Burton Egbert Stevenson

THE EAGLE'S SONG

CHAPTER I

RECONSTRUCTION AND AFTER

The war was over, but three great questions remained to be settled. How were the people of the South to be regarded? How was the Union to be reconstructed? What was to be done with the three millions of negroes who had been given their freedom? These were the questions which came before the Thirty-Ninth Congress.

TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS

O people-chosen! are ye not
Likewise the chosen of the Lord,
To do His will and speak His word?

From the loud thunder-storm of war
Not man alone hath called ye forth,
But He, the God of all the earth!

The torch of vengeance in your hands
He quenches; unto Him belongs
The solemn recompense of wrongs.

Enough of blood the land has seen,
And not by cell or gallows-stair
Shall ye the way of God prepare.

Say to the pardon-seekers: Keep
Your manhood, bend no suppliant knees,
Nor palter with unworthy pleas.

Above your voices sounds the wail
Of starving men; we shut in vain
Our eyes to Pillow's ghastly stain.

What words can drown that bitter cry?
What tears wash out the stain of death?
What oaths confirm your broken faith?

From you alone the guaranty
Of union, freedom, peace, we claim;
We urge no conqueror's terms of shame.

Alas! no victor's pride is ours;
We bend above our triumphs won
Like David o'er his rebel son.

Be men, not beggars. Cancel all
By one brave, generous action: trust
Your better instincts, and be just!

Make all men peers before the law,
Take hands from off the negro's throat,
Give black and white an equal vote.

Keep all your forfeit lives and lands,
But give the common law's redress
To labor's utter nakedness.

Revive the old heroic will;
Be in the right as brave and strong
As ye have proved yourselves in wrong.

Defeat shall then be victory,
Your loss the wealth of full amends,
And hate be love, and foes be friends.

Then buried be the dreadful past,
Its common slain be mourned, and let
All memories soften to regret.

Then shall the Union's mother-heart
Her lost and wandering ones recall,
Forgiving and restoring all,—

And Freedom break her marble trance
Above the Capitolian dome,
Stretch hands, and bid ye welcome home!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

Few men could have been worse fitted for the delicate task of reconstruction than Andrew Johnson. But even his policy, narrow as it was, was not narrow enough to suit the radical Republicans in Congress.

"MR. JOHNSON'S POLICY OF RECONSTRUCTION"

SOME COMMENT FROM THE BOYS IN BLUE

"His policy," do you say?
By heaven, who says so lies in his throat!
'Twas our policy, boys, from our muster-day,
Through skirmish and bivouac, march and fray—
"His policy," do you say?

"His policy"—do but note!
'Tis a pitiful falsehood for you to say.
Did he bid all the stars in our banner float?
Was it he shouted Union from every throat
Through the long war's weary day?

"His policy"—how does it hap?
Has the old word "Union" no meaning, pray?
What meant the "U. S." upon every cap—
Upon every button, belt, and strap?
'Twas our policy all the way.

"His policy?" That may do
For a silly and empty political brag;
But 'twas held by every Boy in Blue
When he lifted his right hand, stanch and true,
And swore to sustain the flag.

We are with him none the less—
He works for the same great end we sought;
We feel for the South in its deep distress,
And to get the old Union restored we press—
'Twas for this we enlisted and fought.

Be it his or whose it may,
'Tis the policy, boys, that we avow;
There were noble hearts in the ranks of gray
As they proved on many a bloody day,
And we would not oppress them now.

"Let us all forgive and forget:"
It was thus Grant spoke to General Lee,
When, with wounds still raw and bayonets wet,
The chiefs of the two great armies met
Beneath the old apple-tree.

Charles Graham Halpine.

The leader of this coterie was Thaddeus Stevens. He declared the South was in a state of anarchy, demanded that it be placed under military rule and that suffrage be extended to the negroes. In February, 1868, he introduced a resolution that "Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors in office," but at the trial which followed the proceedings were shown to have been actuated by partisan bitterness and the President was acquitted. The verdict was a heavy blow to Stevens. He had burned himself out and died in August.

THADDEUS STEVENS

DIED AUG. 11, 1868

An eye with the piercing eagle's fire,
Not the look of the gentle dove;
Not his the form that men admire,
Nor the face that tender women love.

Working first for his daily bread
With the humblest toilers of the earth;
Never walking with free, proud tread—
Crippled and halting from his birth.

Wearing outside a thorny suit
Of sharp, sarcastic, stinging power;
Sweet at the core as sweetest fruit,
Or inmost heart of fragrant flower.

Fierce and trenchant, the haughty foe
Felt his words like a sword of flame;
But to the humble, poor, and low
Soft as a woman's his accents came.

Not his the closest, tenderest friend—
No children blessed his lonely way;
But down in his heart until the end
The tender dream of his boyhood lay.

His mother's faith he held not fast;
But he loved her living, mourned her dead,
And he kept her memory to the last
As green as the sod above her bed.

He held as sacred in his home
Whatever things she wrought or planned,
And never suffered change to come
To the work of her "industrious hand."

For her who pillowed first his head
He heaped with a wealth of flowers the grave,
While he chose to sleep in an unmarked bed,
By his Master's humblest poor—the slave!

Suppose he swerved from the straightest course—
That the things he should not do he did—
That he hid from the eyes of mortals, close,
Such sins as you and I have hid?

Or suppose him worse than you; what then?
Judge not, lest you be judged for sin!
One said who knew the hearts of men:
Who loveth much shall a pardon win.

The Prince of Glory for sinners bled;
His soul was bought with a royal price;
And his beautified feet on flowers may tread
To-day with his Lord in Paradise.

Phoebe Cary.

The South's condition meanwhile was pitiful indeed. Negroes, led by "carpet-baggers" from the North, secured the ascendancy in state government. Millions of dollars were wasted or stolen, and it looked for a time as though a great section of the country was doomed to negro domination.

SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE STATES OF THE NORTH

ESPECIALLY TO THOSE THAT FORMED A PART OF THE ORIGINAL THIRTEEN

I lift these hands with iron fetters banded:
Beneath the scornful sunlight and cold stars
I rear my once imperial forehead branded
By alien shame's immedicable scars;
Like some pale captive, shunned by all the nations,
I crouch unpitied, quivering and apart—
Laden with countless woes and desolations,
The life-blood freezing round a broken heart!

About my feet, splashed red with blood of slaughters,
My children gathering in wild, mournful throngs,
Despairing sons, frail infants, stricken daughters,
Rehearse the awful burden of their wrongs;
Vain is their cry, and worse than vain their pleading:
I turn from stormy breasts, from yearning eyes,
To mark where Freedom's outraged form receding,
Wanes in chill shadow down the midnight skies!

I wooed her once in wild tempestuous places,
The purple vintage of my soul outpoured,
To win and keep her unrestrained embraces,
What time the olive-crown o'ertopped the sword;
Oh! northmen, with your gallant heroes blending,
Mine, in old years, for this sweet goddess died;
But now—ah! shame, all other shame transcending!
Your pitiless hands have torn her from my side.

What! 'tis a tyrant-party's treacherous action—
Your hand is clean, your conscience clear, ye sigh;
Ay! but ere now your sires had throttled faction,
Or, pealed o'er half the world their battle-cry;
Its voice outrung from solemn mountain-passes
Swept by wild storm-winds of the Atlantic strand,
To where the swart Sierras' sullen grasses
Droop in low languors of the sunset-land!

Never, since earthly States began their story,
Hath any suffered, bided, borne like me:
At last, recalling all mine ancient glory,
I vowed my fettered Commonwealth to free:
Even at the thought, beside the prostrate column
Of chartered rights, which blasted lay and dim—
Uprose my noblest son with purpose solemn,
While, host on host, his brethren followed him:

Wrong, grasped by truth, arraigned by law (whose sober
Majestic mandates rule o'er change and time)—
Smit by the ballot, like some flushed October,
Reeled in the Autumn rankness of his crime;
Struck, tortured, pierced—but not a blow returning.
The steadfast phalanx of my honored braves
Planted their bloodless flag where sunrise burning,
Flashed a new splendor o'er our martyrs' graves!

What then? Oh, sister States! what welcome omen
Of love and concord crossed our brightening blue,
The foes we vanquished, are they not your foemen,
Our laws upheld, your sacred safeguards, too?
Yet scarce had victory crowned our grand endeavor,
And peace crept out from shadowy glooms remote—
Than—as if bared to blast all hope forever,
Your tyrant's sword shone glittering at my throat!

