Speaker Grow

 

This Site:

Civil War

Civil War Overview

Civil War 1861

Civil War 1862

Civil War 1863

Civil War 1864

Civil War 1865

Civil War Battles

Confederate Generals

Union Generals

Confederate History

Robert E. Lee

Civil War Medicine

Lincoln Assassination

Slavery

Site Search

Civil War Links

 

Civil War Art

Revolutionary War

Mexican War

Republic of Texas

Indians

Winslow Homer

Thomas Nast

Mathew Brady

Western Art

Civil War Gifts

Robert E. Lee Portrait


Civil War Harper's Weekly, July 20, 1861

This Civil War newspaper shows nice eye-witness illustrations showing Harper's Ferry, The Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and Pirates. There is news of the day, as well as a description of the Battle of Martinsburg.

(Scroll Down to see full page, or Newspaper Thumbnails below will take you to a specific page of interest)

 

Arsenal

Civil War Arsenal

Theodore Davis

Theodore R. Davis

The Battle of Martinsburg

Eleventh Indiana Regiment

Eleventh Indiana Regiment

Hagerstown, Maryland

Hagerstown, Maryland

Harper's Ferry

Harper's Ferry

Camp Life

Civil War Camp Life

Pirates

Pirates

Brooklyn Navy Yard

The Brooklyn Navy-yard

Broadway, New York

Speaker Grow

Speaker Grow

Washington Map

Washington Map

General Patterson

General Patterson

Slavery Cartoon

Slavery Cartoon

 

 

 

JULY 20, 1861.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

463

of them were supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands, and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from the sweet-herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to be helped from his chair and to go very slowly ; and he held my hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up (putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere) and pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.

I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's Report was made, but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could, and when I had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To the present hour the weary western streets of London on a cold dusty spring night, with their ranges of stern shut-up mansions, and their long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.

The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was willing to do any thing that would assure him of the singleness of my designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses (malefactors but not incapable of kindness, GOD be thanked !) always joined in the same report.

As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie, placidly looking at the white ceiling with an absence of light in his face, until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would subside again. Sometimes he was almost, or quite, unable to speak; then he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to understand his meaning very well.

The number of the days had mounted up to ten, when I saw a greater change in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned toward the door, and lighted up as I entered.

" Dear boy," he said, as I sat down by his bed : "I thought you was late. But I knowed you couldn't be that."

" It is just the time," said I, " I waited for it at the gate."

"You always waits at the gate ; don't you, dear boy ?"

"Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time."

" Thankee, dear boy, thankee. God bless you!. You've never deserted me, dear boy."

I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him.

"And what's best of all," he said, "you've been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. That's best of all."

He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.

" Are you in much pain to-day ?"

"I don't complain of none, dear boy."

"You never do complain, dear Magwitch."

He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.

The allotted time ran out while we were thus; but looking round, I found the governor of the prison standing by me, and he whispered, "You needn't go yet." I thanked him gratefully, and asked, "might I speak to him, if he can hear me ?"

The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change, though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me.

"Dear Magwitch, I must tell you, now at last. You understand what I say?"

A gentle pressure on my hand.

"You had a child once whom you loved and lost."

A stronger pressure on my hand.

"She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her !"

With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his breast.

Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who went up into the Temple to pray, and knew that there were no better words that I could say beside his bed than "0 Lord, be merciful to him, a sinner !"

ALSTYNE WHITE.

GRANDMOTHER WHITE, in her easy chair, Sat beside the cottage door,

Where the restless leaves of the maple-trees Sifted sunbeams on the floor.

Sifted glinting gleams on the old door-stone, Worn smooth by the tread of feet;

On the narrow walk, where, on either side, Blossomed flowers quaint and sweet.

Where the four o'clock, with its dial closed, Told the primrose when to bloom,

And the great red rose, from its bursting heart, Flung its wealth of sweet perfume.

Sifted fitful rays on the silver threads

Of the grandame's whitened hair

On her faded cheek, on her trembling hand

But a flash met the sunbeam there.

