HAMILTON COUNTY—Continued

 

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“Well hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple-tree.

Glory Hallelujah.”

 

These Indiana regiments were the first regiments the Cincinnati people had seen beside their own, and they greeted them with great enthusiasm. They were two thousand strong, a tight body of bright young men, and splendidly equipped, with knapsacks slung and like all the early Indiana regiments attired in gray. Regiment after regiment of Morton’s gray-attired men soon followed them. One of these, the Seventh Indiana, was reviewed a few weeks later by Major ANDERSON of Fort Sumter fame, from the residence of his brother, Larz ANDERSON, on Pike street. The major was a sedate-appearing gentleman and looked care-worn and dejected, the result it was said of the excessive mental strain put upon him by his experiences at Charleston.

 

The sudden change from the avocations of peace to those of war made the city seem as another place and the people another people. Under the excitement of a great overpowering emotion of patriotism all classes mingled with a surprising degree of friendliness and good feeling; even strangers greeted each other and neighbors that had been estranged for years forgot their petty jealousies. Their fathers and sons touched elbows as they marched away under the old flag and their tears and prayers. The spirit of self-sacrifice and generosity largely displayed tended to increase one’s love of his kind and it came, too, often from those who had been reputed to be hard and selfish. The angel in their natures came out smiling but blew no trumpet. One whom we knew, still know, and never can get rid of; neither in this world nor in any other, said to his landlord, “These are strange times; my business is dead and now I have this great house of yours on my hands and no income to meet the rent; I shall have to move out and find some humble shelter for my family.” “That,” replied he, “will do me no good.” “Stay where you are and take care of my property; no matter about rent.” These are the times spoken of in Scripture when the hand of the father is against the son and brother against brother. We must help each other. If I get out of bread and you have it, I will call upon you; and if you get out and I have it, come to me and I will divide the last crust.” The dough for that last crust was never kneaded.

 

War was a matter about which the people were as ignorant as babes. The spirit of humanity, and not of ferocity and blood-shedding, was their natural characteristic. But for years blood-shedding was the great business of the city; its industries were shaped to that end and supported its population. In those be-ginning days the public meetings were intensely exciting. Two or three of these we distinctly remember. One, about the very first, was in Pike’s Opera House. It was packed from pit to dome, tier above tier. The venerable Nathaniel WRIGHT attempted to read some spirit-spiriting resolutions and failing for want of voice they were passed over to Mr. Rufus KING, when every syllable went forth in clear ringing tones to the ears and hearts of that packed, enthusiastic mass. Mr. KING to this day we are glad to say has that magnificent voice in sound working condition; a voice that always goes out only for what is good. It was in that very hail later on, on an October evening, 1864, that James E. MURDOCK for the first time “Sheridan’s Ride,” that fine descriptive poem of Buchanan read, a Cincinnati production, conceived and born on that very day wherein genius in song illustrated genius in war and time hearts of the nation heat in unison with the music.

 

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seemed the concentration of nervous energy. He had often addressed them on the subject of astronomy. His religious and poetical instincts were strong, he was all alive with feeling; he possessed great fluency and command of language and electrified his audiences with this sublime elevating topic as probably no man had ever done before. When the war broke out he said he was ready to fight in the ranks or out of the ranks; and he only asked permission from his country to have something to do. This sentence was the key—note of his character—patriotism and intense activity. On this occasion he spoke with fiery energy—the war was to be no child’s play. “We read in the newspapers about steel netting for our soldiers to protect the breasts against bullets. What nonsense! And they tell us of a famous cannon just invented that will carry seven miles—seven miles! What? Expect to put down this rebellion and drive the rebels into the last ditch, they talk so much about, and get no nearer than seven miles! “At this sally and the audience roared.

 

Judge Bellamy STORER was another of Cincinnati’s fiery, enthusiastic orators, and like MITCHELL was overflowing with patriotism united to the religious instinct. The more sublime flights of oratory can never be reached without an infusion of the latter.

 

At a meeting in Greenwood Hall Judge STORER gave one of his fervid appeals, calling upon the young men to volunteer. As he closed, he drew his tall, imposing form to its utmost height and spreading out his arms exclaimed, “I’m an old man, rising of sixty years,” then with a look as though about ready to spring into a fight, added, “and I now volunteer.”

 

A few days later our eyes were greeted with the sight of a company of old substantial citizens called the “Storer Rifles,” clad in handsome uniforms, marching through the streets to the sound of drum and fife—old, mostly wealthy, gray-headed men, Some of them very obese, with aldermanic protuberances; they were splendidly equipped, each at his own expense, and were named the “Storer Rifles.” Among them was the Judge himself; bearing his shooting-piece and evidently as around of his trainer clothes as any school-boy.

 

This company was organized to act as Home Guards for the protection of the city and to stimulate “the boys “to enlist for time war.

 

After a little it seemed as though the entire three of able-bodied men were drilling, and, where not for the army, to act as Home Guards. Within a week from the fall of Sumter at least ten thousand men were drilling in the city. The vacant halls were used as drill-rooms and the measured tramp of the recruits and the cries of the drill—sergeants, “left, left”, arose from all over the city. The town wag of the time was Platt EVANS, a tailor who had his shop on Main street, just below Fourth. Numberless were the stories told of his witticisms. He was a rather short, red-faced man, advanced in life, with a coarse complexion but of artistic tastes. Withal he stammered in speech, and this defect often gave a peculiar pungency to his wit. On being solicited to act as a captain of a company of Home Guards be blurted out, “you foo-fools if-if I was m-m-m-marching you down B-B-Broad-Broadway, you all would be in the r-r-river b-b-b-be-fore I could ca-call ha-ha-halt!”

 

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treasonable threats. “And now,” said he, “I can but reflect that it is these same pestilential people that have so wickedly plunged the country into cruel unnecessary war, and I am again in service against them.”

 

Finding himself, after the lapse of thirty years, somewhat rusty in his tactics, Mr. BURNET resigned and his place was supplied by a drill sergeant from the Newport Barracks. He was a coarse, rough, ignorant foreigner, and occasionally forgetting himself at some exhibition of awkwardness, would let slip an oath, “d—n you there, on the left, hold up your heads!” Then, remembering where he was, he would let bow himself and in tones of great humility say, “I ask your pardon, gentlemen.” Then, a minute later, again flying into a passion he would let slip another oath, to be in like manner followed with another I ask your pardon, gentlemen.” And thus it was the Literary Club was initiated into the school of the soldier by oaths alternated with expressions of humility.