Once more my bursting chains were reunited,
Once more barbarian plaudits wildly rung
O'er the last promise of deliverance blighted,
The prostrate purpose and the palsied tongue:
Ah! faithless sisters, 'neath my swift undoing,
Peers the black presage of your wrath to come;
Above your heads are signal clouds of ruin,
Whose lightnings flash, whose thunders are not dumb!

There towers a judgment-seat beyond our seeing;
There lives a Judge, whom none can bribe or blind;
Before whose dread decree, your spirit fleeing,
May reap the whirlwind, having sown the wind:
I, in that day of justice, fierce and torrid,
When blood—your blood—outpours like poisoned wine,
Pointing to these chained limbs, this blasted forehead,
May mock your ruin, as ye mocked at mine!

Paul Hamilton Hayne.

But the white people of the South rallied at last, asserted their supremacy, and seized the reins of government. The famous Ku-Klux Klan was organized and spread terror among the negroes, by its sure and swift administration of punishment—just and unjust.

KU-KLUX

We have sent him seeds of the melon's core,
And nailed a warning upon his door;
By the Ku-Klux laws we can do no more.

Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack,
The roof of his low-porched house looms black,
Not a line of light at the doorsill's crack.

Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride!
The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!
And for a word too much men oft have died.

The clouds blow heavy towards the moon.
The edge of the storm will reach it soon.
The killdee cries and the lonesome loon.

The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare
Than the lightning makes with his angled flare,
When the Ku-Klux verdict is given there.

In the pause of the thunder rolling low,
A rifle's answer—who shall know
From the wind's fierce hurl and the rain's black blow?

Only the signature written grim
At the end of the message brought to him,—
A hempen rope and a twisted limb.

So arm and mount! and mask and ride!
The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!
And for a word too much men oft have died.

Madison Cawein.

The North kept its hands off and permitted the South to work out its own destiny—which it did blindly and blunderingly enough. Yet bravely, too; for it had only ashes to build from. But from the ashes a new land arose, and a better one.

THE REAR GUARD

The guns are hushed. On every field once flowing
With war's red flood May's breath of peace is shed,
And, spring's young grass and gracious flowers are growing
Above the dead.

Ye gray old men whom we this day are greeting,
Honor to you, honor and love and trust!
Brave to the brave. Your soldier hands are meeting
Across their dust.

Bravely they fought who charged when flags were flying
In cannon's crash, in screech and scream of shell;
Bravely they fell, who lay alone and dying
In battle's hell.

Honor to them! Far graves to-day are flinging
Up through the soil peace-blooms to meet the sun,
And daisied heads to summer winds are singing
Their long "well done."

Our vanguard, they. They went with hot blood flushing
At battle's din, at joy of bugle's call.
They fell with smiles, the flood of young life gushing,
Full brave the fall!

But braver ye who, when the war was ended,
And bugle's call and wave of flag were done,
Could come back home, so long left undefended.
Your cause unwon,

And twist the useless sword to hook of reaping,
Rebuild the homes, set back the empty chair
And brave a land where waste and want were keeping
Guard everywhere.

All this you did, your courage strong upon you,
And out of ashes, wreck, a new land rose,
Through years of war no braver battle won you,
'Gainst fiercer foes.

And now to-day a prospered land is cheering
And lifting up her voice in lusty pride
For you gray men, who fought and wrought, not fearing
Battle's red tide.

Our rear guard, ye whose step is slowing, slowing,
Whose ranks, earth-thinned, are filling otherwhere,
Who wore the gray—the gray, alas! still showing
On bleaching hair.

For forty years you've watched this land grow stronger,
For forty years you've been its bulwark, stay;
Tarry awhile; pause yet a little longer
Upon the way.

And set our feet where there may be no turning,
And set our faces straight on duty's track,
Where there may be for stray, strange goods no yearning
Nor looking back.

And when for you the last tattoo has sounded,
And on death's silent field you've pitched your tent,
When, bowed through tears, the arc of life has rounded
To full content,

We that are left will count it guerdon royal,
Our heritage no years can take away,
That we were born of those, unflinching, loyal,
Who wore the gray.

Irene Fowler Brown.

The bitterness which the great struggle had engendered gradually gave place to a kindlier feeling. As early as 1867, the women of Columbus, Miss., decorated alike the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers, an action which was the first of many such.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

[1867]

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the laurel, the Blue,
Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe:
Under the sod and the dew
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray.

So with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue,
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue,
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done,
In the storm of the years that are fading
No braver battle was won:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue,
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.

Francis Miles Finch.

When the South was swept by yellow fever a few years later, the North rushed to its relief in a way which showed how completely old animosities had been forgotten.

THE STRICKEN SOUTH TO THE NORTH

When ruthful time the South's memorial places—
Her heroes' graves—had wreathed in grass and flowers;
When Peace ethereal, crowned by all her graces,
Returned to make more bright the summer hours;
When doubtful hearts revived, and hopes grew stronger;
When old sore-cankering wounds that pierced and stung,
Throbbed with their first, mad, feverous pain no longer,
While the fair future spake with flattering tongue;
When once, once more she felt her pulses beating
To rhythms of healthful joy and brave desire;
Lo! round her doomed horizon darkly meeting,
A pall of blood-red vapors veined with fire!

Oh! ghastly portent of fast-coming sorrows!
Of doom that blasts the blood and blights the breath,
Robs youth and manhood of all golden morrows—
And life's clear goblet brims with wine of death!—
Oh! swift fulfilment of this portent dreary!
Oh! nightmare rule of ruin, racked by fears,
Heartbroken wail, and solemn miserere,
Imperious anguish, and soul-melting tears!
Oh! faith, thrust downward from celestial splendors,
Oh! love grief-bound, with palely-murmurous mouth!
Oh! agonized by life's supreme surrenders—
Behold her now—the scourged and suffering South!

No balm in Gilead? nay, but while her forehead,
Pallid and drooping, lies in foulest dust,
There steals across the desolate spaces torrid,
A voice of manful cheer and heavenly trust,
A hand redeeming breaks the frozen starkness
Of palsied nerve, and dull, despondent brain;
Rolls back the curtain of malignant darkness,
And shows the eternal blue of heaven again—
Revealing there, o'er worlds convulsed and shaken,
That face whose mystic tenderness enticed
To hope new-born earth's lost bereaved, forsaken!
Ah! still beyond the tempest smiles the Christ!

Whose voice? Whose hand? Oh, thanks divinest Master,
Thanks for those grand emotions which impart
Grace to the North to feel the South's disaster,
The South to bow with touched and cordial heart!
Now, now at last the links which war had broken
Are welded fast, at mercy's charmed commands;
Now, now at last the magic words are spoken
Which blend in one two long-divided lands!
O North! you came with warrior strife and clangor;
You left our South one gory burial ground;
But love, more potent than your haughtiest anger,
Subdues the souls which hate could only wound!

Paul Hamilton Hayne.

On July 29, 1866, the first submarine cable was completed between Ireland and Newfoundland, the enterprise having been undertaken and carried through by Cyrus West Field.

HOW CYRUS LAID THE CABLE

[July 29, 1866]

Come, listen all unto my song;
It is no silly fable;
'Tis all about the mighty cord
They call the Atlantic Cable.

Bold Cyrus Field he said, says he,
"I have a pretty notion
That I can run a telegraph
Across the Atlantic Ocean."

Then all the people laughed, and said
They'd like to see him do it;
He might get half-seas over, but
He never could go through it.

To carry out his foolish plan
He never would be able;
He might as well go hang himself
With his Atlantic Cable.

But Cyrus was a valiant man,
A fellow of decision;
And heeded not their mocking words,
Their laughter and derision.

Twice did his bravest efforts fail,
And yet his mind was stable;
He wa'n't the man to break his heart
Because he broke his cable.

"Once more, my gallant boys!" he cried;
"Three times!—you know the fable
(I'll make it thirty," muttered he,
"But I will lay the cable!").

Once more they tried,—hurrah! hurrah!
What means this great commotion?
The Lord be praised! the cable's laid
Across the Atlantic Ocean!

Loud ring the bells,—for, flashing through
Six hundred leagues of water,
Old Mother England's benison
Salutes her eldest daughter!

O'er all the land the tidings speed,
And soon, in every nation,
They'll hear about the cable with
Profoundest admiration!

