o V %. "' PILGRIM'S LETTERS. 25it$f of Current i^ijftorp PICKED UP IN THE WEST AND THE SOUTH, DURING THE LAST THIRTY YEARS, FOR THE INDEPENDENT, THE CONGREGATIONALIST, AND THE ADVANCE, BY /,.■ JOSEPH E. ROY. BOSTON AND CHICAGO: Congregational SunUagsScfjooI anU PufaltsJ)tng $iOctctg. 1 1 bi ■Tfs? Copyright, 1888, By Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. Electrotyped and Printed By Stanley <5r» Usher, Ijl Devonshire Street, Boston, Mass, To Mrs. Pilgrim, who, during all the years of this pilgrimage, has tarried by the stuff, bearing the double burden of the home, rearing the family, and preserving in growing volumes these original letters, this book, the substance of them, is gratefully inscribed By Pilgrim. PREFACE. How did I come to take the name Pilgrim ? Of Huguenot and New Jersey lineage, a son of the west, all the Pilgrim blood in me comes from a Yankee step-mother ; but they which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham. Then my mode of life for these twenty- seven years, as superintendent of missions in the west and in the south, calling me to all parts of the country, has been that of a pilgrim. Mov- ing about during this epoch-making period I have sought to catch some of its peculiar features by a sort of instantaneous photography ; and for all of this time the press of The hidependent, or of The Congregation- alist, or of The Advance has been printing them. Out of these letters, seven hundred of them, I have sifted material which seemed to have a permanent interest. As they cover the period of the Kansas Struggle, the War of the Rebellion, the process of civil and moral reconstruction, and of the phenomenal development of our new territories, they afford glimpses of the real life of those times in which history was rapidly made — a history big with destiny. These are not war letters, but sketches, rather, showing what the men and the women were doing at home during the war to give material and moral support to the gov- ernment and the army, and what they have since been doing for our country in supplementing the war and in maturing the national life. It is a royal hospitality which Pilgrim has enjoyed every-where these many years. This title has often made ready for him a welcome where he had supposed himself a stranger. For all of this he once more expresses thanks, as he invites these and other friends to tread again with him some of the paths of this Pilgrim's progress. CONTENTS. PERIOD I. BEFORE THE WAR, 1857-60. FAGB. •'Bleeding Kansas." — A State with a History.- The Missouri Plan in North Carolina and in Kentucky 11 PERIOD II. DURING THE WAR. 1861-63. The South Pushing at the North. — Emancipation Memorial. — Soldiers from Western Colleges. — Trip to the Army. — United States Sanitary Disbursements. — Surgery in the Army. — Emancipation Meeting. — Boston Tract Society in the Army. — A May Anniversary in New York. — The Morgan Raid. — First Sanitary Fair 23 PERIOD III. DURING THE WAR (Continued), 1864-65. The Virginia Union Flag. — Death of Owen Lovejoy. — Triennial Convention on the State of the Country. — Deaths of Colonels Mulligan and John A. Bross. — Tour Among the Bushwhack- ers. — Quantrell's Raid. — Lincoln's Second Election. — Plot to Release Rebel Prisoners at Chicago. — Illinois Responds to the Call for Five Hundred Thousand More. — Blatchford's Sanitary Report. — Revolutionary Incident. — Turner and Pratt go to Missouri. — Rebel Prisoners in Camp Douglas. — Rich- mond Fallen. — Lee's Surrender. — Lincoln Assassinated. — The National Pageant. — Chicago's National Fair. — "Little Tad." — Boston National Council. — American Missionary Association Accepts the Trust Proffered by the Boston Council 52 8 CONTENTS. PERIOD IV. AT THE END OF THE WAR. — TOUR THROUGH THE SOUTH, 1865. Mammoth Cave. — Freedmen's Bureau and Bank. — Knoxville. — Chattanooga. — Battle-fields. — Mississippi Legislature. — Natchez. — New Orleans. — Sea Island Negroes. — Alabama Legislature. — Black Heroes. — Charleston Shelled and Burned. — Emancipation Celebration in Charleston. — Virginia Legis- lature. — Generals Thomas and Fisk PERIOD V. AFTER THE WAR. — TO THE FIRE, 1866-71. Soldiers from Congregational Churches in the West. — "Blue Laws" of South Carolina. — Iowa Quarter-Centennial. — Chicago Christian Cornmission. — Roll of Boston Council : Analysis of it. — Illinois Responds to President Johnson. — Four Western War Books. — Abraham Lincoln, "Surveyor." — Grinnell. — Quarter-Millennial of Plymouth Rock .... 109 PERIOD VI. FROM THE FIRE TO THE CENTENNIAL, 1871-76. The Chicago Fire. — National Council. — Tour in Connecticut. — The Ohio an Ancient Highway. — An Exploration of Colorado. — Among the Dakotas. — The Boston Fire. — Philo Carpenter. — Lake Superior. — Lone Star State. — The Woods of North- em Michigan 129 PERIOD VII. AN INTERVAL OF SILENCE. The Centennial. — The Gilded Dead-fall. — Transfer South . . 151 PERIOD VIII. IN THE SOUTH, 1878-79. Atlanta. — Emancipation Day. — Talladega, Ala. — Chattanooga. — Mardi Gras and Washington's Birthday in New Orleans. — The Acadians in Louisiana. — San Antonio. — Corpus Christi. — Alabama Anniversary Week. — Hampton, Va. — Fisk Uni- versity 156 CONTENTS. 