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WANDERINGS NORTH AND SOUTH, 
 
 HERMANN BOKUM, 
 
 cha-PTjAin, u. is. a., 
 
 TTJPiisrE^i's iL..A.:tTE i3:os:e>it.a.x.. 
 
 P H I L A D E T. P n I A : 
 KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 
 
 1 8 r> .1 . 
 
4-6 S- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The " Testimony of a Refugee from East Tennes- 
 see," being the first of the four articles contained in 
 this little volume, was published more than two years 
 ago, and shortly after my having left the, so-called, Con- 
 federate States. Having revisited East Tennessee in the 
 course of this year, the changes I met with and the 
 change which in many respects had taken place in my 
 ovra views, has given rise to the second article, " Sketches 
 of East Tennessee Life." The third article, " Life 
 AND Death of a Christian Soldier," which appeared 
 some time ago in the Episcopal Recorder, exhibits a 
 combination of christian faithfulness and self-sacrificing- 
 loyalty. The reappearance of it will be welcomed, 1 
 know, by many. The last article, " The Turner's 
 Lane Hospital," bears marks of the haste with which 
 it has been prepared. Our time is a time for deeds, 
 rather than for the recording of deeds. From my inti- 
 macy with some of the hospital chaplains, I know that 
 this is the cause of their silence. The Turnefs Lane 
 Hospital, is a small one, in comparison with some others ; 
 it can accommodate only about three hundred patients ; 
 still what I have said about it will prove I trust not 
 altogether void of instruction as well as interest. 
 
 HERMANN BOKUM. 
 
 Fukner's Lane Hospital. 
 PMladelpJiia, Dec. 22d, 1864. 
 
 (iii) 
 
A REFUGEE'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 (1) 
 
A REFUGEE'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 It may seem bold and self-confident, indeed, that in tlio 
 face of the multitude of pamphlets, addresses, essays and 
 treatises, which this war has called forth, I should add one 
 or more to the number. And yet there are some facts con- 
 nected with my past history and my present position, which 
 may sufficiently account for my appearing before the public 
 just at this time. Born and educated in Germany, I arrived 
 in this country iu my twenty-first year, and after having 
 spent twenty-eight years in the North, under circumstances 
 which were especially calculated to endear to me the historic; 
 life, and the institutions of the country I had adopted, I 
 lived in East Tennessee till treason there overthrew, for a 
 time at least, the Government of the United States. My 
 attachment to the Union compelled me to leave my home and 
 my family to avoid a dungeon. It was then, when for more 
 than a year I had had to witness the effects of a military 
 des]3otism, which exalted falsehood, fraud and robbery to 
 the rank of virtues, and rode rough-shod over every one 
 that was unwilling to adopt this creed, that I prayed God 
 that the time might come when I, in some humble way, 
 might bear witness to the fearfulness of the crime, which, by 
 means the most foul, had in that region of country at least, 
 placed at the mercy of villains, the most abandoned, the 
 noble and devoted men of the country. Similar prayers 
 have risen from other lips, but their testimony will only be 
 heard in the day of judgment, for they have sealed their 
 laithfulness with their death. Yet it is not only recollec- 
 tions like these which now impel me to write. When after 
 having fled from my home I at last had reached the lines of 
 our troops which were then stationed near Cumberland Gap, 
 I saw myself surrounded by hundreds of meo. with whom 
 for years I had >ningled at their altars and their firesides, 
 and who like myself had been compelled to leave their 
 
homes and families. Impressed "vvitli the fact, that my past 
 life would give me an influence in the North, which they 
 could not have, they asked me to do all in my power to 
 induce the men of the North to come to their relief, that 
 the}^ might be enabled with their swords to make their way 
 back to tlieir homes. I promised it, and now while I am 
 about to fulfil this promise, I pray God that He may pre- 
 pare for my words a ready access to the hearts of my 
 readers. To all this I may add that I am once more stand- 
 ing upon the ground on which first I stepped when I came 
 to this country, that not a few of those with whom I becanw 
 acquainted in early life are now, when far advanced in jear^^ 
 my honored friends, and that they have expressed a convic- 
 tion "that my extensive acquaintance in Pennsylvania, Avher</ 
 for years I have labored as a preacher and a teacher, migh'. 
 enable me to impart information concerning the first work- 
 ings and the gradual progress of treason in the South. Eight 
 or wrong I have acceded to their request, and I would have 
 acceded sooner if my duties as chaplain of a hosj^ital had not 
 been of such a character as to claim the whole of my time. 
 East Tennessee, which late events have brought into such 
 general notice, is a portion of that elevated region of country 
 Avhich embraces Southern Kentucky, Northern Alabama, 
 Northern G-eorgia and A¥estern North Carolina. The Cum- 
 berland Mountains in East Tennessee reach occasionally the 
 lieight of 2,000 feet, they are rich in minerals, from their 
 t^ides leap innumerable springs, flowing through productive 
 valleys and emptying finally into the Tennessee or Cuinber- 
 land rivers, the climate is magnificent, the scenery grant! 
 and picturesque, the population of an agricultural character, 
 having comparatively few slaves. To this region of country 
 I had moved in 1855, I had purchased a farm, ^^^''^^^sd 
 vineyards and had gathered a small congregation. I had 
 indulged the hope that in the same measure as I was endeav- 
 oring to make this home beautiful and productive, my 
 children would resist the temptation to change, and this 
 farm would be an heirloom in m^ family for many years to 
 come. Beyond my spiritual sphere and these agricultural 
 labors my ambition did not extend and with but a trifling 
 
5 
 
 change I could adopt witli regard to myself and my family 
 the beautiful lines of Barry Cornwall : 
 
 Touch us gently, Time ! Humble voyagers are we, 
 
 Let us glide adown thy stream. Husband, wife and children three — 
 
 Gently as we somethnes glide Two are lost — two angels fled 
 
 Through a quiet dream. To the azure overhead. 
 
 These humble hopes^ however, were not to be realized. 
 It is now two years ago when I no longer could resist the 
 conviction that we were standing on the very threshold of a 
 treasonable attempt to break up the Union, At that time I 
 happened to be in the house of one of my neighbors. In the 
 course of the conversation the Union was mentioned by me. 
 "The Union," said he, with a contemptuous smile, "the Union 
 i.s gone ! '' I could hardly trust my ears. Here stood a man 
 before me, Avho was not like myself an adopted citizen, but 
 a native of this country, yet who was ready to obliterate 
 from the family of nations the land which for more than 
 thirty years I had learnt to regard as my own, and which 
 had conferred on me innumerable blessings, "Hear me," 
 said I to him, there was a time when the disciples of the 
 Lord had called blessings upon Him ; — the Pharisees asked 
 him to stop his disciples, but the Lord told them that if his 
 disciples were to be silent, the very stones w^ould cry out. 
 •''' You," added I, " Avere born in this countr}^, 3'ou have Wash- 
 ington and his time handed down to you as a direct inherit- 
 ance, I am but an adopted citizen, I am but as one of the 
 stones, but as one of the stones I cry out against you." It 
 w^as at that time that a great L^nion meeting was held in the 
 vicinity of Knoxville. Horace Maynard was occupied in 
 another part of the State, but Andrew Johnson and other 
 leading Union men were there, and the question was seri 
 ously debated whether East Tennessee should take up arms 
 and destroy the bridges in order to prevent the sending of ■ 
 rebel troops from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to 
 Yirginia, Less extreme measures prevailed, the bridges 
 were not burnt, the troops from the Southern States rushed 
 into East Tennessee, and the L^nion men of East Tennessee 
 were singly overpowered and disarmed. In the mxean- 
 time Fort Sumter had fallen and some of the secessionists 
 
6 
 
 came to me and asked me to join the Southern Confed- 
 eracy. "You remind me," said I, "of a good old bishop, 
 when he was led to the stake he was advised to abjure 
 the Savior and save his life. " Eighty and five years, was 
 the answer of the bishop, has my Savior graciously pro- 
 tected me, and should I now forswear him?' So say I to 
 you; thirty and five years has the flag of the Union with 
 the help of God nobly protected me, and should I now 
 forswear it?" The secessionists, however, became so violent 
 in their measures that I found it necessary to go to Wash-' 
 ington in order to consult the Hon. Andrew Johnson, who 
 by that time had succeeded in taking his place in Congress, 
 and to find out whether we soon would obtain help or 
 whether I would be compelled to move with my family to 
 the North. When I went to Washington, Tennessee was 
 still in the Union, when I returned it had been taken out 
 by force and by fraud, and I was compelled to find my 
 way through the Cumberland Mountains as best I might. 
 Governor Harris had in vain endeavored to get a convention 
 sanctioned by the people, by the means of which he had 
 hoped to carry the State out of the Union, He had then 
 called an extra session of the Legislature, and that body in 
 violation of the express will of the people had declared an 
 ordinance of separation on the Gth of May, submitting the 
 queetion of Separation from the Federal Government and of 
 Representation in the Richmond Congress to be voted on by 
 the people on the 8th day of June. Against Separation from 
 the Federal Government and Representation in Richmond, 
 East Tennessee gave a majority of 18,300. It would have 
 been much larger if the votes of rebel troops had not been 
 counted, though under the constitution they had no author- 
 ity to vote at any election. In this way however the State 
 was forced out of the Union when a majority of her people 
 were utterly averse to any such separation. 
 
 Having arrived at home after having past through many 
 trying scenes, I found that my journey to the North had 
 excited attention, and that threats had been made of hanging 
 me as soon as I should return, I, however, had to visit 
 Knoxville, AYhen I entered the court house in that city, I 
 
found Judge Humplireys occupied in judging men, who had 
 committed no crime, but in various ways had expressed their 
 partiality for the Union. This is the same Judge Hum- 
 phreys against whom others as well as myself were cited to 
 bear testimony in Washington a few months ago, and who 
 in consequence of that testimony was deposed from his 
 of&ce. When I had left the court house a friend took me 
 aside, himself a secessionist, and told me that I would do 
 well to leave the city, since in case the soldiers were to learn 
 that I had just come from the North, I in a few minutes 
 might be a dead man. Then came a time of darkness and 
 oppression. The battle of Manassas had taken place, and for 
 four months we were kept in the dark with regard to almost 
 everything, which could have a favorable bearing on the 
 pregervation or restoration of the Union. It was during this 
 time that Judge Humphreys held court again in Knoxville, 
 and that he himself told the State's Attorney that he had no 
 right to send Union rnen to Tuscaloosa unless they were 
 taken with arms in their hands. The State's Attorney, a 
 wretched drunkard, replied that they had only been sent to 
 Tuscaloosa in order to make of them good Southern men. 
 Shortly before this time some of the Union men had secretly 
 combined and had burned certain bridges, in order to put a 
 stop to the thousands of soldiers who were every day passing 
 on to Virginia. Mr. Pickens who is now a Major in the U. 
 S. Army, had taken part in this enterprise and had escaped. 
 In consequence of it, his father, a Senator in the State's Leg- 
 islature, had been seized and taken to Tuscaloosa. One of 
 my neighbors returned at that time from Tuscaloosa, where 
 he had been imprisoned, sick in body and in mind. He told 
 me that he had left the aged Pickens in good healtli, but 
 that he could not live, since he was confined with twenty- 
 seven others in a small room, and in the night they Avere not 
 permitted to open the windows. Pickens died. His wife 
 when she heard it, lost her reason and died ; a daughter 
 being thus suddenly deprived of her parents also died of a 
 broken heart! It was in this way that the State's Attorney 
 in Knoxville made of Union men Good Southern Men ! An 
 acquaintance of mine, the Eev. Mr. Duggan, a highly re- 
 
8 
 
 spectable clergyman, was compelled ou a hot day to walk 
 twenty miles as a prisoner to Knoxville, because long before 
 the State had been carried out of the Union he had prayed 
 for the President of the United States. His horse was led 
 behind him, and he, though old and very corpulent, was not 
 permitted to mount it. When he had arrived in Knoxville. 
 he was declared free, and free he soon was, for God took 
 him to himself. That journey on foot had become the cause 
 of his death. A man named Ilaun had been taken to 
 prison, because he had taken part in the burning of the 
 l)ridges. The names of the persons who tried him have never 
 been made j^ublic. Not until he had arrived at the place 
 of execution did the public learn why he was to be executed. 
 He was asked whether he was sorry for what he had done, 
 he replied, that if placed in similar circumstances he would 
 do it again, and that he was prepared to die. Others beside 
 him were hung, still others were shot down or otherwise 
 murdered. ISTor did this spirit of 'oppression extend to 
 Union men alone. Shortly before I left East Tennessee, a 
 wealthy secessionist named Jarnagan, who lived in my vicin- 
 ity did not rest, till two companies were quartered in that 
 town, in order to keep down the Union men. Three months 
 afterwards he left his residence, because, as he himself de- 
 clared, his OAvn friends had robbed him of property worth 
 $3,000, and would take his life if he would not give up all. 
 It was still worse with Daniel Yarnall, another secessionist, 
 and also one of my neighbor?. Pie had complained concern- 
 ing the conduct of some soldiers in the Confederate army, 
 and these soldiers had been punished ; in consequence of it 
 they went to his house and stripped him. He himself 
 counted forty lashes, and then could count no more. When 
 the workings of this treason first commenced, and I on ni}' 
 missionary tours was passing through the fruitful vallej's 
 and over the pleasant hill sides of East Tennessee, and 
 beheld the fields ready for the harvests, and the industrious 
 men and women engaged in their daily round of duties, I 
 a,sked myself, whether indeed it was j^ossible, that the mad 
 ambition of men would go so far as to desolate these scenes 
 of beauty. It has proved possible indeed ! Where but two 
 
9 
 
 years ago tliere were all tlie elements calculated to make a 
 community prosperous, tliere is now misery and wretched- 
 ness the most fearful, and the rule of an armed mob bent 
 upon indiscriminate plunder. Do you see 3^onder wretch ? 
 IIo lias been a drunkard and a vagabond all his life-time, yet 
 he has thousands of dollars in his pocket now, and he rides 
 the most beautiful horse in that whole region of country. I 
 could take you to the industrious former from whom he 
 took the horse, and whom he robbed of his money, and who 
 now, together with his wife and children are left in penury ! 
 Do you see yonder girl ? How beautiful she would be, if it 
 were not for the loss of that eye ! That eye she lost in success- 
 fully defending her honor against the assault of a Confederate 
 soldier, until her father could come to her aid and slay him. 
 Ah, my reader, you who live here so comfortable and so 
 undisturbed, have little knowledge of what is going on but 
 a few hundred miles from here, I have seen the man of 
 eighty, the oldest and the wealthiest man of a loyal district, 
 who at his age had joined the Home Guards, raise his trem- 
 bling hands to heaven, and ask God whether there was no 
 curse in store for deeds so cruel. I have heard the gentle 
 woman exclaim that she must have the blood of one of 
 these men, her spirit being maddened to desperation because 
 the}'' had fired a hundred shots at her husband. Who could 
 remain cold at the sight of enormities like these ? I have 
 often been asked whether the representations made by 
 Brownlow and others can be relied on. Neither Brownlow 
 nor myself, nor any, nor all of us can give a full record of 
 cruelties which have been perpetrated and are now being 
 perpetrated in the recesses of the mountains and valleys of 
 East Tennessee, or of the sufferings and the deaths througli 
 which East Tennesseeans have to pass in the prisons of the 
 South from want of food, from filth, from absence of venti- 
 lation and from degrading work. 
 
