But if it found fresh enemies, the new edition found also new friends; and notably4 in England, whither a few adventurous5 copies of the earlier versions had already penetrated7. Both Emerson and Thoreau had sent them to their English friends—among whom was Carlyle—but apparently8 with scant9 acknowledgment. Ruskin’s correspondent, Mr. Thomas Dixon of Sunderland, had purchased a few examples of the first edition at Dutch auction10; and some of these he forwarded to Mr. William Bell Scott, who again handed on one of them to Mr. W. M. Rossetti; an act which, as the story will show, proved to be of great importance to Walt Whitman.[325] It was the book of 1860, however, which first aroused the younger generation of English[Pg 172]men, among whom was the late Mr. Addington Symonds. “Within the space of a few years,” says he, “we were all reading and discussing Walt.”
The book appeared under the shadow of impending11 war. With the Presidential election of 1860, America came to the edge of the abyss; and the return of Abraham Lincoln was promptly12 followed by the organisation13 of secession. Whitman was still in Boston when, early in the spring, Lincoln first made his appearance in New York, W. C. Bryant introducing him to a great meeting at the Cooper Institute.
The famous speech which he then delivered lived long in its hearers’ memory; but even the personal impression which he made, remarkable14 as it was, hardly prepared New York to learn in the following May that it was Abraham Lincoln, and not W. H. Seward, the nominal15 leader of the Republican party, who had received the Presidential nomination16 at the great Chicago Convention.
Had the Democratic party been able to hold together, Lincoln could not have carried the election; but it was now split, and further weakened by the appearance of a Constitutional union Party.[326] The most dangerous of the opposing candidates seemed to be Lincoln’s old antagonist18 and subsequent loyal supporter, Judge Douglas, who represented his well-worn policy of local option, or “squatter sovereignty”. Breckinridge of Kentucky openly advocated the extension of slave territory; while Bell, the unionist, kept his own counsel.
Early in the summer of that great struggle, Whitman returned to New York. In June[327] he was among the immense crowd of interested spectators who filled Broadway from side to side, on the arrival of the first Japanese embassy to America; and he was of the thousands who welcomed the succession of distinguished19 visitors who came, that ominous20 summer, to the capital[Pg 173] of the West. There was the Great Eastern, that leviathan of the modern world, whose advent6 was so long and so eagerly anticipated; there was Garibaldi, fresh from the fields whereon Italy had become a kingdom—not indeed the sister republic of Mazzini’s ardent21 dream, who should have given the new law of Liberty to Europe, but at least something more than a memory and a geographical22 term.
Another, in whom Whitman felt an even warmer interest, was “Baron Renfrew,” otherwise the Prince of Wales. The fair royal stripling of those days attracted the stalwart Democrat17, who like old George Fox, could recognise a man under a crown as readily as a man in rags. Whitman’s eyes were keen to read personality; perhaps we should rather say that the sense by which personality is distinguished was highly developed in him. And he to whom the attributes of rank were non-existent, fell in love with this young man[328] whose warm heart was to make him perhaps the best beloved of monarchs23, as he afterwards fell in love with many a private soldier carried in wounded from the field. Albert Edward was one of those strangers in whom Whitman recognised a born comrade; and this fact at once raises his democratic sentiment out of the region of class feeling.
He was a witness, too, of the advent of other visitors even more brilliant, and burdened even more to the popular fancy, and perhaps to his own, with significance. He saw the extraordinary display of the heavens—the huge meteor, luminous25 almost as the moon, which fell in Long Island Sound, and the unannounced comet flaring26 in the north.
The autumn was loud with the electoral struggle. The presence of three opposing candidates was not enough to assure Lincoln’s success. The general expectation seems to have leaned towards an electoral tie, none of the candidates polling a majority of the votes; and this would have resulted, as on the similar occasion[Pg 174] of 1824, in the choice between them being left to the House of Representatives. Upon the result of such choice the slave party was willing to stake its hopes of success; anticipating that even though he were the popular candidate, Congress would not select Lincoln, but would put him aside, as it had passed by Jackson in its previous opportunity.