9 PERIOD IX. IN THE SOUTH, i88c^82. Berea. — National Cemeteries at the South. — Prohibition in North Carolina. — East Tennessee. — Anniston. — Memphis. — The Congregational Methodists. — A July Vacation. — Atlanta Cotton Exposition. — Crossing Boston Mountain. — Confederate Memorial Day in New Orleans. — Presbyterian Missions in the South. — North and South: Some Things in Common. — Colored Work of Southern Churches i8i PERIOD X. IN THE SOUTH, 1883-84. Miss Willard in the South. — Secretary Dunning. — The New Birmingham. — Canon Farrar. — Concord Council. — Mountain Work. — Wesleyans and German Reformed in North Carolina. — The Georgia Association in Charleston, S. C 217 PERIOD XI. IN THE SOUTH, 1885. Itinerary from Austin to Corpus Christi. — Black Men and Big Pastures in Texas. — Negroes in the New Orleans Exposition. — Grant's Canal Caving in 239 PERIOD XII. BACK IN THE WEST, 1885-87. Transition. — Woman's Work for Woman at the South. — Meth- odist Episcopal Work Among the Freedmen. — Dakota Indian Conference. — In Colorado. — New West Commission. — Slater Fund. — Centennial of Territory of the North-west and of Louisiana Purchase. — Georgia's Prison and Chain Gang for Missionaries and Teachers. — An Old Experiment in Indian Land Severalty. — The Martyrdom of Elijah P. Lovejoy . . 252 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. PERIOD I. BEFORE THE WAR, 1857-60. "Bleeding Kansas." — A State with a History. — The Missouri Plan in North Carolina and Kentucky. LETTER I. " BLEEDING KANSAS." Lawrence, Kansas, September 28, 1857. Here I am on the soil of "Bleeding Kansas." I came on to arrange the affairs of my deceased brother, Aaron D. Roy, who had settled in this country that he might have a hand in the free state cause. He was soon enlisted among the Kansas defenders, and was in several encounters under General Lane. He was in the company that was captured at Hickory Point and thrust into prison at Lecompton by the United States troops, who are now made to serve the "border ruffians." After some weeks in this vile place, he dug out and escaped to the woods, afterwards finding harborage in the home of S. Y. Lum, that earnest patriot, who was the first minister from the east to reach the territory. The exposure of that impris- onment had so worn upon my brother's health that when 12 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. attacked by fever he soon succumbed. They tell me that his funeral, directed by the Oread Guards, was the largest the town of Lawrence has ever seen. Repairing to his grave, was it any wonder that I should kneel upon its fresh earth and renewedly devote myself to the cause of the slave } I became an abolitionist when a little child, through a mob. William T. Allen, son of a slave-holding minister in Huntsville, Alabama, one of the Lane Seminary " rebels," out from Oberlin on a lecturing tour, had come to our town of Mount Gilead, Ohio, to be entertained at my father's house. There a mob broke up his lecturing, and as he was returning with my mother and her little boy to our house, egg-shells filled with tar were thrown upon them. Before his lectures I had never heard of the slave,*and had never seen a black person, but there and then I date the birth of my abolitionism. As it has been proposed to abrogate that old landmark of freedom, the Missouri Compromise, and let slavery into these new terri- tories, I had to preach in my Plymouth pulpit : " Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark." When Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott decision, claimed as the sentiment of the fathers of the republic that " black men had no rights which white men were bound to respect," I had to preach : " Cursed be he that per- verteth the judgment of the stranger." And when this town of Lawrence was sacked and Charles Sumner was assassinated, I had to preach on " Kansas : Her Struggle and Her Defence." The text was Daniel 1 1 : 1 1, 40 : " And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north : . . . And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him : and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horse BEFORE THE WAR. 1 3 men, and with many ships ; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over." The sermon predicted : " If the south still persists in rushing this nation on to civil war, ' at the time of the end ' of for- bearance, the north will come 'like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships,' and will sweep from Mason and Dixon's line to Florida, from New York all around the coast to the Gulf." After preaching in Mr. Lum's church on national affairs, Governor Robinson said that I must go out with him on a political canvass among the settlements. The free state men who had heretofore repudiated the bogus territorial government had now decided to vote. The elec- tion would come in a month. The treasurer of the state of Massachusetts, T. J. Marsh, Esq., who was also the treasurer of the Emigrant Aid Society, was present and was going along. It was important to lay before the peo- ple the true issue. So I joined their company ; and for three weeks, with printed placards ahead, we went lectur- ing day by day, the statesmen talking politics and the churchman preaching abolitionism. We had no disturb- ance along the way except when going to our appointment at Fort Scott, when we had to turn back upon learning that the border ruffians had possession of that strong- hold. Striking off in another way, we got lost and were driving on far into the night. At last, following the bark- ing of dogs, we came upon a settler's cabin. All the family were in bed, and nearly all were sick. After a repast of slapjacks and pork, we were allowed to lie down on our own buffalo robes with our feet to the fire. In the morning, giving the woman a five-dollar gold piece, we started on to our next appointment. The friends there finding where we had been lodged, told us that the man 14 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. was one of the biggest border ruffians in all the region, and that if he had not been sick, and had known what game he had within reach, he certainly would have routed ou^ the neighbors and bagged it all. Getting back to Lawrence, the people must needs give us a reception. It was an open-air meeting, with Jim Lane for presiding offi- cer. Coming to introduce the young Chicago pastor, he said : " He 