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GEN. LANE AND HIS ARMY.
OUR artist with the army in
Missouri, Mr. Alexander Simplot, lately visited the Camp of General Jim Lane,
the famous Kansas General, the terror of Missouri, and has sent us the sketches
which we reproduce on the
preceding page. The correspondent of the New
York Times, who accompanied him, thus describes the General, the Indian Scouts,
and the Camp :
Lane is a man of some fifty years
of age, of medium height, and at first sight rather unprepossessing. His figure
is slight, his head wide at the top and narrowing down to the jaw, like an
inverted pyramid; his brow wide and high; his eyes small, black, and overhung by
cliff-like eyebrows ; his mouth sensual, and, combined with a gleam of fun in
his eyes, has an expression of great good-humor and enjoyment that wins one
irresistibly to the conclusion that he is the best fellow in the world. His hair
is thin, slightly tinged with gray, and shoved away from his head in every
direction, as if he had just come in from running bareheaded against a strong
wind. In conversation he is ready, full of a rollicking sort of humor; and, in
short, in his whole style of conversation, his looks, etc., reminded me of some
Joe Bagstock Nero fiddling and laughing over the burning of some Missourian
Rome.
Proceeding a few hundred yards
below Lane's encampment, I came upon another of a different character. Huge
fires blazed up, throwing great flashes of light upon the brown autumn woods,
and making a play-ground for fantastic shadows across the prairie and the
woodland, around which lay in supreme indolence, or sat comfortably inhaling the
fragrant weed, a motley crowd of aborigines. I soon had the honor of taking by
the hand a copper-colored gentleman, who, stretched upon his right side before
the genial fire, was inhaling tobacco-smoke through the handle of his tomahawk,
and who rejoiced in the expressive title of Wa-ne-pagh-kugh. He replied to my "
Good-morning, Sir; glad and happy to make your acquaintance," with a guttural
"Ugh?" and the Indian salutation "How." After addressing a few remarks to him,
to which he listened with profound attention, I found that he did not know a
word of English, and turned my attention to other braves. I next had the honor
of an introduction to a gentleman in ministerial black, with a tall "plug hat,"
from which towered upward a dozen peacock and goose feathers, who, I was
informed, was John Conners, head Chief of the Delawares. Mr. Conners indulged in
a slight knowledge of English, and, after the usual commonplaces, I left him,
and was presented to a little, good-looking young fellow in citizen's dress,
who, I was informed, was John Johnnycake, interpreter of the Delaware braves.
John Johnnycake, Req., I found to be a young gentleman of great intelligence and
modesty, and who spoke most excellently both English and French, and I suppose
also the Delaware vernacular.
He informed me that
Wa-ne-pagh-kugh was war-chief of the Delawares; that there were 54 of his tribe
in the field; that they were armed with tomahawks, scalping-knives, and rifles ;
that their principal business was scouting; and that almost all of the crowd had
good horses, and had accompanied General Fremont once before in some of his
expeditions across the plains and over the mountains. Mr. Johnnycake (whose
Indian name I did not learn) stated that a much larger force from his tribe
would soon take the field, and also that delegations from various other Indian
tribes in Kansas would soon unite their arms and lives with the Union cause.
GENERAL HUNTER,
COMMANDING OUR ARMY IN MISSOURI.
WE publish on page 741 a portrait
of GENERAL HUNTER, who has succeeded
General Fremont in the command of our army in
Missouri. General Hunter is about sixty years of age. He graduated at West Point
in 1822, the twenty-fifth in rank in a class numbering forty, and was appointed
Second Lieutenant in infantry. Having risen to a First Lieutenancy, he was in
1836 made Captain of cavalry, but shortly after resigned. In 1842 he rejoined
the army as Paymaster, in which position, with the rank of Major, the present
Administration found him. He accompanied
Mr. Lincoln from Springfield, on his tour to
Washington, as far as Buffalo, where, owing to
the pressure of the crowd, he suffered a dislocation of the collar-bone. Shortly
after he was made Colonel of the Third Cavalry, and then Brigadier-General. He
commanded a leading division at the
battle of Bull Run, but was wounded early in
the day.