Now, long live President and Queen;
And long live gallant Cyrus;
And may his courage, faith, and zeal
With emulation fire us;

And may we honor evermore
The manly, bold, and stable;
And tell our sons, to make them brave,
How Cyrus laid the cable!

John Godfrey Saxe.

THE CABLE HYMN

O lonely bay of Trinity,
O dreary shores, give ear!
Lean down unto the white-lipped sea
The voice of God to hear!

From world to world His couriers fly,
Thought-winged and shod with fire;
The angel of His stormy sky
Rides down the sunken wire.

What saith the herald of the Lord?
"The world's long strife is done;
Close wedded by that mystic cord,
Its continents are one.

"And one in heart, as one in blood,
Shall all her peoples be;
The hands of human brotherhood
Are clasped beneath the sea.

"Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain
And Asian mountains borne,
The vigor of the Northern brain
Shall nerve the world outworn.

"From clime to clime, from shore to shore,
Shall thrill the magic thread;
The new Prometheus steals once more
The fire that wakes the dead."

Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat
From answering beach to beach;
Fuse nations in thy kindly heat,
And melt the chains of each!

Wild terror of the sky above,
Glide tamed and dumb below!
Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove,
Thy errands to and fro.

Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord,
Beneath the deep so far,
The bridal robe of earth's accord,
The funeral shroud of war!

For lo! the fall of Ocean's wall
Space mocked and time outrun;
And round the world the thought of all
Is as the thought of one!

The poles unite, the zones agree,
The tongues of striving cease;
As on the Sea of Galilee
The Christ is whispering, Peace!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

The most notable accomplishment of Johnson's administration was the purchase from Russia in 1867 of the territory of Alaska. The price paid was $7,200,000, and the cession was formally made on June 20.

AN ARCTIC VISION

[June 20, 1867]

Where the short-legged Esquimaux
Waddle in the ice and snow,
And the playful Polar bear
Nips the hunter unaware;
Where by day they track the ermine,
And by night another vermin,—
Segment of the frigid zone,
Where the temperature alone
Warms on St. Elias' cone;
Polar dock, where Nature slips
From the ways her icy ships;
Land of fox and deer and sable,
Shore end of our western cable,—
Let the news that flying goes
Thrill through all your Arctic floes,
And reverberate the boast
From the cliffs off Beechey's coast,
Till the tidings, circling round
Every bay of Norton Sound,
Throw the vocal tide-wave back
To the isles of Kodiac.
Let the stately Polar bears
Waltz around the pole in pairs,
And the walrus, in his glee,
Bare his tusk of ivory;
While the bold sea-unicorn
Calmly takes an extra horn;
All ye Polar skies, reveal your
Very rarest of parhelia;
Trip it, all ye merry dancers,
In the airiest of "Lancers";
Slide, ye solemn glaciers, slide,
One inch farther to the tide,
Nor in rash precipitation
Upset Tyndall's calculation.
Know you not what fate awaits you,
Or to whom the future mates you?
All ye icebergs make salaam,—
You belong to Uncle Sam!

On the spot where Eugene Sue
Led his wretched Wandering Jew,
Stands a form whose features strike
Russ and Esquimaux alike.
He it is whom Skalds of old
In their Runic rhymes foretold;
Lean of flank and lank of jaw,
See the real Northern Thor!
See the awful Yankee leering
Just across the Straits of Behring;
On the drifted snow, too plain,
Sinks his fresh tobacco stain,
Just beside the deep inden-
Tation of his Number 10.

Leaning on his icy hammer
Stands the hero of this drama,
And above the wild-duck's clamor,
In his own peculiar grammar,
With its linguistic disguises,
Lo, the Arctic prologue rises:
"Wall, I reckon 'tain't so bad,
Seein' ez 'twas all they had;
True, the Springs are rather late
And early Falls predominate;
But the ice crop's pretty sure,
And the air is kind o' pure;
'Tain't so very mean a trade,
When the land is all surveyed.
There's a right smart chance for fur-chase
All along this recent purchase,
And, unless the stories fail,
Every fish from cod to whale;
Rocks, too; mebbe quartz; let's see,—
'Twould be strange if there should be,—
Seems I've heerd such stories told;
Eh!—why, bless us,—yes, it's gold!"

While the blows are falling thick
From his California pick,
You may recognize the Thor
Of the vision that I saw,—
Freed from legendary glamour,
See the real magician's hammer.

Bret Harte.

ALASKA

Friday, September 24, 1869, witnessed one of the greatest panics ever known in the United States, when Jay Gould and a few associates managed to drive the price of gold up to 162½.

ISRAEL FREYER'S BID FOR GOLD

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1869

Zounds! how the price went flashing through
Wall Street, William, Broad Street, New!
All the specie in all the land
Held in one Ring by a giant hand—
For millions more it was ready to pay,
And throttle the Street on hangman's-day.
Up from the Gold Pit's nether hell,
While the innocent fountain rose and fell,
Loud and higher the bidding rose,
And the bulls, triumphant, faced their foes.
It seemed as if Satan himself were in it:
Lifting it—one per cent a minute—
Through the bellowing broker, there amid,
Who made the terrible, final bid!
High over all, and ever higher,
Was heard the voice of Israel Freyer,—
A doleful knell in the storm-swept mart,—
"Five millions more! and for any part
I'll give One Hundred and Sixty!"

Israel Freyer—the Government Jew—
Good as the best—soaked through and through
With credit gained in the year he sold
Our Treasury's precious hoard of gold;
Now through his thankless mouth rings out
The leaguers' last and cruellest shout!
Pity the shorts? Not they, indeed,
While a single rival's left to bleed!
Down come dealers in silks and hides,
Crowding the Gold Room's rounded sides,
Jostling, trampling each other's feet,
Uttering groans in the outer street;
Watching, with upturned faces pale,
The scurrying index mark its tale;
Hearing the bid of Israel Freyer,—
That ominous voice, would it never tire?
"Five millions more!—for any part
(If it breaks your firm, if it cracks your heart),
I'll give One Hundred and Sixty!"

One Hundred and Sixty! Can't be true!
What will the bears-at-forty do?
How will the merchants pay their dues?
How will the country stand the news?
What'll the banks—but listen! hold!
In screwing upward the price of gold
To that dangerous, last, particular peg,
They have killed their Goose with the Golden Egg!
Just there the metal came pouring out,
All ways at once, like a water-spout,
Or a rushing, gushing, yellow flood,
That drenched the bulls wherever they stood!
Small need to open the Washington main,
Their coffer-dams were burst with the strain!
It came by runners, it came by wire,
To answer the bid of Israel Freyer,
It poured in millions from every side,
And almost strangled him as he cried,—
"I'll give One Hundred and Sixty!"

Like Vulcan after Jupiter's kick,
Or the aphoristical Rocket's stick,
Down, down, down, the premium fell,
Faster than this rude rhyme can tell!
Thirty per cent the index slid,
Yet Freyer still kept making his bid,—
"One Hundred and Sixty for any part!"
—The sudden ruin had crazed his heart,
Shattered his senses, cracked his brain,
And left him crying again and again,—
Still making his bid at the market's top
(Like the Dutchman's leg that never could stop),
"One Hundred and Sixty—Five Millions more!"
Till they dragged him, howling, off the floor.
The very last words that seller and buyer
Heard from the mouth of Israel Freyer—
A cry to remember long as they live—
Were, "I'll take Five Millions more! I'll give—
I'll give One Hundred and Sixty!"

Suppose (to avoid the appearance of evil)
There's such a thing as a Personal Devil,
It would seem that his Highness here got hold,
For once, of a bellowing Bull in Gold!
Whether bull or bear, it wouldn't much matter
Should Israel Freyer keep up his clatter
On earth or under it (as, they say,
He is doomed) till the general Judgment Day,
When the Clerk, as he cites him to answer for 't,
Shall bid him keep silence in that Court!
But it matters most, as it seems to me,
That my countrymen, great and strong and free,
So marvel at fellows who seem to win,
That if even a Clown can only begin
By stealing a railroad, and use its purse
For cornering stocks and gold, or—worse—
For buying a Judge and Legislature,
And sinking still lower poor human nature,
The gaping public, whatever befall,
Will swallow him, tandem, harlots, and all!
While our rich men drivel and stand amazed
At the dust and pother his gang have raised,
And make us remember a nursery tale
Of the four-and-twenty who feared one snail.