 

Cincinnati was especially prominent for the large number of eminent characters she supplied for the cabinet and the field—Hon. Salmon P. CHASE, the great war secretary, and two of Ohio’s war governors, DENINSON and BROUGH, and many of the distinguished Union generals, as Major—Generals ROSECRANS, McCLENNAN, MITCHELL and Godfrey WEITZELL; Brevet Major-Generals R. B. HAYNES, August WILLICH, Henry B. BANNING, Manning F. FORCE, August V. KAUTZ and Kenner GARRARD; Brigadier—Generals Robert L. McCOOK, William H. LYTLE, A. Sanders PIATT, B. P. SCAMMON, Nathaniel McLEAN, M. S.WADE and John P. SLOUGH and Brevet Brigadier-Generals Andrew HICKENLOOPER, Benjamin C. LUDLOW, Israel GARRARD, William H. BALDWIN, Henry V. BOYNTON, Charles B. BROWN, Henry L. BENNET, Henry M.CIST, Stephen J. M. ROATRY, Granville MOODY, August MOORE, Reuben D. MUSSEY, George W. NEFF; Edward F. NOYES, Augustus C. PARRY, Durbin WARD, and Thomas L. YOUNG; also Joshua. L. BATES of the Ohio militia. A host of other Cincinnatians served in various civil and military capacities. Especially useful were its medical men; more than half the entire number of “United States volunteer surgeons” were from this city; they entered the service independent of special commands. Among the medical men were William H. MUSSEY, George MENDENHALL, John MURPHY, William CLENDENIN, Robert FLETCHER, George H. SHUMARD, etc. After the bloody battles of Fort Donaldson and Shiloh the Cincinnati surgeons went down to the fields in streams, attended to the wounded and their transportation to hospitals in the city, a number of buildings being improvised for the purpose. A very efficient citizen of that era was Miles GREENWOOD, an iron founder, who cast cannon, rifled muskets and plated steamboats with iron for war purposes.

 

The Cincinnati branch of time United States Sanitary Commission was particularly efficient; an outline of their work is given on page 190. Alike efficient was the local branch of the United States Christian Commission. It was under the management of A. B. CHAMBERLAIN, .H. Thane MILLER, with Rev. J. F. MARLAY Secretary, and B. W. CHIDLAW general agent. It distributed stores and money to the amount of about $300,000, the contributions of Soldiers’ Aid Societies and Ladies’ Christian Commission, mainly from the patriotic men and women of Ohio.

 

The most marked events in the war history of the city were what has been termed the “Siege of Cincinnati” in 1862 and time raid of John Morgan in the following year.

 

THE SIEGE OF CINCINNATI.

 

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also busy swelling the rebel ranks with recruits from the fiery young Kentuckians. Affairs looked threateningly on the border.

 

General Lewis WALLACE was at once placed in command at Cincinnati, by order of Major-General WRIGHT. Soon as he arrived in the city, on Thursday, the 4th of September, he put Cincinnati and the two cities on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, Newport and Covington, under martial law, and, within an hour of his arrival, he issued a proclamation suspending all business, stopping the ferry-boats from plying the river, and summoning all citizens to enroll themselves for defense. It was most effective. It totally closed business, and sent every citizen without distinction, to the ranks or into the trenches. Nor was it needless, for the enemy, within a few days thereafter, advanced to within five miles of the city, on the Kentucky side and skirmished with our outposts. Buchanan READ, the poet, painter of the time, draws this picture of the events. READ was a volunteer aid to General WALLACE.

 

The ten days ensuing will be forever memorable in the annals of the city of Cincinnati. The cheerful alacrity with which the people rose en masse to swell the ranks and crowd into the trenches was a sight worth seeing. Of course, there were a few timid creatures who feared to obey the summons. Sudden illness overtook some. Others were hunted up by armed men with fixed bayonets ferreted from back kitchens, garrets and cellars, closets and even under beds where they were hiding. One peacefully excited individual was found in his wife’s clothes scrubbing at the wash-tub. He was put in one of the German working parties, who received him with shouts of laughter.

 

The citizens thus collected were the representatives of all classes and many nativities. The man of money, the man of law, the merchant, the artist, and the artisan swelled the lines, hastening to the scene of action, armed either with musket, pick, or spade.

 

But the pleasantest and most picturesque sight of those remarkable days was the almost endless stream of sturdy men who rushed to the rescue from the rural districts of Ohio and Indiana. These were known as the squirrel-hunters. They came in files, numbering thousands upon thousands, in all kinds of costumes, and armed with all kinds of firearms, but chiefly the deadly rifle, which they knew so well how to use.

 

Old men, middle-aged men, and often mere boys, like the “minute men” of the old Revolution they dropped all their peculiar avocations, and with their leathern pouches full of bullets, and their ox-horns full of powder, by every railroad and by-way, in such numbers that it seemed as if the whole State of Ohio were peopled only with hunters, and that the spirit of Daniel Boone stood upon the bills opposite the town beckoning them into Kentucky.

 

The pontoon bridge over the Ohio, which had been begun and completed between sun-down and sundown. groaned day and night with the perpetual stream of life, all setting southward. In three days there were ten miles of entrenchments lining the Kentucky hills, making a semicircle from the river above the city to the banks of the river below and these were thickly manned, from end to end, and made terrible to the astonished enemy by black and frowning cannon.

 

General HEATH, with his 12,000 veterans, flushed with their late success at Richmond, drew up before these formidable preparations and deemed it prudent to take the matter into serious consideration, before making the attack.

 

Our men were eagerly awaiting their approach, thousands in rifle parts, and tens of thousands along the whole line of fortifications, while our scouts and pickets were skirmishing with their outposts in the plains in front. Should the foe make a sudden dash and carry any point of our lines, it was thought by some that nothing would prevent them from entering Cincinnati.

 

But for this provision was also made. The city above and below was well protected by a flotilla of gunboats, improvised from the swarm of steamers which lay at the wharves. The shrewd leaders of the rebel army were probably kept well posted by traitors within our own lines, in regard to the reception pre-pared for them, and taking advantage of the darkness of night and the violence of a thunder storm made a hasty and ruinous retreat. WALLACE was anxious to follow, and, was confident of success, but was overruled by those higher in authority.

 

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their unquenchable hope; the almost despair that at times settled upon them, when all seemed but lost, through the timidity and irresolution of weak generals in the field; the intrigues and intended treachery of demagogues at home. Then the groping forward, like children in the dark, of millions of loyal hearts for some mighty arm to guide; some mighty intellect to reveal and thus relieve the awful suspense as to the future; as though any mere man had an attribute that alone is of God. Finally, through the agony of sore adversities, came the looking upward to the only power that could help. Thus the religious instincts became deepened. Visions of the higher life dwarfed the large things of this; and through faith came greater blessings than the wisest among good had hoped.