's the fighting preacher ; them 's the sort we love." I have had ample opportunity to see the people and to learn their spirit. They are united in the policy of voting at the October election. Keeping aloof from the sham government, they have made it appear the farcical thing it is. Its taxes could not be collected ; its laws could not be enforced. When their ballot boxes were stolen and carried over into Missouri, they declared that they would not vote again until those boxes were brought back and a fair election secured. Nobly have they stood these two years for self-government. They have suffered in their personal interests rather than resort to the bogus authori- ties for their rights. They have lived here without jus- tices of the peace, without constables and sheriffs, without courts, without registers. That a heterogeneous popula- tion scattered over a vast region have not only been a law unto themselves, but have successfully resisted a merciless tyranny, is a new proof of the inherent capacity of the people to govern themselves. And now when the Presi- dent and the governor have promised to restore the ballot box and to assure a fair election, when the test oath of obedience to the fugitive slave law is abolished, and when the tax-paying qualification for voting is removed, the peo- ple resolve to try these fair offers and to assume the gov- ernment which had been wrested from them, or make a BEFORE THE WAR. 15 new one in us stcccl. But this was the last thing that the administration had desired. Supposing that the free state men would not \uLe at all, it had thus thrown the doors wide open so that it might be said that they were factious and hypocritical in their clamor for freedom. The population of Kansas is estimated here at one hun- dred thousand, and the immigration of this season at forty thousand, the most of which is free state, and will be cut off from voting by the six months' stipulation. Every- where they are confident of success, if not in the October election, yet in a final victory for freedom. It has not been in vain that the cause of Kansas was espoused in the east. It has been that general movement that has saved this territory for freedom. The Emigrant Aid Society, which invested thousands of dollars in mills, the first want of a new country, and in school-houses ; and also the National Kansas Committee, which sent seven hundred and fifty boxes of clothing, arms, and provisions to the value of several hundred thousand dollars ; the thundering of the press and the pulpit and the platform ; the general burst of sympathy that could not be cut off by the block- ade of the national highways, — all these have conspired to save Kansas from the doom of slavery. It has been pleasant to hear the people express such views and tell how much good this aid has done. It was but our duty, for their cause was ours. But you ask me about the sufferings of the Kansas people. Were the reports exaggerations, abolition lies .-• I have taken great pains in this matter, and am con- strained to say that scarcely the half has been told. In the distant settlements along the streams there were enough such incidents unpublished to fill a volume. Every cabin we entered would tell us some new tale of house 1 6 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. robbing and burning, of stealing horses and cattle, of destruction of crops, of personal insult and injury, of con- stant fear and alarm. Many had been driven out of the country after their all had been taken from them. In the wake of the invading guerrillas followed the pro-slavery settlers, appropriating their neighbors' chickens, cattle, hogs, and grain. As I have stood upon the ashes of hun- dreds of homes ; as I have stood by the graves of the martyrs, Phillips, Roberts, Dow, Hoyt, Barber, and Shom- ber, the last of whom died saying, " I give myself a cheerful sacrifice on the altar of Kansas freedom " ; as I have heard the tales of outrage from men and women, my realization of these facts has made my indignation burn, and I have wondered how the freemen here could have the moral courage to stand as they did only on the defensive, and not to annihilate their savage invaders as they might have done. It is a strange feeling I have had in passing over these prairies to have the driver or my traveling com- panion saying, " On this spot Roberts was murdered, and here is the pile of stones at his grave ; at this spot another was butchered ; here that woman at the home of Mr. Hyatt was seized, gagged, kicked, and left for dead ; here this house was burned, there that ; here the presses of the Herald, the Free State, and the Times were destroyed." We stopped two nights with the family of Ottawa Jones, an Indian who, having received a college education, married a white woman who had come as a mis- sionary to his tribe twenty years ago. He has a farm of two hundred and fifty acres under the best of cultivation. He had a house two stories high, twenty by fifty feet, well finished and furnished. He sympathized with the free state cause but took no part. A company of eighty cow- ardly brutes came to his house one night and aroused him BEFORE THE WAR. 17 by breaking in the windows. Mr. Jones fled through a shower of bullets out of the back door into the cornfield, and his wife was robbed of eight hundred dollars in gold which she was bringing out of the house, which was burned to the ground. A sick man in the house was dragged down-stairs, had his throat cut, and his body thrown into the stream near by, though he still survives the horrid gashes. The large stone chimney still stands upon the ruins, a monument of barbarism more savage, as the family said, than they had ever known in savage life. And the leader of this gang was Captain H., of Mis- souri, who boasted of the