. If, after all that has been said, it shall turn out that there has been no massacre at Fort-Pillow, it will be almost safe to say there has been none, and will be none elsewhere. If there has been the massacre of three hundred there, or even the tenth part of three hundred, it will be conclusively proved; and being so proved, the retribution shall as surely come. It will be matter of grave consideration in what exact course to apply the retribution; but in the supposed case, it must come.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0654" ], "words": 151 }, "basler-VII-0708": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Ulysses S. Grant, 30 April 1864 (ALS)", "text": "Not expecting to see you again before the Spring campaign opens, I wish to express, in this way, my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know, or seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster, or the capture of our men in great numbers, shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now with a brave Army, and a just cause, may God sustain you.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0708" ], "words": 140 }, "basler-VII-0765": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Response to Methodists, 18 May 1864 (ADS)", "text": "In response to your address, allow me to attest the accuracy of it's historical statements; indorse the sentiments it expresses; and thank you, in the nation's name, for the sure promise it gives. Nobly sustained as the government has been by all the churches, I would utter nothing which might, in the least, appear invidious against any. Yet, without this, it may fairly be said that the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is, by it's greater numbers, the most important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospital, and more prayers to Heaven than any. God bless the Methodist Church \u2014 bless all the churches \u2014 and blessed be God, Who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0765" ], "words": 137 }, "basler-VIII-0090": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Henry W. Hoffman, 10 Oct 1864 (ALS)", "text": "A convention of Maryland has framed a new constitution for the State; a public meeting is called for this evening, at Baltimore, to aid in securing its ratification by the people; and you ask a word from me, for the occasion. I presume the only feature of the instrument, about which there is serious controversy, is that which pro-vides for the extinction of slavery* It needs not to be a secret, and I presume it is no secret, that I wish success to this provision. I desire it on every consideration. I wish all men to be free, I \"wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring. I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war. I attempt no argument* Argument upon the question is already exhausted by the abler, better informed,3 and more immediately interested sons of Maryland herself. I only add that I shall be gratified exceedingly if the good people of the State shall, by their votes, ratify the new constitution.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0090" ], "words": 187 }, "basler-VIII-0334": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To William T. Sherman, 26 Dec 1864 (ALS)", "text": "Many, many, thanks for your Christmas-gift \u2014 the capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious s if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that \"nothing risked, nothing gained\" I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce. And, taking the work of Gen. Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages; but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole \u2014 Hood's army \u2014 it brings those who sat in darkness, to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole army, officers and men.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0334" ], "words": 179 }, "basler-VIII-0388": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Mrs. Charles J. Faulkner, 9 Jan 1865 (ALS)", "text": "It was with regret I learned that your brother, whom I had ordered to be discharged on taking the oath, under the impression that he was a private, is a captain. By an understanding the Commissary of prisoners detains such cases until a further hearing from me. I now distinctly say that if your Father shall come within our lines and take the oath of Dec. 8. 1863, I will give him a full pardon, and will, at the same time, discharge your brother on his taking the oath, notwithstanding he is a captain.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0388" ], "words": 94 }, "basler-VIII-0434": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Ulysses S. Grant, 19 Jan 1865 (ALS)", "text": "Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long, are \" better entitled, and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your Military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious, and as deeply interested, that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0434" ], "words": 128 }, "basler-VIII-0657": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Reply to Notification Committee, 1 March 1865 (AD)", "text": "Having served four years in the depths of a great, and yet -emended national peril, I can view this call to a second term, in nowise more flatteringly to myself, than as an expression of the public judgment, that I may better finish a difficult work, in which I have labored from the first, than could any one less severely schooled to the task. In this view, and with assured reliance on that Almighty Ruler who has so graceously sustained us thus far; and with increased gratitude to the generous people for their continued confidence, I accept the renewed trust, with it's yet onerous and perplexing duties and responsibilities. Please communicate this to the two Houses of Congress.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0657" ], "words": 118 }, "basler-VIII-0724": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Thurlow Weed, 15 March 1865 (ALS)", "text": "Every one likes a compliment. Thank you for yours on my little notification speech, and on the recent Inaugeral Address. I expect the latter to wear as well as \u2014 perhaps better than \u2014 any thing I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told; and as whatever of humiliation there is in it, falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0724" ], "words": 118 }, "L6-0134": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Reverdy Johnson, 26 July 1862", "text": "Yours of the 16th is received. You are ready to say I apply to friends what is due only to enemies. I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me. This appeal of professed friends has paralyzed me more in this struggle than any other one thing. You remember telling me, the day after the Baltimore mob in April, 1861, that it would crush all Union feeling in Maryland for me to attempt bringing troops over Maryland soil to Washington. I brought the troops notwithstanding, and yet there was Union feeling enough left to elect a Legislature the next autumn, which in turn elected a very excellent Union United States senator! I am a patient man \u2014 always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance, and also to give ample time for repentance. Still, I must save this government, if possible. What I cannot do, of course, I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.", "parents": [], "words": 185 }, "L6-0135#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Cuthbert Bullitt, 28 July 1862", "text": "The copy of a letter addressed to yourself by Mr. Thomas J. Durant has been shown to me. The writer appears to be an able, a dispassionate, and an entirely sincere man. The first part of the letter is devoted to an effort to show that the secession ordinance of Louisiana was adopted against the will of a majority of the people. This is probably true, and in that fact may be found some instruction. Why did they allow the ordinance to go into effect? Why did they not assert themselves? Why stand passive and allow themselves to be trodden down by minority? Why did they not hold popular meetings and have a convention of their own to express and enforce the true sentiment of the State? If preorganization was against them then, why not do this now that the United States army is present to protect them?", "parents": [], "words": 148 }, "L6-0135#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Cuthbert Bullitt, 28 July 1862", "text": "The paralysis \u2014 the dead palsy \u2014 of the government in this whole struggle is that this class of men will do nothing for the government, nothing for themselves, except demanding that the government shall not strike its open enemies, lest they be struck by accident! Mr. Durant complains that in various ways the relation of master and slave is disturbed by the presence of our army, and he considers it particularly vexatious that this, in part, is done under cover of an act of Congress, while constitutional guaranties are suspended on the plea of military necessity. The truth is, that what is done and omitted about slaves is done and omitted on the same military necessity. It is a military necessity to have men and money; and we can get neither in sufficient numbers or amounts if we keep from or drive from our lines slaves coming to them.", "parents": [], "words": 148 }, "L6-0135#2": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Cuthbert Bullitt, 28 July 1862", "text": "Mr. Durant cannot be ignorant of the pressure in this direction, nor of my efforts to hold it within bounds till he and such as he shall have time to help themselves. I am not posted to speak understandingly on all the police regulations of which Mr. Durant complains. If experience shows any one of them to be wrong, let them be set right. I think I can perceive in the freedom of trade which Mr. Durant urges that he would relieve both friends and enemies from the pressure of the blockade. By this he would serve the enemy more effectively than the enemy is able to serve himself. I do not say or believe that to serve the enemy is the purpose, of Mr. Durant, or that he is conscious of any purpose other than national and patriotic ones.", "parents": [], "words": 140 }, "L6-0135#3": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Cuthbert Bullitt, 28 July 1862", "text": "Still, if there were a class of men who, having no choice of sides in the contest, were anxious only to have quiet and comfort for themselves while it rages, and to fall in with the victorious side at the end of it without loss to themselves, their advice as to the mode of conducting the contest would be precisely such as his is. He speaks of no duty \u2014 apparently thinks of none \u2014 resting upon Union men. He even thinks it injurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a pump, but to be merely passengers \u2014 deadheads at that \u2014 to be carried snug and dry throughout the storm, and safely landed right side up. Nay, more: even a mutineer is to go untouched, lest these sacred passengers receive an accidental wound.", "parents": [], "words": 148 }, "L6-0135#4": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Cuthbert Bullitt, 28 July 1862", "text": "Of course the rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it nor permit the government to do it without their help. Now, I think the true remedy is very different from what is suggested by Mr. Durant. It does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity for the war. The people of Louisiana who wish protection to person and property have but to reach forth their hands and take it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate the national authority, and set up a State government conforming thereto under the Constitution. They know how to do it and can have the protection of the army while doing it. The army will be withdrawn so soon as such State government can dispense with its presence; and the people of the State can then, upon the old constitutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking.", "parents": [], "words": 161 }, "L6-0135#5": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Cuthbert Bullitt, 28 July 1862", "text": "This is very simple and easy. If they will not do this \u2014 if they prefer to hazard all for the sake of destroying the government \u2014 it is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. If they decline what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or would you prosecute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means unapplied? I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can, to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.", "parents": [], "words": 163 }, "L6-0150#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Horace Greeley, 22 Aug 1862", "text": "I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I \"seem to be pursuing,\" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be, \"the Union as it was.