But to the consternation28 of the South, the “black Republican” rail-splitter polled a clear majority over all three antagonists29 combined. A majority, that is to say, of electoral votes, for the American President is not chosen directly by the people, but by the people’s delegates.[329] Each State elects its quota30 of Presidential electors, chosen not in proportion to the strength of parties in the State, but all of them representing the dominant31 party.[330] Thus it may happen that a candidate, like Judge Douglas, who polls a large minority of the total popular vote, will receive a mere32 handful of electoral suffrages33, having failed to carry more than one or two States. Lincoln was chosen by 180 votes to 123; and though Douglas’s popular poll was two-thirds of Lincoln’s, and nearly as large as that of the two other candidates combined, his electoral support was only one-tenth of the voices against Lincoln. The Republican vote in the country fell short of the combined opposition34 poll by a million out of a total of less than five million votes. From the popular point of view, Lincoln was, therefore, in the difficult position of a minority President.
The result of the November elections was scarcely made public before a committee of Southern Congressmen issued a manifesto35,[331] proclaiming the immediate36 need for a separate Confederacy of slave-holding States, if the institution upon which their prosperity depended was to be saved from the machinations of Northern politicians. They audaciously identified both Lincoln and the Republican party with the policy of Abolition37; whereas the choice of Lincoln instead of Seward, the[Pg 175] Abolitionist, might in itself have been accepted as sufficient evidence that the North, while determined38 to preserve the union, was resolute39 against interference with the internal policy of the South.
The Manifesto was followed, on the 20th of December, by the secession of South Carolina, ever since Calhoun’s day the leader of revolt against Federal power. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana promptly joined her.
Although Lincoln’s election was assured in November, the executive power remained till the beginning of March in the feeble hands of Buchanan, who was the creature of advisers40 themselves divided in counsel, to the signal advantage of that section which supported the revolt. When, at last, the outgoing President made up his mind to dismiss his secessionist secretary of war, the Cotton-State Caucus41 called a Convention at Montgomery, the picturesque42 and sleepy old capital of Alabama; and this finally formulated43 a permanent constitution for the Confederacy precisely44 a week after the inauguration45 of the new President.[332]
In the meantime Lincoln could only stand a spectator of the wholly ineffective measures which were being taken to frustrate46 the active aggression47 of the slave power. But towards the end of February he set out for Washington. Passing on his way through Indiana and Ohio, he was received by an enormous crowd in New York; and here Whitman first saw him, not from his favourite seat upon a stage-coach, for the streets were too densely48 packed for traffic, but as one of the thirty or forty thousand silent pedestrian onlookers49 collected in the city’s heart, where now the post-office stands.
Whitman well knew what the ominous silence, which greeted that loosely-made gaunt figure, concealed50;[333] and how different was the mood of New York that day from the holiday-making good-humour with which it was wont51 to greet the arrival of other illustrious guests. Under the speechlessness lurked52 a black moody53 wrath54 ready to break forth55.
[Pg 176]
It was a pleasant afternoon, just twelve months after that other February day when Whitman and Emerson had paced up and down the slope of Boston Common in earnest colloquy56. Lincoln went silently into the Astor House without any demonstration57 either of welcome or of open hostility58; thereafter proceeding59 to his inauguration. He was compelled to pass secretly through Baltimore, where violence was only too ready to manifest itself on the slightest encouragement. The fact that the President-elect, in order to reach the capital, had thus to travel through a State which was only with difficulty retained for the union cause, shows how close that cause was to disaster. And though, as Lincoln stated in his inaugural60 address, the bulk of the American people opposed secession, and the party which favoured it was but a comparatively small minority; yet it could only be either an ignorant optimism, or on the contrary a firmly founded and earnest faith in the devotion of the great mass of the citizens to the ideals of their fathers, which could face such a situation without dismay.
