The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862

'Beneath that adjuration I was silent, and the same dread stillness fell upon my companion. Suddenly the sorceress, still standing in the same place, waved her right hand in the air, and a strain of low, sad music, such as the harps of angels may be continually making over the descent of lost spirits to the pit of suffering, broke upon my ears. Von Berg too heard it, I know, for I saw him look up in surprise, then apply his fingers to his ears and test whether his sense of hearing had suddenly become defective. Whence that strain of music could have sprung I did not know, nor do I know any better at this moment. I only know that, to my senses and those of my companion, it was definite as if the thunders of the sky had been ringing.

'Then came another change, quite as startling as the music and even more difficult to explain. The room began to fill with a whitish mist, transparent in its obscurity, that wrapped the form of the sybil and finally enveloped her until she appeared to be but a shade. Anon another and larger room seemed to grow in the midst, with columned galleries and a rostrum, and hundreds of forms in wild commotion, moving to and fro, though uttering no sound. At one moment it seemed that I could look through one of the windows of the phantom building, and I saw the branches of a palmetto-tree waving in the winter wind. Then amidst and apparently at the head of all, a white-haired man stood upon the rostrum, and as he turned down a long scroll from which he seemed to be reading to the assemblage, I read the words that appeared on the top of the scroll: 'An ordinance to dissolve the compact heretofore existing between the several States of the Federal Union, under the name of the United States of America.' My breath came thick, my eyes filled with tears of wonder and dismay, and I could see no more.

''Horror!' I cried. 'Roll away the vision, for it is false! It can not be that the man lives who could draw an ordinance to dissolve the Union of the United States of America!'

''It is so! That has this day been done!' spoke the voice of the sorceress from within the cloud of white mist.

''If this is indeed true,' I said, 'show me what is the result, for the heavens must bow if this work of ruin is accomplished!'

''Look again, then!' said the voice. The strain of music, which had partially ceased for a moment, grew louder and sadder again, and I saw the white mist rolling and changing as if a wind were stirring it. Gradually again it assumed shape and form; and in the moonlight, before the Capitol of the nation, its white proportions gleaming in the wintry ray, the form of Washington stood, the hands clasped, the head bare, and the eyes cast upward in the mute agony of supplication.

''All is not lost!' I shouted more than spoke, 'for the Father of his Country still watches his children, and while he lives in the heavens and prays for the erring and wandering, the nation may yet be reclaimed.'

''It may be so,' said the voice through the mist, 'for look!'

'Again the strain of music sounded, but now louder and clearer and without the tone of hopeless sadness. Again the white mists rolled by in changing forms, and when once more they assumed shape and consistency I saw great masses of men, apparently in the streets of a large city, throwing out the old flag from roof and steeple, lifting it to heaven in attitudes of devotion, and pressing it to their lips with those wild kisses which a mother gives to her darling child when it has been just rescued from a deadly peril.

''The nation lives!' I shouted. 'The old flag is not deserted and the patriotic heart yet beats in American bosoms! Show me yet more, for the next must be triumph!'

''Triumph indeed!' said the voice. 'Behold it and rejoice at it while there is time!' I shuddered at the closing words, but another change in the strain of music roused me. It was not sadness now, nor yet the rising voice of hope, for martial music rung loudly and clearly, and through it I heard the roar of cannon and the cries of combatants in battle. As the vision cleared, I saw the armies of the Union in tight with a host almost as numerous as themselves, but savage, ragged, and tumultuous, and bearing a mongrel flag that I had never seen before—one that seemed robbed from the banner of the nation's glory. For a moment the battle wavered and the forces of the Union seemed driven backward; then they rallied with a shout, and the flag of stars and stripes was rebaptized in glory. They pressed the traitors backward at every turn—they trod rebellion under their heels—they were every where, and every where triumphant.

''Three cheers for the Star-Spangled Banner!' I cried, forgetting place and time in the excitement of the scene. 'Let the world look on and wonder and admire! I knew the land that the Fathers founded and Washington guarded could not die! Three cheers—yes, nine—for the Star-Spangled Banner and the brave old land over which it floats!'