\" If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.", "parents": [], "words": 176 }, "L6-0150#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Horace Greeley, 22 Aug 1862", "text": "If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.", "parents": [], "words": 218 }, "L6-0204#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To George B. McClellan, 13 Oct 1862", "text": "You remember my speaking to you of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great from railroad transportation as you would have to do, without the railroad last named. He now wagons from Culpepper Court-House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well provided with wagons as you are.", "parents": [], "words": 146 }, "L6-0204#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To George B. McClellan, 13 Oct 1862", "text": "I certainly should be pleased for you to have the advantage of the railroad from Harper's Perry to Winchester; but it wastes an the remainder of autumn to give it to you, and, in fact, ignores the question of time, which cannot and must not be ignored. Again, one of the standard maxims of war, as you know, is \"to operate upon the enemy's communications as much as possible, without exposing your own.\" You seem to act as if this applies against you, but cannot apply in your favor. Change positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours? You dread his going into Pennsylvania. But if he does so in full force, he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin him; if he does so with less than full force, fall upon and beat what is left behind all the easier.", "parents": [], "words": 165 }, "L6-0204#2": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To George B. McClellan, 13 Oct 1862", "text": "Exclusive of the water line, you are now nearer to Richmond than the enemy is, by the route that you can and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his. You know I desired, but did not order, you to cross the Potomac below instead of above the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. My idea was, that this would at once menace the enemy's communications, which I would seize if he would permit. If he should move northward, I would follow him closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our seizing his communications, and move toward Richmond, I would press closely to him, fight him if a favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track.", "parents": [], "words": 163 }, "L6-0204#3": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To George B. McClellan, 13 Oct 1862", "text": "I say \"try;\" if we never try, we shall never succeed. If he makes a stand at Winchester, moving neither north or south, I would fight him there, on the idea that if we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to us he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the entrenchments of Richmond.", "parents": [], "words": 145 }, "L6-0204#4": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To George B. McClellan, 13 Oct 1862", "text": "Recurring to the idea of going to Richmond on the inside track, the facility of supplying from the side away from the enemy is remarkable, as it were, by the different spokes of a wheel extending from the hub toward the rim, and this whether you move directly by the chord or on the inside arc, hugging the Blue Ridge more closely. The chord line, as you see, carries you by Aldie, Hay Market, and Fredericksburg; and you see how turnpikes, railroads, and finally the Potomac, by Aquia Creek, meet you at all points from WASHINGTON; the same, only the lines lengthened a little, if you press closer to the Blue Ridge part of the way. The gaps through the Blue Ridge I understand to be about the following distances from Harper's Ferry, to wit: Vestal's, 5 miles; Gregory's, 13; Snicker's, 18; Ashby's, 28; Manassas, 38; Chester, 45; and Thornton's, 53.", "parents": [], "words": 151 }, "L6-0204#5": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To George B. McClellan, 13 Oct 1862", "text": "I should think it preferable to take the route nearest the enemy, disabling him to make an important move without your knowledge, and compelling him to keep his forces together for dread of you. The gaps would enable you to attack if you should wish. For a great part of the way you would be practically between the enemy and both WASHINGTON and Richmond, enabling us to spare you the greatest number of troops from here. When at length running for Richmond ahead of him enables him to move this way, if he does so, turn and attack him in rear. But I think he should be engaged long before such a point is reached. It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it. This letter is in no sense an order.", "parents": [], "words": 146 }, "L6-0232#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Carl Schurz, 24 Nov 1862", "text": "I have just received and read your letter of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost the late elections and the administration is failing because the war is unsuccessful, and that I must not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know that if the war fails the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could do better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they have \"heart in it.\" Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of \"heart in it\"?", "parents": [], "words": 151 }, "L6-0232#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Carl Schurz, 24 Nov 1862", "text": "If I must discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, Republicans or others not even yourself. For be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have \"heart in it\" that think you are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine. I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan; but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little since to relieve those fears. I do not see clearly the prospect of any more rapid movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the difficulty is in our case rather than in particular generals.", "parents": [], "words": 152 }, "L6-0232#2": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Carl Schurz, 24 Nov 1862", "text": "I wish to disparage no one certainly not those who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the contrary. It does seem to me that in the field the two classes have been very much alike in what they have done and what they have failed to do. In sealing their faith with their blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohien and Richardson, Republicans, did all that men could do; but did they any more than Kearny and Stevens and Reno and Mansfield, none of whom were Republicans, and some at least of whom have been bitterly and repeatedly denounced to me as secession sympathizers? I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure. In answer to your question, \"Has it not been publicly stated in the newspapers, and apparently proved as a fact, that from the commencement of the war the enemy was continually supplied with information by some of the confidential subordinates of as important an officer as Adjutant-General Thomas?\" I must say \"No,\" as far as my knowledge extends. And I add that if you can give any tangible evidence upon the subject, I will thank you to come to this city and do so.", "parents": [], "words": 233 }, "L6-0294#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Joseph Hooker, 26 Jan 1863", "text": "I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which within reasonable bounds does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.", "parents": [], "words": 156 }, "L6-0294#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Joseph Hooker, 26 Jan 1863", "text": "I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit that you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.", "parents": [], "words": 182 }, "L6-0308": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Alexander Reed, 22 Feb 1863", "text": "Your note, by which you, as General Superintendent of the United States Christian Commission, invite me to preside at a meeting to be held this day at the hall of the House of Representatives in this city, is received. While, for reasons which I deem sufficient, I must decline to preside, I cannot withhold my approval of the meeting and its worthy objects. Whatever shall be, sincerely and in God's name, devised for the good of the soldiers and seamen in their hard spheres of duty, can scarcely fail to be blessed; and whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable passions, prejudices, and jealousies incident to a great national trouble such as ours, and to fix them on the vast and long enduring consequences, for weal or for woe, which are to result from the struggle, and especially to strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph of the right, cannot but be well for us all. The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life and of that to come, is most propitious for the meeting proposed.", "parents": [], "words": 197 }, "L6-0476": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Ulysses S. Grant, 9 Aug 1863", "text": "I see by a despatch of yours that you incline quite strongly toward an expedition against Mobile. This would appear tempting to me also, were it not that in view of recent events in Mexico I am greatly impressed with the importance of re-establishing the national authority in western Texas as soon as possible. I am not making an order, however; that I leave, for the present at least, to the general-in-chief. A word upon another subject: General Thomas has gone again to the Mississippi Valley, with the view of raising colored troops. I have no reason to doubt that you are doing what you reasonably can upon the same subject. I believe it is a resource which if vigorously applied now will soon close the contest. It works doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us. We were not fully ripe for it until the river was opened. Now, I think at least one hundred thousand can and ought to be rapidly organized along its shores, relieving all white troops to serve elsewhere. Mr. Dana understands you as believing that the Emancipation Proclamation has helped some in your military operations. I am very glad if this is so. Did you receive a short letter from me dated the 13th of July?", "parents": [], "words": 214 }, "L6-0481": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To James H. Hackett, 17 Aug 1863", "text": "Months ago I should have acknowledged the receipt of your book and accompanying kind note; and I now have to beg your pardon for not having done so. For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. The first presentation of Falstaff I ever saw was yours here, last winter or spring. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anxious to see it again. Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never read, while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any un-professional reader. Among the latter are Lear, Richard III., Henry VIII., Hamlet, and especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful. Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the soliloquy in Hamlet commencing \"Oh, my offense is rank,\" surpasses that commencing \"To be or not to be.\" But pardon this small attempt at criticism. I should like to hear you pronounce the opening speech of Richard III. Will you not soon visit Washington again? If you do, please call and let me make your personal acquaintance.", "parents": [], "words": 187 }, "L6-0509#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Andrew Johnson, 11 Sept 1863", "text": "All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need not to be reminded that it is the nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal State government. Not a moment should be lost. You and the co-operating friends there can better judge of the ways and means than can be judged by any here. I only offer a few suggestions. The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its friends there into political exile. The whole struggle for Tennessee will have been profitless to both State and nation if it so ends that Governor Johnson is put down and Governor Harris put up. It must not be so. You must have it otherwise. Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for the Union.", "parents": [], "words": 148 }, "L6-0509#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Andrew Johnson, 11 Sept 1863", "text": "Exclude all others, and trust that your government so organized will be recognized here as being the one of republican form to be guaranteed to the State, and to be protected against invasion and domestic violence. It is something on the question of time to remember that it cannot be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what he will do. I see that you have declared in favor of emancipation in Tennessee, for which may God bless you. Get emancipation into your new State government constitution and there will be no such word as fail for your cause. The raising of colored troops, I think, will greatly help every way.", "parents": [], "words": 116 }, "L7-0012": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To James H. Hackett, 2 Nov 1863", "text": "Yours of October 22d is received, as also was, in due course, that of October 3d. I look forward with pleasure to the fulfillment of the promise made in the former to visit Washington the following winter and to \"call.