What's bred in the bone will breed, you know;
Clowns and their trainers, high and low,
Will cut such capers, long as they dare,
While honest Poverty says its prayer.
But tell me what prayer or fast can save
Some hoary candidate for the grave,
The market's wrinkled Giant Despair,
Muttering, brooding, scheming there,—
Founding a college or building a church
Lest Heaven should leave him in the lurch!
Better come out in the rival way,
Issue your scrip in open day,
And pour your wealth in the grimy fist
Of some gross-mouthed, gambling pugilist;
Leave toil and poverty where they lie,
Pass thinkers, workers, artists, by,
Your pot-house fag from his counters bring
And make him into a Railway King!
Between such Gentiles and such Jews
Little enough one finds to choose:
Either the other will buy and use,
Eat the meat and throw him the bone,
And leave him to stand the brunt alone.

—Let the tempest come, that's gathering near,
And give us a better atmosphere!

Edmund Clarence Stedman.

On October 8 and 9, 1871, Chicago, which had grown to be the greatest city in the West, was almost entirely destroyed by fire. An area of three and a half square miles was burned over; two hundred people were killed and a hundred thousand rendered homeless.

CHICAGO

[October 8-10, 1871]

Men said at vespers: "All is well!"
In one wild night the city fell;
Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain
Before the fiery hurricane.

On threescore spires had sunset shone,
Where ghastly sunrise looked on none.
Men clasped each other's hands, and said:
"The City of the West is dead!"

Brave hearts who fought, in slow retreat,
The fiends of fire from street to street,
Turned, powerless, to the blinding glare,
The dumb defiance of despair.

A sudden impulse thrilled each wire
That signalled round that sea of fire;
Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came;
In tears of pity died the flame!

From East, from West, from South and North,
The messages of hope shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world, full-handed, reached to save.

Fair seemed the old; but fairer still
The new, the dreary void shall fill
With dearer homes than those o'erthrown,
For love shall lay each corner-stone.

Rise, stricken city! from thee throw
The ashen sackcloth of thy woe;
And build, as to Amphion's strain,
To songs of cheer thy walls again!

How shrivelled in thy hot distress
The primal sin of selfishness!
How instant rose, to take thy part,
The angel in the human heart!

Ah! not in vain the flames that tossed
Above thy dreadful holocaust;
The Christ again has preached through thee
The Gospel of Humanity!

Then lift once more thy towers on high,
And fret with spires the western sky,
To tell that God is yet with us,
And love is still miraculous!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

CHICAGO

Blackened and bleeding, helpless, panting, prone,
On the charred fragments of her shattered throne
Lies she who stood but yesterday alone.

Queen of the West! by some enchanter taught
To lift the glory of Aladdin's court,
Then lose the spell that all that wonder wrought.

Like her own prairies by some chance seed sown,
Like her own prairies in one brief day grown,
Like her own prairies in one fierce night mown.

She lifts her voice, and in her pleading call
We hear the cry of Macedon to Paul,
The cry for help that makes her kin to all.

But haply with wan fingers may she feel
The silver cup hid in the proffered meal,
The gifts her kinship and our loves reveal.

Bret Harte.

The whole country rallied to the aid of the stricken city. An Aid and Relief Society was at once formed, and within a month had received subscriptions aggregating three and a half millions.

CHICAGO

Gaunt in the midst of the prairie,
She who was once so fair;
Charred and rent are her garments,
Heavy and dark like cerements;
Silent, but round her the air
Plaintively wails, "Miserere!"

Proud like a beautiful maiden,
Art-like from forehead to feet,
Was she till pressed like a leman
Close to the breast of the demon,
Lusting for one so sweet,
So were her shoulders laden.

Friends she had, rich in her treasures:
Shall the old taunt be true,—
Fallen, they turn their cold faces,
Seeking new wealth-gilded places,
Saying we never knew
Aught of her smiles or her pleasures?

Silent she stands on the prairie,
Wrapped in her fire-scathed sheet:
Around her, thank God, is the Nation,
Weeping for her desolation,
Pouring its gold at her feet,
Answering her "Miserere!"

John Boyle O'Reilly.

Only second to the Chicago fire in destructiveness was that which visited Boston in the following year. It started on Saturday evening, November 9, 1872, and sixty-five acres were laid waste before it was controlled.

BOSTON

[November 9, 1872]

O broad-breasted Queen among Nations!
O Mother, so strong in thy youth!
Has the Lord looked upon thee in ire,
And willed thou be chastened by fire,
Without any ruth?

Has the Merciful tired of His mercy,
And turned from thy sinning in wrath,
That the world with raised hand sees and pities
Thy desolate daughters, thy cities,
Despoiled on their path?

One year since thy youngest was stricken:
Thy eldest lies stricken to-day.
Ah! God, was Thy wrath without pity,
To tear the strong heart from our city,
And cast it away?

O Father! forgive us our doubting;
The stain from our weak souls efface;
Thou rebukest, we know, but to chasten,
Thy hand has but fallen to hasten
Return to Thy grace.

Let us rise purified from our ashes
As sinners have risen who grieved;
Let us show that twice-sent desolation
On every true heart in the nation
Has conquest achieved.

John Boyle O'Reilly.

The district burned contained the finest business blocks in the city, and the loss was estimated at $80,000,000. For a time, it seemed that the famous "Old South" would be destroyed.

THE CHURCH OF THE REVOLUTION

"The Old South stands."

Loud through the still November air
The clang and clash of fire-bells broke;
From street to street, from square to square,
Rolled sheets of flame and clouds of smoke.
The marble structures reeled and fell,
The iron pillars bowed like lead;
But one lone spire rang on its bell
Above the flames. Men passed, and said,
"The Old South stands!"

The gold moon, 'gainst a copper sky,
Hung like a portent in the air,
The midnight came, the wind rose high,
And men stood speechless in despair.
But, as the marble columns broke,
And wider grew the chasm red,—
A seething gulf of flame and smoke,—
The firemen marked the spire and said,
"The Old South stands!"

Beyond the harbor, calm and fair,
The sun came up through bars of gold,
Then faded in a wannish glare,
As flame and smoke still upward rolled.
The princely structures, crowned with art,
Where Commerce laid her treasures bare;
The haunts of trade, the common mart,
All vanished in the withering air,—
"The Old South stands!"

"The Old South must be levelled soon
To check the flames and save the street;
Bring fuse and powder." But at noon
The ancient fane still stood complete.
The mitred flame had lipped the spire,
The smoke its blackness o'er it cast;
Then, hero-like, men fought the fire,
And from each lip the watchword passed,—
"The Old South stands!"

All night the red sea round it rolled,
And o'er it fell the fiery rain:
And, as each hour the old clock told,
Men said, "'Twill never strike again!"
But still the dial-plate at morn
Was crimsoned in the rising light.
Long may it redden with the dawn,
And mark the shading hours of night!
Long may it stand!

Long may it stand! where help was sought
In weak and dark and doubtful days:
Where freedom's lessons first were taught,
And prayers of faith were turned to praise;
Where burned the first Shekinah's flame
In God's new temples of the free;
Long may it stand, in freedom's name,
Like Israel's pillar by the sea!
Long may it stand!

Hezekiah Butterworth.

The nation rushed to Boston's aid just as it had done to Chicago's, and the city soon rose from her ashes greater than ever.

AFTER THE FIRE

While far along the eastern sky
I saw the flags of Havoc fly,
As if his forces would assault
The sovereign of the starry vault
And hurl Him back the burning rain
That seared the cities of the plain,
I read as on a crimson page
The words of Israel's sceptred sage:—

For riches make them wings, and they
Do as an eagle fly away.

O vision of that sleepless night,
What hue shall paint the mocking light
That burned and stained the orient skies
Where peaceful morning loves to rise,
As if the sun had lost his way
And dawned to make a second day,—
Above how red with fiery glow,
How dark to those it woke below!

On roof and wall, on dome and spire,
Flashed the false jewels of the fire;
Girt with her belt of glittering panes,
And crowned with starry-gleaming vanes,
Our northern queen in glory shone
With new-born splendors not her own,
And stood, transfigured in our eyes,
A victim decked for sacrifice!

The cloud still hovers overhead,
And still the midnight sky is red;
As the lost wanderer strays alone
To seek the place he called his own,
His devious footprints sadly tell
How changed the pathways known so well;
The scene, how new! The tale, how old
Ere yet the ashes have grown cold!

Again I read the words that came
Writ in the rubric of the flame:
Howe'er we trust to mortal things,
Each hath its pair of folded wings;
Though long their terrors rest unspread
Their fatal plumes are never shed;
At last, at last, they stretch in flight,
And blot the day and blast the night!