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1861.
THE STARS AND STRIPES IN
SOUTH CAROLINA.
AT length we have the pleasure to
report that the
Stars and Stripes float once more over the
disloyal soil of South Carolina. Though we are without direct or authentic
intelligence from the fleet, the reports which reach its through hostile
channels agree too well to be the work of fraud or mere baseless rumor. There is
no reason to doubt that at this time
General Sherman is in possession of the town of
Beaufort, South Carolina, and of the forts
which guarded the entrance to
Port Royal Inlet.
It will be time enough to discuss
the important considerations suggested by this event when the full report of the
affair reaches us. Meanwhile three thoughts force themselves on the mind :
It was known at
New Orleans as long ago as 17th October, long
before the Northern public knew any thing about the expedition, that it was
destined for Port Royal, and that it would consist of the vessels which actually
sailed. The first authentic statement of the destination of the fleet was
contained in a Richmond paper published about the end of October. The rebels
were therefore thoroughly warned and prepared. If our expedition was
nevertheless successful, what can the rebels expect hereafter?
The occupation of Port Royal will
test the amount of Union feeling which lingers at the South ; will verify the
statement that the planters will not ship cotton ; and, finally, will teach the
rebels the practical danger which they court by making war upon the North while
holding 4,000,000 slaves.
Lastly, the occupation of
Beaufort is the
first step toward a geographical
redistribution of population, trade, and industry in the Southern country. The
Government will never relinquish Beaufort. It will be an open port and a place
of trade and activity long before the seals are loosed from the harbors of
Savannah and
Charleston. People will fly to Beaufort from
the two latter cities, which will decay and die out just as the cities of
ancient Chaldea have perished—a memorable monument of the cost and folly of
treason.
ABOLITIONISTS AT THE SOUTH.
MR. MEMMINGER, Secretary of the
Treasury under
Mr. Jefferson Davis, advises the
Southern planters to abandon the culture of
cotton, and to devote their land to the production of food. Similar advice is
urged upon them by the leading journals of Richmond, New Orleans, and Memphis.
It is very justly argued that, pending the blockade, cotton will be useless,
while corn, wheat, and pork will be inestimable.
Such sensible counsel the
planters can not well disregard. They have on hand at present nearly three
million bales of cotton, much of which can not be sent forward to market for
want of bagging, and none of which can be sold at a price which would pay the
planter for growing it. It would argue great folly on their part to increase
their stock under such circumstances.
This diversion of land and labor,
however, from the culture of cotton to that of cereals, must produce a
remarkable change in the Southern mind on the questions which have led to the
pending rebellion.
Negro Slavery in our Southern States depends
directly on the production of cotton. It does not pay to raise any thing but
cotton with slave labor. Wherever cotton is not raised slavery can not be
maintained—except for the purpose of supplying the cotton-fields with fresh
hands. Experience has shown that this is a mere question of figures. The price
of slaves at the South depends upon the price of cotton. It is usual to say that
male field-hands are worth one hundred dollars for every cent the pound of
middling uplands commands. When middling uplands is worth twelve cents—as was
the average last year—good field-hands could not be bought for less than $1200.
If middling uplands fell to six cents, good field-hands could be bought for
$600. If middling uplands could not be sold at all, there would be no market for
slaves. This is precisely the condition of affairs at the South at present.
Its political significance arises
from the fact that, when the price of slaves falls below a certain point it
ceases to be a gain, and becomes a loss, to be a slave-owner. When, thirty years
ago, male adult slaves fell to $400 in Virginia, the leading men of that State
became emancipationists, and slavery would have been abolished if the
development of cotton culture at the far South had not suddenly created a demand
for negro labor, and caused the price of slaves to advance one hundred per cent
in a few years.