\" Give yourself no uneasiness on the subject mentioned in that of the 22d. My note to you I certainly did not expect to see in print, yet I have not been much shocked by the newspaper comments upon it. Those comments constitute a fair specimen of what has occurred to me through life. I have endured a great deal of ridicule, without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it.", "parents": [], "words": 122 }, "L7-0116": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Carl Schurz, 13 March 1864", "text": "Yours of February 29 reached me only four days ago; but the delay was of little consequence, because I found, on feeling around, I could not invite you here without a difficulty which at least would be unpleasant, and perhaps would be detrimental to the public service. Allow me to suggest that if you wish to remain in the military service, it is very dangerous for you to get temporarily out of it; because, with a major-general once out, it is next to impossible for even the President to get him in again. With my appreciation of your ability and correct principle, of course I would be very glad to have your service for the country in the approaching political canvass; but I fear we cannot properly have it without separating you from the military.", "parents": [ "basler-VII-0563" ], "words": 136 }, "L7-0276#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Response to a serenade, 10 Nov 1864 (AD; Basler text OCR-damaged, Lapsley text used)", "text": "It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. On this point the present rebellion brought our government to a severe test, and a presidential election occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little to the strain. If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when divided and partially paralyzed by a political war among themselves? But the election was a necessity. We cannot have free government without elections; and if the election could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife of the election is but human nature practically applied to the facts of the case.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0194" ], "words": 147 }, "L7-0276#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Response to a serenade, 10 Nov 1864 (AD; Basler text OCR-damaged, Lapsley text used)", "text": "What has occurred in this case must ever recur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we will have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged. But the election, along with its incidental and undesirable strife, has done good, too. It has demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility. It shows, also, how sound and strong we still are. It shows that even among the candidates of the same party, he who is most devoted to the Union and most opposed to treason can receive most of the people's votes.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0194" ], "words": 160 }, "L7-0276#2": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Response to a serenade, 10 Nov 1864 (AD; Basler text OCR-damaged, Lapsley text used)", "text": "It shows, also, to the extent yet known, that we have more men now than we had when the war began. Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, and patriotic men are better than gold. But the rebellion continues, and, now that the election is over, may not all have a common interest to reunite in a common effort to save our common country? For my own part, I have striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here, I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am duly sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God, for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed by the result. May I ask those who have not differed with me to join with me in this same spirit towards those who have? And now, let me close by asking three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant and skillful commanders.", "parents": [ "basler-VIII-0194" ], "words": 199 }, "sp_gettysburg#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Gettysburg Address, 19 Nov 1863 (Lapsley text)", "text": "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate \u2014 we can not consecrate \u2014 we can not hallow \u2014 this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.", "parents": [], "words": 143 }, "sp_gettysburg#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Gettysburg Address, 19 Nov 1863 (Lapsley text)", "text": "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us \u2014 that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain \u2014 that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom \u2014 and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.", "parents": [], "words": 129 }, "sp_second_inaugural#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Second Inaugural, 4 Mar 1865", "text": "At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war.", "parents": [], "words": 151 }, "sp_second_inaugural#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Second Inaugural, 4 Mar 1865", "text": "All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One eighth of the whole population was colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.", "parents": [], "words": 161 }, "sp_second_inaugural#2": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Second Inaugural, 4 Mar 1865", "text": "Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.", "parents": [], "words": 124 }, "sp_second_inaugural#3": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Second Inaugural, 4 Mar 1865", "text": "\"Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.\" If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.", "parents": [], "words": 121 }, "sp_second_inaugural#4": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "Second Inaugural, 4 Mar 1865", "text": "Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, \"The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.\" With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.", "parents": [], "words": 142 }, "sp_mccullough": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Fanny McCullough, 23 Dec 1862 (ALS)", "text": "It is with deep regret that I learn of the death of your kind and brave father, and especially that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned ever to expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress, perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say, and you need only to believe it to feel better at once. The memory of your dear father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad, sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before. Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother. Your sincere friend,", "parents": [], "words": 190 }, "sp_ellsworth#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To the parents of Elmer Ellsworth, 25 May 1861 (ALS)", "text": "In the untimely loss of your noble son, our affliction here is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and friends, have never been so suddenly dashed as in his fall. In size, in years, and in youthful appearance a boy only, his power to command men was surpassingly great. This power, combined with a fine intellectual and indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military, constituted in him, as seemed to me, the best natural talent in that department I ever knew. And yet he was singularly modest and deferential in social intercourse. My acquaintance with him began less than two years ago; yet, through the latter half of the intervening period, it was as intense as the disparity of our ages and my engrossing engagements would permit.", "parents": [], "words": 141 }, "sp_ellsworth#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To the parents of Elmer Ellsworth, 25 May 1861 (ALS)", "text": "To me he appeared to have no indulgences or pastimes, and I never heard him utter a profane or an intemperate word. What was conclusive of his good heart, he never forgot his parents. The honors he labored for so laudably, and for which, in the sad end, he so gallantly gave his life, he meant for them no less than for himself. In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sacredness of your sorrow, I have ventured to address you this tribute to the memory of my young friend and your brave and early fallen son. May God give you the consolation which is beyond all earthly power. Sincerely your friend in common affliction, A. LINCOLN.", "parents": [], "words": 120 }, "sp_gurney#0": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Eliza P. Gurney, 4 Sep 1864 (ALS)", "text": "I have not forgotten probably never shall forget the very impressive occasion when yourself and friends visited me on a Sabbath forenoon two years ago \u2014 nor has your kind letter, written nearly a year later, ever been forgotten. In all, it has been your purpose to strengthen my reliance on God. I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the country for their constant prayer and consolations; and to no one of them, more than to yourself. The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom, and our own error therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains.", "parents": [], "words": 157 }, "sp_gurney#1": { "author": "lincoln", "label": "To Eliza P. Gurney, 4 Sep 1864 (ALS)", "text": "Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay. Your people \u2014 the Friends \u2014 have had, and are having, a very great trial. On principle, and faith, opposed to both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose oppression by war. For those appealing to me on conscientious grounds, I have done, and shall do, the best I could and can, in my own conscience, under my oath to the law. That you believe this I doubt not, and believing it, I shall still receive, for our country and myself your earnest prayers to our Father in Heaven.", "parents": [], "words": 109 }, "sp_hay_condolence_1864": { "author": "hay", "label": "Hay to a friend in Massachusetts, 9 June 1864 (Bullard 154), fragment", "text": "I will not intrude upon your sorrow further than to express my deep sympathy for your great loss and my prayer that a merciful God may give you that consolation which mortal love is too weak to offer. I have sent your letter to my mother who will join me in my sympathy and prayers.", "parents": [], "words": 55 }, "hay_ellsworth_01": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "The beginnings of great periods have often been marked and made memorable by striking events. Out of the cloud that hangs around the vague inceptions of revolutions, a startling incident will sometimes flash like lightning, to show that the warring elements have begun their work. The scenes that attended the birth of American nationality formed a not inaccurate type of those that have opened the crusade for its perpetuation. The consolidation of public sentiment which followed the magnificent defeat at Bunker's Hill, in which the spirit of indignant resistance was tempered by the pathetic interest surrounding the fate of Warren, was but a foreshadowing of the instant rally to arms which followed the fall of the beleaguered fort in Charleston harbor, and of the intensity of tragic pathos which has been added to the stern purpose of avenging justice by the murder of Colonel Ellsworth.", "parents": [], "words": 145 }, "hay_ellsworth_02": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth was born in the little village of Mechanicsville, on the left bank of the Hudson, on the 23d day of April, 1837. When he was very young, his father, through no fault of his own, lost irretrievably his entire fortune, in the tornado of financial ruin that in those years swept from the sea to the mountains. From this disaster he never recovered. Misfortune seems to have followed him through life, with the insatiable pertinacity of the Nemesis of a Greek tragedy. And now in his old age, when for a moment there seemed to shine upon his path the sunshine that promised better days, he finds that suddenly withdrawn, and stands desolate, \"stabbed through the heart's affections, to the heart.\" His younger son died some years ago, of small-pox, in Chicago, and the murder at Alexandria leaves him with his sorrowing wife, lonely, amid the sympathy of the world.", "parents": [], "words": 154 }, "hay_ellsworth_03": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "The days of Elmer's childhood and early youth\u2014were passed at Troy and in the city of New York, in pursuits various, but energetic and laborious. There is little of interest in the story of these years. He was a proud, affectionate, sensitive, and generous boy, hampered by circumstance, but conscious of great capabilities,\u2014not morbidly addicted to day-dreaming, but always working heartily for something beyond. He was still very young\u2014when he went to Chicago, and associated himself in business with Mr. Devereux of Massachusetts. They managed for a little while, with much success, an agency for securing patents to inventors. Through the treachery of one in whom they had reposed great confidence they suffered severe losses which obliged them to close their business, and Devereux went back to the East. The next year of Ellsworth's life was a miracle of endurance and uncomplaining fortitude. He read law with great assiduity, and supported himself by copying, in the hours that should have been devoted to recreation. He had no pastimes and very few friends. Not a soul beside himself and the baker who gave him his daily loaf knew how he was living. During all that time, he never slept in a bed, never ate with friends at a social board. So acute was his sense of honor, so delicate his ideas of propriety, that, although himself the most generous of men, he never would accept from acquaintances the slightest favors or courtesies which he was unable to return.", "parents": [], "words": 251 }, "hay_ellsworth_04": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "He told me once of a severe struggle between inclination and a sense of honor. At a period of extreme hunger, he met a friend in the street who was just starting from the city. He accompanied his friend into a restaurant, wishing to converse with him, but declined taking any refreshment. He represented the savory fragrance of his friend's dinner as almost maddening to his famished senses, while he sat there pleasantly chatting, and deprecating his friend's entreaties to join him in his repast, on the plea that he had just dined.