Hope, only Hope, of all that clings
Around us, never spreads her wings;
Love, though he break his earthly chain,
Still whispers he will come again;
But Faith that soars to seek the sky
Shall teach our half-fledged souls to fly,
And find, beyond the smoke and flame,
The cloudless azure whence they came!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

On May 16, 1874, the bursting of a reservoir dam at Williamsburg, Mass., caused a disastrous flood, costing one hundred and forty lives and the loss of $1,500,000 in property. The loss of life would have been far greater but for the heroism of a milkman named Collins Graves, who rode forward in front of the flood, giving warning.

THE RIDE OF COLLINS GRAVES

[May 16, 1874]

No song of a soldier riding down
To the raging fight from Winchester town;
No song of a time that shook the earth
With the nations' throe at a nation's birth;
But the song of a brave man, free from fear
As Sheridan's self or Paul Revere;
Who risked what they risked, free from strife
And its promise of glorious pay,—his life!

The peaceful valley has waked and stirred,
And the answering echoes of life are heard;
The dew still clings to the trees and grass,
And the early toilers smiling pass,
As they glance aside at the white-walled homes,
Or up the valley, where merrily comes
The brook that sparkles in diamond rills
As the sun comes over the Hampshire hills.

What was it passed like an ominous breath—
Like a shiver of fear, or a touch of death?
What was it? The valley is peaceful still,
And the leaves are afire on top of the hill;
It was not a sound, nor a thing of sense,—
But a pain, like the pang of the short suspense
That thrills the being of those who see
At their feet the gulf of Eternity.

The air of the valley has felt the chill;
The workers pause at the door of the mill;
The housewife, keen to the shivering air,
Arrests her foot on the cottage stair,
Instinctive taught by the mother-love,
And thinks of the sleeping ones above.

Why start the listeners? Why does the course
Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a horse—
"Hark to the sound of the hoofs!" they say—
That gallops so wildly Williamsburg way?

God! what was that, like a human shriek
From the winding valley? Will nobody speak?
Will nobody answer those women who cry
As the awful warnings thunder by?

Whence come they? Listen! and now they hear
The sound of the galloping horse-hoofs near;
They watch the trend of the vale, and see
The rider who thunders so menacingly,
With waving arms and warning scream
To the home-filled banks of the valley stream.
He draws no rein, but he shakes the street
With a shout and the ring of the galloping feet,
And this the cry he flings to the wind,—
"To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!"

He cries and is gone, but they know the worst,—
The breast of the Williamsburg dam has burst!
The basin that nourished their happy homes
Is changed to a demon. It comes! it comes!

A monster in aspect, with shaggy front
Of shattered dwellings to take the brunt
Of the homes they shatter;—white-maned and hoarse,
The merciless Terror fills the course
Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves,
With death on the first of its hissing waves,
Till cottage and street and crowded mill
Are crumbled and crushed.
But onward still,
In front of the roaring flood, is heard
The galloping horse and the warning word.
Thank God! the brave man's life is spared!
From Williamsburg town he nobly dared
To race with the flood, and take the road
In front of the terrible swath it mowed.

For miles it thundered and crashed behind,
But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind:
"They must be warned!" was all he said,
As away on his terrible ride he sped.

When heroes are called for, bring the crown
To this Yankee rider; send him down
On the stream of time with the Curtius old;
His deed, as the Roman's, was brave and bold;
And the tale can as noble a thrill awake,
For he offered his life for the people's sake!

John Boyle O'Reilly.

---

CHAPTER II

THE YEAR OF A HUNDRED YEARS

The year 1876 marked the completion of the first century of independence, and it was decided to celebrate it in a worthy manner. The city of Philadelphia, where the country had been born, was fittingly selected as the place for the celebration.

OUR FIRST CENTURY

It cannot be that men who are the seed
Of Washington should miss fame's true applause;
Franklin did plan us; Marshall gave us laws;
And slow the broad scroll grew a people's creed—
Union and Liberty! then at our need,
Time's challenge coming, Lincoln gave it pause,
Upheld the double pillars of the cause,
And dying left them whole—our crowning deed.

Such was the fathering race that made all fast,
Who founded us, and spread from sea to sea
A thousand leagues the zone of liberty,
And built for man this refuge from his past,
Unkinged, unchurched, unsoldiered; shamed were we,
Failing the stature that such sires forecast!

George Edward Woodberry.

The celebration took the form of a great industrial exposition, at which the arts and industries of the whole world were represented. The exposition was opened on May 10, 1876, more than a hundred thousand people being present. Wagner had composed a march for the occasion and Whittier's "Centennial Hymn" was sung by a chorus of a thousand voices.

CENTENNIAL HYMN

I
Our fathers' God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free,
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.

II
Here, where of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word of Thine
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.

III
Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.

IV
Thou, who hast here in concord furled
The war flags of a gathered world,
Beneath our Western skies fulfil
The Orient's mission of good-will,
And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back its Argonauts of peace.

V
For art and labor met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,
We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave
The austere virtues strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The manhood never bought nor sold!

VI
Oh make Thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law:
And, cast in some diviner mould,
Let the new cycle shame the old!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

"The restored South chanted the praises of the Union in the words of Sidney Lanier, the Georgia poet." The poem was written as a cantata, the music for which was composed by Dudley Buck.

THE CENTENNIAL MEDITATION OF COLUMBIA[13]

1776-1876

From this hundred-terraced height,
Sight more large with nobler light
Ranges down yon towering years.
Humbler smiles and lordlier tears
Shine and fall, shine and fall,
While old voices rise and call
Yonder where the to-and-fro
Weltering of my Long-Ago
Moves about the moveless base
Far below my resting-place.

Mayflower, Mayflower, slowly hither flying,
Trembling westward o'er yon balking sea,
Hearts within Farewell dear England sighing,
Winds without But dear in vain replying,
Gray-lipp'd waves about thee shouted, crying
"No! It shall not be!"

Jamestown, out of thee—
Plymouth, thee—thee, Albany—
Winter cries, Ye freeze: away!
Fever cries, Ye burn: away!
Hunger cries, Ye starve: away!
Vengeance cries, Your graves shall stay!

Then old Shapes and Masks of Things,
Framed like Faiths or clothed like Kings,
Ghosts of Goods once fleshed and fair,
Grown foul Bads in alien air—
War, and his most noisy lords,
Tongued with lithe and poisoned swords—
Error, Terror, Rage, and Crime,
All in a windy night of time
Cried to me from land and sea,
No! Thou shalt not be!

Hark!
Huguenots whispering yea in the dark,
Puritans answering yea in the dark!
Yea like an arrow shot true to his mark,
Darts through the tyrannous heart of Denial.
Patience and Labor and solemn-souled Trial,
Foiled, still beginning,
Soiled, but not sinning.
Toil through the stertorous death of the Night,
Toil when wild brother-wars new-dark the Light,
Toil, and forgive, and kiss o'er, and replight.

Now Praise to God's oft-granted grace,
Now Praise to Man's undaunted face,
Despite the land, despite the sea,
I was: I am: and I shall be—
How long, Good Angel, O how long?
Sing me from Heaven a man's own song!

"Long as thine Art shall love true love,
Long as thy Science truth shall know,
Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove,
Long as thy Law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,
So long, dear Land of all my love,
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow!"

O Music, from this height of time my Word unfold:
In thy large signals all men's hearts Man's heart behold:
Mid-heaven unroll thy chords as friendly flags unfurled,
And wave the world's best lover's welcome to the world.

Sidney Lanier.

President Grant then declared the exposition open. It was a success from the very start, and great crowds were every day in attendance.

CENTENNIAL HYMN

1876

Through calm and storm the years have led
Our nation on, from stage to stage—
A century's space—until we tread
The threshold of another age.

We see where o'er our pathway swept
A torrent-stream of blood and fire,
And thank the Guardian Power who kept
Our sacred League of States entire.

Oh, chequered train of years, farewell!
With all thy strifes and hopes and fears!
Yet with us let thy memories dwell,
To warn and teach the coming years.

And thou, the new-beginning age,
Warned by the past, and not in vain,
Write on a fairer, whiter page,
The record of thy happier reign.

William Cullen Bryant.

On July 4, 1876, simple but impressive exercises were held in the public square in the rear of Independence Hall, where, a century before, a great throng had awaited the promulgation of the "Declaration."