 

On the morning the city was put under martial law, I found the streets full of armed police in army blue, and all, without respect to age, compelled to report at the head-quarters of their respective districts for enrolment. An unwilling citizen, seeing the bayonet leveled at him, could but yield to the inexorable logic of military despotism. It was perilous to walk the streets without a pass. At every corner stood a sentinel.

 

The colored men were roughly handled by the Irish police. From hotels and barber shops, in the midst of their labors, these helpless people were pounced on and often bareheaded and in shirtsleeves, as seized driven in squads, at the point of the bayonet, and gathered in vacant yards and guarded. What rendered this act more than ordinarily atrocious was that they, through their head men, had, at the first alarm, been the earliest to volunteer their services to our mayor, for the defense of our common homes. It was a sad sight to see human treated like reptiles.

 

Enrolled in companies we were daily drilled. One of these in our ward was com-posed of old men, termed “Silver Grays.” Among its members were the venerable Judge LEAVITT, of the United States Supreme Court, and other eminent citizens. Grand-fathers were seen practicing the manual, and lifting alternate feet to the cadence of mark-time.

 

At this stage of affairs the idea that our colored citizens possessed war-like qualities was a subject for scoffing; the scoffers forget-ting that the race in ancestral Africa, including even the women, had been in war since the days of Ham; strangely oblivious also to the fact that our foreign-born city police could only by furious onslaughts, made with Hibernian love of the thing, quell the frequent pugnacious outbreaks of the crispy-haired denisons of our own Bucktown. From this view, or more probably a delicate sentiment of tenderness, instead of being armed and sent forth to the dangers of battle, they were consolidated into a peaceful brigade of workers in the trenches back of Newport, under the philanthropic guidance of the Hon. William DICKSON.

 

The daily morning march of the corps down Broadway to labor was a species of the mottled picturesque. At their head was the stalwart, manly form of the landlord of the Dumas house, Colonel HARLAN. Starting back on the honest, substantial, coal-black foundation, all shades of color were exhibited, degenerating out through successive gradations to an ashy white; the index of Anglo-Saxon fatherhood of the chivalrous American type. Arrayed for dirt-work in their oldest clothes; apparently the fags of every conceivable kind of cast-off, kicked-about, and faded-out garments; crownless and lop-eared hats, diverse boots; with shouldered pick, shovel, and hoe; this merry, chattering, pie-bald, grotesque body, shuffled along amid grins and jeers, reminding us of the ancient nursery distich:

 

“Hark! hark! hear the dogs bark,

The beggars are coming to town,

Some in rags, some in tags,

And some in velvet gowns.”

 

Tuesday night, September 9, 1862, was starlight; the air soft and balmy. With others I was on guard at an improvised armory, the old American Express buildings, on Third street near Broadway. Three hours past midnight from a signal tower three blocks east of us a rocket suddenly shot high in the air; then the fire-bell pealed an alarm. All was again quiet. Half an hour passed. Hurrying footsteps neared us. They were those of the indefatigable, public-spirited John D. CALDWELL. “Kirby SMITH,” said he quickly, “is advancing on the city. The military are to muster on the landing and cross the river at sunrise.”

 

Six o’clock struck as I entered my own door to make preparations for my departure. The good woman was up. The four little innocents—two of a kind—were asleep in the bliss of ignorance, happy in quiet slumber. A few moments of hurried preparation and I was ready for the campaign. The provisions were these: a heavy blanket-shawl, a few good cigars, a haversack loaded with eatables, and a black bottle of medicinal liquid—cherry bounce—very choice.

 

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her protector as going forth to encounter the terrors of battle; visions of wounds and death were before her. The other thought of hers with only a prospect of a little season of rural refreshment on the Kentucky hills, to return in safety with an appetite ravenous as a wolf for freshly dug pink-eyes and Beresford’s choice cuts.

 

We joined our regiment at the landing. This expanse of acres was crowded with armed citizens in companies and regiments. Two or three of our frail, egg-shell river steamers, converted into gun-boats were receiving from drays bales of hay for bulwarks. The pontoon was a moving panorama of newly made warriors, and wagons of munitions hastening southward. Back of the plain of Covington and Newport rose the softly rounded hills beyond these were our bloodthirsty foe. Our officers tried to maneuver our regiment. They were too ignorant to maneuver themselves; it was like handling a rope of sand. But in my absence they had somehow managed to get that long line of men arranged into platoons. Then as I took my place the drums beat tubs squeaked, and we crossed the pontoon. The people of Covington filled their doorways and windows to gaze at the passing pageant. To my fancy they looked scowling. No cheers, no smiles greeted us. It was a staring silence. The rebel army had been largely recruited from the town.

 

March ! march! March! We struck the hills. The way up seemed interminable. The boiling September sun poured upon us like a furnace. The road was as an ash heap. Clouds of limestone dust whitened us like millers, filling our nostrils and throats with impalpable powder. The cry went up, Water! water! Little or none was to be had. The unusual excitement and exertion told upon me. Years before, I had, beating my knapsack, performed pedestrian tours of thousands of miles. Had twice walked across New York, once from the Hudson to the lake; in the hottest of summer had footed it from Richmond to Lynchburg. No forty or fifty miles a day had ever wilted me like this march of only four. But my muscles had been relaxed by years of continuous office labor. I had been on my feet guard-duty all night.

 

Near the top of the hills, some 500 feet above the Ohio level, our regiment halted, when our officers galloped ahead. We broke ranks and lay down under the wayside fence. Five minutes elapsed. Back cantered the cortege. “Fall into line! fall into line! Quick, men!” was the cry. They rode among us. Our colonel exclaimed, “You are now going into battle the enemy are advancing! You will receive sixty rounds of cartridges! Do your duty men, do your duty” I fancied it a ruse to test our courage, and so experienced a sense of shame.

 

I looked upon the men around me. Not a word was spoken; not one smiled. No visible emotion of any kind appeared, only weary faces, dirty, sweaty, and blowsy with the burning heat.

 

I dropped my cartridges into my haversack along with my food. Our captain, in his musical, pleasant voice, gave us instructions, though he had never studied war.

 

“Gentlemen! these cartridges are peculiar; you put the ball in first and the powder on top!” Some one whispered in his ear. “Gentlemen,’’ he again exclaimed, with a significant scowl and shake of his head, “I was mistaken; you must put the powder in first, and the ball on top!” We did so. We had elected Billy captain, for he was genial and of a good family.