The weight of numbers, however, favoured the North. A review of the census61 returns show that at their first compilation62 in 1790 the population of the Southern and the Northern divisions of the country was almost absolutely equal; but that from the beginning of the century the increase in the latter was the more rapid; so that in 1860 the free population of the North was more than double that of the South.
But in spite of this great numerical preponderance, the North itself was not united on the question at issue, as is clearly shown by the returns of the Presidential election, when Douglas polled a million Free-state votes. For though Douglas opposed secession, he did not oppose the extension of slavery. It is shown clearly, too, in the attitude of New York; of which more, later.
And beyond this the Southerner was in some respects better fitted, as well by his virtues63 as by his faults, for a military life. The qualities of leadership and of obedience64 are cultivated under an aristocratic ideal, as they are not under a democratic. And the South, which had[Pg 177] practically controlled the executive under Buchanan, and especially the department of war, was better prepared to take the field than was the North. On the other hand, the strength of the union lay in its cause, and in the latent idealism of the American people, which woke into activity at the first menace to the Stars and Stripes.
Whether the war really settled anything, whether it might possibly have been avoided, whether secession left to itself would not literally65 have cut its own throat, these are interesting philosophic66 speculations67 into which we need not enter. For already the spectre of war had long been abroad, stalking through the unharvested fields of Kansas and Nebraska, and gesticulating with horrid68 signs and mocking whispers in every corner of America. When the slave party had first raised its fatal cry of “our institution in danger,” it had raised the cry of war. And when at last men like Lincoln retorted with the declaration that the union was irrefragable—that secession could only be justified69 after some criminal use of the Federal power to override70 the rights of the minority—the battle was manifestly joined.
It is but fair to add that although the party of Lincoln had now truly become the party of the union, the first line of cleavage between North and South was marked out by a schismatic spirit in the North itself, by its support of its own sectional interests, when enforcing a policy of protection upon the whole country.[334] There can be little doubt that the mistrust felt in the South, while largely due to anterior71 causes, was born under this evil star. So true does it seem that when a nation’s policy is being shaped according to merely material interests, the seeds are being sown of future revolution.
The fatal movement of American destiny towards its crisis must have dominated much of Whitman’s thought at this time. Secession was in the very air he breathed;[Pg 178] for at its first proclamation an echoing voice was heard in New York itself.
Here Mayor Wood, after a short period of deserved seclusion72, had returned to power. Unsatisfied with his patronage73 he dreamed of wider fields. Was it not the splendid vision of a Presidency74 which encouraged this fatuous75 person to declare for a second secession, the creation of a new island republic of New York? “Tri-Insula” was to have been its title,[335] and its territories would have comprised Mannahatta, Staten, and Long Islands. The proposal was enthusiastically received by the absurd creatures of Tammany, who then sat upon the City Council. But their complacent76 folly77 was of brief duration. It was dispersed78 by the first rebel gun-shot.
Whitman had been at the opera on Fourteenth Street,[336] and was strolling homeward down Broadway about midnight, on the 13th of April, when he was met by the newspaper boys crying the last extras with more than ordinary vehemence79. Buying a copy and stopping to read it under the lamps of the Metropolitan80 Hotel, he was startled by the news that war had actually broken out. The day before, Confederate troops had fired upon the flag at Charleston Harbour and Fort Sumter. South Carolina had flung her challenge down.
The President immediately called for troops, and the response of the North was instantaneous. New York herself did not hesitate, but voted at once a million dollars and sent forward her quota of men.[337] Mayor Wood was among the many thousands of Democrats81 who became patriots82 that day—in so far as one can suddenly become patriotic83.
Whitman was not among the volunteers, but his brother George, who was ten years his junior, was one of the first to offer.[338] He had been following the family trade as a Brooklyn carpenter, and henceforward[Pg 179] proved himself a brave and able soldier. He was neither braver nor abler than Walt, but the latter stayed at home, and there are those who have blamed him for it.
Picture of Walt at forty-four.