For a shining sword, with its trappings gay, She held with a loving clasp,

Counting, one by one, the days agone Since it fell from the soldier's grasp-

Since her darling son laid him down to die, On the battle-fields of Mexico;

And only this, by a comrade's care,

Came back from that scene of woe.

And ever since, when the roses bloom,

She brightens its blade once more,

And holds a watch o'er the senseless steel,

Sitting thus by the cottage door.

From her listless dream she starts to hear

A voice mingled still with the past, Saying, " Good-by, mother dear ! good-by l"

Then a shadow is quickly cast.

And glancing up in her strange amaze, Before her there seems to stand

Her son, as he looked when he took the field For the right, and his native land.

" Grandmother White," said the soldier lad, "I am going, as father went,

To fight for the flag that he loved so well, Ere its stars from its blue were rent.

" And, grandmother, now will you bless your boy, And bid him to-day God-speed;

That I and my men, in the darkest hour, May have one with Him to plead?"

"Bless thee, my child!" and the wrinkled hands Were laid on the low-bowed head,

And a murmured prayer, in her trembling tones, O'er the kneeling man she said.

" And now, Alstyne, take your father's blade, My care o'er its sheen is o'er;

I shall watch and wait, when the roses bloom, Ever thus by the cottage door.

"But my watch shall be for the sword no more : It will be for the reaper's tread,

With his shining sickle ready whet

For the ripe and whitened head.

"And waiting thus, if I chance to hear Of a brave deed in the fight,

I shall know the steel, I shall know the name, Even that of Alstyne White."

68 WEST NINETEENTH STREET, N. Y.   E. B.

THE NAVY-YARD, BROOKLYN,
NEW YORK.

ON pages 456 and 457 we give a large picture of THE BROOKLYN NAVY-YARD, from a sketch taken in June last, just before the departure of some of our finest vessels of war for the Southern coast. The scene was imposing and magnificent—rarely equaled in our naval experience. Seldom if ever have so many fine ships and so many men been assembled in any of our naval yards—on actual war intent. At the present time, of course, the scene is changed; the ships are mostly gone, and the Yard is comparatively quiet.

MAJOR KNIPE WINGING A
SECESSIONIST.

OUR special war correspondent and artist of General Patterson's Division, now in Virginia, furnishes us this week with a sketch of an exciting incident which lately occurred at Williamsport, which we reproduce on page 454. Major Knipe, of General Williams's staff, was one morning riding leisurely along the already historic Potomac banks, accompanied by our artist, also a staff officer of the brigade, when he discovered a rebel soldier, likewise riding, upon a hill-side on the opposite shore, and about three-fourths of a mile distant.

As our volunteers have of late been annoyed by stray shots from Virginia at this point, and since to receive either Minie or spherical ball into one's soup-plate or possibly spoon, when the latter is in the act of finding its way mouthward, is, to say the least, unpleasant even to persons of the most imperturbable dispositions, the gallant Major Knipe deemed the gay cavalier of the Old Dominion fair game for his steady hand and finely-wrought Wesson rifle. So springing from his saddle, he drew bead upon Mr. Secessionist. A report, a thin cloud of white smoke curling upward, and in an instant, like a wounded bird, the doomed foe was seen to fall off his steed. His two companions-in-arms, dismounting rapidly, rushed to his assistance, and presently laid him carefully beneath the sheltering branches of a neighboring tree. Whether death followed the unexpected wounding or not is unknown.

The rapidity with which this little drama was enacted, and the extraordinary success of Major Knipe's aim at so distant an object, lend to the incident an interest by no means common.

THE PIRATES.