 

We again shuffled upward. Suddenly as the drawing of a curtain, a fine, open, rolling country with undulating ravines burst upon us. Two or three farm mansions with half concealing foliage and cornfields appeared in the distance; beyond, a mile away, the fringed line of a forest; above, a cloudless sky and a noon-day sun. The road we were on penetrated these woods. In these were concealed the unknown thousands of our war-experienced foe.

 

On the summit, of the hills we had so laboriously gained, defending the approach by the road ran our line of earth-works. On our right was Fort Mitchell; to our left, for hundreds of yards, rifle-pits. The fort and pits were filled with armed citizens, and a regiment or two of green soldiers in their new suits. Vociferous cheers greeted our appearing. “how are you, H.? “struck my attention. It was the cheerful voice of a tall, slender gentleman in glasses, who did my legal business, John W. HERRON.

 

Turning off to the left into the fields in front of these, and away beyond, we halted an hour or so in line of battle, the nearest regiment to the enemy. We waited in expectation of an attack, too exhausted to fight, or, perhaps, even to run. Thence we moved back into an orchard, behind a rail-fence, on rather low ground; our left, and the extreme left of all our forces, resting on a faint-house. Our pioneers went to work strengthening our permanent position, cutting down brush and small trees, and piling them, against the fence. Here, we were in plain view, a mile in front, of the ominous forest. When night came on, in caution, our camp-fires were extinguished. We slept on hay in the open air, with our loaded muskets by our sides, and our guards and pickets doubled.

 

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intervals of three or four minutes, broken perhaps by solitary. Again continuous pops, like a feu-de-jone , with another lull, and so on through the long hours. Some of our men were wounded, and others, it was reported, killed. With the naked eye we caught occasional glimpses of the skirmishers in a cornfield near the woods. With a glass a man by my side said be saw the butter-nut-colored garments of the foe.

 

Toward evening a furious thunder-storm drove us to our tents of blankets and brush-wood bowers. It wet us through and destroyed the cartridges in our cotton haversacks. Just as the storm was closing, a tremendous fusillade on our right, and the cries of our officers, “The enemy are upon us; turn out! Turn out!’’ brought us to the fence again. The rebels, we thought had surprised us and would be dashing down in a moment with their cavalry through the orchard in our rear. Several of our companies fired off their muskets in that direction, and to the manifest danger of a line of our own sentinels. It was a false alarm and, arose in the 110th Ohio, camped on the hill to our right.

 

You may ask what my sensations were as I thus stood, hack to the fence, with uplifted musket in expectant attitude? To be honest, my teeth chattered uncontrollably. I never boasted of courage. Drenched to the marrow by the cold rain, I was shivering before the alarm, and so I reasoned in this way—” Our men are all raw, our officers in the same doughy condition. We are armed with the old, condemned Belgian rifle. Not one in ten can be discharged. All my reading in history has ground the fact into me, that militia, situated like us, are worthless when attacked by veterans. An hundred experienced cavalry-men dashing down with drawn sabres, revolvers and secesh yells will scatter us in a twinkling. When the others run, and I know they will, I won’t. I’ll drop beside this fence, simulate death, and open an eye to the culminating circumstances.” I was not aching for a fight. Ambitious youths going in on their muscles, alas are apt to come out on their backs. Unlike Norvel, I could not say:

 

“I had heard of battles and longed

To follow to the field some warlike chap.”

 

When at school I never fought excepting when my pugnacity was aroused on seeing large boys tyrannize over small ones. I never slew anything larger than a cat, which had scratched me, and at this, as soon as done, I child-like, as child I was, repenting, sat down and cried. I am soft-hearted as my uncle Toby with the fly—“Go, poor devil! The world is large enough for both you and me.” To pit my valuable life against one of these low Southern whites—half animals, fierce as hyenas, degraded as serfs—appeared a manifest incongruity. It never seemed so plain before. It was tackling the beast in the only point where he was strong.

 

Some things were revealed to me by this soldier life. The alarming rumors current. The restraints upon one’s liberty, imprisoned within the lines of the regiment. The sensation of being ordered around by small men in high places, and not admirable in any. The waste of war, piles of bread, water-soaked by rain into worthless pulp. The vacuity of mind from the want of business for continuous thought. The picturesque attitudes of scores of men sleeping on heaps of straw; seen by the uncertain light of night. The importance of an officer’s horse beyond that of a common soldier, shown by the refusal of hay on which to sleep on the night of our arrival, because the colonel’s beast wanted it. Didn’t our good mother earth furnish a bed?

 

In our company were three of us—William J. FLAGG, Samuel DAVIS and myself, not relatives in any way—who, in a New England city distant nearly a thousand miles, had, over thirty years before, been school-mates. It illustrated a peculiar phase of American habits. We had some odd characters. Our fifer, a short, spare-built, wan-faced man, had been in the British army—had seen ser-vice in Afghanistan the other side of the globe. Another, a German lieutenant, had experience of war in our country—was at Shiloh. He was imaginative. I talked with him in the night. To my query of the probability of a night attack, he replied, Yes, the secesh always attack in that way.’’ Past midnight as he was going the rounds of the pickets as officer of the guard, he said he saw crouching in the shadow of a ravine a large body of rebels. He ran to headquarters and aroused our colonel and staff, but when they arrived at the seeing point, lo! the foe had vanished. A fat, gray-headed captain with protuberant abdomen came to me soon after our arrival and with an impressive countenance discoursed of the perils of our position. In this I quite agreed with him. Then putting his hand to his stomach and giving his head a turn to one side, after the usual manner of invalids in detailing their woes he uttered in lugubrious tones—” I am very sick; the march over has been too much for me; I feel a severe attack of my old complaint, cholera morbus coming on.’’ After this I missed him. He bad got a permit from the surgeon and returned home to be nursed. Our medical man, Dr. DANDRIDGE, was old Virginia Born; and I had, notwithstanding his generous qualities, suspected him of secesh sympathies. I wish to be charitable, but I must say this confirmed my suspicion it was evident he wished to get the fighting men out of the way!

 

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on the river, the sick captain, now recovered, joined his regiment. With freshly shaven face, spotless collar and bright uniform, he appeared like a bandbox soldier among dust-covered warriors. Escaping our perils, he shared our glories, as, with drawn sword, be strutted through street after street amid cheers of the multitude, smiles of admiring women, and waving of ‘kerchiefs. Weary and dirt-begrimed, we were, in a tedious, circuitous march, duly shown off by our officers to all their lady acquaintances, until night came to our relict, kindly covered us with her mantle, and stopped the tomfoolery. The lambs led forth to slaughter thus returned safely to their folds, because the butcher hadn’t come.