WHITMAN AT FORTY-FOUR
Putting on one side, as they have done, his subsequent service to the army, such blame springs from a misunderstanding of the man’s nature. There are some men wholly above the reproach of cowardice84 or indifference85, whom it is impossible for us to conceive as shouldering a gun. And for those who knew him most intimately, Whitman was such a man. Many men who loved peace heard the call to arms and obeyed. Abraham Lincoln[339] himself—to whom America was entrusting86 the conduct of the war—had but now proclaimed its futility87, while his whole nature revolted from its cruel folly. And had his destiny bidden him to join the colours one cannot doubt that Walt Whitman would have done so.[340] But that inner voice, which he obeyed, rather forbade than encouraged him.
And even in years of war there is service one can do for one’s country out of the ranks. No war can wholly absorb the energies of a civilised people, for the daily life of the nation must be continued. There are, besides, tasks that have a prior claim upon the loyalty88 of the individual, even to the defence of the flag. And Whitman had such a task, for he bore, as it were, within his soul the infant of an ideal America, like a young mother whose life is the consecrated89 guardian90 of her unborn babe. His book was now, in a sense, complete; but none could feel more strongly than he that even his book was only an inadequate91 expression of his purpose; while life lasted his days were to be devoted92 to the creation of an immortal93 comradeship, and a spiritual atmosphere in which the seeds concealed in his writings might germinate94.
It must also be noted95 that, though in his open letter to Emerson[341] he had written of war almost as a soldier whose blood kindles96 at the sound of the trumpets97, and though the spirit of his book is one which “blows battles[Pg 180] into men,” yet the last edition had been marked by a curious and significant approximation to Quakerism. It was in 1860, when war was so near at hand, that he substituted the Friendly numeral equivalents for the usual names of the months and days of the week; not, assuredly, because he objected to the recognition of heathen deities98, like the early Friends, but in order to avow99 some relationship between himself and Quakerism. The increase of mystical consciousness may have made him more aware at this time of his real identity with this society of mystics to which he never nominally101 belonged.
We have had repeated occasion to note the Quaker traits in Whitman’s character, and here, at the opening of the war, it is well to emphasise102 them anew.[342] His love of silence, his spiritual caution, his veracity103 and simplicity104 of speech, his soul-sight, and the practical balance of his mysticism—that temperance of character upon which his inspirational faculties105 were founded—and, finally, the equal democratic goodwill106 he showed to all men; these qualities speak the original Quaker type. And the world may well extend to Whitman the respect it acknowledges for the Quaker’s refusal to bear arms.
It was, indeed, because he loved America so well that he did not fight with the common weapons. We have seen that he associated himself intimately with the American genius, a genius which necessarily includes the qualities of the South at least equally with those of the North; he himself[343] inclining to lay the emphasis upon the Southern attributes, as though their wealth in the emotional and passionate107 elements were more essential than any other. America robbed of the South would, indeed, have been America divided against herself. Hence he shared to the full in the desire and struggle for unity27 against the sordid108 party which instigated109 secession. But he knew that a victory of arms was not necessarily a victory of principles, and it was for the principle that he strove.
[Pg 181]
May we not assert the possibility of a highly developed and powerful personality exerting itself upon the side of Justice and Liberty in moments of national crisis, in some manner more potent110 than that of merely physical service? Would not Whitman have been wasting his forces if he had surrendered himself to the spirit of the hour, and gone forth with the volunteers to stop or to forward a bullet or a bayonet? These are questions we well may ponder, and without attempting to give reasons for so doing, we may answer in the affirmative.
Certain it is that two or three days after he first read the news of South Carolina’s challenge, and the day following the President’s appeal, he recorded this singular vow100 in one of his notebooks as though it were the seal upon a struggle of his spirit: “April 16th, 1861. I have this day, this hour, resolved to inaugurate for myself a pure, perfect, sweet, clean-blooded, robust111 body, by ignoring all drinks but water and pure milk, and all fat meats, late suppers—a great body, a purged112, cleansed113, spiritualised, invigorated body.”[344]
Read with its context of the events which were occupying his mind, may we not surmise114 that this was a new girding of the loins for some service of the great cause, more strenuous115 than ever, though perhaps yet undefined; that this vow of abstinence for the establishment of a spiritualised body, made thus at the opening of the war, and at the time of George’s enrolment, when Lincoln’s call for volunteers was ringing in the heart of every loyal citizen[345]—that this vow was that of an athlete going into training for a supreme116 effort; and an athlete whose labours are upon that unseen field, whereon it may be the battles of the visible world are really won. It was thus that Whitman obeyed the calls of duty both within him and without.