\n\nWhat would have killed an ordinary man did not injure Ellsworth. His iron frame seemed incapable of dissolution or waste. Circumstance had no power to conquer his spirit. His hearty good-humor never gave way. His sense of honor, which was sometimes even fantastic in its delicacy, freed him from the very temptation to wrong. He knew there was a better time coming for him. Conscious of great mental and bodily strength, with that bright outlook that industry and honor always give a man, he was perfectly secure of ultimate success. His plans mingled in a singular manner the bright enthusiasm of the youthful dreamer and the eminent practicality of the man of affairs.", "parents": [], "words": 207 }, "hay_ellsworth_05": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "At one time, his mind was fixed on Mexico,\u2014not with the licentious dreams that excited the ragged Condottieri who followed the fated footsteps of the \"gray-eyed man of Destiny,\" in the wild hope of plunder and power,\u2014nor with the vague reverie in which fanatical theorists construct impossible Utopias on the absurd framework of Icarias or Phalansteries. His clear, bold, and thoroughly executive mind planned a magnificent scheme of commercial enterprise, which, having its centre of operations at Guaymas, should ramify through the golden wastes that stretch in silence and solitude along the tortuous banks of the Rio San Jos\u00e9. This was to be the beginning and the ostensible end of the enterprise. Then he dreamed of the influence of American arts and American energy penetrating into the twilight of that decaying nationality, and saw the natural course of events leading on, first, Emigration, then Protection, and at last Annexation. Yet there was no thought of conquest or rapine. The idea was essentially American and Northern. He never wholly lost that dream. One day last winter, when some one was discussing the propriety of an amputation of the States that seemed thoroughly diseased, Ellsworth swept his hand energetically over the map of Mexico that hung upon the wall, and exclaimed,\u2014\"There is an unanswerable argument against the recognition of the Southern Confederacy.\"", "parents": [], "words": 224 }, "hay_ellsworth_06": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "But the central idea of Ellsworth's short life was the thorough reorganization of the militia of the United States. He had studied with great success the theory of national defence, and, from his observation of the condition of the militia of the several States, he was convinced that there was much of well-directed effort yet lacking to its entire efficiency. In fact, as he expressed it, a well-disciplined body of five thousand troops could land anywhere on our coast and ravage two or three States before an adequate force could get into the field to oppose them. To reform this defective organization, he resolved to devote whatever of talent or energy was his. This was very large undertaking for a boy, whose majority and moustache were still of the substance of things hoped for. But nothing that he could propose to himself ever seemed absurd. He attacked his work with his usual promptness and decision.", "parents": [], "words": 157 }, "hay_ellsworth_07": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "The conception of a great idea is no proof of a great mind; a man's calibre is shown by the way in which he attempts to realize his idea. A great design planted in a little mind frequently bursts it, and nothing is more pitiable than the spectacle of a man staggering into insanity under a thought too large for him. Ellsworth chose to begin his work simply and practically. He did not write a memorial to the President, to be sent to the Secretary of War, to be referred to the Chief Clerk, to be handed over to File-Clerk No. 99, to be glanced at and quietly thrust into a pigeon-hole labelled \"Crazy and trashy.\" He did not haunt the anteroom of Congressman Somebody, who would promise to bring his plan before the House, and then, bowing him out, give general orders to his footman, \"Not at home, hereafter, to that man.\" He did not float, as some theorists do, ghastly and seedy, around the Adyta of popular editors, begging for space and countenance. He wisely determined to keep his theories to himself until he could illustrate them by living examples. He first put himself in thorough training. He practised the manual of arms in his own room, until his dexterous precision was something akin to the sleight of a juggler. He investigated the theory of every movement in an anatomical view, and made several most valuable improvements on Hardee.", "parents": [], "words": 243 }, "hay_ellsworth_08": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "He rearranged the manual so that every movement formed the logical groundwork of the succeeding one. He studied the science of fence, so that he could hold a rapier with De Villiers, the most dashing of the Algerine swordsmen. He always had a hand as true as steel, and an eye like a gerfalcon. He used to amuse himself by shooting ventilation-holes through his window-panes. Standing ten paces from the window, he could fire the seven shots from his revolver and not shiver the glass beyond the circumference of a half-dollar.\n\nI have seen a photograph of his arm taken at this time. The knotted coil of thews and sinews looks like the magnificent exaggerations of antique sculpture.\n\nHis person was strikingly prepossessing. His form, though slight,\u2014exactly the Napoleonic size,\u2014was very compact and commanding; the head statuesquely poised, and crowned with a luxuriance of curling black hair; a hazel eye, bright, though serene, the eye of a gentleman as well as a soldier; a nose such as you see on Roman medals; a light moustache just shading the lips, that were continually curving into the sunniest smiles. His voice, deep and musical, instantly attracted attention; and his address, though not without soldierly brusqueness, was sincere and courteous. There was one thing his backwoods detractors could never forgive: he always dressed well; and sometimes wore the military insignia presented to him by different organizations.", "parents": [], "words": 238 }, "hay_ellsworth_09": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "One of these, a gold circle, inscribed with the legend, NON NOBIS, SED PRO PATRIA, was driven into his heart by the slug of the Virginian assassin.\n\nHe had great tact and executive talent, was a good mathematician, possessed a fine artistic eye, sketched well and rapidly, and in short bore a deft and skilful hand in all gentlemanly exercise.\n\nNo one ever possessed greater power of enforcing the respect and fastening the affections of men. Strangers soon recognized and acknowledged this power; while to his friends he always seemed like a Paladin or Cavalier of the dead days of romance and beauty. He was so generous and loyal, so stainless and brave, that Bayard himself would have been proud of him. The grand bead-roll of the virtues of the Flower of Kings contains the principles that guided his life; he used to read with exquisite appreciation these lines:\u2014", "parents": [], "words": 150 }, "hay_ellsworth_10": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "\"To reverence the King as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,\u2014To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,\u2014To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,\u2014To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,\u2014To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,\u2014To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her\";\n\nand the rest,\u2014\n\n\"high thoughts, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man.\"\n\nSuch, in person and character, was Ellsworth, when he organized, on the 4th day of May, 1859, the United States Zouave Cadets of Chicago.\n\nThis company was the machine upon which he was to experiment. Disregarding all extant works upon tactics, he drew up a simpler system for the use of his men. Throwing aside the old ideas of soldierly bearing, he taught them to use vigor, promptness, and ease. Discarding the stiff buckram strut of martial tradition, he educated them to move with the loafing insouciance of the Indian, or the graceful ease of the panther. He tore off their choking collars and binding coats, and invented a uniform which, though too flashy and conspicuous for actual service, was very bright and dashing for holiday occasions, and left the wearer perfectly free to fight, strike, kick, jump, or run.", "parents": [], "words": 231 }, "hay_ellsworth_11": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "He drilled these young men for about a year at short intervals. His discipline was very severe and rigid. Added to the punctilio of the martinet was the rigor of the moralist. The slightest exhibition of intemperance or licentiousness was punished by instant degradation and expulsion. He struck from the rolls at one time twelve of his best men for breaking the rule of total abstinence. His moral power over them was perfect and absolute. I believe anyone of them would have died for him.\n\nIn two or three principal towns of Illinois and Wisconsin he drilled other companies: in Springfield, where he made the friends who best appreciated what was best in him; and in Rockford, where he formed an attachment which imparted a coloring of tender romance to all the days of his busy life that remained. This tragedy would not have been perfect without the plaintive minor strain of Love in Death.", "parents": [], "words": 155 }, "hay_ellsworth_12": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "His company took the Premium Colors at the United States Agricultural Pair, and Ellsworth thought it was time to show to the people some fruit of his drill. They issued their soldierly d\u00e9fi and started on their Marche de Triomphe. It is useless to recall to those who read newspapers the clustering glories of that bloodless campaign. Hardly had they left the suburbs of Chicago when the murmur of applause began. New York, secure in the championship of half a century, listened with quiet metropolitan scorn to the noise of the shouting provinces; but when the crimson phantasms marched out of the Park, on the evening of the 15th of July, New York, with metropolitan magnanimity, confessed herself utterly vanquished by the good thing that had come out of Nazareth. There was no resisting the Zouaves. As the erring Knight of the Round Table said,\u2014", "parents": [], "words": 146 }, "hay_ellsworth_13": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "\"men went down before his spear at a touch, But knowing he was Lancelot; his great name conquered.\"\n\nThere were one or two Southern companies that issued insulting defiances, but, after a little expenditure of epistolary valor, prudently, though ingloriously, stayed afar,\u2014as is usual in New Gascony. With these exceptions, the heart of the nation went warmly out to these young men. Their endurance, their discipline, their alertness, their \u00e9lan, surprised the sleepy drill-masters out of their propriety, and waked up the people to intense and cordial admiration. Chicago welcomed them home proudly, covered with tan and dust and glory.\n\nEllsworth found himself for his brief hour the most talked-of man in the country. His pictures sold like wildfire in every city of the land. School-girls dreamed over the graceful wave of his curls, and shop-boys tried to reproduce the Grand Seigneur air of his attitude. Zouave corps, brilliant in crimson and gold, sprang up, phosphorescently, in his wake, making bright the track of his journey. The leading journals spoke editorially of him, and the comic papers caricatured his drill.", "parents": [], "words": 185 }, "hay_ellsworth_14": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "So one thing was accomplished. He had gained a name that would entitle him hereafter to respectful attention, and had demonstrated the efficiency of his system of drill. The public did not, of course, comprehend the resistless moral power which he exercised,\u2014imperiously moulding every mind as he willed,\u2014inspiring every soul with his own unresting energy. But the public recognized success, and that for the present was enough.\n\nHe quietly formed a regiment in the upper counties of Illinois, and made his best men the officers of it. He tendered its services to Governor Yates immediately on his inauguration, \"for any service consistent with honor.\" This was the first positive tender made of an organized force in defence of the Constitution. He seemed to recognize more clearly than others the certainty of the coming struggle. It was the soldierly instinct that heard \"the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.