ON page 459 we publish an engraving of M. Francois Biard's well-known painting—THE PIRATES. It will be timely just now. The picture represents a pirate ship in a tropical climate, waiting for its prey, which the crew are artfully luring into their clutches. At the side of the ship we behold some of them disguised ; one with a bonnet and parasol, another as a female hanging on the shoulders of a well-dressed gentleman, the respectable-looking master with his speaking-trumpet under his arm—all earnestly hailing the American clipper, which, unsuspecting their real character, is nearing them. Every man of this vile crew is armed to the teeth; and all except the prominent actors are crouching to the deck for the sake of concealment until the word is given for the murderous attack. One fellow standing on a cask is playing very innocently on a fiddle; and a knowing-looking had sits perched up with a book in his hand pretending to read—obviously to help in keeping up the delusion that it is "all right" and pleasant on board. A broken spirit-chest shows that strong drinks have been pretty freely resorted to to bring up the courage or excite the ferocity of the ship's company. All who view this picture, after admiring the general dramatic effect, and the skillful grouping, will be struck with the great variety thrown into the expression of the faces, in which, however, the type of villainy and brutal sensuality still prevails as the only living principle. The general effect of atmosphere and locale also are well rendered ; M. Biard having, we believe, had much personal experience of sea-life.

Francois Biard is a pupil of Revoil, school of Lyons. He received the second-class medal (genre) in 1828, the first-class medal in 1836, and was made Chevalier of the Legion of honor in 1838.

THE ELEVENTH INDIANA
ZOUAVES.

WE devote page 452 to the Eleventh Indiana Zouaves. Colonel Lewis Wallace, a regiment which is likely to make a name for itself in the present war. Some of our sketches are from photographs sent us from the West. Others from sketches by Mr. Gookins, to whom we have been frequently indebted for illustrations of the Eleventh Indiana boys. The camp of the Zouaves has been at Wills Gap, near Cumberland, a place somewhat noted, as it was on the mountain on which Wills Creek takes its rise that George Washington, then a provincial colonel, raised his flag while mustering his forces at Fort Cumberland to march under General Braddock to the memorable battle in which the latter was defeated. The " Camp Recreations" show that the Indiana boys, who are serious enough in fight, are as merry as ever when the grim work of war is over. The illustrations of the drill and manoeuvres—from photographs—are quite striking.

SPEAKER GROW.

ON page 461 we publish a portrait of SPEAKER GROW, of the House of Representatives, from a photograph by Brady.

Galusha A. Grow was born at Ashford, Windham County, Connecticut, on 31st August, 1823, and is consequently thirty-eight years of age. His father dying when he was three years old, young Grow, with five brothers and sisters, was left dependent on his mother for support. That lady took a farm, and opened a little store at Voluntown, in Windham County, and managed so well that she not only educated her whole family but actually realized a little competency besides. When Galusha was eleven years of age his mother turned all her little property into money, and removed to Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where her sons commenced the lumbering business. It is recorded of Galusha that when he was twelve years old he would stay a week or ten days alone in the woods, looking up big trees, and trusting to himself for a supply of food, and that when he was fourteen he was quite well known as a dealer in lumber in the region in which he lived.

At seventeen, Galusha's brothers sent him to college; after graduating he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1850. In that same year he was elected to Congress as a Democrat, being the youngest member of the Thirty-second Congress. He has retained the seat ever since; his third reelection was unanimous, all parties being perfectly satisfied with his course in the House. On Mr. Banks's election Mr. Grow became one of the leaders, if not the leader of Congress, and was Republican candidate for Speaker when Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, was elected. He has now been elected to preside over the House; and from his first speech we judge that he will do it thoroughly.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

Wanted 1000 Agents, to sell miniature Pins of Gen. Scott, Butler, and all the Heroes. Enclose from $1 to $10 for samples. W. A. HAYWARD, 208 Broadway, N.Y.

CITIZENS CALLED FROM THEIR homes on public duty and deprived of many personal comforts, need not be deprived of "LEA & PERRINS'S WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE," as the use of this esteemed condiment will go far to remedy the discomforts arising from bad or irregular cooking. For sale in half-pint, pint, and quart bottles, by all respectable grocers throughout the United States. JOHN DUNCAN & SONS, Union Square and 14th Street, Sole Agents.

"Matrimony made Easy,"—A new work, showing how either sex may be suitably married, irrespective of age or appearance, which can not fail—free for 25 cents. Address T. William & Co., Publishers, Box 2300, Philad.