 After the defeat otf the rebels near Mill Sj^ring had taken 
 place, I had to go secretly to Kentucky in order to attend to 
 some private aft'airs of mine. After my return the battle of 
 Pittsburg Landing had occurred, and Fort Henry, Fort Don- 
 elson and Nashville had fallen into the hands of the Federal 
 
10 
 
 troops. In consequence of these reverses the conscription 
 law was enacted. There was a place of mustering near my 
 house, where in former times generally some 800 men had 
 mustered ; that day only about 50 appeared. Two nights 
 after, almost all the men able to bear arms disappeared, went 
 to Kentucky, and entered the United States Army. Then 
 Churchwell, the Provost Marshal of East Tennessee, a man 
 who has since been called to the Judgment bar of God, 
 issued a proclamation and declared that if these men would 
 come back they should be permitted peacefully to pursue 
 their avocations; at the same time, however, he attempted 
 to seize some of the most influential Union men who had yet 
 staid behind. I was to be one of the victims ; by a most 
 Providential combination of circumstances I received early 
 notice of the fact that five men were sent out to apprehend 
 me. I had made up my mind to go to prison. I could not 
 bear the thought of leaving the atmosphere where my wife 
 and my children were breathing, but my wife prevailed on 
 me to go to our friends in the North. Her last words were : 
 '•' Fear not for me, I trust in God ;" I begged her to kiss our 
 children, and I turned into the mountains. Never I trust, 
 shall I cease to be thankful for the gracious manner in which 
 I was shielded from harm in that perilous journey. Six 
 months later my wife and my children arrived in Cincinnati, 
 having crossed the Cumberland Mountains in the rear of 
 the two contending armies, and having made more than 300 
 miles in an open buggy. We have since removed to this 
 city, where I have been appointed Chaplain of the Turner's 
 Lane Hospital. 
 
 Now, after having made these statements, which in a great 
 measure refer to myself, I wish to draw the attention of the 
 reader to certain subjects which are of vital importance to 
 all of us, and on which my past experience, such as I have 
 just described it, may enable me to shed some light. In the 
 first place, then, let me advise every cfee who reads these 
 pages to turn away from the man, who attempts to persuade 
 himself and others, that the South has been driven into her 
 treasonable course in consequence of the Avrong inflicted on 
 her by the North. This, indeed, is one of the falsehoods by 
 
11 
 
 which the men of the South liave attempted to excuse their 
 treason, but it was not the cause of it. Do you think, I 
 believed them, when they came to me about that time and 
 told me that the men of the North were a set of cowards 
 who would not fight, and that one Southerner could whip 
 five of them at any time ? Do you think I believed them 
 when they spoke of drawing the line between the North and 
 the South along the Ohio river, and of erecting an immense 
 fortress opposite Cincinnati, and of battering down that city, 
 whenever the North interfered with slavery ? Or do you 
 think I believed them, when they advised me to join the 
 South, because, if the South succeeded. East Tennessee would 
 be a great manufacturing country, and my little property 
 would increase a hundred-fold in value? Of course I did 
 not believe them. I knew too much about my friends in 
 the North to doubt their bravery, and I had seen too much 
 of the want of manufacturing enterprize in the South to 
 indulge the hope that my property would be worth any 
 thing, if the South should gain the ascendency. Just as 
 little did I believe it, when they came to me and told me 
 that they were compelled to rise in rebellion, because the 
 North was resolved to rob the South of their slaves. Had 
 not I listened to the Eev. Dr. Eoss and many of the other 
 leaders of the movement ? Washington and Jefi'erson and 
 the men of their time had, indeed, regarded slavery as an 
 evil which would gradually give way under the influence 
 of Christianity ; but not so these apostles of our own time 
 or of the immediate past. According to them, slavery is 
 the very foundation, on which Christianity is resting, take it 
 away and Christianity crumbles to pieces ; according to them 
 on the existence of slavery depends the cause of freedom, 
 touch that institution and freedom as well as Christianity 
 are crushed. Strange doctrines these, you say, yet these 
 are the doctrines which have been taught in the South by 
 divine and layman for more than twenty-five years, and 
 taught for the very purpose, which they now attempt to 
 realize by their treasonable movement, and into which they 
 have been drawn for reasons very different from those which 
 they have made public. It was indeed not abolition nor 
 
12 
 
 any otlicr imaginary wrong inflicted on them, by tlie Norths 
 whicli influenced their action, but a conviction of a very 
 different character. Witli all tlieir boasts concernins; the 
 divine character of the institution of slavery, and the spirit- 
 ual and temporal blessings which resulted from it, they could 
 not conceal from themselves, that in its practical workings 
 slavery in many respects looked very much like a curse. 
 Why was it that these vast multitudes of emigrants were 
 peopling the North, while they kept away from the South ? 
 Why, that manufactures and commerce selected the North 
 for their favored home ? How did it happen that if you 
 started from Pittsburg on your way to St. Louis, you would 
 see on the right hand side of the Ohio river, flourishing 
 towns and cultivated fields without number, while on the 
 left, nature reigned beautiful but unproductive? It was 
 slavery which was the cause of it, and the time was fast 
 .approaching when the South compared to the North would 
 be in a lamentable minority, and would lose that influence 
 over the General Government which it had so long enjoyed. 
 Hence the criminal resolve of breaking the Union to pieces, 
 and of founding an aristocratic empire with slavery for its 
 basis, and the prospect of having untold wealth, pouring 
 into its bosom by re-opening the African slave trade. Ah 
 what anguish have we Union men of the South suffered 
 when one and another of these diabolical plans was de- 
 veloped to our view. How vain the hope of being benefitted 
 by the resolutions of Crittenden, or by any other resolutions, 
 when we had learnt that the Union was to be broken to 
 pieces at every cost. Many an appeal reached the South at 
 that time from the great conservative body of the people in 
 the North, calling upon them to be but patient for a few 
 days and they should receive every security for their rights 
 which they possibly could desire. There were many hearts, 
 which bounded with joy and with hope at these appeals, 
 but they met no response in those Southern Senators, who 
 had it in their power to pass the Crittenden resolutions, but 
 who refused to vote, that they might break up the Union. 
 Abolition no doubt has to answer for many things, but it 
 never will have to answer for having; brought about this 
 
13 
 
 rebellion. Tlie po^Yer was rapidly escaping from tlie hands 
 wMcli had wielded it so long, and that power was to be pre- 
 served, though the country should be deluged in blood, and 
 the recollections of a glorious past be given to the winds. 
 Yet there are still those amongst us, who are sympathizing 
 with the South, on account of the wrongs it has suffered at 
 the hands of the North. I assure you that the slaveholders 
 of East Tennessee, who are Union men, do not feel that they 
 need such s3-mpathy. They never have complained that 
 they have lost any of their rights, and they look with utter 
 abhorrence upon this attempt to obliterate from the fam.ily 
 of nations, a country which surpassed every other in a spirit 
 of justice and humanity. They are most decidedly of opinion 
 that God would be altogether just, if He should sweep away 
 the institution of slavery, which these men intend to make 
 the foundation of their empire, and if they also in conse- 
 quence of it have to suffer loss they are prepared for it. It 
 is by the preservation of the Union alone, that they can 
 have security not only for the property which may be left 
 them, but for liberty and life. Shortly before I left East 
 Tennessee, I was in the house of a wealthy slave ovmer, a 
 devoted friend of the Union. He spoke with tears of this 
 attempt to break up the Union, adding that there was a report 
 that the Government of the United States intended to con- 
 fiscate the slaves. He did not believe, he said, that the 
 Government would deprive loyal slaveholders of their pro- 
 perty, but in case it should be necessary, in order to preserve 
 the Union, he Vv'ould gladl}'' give up the slaves. Another 
 slaveholder, also one of my acquaintances, who had been 
 robbed of a large portion of his property, and who had been 
 in prison for months, at last reached his home again. " The 
 last dollar," he said to his wife, "the last slave, if but the 
 Union be preserved, and joj^fuUy we will start anew in life." 
 "Think you," said another distinguished slaveholder, a refu- 
 gee from East Tennessee,* the other day in the city of New 
 York, in the same spirit, "that for the pleasure of enjoying 
 the company of my wife and my babes whom I have not seen 
 for the last two years, I would not have willingly given all 
 * The Rev. Mr. Carter. 
 
14 
 
 tliat my negroes are worth, or all that they ever will be 
 worth to me ? " Yet though the Union men of the South 
 thank them so little for their sympathy, the sympathizers 
 here are still 'going on in the same strain. " Pray, sir," said 
 one of them to me but a few days ago, liow would you like 
 it, if you had owned two hundred negroes and they had 
 been taken away from you? " "I would certainly feel satis- 
 fied," was my reply, " if at that price I had obtained security 
 for the property I might still have, but most of all for my 
 liberty and my life. I have not lost two hunderd slaves, 
 but I have lost all the property I owned, and which I valued 
 ut six thousand dollars. Yet by giving it up and escaping 
 to the North, I again enjoy the benefits resulting from the 
 Union, and the means of supporting my family." 
 
 By facts like these I am readily reminded of others, which 
 it may be as well to mention in this connection. I have 
 very frequently heard of late the assertion, that this is not a 
 war for the Union but for the freeing of the negroes, and 
 gentlemen have told me, that they, indeed, are as much for 
 the Union as ever, but that they are constrained to oppose 
 the administration, because it has now raised issues which 
 are altogether foreign to the original objects of the war. 
 ISTow in order to meet this objection in a satisfactory man- 
 ner, I beg the reader to look at the beginning of this war. 
 When the South was going on in taking one aggressive step 
 after the other, and the United States Government still bore 
 it patiently, a gentleman, who is now prominent in the ranks 
 of secession, but who at that time had not made uj) his mind 
 which way he would turn, expressed great astonishment at 
 this conduct. " The United States," he said, " are a powerful 
 nation, but even for a nation so powerful it seems strange 
 to be so slow in punishing treason." Ignorant as I then was 
 of the extent of this treason, I gloried in this forbearance of 
 the United States because it was so much in keeping with 
 the spirit it had ever manifested to leave room for the loyalty 
 that might still exist in the South to make itself felt. At a 
 later period, however, the necessity of an energetic move- 
 ment had become evident, and government and people unan- 
 imously declared that they were fighting, and would fight 
 
15 
 
 on for the Union and tlie Constitution. I became well 
 acquainted with this state of feeling, for I was then in the 
 North. But then, again, there came another phase of the 
 struggle. The Federal arms had been sufficiently successful 
 in taking ]3ossession of large portions of slave territory, and 
 they had to meet the question, what they should do with 
 the negroes of disloyal slaveholders. The question was 
 finally solved by the proclamation of the President, a docu- 
 ment, which is the result of the circumstances in which the 
 disloyalists of the South have placed themselves by their 
 treasonable course. Thus it has happened that thousands, 
 and let me add, I am of the number, while th^y have at all 
 times opposed abolitionism, and have been in favor of secur- 
 ing the South in all their rights, have now come to feel, that 
 treason has no rights whatever, and that the negroes, if they 
 furnisn to traitors the means of support, and of carrying on 
 this war against the Union, should be deprived of these 
 means wherever an opportunity offers, and that they ought 
 to sustain the Government to the utmost in their power, 
 because it is acting in accordance with these views. To 
 illustrate this subject from what may be called the common 
 sense view of it, I beg leave to relate an incident related 
 to me by a clergyman, whose name I shall be happy to give, 
 as soon as he will permit me to do so. He had been invited 
 to deliver a patriotic address in a neighborhood, which was 
 not celebrated on account of its patriotism, and hints had 
 been dropped, that if he did go there he might expect to be 
 handled somewhat roughly. The clergyman however did 
 go. He proposed to stop at the house of an acquaintance 
 who was quite an excitable character. Before entering the 
 house, he heard that one of the agitators on the other side of 
 the question liad been there in the morning. He of course 
 then expected a scene of a good deal of excitement, and he 
 was by no means disappointed. Hardly had he entered 
 when his friend rushed up to him, and exclaimed : " Well, 
 sir, it is all over now ! " " What is over." " There is going 
 to be a draft." " Well, what of that ? " " We will not go ! " 
 " But you will be made to go." " What, make fifty thou- 
 sand men go ? " " Ah remember my friend, it is not every 
 
18 
 
 one tTiinks in tliis ■vvay. It is only a little corner here of 
 Pennsylvania." "But," exclaimed tlie otlier with great 
 vehemence; "I will not fight for the nigger!" "Not fight 
 for the nigger," said my friend. " Well, now, listen to me. 
 Suppose I were a general of the Secessionists, and had fifty 
 thousand trooj)s under my command, and I were standing 
 here, and you were a general of the Union troops, and you 
 had fifty thousand men under your command, and you were 
 standing over there. And now suppose that you had leamt 
 that here back of my right wing I had stored a vast deal of 
 ammunition, and that you knew a way how to get round 
 there and take it away from me, you also knowing that if 
 you did take it, I would have no powder to fire at you, 
 would you take it?" "Certainly!" "And then suppose 
 that you had learnt that back of my left wing I had stored 
 a considerable amount of provisions, and that you nad an 
 opportunity of getting hold of it, you- knowing that if you 
 succeeded in taking it, I would have to do with half rations 
 and might be very much disposed to give up the fight; 
 would you go and take it ? " " Surely I would ! " " And 
 then again suppose, that far in the rear of me, there were 
 five thousand negroes constantly at work in order to supply 
 me with the provisions I needed, and that you knew a way 
 how to catch them, and that you knew that if you did catch 
 them, I was sure to give up, for I would have nothing what- 
 ever to eat. "Would you go and catch them ? " " Surely 
 I would." " Well, that is all the Government proposes to 
 do." "Is that all?" "Yes." " Well I am for that ! " So 
 it is, my reader, those who declare that the Government is 
 no longer fighting for the Union and the Constitution are 
 far from the truth. We have to accustom ourselves to the 
 thought, that as matters now stand in the South, traitors 
 have no right under the Constitution, and that the safety 
 and the perpetuity of the Union^ demand that they should 
 be deprived of every means by which they are aided in 
 their treasonable cour-se. He who opposes the Government 
 in this respect, is aiding and abetting treason, and to arrest 
 such and punish them is the duty which the Government 
 owes to the safety of its loyal citizens and to itself. 
 