WELCOME TO THE NATIONS

PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876

Bright on the banners of lily and rose
Lo! the last sun of our century sets!
Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes,
All but her friendships the nation forgets!
All but her friends and their welcome forgets!
These are around her; but where are her foes?
Lo, while the sun of her century sets,
Peace with her garlands of lily and rose!

Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell
Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around!
Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell;
Welcome! the walls of her temple resound!
Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound!
Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell;
Welcome! still whisper the echoes around;
Welcome! still trembles on Liberty's bell!

Thrones of the continent! isles of the sea!
Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine;
Welcome, once more, to the land of the free,
Shadowed alike by the palm and the pine;
Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine,
"Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free;"
Over your children their branches entwine
Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"The National Ode" was read by its author, Bayard Taylor, whose deep voice and impressive delivery added appreciably to the majesty of the lines.

THE NATIONAL ODE

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876

Richard Henry Lee, grandson of the mover of the Declaration, came to the front with the original document in his hands, and read its sonorous sentences. William M. Evarts delivered an oration and "Our National Banner," words by Dexter Smith, music by Sir Julius Benedict, was sung.

OUR NATIONAL BANNER

[July 4, 1876]

O'er the high and o'er the lowly
Floats that banner bright and holy
In the rays of Freedom's sun,
In the nation's heart embedded,
O'er our Union newly wedded,
One in all, and all in one.

Let that banner wave forever,
May its lustrous stars fade never,
Till the stars shall pale on high;
While there's right the wrong defeating,
While there's hope in true hearts beating,
Truth and freedom shall not die.

As it floated long before us,
Be it ever floating o'er us,
O'er our land from shore to shore:
There are freemen yet to wave it,
Millions who would die to save it,
Wave it, save it, evermore.

Dexter Smith.

The exposition closed November 10, 1876. It had served to draw all sections of the country more closely together, and to establish the industrial position of the United States among the nations of the world.

AFTER THE CENTENNIAL

(A HOPE)

Before our eyes a pageant rolled
Whose banners every land unfurled;
And as it passed, its splendors told
The art and glory of the world.

The nations of the earth have stood
With face to face and hand in hand,
And sworn to common brotherhood
The sundered souls of every land.

And while America is pledged
To light her Pharos towers for all,
While her broad mantle, starred and edged
With truth, o'er high and low shall fall;

And while the electric nerves still belt
The State and Continent in one,—
The discords of the past shall melt
Like ice beneath the summer sun.

O land of hope! thy future years
Are shrouded from our mortal sight;
But thou canst turn the century's fears
To heralds of a cloudless light!

The sacred torch our fathers lit
No wild misrule can ever quench;
Still in our midst wise judges sit,
Whom party passion cannot blench.

From soul to soul, from hand to hand
Thy sons have passed that torch along,
Whose flame by Wisdom's breath is fanned
Whose staff is held by runners strong.

O Spirit of immortal truth,
Thy power alone that circles all
Can feed the fire as in its youth—
Can hold the runners lest they fall!

Christopher Pearse Cranch.

---

CHAPTER III

THE CONQUEST OF THE PLAINS

The Indians had long since ceased to be a serious menace to the United States, and the policy of the government for many years had been to settle them upon various selected tracts of land west of the Mississippi. But the population of the West was increasing very rapidly, the completion of the railway to the Pacific having given it a great impetus.

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY

FINISHED, MAY 10, 1869

"And a Highway shall there be."

'Tis "Done"—the wondrous thoroughfare
Type of that Highway all divine!
No ancient wonder can compare
With this, in grandeur of design.
For, 'twas no visionary scheme
To immortalize the builder's name;
No impulse rash, no transient dream
Of some mere worshipper of Fame.

Rare common sense conceived the plan,
For working out a lasting good—
The full development of Man;
The growth of human brotherhood!
And lo! by patient toil and care,
The work with rare success is crowned;
And nations, yet to be, will share
In blessings that shall e'er abound.

Across a continent's expanse,
The lengthening track now runs secure,
O'er which the Iron Horse shall prance,
So long as earth and time endure!
His course extends from East to West—
From where Atlantic billows roar,
To where the quiet waters rest,
Beside the far Pacific shore.

Proud commerce, by Atlantic gales
Tossed to and fro,—her canvas rent—
Will gladly furl her wearied sails,
And glide across a continent.
Through smiling valleys, broad and free,
O'er rivers wide, or mountain-crest,
Her course shall swift and peaceful be,
Till she has reached the farthest West.

And e'en the treasures of the East,
Diverted from their wonted track,—
With safety gained, with speed increased,—
Will follow in her footsteps back.
And thus the Nations, greatly blest,
Will share another triumph, won,
That links yet closer East and West—
The rising and the setting sun!

This glorious day with joy we greet!
May Faith abound, may Love increase,
And may this highway, now complete,
Be the glad harbinger of Peace!
God bless the Work, that it may prove
The source of greater good in store,
When Man shall heed the law of Love,
And Nations shall learn war no more.

C. R. Ballard.

During the autumn of 1874, gold was discovered in the Black Hills Sioux reservation and explorers rushed in; a still worse grievance was the wanton destruction of bison by hunters and excursionists. Driven to frenzy, at last, tribe after tribe of savages took up arms, and started on a career of murder and rapine.

AFTER THE COMANCHES

Saddle! saddle! saddle!
Mount, mount, and away!
Over the dim green prairie,
Straight on the track of day;
Spare not spur for mercy,
Hurry with shout and thong,
Fiery and tough is the mustang,
The prairie is wide and long.

Saddle! saddle! saddle!
Leap from the broken door,
Where the brute Comanche entered,
And the white-foot treads no more!
The hut is burnt to ashes,
There are dead men stark outside,
And only a long torn ringlet
Left of the stolen bride.

Go like the east wind's howling,
Ride with death behind,
Stay not for food or slumber,
Till the thieving wolves ye find!
They came before the wedding,
Swifter than prayer or priest;
The bride-men danced to bullets,
The wild dogs ate the feast.

Look to rifle and powder,
Buckle the knife-belt sure;
Loose the coil of the lasso,
And make the loop secure;
Fold the flask in the poncho,
Fill the pouch with maize,
And ride as if to-morrow
Were the last of living days.

Saddle! saddle! saddle!
Redden spur and thong,
Ride like the mad tornado,
The track is lonely and long,
Spare not horse nor rider,
Fly for the stolen bride!
Bring her home on the crupper,
A scalp on either side.

It was decided to transfer the Sioux to another reservation, but, under the advice of Sitting Bull, they refused to stir. A detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel George A. Custer was sent against them, and came suddenly upon their encampment on June 25, 1876. A terrific fight followed, in which Custer and all of his men were killed.

DOWN THE LITTLE BIG HORN

June 25, 1876

Down the Little Big Horn
(O troop forlorn!),
Right into the camp of the Sioux
(What was the muster?),
Two hundred and sixty-two
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer,
Went out at a breath,
Stanch to the death!
Just from the canyon emerging,
Saw they the braves of Sitting Bull surging,
Two thousand and more,
Painted and feathered, thirsting for gore,
Did they shrink and turn back
(Hear how the rifles crack!),
Did they pause for a life,
For a sweetheart or wife?

And one in that savage throng
(His revenge had waited long),
Pomped with porcupine quills,
His deerskins beaded and fringed,
An eagle's plume in his long black hair,
His tall lance fluttering in the air,
Glanced at the circling hills—
His cheeks flushed with a keen surmise,
A demon's hate in his eyes
Remembering the hour when he cringed,
A prisoner thonged,
Chief Rain-in-the-Face
(There was a sachem wronged!)
Saw his enemy's heart laid bare,
Feasted in thought like a beast in his lair.

Cavalry, cavalry
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit),
Horses prancing, cavorting,
Shying and snorting,
Accoutrements rattling
(Children at home are prattling),
Gallantly, gallantly,
"Company dismount!"
From the saddle they swing,
With their steeds form a ring
(Hear how the bullets sing!),
Who can their courage recount?

Do you blanch at their fate?
(Who would hesitate?)
Two hundred and sixty-two
Immortals in blue,
Standing shoulder to shoulder,
Like some granite boulder
You must blast to displace
(Were they of a valiant race?)—
Two hundred and sixty-two,
And never a man to say,
"I rode with Custer that day."
Give the savage his triumph and bluster,
Give the hero to perish with Custer,
To his God and his comrades true.

