Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, 23rd September 1870.

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Where was I in my narrative? I guess (I am getting a thorough Yankee in my vernacular) I gave you a short account of the queen city, as they call Cincinnati. We left Cincinnati at ten o’clock on Wednesday night and came right away for 600 miles to Philadelphia.

The most interesting part of the road was the crossing the Alleghanies, up which we wound through vast forest tracks for some thirty miles, and down the eastern slopes in the sunset, getting daylight for all the most beautiful parts. As we were rushing up one of the finest gorges, some 200 yards wide, we were suddenly aware of a huge eagle (bigger than those we saw on the Danube as we steamed through the Iron Cates) sailing up on the opposite side, perhaps 100 yards from the train. We were going eighty miles an hour at the least, and the grand old fellow swept along without the least apparent effort, keeping abreast of our car for I should think a couple of miles, when he suddenly turned and settled on a fine pine-tree.

After breakfast we had a real field-day in this splendid city, which rivals Boston in interest and character. Outside it is built of red brick and white marble, the contrast of which materials is to me singularly taking, though I daresay it is very bad art.

Then the chief streets run away long and straight, and as you look down them all seem to dive into groups of trees. Walnut Street, Chestnut Street, and Spruce Street are the names of the oldest and handsomest avenues. Our friend Field, the banker, was all ready for us, and a dozen new friends, including General Meade, the first Federal general who won the battle in the East, and a charming, tall, handsome, grizzled, gentlemanly soldier. We went over the old State House, a pre-revolutionary building, from the top of which there is a splendid view of the town, with the two rivers, the Delaware and Schuylkill, on which it stands. There is the hall in which the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the chair in which Hancock sat, and the table on which it lay for signature. The square is charming, with its old trees and turf, just as it has always stood, and I am happy to say the Pennsylvanians are very proud «of the old place, won’t allow it to be touched, and are likely to keep it there till it burns, as I suppose the State House, with all the old-fashioned timbers in wall and roof, will some day. Then we went to the great Normal School for girls here, five hundred strong, the daughters of all sorts of folk, from physicians and lawyers to labourers. I was exceedingly interested and instructed in many classes, especially in the history class. The handsome, self-possessed young woman who was teaching was just beginning the Revolutionary War as we came in, and “felt like” changing the subject as she said, but I begged her to go on, and heard the old story from Lexington down to Cornwallis’s surrender without turning a hair. After classes, at two, the whole school was gathered for Scripture reading and singing a hymn. After the hymn, in compliment to us, they began “God save the Queen”; Rawlins and I got up by a sort of instinct, and to my immense amusement up got the whole company. Then I was asked to say a few words; and talked about the grand education they were getting, referred to the history class and told them no Englishman worth the name now regretted the end of the struggle one hundred years old, but only that any of the bitterness should still be left; spoke of the grand country which has been entrusted to them to be filled with the poor of the whole world, told them that we had a woman’s rights movement at home as well as they, which I hoped would not fall into any great absurdities, but there were two rights they would always insist on—the right of every girl in the States to such an education as they were getting, and their own right (they are all being educated as teachers) to go and give this education