17 
 
 And this brings me to anotlier brancli of my subject. I 
 have been often asked, what is likely to be tlie final result 
 of all this loss of treasure and of blood. A similar ques- 
 tion, I understand, one of my friends addressed the other 
 day to a prominent individual in Washington, The person 
 thus addressed was silent for a time, and then said with 
 deep earnestness : " Our prophets are dead and I cannot 
 tell." By the prophets he meant those great statesmen : 
 Jefferson, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, 
 Clay, AYebster and others, who in times gone by have been 
 our political teachers, and who have pointed out to us the 
 course we must take in order to enjoy peace and prosperityo 
 But however interesting and touching this answer may 
 appear, he could have given a better one. He could have 
 said : " Our prophets are dead, and yet they speak." They 
 speak by their example, and by the writings which they 
 have bequeathed to us. Jefferson when he had been elected 
 President said in his inaugural address : " "We have called 
 those who are our brothers, and who hold the same principles 
 with ourselves by different names," referring thus mildly to 
 the spirit of party which had been manifested previous to 
 the election. Monroe when he had been President for four 
 years, had so acted in the spirit of the words of Jefferson, 
 that when his re-election was to take place, there was none 
 to oppose him ; the whole people formed a great American 
 Union party. When Jackson, the democrat, had to contend 
 against the doctrine of separation as promulgated by South 
 Carolina, there stood by his side, Daniel Webster, the whig, 
 and proved, particularly in his celebrated speech against 
 Colonel Hayne of South Carolina, that the Constitution does 
 not confer the right upon a single State, to cut loose from 
 the Union at its pleasure. And when, on another occa- 
 sion, again the safety of the Union was imperilled, it was 
 Henry Clay, the whig, who expressed his gratitude to cer- 
 tain democratic members, because in the hour of danger 
 they had set aside all considerations of party, and had aided 
 him in preserving the Union. Nor would I forget John 
 Quincy Adams, who, when he entered upon his presidential 
 career, declared that no man who bore a good character and 
 
18 
 
 was fit for the office lie held, should he deprived of it from 
 considerations of party, and who acted in accordance with 
 this declaration. Though dead, they speak. They tell us 
 that now as in the time of Jefferson there are those, who, 
 though they are called by different names, are yet our 
 brethren, who are holding the same principles with us ; 
 they admonish us, that when the existence of the Union is 
 at stake, we for a time at -least ought to keep up our party 
 lines less strictly, taking for our platform the JJwion as our 
 forefathers have done ; they speak to those in power and 
 tell them that in the choice of the men they employ, they 
 ought to be guided by merit and not by party considera- 
 tions, and they speak to those who hold responsible positions 
 under the Government, and remind them that they are 
 bound to carry out the policy of the Government, indepen- 
 dent of the fact that their associations of party would lead 
 them in a different direction. It is this ground which the 
 Union men of East Tennessee desire to occupy. "When one 
 of our wealthy slaveholders, after monihs of. imprisonment, 
 had returned, he was one day near his house, sitting upon 
 a fence. Some Confederate soldiers were passing by, and 
 one of them called to him to shout for Jefferson Davis. My 
 friend refused to do so. " Are you for Lincoln ? " asked the 
 other. " I am for the Union," answered my friend, " and if 
 Lincoln is for the Union, then am I for Lincoln." The 
 soldiers threatened to kill him, but at that time did not do it. 
 The Union is with the Union men of East Tennessee the 
 ])aramount question. Every other is secondary. They are 
 willing to lose sight of all party distinctions for a time, if 
 the safety of the Union should require it. In this connec- 
 tion, however, I must once more allude to the subject of 
 slavery. As I have already had an opportunity of showing, 
 they are willing to put up with slavery, if that should be 
 most conducive to the welfare of the Union, and they are 
 willing to do without it, if the good of the Union should 
 require it. It was sentiments like these which I expressed 
 the other day in a large Democratic meeting. "Ah," said one 
 of my hearers, "then that is just as Mr. Lincoln says: 'The 
 Union with slavery, if that bo best, the Union partly with 
 
19 
 
 and partly without slavery if tliat be best, tlie Union Avitli- 
 out slavery, if tliat be best ; the Union any way.' " And 
 they all approved of the doctrine. I hope the time will 
 come when sentiments like these, which were uttered by 
 loyal men in Montgomery county in this State, will be gen- 
 erally entertained, and when we all shall feel the importance 
 of that spirit of forbearance, which in past times has guided 
 us safely through so many dangers. 
 
 Among the many means which are used to mislead and 
 deceive men, few have been found more efficient than the 
 declaration, which we hear so often repeated, that Ave want 
 " the Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was." When 
 these words are pronounced by certain individuals they are 
 exceedingly significant. They mean nothing less than that 
 this administration is an abolition administration, that it is 
 the cause of the war, that from the beginning it has carried 
 on the war to subjugate the South and to set' the negroes 
 free, that it is a tyrannical administration subverting the 
 Constitution, and that there is no hope for this country 
 unless this administration can be overturned, the war bo 
 stopped and the rights of the South be acknowledged. By 
 it they mean to say that they look with approval upon every 
 measure of the Southern leaders, while they have nothing 
 but abuse for the administration and those who sustain it, 
 that they deeply sympathize with Jefferson Davis and his 
 followers, while the men who have been driven from their 
 homes, they regard as traitors to the sacred cause of the 
 South, upon whom they mean to heap public and private 
 insults whenever an opportunity shall ofter. Such is the 
 meaning of the words : " The Constitution as it is and the 
 Union as it was," when these words come from certain lips. 
 It is the very essence of treason, busily engaged in stirring 
 up civil war in the North, openly or secretly. When uttered 
 by others it is done more thoughtlessly, and the principal 
 idea connected with them seems the conviction, that we 
 ought to make peace and go on as we did in former times. 
 It. would be well, however, if men who make use of these 
 words would fairly determine what they ought to mean. I 
 also say : Give me the Union as it was. " Give it to me, to 
 
20 
 
 use tlie language of a clistinguislied East Tennessean,'^ aa 
 it "vyas, wlien "Washington to suppress rebellion, sent into 
 "VYestern Pennsylvania fifteen thousand men under the com- 
 mand of his neiglibor and friend General Lee. . ; . . 
 "When Webster and Clay rallied to the support of Andrew 
 Jackson, and sent treason whipped and abashed to its lair, 
 When Millard Fillmore, called to account for the dis^^osition 
 of his fleets in the harbor of Charleston, replied, that he was 
 not responsible for his of&cial conduct to the Governor of 
 South Carolina." Such " as it was " is the Union I desire. 
 Do not speak to me of a Union, such as it was, wiien James 
 Buchanan connived at the treason which the members of 
 his Cabinet were plotting, or when John C. Breckinridge 
 poured forth treason in the Senate of the United States. 
 If it even were possible to restore such a Union, it w^ould 
 be utterly wanting in the elements necessary for its per- 
 petuity. One of the leaders of Secession in East Tennessee, 
 a young man full of self-conceit and a captain in the rebel 
 army, visited the house of one of our aged Union men, a 
 descendant of one of the revolutionary heroes. " Ah," said 
 the military fop, strutting up and down the room, " jou old 
 men may indeed talk of Washington and of his time as you 
 do, but we who are younger have been brought up under 
 different influences, and we follow different teachers." It 
 is even so, and it would be in vain to think of formino^ a 
 Union with men, who utterly repudiate what to the Ameri- 
 can patriot are sentiments the most sacred and the most 
 true. The South has to be taught that the falsehoods on 
 w^hich they attempt to erect their slavery empire are not 
 strong enough to serve their purpose, and whenever they 
 have been taught it, we may have a Union, as it was in the 
 days of this country's glory, a Union, better fitted to bless 
 the world than it ever has been before, because chastened 
 and purified. 
 
 And there is still another representation made by design- 
 ing men, in order to mislead those who are little acquainted 
 wdth the condition of affairs in the South. It is said that if 
 in consequence of the war the negroes are set free they will 
 
 * Speech of the Hon. Horace Maynard of Tennessee, delivered in the 
 House of Representatives, January 31, 1863. 
 
21 
 
 come to tlie jSTortli and will bring down tlie free labor of the 
 North to a ruinous extent. I have lived but six years in the 
 South, and I have seen slavery but in Tennessee, in Georgia 
 and in j)ortions of South Carolina, Virginia and Alabama. 
 As far as my knowledge extends I am fully persuaded that 
 statements such as the one referred to are utterly void of 
 foundation. Let me say to my readers emphatically, that 
 the impressions which many have here in the North con- 
 cerning the slaves of the South are extremely erroneous. 
 The negroes are attached to the South by many bonds 
 which are not easily broken. The South they regard as 
 their home, they greatly prefer its climate ; there many of 
 them have families to whom they are attached, and church 
 relations which they highly value ; there they have an op- 
 portunity of making a good living, with but little labor, and 
 though many desire to be free and daily pray for the success 
 of the Northern arms, yet there is not one of them, I believe, 
 who would think of coming North after he has obtained his 
 freedom, and is placed in circumstances which will permit 
 him quietly to enjoy it. " I care little," said a wealthy slave- 
 holder to me, shortly before I left East Tennessee, " whether 
 my slaves are set free or not. K they were set free they 
 would not leave me. I would pay them what is right, and 
 they would continue to work my plantation.'" 
 
 Before concluding I may be permitted to make another 
 brief reference to myself. I need not say that Germany is 
 dear to me ; in Germany rest the bones of my fathers ; there 
 have I lived the beautiful days of my childhood and early youth. 
 In Germany there are now living those who are bound to 
 me not onl}^ by the ties of blood, but by ties which reach 
 fa,r beyond the grave. Yet while Germany is dear to me, I 
 have also learnt to love this country during the thirty-five 
 years I have lived here. I love it because it has invited 
 millions like myself to its hospitable shores ; I love it because 
 it has extended its protection not only in distant lands or 
 on distant seas, but also in every humble valley and on 
 every retired hillside. There the industrious farmer could 
 quietly attend to his daily avocation, and in the evening 
 return to the circle of his family, as I have done for years. 
 
' 22 
 
 and there under his own vine and fig-tree lie conld look 
 forward to the time when he would peacefully close his life. 
 When it seemed to be placed beyond a doubt that the Union 
 had ceased to exist, the friends of the South came to me once 
 more, and told me that I could have now no objection to 
 unite with them. I replied, that when I came to this country, 
 I swore allegiance to the Union, that in case the Union had 
 indeed ceased to exist, I did not own allegiance either to the 
 South or to the North, that I would return to my native 
 land and there perhaps after many years, when far advanced 
 in life, I would take my children's children upon my knees, 
 and with streaming eyes I would tell them of a noble land, 
 a powerful Union, of which at one time I was a citizen. 
 Since I have come ISTorth and have once more met with old 
 friends, who ^\h- the fire of youth are ready to battle for the 
 Union, which has protected them for so many years, and 
 since I have been brought in contact with so many youthful 
 spirits who go to the field of battle with the same spirit 
 which filled the heroes of the past, I am strongly impressed 
 with the fact that this Union is by no means so near its 
 dissolution as some of my Southern friends seemed to think 
 it was, and with John Adams I am ready to say, " Sink or " 
 swim, live or die, survive or perish, the fortunes of this 
 country shall be my fortunes ! " I stood the other day on 
 the spot where Melchoir Miihlenburg, the founder of the 
 Lutheran church in the United States, had labored for many 
 years. There at the time of the revolution and on a certain 
 Sabbath he had stood in his pulpit and had preached Christ 
 and Him crucified ; he descends from the pulpit, he puts off 
 his gown, and he stands there before his astonished con- 
 gregation in full military costume. There is a time for 
 preaching, he says, and there is a time for fighting, and my 
 time for fighting has come." Many clergymen are now 
 following his example. I know not what may be in store 
 for me, but I am certain that I am in the path of duty in 
 addressing these words of solemn warning to such as may 
 choose to read them. In what I have written I have briefly 
 traced the misrepresentations by which the leaders of the 
 South have succeeded in deceiving the great mass of the 
 
23 
 
 people and tlie misery wliich has been the result of it. If 
 the same spirit of deception should be successful here as it 
 has been in the South, then the picture I have drawn of East 
 Tennessee will be reflected in the valleys and on the hill- 
 sides of Pennsylvania, we shall have here indeed the consti- 
 tution as it is, but as it is in* the South with its armed mobs, 
 its spirit of indiscriminate plunder and its deeds of violence, 
 and we shall no longer worry about the danger of having 
 the slaves coming North, for we shall be all slaves, railed 
 with an iron rod by our Southern masters, and by those few 
 Northern sympathizers and demagogues whom anarchy will 
 make masters instead of slaves. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, I shall be permitted to make 
 another brief reference to one of our "prophets." It is 
 Daniel Webster, who in closing the speech, in which he 
 proves that the constitution is not a compact between sov- 
 ereign States, dwells in a strain of touching sadness on the 
 possible future of the United States if the friends of nullifi- 
 cation should be able to give practical effect to their opinions. 
 " They would prove themselves in his judgment, the most 
 skilful architects of ruin, the most effectual extinguishers of 
 high raised expectations, the greatest blasters of human 
 hopes that any age has produced. They would stand forth 
 to proclaim in tones which would pierce the ears of half the 
 human race, that the last experiment of representative gov- 
 ernment had failed .... Millions of eyes, of those 
 who now feed their inherent love of liberty on the success of 
 the American example, would turn away on beholding our 
 dismemberment, and find no place on earth whereon to rest 
 their gratified sight. Amidst the incantations and orgies of 
 nullification, . secession, disunion and revolution would be 
 celebrated the funeral rites of constitutional and republican 
 liberty ! " I am thankful that it is not my task to trace in 
 detail how much of the ruin which Daniel "Webster thus 
 anticipated has actually come to pass. Mine is a more 
 cheerful task. However heart-rending the struggle may be 
 through which we are passing, it is not a hopeless struggle 
 to him who looks higher than the earth for a solution of it. 
 If we see many things passing away which long familiarity 
 
24 
 
 has endeared to us, it is tliat tliey may be supplanted by 
 liiglier and better ones. "Wken tlie city of Geneva, threat- 
 ened by tlie Duke of Savoy, the Pope and the Emperor, was 
 reduced to the greatest weakness, its inhabitants still re- 
 mained undismayed. " Geneva," they said, " is in danger of 
 being destroyed, but G'od watches over us ; ' better have war 
 and liberty than peace and servitude ; we do not put our 
 trust in princes, and to God alone be the honor and glory ! " 
 \ How important the lesson which Geneva then was learning, 
 and how well for us if we prove equally teachable, if we also 
 learn to put our trust more fully in God than we have been 
 disposed to do, fearful as the trials may be through which 
 we may have to pass, we shall not be left Avithout help. But 
 in this respect also our prophets are our teachers. The 
 sentiments with which Daniel "Webster closed the speech, 
 I have referred to, and which are conceived in this spirit 
 we are fearlessly to put into action. "With my whole 
 heart I pray for the continuance of the domestic peace 
 and quiet of the country. I desire, most ardently, the 
 restoration of affection and harmony to all its parts. I desire 
 that every citizen of the whole country may look to this 
 government with no other sentiments than those of grateful 
 respect and attachment, but I cannot yield even to kind 
 feelings the cause t)f the constitution, the true glory of the 
 country, and the great trust which we hold in our hands for 
 succeeding ages. If the constitution cannot be maintained 
 without meeting these scenes of commotion and contest how- 
 ever unwelcome, they must come. We cannot, we must not, 
 we dare not omit to do that which in our judgment, the 
 safety of the Union requires .... I am ready to 
 perform my own ajipropriate part, whenever and wherever 
 the occasion may call on me, and to take my chance among 
 those upon whom blows may fall first and fall thickest. I 
 shall exert every facult}^ I possess in aiding to prevent the 
 constitution from being nullified, destroyed or impaired ; 
 and even should I see it fall, I will still with a voice feeble, 
 perhaps, but earnest as ever issued from human lips, and 
 with fidelity and zeal which nothing shall extinguish, call 
 on the PEOPLE to come to its rescue." 
 
SKETCHES OF EAST TENNESSEE LIFE, 
 
 (25) 
 
SKETCHES OF EAST TENNESSEE LIFE. 
 
 "East Tennessee ! Secluded land, 
 Of gentle hills and mountains grand, 
 Where healthful breezes ever blow, 
 And coolest springs and rivers flow ; 
 Where yellow wheat and waving corn 
 Are liberal poured from jilenty's horn, — 
 Land of the valley and the glen, 
 Of lovely maids and stalwart men ; 
 Thy gorgeous sunsets well may vie. 
 In splendor with Italian sky. 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Enchanting land ! where nature showers 
 Her fairest fruits and gaudiest flowers ; 
 Where stately forests wide expand. 
 Inviting the industrious hand, 
 And all the searching eye can view 
 Is beautiful and useful too ; — 
 Who knows thee well, is sure to love, 
 Where'er his wandering footsteps rove, 
 And backward ever turns to thee. 
 With fond regretful memory ; 
 Feeling his heart impatient burn 
 Among thy mountains to return !" 
 
 " East Tennessee. By an East Tennessean." 
 
 When, on a certain occasion, the opinion of a distinguished 
 theologian was quoted, the reply given was, that that had been 
 his opinion the year before, implying thereby that the theolo- 
 gian in question was somewhat noted for frequently changing 
 his opinions. Many have said and felt that within the last 
 three or four years they have been very much in the condition 
 of the theologian referred to, having changed not only their 
 opinions, but some of their most cherished convictions. I 
 am well aware that in this respect I do not form an excep- 
 tion to the general rule, and I can only express the hope 
 that my readers will find that if I have changed, I have not 
 changed without a cause. 
 