hospitality he had shared in that house ! It was refreshing to enjoy the family devotions of Mr. Jones. He had just returned from Washington, where a treaty was made by which his tribe, numbering two hun- dred and thirty, is received into citizenship, each one tak- ing two hundred and forty acres of land. They will vote the free state ticket, I was present at the opening and adjourning of the Constitutional Convention at Lecompton. The printer was chosen because he had distinguished himself in the Kansas war, and so it was publicly avowed. But this is only one section of that gigantic crime to be incorporated into that constitution. Taking the ayes and nays upon adjournment to Leavenworth or Lecompton, Randolph arose at the call of his name to explain his vote, and said : "Yesterday I was strongly in favor of adjourning to Leavenworth, for the whiskey was getting tolerably weak ; but since we began to talk about leaving, the whiskey is getting quite decent ; now I am in favor of staying here." That, you may take for the spirit of the convention. 1 8 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. LETTER II. A STATE WITH A HISTORY. Saint Joseph, Mo., October i, 1857. Kansas will be a state with a history. Probably the history of no state in the Union, since the founding of Massachusetts upon Plymouth Rock, has had so much of stirring incident. Almost every other state has had in its early history a chapter upon its warfare with the savages of the forest. In Kansas the conflict has been with white savages, the Indians having given them no trouble. This new state has been the scene of our first civil war, a war in which the Federal army, stationed here to protect the frontier, has been used to sustain invasion and usurpation, to crush out liberty. The history of Kansas will bristle with reminiscences of heroism and of martyrdom. It has its Bunker Hill and its Lexington ; its Warrens and its Putnams. The chapter upon the early legislation of Kan- sas will hardly be believed by the future reader of history. It will seem to him like a burlesque upon all jurisprudence, upon all right and justice The early history of Kansas will be marked by the rapid transitions in its government. Within four years, two territorial and two state govern- ments ; two conventions, convening and forming constitu- tions, and a third provided for ; seven governors and acting governors succeeding upon the throne of this ruffian dynasty, all crucified upon this gubernatorial Gol- gotha as fast as they come short of the bidding of the slavocracy ! But freedom and peace and prosperity will come. The American Home Missionary Society and the American Missionary Association have shown a just appre- ciation of the importance of Christian ministers in this BEFORE THE WAR. 1 9 Struggle for civil and religious freedom, by early sending, each of them, four or five home missionaries. The influ- ence of these men is acknowledged as very great in behalf of liberty as well as of religion ; and now as society settles down, they will have a hold upon the people which will be of great service in their specific work, A band of four young men is soon to come from Andover under the American Home Missionary Society. These are Storrs, Cordly, Parker, and Marsh. LETTER III. THE MISSOURI PLAN IN NORTH CAROLINA AND KENTUCKY. Syracuse, N. Y., October 12, i860. Here at the fourteenth annual meeting of the Ameri- can Missionary Society in Rev. M. E. Strieby's Plymouth Church, we have a lot of refugees, our missionaries, driven out of North Carolina and Kentucky by mob violence on account of their liberty-loving sentiments. Here is Rev. Daniel Worth, of Quaker origin, a native of the old North State, where he had served as a justice of the peace. The New York Herald says he " is a large, portly man, with a large head and intellectual and expressive counte- nance and a large, commanding eye. He looks enough like Burton, the comedian, to be his twin-brother. He is fluent in speech, and the general style and manner of his speaking are calculated to win attention." He was arrested in Guilford County and thrown into the Greens- boro' jail. He was released upon three thousand dollars of bail. This sum the friends at the north have raised, and now he is a free man. The punishment, if he had been convicted, \*-ould have been pillory, whipping, and 20 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. imprisonment. The sole charge on which he was impris- oned, after the preHminary examination, was the circula- ting of " Helper's Impending Crisis," a book written by a southern man, and dwelling, not upon the moral aspects of slavery, but solely upon its economic bearings. Now we have here a pamphlet entitled "An Address to the People of North Carolina on the Evils of Slavery," printed in that state and in that very county in the year 1830, by the " Manumission Society of North Carolina," which a newspaper in that state declares to be ten times worse than Helper's book. It maintains these propositions : " First, Our slave system is radically evil. Second, It is founded in injustice and cruelty. Third, It is a fruitful source of pride, idleness, and tyranny. Fourth, It in- creases depravity in the human heart, and nourishes a train of dark and brutal passions and lusts, disgraceful to the human nature and destructive of the general welfare. Fifth, It is no less contrary to the Christian religion than to the dictates of justice and humanity." Mr. Worth and his associates had eight Wesleyan churches under their charge. Rev, Alfred Vestal was driven back north by violence. Another was seized by the throat in the pulpit and shamefully treated. They were all under commission of this body. The whole Kentucky force has been driven out. Rev- erends George Candee and William Kendrick were seized in