Lincoln’s first tasks were to create an army and to confine the area of insurrection. He proclaimed the blockade of the Southern ports; called out more regu[Pg 182]lars and volunteers, and succeeded in preventing West Virginia and Missouri from joining the Confederacy. Had he been able to retain for the service of the union a certain brilliant young officer, the war might have opened and closed upon a very different story; but Robert Lee had already joined the Southern army, though not without an inward conflict.
No leader of equal genius appeared upon the other side until Grant came out of the West. The weakness of Northern generalship was only too clearly evidenced in the defeat at Bull Run, midway between the two capitals, which were now little more than a hundred miles apart, the Confederate Government having removed to Richmond. As a result of the defeat Washington itself lay in imminent117 peril118; and if General Johnston had followed up his advantage, it would have fallen into his hands. But he missed his hour, and the consternation of the North was followed by a mood of stubborn resolution.
Slowly but surely Lincoln built up his military organisation. In the whirlpool of currents he remained steadfast119 to his single policy of maintaining the union. He succeeded in evading120 the occasions of war which threatened abroad; he conciliated all in the South which was at that time amenable121 to conciliation122; and, eager as he was for emancipation123, he refused to be driven before the storm of Abolitionist sentiment which had risen in the North.
During 1862, while Grant and Farragut were gradually clearing the Mississippi, the great natural thoroughfare of America, Lee was more than holding his own among the hills and rivers of Virginia. The opposing army of the Potomac remained ineffective under the brilliant but dilatory124 McClellan, and his more active successors, Burnside and Hooker. Lee assumed the aggressive, and invaded Maryland; but was turned back from a projected raid into Pennsylvania by the drawn125 battle of Antietam; in which, as in many of the previous engagements of this army, George Whitman fought.
[Pg 183]
Antietam was immediately followed by the preliminary proclamation of emancipation, to take effect in all States which should still continue in rebellion at the commencement of the new year. Lincoln’s mind had long been exercised upon the best means of compassing the liberation of the slaves; and until the close of the war, he himself looked for the ultimate solution of the problem to the method of compensation adopted by Great Britain in the West Indies. This was successfully applied126 to the district of Columbia, but the offer of it received no response either from the other States to which it was magnanimously made, or from Lincoln’s own Cabinet. The present proclamation was intended as a blow at the industrial resources of the rebellion.
In mid-December General Burnside lost nearly 13,000 men at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and reading the long lists of wounded, the Whitmans came upon George’s name among the more serious casualties.[346] Great was the distress127 in the home on Portland Avenue, and Walt set off at once to seek him at the front. His pocket was picked in a crush at Philadelphia Station, and he arrived penniless in Washington.[347] There, searching the hospitals for three days and nights, he could get no news of his brother’s whereabouts, but managed somehow to make his way to the army’s headquarters at Falmouth. It had been a long, melancholy128 journey; but arrived at the camp, he found his brother already well again, his wound having healed rapidly.
This sudden journey had momentous129 consequences for Whitman. His stay in New York was, perhaps naturally, drawing to a close. There are indications in the last poems that he was contemplating130 a westward131 journey, and possibly a settlement beyond the Rockies.[348] Although he paid it frequent visits, he never lived again in Brooklyn.