Closing and closing,
Nearer the redskins creep;
With cunning disposing,
With yell and with whoop
(There are women shall weep!),
They gather and swoop,
They come like a flood,
Maddened with blood,
They shriek, plying the knife
(Was there one begged for his life?),
Where but a moment ago
Stood serried and sternly the foe,
Now fallen, mangled below.

Down the Little Big Horn
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit),
A single steed in the morn,
Comanche, seven times hit,
Comes to the river to drink;
Lists for the sabre's clink,
Lists for the voice of his master
(O glorious disaster!),
Comes, sniffing the air,
Gazing, lifts his head,
But his master lies dead.
(Who but the dead were there?)
But stay, what was the muster?
Two hundred and sixty-two
(Two thousand and more the Sioux!)
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer;
For never a man can say,
"I rode with Custer that day—"
Went out like a taper,
Blown by a sudden vapor,
Went out at a breath,
True to the death!

Francis Brooks.

LITTLE BIG HORN

[June 25, 1876]

Beside the lone river,
That idly lay dreaming,
Flashed sudden the gleaming
Of sabre and gun
In the light of the sun
As over the hillside the soldiers came streaming.

One peal of the bugle
In stillness unbroken
That sounded a token
Of soul-stirring strife,
Savage war to the knife,
Then silence that seemed like defiance unspoken.

But out of an ambush
Came warriors riding,
Swift ponies bestriding,
Shook rattles and shells,
With a discord of yells.
That fired the hearts of their comrades in hiding.

Then fierce on the wigwams
The soldiers descended,
And madly were blended,
The red man and white
In a hand-to-hand fight,
With the Indian village assailed and defended.

And there through the passage
Of battle-torn spaces,
From dark lurking-places,
With blood-curdling cry
And their knives held on high,
Rushed Amazon women with wild, painted faces.

Then swung the keen sabres
And flashed the sure rifles
Their message that stifles
The shout in red throats,
While the reckless blue-coats
Laughed on 'mid the fray as men laugh over trifles.

Grim cavalry troopers
Unshorn and unshaven,
And never a craven
In ambuscade caught,
How like demons they fought
Round the knoll on the prairie that marked their last haven.

But the Sioux circled nearer
The shrill war-whoop crying,
And death-hail was flying,
Yet still they fought on
Till the last shot was gone,
And all that remained were the dead and the dying.

A song for their death, and
No black plumes of sorrow,
This recompense borrow,
Like heroes they died
Man to man—side by side;
We lost them to-day, we shall meet them to-morrow.

And on the lone river,
Has faded the seeming
Of bright armor gleaming,
But there by the shore
With the ghosts of no-more
The shades of the dead through the ages lie dreaming.

Ernest McGaffey.

CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE

[June 25, 1876]

Dead! Is it possible? He, the bold rider,
Custer, our hero, the first in the fight,
Charming the bullets of yore to fly wider,
Far from our battle-king's ringlets of light!
Dead, our young chieftain, and dead, all forsaken!
No one to tell us the way of his fall!
Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to victory's call!

Proud for his fame that last day that he met them!
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the men that had set them,
Wild for a charge that should never give back.
There on the hilltop he halted and saw them,—
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly;
Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them,
Told of his coming before he was nigh.

All the wide valley was full of their forces,
Gathered to cover the lodges' retreat!—
Warriors running in haste to their horses,
Thousands of enemies close to his feet!
Down in the valleys the ages had hollowed,
There lay the Sitting Bull's camp for a prey!
Numbers! What recked he? What recked those who followed—
Men who had fought ten to one ere that day?

Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-line steady and full;
Then down the hillside exultingly thundered,
Into the hordes of the old Sitting Bull!
Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,
Wild Horse's braves, and the rest of their crew,
Shrank from that charge like a herd from a lion,—
Then closed around, the grim horde of wild Sioux!

Right to their centre he charged, and then facing—
Hark to those yells! and around them, O see!
Over the hilltops the Indians come racing,
Coming as fast as the waves of the sea!
Red was the circle of fire around them;
No hope of victory, no ray of light,
Shot through that terrible black cloud without them,
Brooding in death over Custer's last fight.

Then did he blench? Did he die like a craven,
Begging those torturing fiends for his life?
Was there a soldier who carried the Seven
Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife?
No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing!
There in the midst of the Indians they close,
Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing,
Fighting like tigers, all 'bayed amid foes!

Thicker and thicker the bullets came singing;
Down go the horses and riders and all;
Swiftly the warriors round them were ringing,
Circling like buzzards awaiting their fall.
See the wild steeds of the mountain and prairie,
Savage eyes gleaming from forests of mane;
Quivering lances with pennons so airy,
War-painted warriors charging amain.

Backward, again and again, they were driven,
Shrinking to close with the lost little band;
Never a cap that had worn the bright Seven
Bowed till its wearer was dead on the strand.
Closer and closer the death circle growing,
Ever the leader's voice, clarion clear,
Rang out his words of encouragement glowing,
"We can but die once, boys,—we'll sell our lives dear!"

Dearly they sold them like Berserkers raging,
Facing the death that encircled them round;
Death's bitter pangs by their vengeance assuaging,
Marking their tracks by their dead on the ground.
Comrades, our children shall yet tell their story,—
Custer's last charge on the old Sitting Bull;
And ages shall swear that the cup of his glory
Needed but that death to render it full.

Frederick Whittaker.

CUSTER

[June 25, 1876]

What! shall that sudden blade
Leap out no more?
No more thy hand be laid
Upon the sword-hilt smiting sore?
O for another such
The charger's rein to clutch,—
One equal voice to summon victory,
Sounding thy battle-cry,
Brave darling of the soldiers' choice!
Would there were one more voice!

O gallant charge, too bold!
O fierce, imperious greed
To pierce the clouds that in their darkness hold
Slaughter of man and steed!
Now, stark and cold,
Among thy fallen braves thou liest,
And even with thy blood defiest
The wolfish foe:
But ah, thou liest low,
And all our birthday song is hushed indeed!

Young lion of the plain,
Thou of the tawny mane!
Hotly the soldiers' hearts shall beat,
Their mouths thy death repeat,
Their vengeance seek the trail again
Where thy red doomsmen be;
But on the charge no more shall stream
Thy hair,—no more thy sabre gleam,—
No more ring out thy battle-shout,
Thy cry of victory!

Not when a hero falls
The sound a world appalls:
For while we plant his cross
There is a glory, even in the loss:
But when some craven heart
From honor dares to part,
Then, then, the groan, the blanching cheek,
And men in whispers speak,
Nor kith nor country dare reclaim
From the black depths his name.

Thou, wild young warrior, rest,
By all the prairie winds caressed!
Swift was thy dying pang;
Even as the war-cry rang
Thy deathless spirit mounted high
And sought Columbia's sky:—
There, to the northward far,
Shines a new star,
And from it blazes down
The light of thy renown!

Edmund Clarence Stedman.

July 10, 1876.

The Indians were led by Rain-in-the-Face. The year before, he had been arrested by Captain Tom Custer at Standing Rock, and had threatened to eat the latter's heart. The Captain was among the killed, and Rain-in-the-Face is said to have made good his threat. Mr. Longfellow is mistaken in saying that Colonel George Custer was thus mutilated. His body was not disfigured in any way.

THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE

[June 25, 1876]

One survivor there was, and only one, Comanche, the horse ridden by Captain Miles Keogh. He was found several miles from the battlefield, and had been wounded seven times. By order of the Secretary of War, a soldier was detailed to take care of him as long as he lived, and no one was ever afterwards permitted to ride him.

MILES KEOGH'S HORSE

The government rushed a large force to the scene, and finally, after painful fighting and toilsome marches stretching over many months, the Indians were brought to terms. Rain-in-the-Face afterwards professed himself a man of peace, and in 1886 tried to enter Hampton Institute. He was killed during the Sioux outbreak in 1890.

ON THE BIG HORN

[1886]

In 1886 another somewhat serious uprising took place among the Apaches, a band of hostiles taking the war-path under the chief, Geronimo. General Nelson A. Miles, after a long pursuit, succeeded in capturing them.

THE "GREY HORSE TROOP"

Geronimo was sent to Fort Pickens, Florida, where he was kept in captivity for the remainder of his life.

GERONIMO

In 1889 the territory known as Oklahoma was opened to settlement, and again the Indians saw their hunting-grounds invaded by the white man, while they themselves were compelled to remove to a new reservation. Sitting Bull again advised resistance, and was killed while trying to escape arrest. A squaw of the tribe, made desperate by the removal, killed her baby and committed suicide.