Laurel County by a committee ; their hair and beards were sheared off, and then their heads and faces were tarred. Rev, J. C. Richardson was teaching a school in Whitley County ; being suspected of anti-slavery sentiments, upon search a copy of Wesley's tract on slavery was found in his possession. He was seized and bound with ropes at the house of Mr, Rockhold, where was the post-office, to BEFORE THE WAR. 21 which he had gone for his mail. There he was kept under an armed guard of three men. He was released by two Elliott brothers and their father, powerful men, who took away their man, covering his escape by their rifles. The whole of the Berea community were driven out upon the demand of a committee of sixty of the first citizens of Madison County, who in martial array rode around from house to house. Among those thus compelled to leave were the families of Reverends John G. Fee, J. A. Rogers, and James S. Davis. This, after the burning of their mill, and mobs and whippings not a few. It was the shiver of the John Brown raid that had aroused the people to these atrocities. I spent the evening with John Brown not long ago at the house of John Jones, a colored man in Chicago, when he was on his way with a batch of fugitives from Missouri to Canada. He said he was showing the people at the south what could be done. He did the same at Harper's Ferry. On the evening of his execution we had a prayer-meeting in Plymouth Church, to pray for the emancipation of the slave. This has been a grand meeting of the Association. The refugees have added greatly to the enthusiasm. Dr. John Morgan preached the sermon. In the home field there were last year 112 missionary pastors, who served 145 churches. Of these churches there were in the states east of the Ohio, 15 ; in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, 35 ; in Illinois, 23 ; in Wisconsin and Minnesota, 14 ; in Iowa, 10; in Kansas, 4; in Missouri, i ; in Kentucky, 8; and in North Carolina, 2. Among these may be mentioned : in Michigan, those of Charlotte, Augusta, Allegan, Eaton Rapids, Grand Haven ; in Illinois, DeKalb, Dundee, Pax- ton, Sandwich, New England of Aurora, Morrison, and Waukegan ; in Wisconsin, Broadhead, Reedsburg, Bur- 22 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. lington, and Sparta ; in Iowa, Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Mason City ; in Minnesota, the Plymouth Church of Min- neapolis, It was to labor among these churches that I resigned my pastorate last July. PERIOD II. DURING THE WAR, 1861-63. The South Pushing at the North. — Emancipation Memorial. — Soldiers from Western Colleges. — Trip to the Army. — United States Sani- tary Disbursements. — Surgery in the Army. — Emancipation Meet- ing. — Boston Tract Society in the Army. — A New York May Anniversary. — The Morgan Raid. — First Sanitary Fair. LETTER IV. THE KING OF THE SOUTH PUSHING AT THE KING OF THE NORTH. Norwich, Conn., October 25, 1861. In 1856 was printed that sermon with a prophecy on the king of the south coming forth to fight against the king of the north. So soon has it come to pass. At Sumter did that king, moved with choler, push at our king to rouse him to come Hke a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen and with many ships, to enter into the countries and pass over. The American Missionary Asso- ciation, holding its anniversary in this ancient city, by its identification with the cause of freedom now finds itself brought to the forefront of the battle. By General Butler's stroke of genius the colored people coming through our lines at Fortress Monroe are not to be sent back to their masters, but are to be treated as " contra- band of war." There are now eighteen hundred of them, in great destitution. Rev. L. C. Lockwood has been sent forward as a missionary, General Wool heartily approving. 24 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. He is to preach at the fortress, the seminary, and at the Tyler House. A week-day school was opened on the seven- teenth of September, under Mrs. Mary E. Peake, a colored person of English education ; and Sunday-schools were opened at the three places named, the last being the resi- dence of ex-President Tyler. Not only Bibles, Testaments, » and school-books, but clothing has been sent forward to meet the necessities of the "contrabands." This body, moved by the grandeur of the opportunity, declared its purpose " to follow the armies of the United States with faithful missionaries and teachers." How grand the open- ing when God, by the issues of war, shall set before us a "wide and effectual door" in all the south for teaching and propagating the gospel, and when four millions of ex-slaves shall be thrown upon our hands for nourishment into Christian citizenship ! The Association, in this changed order of things, while expressing thanks to God for the work accomplished in the north-west by its missionaries and by its organic testi- mony against slavery, has determined now the more to concentrate its effort along the fifteen hundred miles of border-ground and over in the slave states as rapidly as possible. This, as is contemplated, will leave the mission- aries and the district secretary of the north-west to fall over into their natural relation to the American Home Missionary Society. LETTER V. THE EMANCIPATION MEMORIAL. Chicago, September 20, 1862. The idea of such a memorial was born in the brain of Dr. William W. Patton. I had the honor of circulating DURING THE WAR. 25 the call for the meeting that adopted the memorial. We agreed that the call should be limited to those who were ready to ask for emancipation, thus shutting off discussion on that question. In passing about the streets for signa- tures, I was deeply impressed with the fact that so many of our business men of first