 

It is now known that Kirby SMITH was never ordered to attack Cincinnati, but only to demonstrate; and about this very time the advance of BUELL seemed to Bragg so menacing that he made haste to order SMITH back to his support. The force that approached so near the city at no time comprised 12,000 men and were under the immediate command of General HEATH. In speaking of this event after the war, Kirby SMITH said that at one time he could “have very easily entered Cincinnati with his troops, but all h--ll could not have got them out again.

 

MORGAN’S RAID.

 

Morgan’s raid in July of the next year was the next event to arouse an excitement in the city. He came within a few miles and slipped around it in the night. The details of the raid are given elsewhere. After the battle of Buffington Island the prisoners, amounting to about 700 men, were brought to the city in steamers. The privates were sent from here to Indianapolis. The officers, about 70 in number, were landed at the foot of Main street from the steamer Starlight, and marched up the street under a strong guard to the city prison on Ninth street. The people had regarded them in the light of horse-thieves, and greatly rejoicing at their capture, as they passed along, in places expressed their contempt by howls and cat-cries. No other bodies of prisoners brought to the city during the war were otherwise than respectfully received. Indeed the only word of disrespect we heard towards any of them came from a little boy and of our own family. It was early morning when in our residence on East Fifth street, near Pike, we were attracted by sounds in the street. Rushing to the door our eyes were greeted by the sight of a body of say 200 unarmed men dressed in gray, with about a third of their number in blue on each side with muskets in hand, and the whole mass were on a run in the middle of the street hurrying to the depot of the Little Miami Railroad en route for Camp Chase. At this sight the little one at my side called out, “Rebel traitors—rebel traitors! “Curious to know the effect of so much war time education he was receiving had upon the same young mind we about then inquired: “Would you like to be a soldier?” “No, sir; not one of the kind that go to war.” “Why not?” “Because, I should expect to get killed.”

 

Morgan and a number of his officers were confined in the State Prison at Columbus, from whence the great raider made his escape on the night of the 27th of November. The following particulars of the flight were detailed in a Richmond paper:

 

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the ticket office, while Morgan modestly stood back and adjusted a pair of green goggles over his eyes, which one of the men, having weak eyes, had worn in prison.

 

They took their seats in the cars without suspicion. How their hearts beat until the locomotive whistled to start! Slowly the wheels turn, and they are off. The cars were due in Cincinnati at 7 o’clock A.M. At Xenia they were detained one hour. What keen anguish of suspense did they not suffer! They knew at 5 o’clock A.M. the convicts would be called, and that their escape would then be discovered, when it would be telegraphed in every direction; consequently the guards would be ready to greet them on their arrival. They were rapidly nearing the city of abolition hogdom. It was a cool, rainy morning. Just as the train entered the suburbs, about half a mile from the depot, the escaped prisoners went out on the platform and put on the brakes, checking the cars sufficiently to let them jump off. HINES jumped off first, and fell, considerably stunned. MORGAN followed, unhurt. They immediately made for the river. Here they found a boy with a skiff, who had just ferried across some ladies from the Kentucky side. They dared not turn their heads for fear of seeing the guards coming. “HINES,” whispered the General, “look and see if anybody is coming.” The boy was told they wanted to cross, but he desired to wait for more passengers. The General told him he was in a hurry, and promised to pay double fare. The skiff shot out into the stream—they soon reached the Kentucky shore, and breathed—free.”

 

THE CINCINNATI NEWSPAPERS IN THE WAR TIMES.

 

The press of the city sprang into an importance never before experienced. Extras were being continually issued, and the newsboys persistent everywhere filled the air with their cries, “all about the battle.” Not only in the city, but the carriers penetrated to the armies in front to sell their wares. Colonel Crafts WRIGHT, in writing a description for the Gazette of the battle of Fort Donaldson, said, “Sunday morning we were ordered to advance on the trenches of the enemy. While standing there a new cry was heard—a carrier came along crying, ‘Cincinnati Commercial, Gazette and Times,’ and as I sat upon my horse, bought them and read the news from home, and this too within an hour after the fort had surrendered.”

 

The colonel had been a room-mate and class-mate with Jefferson DAVIS, and through life remained a personal friend, though not agreeing in politics; this was not to be expected from one of the proprietors of the Cincinnati Gazette.

 

The press had correspondents everywhere, and these were untiring in gathering the news from the “front.” In the early stages of the war every skirmish was published and magnified, and little minor matters detailed that later on were not noticed, as anecdotes of individual heroism, descriptions of the appearance of the dead and wounded, illustrating the savagery of war.

The city being so close upon the border found its business in diverting its industries to prosecution of the war. After a short period of stagnation there were but few idle people, and when it was seen that the war had come to stay, there was no scarcity of money and the entire community were prospering. Among the peculiar industries of the time was the putting up of stationery in large envelopes called “paper packages.” The amount of letter-writing between the soldiers and their friends at home was enormous. These packages were peddled everywhere, alike in town, country and camps, at a cost of about a dime each, and consisted of envelopes, paper, pencil, pens, holder and ink; most of the stationery was miserable. Soldiers’ letters went postage free.

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treatment with the others. On the bloody field of Moskwa, Napoleon, as he stooped over the Russian wounded and ordered relief, said, “After battle we are no longer enemies.”

 

We asked one of the medical men, a personal friend, Dr. George MENDENHALL, President of the Sanitary Commission, who had come up the river with them from Donaldson, if he had, while ministering to their wounds, talked with them. “No,” said that good man, “I felt so indignant when I reflected what a miserable business they had engaged in that I had no stomach for social intercourse.” Personally, we think it instructive to get at the bottom thought of all sorts of people in religion, business, political, and war—and even in wedlock, which, alas, often results in the same.  It often teaches charity for what is wrong-doing. In a deserted rebel camp, Laurel Hill, Western Virginia, was found “a love letter,” in which was expressed the bottom thought of at least one poor secessionist: “I sa agen dear Milindy, weer fitin for our liberties to do gest as we pleas, and we will fit for them so long as GODDLEMITY gives us breth.”

 

The hospitals were sacred places to the ladies of the city who were alive in ministering to the wants of the soldier boys; and to the latter they seemed suffering and often ennobling, as they often found among the most humble of these men the choicest of spirits, the most noble of natures, and could but feel as they saw them sinking away into their last sleep, it would be to awake again ethereal brightness to be appreciated in the higher immortality.