 As these are the days of romantic adventure and of hair- 
 breadth deliverances, I shall be very brief with regard to 
 
 (27) 
 
28 
 
 the dangers wliicli I encountered in making mj escape from 
 East Tennessee. 
 
 On Saturday, the 25t'h of April, 1862, I had reason to ex- 
 pect that several armed men were in search of me. About 
 eleven o'clock, A. M., I left my house without changing my 
 dress, in order to give the impression to those I met that I 
 was not embarking on a long journey. I reached the house of 
 a Union man and there staid over night. "When on the next 
 morning I came to the Clinch river, I found that river had 
 been stripped by the rebels of all the canoes and ferry boats. 
 I was in imminent danger of being discovered and arrested, 
 when a slave informed me that another slave had concealed 
 a boat in order to visit his wife who lived on the other side . 
 of the river. An arrangement was made that the slave 
 should come to a certain spot on Monday morning before 
 daylight, so that I might reach a place of safety before the 
 rebel cavalry entered upon their daily work of scouring the 
 country. 
 
 Long before day I was at the appointed spot. I waited 
 and waited, and had given up almost all hope, when I heard 
 the noise of the approaching boat, and soon afterwards saw 
 it coming towards me. Little can I describe the revulsion 
 of feeling which I at that moment experienced. The sun 
 had risen, and for more than an hour the birds on the trees 
 around me had welcomed him ; the river had been peacefully 
 flowing at my feet ; the cattle had gone forth to graze on the 
 meadows and the hills before me ; a scene of rare beauty had 
 courted my attention, but I had had ear and eye only for the 
 boat which was to take me to a place of safety. 
 
 I was -then about thirteen miles from my home, ten miles 
 more I had been told would bring me to the house of B. R.,* 
 and with him I would be safe. I walked as fast as I well 
 could; at last I could walk no further. A few hundred 
 yards from the house I wished to reach I had sat down to 
 rest, when a horseman rode up to me. I told him that I 
 was on my way to B. R. ''I am B. R.," replied he. "Then 
 with you I am safe." " Not with me ; my son-in-law is a Con- 
 
 * These are not tha initials of the name of the man here referred to. 
 
29 
 
 federate soldier, you would be arrested the moment yon 
 entered my bouse." He then showed me a path by which I 
 might avoid being seen from his house, and which would 
 take mo to a place of safety. The path referred to led up to 
 Ire top of a steep mountain. As I slowly ascended it I again 
 and again went to the margin of the woods in order to find 
 out whether I might still be discovered from the house I was 
 endeavoring to avoid. It seemed to me as if I could not get 
 out of its reach, and my excited imagination seemed to dis- 
 cover some one on tlie watch for me at each of its windows. 
 At last, hov/ever, I arrived at the top of the mountain, the 
 house was still in sight, but so far below me that no eye 
 from thence could reach my place of safety. Then I fell on 
 my knees and thanked God. 
 
 On Monday night I enjoyed the hospitality of a Union 
 family, and on Tuesday I left Anderson county and crossed 
 into Scott county. In the year 1860, I had travelled 
 through this county as agent of the Bible Society, and had 
 become intimately acquainted with its inhabitants, as well as 
 with several of its mountain passes. Little had I anticipated 
 that my escape from imprisonment or death would be facili- 
 tated by the friends to whom I then ministered and by tho 
 intimate knowledge of the country which I then acquired. 
 On Vv''eduosday morning I stood once more on the mountain 
 which overlooks Powell's A''alley and at the foot of which 
 lies the town of Jacksboro, the county seat of Carapbell's 
 county. Down that valley I had often gone on the way to 
 my home. This time, however, my course lay in a different 
 direction. I descended the north side of the mountain and 
 passing down Elk creek valley reached on Thursday morn- 
 ing the East Tennessee troops at Camp Spears on the line of 
 Campbell county, Tenn., and Whitley count}', Ky. In tho 
 Ibllowing week, when the men who had been in pursuit of 
 me called for the third time at my house in quest of me, my 
 wife had received information of m}' safe arrival at the 
 Federal army, and was cheered by the thought that I was 
 beyond the reach of capture. In that week also, I received 
 news from home. So active, was at that time, the secret 
 
30 
 
 intercourse between our army auil tlie Union men of East 
 Tennessee. 
 
 Two years and a half haJ paused wlien I was permitted to 
 visit once more tlie home I had been compelled to leave so 
 suddenly. Great, indeed, was the change which in the mean- 
 time had taken place. On the 22d of October of this year it 
 was my privilege to stand in the Court House in the city of 
 Knoxville in the same s|)Ot where three years before I had 
 seen the rebel Judge Humphreys, and arraigned before him 
 a number of Union men. I there had heard the State's attor- 
 ney make the charge and the Judge pronounce the sentence, 
 wliile the rebel flag which was within that hall told of the 
 mockery of justice which was going on there. "Whore now 
 was the Judge? Where the State's attorney? Where the 
 c]Owd of rebels that filled that hall, and where tlie band of 
 soldiers that surrounded that rebel flag? They v/ere gone, 
 and Union men who at that time were ever on the lookout 
 for a hiding place from the bitter hatred of these men could 
 now freely assemble. Equally great was the change which 
 had taken place outside of that hall. Where was the glorious 
 '• chivalry" which so proudly walked these streets, taking 
 special pleasure in insulting Union men after they robbed 
 them of their arms? Where the distinguished orators who 
 were ever read}^ in set speech to laud the '; noble defenders" 
 for going where they did not mean to go? Where the 
 staunch friends of the rebel cause, who freely gave their 
 money for it, or, if they loved their money too well, their 
 best wishes ? And where those apostles of a new dispensa- 
 tion which was to establish a mighty empire on the glorious 
 and everlasting foundation of the divine institution of 
 slavery ? They were gone, and in their j)laces I beheld the 
 familiar faces of the Union men and women of East Tennes- 
 see, protected by East Tennessee and Northern troops, over 
 whom were floating the Stars and Stripes. A portion of the 
 garrison consisted of colored troops, and many of those whom 
 I had known as slaves, from various reasons, were slaves no 
 more, and were handsomely supporting their families by 
 their industry. 
 
 Yet while a favorable change had taken place in the con- 
 
31 
 
 dition of the Union men of East Tennessee, there was room 
 left for improvement. I encountered in the streets of Knox- 
 ville those who had been leaders in the cause of the rebellion. 
 Some of them, though they had taken the oath of amnesty. 
 were still breathing the old spirit of hostility to the Union. 
 I told one of them that he had committed a great wrong 
 against his country. He replied that that remained yet to be 
 seen. Another, who knew not my political position, declared 
 that he was as great a rebel as ever, that he had a right to be 
 a rebel, and that he was ready to do over again all that he 
 had done. Shortly before my arrival in Knoxville, some of 
 these men had been guilty of such acts of violence, that the 
 Union men had been compelled to take the law into their 
 own hands. One of the results of this course is a change of 
 residence on the part of many. Of this I received a some- 
 what striking proof in meeeting incidentally with one of my 
 former neighbors. In the dark days of December in 1861, 
 this neighbor had come to my house, and in the course of a 
 long conversation he had told me that I now clearly saw that 
 the men of the North were a set of cowards; they would not 
 fight, and all the South had to do was to draw a line along 
 the Ohio river, to erect fortifications opposite Cincinnati, and 
 whenever the North stole a negro to fire right into the city. 
 On revisiting East Tennessee I happened to call at his house. 
 I found him and his whole family on the point of moving to 
 the North. He could not stay in East Tennessee, he said, 
 two shots had been fired into his house. I asked him what had 
 become of the line he intended to draw along the Ohio river. 
 He thought that was all over. I gave him a line to a friend 
 of mine at the North, and felt, while doing it, that the 
 country would gain more, if some greater transgressor than 
 he were removed from within its borders. 
 
 But I turn to brighter aspects of the picture I am drawing. 
 Whenever we glance at the mineral wealth of the United 
 States we are generally disposed to give free scope to our 
 thoughts; starting at the Rocky mountains we rest not till 
 they have arrived at the Sierra Nevada. I appreciate the fact 
 that in the Western states and territories, the government of 
 the United States is still the sole proprietor of this exhaustless 
 
82 
 
 wealth. Yet I am not disposed to undervalue on that account 
 the mineral wealth of Tennessee and of the states which border 
 on it. Let the war be ended and there will come with free 
 labor the spirit of enterprise and the liberal use of capital. 
 Let this mountain region be joined to Cincinnati by a rail- 
 road passing through the Cumberland Gap, and to Philadel- 
 ])hia by one passing through Western Virginia, and as by 
 the magic wand of some mighty wizard, the iron, the coal, 
 the nitre, the zink, the lead, the copper, the saltpetre, the salt, 
 and the marble of this region will be brought to light. With 
 the cotton region in their immediate vicinity, the streams 
 Avhich now flow down these mountains in idle beauty, will 
 1)6 made to turn the wheels of numberless manufactures, 
 while the generous fruit of the vine will cover those moun- 
 tain sides. Cities, towns and villages will be linked to each 
 other by the common interest of commercial enterprise, and 
 as schools and churches, and the faithful labors of an enlight- 
 ened ministry are multiplied, these mighty mountain fast- 
 nesses, which God Himself has formed, will be manned by a 
 population capable of doing their part in guarding the 
 temporal, moral, and spiritual interests of the nation. The 
 rebels have made light of many losses, but they have never 
 made light of the loss of East Tennessee. According to the 
 rebel press, it was the hardest blow that had been struck 
 them since the beginning of the war, for the possession of 
 East Tennessee- admitted the enemy to the very vitals of the 
 Confederacy " What," they asked, " is to become of the 
 Southern armies, if they are deprived of the nitre, the coal, 
 the iron, the saltpetre, the lead, and the salt of East Tennes- 
 see ? IIow are they to be fed without her cattle and her 
 hogs ?" And louder than any testimony of the rebel press 
 on this point, speak Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Look- 
 out Mountain, and the desperate assaults of Longstreet on 
 Knoxville. 
 
 In noticing the steps which have been taken to prepare 
 this better state of things, I would not willingly pass by the 
 generous spirit with Avhich "the North has come to the help 
 of East Tennessee. Again and again I learned from the lips 
 of those who are best acquainted with the history of these 
 
33 
 
 benevolent movements, that but for this timely help many 
 would have died from want of food. The Rev. T. W. Humes, 
 of the Episcopal Church, who, at the time I left East Ten- 
 nessee in 1861, was not excepted from the persecution which 
 more or less visited every faithful Union man, I i'ound devoted 
 to this work. B3' his personal influence he had kept in com- 
 biiied and benevolent action elements, which, in many re- 
 spects, seemed to harmonize but little. In now recalling, on 
 the one hand, the scenes of suilering which I witnessed in 
 the two '•' homes" for refugees in the city of Knoxville, and. 
 on the other, the abundance of means enjoyed by some ot 
 those who had been most active in producing these sufferings, 
 the question readily presents itself whether the wealth which 
 these men have obtained in rebelling against their country 
 might not be made to contribute to the relief of those who 
 liave lost their all. 
 
 The interest felt by those who have suffered oppression 
 and persecution has not been confined to the narrow bounds 
 of East Tennessee. Other portions of our country have 
 justly come in for their share of attention. I hardly know 
 a better way to impress us with a sense of the blessings we 
 enjoy than by contrasting them with the scene of suffering 
 and want which the Union Commission of the city of New 
 York has drawn. Yet while all deserve attention, I still 
 trust that the fact will not be left out of sight that the late 
 incursion of the rebels and the inclemency of the season, 
 must greatly add to the suffering of East Tennessee. 
 
 Having made these statements concerning the present 
 condition and the probable future of East Tennessee, and 
 of the mountain region, of. which it forms a part, I cannot 
 but dwell briefly on some of the topics which they call to 
 mind. I have referred to some of them on a former occasion, 
 but the events which have since taken place have in a 
 measure modified the views I have expressed. 
 
 ^Yhen, in the spring of 1861, the rebellion broke out, and 
 found me in the South, and when for months afterwards our 
 very existence as a nation seemed in danger, I felt disposed 
 to turn away from the present, which had for me nothing 
 bvit sorrow,, in order to dwell on the happier days of the past. 
 
84 
 
 For months I occupied myself almost exclusively witli 
 the works of those who had founded or defended the institu- 
 tions of this country. I came here when John Qumcy 
 Adams occupied the Presidential Chair; I had admired the 
 course taken by Andrew Jackson when he encountered the 
 spirit of Secession ; step by step at my humble distance, T 
 had followed Henry Clay and Daniel Webster in their strug- 
 gles for the Union. To them my heart now turned, and to 
 them I looked for light. But when I had reached the North. 
 and there beheld the energy and hopefulness of the great 
 mass of the people, and the readiness with which they brought 
 every sacrifice; when in my daily intercourse with the sick, 
 the wounded and the dying soldiers, I received the most 
 elevating and touching proofs of the patriotism by which 
 they were animated, I learned to feel, that if other ages had 
 their peculiar tasks allotted to them, so must ours have, and 
 I was led to inquire, whether perchance I had not been led 
 into serious errors. For more than twenty years of my life 
 I had sided with those friends of the Union, who had granted 
 to the slaveholders whatever they demanded in order to 
 secure to them the possession of their slaves, yet in spite of 
 all this, these slaveholders had attempted to break to pieces 
 the Union for which they had professed so ardent a love. 
 Had I been mistaken in my course ? Was there something 
 in the very character of slavery which would necessarily 
 produce such results ? I had laughed at the idea of an irre- 
 pressible conflict between slavery and freedom ; was there, 
 after all, some truth in it. I will not detain the reader with 
 the particulars of the examination in which I engaged in 
 order to obtain a satisfactory answer to these inquiries. 
 Suffice it to state some of its results. 
 
 To some it may seem strange that it was only after some 
 reading, and after having passed through a certain moral 
 and intellectual struggle, that I arrived at the conclusion 
 that the error into which I had fallen, and which lay at the 
 foundation of much that had been wrong in my political 
 course, consisted in this: that I had shut my eyes against the 
 truth, that the Creator has breathed into every human soul 
 the right of life and of liberty ; that I had failed to see that 
 
35 
 
 God could never have intended that man whom he had 
 created in his ftwn image, should be treated as a piece of pro- 
 perty. In the light of this truth I was no longer without the 
 means of judging why those who had established this Govern- 
 ment had suffered the seeds of discord to mingle with it. 
 The practice of enslaving men had produced the eftect which 
 every transgression of the divine law produces; it had 
 h:n\lenetl the hearts and darkened the minds of those who 
 had been engaged in or had countenanced this traffic. To 
 this must be ascribed the fact, that at the time when the 
 Constitution was framed, there were Southern States to be 
 found who did not hesitate to demand that security should 
 bo given them, so that they might continue the African slave 
 trade undisturbedly, and that the convention gave them that 
 security for twenty years more. And to this must also be 
 ascribed that other fact that with the question of representation 
 the claim of certain Southern States had come up, that their 
 .slaves, though they regarded them as property should be 
 represented in Congress, and that that claim also had been 
 granted as far as three-fifths of the slave population were 
 concerned. 
 