At Falmouth he found among the wounded a number[Pg 184] of young fellows whom he had known in New York.[349] He took a natural interest in their welfare, and even though he felt he could do little for them, lingered till a party going up to Washington offered him an opportunity for usefulness in their escort. Arriving at the capital, he found innumerable similar occasions in the many hospitals which had been established in and about the city. These he began to visit daily, supporting himself by writing letters to the New York and Brooklyn press—to the New York Times in particular—and by copying work in the paymaster’s office.[350] It was not till two years later that he obtained regular employment in the Civil Service; but during the whole of that time he was paying almost daily visits to the wards24, in his honorary and voluntary capacity, as friend of the wounded.
The number of these was periodically swollen132 by great battles. On the 4th of May, 1863, General Hooker lost the day at Chancellorsville, and was replaced by Meade. Early in July, Lee made a second alarming dash into the North, but was turned back by General Meade from the bloody133 field of Gettysburg, where the total losses reached the appalling134 figure of 60,000.
By this time, more than two years after the fall of Fort Sumter, the first easy boasting of a short campaign and an overwhelming triumph, indulged by both sides, had long died; and the solemn sense of the great tragedy being enacted135 before its eyes possessed136 the nation. This sentiment could not have been more nobly expressed than in the words used by the President, when, speaking at the dedication137 of a portion of the Gettysburg battlefield as a national cemetery,[351] he said: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom: and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth”.
[Pg 185]
Meade’s victory, and the news following fast upon it of Grant’s capture of Vicksburg, with the consequent reopening of the Mississippi, reassured138 the wavering faith of many patriots. But the situation was still full of peril. In this same month—July, 1863—there were serious riots in New York,[352] instigated by the “Copperheads,” as the Northern sympathisers with the Confederacy were dubbed139, in opposition to the first draft for the army under the general conscription law of March. In these, more than a thousand persons were killed or wounded.
The riots were the more difficult to quell140 because all available troops and volunteers had been sent to the front; and these of course included a great proportion of the stabler citizens. At the same time the disaffected141 elements remained in their full strength. The political character of the disturbance142 was plain enough; for the rioters set upon any negroes they met, slinging143 them to the lamp-posts, and would have burned down the hospital, full of wounded union soldiers, had they not been prevented.
It is some satisfaction to know that we cannot couple the name of Fernando Wood with these outrages144. There was something genuine in his patriotism145. He was now in Congress, and had recently been vainly attempting, in his usual futile146 fashion, to negotiate a peace.
Both the draft and the riots caused the Whitman family no little anxiety. George, who had entered the army as a private and was promoted stage by stage till he became a lieutenant-colonel, was of course already at the front;[353] and Jeff, who had married four years earlier, was keeping the home together for the old mother and helpless youngest son, as well as for his own wife and their young children. Anything that happened to him would involve the happiness of the whole family. They feared especially that he might be drawn for service;[Pg 186] and Walt wrote from Washington that in that event, he would do all in his power to raise the necessary money to provide a substitute.[354]
Walt himself never closed his ears against the call to serve in the ranks, if it should come to him. Had he himself been drawn, he might have regarded the circumstance as the intimation of duty; but he was not. Instead he took the risks of small-pox in the infectious wards, as well as that which is incurred147 by the frequent dressing148 of gangrened wounds; and he bore the spiritual burden of all the pathetic war-wreckage which drifted into Washington month after weary month.
The tension of those days was terrible to him. Devoted to the “Mother of All,” the American nation, he loved her sons both North and South with an equal affection, their suffering and destruction wringing149 his heart. For, mystic as he was, he had all the strong passions of humanity, and felt to the full the agonies of the flesh. On the one side also, his own brother was in the hottest of the fighting throughout these years; while on the other, it is just possible that some young son of his own, known or unknown to him, may have served among the boys in the opposite ranks before the war was over. His Abolitionist friends would sigh, and say the struggle must go on till every slave should be free; but he who valued freedom not less than they, and understood perhaps better what it really means, dissented150 from them.