''Pause!' said the voice, coming out once more from the cloud of white mist, and chilling my very marrow with the sad solemnity of its tone. 'Look once again!' I looked, and the mists went rolling by as before, while the music changed to wild discord; and when the sight became clear again I saw the men of the nation struggling over bags of gold and quarreling for a black shadow that flitted about in their midst, while cries of want and wails of despair went up and sickened the heavens! I closed my eyes and tried to close my ears, but I could not shut out the voice of the sorceress, saying once more from her shroud of white mist:

''Look yet again, and for the last time! Behold the worm that gnaws away the bravery of a nation and makes it a prey for the spoiler!' Heart-brokenly sad was the music now, as the vision changed once more, and I saw a great crowd of men, each in the uniform of an officer of the United States army, clustered around one who seemed to be their chief. But while I looked I saw one by one totter and fall, and directly I perceived that the epaulette or shoulder-strap on the shoulder of each was a great hideous yellow worm, that gnawed away the shoulder and palsied the arm and ate into the vitals. Every second, one fell and died, making frantic efforts to tear away the reptile from its grasp, but in vain. Then the white mists rolled away, and I saw the strange woman standing where she had been when the first vision began. She was silent, the music was hushed, Adolph Von Berg had fallen hack asleep in his chair, and drawing out my watch, I discovered that only ten minutes had elapsed since the sorceress spoke her first word.

''You have seen all—go!' was her first and last interruption to the silence. The instant after, the curtain fell. I kicked Von Berg to awake him, and we left the house. The coupé was waiting in the street and set me down at my lodgings, after which it conveyed my companion to his. Adolph did not seem to have a very clear idea of what had occurred, and my impression is, that he went to sleep the moment the first strain of music commenced.

'As for myself, I am not much clearer than Adolph as to how and why I saw and heard what I know that I did see and hear. I can only say that on that night of the twentieth December, 1860, the same on which, as it afterward appeared, the ordinance of secession was adopted at Charleston, I, in the little old two-story house in the Rue la Reynie Ogniard, witnessed what I have related. What may be the omens, you may judge as well as myself. How much of the sybil's prophecy is already history, you know already. That SHOULDER-STRAPS, which I take to be the desire of military show without courage or patriotism, are destroying the armies of the republic, I am afraid there is no question. Perhaps you can imagine why at the moment of hearing that there was a worm on my shoulder for a shoulder-strap, I for the instant believed that it was one of the hideous yellow monsters that I saw devouring the best officers of the nation, and shrunk and shrieked like a whipped child. Is not that a long story?' Martin concluded, lighting a fresh cigar and throwing himself back from the table.

'Very long, and a little mad; but to me absorbingly interesting,' was my reply, 'And in the hope that it may prove so to others, I shall use it as a strange, rambling introduction to a recital of romantic events which have occurred in and about the great city since the breaking out of the rebellion, having to do with patriotism and cowardice, love, mischief, and secession, and bearing the title thus suggested.'

A part of which stipulation is hereby kept, with the promise of the writer that the remainder shall be faithfully fulfilled in forthcoming numbers.

THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD

Tell us—poor gray-haired children that we are—Tell us some story of the days afar,Down shining through the years like sun and star.The stories that, when we were very young,Like golden beads on lips of wisdom hung,At fireside told or by the cradle sung.Not Cinderella with the tiny shoe,Nor Harsan's carpet that through distance flew,Nor Jack the Giant-Killer's derring-do.Not even the little lady of the Hood,But something sadder—easier understood—The ballad of the Children in the Wood.Poor babes! the cruel uncle lives again,To whom their little voices plead in vain—Who sent them forth to be by ruffians slain.The hapless agent of the guilt is here—From whose seared heart their pleading brought a tear—Who could not strike, but fled away in fear.And hand in hand the wanderers, left alone,Through the dense forest make their feeble moan,Fed on the berries—pillowed on a stone.Still hand in hand, till little feet grow sore,And fails the feeble strength their limbs that bore;Then they lie down, and feel the pangs no more.The stars shine down in pity from the sky;The night-bird marks their fate with plaintive cry;The dew-drop wets their parched lips ere they die.There clasped they lie—death's poor, unripened sheaves—Till the red robin through the tree-top grieves,And flutters down and covers them with leaves.'Tis an old legend, and a touching one:What then? Methinks beneath to-morrow's sunSome deed as heartless will be planned and done.Children of older years and sadder fateWill wander, outcasts, from the great world's gate,And ne'er return again, though long they wait.Through wildering labyrinths that round them close,In that heart-hunger disappointment knows,They long may wander ere the night's repose.Their feeble voices through the dusk may call,And on the ears of busy mortals fall,But who will hear, save God above us all?Will wolfish Hates forego their evil work,Nor Envy's vultures in the branches perk,Nor Slander's snakes within the verdure lurk?And when at last the torch of life grows dim,Shall sweet birds o'er them chant a burial-hymn,Or decent pity veil the stiffening limb?Thrice happy they, if the old legend stand,And they are left to wander hand in hand—Not driven apart by Eden's blazing brand!If, long before the lonely night comes on—By tempting berries wildered and withdrawn—One does not look and find the other gone;If something more of shame, and grief, and wrongThan that so often told in nursery song,To their sad history does not belong!O lonely wanderers in the great world's wood!Finding the evil where you seek the good,Often deceived and seldom understood—Lay to your hearts the plaintive tale of old,When skies grow threatening or when loves grow cold,Or something dear is hid beneath the mold!For fates are hard, and hearts are very weak,And roses we have kissed soon leave the cheek,And what we are, we scarcely dare to speak.But something deeper, to reflective eyes,To-day beneath the sad old story lies,And all must read if they are truly wise.A nation wanders in the deep, dark night,By cruel hands despoiled of half its might,And half its truest spirits sick with fright.The world is step-dame—scoffing at the strife,And black assassins, armed with deadly knife,At every step lurk, striking at its life.Shall it be murdered in the gloomy wood?Tell us, O Parent of the True and Good,Whose hand for us the fate has yet withstood!Shall it lie down at last, all weak and faint,Its blood dried up with treason's fever-taint,And offer up its soul in said complaint?Or shall the omen fail, and, rooting outAll that has marked its life with fear and doubt,The child spring up to manhood with a shout?So that in other days, when far and wideOther lost children have for succor cried,The one now periled may be help and guide?Father of all the nations formed of men,So let it be! Hold us beneath thy ken,And bring the wanderers to thyself again!Pity us all, and give us strength to pray,And lead us gently down our destined way!And this is all the children's lips can say.

NATIONAL UNITY

Pride in the physical grandeur, the magnificent proportions of our country, has for generations been the master passion of Americans. Never has the popular voice or vote refused to sustain a policy which looked to the enlargement of the area or increase of the power of the Republic. To feel that so vast a river as the Mississippi, having such affluents as the Missouri and the Ohio, rolled its course entirely through our territory—that the twenty thousand miles of steamboat navigation on that river and its tributaries were wholly our own, without touching on any side our national boundaries—that the Pacific and the Atlantic, the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, were our natural and conceded frontiers, that their bays and harbors were the refuge of our commerce, and their rising cities our marts and depots—were incense to our vanity and stimulants to our love of country. No true American abroad ever regarded or characterized himself as a New-Yorker, a Virginian, a Louisianian: he dilated in the proud consciousness of his country's transcendent growth and wondrous greatness, and confidently anticipated the day when its flag should float unchallenged from Hudson's Bay to the Isthmus of Darien, if not to Cape Horn.