\"", "parents": [], "words": 155 }, "hay_ellsworth_15": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "Still intent upon the great plan of militia reform, he came to Springfield. He hoped, in case of the success of Mr. Lincoln in the canvass then pending, to be able to establish in the War Department a Bureau of Militia, which would prove a most valuable auxiliary to his work. His ideas were never vague or indefinite. Means always presented themselves to him, when he contemplated ends. The following were the duties of the proposed bureau, which may serve as a guide to some future reformer: I copy from his own exquisitely neat and clear memorandum, which lies before me:\u2014\n\n\"First. The gradual concentration of all business pertaining to the militia now conducted by the several bureaus of this Department.\n\n\"Second. The collection and systematizing of accurate information of the number, arm, and condition of the militia of all classes of the several States, and the compilation of yearly reports of the same for the information of this Department.", "parents": [], "words": 160 }, "hay_ellsworth_16": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "\"Third. The compilation of a report of the actual condition of the militia and the working of the present systems of the General Government and the various States.\n\n\"Fourth. The publication and distribution of such information as is important to the militia, and the conduct of all correspondence relating to militia affairs.\n\n\"Fifth. The compilation of a system of instruction for light troops for distribution to the several States, including everything pertaining to the instruction of the militia in the school of the soldier,\u2014company and battalion, skirmishing, bayonet, and gymnastic drill, adapted for self-instruction.\n\n\"Sixth. The arrangement of a system of organization, with a view to the establishment of a uniform system of drill, discipline, equipment, and dress, throughout the United States.\"\n\nHis plan for this purpose was very complete and symmetrical. Though enthusiastic, he was never dreamy. His idea always went forth fully armed and equipped.", "parents": [], "words": 149 }, "hay_ellsworth_17": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "Nominally, he was a student of law in the office of Lincoln and Herndon, but in effect he passed his time in completing his plans of militia reform. He made in October many stirring and earnest speeches for the Republican candidates. He was very popular among the country people. His voice was magnificent in melody and volume, his command of language wonderful in view of the deficiencies of his early education, his humor inexhaustible and hearty, and his manner deliberate and impressive, reminding his audiences in Central Illinois of the earliest and best days of Senator Douglas.\n\nWhen the Legislature met, he prepared an elaborate military bill, the adoption of which would have placed the State in an enviable attitude of defence. The stupid jealousy of colonels and majors who had won bloodless glory, on both sides, in the Mormon War, and the malignant prejudice instigated by the covert treason that lurked in Southern Illinois, succeeded in staving off the passage of the bill, until it was lost by the expiration of the term. Many of these men are now in the ranks, shouting the name of Ellsworth as a battle-cry.", "parents": [], "words": 192 }, "hay_ellsworth_18": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "He came to Washington in the escort of the President elect. Hitherto he had been utterly independent of external aid. The time was come when he must wait for the cooperation of others, for the accomplishment of his life's great purpose. He wished a position in the War Department, which would give him an opportunity for the establishment of the Militia Bureau. He was a strange anomaly at the capital. He did not care for money or luxury. Though sensitive in regard to his reputation, for the honor of his work, his motto always was that of the sage Merlin,\u2014\"I follow use, not fame.\" An office-seeker of this kind was an eccentric and suspicious personage. The hungry thousands that crowded and pushed at Willard's thought him one of them, only deeper and slier. The simplicity and directness of his character, his quick sympathy and thoughtless generosity, and his delicate sense of honor unfitted him for such a scramble as that which degrades the quadrennial rotations of our Departments. He withdrew from the contest for the position he desired, and the President, who loved him like a younger brother, made him a lieutenant in the army, intending to detail him for special service.", "parents": [], "words": 204 }, "hay_ellsworth_19": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "The jealousy of the staff-officers of the regular army, who always discover in any effective scheme of militia reform the overthrow of their power, and who saw in the young Zouave the promise of brilliant and successful innovation, was productive of very serious annoyance and impediment to Ellsworth. In the midst of this, he fell sick at Willard's. While he lay there, the news from the South began to show that the rebels were determined upon war, and the rumors on the street said that a wholesome North-westerly breeze was blowing from the Executive Mansion. These indications were more salutary to Ellsworth than any medicine. We were talking one night of coming probabilities, and I spoke of the doubt so widely existing as to the loyalty of the people. He rejoined, earnestly,\u2014\"I can only speak for myself. You know I have a great work to do, to which my life is pledged; I am the only earthly stay of my parents; there is a young woman whose happiness I regard as dearer than my own: yet I could ask no better death than to fall next week before Sumter. I am not better than other men. You will find that patriotism is not dead, even if it sleeps.\"", "parents": [], "words": 211 }, "hay_ellsworth_20": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "Sumter fell, and the sleeping awoke. The spirit of Ellsworth, cramped by a few weeks' intercourse with politicians, sprang up full-statured in the Northern gale. He cut at once the meshes of red tape that had hampered and held him, threw up his commission, and started for New York without orders, without assistance, without authority, but with the consciousness that the President would sustain him. The rest the world knows. I will be brief in recalling it.\n\nIn an incredibly short space of time he enlisted and organized a regiment, eleven hundred strong, of the best fighting material that ever went to war. He divided it, according to an idea of his own, into groups of four comrades each, for the campaign. He exercised a personal supervision over the most important and the most trivial minutiae of the regimental business. The quick sympathy of the public still followed him. He became the idol of the Bowery and the pet of the Avenue. Yet not one instant did he waste in recreation or lionizing. Indulgent to all others, he was merciless to himself. He worked day and night, like an incarnation of Energy. When he arrived with his men in Washington, he was thin, hoarse, flushed, but entirely contented and happy, because busy and useful.", "parents": [], "words": 215 }, "hay_ellsworth_21": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "Of the bright enthusiasm and the quenchless industry of the next few weeks what need to speak? Every day, by his unceasing toil and care, by his vigor, alertness, activity, by his generosity, and by his relentless rigor when duty commanded, he grew into the hearts of his robust and manly followers, until every man in the regiment feared him as a Colonel should be feared, and loved him as a brother should be loved.\n\nOn the night of the twenty-third of May, he called his men together, and made a brief, stirring speech to them, announcing their orders to advance on Alexandria. \"Now, boys, go to bed, and wake up at two o'clock for a sail and a skirmish.\" When the camp was silent, he began to work. He wrote many hours, arranging the business of the regiment. He finished his labor as the midnight stars were crossing the zenith. As he sat in his tent by the shore, it seems as if the mystical gales from the near eternity must have breathed for a moment over his soul, freighted with the odor of amaranths and asphodels. For he wrote two strange letters: one to her who mourns him faithful in death; one to his parents. There is nothing braver or more pathetic. With the prophetic instinct of love, he assumed the office of consoler for the stroke that impended.", "parents": [], "words": 232 }, "hay_ellsworth_22": { "author": "hay", "label": "Ellsworth (atlantic_1861_07, 1861)", "text": "In the dewy light of the early dawn he occupied the first rebel town. With his own hand he tore down the first rebel flag. He added to the glories of that morning the seal of his blood.\n\nThe poor wretch who stumbled upon an immortality of infamy by murdering him died at the same instant. The two stand in the light of that event\u2014clearly revealed\u2014types of the two systems in conflict to-day: the one, brave, refined, courtly, generous, tender, and true; the other, not lacking in brute courage, reckless, besotted, ignorant, and cruel.\n\nLet the two systems, Freedom and Slavery, stand thus typified forever, in the red light of that dawn, as on a Mount of Transfiguration. I believe that may solve the dark mystery why Ellsworth died.", "parents": [], "words": 132 }, "hay_baker_01": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "RIVERS form no less striking features in the pictures of history than in the face of nature. When dignified by the passage of armies, their course runs broadening through fame. The crossing of the Rubicon by the legions of the bankrupt Roman centuries ago, has given to the rhetoric of the world a metaphor crystallized into the ordinary speech of men who never heard of the Gallic war. We never realized that the shock of arms was coming between the Sardinian King and the Austrian Kaiser until the troops of Francis-Joseph stood on the Italian brink of the Ticino. The Danube, the Elbe, and the Po run through their ancient dominions sad with the memories of slaughter and of battles.\n\nHitherto the western world has had no dower of associations to link with its streams. The peaceful charms of growing opulence and advancing arts were all that hallowed our rivers after we had forgotten our vague traditions of savage ambuscade and midnight massacre. But they can never again claim that happy immunity from the red suggestions of strife. The waters of the Missouri are darkening with a tint more deep than the amber of the mountains; the Mississippi will soon become the sepulchre of heroes; and the fair ripples of the Potomac, that have never blushed before except with the dalliance of the evening sunlight streaming rosily over the Virginian hills, will henceforth flow grimly into history stained with the costliest blood of the land.", "parents": [], "words": 246 }, "hay_baker_02": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "As if the significance of the forward movement of the armies of the republic were not enough to stamp the crossing of the river indelibly into the mind of the world, the noblest lives in the army were sacrificed at Alexandria and Ball's Bluff, whose fame will rescue the event from all the possibilities of oblivion. The boast of Virginians becomes justified, and the ground becomes \" sacred soil,\" when hallowed by blood like that of Elmer Ellsworth and Edward Dickinson Baker. These heroic men, falling gloriously on the southern shore of the dividing river, call eloquently to their countrymen who, pressing on to avenge them, are too busy to weep for them. Not now shall their history be written. When the storm is overpast, and peace brings leisure for eulogy, it will be time to tell the story and educe the lessons of their lives. To posterity, therefore, we will intrust the work of worthily honoring the dead Senator. At present we can only snatch from forgetfulness the simple facts of his life, and say what manner of man we have lost. The scattered garlands which affection to-day is casting upon his grave shall be hereafter gathered and woven into unfading chaplet of enduring fame. \"Forget not the faithful dead\" was the pathetic adjuration of the dying warrior-poet Korner; and it is ill for a republic when its martyrs begin to be forgotten.", "parents": [], "words": 235 }, "hay_baker_03": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Edward Dickinson Baker, United States Senator from Oregon, who died in battle near Conrad's Ferry on the 21st day of October, 1861, was born in the city of London on the 24th day of February, in the year 1811. His father, Edward Baker, was a man of education and refinement. His mother was the sister of Captain Thomas Dickinson of the British navy, an officer of great ability and distinction, who fought under Collingwood at Trafalgar. When Edward was four years of age his family came to America and lived for about ten years in the city of Philadelphia. He always fondly remembered his residence in Philadelphia, and his citizenship was through life, both to him and to Philadelphians, a source of mutual pride.