 It does not belong to me on the present occasion to pre- 
 sent in detail the consequences which followed from these 
 worse than unwise measures. Mine is not the sad task of 
 tracing the gradual progress of ilie spirit of selfishness in 
 many of its worst forms, which the existence of slavery 
 served to excite and to foster. It is only a brief reference to 
 this subject which comes within my scope, 
 
 I have, on a former occasion, dwelt on the fact that in con- 
 sequence of the competition of slave labor the emigrants 
 from abroad preferred settling in the North, that in the same 
 measure as Slave States were added to the Union, they added 
 also to the weakness of the South, and that finding the 
 struggle utterly unequal, the South had resol\5ed to destroy 
 the Union by seceding from it. I have spoken of the spirit 
 which animated the thousands who rushed to the field of 
 battle after Fort Sumter had fallen, and of the issuing of the 
 proclamation of emancipation as a military measure, in order 
 to deprive the rebellion of its principal means of support. 
 
36 
 
 These topics have boen widely discussed, and on that 
 account are well known to most of my readers. It is not so 
 easy to trace the less apparent influences in consequence of 
 which a large portion of the people of the United States hold 
 now a position Avith regard to slaver}"- which is very different 
 from the ground which they occupied at the beginning oi' 
 the rebellion. It is on account of t!ie change which has thus 
 generally taken place, tliat I have felt h'ss hesitation to prove 
 by the remarks wliich I liave made, that I am not an exception 
 to the general rule. The moral and intellectual torpor in 
 which the great mass of the people of the United States have 
 been with regard to the subject of slavery, and the suddenness 
 with which they have been roused, surpasses in strangeness 
 the marvellous tale of the sleeper of Manhattan, and it is not 
 wonderful that some amongst those who have been thus 
 suddenly aroused should hardly know what they sav or do. 
 and should forget that there are other sins besides the sin of 
 slavery of which we^ as a nation, have to repent in order to 
 enjoy the favor of God, 
 
 From the course which the South has pursued it is evident 
 that if we seek for the men to whom the abolition of slavery 
 must be ascribed, we must not go to Maine, Massachusetts or 
 Ohio, but to the home of Jefferson Davis, and to those who 
 with him have stirred wp this rebellion. As for my self j my 
 teachers have been the effects which slavery has produced on 
 those who own slaves, and on the masses of the people whci 
 do not own them, but who are injured by being brought in 
 close and constant contact with the institution. On me, also, 
 the shot fired at Fort Sumter has produced a lasting impres- 
 sion, and I can now understand why it was that on first 
 visiting the South, it was not without a choking sensation 
 that I could ask a colored man whose property he was, or 
 why I was strenuously in favor of the fugitive slave law, and 
 yet equally cietermined not to interfere with any slave who 
 might endeavor to get away. I had left unheeded the irre- 
 ])ressible conflict in my own heart. 
 
 In summing up these somewhat desultory observations I 
 shall once more refer to one whom I always honored, but 
 whom the convulsions of our time have taught me to appre- 
 
37 
 
 ciate far more highly than T had done till that time. I came 
 to this country in 1828. Five or six years before that time, 
 John Quincy Adams had summed up the views he enter- 
 tained on the subject of slavery, by stating that it would not 
 bo difficult to prove, that all that had been done to the honor 
 of this cov.ntry had been done in spite of slavery, and all 
 that had been dishonorable to it had been done by the means 
 of slavery. In view of the light which the rebellion sheds 
 on the history of this country, I am ready to adopt the words 
 of John Quincy Adams, with regard to the years which have 
 gone by since he wrote them, and to say that it is high time 
 to abolish an institution which has been the means of causing 
 so much evil and of inflicting so much injury. 
 
 The influence which the introduction of free labor will 
 have in the South is likely, among many others, to produce 
 two effects. I have already attended to the fact that it will 
 do away with that undue deference with which for many 
 years past the " chivalry" of the South have been treated- 
 It will also set us right with regard to many questions con- 
 cerning the colored people, which now seem diflicult of solu- 
 tion. There may be much hesitation in various quarters, but 
 public opinion will decide at last that men are not to be 
 judged by the color of their skin, but by their hearts and 
 their conduct. Men may bo alarmed at the thought, that if 
 this maxim were to prevail, it must lead to the strangest 
 results. ""What," they may ask, "will become of society 
 when the colored people are suffered to mingle freely with 
 the whites, when the right of citizenship is extended to a 
 race, which learned divines as well as physicians equally 
 learned, have declared to be an inferior one ? And what 
 especially will become of those Southern States, where the 
 colored people are in the majority. These, and many similar 
 questions will be brought more and more to the test of history 
 and I fear not the result. The vast immigration which free 
 labor will invite to the South, and the spirit with which it is 
 likely to be animated, will dispose of them all. A partial 
 solution of this difficulty, however, we are receiving from 
 day to day, The better sense and the better feeling of the 
 people will not rest till the merits of this case are placed in 
 
38 
 
 their proper liglit. "When the rebellion first broke out in the 
 South we feared that the blacks would rise and butcher the 
 whites. How different from this has been the spirit of hu- 
 manity by which they have been animated! When -the 
 question of emplojnng them in the army first came up, wlujt 
 an amount of ridicule was showered upon them, yet how 
 })]ainly has their conduct shown how undeserving they wei'c 
 of it! Can I forget that when white men sought my ruin, it 
 was a colored man who saved me from imprisonment or 
 death? And what a volume the record of those would 
 make whom the colored people have save<I in a similar 
 manner. There is, on this subject, a certain clinging to 
 ])rejudice, exj)ressed but too often in a way by no means 
 elevated, which may be met among a portion of our foreign 
 ])opulation. It is shared by not a llnv Americans who move 
 in a sphere which makes their v/illingness to be swayed by 
 ]-)rejudice far less excusable. But the more generous feeling 
 of the great mass of the people will do away with this spirit, 
 or at least make it powerless of evil. 
 
 The spirit manifested by the great mass of the people in 
 the midst of the gigantic struggle for its very life in which 
 they are engaged is also a pledge of the better future which 
 1 anticipate. At the beginning of this struggle, when the 
 rebellion seemed to be successful, I, like others, had been led 
 to doubt the power of the people for self-government. My 
 experience in the progress of it fills me with new hope. 
 As for the Presidential election it is certain that the right of 
 free discussion has not been improperly infringed, and the 
 question at issue has been settled by the enlightened judg- 
 ment and the determined will of a vast majority of the 
 people. The sight of a nation involved in a fearful civil 
 war, and peacefully at the ballot-box choosing the man 
 who is to lead them to final victory and peace, may well 
 fill us Vv-ith hope. While this canvass was going on, ] 
 again and again received messages from my friends at 
 the front, telling me that we need not fear concerning 
 them ; that they would do their share by the sword to 
 preserve the integrity of the country, but that they appealed 
 to their friends at home not to be unmindful of their duty. 
 
They at the front rniglit win victory after victory in this 
 war, bat they could do no more, while the loyal men at Lome 
 had it in their power to cnisli the seed, which if sufl'ered to 
 take root and to grow up would flood the couutr}' in blood 
 ior many years to come. With humble gratitude to God we 
 now send back to them the cheerful tidings tliat we );av'' 
 fought the battle and that the battle has been won. 
 
 There is a tombstone erected in Spain on the grave of 
 Columbus which says that Columbus has given a continent 
 to the crown of Spain. It is Daniel Webster who, with re- 
 gard to this inscription has said that Columbus has done 
 more: he has given that continent to the Avorld ! Millions 
 of emigrants have said the same and have felt it more deeply. 
 j\[any a soldier from distant lands lias been found ready to 
 sacrifice health and life to secure to the world that precious 
 gh'^t. The aim of the slave power has been to restrict this 
 gift-of Columbus and " to exclude from a vast unoccupied 
 region emigrants from Europe and free laborers from our 
 own States and to convert it into a dreary region inhabited 
 by masters and slaves." The question has often been asked, 
 how, in view of this fact so many of the European emigrants 
 can favor the continuation of slavery? It is a question 
 which admits of an answer, but this is not the place to 
 give it. 
 
 In conclusion, I shall draw from the storehouse of the past 
 two scenes, which have reference to Andrew Johnson, an 
 East Tennessean, now Vice President elect of the United 
 States. 
 
 In the Spring of 1861, Governor Andrew Johnson, then a 
 Senator of the United States, was addressing a large assembly 
 of Union men in one of the streets of the city of Knoxvillc. 
 While doing so, John D. Crozier, formerly a member of Con- 
 gress and now a fugitive in the South, endeavored to induce 
 a company of rebel cavalry who were then in town to fall 
 upon the Union men. Several prominent citizens, though 
 strongly in favor of the rebellion, succeeded in preventing 
 the catastrophy. This is the first scene. 
 
 The second is this : On the 8th of June of the year 1864, 
 I found mvself in the midst of a vast crowd in one of the halls 
 
40 
 
 of the city of Baltimore. Abraham Lincoln had been unani- 
 mously nominated President of the United States, and the 
 time had come to nominate the Vice President Soon after the 
 voting had commenced shout after shout was heard, and with 
 these shouts was mingling the name of Andrew Johnson. A 
 lew minutes later he was unanimously nominated Vice Presi- 
 dent of the United States. As I heard it and thought of the 
 scenes of humiliation through which Andrew Johnson had 
 passed, I remembered that "God resisteth the proud but 
 giveth grace to the humble." 
 
 I know no thought better than this with which to conclude. 
 In the changes which our time is bringing about, not onl\' 
 christians but men of the world are constrained to recognize 
 the agency of a higher power, and to declare that this is in- 
 deed "the Lord's doing, and that it is marvellous in our 
 eyes." 
 
 It is this humble reliance on the power of God, which is 
 the only sure pledge of the safety and perpetuity of this 
 Nation. 
 
LIFE AND DEATH OF A CBRISTIAN SOLDIER 
 
 ^41^ 
 
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF 
 
 CORPORAL CHARLES CRARY. 
 
 "We deem it not strange when here and there a monument 
 is erected to some soldier wlio has cheerfully hiid down his 
 life for his country; and the distinction thus conferred on a 
 few does not, in our estimation, take awaj' one iota from the 
 glory which belongs to those who fought as bravely, but 
 who sleep in unknown graves. In like manner does a sketch 
 of the life and the death of one and the other of our departed 
 soldiers by no means lessen the gratitude which we feel for 
 thousands of others, who have fought and died equally well, 
 but of whose deeds or sufferim^s we know little or nothing. 
 
 The conduct of the late Corporal Charles Crary, during 
 the four weeks which preceded his death, was of such a 
 character that it made a very deep and solemn impression 
 on the minds of the few who became acquainted with him 
 at that time, and I even then felt a strong desire to give 
 publicity to the closing scenes of his life, that the influence 
 of his example might be extended beyond the circle of those 
 who had been brought in personal contact with him. The 
 daily calls of duty have prevented my sooner carrj-ing out 
 this intention. At last, however, I have been enabled to 
 prepare this sketch. I present it to the public with the 
 earnest prayer, that it may be accompanied by the Spirit 
 of God, and that it may do good to the hearts of many. 
 
 The spirit of depression which had pervaded the com- 
 munity during the latter part of June, 1863, had been 
 changed into a spirit of joy and gratitude. The accouut 
 of the victory of Gettysburg had been succeeded by the 
 tidings from Yicksburg, announcini? that that stronghold 
 
 (48) 
 
44 
 
 had fallen. But with this joy was mingled a feeling of sad- 
 ness. Our loss had been very great ; and, as far as the battle 
 of Gettysburg was concerned, we were soon to obtain visible 
 evidence of some of its effects by the wounded who were to 
 be placed within the walls of our hospitals. We had nut 
 to wait long. Arrival succeeded arrival ; and on the 12th 
 of July, every bed in the Turner's Lane Hospital was occu- 
 pied. 
 
 As I passed from ward to ward, and engaged in conversa- 
 tion with every one who was able to converse, I found that 
 I had before me representatives of almost every portion of 
 the army by whom the " Three Days" battle had been fought. 
 Ilere was one who had been engaged in the unequal conflict 
 in which Keynolds fell. Here another who had fought under 
 Howard, when that General, with Schurz's and Barlow's 
 divisions, came to the relief of the First corps. A third had 
 been engaged with Wadsworth when this general repulsed 
 the enemy. Some had been with Slocum and Sickles, and 
 had been wounded in the conflict which took place the 
 second day; others had been with Geary, when he drove 
 Ewell from the foothold which the latter had gained at 
 Spangler's Spring ; and still others had been wounded on the 
 third day, when the fearful struggle was going on which 
 terminated in the repulse of Longstreet, Hill and Pickett. 
 The condition in which many of them were, was well calcu- 
 lated to call forth my deepest sympathies. Among them was 
 a young man who had lost both his eyes, and who was 
 endeavoring to soothe his pain by repeating passages of 
 Scripture and hymns which he had learnt in his childhood ; 
 another had been wounded in the knee in a manner which 
 did not admit of an operation. He was unceasingly engaged 
 in earnest prayer ; still another, feeling death to be near, was 
 sending his last messages to one he loved. I had arrived 
 nearly at the end of the last ward, when I approached a 
 young man who, I was told, had been shot through the right 
 lung. In my conversation with him, I alluded to the comfort 
 to be derived from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, when he 
 joyfully testified that for years that faith had been his sup- 
 port. This was Corporal Charles Crary. Li his case, as in 
 
45 
 
 the case of so many others, the attack made upon Fort 
 Sumter had given rise to thoughts and emotions, which, 
 thousands of times, have since then been eloquently expressed 
 in poetry and in prose, but which on that account do not lose 
 in force or beauty when coming from the lips of a dying 
 soldier. The country, which to him had seemed more firmly 
 established than other, had been threatened with dissolution ; 
 the flag, which to him had been the emblem of power at 
 home and abroad, had been dishonored; the Union, which 
 had been endeared to him from the days of his earliest child- 
 hood, had been rejected with scorn and contempt. The 
 calumnies and the insults with which the South had assailed 
 North, he had regarded with astonishment, but borne with 
 patience ; but not for a moment could he endure the thought 
 that his country, with its free institutions, should be swept 
 away — that the flag, till then so highly honored, should 
 become the emblem of weakness and of shame, and that the 
 Union, which had been to him the cause of so many bless- 
 ings, should be supplanted by a multitude of independent 
 States and cities, engaged in endless feuds against each other. 
 Charles Crary, to use his own words, had felt that his country 
 called him, and he could not but respond to the call. His 
 position in Detroit had had much to attach him to his home, 
 and to the circle of his friends — the relations with which he 
 stood to the church, of which he was a member — had been 
 of a peculiarly endearing character ; his employment in a 
 printing office furnished him with sufiicient support ; yet he 
 had bade a cheerful farewell to all these in order to take his 
 share in the defence of his country. He enlisted in the 24th 
 Michigan Infantry on the 29th of July, 1861 ; and after 
 having taken part in the battles of Fredericksburg and 
 Chancellorville, he had been mortally wounded in the battle 
 of Gettysburg. 
 
 The letters which he had written previous to his removal 
 to the Turner's Lane Hospital, manifest a spirit of patriotic 
 devotion which is not the less beautiful, because it is united 
 with a strong love for his home, and an earnest devotion to 
 his God and Saviour. To one of his relations, who had 
 inquired why he had entered the array, he wrote : " I thought 
 
46 
 
 I could see that the time had come for me to do my share to 
 keep the glorious old ensign of the Kepublic up at his full 
 height, and to help to suppress the rebellion against the 
 Constitution's life." 
 
 In another letter he speaks of the good chaplain with 
 whom the Twenty-fourth was favored, and of a custom 
 adopted by the "boys" of his company. They would get 
 together a short time before the retreat was beaten, and take 
 turns in reading a chapter in the New Testament. 
 
 In the same strain he writes at another time : " j.n roving 
 about the camp, when off duty, I have found one of the 
 finest little spots, where I can retire when I wished to read, 
 write, or rest, undisturbed : it is by the side of a little rippling 
 brook which rises on the hillside, and is carpeted with nice 
 green grass, and shaded by fine old trees, many of which are 
 over-grown with grape-vines, giving it quite a romantic 
 appearance." 
 