position were Christian men. The call was also signed by the Congregational, Baptist, and Methodist ministers. After the meeting had been held and the memorial adopted, the following circular was issued, calling upon the people in other places to hold similar meetings : — Chicago, Septembers, 1862. Dear Sir, — At the call of more than one hundred of the prominent citizens of this city, a meeting of all denominations was held in Bryan Hall, Thursday evening, September 4, Hon. L. B. Otis in the chair, to take measures to memorialize the President to issue a proclamation of national emancipation. At this meeting the Hon. Grant Goodrich, Hon. John iM. Wilson. Rev. T. M. Eddy, d.d., Rev.W.W. Everts, D.D., Hon. Mark Skinner, Rev. Nathaniel Colver, d.d.. Rev. W. W. Patton, D.D., and Hon. S. B. Gookins were appointed a committee to report a memorial and resolutions to be adopted at a subsequent gathering. On Sabbath evening, September 7, in the same immense hall, which was crowded to overflowing, and from which hundreds went away unable to gain entrance, the following memorial and resolutions, recommended by the committee, were adopted unanimously by a solemn rising vote. A delegation, consisting of Rev. W. W. Patton, d.d., Hon. Mark Skinner, Rev. John Dempster, d.d., and Charles Walker, Esq., was appointed to carry the memorial in person to Washington and present it to the President. Read it ! Read it carefully ! Call your Christian fellow-citizens together, without distinction of sect, and adopt it, or something like it, and send it to the President. The united voice of the Christians of this whole land should go up to the executive mansion, calling for justice to the oppressed. We must as a nation learn righteousness, or our poor, bleeding, imperiled country is undone. Religious men every- where at such a time as this should act and speak fearlessly and promptly. They should also pray unceasingly that God would incline 26 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. our President to do that great act of justice and mercy which this memorial implores. Dear sir, as you love your God, we beg that you will not delay to act in this matter. Joseph E. Roy, s. b. gookins, Nathaniel Colver, Lucius H. Bugbee, Committee of Correspondence. To His Excellency, Abraham Lincoln , President of the United States, — Your memorialists of all Christian denominations in the city of Chicago, assembled in solemn meeting to consider the moral aspects of the war now waging, would utter their deepest convictions as to the present relation of our country and its rulers to the government and providence of Almighty God ; and would respectfully ask a hearing for the principles and facts deemed fundamental to a right judgment of this appalling crisis. And to this we are encouraged by the frequency with which, on various public occasions, you have officially recognized the dependence of the country and its chief magistrate upon the divine favor. We claim, then, that the war is a divine retribution upon our land for its manifold sins, and especially for the crime of oppression, against which the denunciations of God's Word are so numerous and pointed. The American nation, in this its judgment hour, must acknowledge that the cry of the slave, unheeded by man, has been heard by God and answered in this terrible visitation. The time has at length come of which Jefferson solemnly warned his countrymen, as he declared that the slaves of America were enduring "a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which occasioned the war of the Revolution," and added : " When the measure of their tears shall be full, when their tears shall have involved heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress by diffusing a light and liberality among their oppressors ; or at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of blind fatality." The slave oligarchy has organized the most unnatural, perfidious, and formidable rebellion known to history. It has professedly established an independent government on the avowed basis of slavery, admitting that the federal union was constituted to conserve and promote liberty. All but four of the slave states have seceded from the Union, and those DURING THE WAR. 27 four (with the exception of Delaware, in which slavery but nominally exists) have been kept in subjection only by overwhelming military force. Can we doubt that this is a divine retribution for national sin, in which our crime has justly shaped our punishment? Proceeding upon this belief, which recent events have made it almost atheism to deny, your memorialists avow their solemn conviction, deep- ening every hour, that there can be no deliverance from divine judg- ments till slavery ceases in the land. We can not expect God to save a nation that clings to its sin. This is too fearful an hour to insult God or to deceive ourselves. National existence is in peril ; our sons and brothers are falling by tens of thousands on the battle-field ; the war becomes daily more determined and destructive. While we speak, the enemy thunders at the gates of the capital. Our acknowledged superiority of resources has thus far availed little or nothing in the con- flict. As Christian patriots we dare not conceal the truth, that these judgments mean what the divine judgments meant in Egypt. They are God's stern command, " Let my people go." This work of national repentance has been inaugurated by the aboli- tion of slavery in the District of Columbia, and its prohibition in the territories, as also by encouragement to emancipation in the border slave states, offered by Congress at the suggestion of the President. But these measures do not meet the crisis, as regards either the danger of the country or the national guilt. We urge you, therefore, as the head of this Christian