The blockade is now going to
reproduce, over the whole revolted section, the state of things which existed in
Virginia in 1830. There is no market for cotton, and consequently none for
slaves. It is becoming a burden to be a slave-owner. Instead of rating men's
wealth by the number of their slaves, as usual hitherto, Southern society will
estimate those planters the richest who have the fewest slaves to support in
these trying times. And the estimate will be sound. If the North only persevere
in its purpose for a year or two, no Southern man will be found at the end of
that time rich enough to own slaves. The system will break down of its own
weight. The planters will pray for the abolition of slavery as the only means of
rescuing themselves and their families from starvation.
Growing corn and wheat with slave
labor is like manuring the earth with pates de foie gras. The harvest will be
fine, no doubt ; but every ear of corn will cost its weight in gold. Mr.
Memminger is the most radical abolitionist of the day.
THE
LOUNGER.
GENERAL FREMONT.
THE right of the President and
Commander-in-Chief to remove any subordinate officer is unquestionable. The duty
of removal, when he is persuaded of the dishonesty or incompetency of any such
officer, is equally clear. Obedience is the indispensable point of discipline,
and discipline is essential to military success.
While, therefore, every loyal
citizen will acquiesce in the removal of
General Fremont from the Western Department,
every thoughtful man in the country can not but consider the moment chosen for
his removal most unfortunate. Had the order followed the fall of Lexington, it
would have been received in silence : with regret, indeed, for a noble man who
was thought inadequate to a peculiar position, but without any general
impression of undue harshness.
But two months have essentially
changed the aspect of affairs in Missouri. From the moment the General left St.
Louis his course has been onward. Lexington has been retaken;
Springfield
is ours once more. Operations which military men pronounced impossible have been
quietly accomplished
by Fremont. He has crossed rivers
safely. He has mewed a large army without apparent means. His Body-Guard, which
is simply the name for a picked body of men, like Scott's Body-Guard in Mexico,
has achieved a brilliant victory, due alike to military skill and to personal
courage. With his army flushed with conscious power, and devoted to him with
that enthusiasm which insures honorable success ; with the enemy before him, and
an attack momently expected, the General in whom so many hopes centred—whose
operations during the last few weeks had silenced even slander—who, for some
reason, had been selected as the scape-goat of our complaints and discontents—is
summarily removed.
He does what every faithful
soldier and patriot should do. He bows with serene dignity to the command;
addresses a few earnest words of natural regret, of sympathy, of encouragement,
and of patriotic appeal to his soldiers, who, dismayed and indignant, threaten
insubordination ; remains, at the request of the officers, to lead the army
should the battle be offered that night; then retires with the same manly
simplicity which has marked every act of his life.
For the honor of his country and
for his own honor, General Fremont will, of course, at the proper time, demand a
Court of Inquiry. And the honor of all good citizens is involved. Are charges
and statements like those in General Thomas's report, of which the obvious
tendency, if not intention, is to ruin the military character of a general, and
to imperil the safety of the country by causing a want of public confidence, to
come to the newspapers " in regular course from the War Department with
authority to give it to the public," before any authorized statement of the
removal of the General has been made? The authorization by the War Department of
the publication of the ex parte memoranda of
General Thomas against General Fremont is a
more flagrant dereliction of duty than any thing those memoranda charge upon the
General. And if such statements, so many of which have been already shown to be
erroneous, have been the grounds of the removal of the Commander of the Western
Department, how many such breaches of good faith with our soldiers are necessary
to furnish adequate grounds for the removal of the Secretary of War?
The nation, which confides
implicitly in the honesty and singleness of purpose of the President, will
acquiesce in his action in this case. But it has a vital interest in knowing why
a leader of its armies so dear to the popular heart, from whose path the mists
of doubt were rolling away, and who stood with all the prestige of triumph
before a dispirited and retreating enemy, was disgraced upon the very eve of
battle. It is a just curiosity which nothing but the revelations of a Court of
Inquiry can satisfy.