THE LAST RESERVATION

That was the last of the Indian outbreaks. Although there are still more than two hundred thousand Indians in the United States, by far the greater part of them have adopted the dress and customs of the white man and are engaged in peaceful occupations. The remainder are content to live in idleness upon the government's bounty.

INDIAN NAMES

CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND ASSASSINATION

On the fourth day of March, 1881, James Abram Garfield, Republican, was inaugurated President of the United States. He had served with distinction in the Civil War and afterwards in Congress and seemed destined to enjoy a peaceful and prosperous administration. But on July 1 he was shot down at Washington by Charles J. Guiteau, a half-crazed, disappointed office-seeker. The President fought manfully for life, but blood poisoning developed, and death followed on September 19.

REJOICE

"Bear me out of the battle, for lo! I am sorely wounded."

THE BELLS AT MIDNIGHT

[September 19, 1881]

J. A. G.

MIDNIGHT—SEPTEMBER 19, 1881

For two days, September 22 and 23, the body lay in state in the rotunda of the Capitol. Then, in a long train crowded with the most illustrious of his countrymen, the dead President was borne to Cleveland, Ohio, and buried on September 26, in a beautiful cemetery overlooking the waters of Lake Erie.

AT THE PRESIDENT'S GRAVE

The public rage against the assassin knew no bounds. Only by the utmost vigilance was his life saved from the attacks upon it. He was brought to trial and found guilty of murder in January, 1882, and was executed June 30.

ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD

PRESIDENT GARFIELD

The hundredth anniversary of the surrender of the British at Yorktown was celebrated on October 19, 1881. The lyric for the occasion was written by Paul Hamilton Hayne.

YORKTOWN CENTENNIAL LYRIC

[October 19, 1881]

On May 24, 1883, the great bridge spanning the East River and connecting Brooklyn with New York City was opened to the public, having been thirteen years in process of construction.

THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

[May 24, 1883]

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

The first week in September, 1886, a destructive earthquake shook the eastern portion of the United States, Charleston, S. C., suffering a tremendous shock which snuffed out scores of lives and rendered seven eighths of the houses unfit for habitation.

CHARLESTON

1886

On September 9 and 11, 1886, the American yacht Mayflower defeated the English yacht Galatea in the international races for the America's cup.

MAYFLOWER

On October 28, 1886, Bartholdi's statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, a gift to America from the people of France, was unveiled on Bedloe's Island, in New York Harbor.

FAIREST OF FREEDOM'S DAUGHTERS

Read at the dedication of the Bartholdi Statue, New York Harbor, October 28, 1886

LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD

THE BARTHOLDI STATUE

1886

On September 18, 1887, the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States was suitably observed at Philadelphia. President Grover Cleveland, Justice Samuel Freeman Miller, and John Adams Kasson delivered addresses, and "The New Hail Columbia" was sung by a chorus of two thousand voices.

ADDITIONAL VERSES TO HAIL COLUMBIA

Written at the request of the committee for the Constitutional Centennial Celebration at Philadelphia, 1887.

Following this came the recital by James Edward Murdock of the "New National Hymn," the Marine Band leading the people and the singers in the chorus.

NEW NATIONAL HYMN

On March 15, 1889, a destructive hurricane visited the Samoan Islands. There were in the harbor of Apia, at the time one English, three German, and three American war-ships, sent there to safeguard the interests of their respective countries. The English ship, the Calliope, succeeded in steaming out of the harbor, the crew of the American flagship Trenton cheering her as she passed. The Trenton was wrecked a few minutes later, as were the five other ships in the harbor.

IN APIA BAY

(Morituri vos salutamus)

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE

[March 15, 1889]

On May 31, 1889, western Pennsylvania was visited by one of the worst catastrophes in the history of the country. A flood from a broken reservoir overwhelmed Johnstown, Conemaugh, and a number of smaller towns, destroying over two thousand lives and property to the value of ten million dollars.

BY THE CONEMAUGH

[May 31, 1889]

The reservoir was known to be weak, and the people below had been warned of the danger yet remained where they were. When, just before the break, Engineer John G. Parke galloped down the valley, shouting to all to run for their lives, it was too late.

THE MAN WHO RODE TO CONEMAUGH

[May 31, 1889]

It is said that another hero named Daniel Periton rode in front of the flood giving warning, and was finally caught by it and drowned.

A BALLAD OF THE CONEMAUGH FLOOD

[May 31, 1889]

In charge of the telegraph office at Johnstown was a Mrs. Ogle. She stayed at her post, sending message after message of warning down the valley until she herself was overwhelmed and swept away.

CONEMAUGH

On May 1, 1893, the most remarkable exposition ever held in America opened at Chicago, to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. The group of exposition buildings soon became known as "The White City."

"THE WHITE CITY"

On February 2, 1894, the famous old corvette, Kearsarge, which destroyed the Confederate cruiser Alabama, off Cherbourg, during the Civil War, was wrecked on Roncador reef in the Caribbean Sea.

THE KEARSARGE

[February 2, 1894]

In 1896 Tennessee celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of her admission to the Union, by an exposition held at Nashville.

TENNESSEE

PRIZE CENTENNIAL ODE

[June 1, 1896]

On May 31, 1897, a monument to the memory of Robert Gould Shaw, who fell at the head of his colored regiment during the Civil War, was unveiled on Boston Common. The monument, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, is perhaps the most noteworthy of its kind in America.

AN ODE

ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIAL ON BOSTON COMMON

May 31, 1897

The years 1897 and 1898 witnessed a great rush of gold-seekers to Alaska, where placer gold in large quantities had been discovered, the year before, in the Yukon district on Klondike Creek.

THE KLONDIKE

[1898]

CHAPTER V

THE WAR WITH SPAIN

For three centuries and a half, Spain held possession of the island of Cuba, although she had lost, long before, her possessions in North and South America. The Cubans desired freedom, for the Spanish yoke was a galling one, and as early as 1822 sympathy with this desire was openly expressed in the United States.

APOSTROPHE TO THE ISLAND OF CUBA

[November, 1822]

The people of Cuba revolted against their Spanish rulers in 1848, and kept up a guerilla warfare for some years. In August, 1851, a filibustering expedition, led by Narciso Lopez, sailed from New Orleans. The expedition was captured, and most of its members were executed, among them Lopez himself, and Colonel William L. Crittenden, of Kentucky, who, with fifty others, was shot at Havana, August 16.

THE GALLANT FIFTY-ONE

WHO FORMED PART OF THE LOPEZ EXPEDITION AND WERE EXECUTED BY THE SPANISH AUTHORITIES IN HAVANA

[August 16, 1851]

Spain at last found it necessary to put the whole island under martial law, and American sympathy grew more outspoken.

CUBA

[1870]

Then in 1873 came what was certain to come, sooner or later, an outrage by Spain against the United States. The Virginius, a vessel of American register, was captured on the high seas by a Spanish gunboat, taken to a Cuban port, and some fifty of her officers and crew, Americans for the most part, summarily shot. America was wild with rage, but Spain was permitted to settle by paying an indemnity.

THE GOSPEL OF PEACE

[1873]

The insurrection in Cuba dragged on, its horrors steadily increasing, and at last, in 1875, the American government intimated that if Spain did not stop the war, foreign intervention might become necessary. Spain took the hint and ended the struggle by granting Cuba certain reforms.

CUBA

But with a cynical disregard of good faith, Spain kept only such of her promises as she pleased; increased abuses followed, and in 1895 revolution flamed out again. Under such leaders as Gomez, Maceo, and Garcia, the revolutionists soon gained control of most of the provinces.

CUBA TO COLUMBIA

[April, 1896]

American sympathy was soon awakened, and grew rapidly in strength. This was increased when Spain placed Valeriano Weyler in command in Cuba. Weyler had an evil reputation for cruelty and extortion, and at once proceeded to make it more evil by exterminating the "pacificos," or quiet people who were taking no active part in the war.

CUBA LIBRE

The situation of Americans in Havana began to cause uneasiness, and it was decided to send a ship of war to that port. The battleship Maine was selected for this duty, and reached Havana on the morning of January 24, 1898.

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS[14]

On the morning of February 16, 1898, the news flashed over the country that on the previous evening the Maine had been blown up at her anchorage, and that two hundred and sixty-four men and two officers had been killed.

THE MEN OF THE MAINE

[February 15, 1898]

THE WORD OF THE LORD FROM HAVANA

[February 16, 1898]