It was this strong instinct of Nationality which rendered the masses so long tolerant, if not complaisant, toward Slavery and the Slave Power. Merchants and bankers were bound to their footstool by other and ignobler ties; but the yeomanry of the land regarded slavery with a lenient if not absolutely favoring eye, because it existed in fifteen of our States, and was cherished as of vital moment by nearly all of them, so that any popular aversion to it evinced by the North, would tend to weaken the bonds of our Union. It might seem hard to Pomp, or Sambo, or Cuffee, to toil all day in the rice-swamp, the cotton-field, to the music of the driver's lash, with no hope of remuneration or release, nor even of working out thereby a happier destiny for his children; but after all, what was the happiness or misery of three or four millions of stupid, brutish negroes, that it should be allowed to weigh down the greatness and glory of the Model Republic? Must there not always be a foundation to every grand and towering structure? Must not some grovel that others may soar? Is not all drudgery repulsive? Yet must it not be performed? Are not negroes habitually enslaved by each other in Africa? Does not their enslavement here secure an aggregate of labor and production that would else be unattainable? Are we not enabled by it to supply the world with Cotton and Tobacco and ourselves with Rice and Sugar? In short, is not to toil on white men's plantations the negro's true destiny, and Slavery the condition wherein he contributes most sensibly, considerably, surely, to the general sustenance and comfort of mankind? If it is, away with all your rigmarole declarations of 'the inalienable Rights of Man'—the right of every one to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Let us have a reformed and rationalized political Bible, which shall affirm the equality of all white men—their inalienable right to liberty, etc., etc. Thus will our consistency be maintained, our institutions and usages stand justified, while we still luxuriate on our home-grown sugar and rice, and deluge the civilized world with our cheap cotton and tobacco!—And thus our country—which had claimed a place in the family of nations as the legitimate child and foremost champion of Human Freedom—was fast sinking into the loathsome attitude of foremost champion and most conspicuous exemplar of the vilest and most iniquitous form of Despotism—that which robs the laborer of the just recompense of his sweat, and dooms him to a life of ignorance, squalor, and despair.

But

'The gods are just, and of our pleasant vicesMake whips to scourge us.'

For two generations our people have cherished, justified, and pampered slavery, not that they really loved, or conscientiously approved the accursed 'institution,' but because they deemed its tolerance essential to our National Unity; and now we find Slavery desperately intent on and formidably armed for the destruction of that Unity: for two generations we have aided the master to trample on and rob his despised slave; and now we are about to call that slave to defend our National Unity against that master's malignant treason, or submit to see our country shattered and undone.

Who can longer fail to realize that 'there is a God who judgeth in the earth?' or, if the phraseology suit him better, that there is, in the constitution of the universe, provision made for the banishment of every injustice, the redress of every wrong?

'Well,' says a late convert to the fundamental truth, 'we must drive the negro race entirely from our country, or we shall never again have union and lasting peace.'

Ah! friend? it is not the negro per se who distracts and threatens to destroy our country—far from it! Negroes did not wrest Texas from Mexico, nor force her into the Union, nor threaten rebellion because California was admitted as a Free State, nor pass the Nebraska bill, nor stuff the ballot-boxes and burn the habitations of Kansas, nor fire on Fort Sumter, nor do any thing else whereby our country has been convulsed and brought to the brink of ruin. It is not by the negro—it is by injustice to the negro—that our country has been brought to her present deplorable condition. Were Slavery and all its evil brood of wrongs and vices eradicated this day, the Rebellion would die out to-morrow and never have a successor. The centripetal tendency of our country is so intense—the attraction of every part for every other so overwhelming—that Disunion were impossible but for Slavery. What insanity in New-Orleans to seek a divorce from the upper waters of her superb river! What a melancholy future must confront St. Louis, separated by national barriers from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and all the vast, undeveloped sources of her present as well as prospective commerce and greatness! Ponder the madness of Baltimore, seeking separation from that active and teeming West to which she has laid an iron track over the Alleghanies at so heavy a cost! But for Slavery, the Southron who should gravely propose disunion, would at once be immured in a receptacle for lunatics. He would find no sympathy elsewhere.

But a nobler idea, a truer conception, of National Unity, is rapidly gaining possession of the American mind. It is that dimly foreshadowed by our President when, in his discussions with Senator Douglas, he said: 'I do not think our country can endure half slave and half free. I do not think it will be divided, but I think it will become all one or the other.'