REUTER'S TELEGRAMS AND
MASON'S
COMMISSION.
THE telegraph for American news
in England is in the hands of a person named Reuter, and Mr. Reuter serves up
precisely such news from America as England desires. His bulletins are the
unfailing records of disaster to the Government of the United States. Rebellion
flashes rosy along his wires. The inevitable consequence is that the worst
possible impression of our condition is constantly conveyed.
One of his latest performances
was the announcement that "the veteran
General Wool had been surprised by
General Mansfield at Fort Monroe. This is the all-important fort which commands
the entrance of the Bay of Chesapeake, and which the Federalists have held so
long."
This is the kind of news which is
read by those who live by the river of Thames. And yet the favorable change of
sentiment, even in the newspapers, is very marked. There is, however, one thing
to be borne in mind in all English discussion of our affairs ; and that is, that
they are made matters of party argument. Of course, the present condition of
this country is held by Tories to be " a settler" of what Major Beresford calls
" the horrible reform mania." Let us do the Major the justice to say that he
insists upon strict neutrality.
In fact, those who are clamorous
for open interference by England are too few to be noticed. The last great hope
of the rebellion—that of foreign aid—is withering away. When Mr. Mason, the
author of the Fugitive Slave bill, distinguished in the Senate of the United
States for his insolent plantation manners, arrives in London, he will find
himself in exactly the position that a commissioner from Nena Sahib would have
found himself in Washington.
Upon this subject it is
delightful to agree with the Richmond Examiner—that "he is the very best man we
could send abroad to show foreign nations that the Southerner is a different
type altogether from the Yankee." Of course the reasons for our agreement are
not the assertions of the Examiner, that Yankees lie, fawn, bully, brag ; and
are mean, canting, and vulgar. And when the paper says, " We are glad to be able
to contrast such a gentleman with Charles Francis Adams, the
Puritan
representative of freedom at the Court of St. James," what American, who loves
Milton and Hampden, and honors Oliver Cromwell, who fought Charles Stuart for
the same great cause in which we are fighting
Jefferson Davis, will not cry with all his
heart, Amen!
WOMEN AND LAW.
THE readers of this column will
remember that there has been the warmest commendation here of two or three
little books by Mrs. Dall, treating with admirable temper, scholarship, and
delicacy the question of the chances and protection which women have in modern
society. The results of her investigation are precisely those which every body
who knows any thing at all of the subject is sure to reach, and which every
reader of Mrs. Norton's pamphlet, and the discussion in the British House of
Lords upon the Divorce Bill, and the terrible stories of Duchatelet and Sangar,
and
the sad stories of Henry Mayhew,
has already suspected.
In her new work, "Woman's Rights
under the Law," Mrs. Dail discusses the question so earnestly and candidly, with
such good sense and good taste, in so humane and religious a spirit, that her
little book is sure to awaken interest as well as to help the reader to a just
conclusion. There is certainly no harm in asking the question whether the social
and legal position of women is as fair as that of men. If it be so, a candid
statement will show it. If it be not so, every honest man will wish to remedy a
wrong. Why, for instance, the most intelligent and capable women in the land
should be allowed by law to hold property, and to be taxed for that property,
and yet forbidden to have a voice in the disposition of the taxes—in other
words, a vote—while the dullest clodhopper who comes from a foreign country and
works in her fields, but who has and can have no intelligent idea of the
necessities of our Government or of any Government, should be permitted to
dispose of those taxes and his mistress's share of them, is one of the practical
absurdities which is defended only by a prejudice. Let any intelligent man ask
himself why his mother should not vote, and the man drunk at the corner grocery
should, and the answer would be amusing to hear.
The sphere of woman, we all know,
is the nursery; at least, if we do not know it, it is not for lack of telling ;
and to no holier sphere could any human being be called. The sphere of man is
the office and shop ; and to no more useful sphere could any person be summoned.