 On the 27th of November, a day of thanksgiving, his 
 heart overflowed with gratitude over "hard tack and tough 
 beef," and over the good effect which the toughening process 
 of soldiering had on his health. In a letter written shortly 
 after Christmas, and called forth partly by a Christmas-box, 
 which had been sent to "dear brother Charley" from his 
 home, he visits in imagination the circle of his loved ones ; 
 and, leaping over years of struggle, he sees the Twenty-fourth 
 disembarking from the Cleveland boat, and marching up one 
 of the streets of the city of Detroit, not so strong as when 
 they left, but every man a soldier — the step steady and firm 
 — waving over them the old flag tattered and torn, as well it 
 ■might be. He hears the cheers of welcome, he thanks God 
 that the war is over, and at the familiar sound of " Break 
 ranks, march !" he knows well what line of march one of the 
 number of that regiment is taking. At another time, in 
 writing to his father, who had admonished him to keep up 
 good courage and to take care of his health, he writes in a 
 strain which shows that his gentle nature could be easily 
 roused whenever placed face to face with disloyalty. " I do 
 not think," he writes, "my courage will need much propping 
 so long as there are rebels in arms ; and although the cause 
 
47 
 
 of the Union looks a little cloudy now, on account of the 
 rebels holding out so persistently at Vicksburg, I have full 
 faith that it must fall, and with it the dearest hopes of the 
 Confederates." 
 
 In a similar manner he speaks, in another letter, of the 
 contempt with wliich the army regards those in the North 
 who are guilty of disloj^alty. "Soldiers," he writes, "who 
 offer their lives in dQfence of their country will not forget 
 traitors, who, in their absence, are using every effort to undo 
 their work. , . You may well say, ' The army is a unit.' " 
 
 These quotations exhibit the spirit which pervades all the 
 letters of Charles Crary. Cool on the day of battle, and 
 patient when suffering from severe exposure, he was yet 
 unwilling that his loved ones at home shouldTbe troubled on 
 account of the dangers to which he was exposed. In con- 
 sequence of it, there is constantly mingling in these letters that 
 disregard of self which characterizes the brave soldier and 
 that tenderness for others which belongs to the loving heart. 
 
 The letter which he wrote after he had received his death- 
 wound, will be better appreciated by the reader after he has 
 perused the following account of some of the occurrences 
 which took place at that period. It has been prepared, at 
 my request, by Mr. James F. Clegg, also of the 24th, who 
 had been his constant companion from the time they both 
 had enlisted together in the city of Detroit, and who had 
 been wounded in the same battle : 
 
 " The Twenty-fourth Michigan is one of the regiments 
 composing the old 'Iron Brigade' of General Meredith. It 
 was in Wads worth's First division of the First army corps, 
 commanded at that time by General Rejmolds. This brigade 
 is one of the oldest in the Army of the Potomac, and has 
 distinguished itself on many battle-fields. Having arrived 
 near Gettysburg, the First corps moved from a point about 
 five miles south of Gettysburg, on Wednesday morning, the 
 1st of July, the Iron Brigade at the head. Charley and I 
 marched along the road till we came within a mile of Gettys- 
 burg, when we heard the first shot of the great battle, and 
 saw the explosion of a shell directly over the house of Dr. 
 Schmucker, to the ri;i-ht of the Seminary. We turned to the 
 
left, and double-quicked it up to Willoughby's Run, and 
 across the Hagerstovvn road. We relieved the cavalry, who 
 had been skirmishing previous to our arrival, and climbed 
 the little hill east of the run. General Keyuolds fell about 
 this time, and Doubleday took command. We scarce reached 
 the crest when we received a volley from a concealed foe; 
 and with orders, the regiment fixed bayonets, loaded, fired, 
 and charged, capturing a large number of rebels in the 
 ravine. I noticed that Charley appeared more serious this 
 morning than usual ; his manner was more earnest ; he per- 
 formed his duty with his usual alacrity, but his countenance 
 showed determination, rather than the fire visible on similar 
 occasions. We took position in the woods on the bank of 
 Willoughby's Run. We were not in the position given by 
 many charts of that field, but were on the extreme left of the 
 corps. One regiment only — the Nineteenth Indiana — being 
 left of the Twenty-fourth. 
 
 The corps lay in the woods perhaps two or three hours, 
 with some skirmishing between the pickets, when the rebel 
 army emerged from the woods about three hundred yards 
 in front. Three lines advanced upon our single line, and 
 their right overlapped our left perhaps a quarter of a mile. 
 The fighting commenced immediately, but the rebels con- 
 tinued to advance. The corps posted on our right falling 
 back, we were flanked on the risjht: turning to the left, we 
 saw the enemy almost in our rear. Being thus flanked on 
 both sides, and in danger of being captured, we fell back 
 slowly, firing constantly, forming and reforming lines, but 
 only to be driven back again. For nearly a mile the brigade 
 fought, and was always in rear of the retreating forces. Nine 
 out of the 24th's color-bearers fell. The colonel seized them, 
 planted them in the ground, and called to the regiment, now 
 scattered over all the field, to rally round the colors. And 
 they did — all who could hear him — and fought until the 
 enemy were literally upon them, when the few left were also 
 compelled to fall back. I saw Charley at this time ; he fell 
 but a minute afterwards. Our next meeting was in the 
 Seminary Hospital, then held by the enemy. Two men 
 carried him up toward the back steps, at about 5 o'clock 
 
4f9 
 
 in the evening. Seeing him carried towards tlie hospital, I 
 ran out to assist him. The men left when they saw some 
 one who knew him. Charley expressed sorrow on seeing 
 me wounded, but pleasure at our being still together. A 
 stream of blood was slowly trickling down from his right 
 shoulder, and he Avas very weak. lie rested that night in 
 the great hall of the Seminary, among the hundreds of 
 wcAmded who literally crammed it, and rendered night fear- 
 ful by their groans and cries. Next morning he moved to 
 the recitation room, where he v/as much more comfortable^ 
 for we occupied it alone. But it was dangerous at times ; 
 for the enemy planted a battery at each corner -of the hos- 
 pital, and the return shots of our batteries frequently struck 
 the building. Some shots passed directly through the room 
 he was in. We were often compelled to leave the room and 
 seek shelter in the hall. Once the shells were exploding all 
 around the building, and I helped him to the hall; but wc 
 had barely closed the door, when we heard a great explosion 
 in the room. I saw, when the firing ceased, a fragment of a 
 shell in the centre of the narrow bed he occupied. You 
 cannot imagine the relief we felt on Sunday, the 5th, when 
 daylight showed us that the rebel army had utterly dis- 
 appeared. It was equalled only by the people in the town, 
 who for the first time had been forced to submit to this 
 terrible ordeal. It was some time before our wounds were 
 treated, for the enemy had taken all the surgical instruments 
 from our surgeons. Charley frequently asked to hear the 
 Holy Scriptures read ; and from the old Bible in the teacher's 
 desk, I read to him such passages as he wished to hear. He 
 preferred the New Testament and Psalms. I remember one 
 which he often wished me to read (the 139th), and he always 
 would remain in meditation for some time after. He re- 
 mained in the Seminary until the 9th, when the surgeon told 
 us that all who were able to leave must do so, and go to the 
 general hospitals. Charley did not wish to remain : he arose, 
 and with difficulty reached the depot. He expected to be 
 sent to Michigan, but was not displeased when he reached 
 Philadelphia, and was placed in the Turner's Lane Hospital, for 
 he feared the distance. He showed orpeat interest in his 
 
66 
 
 couutiy's cause during tbe week of victories, and was always 
 pleased to hear any one read of the progress of the war. I 
 well remember the pride he showed when hearing of our corps' 
 fighting on that day, and the sorrow when he heard of the 
 great loss his own regiment had sustained : ' Only ninety of 
 my five hundred comrades left !' " 
 
 While at the Seminary in Gettysburg he wrote the follow- 
 ing letter, which, through the kindness of Mrs. Crary. is 
 now before me. It is written with a pencil : 
 
 Gettysbueg, Pa., July Q(h, 1863. 
 
 " Dear Mother : — We have met the enemy and have 
 driven him out of Pennsylvania. The fight was a hard one, 
 I was struck in the shoulder July 1st, so as to deprive me of 
 the use of my right arm for the present. I. am doing well 
 now, and think I shall be all right in a couple of months. 
 Clegg is here also — wounded slightly in the right arm, be- 
 tween the elbow and the hand — no bone is broken. My 
 wound is in rather a bad place, but the doctor says I Avill 
 come out all right. I do not know what I would have done 
 without Clegg's help. His wound is so slight that, except 
 the use of his right arm, he is as good as new ware. As 
 there were many worse than me, and so few doctors, and we 
 in the rebels' hands part of the time (three days), T should 
 have suffered but for him. But God is good. I am not very 
 badly wounded, and in good health and spirits. I must 
 
 close no^y, for it is hard work to write left-handed 
 
 There are but six men and no officers in our Company." 
 
 From these letters my readers are enabled to form some 
 idea of the character of the subject of this sketch. What I 
 have seen of him during my intercourse with him while in 
 our hospital, filled me with a desire to know more of his 
 early life. The light which the following extracts throw on 
 this subject will, no doubt, prove generally interesting. 
 They are taken from a letter which Mrs. Crary had the 
 kindness to address to me in reply to one of mine. " The 
 memory of that beloved boy,'' writes Mrs. Crary, " is indeed 
 precious. He was but an inftmt when I first professed re- 
 
61 
 
 ligion ; and in the first warm gushing love of a new-born 
 soul, I felt a desire, not only to be myself the Lord's, but 
 that all I loved and cherished should also be His ; and in niy 
 heart I gave my first-born, my well-beloved little Charle}'. 
 to Him. The vow made secretly to my God alone, often 
 bore heavily on my soul, when I was careless or remiss in 
 nurturing and training him for the Lord. Oh ! ray dear 
 Christian brother, I cannot express to you the weight that 
 was on my heart, when I realized what a fearful reponsibility 
 I had taken upon myself. lie was always a pleasant child ; 
 but he grew to the age of fourteen without manifesting any 
 particular religious feeling. At that time he was away from 
 home at Franklin College, Indiana. There was a revival in 
 progress in the'place we were then living (Lafayette, Indiana,) 
 and many were converted ; and many who were in a cold 
 state, were brought to see their wickedness in departing 
 from the living God. I, too, was roused from lethargy, and 
 felt renewed anxiety for my child. At my earnest solicita- 
 tion his father consented to his return home before the close 
 of the term. Charley seemed to feel that there must be in 
 my mind some great anxiety for him. After he had attended 
 the meetings but a few days, he became very seriously im- 
 pressed, and begged me to pray for him. At the prayer 
 meeting, held at our house the next morning, he felt that the 
 burthen of his sins was removed. I have never doubted 
 that he was then and there born unto the kingdom of God's 
 dear Son. Plis desire was to go immediatly forward and put 
 on Christ before the ivorld ; but his father a ver}'- careful 
 man, restrained him, fearing from his youth and the excited 
 state of his feelings, that he might think himself converted 
 when he was not. By his father's request he went back to 
 school, without uniting with any Church. About two years 
 after, unexpected reverses came upon us, and my husband was 
 obliged to close his business (mercantile), to meet his liabili- 
 ties. We found a new home, where we were obliged to live 
 on much less than my husband formerly paid his clerks. It 
 was the Lord's doings, and I thank him for adversity. This 
 trial which seemed so grievous, was for our good, and proved 
 to mc vay belief had been well founded, that Charley had the 
 
^2 
 
 grace of God in bis lieart. A few days after we had been 
 settled here, he said to me, ' Well, mother, school is done with 
 me. If father has to work for his bread, so have I.' 'But,' 
 said I, ' my son, what can you do ?' ' Whatever my hand 
 findeth to do, I will do it with my might.' He went out; 
 and when he returned, said, he had found work in a printing 
 office. I do not know that he had ever visited one before, 
 and expressed my fears of his success. He said, ' I shall 
 try ;' and he did try, and remained in that same of&ce until 
 his enlistment in the defence of his country. When he left 
 his situation, where he was receiving fifty dollars a month, 
 he enlisted as a private. Nothing but filial affection had 
 prevented his going when the first call was made ; he feared 
 we might suffer for his help, but the good God he loved pro- 
 vided for us. It is three years this month (February, 1864). 
 I think, since he was ' buried with Christ in baptism ;' but 
 more than a year previous to that time he, with a few older 
 Christians, had gathered a mission Sabbath-school in one of 
 the most destitute suburbs of our city ; and from the time he 
 first became interested in it, until his leaving with his regi- 
 ment, I don't believe he had been absent more than three 
 times. Most of the time he had more than two miles to walk, 
 after attending church and the other Sabbath-school, of 
 which he was Secretary and Librarian. Whatever the 
 weather might be, he would not be detained, saying, ' No ; if 
 those poor children can come to be taught, I for one will be 
 there to teach them.' The little beginning there made, has 
 resulted in the most flourishing Sabbath- school in this city. 
 After Charley had united himself with the church, he ex- 
 pressed a great desire that his father, who had long been a 
 believer, but who was not connected with any church, should 
 publicly put on Christ. He often conversed with mo with 
 regard to it, and before he left us, he himself begged him to 
 do so. (Sinc3 his death that wish has been complied with.) 
 He was an active Christian, always trying to be diligent in 
 business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. When I was 
 lamenting the step he had taken in leaving us for the war, 
 he reproved me thus : ' Mother, where is your faith, am I not 
 still in my Heavenly Father's hands ?' His letters, of which 
 
53 
 
 I have many, are always cheerful, breathing a spirit of de- 
 pendence on God, and of trusting faith in Him, a faith which 
 sustained him to the last. Never, in those fine, precious days, 
 1 was permitted to watch beside his dying bed, did I hear 
 one murmur from his lips. The first day I was there I asked 
 him whether he did not now regret having gone into the 
 army. The answer was prompt — 'Never for a moment.' 
 ' But,' said I, * those cruel-wounds !' ' I am proud,' he an- 
 svs'ered, ' of having received them for my country.' I said, 
 ' Charley, it has been a precious thought to me, that you had 
 the Saviour to lean on in your trials.' 'Oh, dear mother,' 
 he replied, ' how precious He has been to mo ! He has kept 
 me in great temptations and trials, and I can trust in Him 
 now !' He never admitted how much bodily suftering he 
 was enduring until that last night of his life. Then, in great -^ 
 agony he clasped my hand. I said, ' Dear child, how you 
 are suffering !' ' Yes, mother,' he replied, ' more than I can 
 tell you.' The confession seemed to have been wrung from 
 liim, for a moment after he said, 'But I can bear it;' and 
 you know he did bear it, bravely, too; His last farewell was 
 almost cheerful : ' Dear mother, I am almost worn out now ; 
 I'm going home ;' and I trust he rests at home now where 
 we shall shortly meet him." 
 