 

A Soldier’s Funeral awakens different emotions from that of any other. If he be an officer high in rank the pageant can be so affecting as the funeral procession. Cincinnati had several such. One was that of William H. LYTLE, the poet soldier killed at Chickamauga, and was most imposing. The entire city seemed anxious to pay their last tribute to the illustrious dead. The houses were draped in mourning, the bells tolled, and the flags hung at half-mast. The procession passed through Fourth street a long line of military with reversed arms moved slowly and solemnly along, the band playing a dirge. The horse of the General, according to military custom, was led by a military servant, with a pair of cavalry boots hanging from the empty saddle. On each side of the sarcophagus marched a guard of honor, officers high in rank and attired in their full parade uniforms tall, showy, splendid-looking men. It was evening when they reached Spring Grove, the moon silvering that repository of the dead as they entered imposing gateway.

 

Regiments Returning from service in the field often looked war-worn and in ragged condition. After the Union defeat at Richmond we saw two Indiana regiments which had surrendered and the men then paroled, marching through Third street en route for Indianapolis. They had left that city only a few weeks before, newly formed troops and had passed through ours for Kentucky, in high spirits and excellent condition. On their return they were in a deplorable state, ragged, dirty with the dust of the roads, and many of them bare-footed. The enemy must have largely robbed them of their clothing and shoes. The city at the time was destitute of troops but few persons were on the street to look upon this sad, forlorn, woe-begone-looking body of young men. Kirby SMITH had taken out their starch. We felt they ought to have been received with open arms, but no one was around to help brighten their spirits. The few who saw them gazed in staring in silence. Another dilapidated-looking body we saw, and in 1864 was the Fifth Ohio. After three years of bloody and heroic service they had been reduced to little more than a company and were drawn up in line on Third street before the Quarter-masters department to draw new clothing. It was quite a contrast to that same regiment as we saw it just after the fall of Sumter marching down Sycamore street 1,000 strong, attired in red-flannel shirts and aglow with patriotic ardor. Their brave Colonel, J. H. PATRICK, had killed only a few weeks before down in Dalton, Georgia, while gallantly leading a charge. The heroic band were borne on furlough.

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hardened countenances. It was a proud moment for the young men to be welcomed after their long absence by their lady friends from the streets, doors, and window, with smiles and the waving of handkerchiefs. Eleven of their number subsequently received commissions in the regular army.

 

To have lived anywhere in our country during the long four years of the rebellion was to have had a variety of experiences and emotion; especially was this true of Cincinnati. They were grand and awful times. What was to be the outcome no one could divine. Our first men could not tell us anything. They seemed insignificant in view of stupendous, appalling events. At the beginning all dissenting voices were hushed in one general outburst of indignations. Later on, what were termed the “copperheads” raised their hissing heads. One mode of striking their fangs into the Union cause was by trying to weaken respect for those at the head of affairs. Mr. LINCOLN seemed an especial object for their abuse. The most obscene anecdotes were coined and circulated as coming from him. One of the public prints described him “as an ape, a hyena, a grinning satyr, and the White House at Washington but a den where the baboon of Illinois and his satellites held their disgusting orgies.” Going through our lower market one morning during the war, our ears were greeted with an expression that was new to us. We turned to see the speaker and there stood before us an immense, fat, blowsy-faced market woman, evidently from the Kentucky side of the Ohio half a mile distant. It was she that had just belched forth in bitter contemptuous tones the epithet, “Old Link.”

 

During the gloomy period when news of defeat was received, the faces of some of those around us would light up with exultation: then they would say: “O, I told you so: they are better fighters than our soldiers, more warlike, and in earnest. We can never conquer them. The old Union is dead. We shall probably have three confederacies. The New England States, and the East; the West; and the South, its geographical situation in connection with the Mississippi making it a necessity.” Such was the talk to which those who loved the Union were compelled to listen in those times. It added to their distresses, while it excited their indignation and loathing.  Not to record it would be a rank injustice to those who sacrificed for their country and a falsification of the truth of history by its concealment.

 

In such a time as we had in Cincinnati there are very many isolated scenes and incidents that each in itself is perhaps of no especial consequences, but if itemized and given in bulk are instructive, illustration life there in the time of the rebellion. We give some within our personal experience.

 

The First Funeral.—When our volunteers left for Western Virginia it was generally thought the trouble would soon be over. Never was there a greater hallucination. In a few weeks came tidings of skirmishes and deaths among those who had but just left us. At this juncture on day I was brought to a realizing sense of what war was. By chance I saw on Broadway, just above Fifth street, a group of servant-girls and children. A hearse and a few carriages were in front. On inquiry I learned it was the funeral of a young man who had been killed in a skirmish in Western Virginia. In a little while an old man with his wife leaning on his arm, parents of the deceased, came out, bowed and heart-broken, followed by sorrowing brothers and sisters; they got into the carriages, which then moved slowly away. And this was what war meant. Tears and heart-breaks and lives of sorrow and suffering to the innocent and helpless.

 

The Gawky Officer.—There was, ordinarily, very little pride of military show among those engages in so serious a business as war. The officers, when not on duty, generally appeared in undress. Our streets at times thick with such. It was near the beginning when there passed, walking on Fourth street, by Pike’s Opera House, a very tall, gawky officer, over six feet in stature. He was in full parade dress, with spreading epaulettes, and his stride was that which showed he had passed his days in plowed fields straddling from furrow to furrow. He evidently felt he was creating a sensation in the big city—and he was. Every one turned and looked at this specimen of pomp, fuss, and feathers, with comical emotion.

 

Falling in Battle.—We asked a young man, a captain who had come home on furlough, by the name of EMERSON, whom we well knew, if he had ever seen any one fall in battle. He laughed as though the thought was new and replied, “No, I don’t know that I ever did,” and then turning to a companion said, “Tom, did you?” The latter replied the same. Being always in front they had their eyes only to watch the enemy before them. Both had seen plenty after they were down, but never one in the act of falling. A few months passed. EMERSON had gone to the front. He had command of a small fort down in Tennessee, built to protect a railroad bridge. The enemy made an attack and were repelled. One man only had they killed. It was its commander, EMERSON, his head carried away by a cannon ball. He was a handsome fellow, black eyes and rosy cheeks. His character was of the best. His pastor, Rev. D. Henry M. STORRS, said in speaking of his sacrifice: “So pure and noble was he that his very presence on our streets was continued fragrance.” That laughing, pleasant face is now before me, just as though it was yesterday that he said, “Tom did you?”

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marching through the streets, whether it was Irish, German or American. In regard to one class of Union soldiers there could be no mistake—the negro. On Fifth street, close to Main, on the large space in front of the present Government building, was reared a huge shed-like structure, one story high barracks. Late in the war it was occupied briefly by a regiment or more of plantation blacks, clad in the Union uniform. They were a very different-looking people from our Northern blacks. Many of whom possess bright, interesting faces. These were stolid-appearing, their faces with but little more expression than those of animals. When I saw them they had finished their suppers and were engaged in whiling away their time singing plantation melodies in the gathering shadows of the evening. The voices of this immense multitude went up in a grand orchestra sound. The tunes were plaintive, weirdlike, and the whole exhibition one that could not but affect the thoughtful mind. It was singularly appealing to one’s best instincts to look upon these poor, simple children of nature, who were acting their humble part in the midst of vents so momentous.