'A union of lakes, a union of lands,' is well; but a true 'union of hearts' must be based on a substantial identity of social habitudes and moral convictions. If Islamism or Mormonism were the accepted religion of the South, and we were expected to bow to and render at least outward deference to it, there would doubtless be thousands of Northern-born men who, for the sake of office, or trade, or in the hope of marrying Southern plantations, would profess the most unbounded faith in the creed of the planters, and would crowd their favorite temples located on our own soil. But this would not be a real bond of union between us, but merely an exhibition of servility and fawning hypocrisy. And so the Northern complaisance toward slavery has in no degree tended to avert the disaster which has overtaken us, but only to breed self-reproach on the one side, and hauteur with ineffable loathing on the other.

Hereafter National Unity is to be no roseate fiction, no gainful pretense, but a living reality. The United States of the future will be no constrained alliance of discordant and mutually repellent commonwealths, but a true exemplification of 'many in one'—many stars blended in one common flag—many States combined in one homogeneous Nation. Our Union will be one of bodies not merely, but of souls. The merchant of Boston or New-York will visit Richmond or Louisville for tobacco, Charleston for rice, Mobile for cotton, New-Orleans for sugar, without being required at every hospitable board, in every friendly circle, to repudiate the fundamental laws of right and wrong as he learned them from his mother's lips, his father's Bible, and pronounce the abject enslavement of a race to the interests and caprices of another essentially just and universally beneficent. That a Northern man visiting the South commercially should suppress his convictions adverse to 'the peculiar institution,' and profess to regard it with approval and satisfaction, was a part of the common law of trade—if one were hostile to Slavery, what right had he to be currying favor with planters and their factors, and seeking gain from the products of slave-labor? So queried 'the South;' and, if any answer were possible, that answer would not be heard. 'Love slavery or quit the South,' was the inexorable rule; and the resulting hypocrisy has wrought deep injury to the Northern character. As manufacturers, as traders, as teachers, as clerks, as political aspirants, most of our active, enterprising, leading classes have been suitors in some form for Southern favor, and the consequence has been a prevalent deference to Southern ideas and a constant sacrifice of moral convictions to hopes of material advantage.

It has pleased God to bring this demoralizing commerce to a sudden and sanguinary close. Henceforth North and South will meet as equals, neither finding or fancying in their intimate relations any reason for imposing a profession of faith on the other. The Southron visiting the North and finding here any law, usage, or institution revolting to his sense of justice, will never dream of offending by frankly avowing and justifying the impression it has made upon him: and so with the Northman visiting the South. It is conscious wrong alone that shrinks from impartial observation and repels unfavorable criticism as hostility. We freely proffer our farms, our factories, our warehouses, common-schools, alms-houses, inns, and whatever else may be deemed peculiar among us, to our visitors' scrutiny and comment: we know they are not perfect, and welcome any hint that may conduce to their improvement. So in the broad, free West. The South alone resents any criticism on her peculiarities, and repels as enmity any attempt to convince her that her forced labor is her vital weakness and her greatest peril.

This is about to pass away. Slavery, having appealed to the sword for justification, is to be condemned at her chosen tribunal and to fall on the weapon she has aimed at the heart of the Republic. A new relation of North to South, based on equality, governed by justice, and conceding the fullest liberty, is to replace fawning servility by manly candor, and to lay the foundations of a sincere, mutual, and lasting esteem. We already know that valor is an American quality; we shall yet realize that Truth is every man's interest, and that whatever repels scrutiny confesses itself unfit to live. The Union of the future, being based on eternal verities, will be cemented by every year's duration, until we shall come in truth to 'know no North, no South, no East, no West,' but one vast and glorious country, wherein sectional jealousies and hatreds shall be unknown, and every one shall rejoice in the consciousness that he is a son and citizen of the first of Republics, the land of Washington and Jefferson, of Adams, Hamilton, and Jay, wherein the inalienable Rights of Man as Man, at first propounded as the logical justification of a struggle for Independence, became in the next century, and through the influence of another great convulsion, the practical basis of the entire political and social fabric—the accepted, axiomatic root of the National life.