nation, from considerations of moral prin- ciple and as the only means of preserving the Union, to proclaim without delay national emancipation. However void of authority in this respect you might have been in time of peace, you are well aware, as a statesman, that the exigencies of war are the only limits of its powers, especially in a war to preserve the very life of the nation. And these exigencies are not to be restricted to what may avail at the last gasp prior to national death, but are to be interpreted to include all measures that may most readily and thoroughly subdue the enemy. The rebels have brought slavery under your con- trol by their desperate attack upon the life of the republic. They have created a moral, political, and military necessity which warrants the deed, and now God and a waiting world demand that the opportunity be used. And surely the fact that they have placed in our power a system which, while it exposes them, is itself the grossest wickedness adds infinitely to the obligation to strike the blow. 28 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. In this view of a change of power involving an equal change in duty, we will not conceal the fact that gloom has filled our hearts at every indication that the war was regarded as simply an issue between the federal authorities and the rebel states, and that therefore slavery was to be touched only to the extent that the pressure of rebel success might absolutely necessitate. Have we not reason to expect rebel suc- cess on that policy? Are we to omit from our calculations the neces- sary conditions of divine favor? Has the fact no moral force that the war has suddenly placed within the power of the President the system that has provoked God's wrath? Is there not danger that while we are waiting till the last terrible exigency shall force us to liberate the slave God may decide the contest against us, and the measure that we would not adopt on principle prove too late for our salvation? We claim that justice, here as every-where, is the highest expediency. At the time of the national peril of the Jews under Ahasuerus, Mor- decai spake in their name to Queen Esther, who hesitated to take the step necessary to their preservation, in these solemn words: " Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether boldest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place ; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed : and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" And your memorialists believe that in divine providence you have been called to the Presidency to speak the word of justice and authority which shall free the bondman and save the nation. Our prayer to God is that by such an act the name of Abraham Lincoln mav go down to posterity, with that of George Washington, as the second saviour of our country. RESOLUTIONS. Resolved, That universal emancipation seems pointed out by provi- dence as the most effectual, if not the only, means of saving our country. That in the appalling loss of blood and treasure and repeated reverses to our arms, pressing the nation to the verge of destruction, should be heard the voice that sounded above the wail of desolated Egypt : " Let my people go." That universal emancipation as a mere act of political justice would be without a parallel in the annals of the world. That it would be the abandonment of a wrong long perpetuated DURING THE WAR. 29 against the oppressed race, to the contravention of impartial liberty, the reproach of free institutions, and the dishonor of our country. That it would be a consummation of the expectations of the founders of the republic, who, deploring while tolerating slavery, anticipated its early disappearance from the continent. That it would accord with the world's convictions of justice and the higher teachings of Christianity. That we should not expect national deliverance till we rise at least to the moral judgment of Jefferson, who, in view of slavery, exclaimed : "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice can not sleep forever ; that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events ; that it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest." That all assumed right to slavery under the Constitution is forfeited by open and persistent rebellion ; and therefore emancipation, to pre- serve the republic, would only vindicate and honor the Constitution. That, as slavery is a principal reliance of the rebellion, conserving its property, tilling its plantations, feeding and clothing its armies, freeing the slaves would take away its support, recall its armies from the field, demoralize its conspiracy, and organize in its midst a power for its overthrow. That putting down this rebellion is as obvious a Christian duty as prayer, preaching, charity to the poor, or missions to the heathen. That the postponement of emancipation jeopards countless treasure, the best blood and the existence of the nation. That no evils apprehended from emancipation are comparable to those that would arise from the overthrow of the republic, and they would fall upon those madly provoking the catastrophe. That as the perpetuation and extension of slavery were a primary aim of this rebellion, its overthrow would seem a fitting and signal retribu- tion upon its authors, like hanging Haman upon the gallows he erected for Mordecai. That it were better for this generation to perish than that the Ameri- can Union should be dissolved ; and it is a delusion that those disloyal and belligerent under the Constitution and traditions of their fathers would become peaceable citizens, observant of treaties and oaths in rival states. E. W. Blatchford, Secretary. L. B. Otis, Chairman. 