\n\nEarly in the spring of the year 1825 the elder Baker, impelled by that spirit of restless adventure and enterprise that seems the heritage of all the race, gathered up his household gods and turned his face once more to the sunset. Over the trackless mountains, along the strange rivers, through the still wildernesses where life was bursting into beauty and bloom, he journeyed until, tired of wandering, he rested in the rich valley of the Wabash.", "parents": [], "words": 201 }, "hay_baker_04": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Only a little while though; for in a year or so we find him at the pleasant old town of Belleville, in the county of St. Clair, the earliest settled of all Central Illinois, filled with a population more wealthy and refined than that which settled in the Southern peninsula between the Mississippi and the Ohio, or that which fought and traded along the Illinois and Rock rivers. Most of the educational and social advantages of the State clustered at that early day around the villages facing the trading station that Laclede had built and called St. Louis, and those that nestled cozily in the winding valley of Kaskaskia. In later years these towns have lost their ancient prosperity, and all that reminds the visitor of what has been is the dignified idleness of the men and the still, proud beauty of the women.", "parents": [], "words": 144 }, "hay_baker_05": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Finding in the good county of St. Clair a congenial social atmosphere, the elder Baker pitched there his tent, and opened an academy for boys, which he continued with great success for many years, conducting it upon a system of instruction then called the Lancasterian plan. His son, Edward, then a handsome lad of fifteen, by the grace and dignity of his bearing, by his personal beauty, and by the astonishing charm of conversation which even at that early day distinguished him, became a general favorite in the best society there. He was always received with kindness in the family of Governor Edwards, a magnificent old gentleman in fair top-boots and ruffled wristbands, who added to a character of great generosity and executive ability the grand Seigneur airs of the Old School. Young Baker availed himself with avidity of the treasures of the Governor's library, the best in the State. He was always a ravenous reader. He had one of those rare memories\u2014wax to receive, and marble to retain. He was indebted to its trustiness and quickness for much of his success as a debater. He was rarely mistaken, and never at fault for a fact or an allusion. Thus reading and remembering, dreaming and growing, he passed the pleasant days in pleasant Belleville, in congenial study and edifying society.", "parents": [], "words": 222 }, "hay_baker_06": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "He took much interest in the political contests that convulsed the State upon the old and always mischievous question of Slavery\u2014in which, singularly enough, Northern and Eastern men favored the introduction of Slavery, while the Governor and his Kentucky associates opposed it. By their untiring efforts Slavery was prohibited, and Illinois remained a free State.\n\nFrom Belleville young Baker went to Carrollton, in Greene County, a town of less social culture, though filled with a wealthy and sterling population. Here he studied law in the office of Judge Caverly, and practiced for some time with indifferent success. He married here a lady of high character and position, who still survives him, in desolation and sorrow, on the far shore of the Pacific Ocean.\n\nHe removed to Springfield, afterward the capital city of the State, in 1835. In 1837, when Dan Stone\u2014the member who joined Abraham Lincoln in what his opponents styled the \" Abolition protest\"\u2014resigned his seat in the Legislature to assume a place on the Supreme Bench, Baker was elected to fill the vacancy thus created, and re-elected soon thereafter. He paid little attention to Legislative business; was often out of his seat, and more pleasantly employed. He was, however, always called on when an obnoxious measure was to be defeated or an opponent demolished. He mastered details with great ease when he cared, but he did not often care.", "parents": [], "words": 234 }, "hay_baker_07": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "He was State Senator from 1840 to 1844, defeating in the canvass John Calhoun, who afterward became memorable on account of an election manoeuvre in Kansas not wholly unconnected with candle-boxes.\n\nAll this time he was applying himself assiduously to the practice of law. His infallible memory, his quickness of perception, and his ardent eloquence, were powerful agencies in the management of juries, and were usually successful against the most determined energy and labor. His bonhomie and impetuosity of delivery were irresistible to Western men; and his Kentucky admirers delighted to liken him to the great lights of the Southwestern bar, Barry and Grundy. He was fortunate in being associated with men of industry and learning, such as Judge Logan, the Nestor of the profession in Illinois; M. Hay; and, for a while, Albert T. Bledsoe, lately Assistant Secretary of War in the Southern Confederacy.", "parents": [], "words": 146 }, "hay_baker_08": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "It would be hard to find in any backwoods town, at the period of which I have been speaking, a coterie of equal ability and equal possibilities with those who plead, and wrangled, and electioneered together in Springfield. Logan, one of the finest examples of the purely legal mind that the West has ever produced; M'Dougal, who afterward sought El Dorado; Bissell, and Shields, and Baker, brothers in arms and in council, the flower of the Western chivalry, and the brightest examples of Western oratory; Trumbull, then as now, with a mind pre-eminently cool, crystalline, sagacious; Douglas, heart of oak and brain of fire, of energy and undaunted courage unparalleled, ambition insatiate and aspiration unsleeping; Lincoln, then as afterward, thoughtful, and honest, and brave, conscious of great capabilities and quietly sure of the future, before all his peers in a broad humanity, and in that prophetic lift of spirit that saw the triumph of principles then dimly discovered in the contest that was to come.", "parents": [], "words": 166 }, "hay_baker_09": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Baker was elected to Congress in 1844, from the Sangamon District. He occupied his seat there, serving with distinction, when the Mexican war broke out. Though opposed to the war in its inception, the call of his country was imperative to him. There was something in his veins that would not let him be quiet when there was fighting going on. He had had some little experience of soldiering in the Black Hawk War\u2014as who had not? Lincoln was a captain there, Robert Anderson and Jefferson Davis were together in an expedition up the Mississippi, and Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis probably bivouacked together in the Iowa forests and dreamed of battles by the dying fire.\n\nBaker left Washington and came to Springfield and called a thousand young men around him. They were immediately accepted by the Government as the \"Fourth Illinois,\" and embarked for the war. Arriving at Matamoras, on the discovery of dangerous irregularities that absolutely demanded attention, Colonel Baker was sent to Washington as a bearer of dispatches. When he came there Congress was in session. He availed himself of his right of membership, and in a speech of great fire and force he plead the cause of the Volunteers, then resigned his seat, and went back to the war. He joined his regiment in time to share in the victorious termination of the siege of Vera Cruz.", "parents": [], "words": 232 }, "hay_baker_10": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "He advanced into the interior with the main body of Scott's army, and gained an opportunity for hot work at Cerro Gordo. When Shields's Brigade had turned the Mexican position in the rear of the mountain, and the column emerged from the chaparral into the Jalapa road, a concealed battery suddenly opened with deadly effect upon the Illinoisans. Shields fell with a hurt in his breast large enough to let out the life of any man but him; and Baker, without an instant's confusion or hesitation, took command of the brigade, and charged magnificently upon the enemy's guns, taking the position which enabled him to cut off the retreat, and completing the utter rout of the Mexican army. It was in reference to this incident, and in remembrance of the conduct of Burnett's regiment, that he said, last April, in Union Square, \" I know what New York can do when her blood is up.\"", "parents": [], "words": 154 }, "hay_baker_11": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "He was succeeded in his Congressional District by Abraham Lincoln, and shortly thereafter he removed to Galena, up in the lead-mines. The inevitable popularity that always attended his footsteps like a shadow followed him into the North, and placed him in Congress again within a very few months after his arrival in Galena. It is impossible for people living in cities, or in the heart of a dense population, to form any adequate conception of the intense affection and eager interest that a handsome, jolly, eloquent, and discreet partisan leader excites among his constituency of the backwoods. The rural school-houses and groves form the arena of his triumphs. His wit is rewarded by hearty laughter, and his eloquence by yells of approbation. Where excitements are few, a popular orator, who can make men laugh and cry, becomes entwined with their sluggish, emotional natures, and a speech is to them not an incident of an evening, but the event of a week. They show their appreciation of him by always designating him by some affectionate and slightly depreciatory epithet, which, though at first annoying, becomes in time a badge of honor and a cry of onset. They are hardly the most elegant names to go into the measures of history, but no titles have ever been more lovingly given than Honest Old Abe\u2014the Little Giant\u2014Old Tippecanoe\u2014Old Zack\u2014the Old Wheel-Horse.", "parents": [], "words": 235 }, "hay_baker_12": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "In this power of enchaining the love of a people, who though rude are always manly, and never grow maudlin in their devotion, but retain in their utterances of praise the privilege of judicious abuse, Baker was unparalleled. Though free from all degrading vices, the worst men loved him; and the rough dwellers in the mines and the timber came eagerly to hear him discourse of things above the reaches of their souls.\n\nHe served these last years in the House of Representatives with great industry and success. His principal oratorical effort of these days was the pathetic and musical eulogy he pronounced at the death of his old commander, when the honest and sagacious old warrior went to heaven from the Executive mansion. Declining a reelection, his restless and original brain fastened upon a project as wild as it was engaging. Forming a business connection with the Panama Railroad Company, he sent a body of four hundred men under his brother, the genial and talented Dr. Alfred Baker, soon following them himself. Those who have read the narrative of Lieutenant Strain, where the intensity of suffering charms while you shudder, may form an idea of the dispiriting experiences of this little band.", "parents": [], "words": 203 }, "hay_baker_13": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "In the depth of the matted rankness of the forests\u2014on the humid banks of sluggish rivers\u2014lying in the night amidst the tangled luxuriance of the wilderness\u2014the moist splendors of tropical summer around them, and the wild voices of tropical and savage life in the pathless jungles filling the unquiet air\u2014one by one they sunk beneath the insidious beguiling of the malarious atmosphere, and the Northern strength melted in the Southern fervors. At last their untiring leader fell sick, nearly unto death, and his brother brought him tenderly home, to see familiar skies and breathe the honest air of the prairies again.