to those who want it most in West and South. Then the girls all filed out to march music, played by a senior girl, winding in and out of the rows of benches on which they had sat, and so away downstairs and to all parts of the town, the prettiest sight you can imagine. The girls are at the most awkward age, and, of course, many of them plain, but altogether as comely as the same sort would be with us, and not a sign of poverty amongst them, though many were quite plainly dressed. My democratic soul rejoiced at the sight as you may fancy. What a chance for straining the nonsense out of a girl if she has any! We adjourned from the great training-school for girls to the Girard College for orphan boys, founded by a queer old French Voltairian citizen of Philadelphia, who died some forty years ago and left property worth half a million of our money to found this college, with the express proviso that no parson of any denomination was ever to be admitted within the walls. I am happy to say, however, that, notwithstanding this provision, which is observed to the letter, the Bible is read and every day’s instruction is begun and ended by a religious service. This, by the way, is the case almost everywhere in the States. Notwithstanding all the assertions to the contrary, I have found only one place in which the education is purely secular. This was Cincinnati, where the result is obtained by a combination of the Roman Catholics with the German town population. Well, this college, as it is called, is simply a vast boys’ home, just like our own, except that the boys live in a most superb white marble building, copied from the Parthenon. The classes were being taught, and kept in right good order by women, who indeed almost monopolise teaching in this State, and they are in the proportion of more than ten to one. The fault of Girard College is that it is not wanted; the public school system which has grown up since its foundation being open to every one, and offering at least as good an education. If its funds could have been used to support the boys while at the public schools it would have been better. The whole arrangements are decidedly more luxurious than those at Rugby in my time, and they have not yet established workshops. After our round of institutions we were entertained at the Union League Club. The dinner was good and the company better, Mr. MacMichael, the mayor, who had been the chief mover in establishing the club in the dark days of 1861, presided, with General Meade, who commanded at Gettysburg on his left and me on his right. Dear old Field, the most furious and impulsive of Republicans, and the most ardent lover and abuser of England and Englishmen, vice-president, and the rest of the company, staff-officers in the war or marked men in some other way. The club had sent eleven regiments to the war at its own expense, and had exercised immense influence on the Union at the most critical time. At last I was fairly cornered; I had often before had to defend our position in sharp skirmishes, but now, for the first time, was in for a general engagement. Well, I just threw away all defensive arms, and attacked them at once. “You say we were led by our aristocracy, who were savagely hostile to you; I admit they were hostile, though with many notable exceptions, such as the Duke of Argyll, Lord Carlisle, Howards and Cavendishes; but what did you expect? I have taken in three or four American papers for years, and in your debates in Congress, in your newspapers, in every utterance of your public men, I have never heard or read anything but savage abuse of our aristocracy. They don’t reply to your insults, but they don’t forget them, so when you got into such hard lines they went in heartily for your enemies. Well, you say the South were England’s real enemies for the last forty years. True, but aristocracy did not care for that, democracy was represented by you, and that was what they went against.” There was an outcry: “Why, here’s a pretty business, we thought you were a Democrat.”