The first sight of a battlefield made him cry out for peace; and if in the following months he felt the exhilaration which breathed from the simple heroism151 displayed by the soldiers, he still saw that war is not all heroic, but in time must darken the fairest cause. The terrible burden of its inconceivable extravagance began to weigh upon him like a nightmare. Each new season, with its prospective152 train of ambulances, its legion of tragedies, bewildered him with its horror; till he angrily denied that the whole population of negroes could be worth so[Pg 187] terrific a purchase.[355] It may have been the exaggerated retort to an extremist argument; but indeed it was not for the negroes that the war was being fought; it was not for the powerful but highly coloured manifesto of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but for the “Declaration of Independence,” and for the Constitution of America. And this both Whitman and Lincoln realised: they knew the negro of the South as the New Englander never knew him, and were firm in demanding for him the rights of a human being; but they knew also that mere abolition would not give him these, nor could it render him capable of the right exercise of American citizenship153.
Though Lee had been thrown back from Gettysburg, his army had never recognised a defeat; and the chief danger to the cause of American unity lay in the conviction of the South that its general and his men were really invincible154. For two more years they kept the field, with a heroic determination that appears at the same time little short of criminal when we consider the conditions involved upon all the parties to resistance. And when we add to these the story of the Southern military prisons, even the chivalrous155 fame of Lee becomes stained with an ineffaceable shame. Better a thousand times to have acknowledged defeat than to have been guilty of enforcing such things. But the pride of the South had become rigid156, and would only admit defeat after it was broken. Its political leaders had staked everything upon victory; and it would seem that they preferred to sacrifice a whole generation of their supporters and victims rather than bear the penalty of their failure.
When Grant, or rather the reckless courage of his American volunteers,[356] had crushed General Bragg at Chattanooga, and his friend Sherman had completed the work of clearing Tennessee, Lee’s army remained the sole hope of the desperately157 impoverished158 South. But still in itself and in its leader it was absolutely confident.
[Pg 188]
A similar confidence inspired the hearts of the union soldiers, when in March, 1864, the downright laconic159 general from the West was given supreme command, and went into Virginia to crush his antagonist by mere force of numbers and determination.
In Grant at last both Lincoln and the army had found the man they were waiting for. But still a year went by before the task was accomplished—a year whose memory is the most terrible of the war—upon whose page are inscribed160 such names as, The Wilderness161, Spotsylvania, Bloody Angle, North Anna, Cold Harbour, recalling those awful fields whereon more than a hundred thousand soldiers fell. While Grant was stubbornly pushing Lee back upon Richmond, and finally holding him there, Sherman was cutting him off from further support by that extraordinary march south-eastwards from Chattanooga through Atlanta to the sea. He captured Savannah just before Christmas; and afterwards turning north, and wading162 through all the morasses163 and crossing all the innumerable streams and rivers of the Carolinas, he completed his errand a few days before his chief entered the Southern capital.
Several futile attempts had been made to bring about a reconciliation164 between North and South before the bitter end;[357] but Lincoln, eager as he was for peace, stood out irrevocably for the acknowledgment of the union, and now added to it the emancipation of the slaves. It was clear that nothing short of Lee’s capitulation could satisfy the country or end the war. On the 3rd April, Richmond surrendered to Grant; and on the day after, the President, who was then with the army, entered the city which the evacuating165 forces had fired. Five more days and Lee gave himself up: by the end of the month the surrender of the Confederate troops had been effected, while Jefferson Davis was captured in Georgia on the 10th of May. A fortnight later the combined hosts of Grant and Sherman passed before the President in a last grand review along Pennsylvania Avenue and before the White House, to be thereafter disbanded.
[Pg 189]
But the President was no longer Abraham Lincoln. Re-elected in the preceding autumn, in spite of Republican intrigues166 and the dangerous opposition of General McClellan, who was put forward by the Democrats, Lincoln had been assassinated167 during a performance at Ford’s Theatre, on the evening of the 14th of April, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter.
The loss to his country was irreparable. More than any other of its Presidents, either before or since, Abraham Lincoln embodied168 the real genius of the American nation, and in the hour of their agony he was the father of his people. Slowly they had learnt his strength and his wisdom; but they had hardly begun to understand the greatness of a heart which was able to love the South with a mother’s tenderness even while it was in arms against him.