 

At times our city was alive with troops, and then it was that the theatres and places of amusement—and places of wickedness—as in Paris during the Reign of Terror, were extraordinarily prosperous. At other times only a few people were seen on the streets, so in any of the men having gone to the war. After the fail of Richmond it was felt that the great bulk of the fighting was over; but it was largely feared that the South would for years continue a scene of guerilla warfare and keep society in a state of chaos. The assassination of Mr. LINCOLN came—a terrible blow in the midst rejoicings at peace. Strong men could only speak of it with swelling throats and choked utterance. The nation writhed in agony. Then came the return of the regiments to their varied homes; but everywhere, amid the general rejoicings, were the stricken families to be reminded only the more vividly of the terrible loss of fathers, sons, and brothers, who had died that the nation might live.

 

CINCINNATI IN 1877.

 

In 1877, after a residence in Cincinnati of thirty years, we returned to our native city of New Haven, when we gave, in a publication there, the annexed described of Cincinnati as it then was. The article is now historical, and hence proper here for permanent record; beside, we which to preserve it as a heartfelt tribute to a city where, and a people among whom, our children were born, and when we had so much enjoyment of life. The caption of the article was “Cincinnati on the Hills.”

 

Recently an Eastern gentleman, a divine of national reputation, at one time like the writer a resident of Cincinnati—a gentleman of broad experience of travel and association in this and other lands—remarked to us: ‘‘Cincinnati is the exceptional city of the world, for the social character of its people and the wise generosity and the public spirit of its wealthy men and citizens generally.” We had long felt this, and were pleased to see it so emphasized by one with such opportunities for a correct opinion.

 

In April, 1832, Catherine BEECHER, arrived at Walnut Hills, then largely in the primeval forest, and before her sister Harriet had come to eventually marry Calvin STOWE, and fill up for the writing of “Uncle Tom.” To her Catherine wrote ‘‘I never saw a place so capable of being rendered a paradise by the improvements of taste as the environs of this city. ‘‘Thirty years later the improvements were well started when out came Theodore WOOLSEY president of Yale College, to Walnut hills for a visit, and, alike enthused, said: “No other city on the globe has such beautiful suburbs.”

 

Prevalence of Public Sprit—While other of our great cities may each point to one or two citizens who have contributed in single gifts tens of thousands to objects promotive of the public welfare, Cincinnati can point to five gentlemen of this class now walking her streets, pleasant to meet, as seeing them recalls their beneficence. They are Reuben SPRINGER, who gave $175,000 toward a music hall, and later regretted that he had not given its full cost, $300,000; Joseph LONGWORTH, $50,000 for a Free Art School, Henry PROBASCO, $105.000 for a public fountain; David SINTON, $33,000 for a Christian association building, and also $100,0000 for the Bethel Sunday-School, where every Sabbath from 2,500 to 3,000 children of poor are gathered under one roof; and William S. GROSEBECK, $50,000 for music in the parks. Beside these are scores of others equally liberal, according to their means, often dispensing hundreds and sometimes thousands in their gifts

 

Cincinnati’s Blessings.—The people are so social, come together so much for social objects that everybody worth knowing is generally known. Pride in themselves, in their city and in their public spirit, is a manifest and righteous characteristic.  They stand on tiptoe when their city is named, and feel a foot taller.

 

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Top Picture

RETURNING FROM THE WAR.

The War is ended, and now we are marching home,

Our noble girls rejoicing to see us soldiers come.

 

They love the drum-beat, the shrill notes of the fife;

They love our dear old flag—are UNION, too, for life.

 

—American Revolution Song Modernized.

 

Bottom Picture.

SQUIRREL HUNTERS CROSSING THE OHIO AT CINCINNATI.

 

 

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Top Picture

MT. AUBURN INCLINED PLANE.

 

Middle Picture

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.

 

Bottom Picture

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bright points, than any other of our large cities. Among these is its zoological garden, established by an association of gentlemen simply as a matter of public beneficence.  It occupies a half-square square of undulating, picturesque ground on the summit of the hills and is the only one in the country with a single exception. Within the enclosure are numerous buildings containing a great variety of animals, beside those in the park outside the buildings, where is a town of prairie dogs and dens with white and grizzly bears.

 

Within the city is a public fountain, a free gift, the finest in the Union; a free public library of over 80,000 volumes, in a magnificent library building, where nearly a score of assistants stand ready to loan out the choicest books to the humblest citizens without price: a free art school, where one can learn, without cost, to draw and paint, carve and mould, and listen to attractive lectures from Benn PITMAN on art; and a music hall and organ, both the largest on the continent, and costing unitedly nearly a third of a million, also a free gift. The steam fire engine is a Cincinnati invention, and the city the first to adopt, which it did through a severe conflict, largely through the indomitable pluck and will-power of Miles GREENWOOD, one of the city’s strongest citizens, literally an iron man.

 

Musical Festivals.—A distinguishing feature of the city has been her musical festivals, to be still greater, for she is to be the centre of music in this country, especially so now that she has secured as her guiding spirit the graceful, manly maestro, Theodore THOMAS, whom simply to see while wielding the baton is alone worth the price of admission. The opening of these festivals is always a gala day. The streets are gay with flags, the hotels and public buildings resplendent with artistic adornments, illustrative of music and musical celebrities, and at night illuminated. Multitudes come, some from hundreds of miles away, to attend these festivals; from Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and other Western states and it is said that once there was a man who came all the way from Boston! But we never believed it. At the seasons of these festivals the streets are crowded with a body of ladies and gentlemen, elegantly attired, with refined mind thoughtful expressions, perhaps beyond anything seen there on any other public occasions, thus attesting to the elevating influence of music upon her votaries, and the elevated class which time art divine brings within the circle of her magic wand.

 

Industrial Expositions.—In the past years Cincinnati has taken the lead in her industrial expositions. Her experience was so great that when Philadelphia gave her Centennial she wisely went there for her Director General. This she found Alfred C. GOSHORN, the Cincinnati manager, a gentleman of but few words, who, by silent energy and brain power, could bring order from chaos and master inharmonious and distracting elements to unite and move together as in the harmony and beauty of a grand sym-phony.