Since, then, both men and women have a divinely-ordained sphere, who is to make
laws for society ?
It is manifestly a question that
will be discussed, and the law of the different States is constantly yielding
more and more to the pressure of the principle that taxation and representation
must go together. We men make the laws. Like all lawgivers, we please ourselves.
In this case those who are displeased can not right themselves by the strong
arm. It is, therefore, only the most patient and charitable consideration of the
whole subject that can secure any change; and it is as the most faithful and
attractive contributions to that calm and wise consideration that the books of
Mrs. Dall are so valuable. They abound in the most curious and interesting
information, gathered from many sources. Their tone is the reverse of truculent.
They are most womanly books about women.
A WORD WITH CORRESPONDENTS.
THE Lounger, with many thanks,
declines the following : "Immolatus;" "Violets;" and the proposition of "Marye."
To the correspondent who writes from Maine the Lounger can only say, with all
the force at his command, that considerations of the personal necessities of an
author ought never to be urged upon an editor or publisher. That a man is
starving is the best reason in the world for giving him food ; but it is no more
reason for buying his manuscript than for buying his old shoes. Writers are
asked to contribute to magazines and other publications, not because they state
that they need the price of their articles, but because their articles are
considered to be worth paying for, and would be so if they were written by
Croesus or Rothschild.
Nor let any poor youth or
shrinking woman in the least misunderstand this statement. A generous man buys
matches of a match-girl, not because he wants them or is going to use them, but
that he may give alms under cover of a bargain. That is what you ask a publisher
to do when you say to him : " Sir, here is my essay, or poem, or story, and I
have nothing in the house for dinner." If he likes your story for his purpose,
he buys it, not because you lack a dinner, but because it is a good bargain for
him. If he does not like it, but takes it and pays you, it is alms for you to
buy food.
Suppose you went to a shoemaker
and said, "I am starving, I wish you would give me work." He asks if you are a
skilled hand. You answer, " Oh no! I never worked at the business, but I should
like to try my hand." And suppose that a thousand starving people said the same
thing to him. The shoemaker would naturally reply : " I am very sorry, and here
is as much as I can afford to give to buy soup for you. But as for shoes, they
can only be made by shoemakers."
So with literary publications. If
you can do the work, you are welcome, limited only by the demand. But you have
less reason to expect success as an author than as a shoemaker. Probably any
handy person can learn to make shoes. But something more than writing a story is
essential to literary success.
It is an old story. For you,
friend who ask, it is a sad story. But for all of us it is a true story.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE AND
VOLUNTEERS.
A RECENT letter of Florence
Nightingale's to her brother-in-law, Sir H. Verney, who had invited a large body
of volunteers to a banquet at his house, has been already mentioned in most of
the papers, but only a single extract has been published.
There are thousands of our
soldiers now in camp who will like to see the whole letter:
" Oct. 9.
"I should have thought it
presumption to write to the volunteers if not desired by you. My point, if there
was one, was to tell them that one who has seen more than any man what a
horrible thing war is, yet feels more than any man that the military spirit in a
good cause, 'that of one's country,' is the finest leaven which exists for the
national spirit. I have known intimately the Sardinian soldier, the French
soldier, the British soldier. The Sardinian was much better appointed than we
were. The French were both more numerous and more accustomed to war than we
were, yet I have no hesitation in saying that we had the better military spirit,
the true volunteer spirit to endure hardship for our country's sake. I remember
a sergeant, who, on picket, the rest of the picket killed and himself battered
about the head, stumbled back to camp, and on his way picked up a wounded man
and brought him on his shoulders to the lines, when he fell down insensible.
When, after many hours, he recovered his senses, I believe, after trepanning,
his first words were to ask after his comrade, 'Is he alive?' 'Comrade, indeed,
yes, he's alive—it is the general.' At that moment the general, though badly
wounded, appeared at the bedside. ' Oh, general, it's you, is it, I brought in?
I'm so (Next Page)
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