The Vice-President, who stepped into his place, was a union Democrat; he also loved the South, but less wisely than well. His rash haste in the reconstruction169 of the governments of the defeated States threw the nation into the hands of the group of narrowly partisan170 Republicans which continued to rule America with unscrupulous ability and ill-concealed self-interest[358] for sixteen years, threatening by its attitude towards the Southern people to alienate171 their sympathies forever from the union.
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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7
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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8
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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9
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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12
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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13
organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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14
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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15
nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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nomination
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| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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17
democrat
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
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18
antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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19
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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20
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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21
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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22
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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23
monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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24
wards
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| 区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态 | |
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25
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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26
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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27
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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28
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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29
antagonists
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| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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30
quota
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| n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额 | |
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31
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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32
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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33
suffrages
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| （政治性选举的）选举权，投票权( suffrage的名词复数 ) | |
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34
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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35
manifesto
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| n.宣言，声明 | |
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36
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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37
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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38
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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39
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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40
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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41
caucus
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| n.秘密会议；干部会议；v.（参加）干部开会议 | |
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42
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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43
formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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44
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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45
inauguration
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| n.开幕、就职典礼 | |
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46
frustrate
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| v.使失望；使沮丧；使厌烦 | |
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47
aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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48
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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49
onlookers
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| n.旁观者，观看者( onlooker的名词复数 ) | |
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50
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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51
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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52
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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53
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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54
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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55
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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56
colloquy
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| n.谈话，自由讨论 | |
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57
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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58
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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59
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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60
inaugural
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| adj.就职的；n.就职典礼 | |
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61
census
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| n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查 | |
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62
compilation
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| n.编译，编辑 | |
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63
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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64
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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65
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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66
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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67
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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68
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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69
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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70
override
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| vt.不顾，不理睬，否决；压倒，优先于 | |
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71
anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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72
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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73
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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74
presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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75
fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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76
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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77
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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78
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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79
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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80
metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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81
democrats
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
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82
patriots
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| 爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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83
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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84
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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85
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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86
entrusting
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的现在分词 ) | |
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87
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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88
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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89
consecrated
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|
| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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90
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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91
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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92
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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93
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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94
germinate
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| v.发芽；发生；发展 | |
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95
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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96
kindles
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的第三人称单数 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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97
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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98
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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99
avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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100
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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101
nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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102
emphasise
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| vt.加强...的语气，强调，着重 | |
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103
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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104
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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105
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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106
goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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107
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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108
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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109
instigated
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| v.使（某事物）开始或发生，鼓动( instigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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110
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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111
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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112
purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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113
cleansed
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| 弄干净，清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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114
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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115
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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116
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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117
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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118
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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119
steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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120
evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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121
amenable
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| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
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122
conciliation
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| n.调解，调停 | |
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123
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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124
dilatory
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| adj.迟缓的，不慌不忙的 | |
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125
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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126
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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127
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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128
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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129
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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130
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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131
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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132
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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133
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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134
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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135
enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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137
dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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138
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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139
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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140
quell
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| v.压制，平息，减轻 | |
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141
disaffected
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| adj.（政治上）不满的，叛离的 | |
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142
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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143
slinging
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| 抛( sling的现在分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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144
outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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145
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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146
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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147
incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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148
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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149
wringing
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| 淋湿的，湿透的 | |
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150
dissented
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| 不同意，持异议( dissent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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151
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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152
prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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153
citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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154
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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155
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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156
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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157
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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158
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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159
laconic
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| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
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160
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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161
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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162
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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163
morasses
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| n.缠作一团( morass的名词复数 )；困境；沼泽；陷阱 | |
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164
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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165
evacuating
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| 撤离，疏散( evacuate的现在分词 )； 排空（胃肠），排泄（粪便）； （从危险的地方）撤出，搬出，撤空 | |
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166
intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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167
assassinated
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| v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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168
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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169
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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170
partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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171
alienate
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| vt.使疏远，离间；转让(财产等) | |
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