 

Incline Planes.—The city proper is on two planes, one called the “Bottom,” 60 feet and the other 112 feet above low-watermark in the river. This, with the exception of New York and Boston, is the most densely populated area in the Union. Owing to the contracted dimensions of the plains, population is rapidly extending on the river hills. There are nearly 400 feet above the city, and take one on to the general level of the country. Besides roads leading to their summits, there are in all four inclined railway planes—on the north, east and west—where, by stationary engines at the top, people are taken up, sometimes nearly a hundred in a car, and in ninety seconds. They are hauled up by a wire rope large as one’s wrist, which winds around a drum with a monotonous humming sound, quick resounding, as though in a hurry to get you up.  An extra rope is attached to each car as a precaution in case the one in use should break

 

Bird’s-eye Views.—The views from the hills are unique. Seemingly within a stone’s throw one looks down from a height of between 300 and 400 feet into a huge basin-like area filled by a dense, compact city. Beyond this wilderness of walls, roofs and steeples, is seen the Ohio, with its magnificent bridges, the Kentucky towns of Covington and Newport opposite. Encircling hills everywhere bound the view, through which the Ohio pierces, turning its broad silvery surface to that sun which shines equally for us all.

 

Beer Gardens and Music.—At the summit of these planes are immense beer gardens with mammoth buildings, when on stifling summer nights the city hive swarms out thousands upon thousands of all classed and nationalities, who thus come together and alike yield to the potent influences of music and lager, One, the Highland House, travelers say, is not only the largest in the world but is unequalled in splendor and appointments. It is on Mount Adams, east of the city plain, where nearly 40 years ago John Quincy Adams, “the old man eloquent,’’ delivered his oration on the occasion of laying the cornerstone of the Cincinnati Observatory, the first astronomical building erected in human history by the joint contributions of private citizens. Thus early had this people initiated those habits of public beneficence which bring down blessings from the stars. In the summer of 1877 Theodore THOMAS with his orchestra gave there three continuous weeks of music, with audiences on some nights of from 6,000 to 8,000 people, many of them around tables and taking in music with their beer.

 

Viewed from the city the long lines of hundred lights, in places rising tier above tier, marking the spot, made the place appear as an illuminated palace in the skies; While the lighted car in incessant motion up and down the inclined plane looked like a huge fire ball in transit.

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with its miles of street lamps vanishing in the distance, and the broad Ohio with its, moving steamers lighted up, gave to those on the hill top an equally picturesque view as they sat there listening to the music, their brows whilom fanned by the cool breezes from the west. This was comfort, solid comfort up there as one might say at an alighting place between the basin-placed city and it overhanging stars.

 

The Germans.—The prevalence of music and lager in the city is largely owing to the Germans.  Of the 300,000 inhabitants at this centre nearly one-third are Germans or of German stock.  In these respects the American have become largely Teutonized.

 

The Germans are notably frugal and thrifty. The ambition of each family is to own its dwelling—their great ambition a three-story brick. They associate with and cultivate the acquaintance of there own families more thoroughly than our people do theirs. They resort on Sunday afternoons, with their wives and children, to the beer gardens on the hill tops, where there is music, green arbors, kindly skies and soft airs. The utmost decorum prevails. All classes of Germans with their families to the toddling infant thus mingle in calm, peaceful recreation. They learn to know and sympathize with each other, a matter seemingly impossible with a certain class of our snobbish country-men who ever seem dreadfully apprehensive of soiling their gentility.

 

Love of Flowers.—A pleasing characteristic of the Germans is their passion for flowers. While American woman of humble rank will spend money for an article of personal adornment that perchance may destroy all grace of movement and crucify all beauty, a German woman will purchase a pot of flowers. On passing even tenements houses occupied by Germans, one will often see every window, may be thirty or forty in all, story upon story, filled with pots of flowers. These please the thoughtful passer-by as he thinks of a people who thus endeavor to make fragrant their hard work-day lives.

 

German Peculiarities.—The original Germans are largely of the working class. Like old-country folk, generally, they are clannish and let their affections go back to the father-land, while their children take especial pride in being thought Americans; indeed some manifest shame at being overheard by Americans talking in the German tongue.

 

A very common sight in the German quarters is to see old men, grandfathers, on their last legs, acting as nurses for babies, pushing them around in carriages or dangling them on their knees, they meanwhile regaling themselves with their everlasting pipes.

 

The common class of Germans in the city know next to nothing of the inner life of Americans. Some of them stigmatize us as “Irish.” Their gross ignorance after a residence on our soil of often half a life-time impressed us with the sheer folly of people traveling in Europe, fancying they receive anything more than a surface knowledge of Europeans. Of the earnest spiritual life of our orthodox Christian people they have not the faintest conception. Nothing like it exists among them. As to Sunday; even the Protestant Germans, attach to it no especial sanctity, while the Catholics everywhere every day is equally “the Lord’s.”

 

The Crusaders Among the Germans.—When the temperance crusade opened the Germans were dumbfounded. Beer is with them as water is with us, and it used from infancy to old age. They received the crusading bands with stolid silence, looking at the ladies from out of their round blue eyes with an expression that showed that their sensations must have been queer, indescribable. Not a saloon in the city was closed. The ladies might as well have prayed and sang before the Rock of Gibraltar. One day the crusade among the Germans came to a sudden end. An entire band of ladies, wives and mothers of the very best citizens, were arrested by the city police—respectfully arrested and escorted to the police station, and charged with violating the city laws in obstructing the sidewalks. As in usual with criminals, they were compelled to register their names, residence and ages! As they were not put in “the lock-up,” their pockets were saved the usual emptying.

 

During those exciting times the temperance meetings were crowded, and men and women alike addressed the multitudes, the exercised being varied with prayer and song. It was noted that while the men always more or less hesitated, the women never. Their words always flowed as from an everlasting fountain. Pathos, poetry and matter of fact were the concomitants in varied measures of their speech.

 

At some of these meetings the narratives were so touching that hundreds were melted in tears. We remember one we attended when we were so affected by an involuntary twitching of the facial muscles, that to conceal anything that might happen we bowed our head and looked into the bottom of our hat to study and see if we could not improve the lettering of the hatter’s advertisement. And we believe we succeeded!

 

And the speaker who so aroused our emotions by the plaintive melody of her voice and the heart-melting scenes of her narrative, was a woman, and she with crispy hair and black as the ace of spades! The earthly tabernacle is as nothing, but it is the divine spirit, wherever it enters, that gives dignity to its possessor, lifts and unites with the Infinite.

 

In the interior of the State, among an American orthodox population, the Crusaders were wonderfully successful. Peter the Hermit had come again—this time in the form of Dio LEWIS. In some villages every saloon was closed. It seemed for a time as though another age of miracles had dawned upon mankind.