 One more extract, and the picture of the character of 
 Charles Crary will be complete, as far as the letters in my 
 possession can make it so. Mr. Clegg, the companion of 
 Charles Crary, who had come with him to the Turner's Lane 
 Hospital, strove day and night to relieve the sufferings of 
 his comrade. " If I lose him," he said to me, " I lose my 
 best earthly friend." But there was also not wanting, by 
 the sick bed of young Crary, the sympathy of women, sup- 
 plying, as far as possible, the absence of a mother or a sister's 
 love, fanning the heated brow, offering the cooling drink, or 
 watching by the side of the sleeping sufferer — offices of 
 Christian sympathy which, in this case, received in part their 
 deserved reward, when the mother of Charles Crary arrived, 
 and poured out the gratitude of a mother's heart for all the 
 kindness which had been shown to her wounded boy. One 
 of the ladies has kindly furnished me with the following: 
 
64 
 
 "August 3d, tlie last day of Charley's life, was intensely 
 hot. His earnest question, 'Is there no air coming in at the 
 window?' was one hard to answer in the negative, and 
 showed how painful the struggle for life had become. Indeed, 
 it was only by constant hard fanning that he seemed able to 
 breathe at all. At one time, a bystander said to one who 
 was fanning him, 'Let me take your place — you must be 
 tired.' Poor Charley said, 'I am tired;' and when a wisli 
 was expressed that he might be rested, he said, ' Oh, it don't 
 matter much — it Avill be only a few days longer !' So fevr 
 and so simple were the expressions which told us how much 
 he was sufferim?. The touchinoj words, ' Mother, I am almost 
 worn out, I'm going home,' and a murmured — ' Father !' v/erc 
 the last we heard ; and, in a few monients, after a ver}' brief 
 struggle, he was at Home, in a land where the inhabitant 
 shall no more say, ' I am sick,' and where the wearj^ are at 
 'rest.' * * It was with gratitude that those who had been 
 permitted to wait upon him acknowledge the privilege, and 
 the emptiness of his place was felt when he was taken away. 
 He rests now in Elanwood, a cemetery near his Western 
 home." 
 
 Having thus availed myself of the knowledge which those 
 who best knew Charles Crary were able to furnish, tliere is 
 but little for me to add. 
 
 The last days of his life were like his letters home, or like 
 those he dictated while in our hospital, full of hope, and 
 abounding in expressions of gratitude to God. The hymns 
 which we sang from evening to evening in our praj^er meet- 
 ings, and which he could overhear while lying on his bed, 
 would recall to his mind similar scenes at his home in 
 Detroit. The services of the sanctuary, the Sunday-school 
 of which, he had had charge, and the meetings for prayer in 
 v/hich he had taken a part, would pass in review upon his 
 spiritual eye, and would call forth new strains of gratitude, 
 on account of the comfort which these reminiscences afforded 
 him. There is, however, one recollection which I would not 
 willingly pass over in silence. At the very time that earthly 
 ties of the most endearing character were breaking asunder, 
 the bonds which defv death were shininsf forth in all their 
 
55 
 
 heavenly brightness. The mother took her darling boy from 
 her bosom, where he had so often nestled, to lay him into 
 the grave ; but, while doing so, all that seemed dark below 
 was lit up by that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which filled 
 both mother and son, and b}'" the full assurance that shortly 
 they would be united again, never to part. 
 
 The outline of the sermon which elder Chase preached at 
 his funeral in Detroit, from Heb. xi., 4. well sums up what 
 the pages here presented exhibit somewhat in detail : "Asa 
 son, Charles was dutiful and affectionate ; as a young man, 
 virtuous, kind, energetic, persevering, modest; as a Chris- 
 tian, whole-souled, faithful, earnest, diligent in duty ; as a 
 patriot and a soldier, always ready and courageous ; he gave 
 his life for his country, 'He being dead, yet speaketh.' " 
 
 A few remarks of a general character, and I have done. 
 The spiritual life of Charles Crary has its counterpart in 
 every part of the country, and in every relation of life. Of 
 this fact I receive new proofs from day to day. There are 
 those who, in our own hospital, have become interested in 
 the great question of their soul's salvation, or with whom for 
 a time I have enjoyed spiritual fellowship, and who are now 
 at their homes, or in the front, facing and fighting the enemy. 
 Their letters to me plainly show that they are still endeavor- 
 ing to fight faithfully the great spiritual battle in which they 
 have engaged. Others, again, who have lost with us those 
 whom they most dearly loved, have learnt to feel that even 
 by such great bereavements, the Lord has brought them 
 nearer to himself. On these facts it is almost useless to 
 dwell. The cases where the power of God's Spirit has 
 been manifested are to be met everyAvhere. There are 
 those who, in spite of these facts, are shrugging their shoul- 
 ders, thinking that no permanent good is to be expected from 
 any such temporary excitements, and yet how strange it 
 'would be if it were otherwise. When a child, I lived in the 
 midst of events not unlike those of the present day. The 
 Prussian monarchy had been crushed by Napoleon ; Queen 
 Louisa had died broken-hearted ; and dying, had asked her 
 sons, one of whom is now King of Prussia, to die for their 
 country, if they could not live for it. But then, Prussia 
 
56 
 
 humbled herself before the Lord, and going forth with new 
 energy, contributed very substantially to the overthrow of 
 Napoleon. Such were the effects which the judgments of 
 God produced in the case of Prussia ; and would it not be 
 strange if, in our case, these judgments would be altogether 
 in vain ? But they are not in vain. In many an hospital, 
 in many a cam^p, on many a battle-field, in many a dreary 
 prison, in many a bereaved home, and on many a lonely 
 mountain side, the spirit of God is quickening the hearts of 
 men, and is drawing them to himself. It is a knowledge of 
 this fact which fills me with new hope, when I am tempted 
 to look away from God and to feel discouraged, because 
 there is still so much vice prevailing. The leaven is at work, 
 and the time may yet come when the kingdom of heaven, 
 little indeed in its beginnings, shall be like the tree, in the 
 branches of which the birds of the air rejoice to dwell. 
 
 I will join hand in hand with the advocate of temperance ; 
 my ear and my heart shall be open in behalf of the enslaved ; 
 I will engage in every effort which shall advance the intelli- 
 gence of the people ; but never shall I suffer myself to be 
 carried away by the popular idea, that by such eftbrts the 
 prosperity and the happiness of the people is to be pernia- 
 nently secured. To secure them, a far deeper foundation is 
 needed. What would you think of a man attempting to dam 
 up a stream while the fountain was left to pour forth its 
 abundant waters ? As little can you secure the happiness of 
 a people as long as you leave the fountain of evil untouched. 
 The sin which lies at the root of all our troubles, is that we 
 have not believed in the Son of God. The Spirit has come 
 to testify of Ilim, and we have not heeded the voice of the 
 Spirit. The God-man has come, and has desired to be 
 enthroned in our hearts, and we have not admitted him. 
 If we, as a nation, persist in this spirit, neither success on 
 the battle-field, nor zeal for the emancipation of the enslaved, 
 nor the removal of any other crying sin, nor the spread 
 of intelligence by the means of public instruction, can 
 furnish the needed remed}^ Out of the heart are the issues 
 of life ! In the same measure as I see the head of the nation 
 turn in contrition to God, I feel comforted: and thankful. 
 
5T 
 
 indeed, am I, to know that the soldier to whose brief life 
 these pages have been devoted, and who not only has fought 
 for his earthly country, but who has also fought the good 
 fight of faith, is but" one out of a great and noble army. 
 Through much tribulation they have entered and are enter- 
 ing the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 But to conclude. I have at all times felt it to be both an 
 honor and a joy to be a citizen of this country, but never 
 have I felt more strongly that this is my true home, than 
 since these calamities have come upon us ; and since I have 
 been enabled from day to day to scatter seed, which, with 
 the blessing of God, may contribute in some measure to the 
 way for a firmer trust in God, and for a more living faith in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. May the blessing of God continue to 
 rest upon the many efforts which arc now made to advance 
 His cause. 
 
THE TURNER'S LANE HOSPITAL. 
 
 (59) 
 
THE TURNER'S LANE HOSPITAL. 
 
 To prepare tlie reader for what I have to say with regard 
 to the Turner's Lane Hospital, I beg leave to submit to him 
 a few remarks concerning the Army of the United States. 
 I do not mean to address the soldiers of that army in the 
 voice of flattery ; it is heard 1 lut too often and by no means 
 commends to their hearers those who employ it. I do not 
 wish to conceal the fact, that a portion of that army consists 
 of those who have entered it simply because they obtain a 
 certain amount of bounty, or from other considerations of a 
 like character ; nor am I disposed to forget that I have met 
 with those who preferred to walk crooked though their spine 
 was not injured, and with some who by other devices 
 ' attempted to escape from active service. I shall not attempt 
 to, give the impression, that the soldiers of the United States 
 are men who are every way superior to the great mass of 
 citizens, and whom I can hardly meet without feeling dis- 
 posed to take off my hat. If I were to make such an effort 
 I would get but poor thanks from those whose approval is 
 of value, and for their sakes as well as my own, I shall 
 abstain from it. 
 
 What I meant to say is, that with all the deductions it 
 may be necessary to make, there yet remains the fact that 
 in the same measure as we submit the principles of action 
 by which the great majority of the Army of the United 
 States are influenced, to a careful examination, we are filled 
 with the conviction that in many respects they occupy a 
 position altogether peculiar in the history of the world. It 
 is not only the determination to preserve unimpaired the 
 national existence, and to rest not till the rebellion is crushed, 
 which impells them to action; the Emperor of China has 
 struggled for a similar end. In the soul of the American 
 soldier there is at the same time the consciousness that he is 
 
 (61) 
 
62 
 
 fighting for the cause of freedom, and his arm is nerved 
 by the thought that as he is Jo maintain the free institu- 
 tions of his country, so is his country to favor the cause 
 of freedom throughout the universe. And this feeling is 
 not to be thought lightly of, as the effect of national vanity. 
 Slowly and silently perhaps, but on that account not less 
 surely and effectually, has the peaceful progress of America 
 tended to lighten the weight of oppression and to prepare 
 the way for constitutional freedom in other parts of the 
 world, and in consequence of it, millions have left their 
 homes in Europe to join in sustaining the institutions which 
 had been the means of securing such general prosperity. 
 Appreciating the benefits which they confer, it is not 
 astonishing that when it had become evident that it was 
 by an appeal to the sword alone that the overthrow of these 
 institutions could be prevented, thousands of them should 
 be found ready to enter the ranks of the Army of the United 
 States. 
 
 But there is a still deeper current of feeling in the hearts 
 of many of the American soldiers which invites our attention. 
 The peculiar influences under which this country has been 
 settled, have never altogether lost their force. It is a faith 
 handed down from father to child that this country is to be 
 the means of spiritual blessings to the world, and the pious 
 soldier sees in the changes which every day almost is 
 ushering in, an evidence of the presence of God who is thus 
 preparing the people of the United States to become better 
 fitted for the part they are to take in the conversion of the 
 world. With one* who has ably developed the thought 
 that our country is to be the chief national instrumentality 
 in the reformation of Christendom and the conversion of the 
 world, I would ask, when there was ever such a prayerful 
 going forth to battle in the holy and cheerful spirit of chris- 
 tian sacrifice? European oflicers high in command have 
 paid a frank tribute to the superiority of the Army of the 
 United States, because the men who compose it are not only 
 
 * Influence of the United States on Ghristendom, a sermon delivered by 
 Thomas H. Stockton, at the Church of the New Testament, Philadelphia, 
 November 29th. 
 
63 
 
 brave, but also remarkable for intelligeuce aud for their 
 being fully conscious of. the high aims which the)^ struggle 
 to attain. The means I enjoy from day to day of watching 
 the self-denying spirit of these men, give me ample oppor- 
 tunity to know that the praise thus freely given is n')t 
 undeserved. 
 
 Having made these reraarics by way of introduction, I am 
 ready to invite my reader to enter with me the grounds of 
 the Turner's Lane Hospital. 
 
 This Hospital is situated in the northwestern part of the 
 City of Philadelphia, at a distance of about half a mile from 
 Girard College. By the older inhabitants the situation is 
 remembered as a country residence, the inmates of which, 
 for many years, bore a part in whatever of joy or sorrow 
 might visit the neighborhood in Avhich the}^ lived. In the 
 course of time the property passed into the hands of an 
 . association of Germans, who devoted it to hospital purposes. 
 In the year 1862, this association rented it to the Government 
 of the United States, and on the 13th of August of that year 
 it was opened for the reception of soldiers. In addition to 
 the main building which is principally used for officers, and 
 a smaller building which the ladies interested in the Hospital 
 occupy, the Government has constructed a number of bar- 
 racks. The place has not, however, altogether lost its rural 
 appearance since the space which is encircled by these bar- 
 racks is still covered with the trees and the shrubbery of 
 former days, while the well-cared for green house shelters 
 the flowers which in the spring shall again gladden the 
 inmates of the Hospital. 
 
 Another part of the grounds is occupied by the kitchen, 
 the library, the dispensary and such smaller buildings as the 
 business of the hospital requires. 
 
 Dr. E. A. Christian, Surgeon U. S. V., the present head 
 of the hospital, has been in charge of it since June 15th, 
 1864. 
 
 The gentlemen who have preceded him are : 
 
 Dr. G. Wood, in charge from August 13th, 1862, to Sep- 
 tember 18th, 1862. 
 
(54 
 
 Assistant Surgeon E. S. Duuster, U. S. A., in charge from 
 September ISth, 1862, to March 12th, 1863. 
 
 Assistant Surgeon C. H. Alden, U. S. A., in cliarge from 
 March 12th, 18^3, to June 15th, 1861. 
 
 On the third of December, 1862, I succeeded the Eev. 
 Robert Graham in the capacity of Chaplain of this hospitah 
 As appears from the dates just given, during the greater 
 portion of my service in this hospital, I have stood oihcially 
 connected with Dr. Alden. As his position in this hospital 
 now belongs to the memories of the past, I need not deprive 
 UAyself of the pleasure of saying that he is remembered b}'' 
 many in this hospital with affection and regard. 
 
 Since the opening of the hospital, there have been admitted 
 to it up to this date (Dec. llrth) 2,632 patients; of these, 
 1,173 have been returned to duty, 401 have been transferred 
 to other hospitals, 281 have been discharged from service, 
 and 49 have died. Since the 27th of September, this hospi- 
 tal has been more especially used for the treatment of nervous 
 cases, which do not often put a sudden period to life ; to this 
 I'act may be in part ascribed the small number of deaths, as 
 above recorded ; it is principally due, however, to the skill 
 of the operator, and to the faithfulness with which the pro- 
 gress of disease has been watched, as well as to the physi- 
 cal, intellectual and spiritual influences which contribute to 
 the recovery of health, with which this hospital has been 
 fovored. 
 
 The remarks I have to offer, with regard to the Turner's 
 Lane Hospital, will have reference principally to its spiritual 
 life — since, as the chaplain of the hospital, that portion of its 
 history has been brought more especially under my notice. 
 Yet, before entering upon this task, I cannot but say that 
 the worldly interests of the hospital are so ably attended to, 
 tliat I cannot but devote to them a passing notice. 
 
 The hospital is under the management of a Steward, who 
 is conscientious in the disposition of the funds entrusted to 
 him, a fact which deserves to be noted, as there have been 
 stewards who have been wanting in this respect ; — who is so 
 judicious in his purchases that, in a city which numbers not 
 less than 600,000 inhabitants, where there is so much com- 
 
65 
 
 petition, and where it is so difficult to. achieve eminence, lie 
 has acquired the reputation of being one of the best caterers, 
 and who is ever ready to minister to the spirits as well as 
 the bodies of the soldiers, by making the strains of miisic 
 and the voice of song contribute to their entertainment. 
 
 It is but justice to say, that whatever reputation this hos- 
 pital has for efficiency, it owes in a goodly degree to the 
 intelligent zeal of B. F. Spaflford, Hospital Steward, U. S. A. 
 
 Hospital life, in all its phases, since the beginning of the 
 war, has occupied so many able pens, that the great mass of 
 the reading public are likely to be sufficiently well informed 
 with regard to it. They know that the spiritual life of 
 hospitals is subject to peculiar influences; that from each 
 important battle-field numbers of wounded men are sent to 
 them ; that the dangers through which these men have passed 
 often fill them with serious thoughts, and that as the varying 
 scenes of the march and the excitement of battle are ex- 
 changed for the quiet and the retirement of the hospital, 
 their hearts and minds, with a feeling of more than usual 
 tenderness, turn to the loved ones at home, or to the better 
 home in heaven ; they also know, or they will easily infer, 
 that under such circumstances, a kind word from the chap- 
 lain, or from some kind-hearted visitor, is likely to meet 
 with a ready response, and that therefore a chaplain's congre- 
 gation is not without many elements of peculiar interest. 
 