\n\nHe recovered slowly: but his heart leaned always westward. It is men like him that form the dazzling crest of the foremost wave of emigration, that never ceases to roll onward till caught and shattered into quiet by impassable boundaries. He went to California in 1852. The wild tumult of earlier years had begun to settle into the habitudes of civilized life, and the arts of peace had begun to supplant the savageries of nature. People were arriving at that point of social and moral development when they thought, on the whole, it was as well to litigate a claim as to fight about it. Retainers began to supplant revolvers, and briefs to supply the place of bowies: which was a bad thing for surgeons, and a very good one for lawyers.", "parents": [], "words": 237 }, "hay_baker_14": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Among the lawyers of California Baker was easily chief. The astonishing ease and felicity of his diction, his marvelous quickness of apprehension, bred a careless habit in him that often exposed him to the charge of indolence and superficiality. There never was a greater mistake, though this delusion is one very frequently entertained in the case of men of great sprightliness of mind. Baker never neglected or slighted his business. His cases required little hard work, but they always received it. There was nothing slovenly or heedless about any of his habits of thought. His pleadings were always eminently safe, and his forensic harangues were models of perspicuity and force, without ornament or verbiage. His popularity increased with his success. He took his place at once, almost without effort, at the head of the profession in the State. A large proportion of all important civil causes were brought to him; and those social philosophers whose principles, embodied in practice, ran counter to the established prejudices of courts and statutes became imbued with a kind of superstitious confidence in his powers. There was certainly nothing lacking in Baker to the perfect advocate if he had cared to become so. His fascinating power with juries\u2014his clear analytic processes of thought\u2014his torrent of tempestuous eloquence, made him well-nigh irresistible. His success was commensurate with his powers.", "parents": [], "words": 226 }, "hay_baker_15": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "He was popular in California, in spite of his politics. It was not possible for a man of such positive and aggressive character to seek power and position by subserviency to the prejudices of the people. By ancient affiliations, by accustomed habits of thought, by strong instincts of a liberal philanthropy, he was identified with the party opposed to the extension of slavery. In those early days the population of the Golden State had not yet perfectly polarized its constituent elements upon this subject of slavery. The free State colonists were largely, of course, in the ascendant; but a majority of them, led by the old traditions of organization, joined with the Southern residents on the question of propagandism. The majority was thus hopelessly against the Republicans when their party, struggling from the ashes of old defeats, unfurled the banner of Free Soil upon the Pacific shore. But there never was a fight more dauntless than that made by the forlorn hope of Republicans\u2014Baker, Stanford, Nunes, Tracy, and a handful of followers\u2014in the diggings and ranches of California. There was none of that sleepy security that characterizes the wordy wars of Eastern tribunes.", "parents": [], "words": 195 }, "hay_baker_16": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "When a man went to talk for Fremont among the squatters of Mariposa, or inveigh against slavery among the refuse ruffianism of the Gulf that haunted Yuba and Sonoma, or expound a hated doctrine to the desperadoes of Tuolumne, he took his life in his hand, and considered his pistols and knife as necessary companions as his pamphlets and papers. And who was so qualified as Baker for a strife like this? His geniality beguiled as much as his courage impressed. Because he was always known to be ready for a fight, it was never necessary. He won the hearts of the rough people who cursed his doctrine, and his name became coupled in the mouths of the mountaineers with every expletive of profane admiration. He was utterly at home on the hustings. Those who are acquainted only with his grave senatorial efforts can form no adequate idea of the ready, sparkling, ebullient wit\u2014the glancing and playful satire, mirthful while merciless\u2014the keen syllogisms\u2014and the sharp sophisms, whose fallacies, though undiscoverable, were perplexing\u2014and the sudden splendors of eloquence that formed the wonderful charm of his backwoods harangues. His fame became coextensive with the coast; and the people, in allusion to \" the good gray head which all men knew,\" used to call him the \"Gray Eagle.\"", "parents": [], "words": 218 }, "hay_baker_17": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Years passed on, and Baker made money and friends in California. At last the great party of the North became divided on the interminably vexing question of slavery in the Territories. Broderick\u2014one of the truest diamonds that ever existed in the rough\u2014after battling with unavailing pluck for what he deemed truth and justice in the Senate, came back to rally his clansmen for conflict with a haughty and implacable organization. Here was a conflict that at once enlisted all the soul of Baker. It was not so forlorn in prospect as his former one, and a glimmer of hope is very inspiriting in politics. A coalition was effected between the Republicans and the Douglas Democrats, by which Baker and M'Kibbin became the candidates for Congress against the distinctive pro-slavery men. The story of that well-fought campaign was not a particularly pleasant one. It was like all sudden insurrections of free thought and manhood against powerful and disciplined tyranny. The Broderick ticket was defeated, and the baffled Senator was bullied into a criminal folly that his better judgment condemned, and was slain. His last words were, \"They have killed me because I was opposed to the extension of slavery and a corrupt Administration.\"", "parents": [], "words": 206 }, "hay_baker_18": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "The words and the event fell heavily on the heart of the nation. Far more crushingly they rested on the saddened spirits of his friends. The dull heaviness of their grief forbade parade, and made ceremony mockery. The American mind runs naturally to committees when great men fall. But there was that within the hearts of Broderick's friends, like the anguish of the royal Dane, \"passing show.\" By common consent Baker was the funeral orator. With none of the ordinary accessories of solemn burials, the dead Senator lay in the great square of the city, and the saddened people flocked silently to the scene. From all the streets of the crowded town they gathered in the hush of the autumnal noon, till the square was filled with the mourning multitudes, whispering with lowered voices of the virtues of the departed, and striving to come near enough to gaze upon the calm features of the murdered tribune, turned stonily to the brightness of the skies. Aloft the church bells were jangling mournfully, and their wild lament, floating down to earth, deepened the emotion of the hour. As their ringing vibrated into silence the voice of the orator stole out upon the air, tremulous with tender feeling and musical with the memories of dead friendship.", "parents": [], "words": 213 }, "hay_baker_19": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "The mind of the mighty multitude, softened by the excitement of their sorrow, lay plastic to his hand, and for an hour the homage of tears and sobs was paid to Baker's genius and Broderick's memory, until he ended in those grandly pathetic words, whose touching music breathes alike the abandon of sorrow and the joy of ultimate fame: \"The last word must be spoken, and the imperious mandate of death must be fulfilled. Thus, O brave heart! we bear thee to thy rest. Thus, surrounded by tens of thousands, we leave thee to the equal grave. As in life, no other voice among us so rang its trumpet blast upon the ear of freemen, so in death its echoes will reverberate amidst our mountains and our valleys until truth and valor cease to appeal to the human heart.", "parents": [], "words": 139 }, "hay_baker_20": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "\"Good friend! true hero! hail and farewell! \"\"\n\nIt is worth while to die if one could be mourned so gloriously.\n\nAfter the death of Broderick and the impunity of his murderer, Baker, as if to free himself from the haunting presence of the unatoned crime, went to Oregon. He entered with all his might into the election of 1859 in that State, working with his usual self-forgetting energy for David Logan, a young friend from Springfield. Logan, though making a most brilliant canvass, was defeated for Congress; but the Legislature was carried, and Baker, who had by this time become the Republican party of Oregon, was proposed for the Senate. As soon as it became apparent that a Republican would be elected, the opposition, unused to any thing but victory, and unable in any other way to baffle defeat, \"took to the bush,\" and actually spent several days in the tall timber to prevent an election being held. The sergeant-at-arms organized a hunting party, and going into the woods soon bagged enough for a quorum, and Baker was elected to the Senate of the United States. He had at last attained the summit of political ambition. As far as his nativity would permit him to be honored, he had been. He had arrived at the goal of a brilliant career before he had completed his half-century of years. And the end was not far.", "parents": [], "words": 238 }, "hay_baker_21": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Coming to California, on his way to the East, he scattered his perfect and jewel-like speeches all along his route. One evening, in San Francisco, after it had been surmised that his being elected by a coalition would induce lukewarmness of sentiment and expression, he took occasion to renew his fealty to the principles of his life. I do not think this wonderful speech was ever reported. Every word of it seemed to flame and sparkle with the miraculous fire of genius. It brought the audience to their feet. The very spirit of liberty seemed ennobled by his apostrophe.\n\nHe at once took his place among the foremost debaters of the Senate. For the first time in his life he was placed in a position which was entirely appropriate to him. The decorum and courtesy that usually marks the intercourse of Senators was most grateful to his habits of thought and feeling. The higher range of discussion, and the more cultivated tone of sentiment and discourse prevalent there, gave him an opportunity, that all his life had lacked, of doing his best among his equals. Among these refined members of the most august of representative assemblies, there was none more courteous, more polished, than this Western lawyer, this rouser of the dwellers in the backwoods. He shed honor enough upon Oregon to atone even for General Lane.", "parents": [], "words": 228 }, "hay_baker_22": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Let it be remembered to his lasting praise, now that he is gone, in proof of the paternal and cherishing interest which he always exhibited in behalf of the common soldiers, that he exerted himself to the utmost in procuring the late increase in the rations of the rank and file. The heightened health and comfort of our brave soldiery will be the best monument to his wise forethought and liberal humanity.\n\nIn fervid, impressive oratory\u2014in that peculiar ability which starts a man to his feet unprepared, and enables him to always do himself justice in the hurry and glow of debate, it would be hard to say what equal Baker has left in the Senate. His mind was always fully determined upon questions at issue. His convictions were firm and ardent. His opulence of expression and imagery was absolutely inexhaustible. Other men, upon the frame-work of a great idea, by labor and toil produce finished orations, and when they are done, however ornate, the fulfillment is found to lag behind the intention. But Baker never labored and never pondered; and so powerful and ready were the processes of his mind, so rich the resources of his imagination, and so warm and glowing the fervors of his spirit, that the creations of his genius came forth in the full perfection of their finished grace and beauty, with a light and a life and a color fairer than he had known.", "parents": [], "words": 242 }, "hay_baker_23": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "He was especially great upon great occasions. He was a man whom the subtle magnetism of events always inspired. Those who heard will surely never forget the magnificent burst of red-hot rhetoric with which he electrified the crowding thousands that filled Union Square last April. It was a mighty assemblage\u2014great in numbers\u2014tremendous in earnestness\u2014awful in aroused enthusiasm. We saw that day how hard it was for common men to address that crowd. Some simply raved, mastered by emotion. Some, wishing to be solemn, prosed. There were few who could ride on that whirlwind and direct that storm. Baker was one.\n\nFrom the instant when his graceful form was discovered on the stand\u2014his handsome face, pale but quiet; his eye fierce in its brilliancy; his white hair crowning the splendid head like a halo; and the tones of his clear, firm voice rang out on the air in the words, \"The majesty of the people is here to-day to sustain the majesty of the Constitution\"\u2014to the moment when he closed in a gust of passionate plaudits, he held the audience fettered and still.", "parents": [], "words": 189 }, "hay_baker_24": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "A visible thrill ran through the dense mass when, in closing, he consecrated himself anew to the service of his country in these words of exquisite melody: \"And if from the far Pacific a voice, feebler than the feeblest murmur upon its shore, may be heard to give you courage and hope in the contest, that voice is yours to-day; and if a man whose hair is gray, who is well-nigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, may pledge himself on such an occasion and in such an audience, let me say\u2014as my last word\u2014that, as when, amidst sheeted fire and flame, I saw and led the hosts of New York as they charged in contest upon a foreign soil, for the honor of your flag; so again, if Providence shall will it, this feeble hand shall draw a sword never yet dishonored, not to fight for distant honor in a foreign land, but to fight for country, for home, for law, for government, for constitution, for right, for freedom, for humanity, and in the hope that the banner of my country may advance, and wheresoever that banner waves there glory may pursue and freedom be established!