WANTED IMMEDIATELY — Agents,

Male or Female, in every Town in the United States, to sell Watches and Jewelry. No capital required. Apply in person or by letter to MILTON R. SMART, Box 1211, Lowell, Mass.

This Day Published:

ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION in NAVAL ORDNANCE and GUNNERY. By James H. Ward, Commander U. S. Navy, Author of Naval Tactics and Steam for the Million. New Edition, revised and enlarged. Octavo, $2. Sent free by mail on receipt of price.

D. VAN NOSTRAND, Publisher, No. 192 Broadway.

POPULAR SONG BOOKS.

CAMP SONGS, for the Volunteers, 10 cts. SHILLING SONG BOOK, nearly 200 Songs, 12 cts. HOME MELODIST, '25 cts. AMATEUR SONG BOOK, 40. GEMS OF SONG, 50. 100 IRISH, 100 SCOTCH, and 100 COMIC SONGS, each 50. SONGS FOR THE PEOPLE, illustrated, $1. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by DII'SON & CO., Boston.

Roman Eye Balsam,
For Weak and Inflamed Eyelids.

Cures in One Minute!!! Price 25 cents per Jar.

Prepared by A. B. & D. SANDS, 100 Fulton St., N. Y.

EMPLOYMENT.—ACTIVE, INTELLIGENT YOUNG MEN, who have been thrown out of situations by the war, can hear of EMPLOYMENT which, by proper efforts, can be made profitable, by addressing

FOWLER AND WELLS, 308 Broadway, New York.

SEA-BATHING. — UNITED STATES

HOTEL, Long Branch, N. J., will open for the reception of visitors Jun:, 10, 1861: with the enlargement of dining-room, parlor, additional rooms, &c., since last season, will amply accommodate 500 guests. Address

B. A. SHOEMAKER, Proprietor.

H. WORCESTER'S
IMPROVED PIANO FORTES,

Manufactory & Salesrooms,
14th St., cor. 3d Av., N. Y.

HARPER'S

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
TERMS.

One Copy for one Year . . .$3.00

Two Copies for One Year . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Three or more Copies for One Year (each) . . 2.00
And an Extra Copy, gratis, for every Club of EIGHT SUBSCRIBERS.

HARPER'S MAGAZINE and HARPER'S WEEKLY, together, one year, $4.00.

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE, NEW YORK.

Illustrations of the War,
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
PRICE SIX CENTS.

HARPER'S WEEKLY has now REGULAR ARTIST-CORRESPONDENTS at Fortress Monroe, Va., at Washington, D. C., at Martinsburg, Va., at Chambersburg, Pa., at Grafton, Va., at Cairo, Ill., at St. Louis, Mo., and at Fort Pickens, Fla. These gentlemen will accompany the march of the armies, and will reproduce, for the benefit of the readers of Harper's Weekly, every incident of the momentous campaign which is now opening.

Harper's Weekly is, moreover, in daily receipt of valuable sketches from Volunteer Correspondents in the Army and Navy in all parts of the country. The Publishers will be glad to receive such sketches from members of our forces in every section, and will pay liberally for such as they may use.

The Publishers will send Harper's Weekly free to any Regiment or Ship of War which may supply them with the name and address of the officer to whom it should be forwarded.

The circulation of Harper's Weekly is about One hundred and Fifteen Thousand copies.

They have already published, since the Election, over three hundred illustrations of the Southern Rebellion, ,and they feel confident that the pages of Harprer's Weekly will present a complete and exhaustive ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE WAR. No person who wishes to be infornmed with regard to the momentous events which are transpiring can afford to dispense with it.

Notwithstanding the great amount of space devoted to Illustrations of the War, Harper's Weekly continues to publish Mr. DICKENS'S New Story, "GreatExpectations," which is pronounced the most successful of his admirable works. Its Editorial, Lounger, News, and other departments will be found, as usual, up to the time.

Picture

 

 

site stats

 

Site Copyright 2003-2018 Son of the South. For Questions or comments about this collection,

contact: paul@sonofthesouth.net

privacy policy

Are you Scared and Confused? Read My Snake Story, a story of hope and encouragement, to help you face your fears.