“So I am, in our English sense, but I am before all things an Englishman. I have nothing to do with our aristocracy (except knowing a few of them), and I fought as hard against them in England through the war as you did against the rebels; but I am not going to allow you to separate them from the nation, or to suppose that they can be punished except through the nation.”

“Well, but what do you say for all your great commercial world—bankers, merchants, manufacturers, our correspondents, look how they turned on us!”

“It’s no part of my business to defend them; they were mean, I allow, but their business was, as they supposed, and as all of you agree, to make money; besides, after all, who fought your battle better than Cobden, Bright, Forster, and such men as Kirkman-Hodson, and Tom Baring?” Then they fell back on the general position that our Government was hostile to them, and I went through what had really happened in Parliament, and made them admit that if we had listened to Louis Napoleon, and the blockade had been broken, it would have been a narrow squeak for the Union. On the whole, I think, I made a good deal of impression on most of them. General Meade and the soldiers were on my side throughout, and admitted at once that, after all the abuse their press heaped on our governing classes, it was childish to cry out when they proved that they knew of the abuse and didn’t love the abusers. We all parted the warmest friends, and I went off to tea at Mrs. W———s’, where we met Dr. Mitchell, a scientific man, and his sister, and other very pleasant folk, and heard many interesting stories of the war. The next morning we started for Gettysburg. I had always made a point with myself of seeing this one at any rate of the great battlefields. It was the real turning-point of the war, fought on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of July 1863, after the series of defeats and failures under M’Clellan, Pope Hooker, Burnside. I well remember what a long breath we (the Abolitionists) drew in England when the news came of Lee’s defeat at the farthest point he had ever made to the North, and felt sure, for the first time, that the war would be put through, and slavery be abolished right down to the Gulf of Mexico. We had the best escort possible in the person of Rosengarten, who was aide-decamp to General Reynolds, commander of the corps which came up first and sustained the whole weight of battle on the first day. Field also “came along,” and we had a first-rate time on our journey over the Susquehanna bridge, which the Northern militia burnt behind them as they escaped from Lee’s advance. Then we stopped for an hour or two, waiting for a train at York, a nice shady quiet country town of 11,000 inhabitants. The rebels had occupied the place for three days and levied a matter of 80,000 dollars on the people; in all other respects they seem to have behaved excellently and to have been well under command. The old Episcopalian clergyman, a warm friend of England, who had been Rosengarten’s tutor, and to whom we paid a visit, gave us a capital description of the three days’ occupation, and of the relief the York folk experienced when the poor ragged rebels marched off for Gettysburg, and left the town very little poorer than they had found it. We didn’t get to our inn, a huge wooden building on the first day’s battlefield, till after sunset. Tea over, we came out on the wooden platform which runs all round the house, and saw the most glorious sight I have ever seen, I think, in the skies. Steaming up Memphremagog we saw the aurora borealis splendidly, but that was nothing to this. In Canada there was no colour in the pure flashes of light which lit and pulsed over the whole sky, but on Saturday the changes of colour were splendid, and I should say for half an hour the heavens were throbbing with the most lovely rose-coloured streamers and sheets and flashes. With my view of the importance to the poor old world of the struggle which was descending there, you can fancy that such an introduction to it was welcome and impressive. Next day we devoted to the battlefield: began at the beginning where, on Thursday the 1st July 1863, Rosengarten himself, as Reynolds’s aide-decamp, had ridden forward and placed the first Federal regiments which came on the ground in position between the town of Gettysburg, which contains about 3000 inhabitants and lies in a hollow, and the advancing rebels. Gettysburg is at the junction of three roads and was a point which both armies were bent on seizing. The fight on this the north-east side of the town began early on Thursday. Rosengarten, after carrying out his orders, rode back, and was just in time to see his General fall from his horse, shot through the neck by a sharpshooter, and helped to carry him off the field. After many hours’ hard fighting the Federals were driven back through the town with heavy loss. Our friend, General Barlow, who commanded a brigade, was also badly wounded. Luckily, during the day two more corps of the army of the Potomac had come up and been placed in position on a hill just to the south of the town, on part of which the cemetery now stands, which was made immortal by Lincoln’s glorious speech at the inauguration. Behind these fresh troops the broken 1st and 11th corps rallied and prepared for the next day. Reinforcements came up to Lee also, and in the town the shopkeepers and other inhabitants heard them making certain of an easy victory in the morning. Meade is evidently a man who gains and holds the confidence of his troops; but as he was slightly outnumbered, and the rebels had the prestige of the first day’s victory, I take it he must have been beaten but for the splendid position he had selected. His troops lay along two lines of hills, covered in many places with wood which sloped away from the point overlooking the town, leaving a space between them secure from fire, in which he could move his troops without being seen, while every move of Lee’s was open to him. The Confederates began attacks early and kept them up throughout the day, but could not force the position except at one point, where, after dark, they succeeded in making a lodgment and spent the night within Meade’s lines. In the morning they were driven out after a desperate struggle, and later in the day Lee made a determined attempt with Longstreet’s corps to break the line again. He lost three generals and about 4000 men in the great effort, and when it failed, and he had to fall back to his own lines, the back of the Rebellion was broken and the doom of slavery sealed for ever in North America. At night he went away south, leaving most of his wounded, but Meade was too much exhausted to do more than follow slowly. I am writing in hot haste to catch the post, so can give you no clear idea, I fear, of the great day. The hotel was a nice, clean, reasonable place, with a landlord and servants really civil, and we enjoyed our excursion more than I can tell you.

Next day we came on to Baltimore, drove as usual in the beautiful park and about the town in a carriage sent for us by some patriotic citizen, dined at the Union Club, to which they gave us the entrÉe, and came on to Washington.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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