 There is no need then to dwell on the encouragement 
 which the chaplain derives, when, at the hour of preaching, 
 he sees himself surrounded by a congregation many of whom 
 are hanging upon his lips with strange intenseness, since 
 perchance, for months past they have not heard the Gospel, 
 and others, because the scenes through which they have 
 passed have given them a new power of understanding it ; nor 
 shall I attempt to enter into particulars with regard to the 
 meetings for prayer, where bands of brothers meet and part, 
 not to meet again in most cases till the Great Day of Account. 
 There is indeed but one feature to which I shall call the 
 reader's attention with regard to these prayer meetings. 
 When there has been a good deal of fighting going on, these 
 accessions are of course of frequent occurrence, and, as at 
 
times, soldiers come to our hospital who in a day or two 
 may leave it for some other, liberty is given to all to speak 
 or to pray as the Spirit may prompt. When on such occa- 
 sions, with the confession of sin and a deep sense of the 
 reality of a Judgment to come, there is heard mingling ever- 
 more the expression of adoration and of endearment witli 
 regard to Him. who had come to honor the law and to die 
 ''for us," who has become "the propitiation for our sins," 
 and " through whose stripes we are healed ;" the High Priest 
 who can feel for our infirmities, and who is at the same 
 time powerful to deliver us from them, and who has proved 
 himself most near in the hour of greatest need, the mind of 
 the listener instinctively turns back to the conflicts through 
 which, age after age the church has passed in defending the 
 Truth she holds, and derives new confidence and hope from 
 the united confession of these little bands of believers. The 
 missionaries, laboring in foreign lands, tell us that when at 
 rare intervals they meet with brother missionaries, the con- 
 sciousness of their being one in Christ, partakers of the same 
 Divine life, throws into shade every question of denomina- 
 tional differences. There is in the spiritual life of the 
 hospital something similar to this. It will hardly be thought 
 strano-e that even when in one instance, a German brother 
 forgetting that he could not be understood, poured forth his 
 confession and his petitions in his native tongue, it did not 
 interrupt this consciousness of being one in Christ, but made 
 it rather more deeply felt. 
 
 What I liave said with regard to hospital life in general 
 applies also to the labors in which many christian woman 
 have engaged in connection with them. While they have 
 gone forth imobtrusively, prompted by patriotic and christian 
 principles, in order to alleviate suffering, their self-denying 
 and persevering labors have not failed to call forth the praise 
 they deserve. It is therefore rather to satisfy my own heart 
 than to convey information, that I say of the ladies connected 
 with the Turner's Lane Hospital, that the attention they 
 have paid to those who need articles of food which tlie Gov- 
 ernment does not furnish, the interest they have manifested 
 in the wives and the children of the soldiers, their efforts for 
 
67 
 
 their instruction and their amusement, and the gentleness 
 and affection with which they have endeavoured to arouse 
 the spiritual life of the inmates of the hospital are gratefully 
 remembered, not only by many of those who are yet mem- 
 bers of it, but also by many others who have left it but with 
 whom I am still in correspondence. I feel thankful, indeed, 
 thaf my intercourse with them does not only belong to the 
 memories of the past, but that it is my daily privilege to en- 
 joy their counsel or to join with them in labors of love* 
 
 One of them, however, is no longer with us. Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth Abbott, the lady-matron of this hospital, from the time 
 it was first opened, departed this life while I was on a dis- 
 tant field of duty. In her case, as in the case of every faith- 
 ful christian, we have reason to rejoice that her comparatively 
 short stay amongst us ig full of pleasant memories. 
 
 Favored by the possession of a large fortune, the ardent 
 devotion of a husband and the warm affection of a large 
 circle of relations and friends, her life for many years seems 
 to have flowed on so smoothly that the preparation for eter- ' 
 nity which we all need seems to have been lost out of sight. 
 The long protracted sickness by which her husband was 
 afliicted till death brought relief^ was the means of gradually 
 withdrawing her from the gaieties of society and of leading 
 her to more serious thoughts. The shock which the death 
 of Mr. Abbott produced on her was so great that it seemed 
 as if she would sink under it. At the same time, however, 
 it became the means of convincing her that she needed a 
 higher than human power to sustain her in her deep afiiic- 
 tion. Her husband had been a member of the Orthodox 
 branch of the Society of Friends. She now became a mem- 
 ber of that organization, and in doing so, made no secret of 
 the fact that the unsatisfactory character of all that is earthlj- 
 had been revealed to her, and that she sought Him who is 
 the Truth and the Life. 
 
 At the time when these spiritual yearnings had been 
 
 * The labors of Miss Otto and Miss Troutwine in connection with a Bible 
 Class formed in the Turner's Lane Hospital, have been greatly blest, ani 
 have been often the means of drawing attention to cases of special interest. 
 Miss Troutwine is still with us. 
 
68 
 
 awakened in "her, the Turner's Lane Hospital was opened in 
 the immediate vicinity of her residence. She was invited to 
 take an active part in alleviating the sufferings of the sick 
 and the wounded. She accepted the invitation, and there is 
 no doubt that in the same measure as she endeavored to 
 impart comfort to others, her own spirit was comforted. 
 From the time of the opening of this hospital, in the sumrfier 
 of 1862, she continued to preside over the counsels and the 
 efforts of the circle of ladies connected with it, till she was 
 prevented by her sickness, in the month of August, 1864. 
 On her death-bed, her only trust was "Christ, the blessed 
 Son of God." Her life of faithful devotion to duty, while 
 connected with this liospital, has been in beautiful harmony 
 with this confession. The ladies who for so long a time have 
 been associated with her in labors of love, and the of&cers 
 and surgeons who have been brought in contact with her on 
 many occasions of of&cial or social intercourse, will bear me 
 out in the tribute which I am thus offering to her memory. 
 The soldiers who have experienced the care with which she 
 watched over their bodily comfort, and the earnestness with 
 which she supplied whatever might contribute to their 
 spiritual welfare, will never forget her. When, in the letters 
 which I receive from those who have left the hospital, 
 mention is made of the kindness they have experienced at 
 the hands of the ladies connected with this hospital, the 
 name of Mrs. Abbott always occupies a prominent place. 
 
 I have only to add, that my intercourse with Mrs. Abbott 
 has left on my mind the impression of one who was remark- 
 able, not only for a cultivated literary taste and a highly 
 genial spirit, but also for deep humility and an earnest desire 
 to know and to do her duty. 
 
 The glance which I have cast at the spiritual life of the 
 inmates of the Turner's Lane Hospital, suggests a brief refer- 
 ence to the manner in which God is likely to overrule our 
 national trials for our good. 
 
 Trench, in his lecture on the "Progressive unfolding of 
 Scripture," speaks of it as a Book intended for the education 
 of man, since it contains the gradual unfolding of a thought 
 which could have only entered into the mind of God to con- 
 
ceive, and wliich He only, who is the King of everlasting 
 ages, could have carried out. In developing this idea, he 
 dwells on the different epochs in the national life of Israel : 
 on Abraham's child-like faith, on the sense of alienation from 
 God, awakened by the giving of the law and of the meeting 
 in Christ of Righteousness and Love. There are similar 
 epochs in the history of every nation, and ours is in the act 
 of giving a striking proof of it. With the beginning of the 
 struggle in which we are now engaged, we have been leaving 
 the age, when, with child-like confidence, we persuaded our- 
 selves that all was well. Being now delivered up to the 
 stern discipline of the law, it may aptly be said, that we are 
 engaged in a wilderness journey, which is to prepare us for 
 a better future. If I were to say that this bettisr future 
 which God intends for us is to be obtained, not by the cast- 
 ing off of this or that national sin, but by faith in the Son of 
 God, that it is of this that the spirit of God has come to con- 
 vince the world, and that it is to' draw to Him that the 
 Father is constantly casting out his cords of love, the words 
 might fall strangely upon the ears of some, and yet it is by 
 our nearness to Him that nations as well as individuals shall 
 be judged, and it is our nearness to Him which is highest 
 bliss. The readiness with which men and women, favored 
 by position and fortune in many instances, seek for lasting 
 joy in caring for those who are less favored ; the thought 
 that God is in the overturnings which our country is experi- 
 encing, and a willingness to submit to his righteous judg- 
 ment which we meet frequently and in quarters where we 
 least expected it, and that divine charity which many sad 
 provocations have caused only to shine more brightly, and 
 of which the actions as well as the sayings of our President 
 present a noble example ; all these are indications that the 
 purifying process to which we are now subjected is produc- 
 ing some cheering results. It also deserves attention that 
 many organizations which the necessities of our time have 
 called into existence, are in a great degree pervaded by a 
 spirit which belongs not to this earth alone, though the 
 inquiry may be instituted, whether, in our public philan- 
 thropic labors, there is not room for our acting more from 
 
70 
 
 principle tLan from excitemGnt and, unconsciously; perhaps, 
 from a willingness to fall in with what happens to be 
 popular.* It is also more than probable that, as indi- 
 viduals, we are at times forgetful that, as Trench beautifully 
 expresses it, "it is when we are welcoming and fulfilling the 
 lowliest duties which meet us in the common paths of a 
 christian life, we shall often be surprised that we have 
 unawares been welcoming and entertaining angels." 
 
 Among the topics which are intimately connected with 
 the welfare of our soldiers, is the care which some of their 
 families stand in need of. I am not astonished that the 
 pastors of this city find their feelings, their time, and their 
 labors enlisted in the families of soldiers, who, from various 
 reasons, are suffering. The ladies connected with the Turn- 
 er's Lane Hospital, as well as myself, are called from day to 
 day to engage in similar efforts. Whether these sufferings 
 arise from guilt or neglect, or whether they are occasioned 
 by circumstances over which the Government can have no 
 control, are not subjects which call for a consideration on the 
 present occasion. .. I know that I have to devote myself to 
 this work, and that I have to enlist the help of others as far 
 as I may. 
 
 A second topic to which I wish to direct the attention of 
 the reader, is the care which the orphans of those need, who 
 have fallen on the field of battle. I have become somewhat 
 intimately acquainted with one of the institutions intended 
 in part, at least, to meet this want. A brief history of it 
 may be the means of enlisting the reader's interest in other 
 institutions of a similar character. 
 
 When in 1862, I arrived in this city, after having made 
 rny escape from the South e'rn Confederacy, I learned that a 
 clergyman, the Eev. E. Boehringer, who had labored as a 
 missionary in the cities of Norfolk and Eichmond, had also 
 
 * It was probably a train of thought, such as I now am indulging in, 
 which has led a member of the debating society in Turner'a Lane Hos- 
 pital to maintain the other day that, while our feelings are justly enlisted 
 in the cause of the colored people, we are too forgetful of what we owe tc 
 the Cherokoes, whose loyalty and whose sufferings may well be placed by 
 the side of East Tennessee. 
 
71 
 
 succeeded in escaping. I of course felt an interest in making 
 his acquaintance, but for more than a year after did not 
 meet liim again. Then, however, I learned that he had 
 started an Orphan Asylum, and that he intended to piiy 
 especial attention to the orphans of soldiers. Meeting him 
 in the month of August, I promised him that as soon as I 
 should return from a journey I was then about to undertake, 
 I would join him in making an effort to -increase the funds 
 of the Institution. After an absence of two months I 
 returned to this city, and learned that the Kev. E. Bcehringer 
 and his wife had departed this life. 
 
 Fifty children had been received into the Asylum at the 
 time of Mr. B.'s death. To these are now added the six 
 children of the founder of the Institution, In the language 
 of one who has lately visited the Institution and there met 
 these children: "If it be, as we know it is, one of G-od's 
 luvorite attributes to care for the fatherless under all circum- 
 stances, we cannot doubt but that orphans, who have been 
 made such in the service of the orphan cause itself, must 
 have a more than common claim on His regard ; and their 
 presence in an Orphans' Home may well be taken, therefore, 
 as the surest token it can have of His continual favor and 
 blessing." 
 
 This Orphans' Home is under the regular supervision of 
 the Board of Directors for Orphans' Homes, appointed by 
 the General Synod of the German Reformed Church, and 
 under the immediate management of a Committee of Minis- 
 ters and Laymen of that body. 
 
 The -Committee have purchased a suitable piece of pro- 
 perty at Bridesburg, and are making additions to it, which 
 are greatly needed. To defray the expenses, a subscription 
 list has been started, on which the names of hiany prominent 
 citizens are already found. If the Lord should move the 
 hearts of any to do something for these orphans, the letter 
 containing the contribution should bo addressed to the present 
 head of the Institution, the Rev. J. Gautenbein, Orphans' 
 Home, Bridesburg, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 The third topic to which I wish to refer, is the attention 
 which those need who have been disabled by the loss of 
 
72^ 
 
 limbs or other severe injury. The opening of the Christian 
 Street Hospital for purposes of this kind, promises to meet 
 this want in a great measure. It is my earnest prayer that 
 the Surgeon in charge and the Chaplain of that hospital may 
 be abundantly sustained by the patriotic and benevolent in 
 our community. I do not know a class of men in many of 
 whom I feel a deeper interest than these maimed soldiers. 
 
 The fourth and last topic which calls for some reference 
 on my part, is the attention which is due to the Cerman 
 soldiers of our army. From the time when (thirty-seven 
 years ago) I came to this country to the present day, I have 
 held that every proper step should be taken which may serve 
 to jremove the barriers which a difference of language is 
 likely to keep up between different portions of our popula- 
 'lation. Still there are cases when the means of grace should 
 be provided for tlxem. I am thankful that the Christian 
 Commission is employing a Grerman missionary to visit the 
 German soldiers in our hospitals. The enterprize of the 
 Rev. Mr. Eomich, who has been the means of erecting a 
 church edifice at the corner of Poplar and Twenty-first 
 streets, also commends itself to every one who is aware how 
 important it is that our German emigrants should be provided 
 with the means of. grace. 
 
 In now bringing this article to a close, I am conscious that 
 I have used but a small portion of the material at my dis- 
 posal. These are the letters which, from time to time, have 
 been addressed to me, or to the ladies interested in our hos^ 
 pital, by soldiers who were with us for a time. The very 
 uncertainty whether these soldiers are still with Grant, with 
 Sherman, or with Thomas, or whether they have gone to 
 their final rest, give a solemn interest to the statements they 
 contain ; and there are the sketches of their experience since 
 the commencement of the war, which several of the soldiers, 
 by my request, have furnished me; and there is the diary, 
 which T have kept, and which, imperfect as it is, contains 
 accounts deserving of notice. 
 
 Nor have I said anything of the liberality with which the 
 
73 
 
 Bible Society, the Tract Society, and the Christian and Sani- 
 tary Commissions^ have attended to t^e wants of the soldiers ; 
 or of the readiness with which the Army Committee of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association has, from time time, 
 made valuable additions to our library. My duties in the 
 hospital leave me too little leisure to draw upon these stores, 
 or to dwell upon the evidence this hospital has received of 
 the great usefulness of these associations. And, in con- 
 clusion, I can only say, that I am deeply grateful for the 
 manner in which I have been treated by all who, from time 
 to time, have been connected with this Institution. They 
 have borne with my weaknesses, they have overlooked my 
 short-comings, and, as far as I know, they have never doubted 
 that it is my earnest and prayerful desire that the cause of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ may be established and built up in the 
 hearts of those who are entrusted to my spiritual care. I 
 trust that my future course shall be marked by increased 
 faithfulness. 
 
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