\"", "parents": [], "words": 204 }, "hay_baker_25": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "This was no idle trick of rhetoric. Before the echoes of his words had died he was hard at work recruiting the California regiment. It filled rapidly. Men came from a distance to join in squads or singly. Many came from Philadelphia and its outlying country. He liked to receive these. \"There must be a fighting streak somewhere about us Quakers,\" he used to say. There was an inspiration in this man's words and presence that made men love to fight under him. His regiment soon was over-full. The President appointed him a Brigadier-General. He declined it. The same friendly hand desired to place upon his shoulder-straps the double star of a Major-General. He quietly refused it, and kept the eagles to which his regiment entitled him. As for honors, he had enough of them in another field. He went into this war for use, not fame.", "parents": [], "words": 151 }, "hay_baker_26": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "The time for use was coming and for fame as well, though hidden behind the forbidding mask of disaster and death. It seems as if Colonel Baker himself was not unmindful of his coming fate. It is so easy for people after a battle to remember that the dead were haunted by the coming probabilities, and for sentimental youths to say before a skirmish their farewell to the world, that newspaper reports of presentiments are usually not devoid of ludicrous associations. But sometimes you see, in a man whose character renders a suspicion of affectation impossible, an awful solemnity, born neither of fear nor of responsibility, but as if the black plumes of the wings of Azrael, the Death Angel, had touched him, or the ghostly gales out of the opened gates of eternity had blown for an instant over his brow. Else why that solemn farewell to his parents penned by the dauntless Ellsworth, as live a man as ever breathed, in the dead of the last midnight that he ever watched? Why the strange reckless bewilderment of the brave Lyon on that disastrous day when his gallant heart was breaking under the double conviction that death had marked him, and the Government had forgotten him? Colonel Baker for several days was oppressed by this overhanging consciousness. He became as restless as an eagle in his camp. He came down to Washington and settled all his affairs. He went to say farewell to the family of the President.", "parents": [], "words": 249 }, "hay_baker_27": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "A lady\u2014who in her high position is still gracefully mindful of early friendships\u2014gave him a bouquet of late flowers. \"Very beautiful,\" he said, quietly. \" These flowers and my memory will wither together.\" At night he hastily reviewed his papers. He indicated upon each its proper disposition \"in case I should not return.\" He pressed with quiet earnestness upon his friend Colonel Webb, who deprecated such ghostly instructions, the measures which might become necessary in regard to the resting-place of his mortal remains. All this without any ostentation. He performed all these offices with the quiet coolness of a soldier and a man of affairs, then mounted his horse and rode gayly away to his death.\n\nOn the 20th day of October, the movement of General M'Call upon Dranesville having excited the attention of the enemy at Leesburg, and a regiment of gray uniforms having been observed cautiously advancing from the west and taking position behind a hill near Edwards's Ferry, General Stone, commanding the army of observation on the Potomac, resolved upon an armed reconnoissance to ascertain the position and feel the strength of the rebel force across the river. A scouting party sent out from Conrad's Ferry scoured the country rapidly in the direction of Leesburg, and when within about a mile of the town were suddenly confronted by what in the uncertain light appeared to be rows of tents, but which were afterward ascertained to be merely openings in the frondage of the woods.", "parents": [], "words": 249 }, "hay_baker_28": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Upon this report, brought back by the mistaken scouts, Colonel Devens, of the Massachusetts Fifteenth, was ordered to attack and destroy the supposed camp at daybreak, and return to Harrison's Island, between Conrad's and Edwards's Ferries, or, in case he found no enemy, to hold a secure position and await sufficient force to reconnoitre. Colonel Baker was ordered to have his Californians at Conrad's Ferry at sunrise, and the rest of his brigade ready to move early.\n\nColonel Devens crossed and proceeded to the point indicated, and General Stone ordered a party of Van Allen's cavalry under Major Mix, accompanied by that most accomplished of English dragoons, who veils his titles under the sobriquet of Captain Stewart, to advance along the Leesburg road and ascertain the condition of the heights in the vicinity of the enemy's battery near Goose Creek. This was performed in dashing style. They came upon a Mississippi regiment, received and returned its fire, and brought off a prisoner.", "parents": [], "words": 162 }, "hay_baker_29": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Meantime Colonel Devens had discovered the error in regard to the supposed encampment, and had been attacked by a superior force of the enemy and fallen back in good order upon the position of Colonel Lee, who had been posted to support him on the bluff. Presently he again advanced, his men, as General Stone reports, behaving admirably, fighting, retiring, and advancing in perfect order, and exhibiting every proof of high courage and good discipline.\n\nAt this juncture Colonel Baker, who early in the morning had conferred with the commanding general at Edwards's Ferry and received his orders from him, began transporting his brigade across the narrow but deep channel that ran between Harrison's Island and the Virginia shore. The means of transportation were lamentably deficient\u2014three small boats and a scow, which the soldiers say was miserably heavy and water-logged. With such means the crossing was slow and tedious. While they were toiling across, Devens and Lee, with their little commands, were in desperate peril in front, the wide battalions of the enemy closing exultingly around them, with savage prudence availing themselves of every advantage of ground, and flanking by the power of numbers the handful of heroes they dared not attack in front. Baker was not the man to deliberate long when the death-knell of his friends was ringing in his ears in the steady, continuous rattle of the rebel musketry.", "parents": [], "words": 235 }, "hay_baker_30": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "He advanced to the relief of Devens with a battalion of his Californians under Wistar, the most gallant of the fighting Quakers, and a portion of the Twentieth Massachusetts. With this devoted band, 1720 men all told, for more than an hour he stood the fire of the surrounding and hidden foe, as from the concealing crescent of the trees they poured their murderous volleys. Bramhall and French struggled up the precipitous banks with a field-piece and two howitzers, which did good service till the gunners dropped dead, and the officers hauled them to the rear to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands. Every man there fought in that hopeless struggle as bravely as if victory were among possibilities. No thought was there of flight or surrender even when all but honor was lost. Their duty was to stand there till they were ordered away. Death was merely an incident of the performance of that duty; and the coolest man there was the Colonel commanding. He talked hopefully and cheerily to his men, even while his heart was sinking with the sun, and the grim presence of disaster and ruin was with him. He was ten paces in their front, where all might see him and take pattern by him. He carried his left hand nonchalantly in his breast, and criticised the firing as quietly as if on parade. \"Lower, boys! Steady there!", "parents": [], "words": 235 }, "hay_baker_31": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Keep cool now and fire low, and the day is ours! \"\"All at once, as if moved by one impulse, a sudden sheet of fire burst from the curved covert of the enemy, and Edward Dickinson Baker was pro-moted, by one grand brevet of the God of Battles, above the acclaim of the field, above the applause of the world, to the heaven of the martyr and the hero.\n\nWhen with dirges due I saw him borne to his grave, with the dull cadence of muffled drums, with draped banners, and slow-pacing soldiers, and all the solemn adjuncts with which affection seeks to alleviate and homage to ennoble death, I could not but think of what Douglas said last year. When the October elections had made a Republican success an event beyond contingency, Douglas, always a magnanimous man and a true friend, said in conversation, \"We Springfield people will take the capital next year. Lincoln in the White House, Baker, and M'Dougal, and I in the Senate\u2014we will make Washington jolly in spite of politics.\"", "parents": [], "words": 178 }, "hay_baker_32": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "Alas, for the dead hours of honest friendship! the goodly fellowship of noble spirits! Where are the good fellows who were friends at Springfield in the happier days? Hardin's spirit went up through the murky canopy whose baleful shadow hung over the battling legions at Buena Vista\u2014Bissell passed from lingering pain to Paradise, honored in the highest by the State that he had honored\u2014Douglas lies under the prairie sod in the dear old State, whose half-estranged heart burned with more than the old love for him before he died\u2014Baker rests glorious in death, a precious offering to the Spirit of Freedom to which through life his worship was paid\u2014and Lincoln stands, lonely in his power, a sadder, silenter, greater man than of old, time beginning to sift its early snows upon the blackness of his hair, his heart heavy with the sorrows of a nation, his mind and soul pledged to solemn and self-abnegating effort to keep from detriment in his hands the costly treasure of Constitutional Government.", "parents": [], "words": 174 }, "hay_baker_33": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "For this Douglas toiled and Baker died. High examples are not without their uses; and, perchance, from the grave of the dead Senator may spring the living flowers of sacrifice and bright endeavor. Let no man now excuse himself from the service of his country by paltry suggestions of rank, of position, of diverse usefulness. Baker sacrificed more than others can. He was a Senator; he became a recruiting-officer. He was a man of extensive affairs; he neglected all for the camp. He was a man of delicate and scholarly tastes; he forsook books for bayonets, and slighted letters to study tactics. He had a family, which he tenderly loved; he bade farewell to his wife, and enlisted his son in his regiment. He enjoyed life with the intense vitality of a perfect manhood; he gave his life for his country.", "parents": [], "words": 142 }, "hay_baker_34": { "author": "hay", "label": "Colonel Baker (harpers_1861_12, 1861)", "text": "And all with no bravado, no barbaric thirst for excitement. He obeyed an imperious mandate of duty; and warfare with him rose to the dignity of religion. Through the storm and gloom of the present his prophetic spirit caught the distant sunshine of a righteous peace, to which the war was a necessary and painful introduction. Let us all remember those eloquent words of lofty cheer with which, standing in his place, bronzed in the summer weather, his fatigue uniform travel -stained and dusty from camp and field, the warrior-statesman closed his reply to the sneering cavils of the fallen angel of Kentucky\u2014and let them end this sketch of him whose memory may safely be confided to the jealous keeping of impartial fame: \" There Avill be some graves reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection; there will be some privation; there will be some loss of luxury; there will be somewhat more need for labor to procure the necessaries of life. When that is said, all is said. If we have the country, the whole country, the Union, the Constitution, free government\u2014with these will return all the blessings of well - ordered civilization; the path of the country will be a career of greatness and glory such as, in the olden time, our fathers saw in the dim visions of years yet to come; and such as would have been ours to-day if it had not been for the treason for which the Senator too often seeks to apologize.\"", "parents": [], "words": 254 } }