30 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. Doctors Dempster and Patton were the bearers of the memorial. President Lincoln heard them graciously, bringing out such arguments on the other side as occurred to him. These were reported in the papers, and The Chicago Times suggested that the President had put a bee in the doctors' ears. But Dr. Patton came home expecting a favorable issue, and so set his people to praying in a daily morning prayer-meeting for that result ; and while they were praying the announcement came of the prelimi- nary proclamation.^ LETTER VL REVIVALS IN WAR TIME. CONSUL ZEBINA EASTMAN. Chicago, November ii, 1862. The war times do not seem altogether unfavorable to revivals. The excitement of the public mind breaks up that lethargy which is antagonistic to Christian influences. The people are now communing with great moral princi- ples, and this arouses sensibility. It is comparatively easy now to illustrate the moral government of God. The churches of God are not left without the manifestations of the Spirit. This is true at Cairo, III, where Rev. John T. Aver)% the evangelist, is assisting the pastor, and many citizens and soldiers have found hope in Christ. The pastor is the only Protestant minister in the county except the United States chaplains. At this point and along up the Illinois Central Railroad there are located three thou- sand troops. 1 Some months after this Joseph Medill, of The Chicago Tribune, who had recently been in Washington, told me that Secretary Stanton had said to him: "Tell those Chicago doctors that their interview did the business; that before their coming the President had been undecided." DURING THE WAR. 3 1 Mr. Zebina Eastman, who for twelve years was editor and proprietor of the first anti-slavery paper in the state, The Western Citizen, which was incorporated into The Chicago Tribune, and who is now our consul at Bristol, England, is doing a good work over there in giving the English people correct ideas of our national affairs. " Our Civil War and Slavery " is the title of an address delivered by him in Arley Chapel, Bristol, and now passed to the third edition in London. His former acquaintance with the abolitionists of England must give weight to his influence there. President Lincoln has honored our country by honoring this old emancipationist. The Wisconsin General Convention of Congregational and Presbyterian ministers and churches, recently in session at Beloit, devoted an evening to the state of the country. Addresses were made by President Chapin, Rev. Joseph E. Roy, and Senator Doolittle, in the strain of sustaining the President in his preliminary proclamation, which was endorsed by a solemn rising vote of the assembly. LETTER VIL SOLDIERS FROM OUR WESTERN COLLEGES. ILLINOIS CHAPLAINS. Chicago, December 15, 1862. The war has brought into strong light the influence of our western colleges in nourishing patriotism. When the firing upon Fort Sumter echoed the call to arms, no class sprang into line with greater alacrity than did the sons of our colleges. At Oberlin, two companies, formed mostly of students, responded at onqe to the call of the President, and were incorporated in the second regiment 32 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. of Ohio. The present senior class, that entered with eighty, is now reduced to eight. General Cox, a son-in-law of President Finney, is an alumnus of Oberlin, and many of the alumni are officers in the army. In all, Oberlin has sent nine theologues, ninety - two collegians, one hundred and fifty "preps," and five hundred former students, a total of seven hundred and fifty-one, a regi- ment of young ironsides. Besides these a company of " squirrel hunters " went for two or three weeks to the defence of Cincinnati. The Baptist theological school at Kalamazoo, Mich., has been nearly emptied of students. Illinois College has enlisted thirty-two graduates and fifty- one under-graduates, while former students have doubled this number, making one hundred and sixty-six in all. Knox College has furnished seventy graduates and under- graduates ; Wheaton sends sixty-seven ; Beloit, sixty-two in all. The Beloit College Register in its army list shows that of these student soldiers, sixteen are officers. Shurt- leff counts her forty-five soldiers in the army. Generals Pope, Cook, Palmer, and many other officers of less note were once students there. Marietta has her sixty-one gradu- ates and under-graduates in the service, besides quite a number who did not complete the course. Prof. E. B. Andrews, of this college, has gone up from the position of major to that of colonel. Wabash has sent off seventy- six of her sons. She is represented by General S. S. Fry, General Charles Cruft, General Lew Wallace, General J. J. Reynolds, and a plenty of minor officers. Adrian College counts out its forty-eight ; Hillsdale, one hundred ; and little Olivet, seventy-eight. Of the hundred and forty- three scholars in Liber College, Jay County, Ind., who were of a proper age, eighty-three have gone into the army. Evanston Biblical Institute sends ten, and the DURING THE WAR. 33 Chicago Seminary, forty-two soldiers, one chaplain, and one surgeon. An average of seventy to each of these institutions would probably be too small, and yet they are all comparatively young and some of them have hardly come to the dignity of a list of alumni. The other colleges of the west would probably range in this respect with these. When you add the army lists of eastern colleges you will make out several regiments. Then to all this must be added the influence of these institutions in disseminating the spirit of patriotism. Surely, then, this is no time to allow these institutions to languish for want of support. In this connection I may mention that Illinois has fur- nished ten Congregational chaplains. These are : Rever- ends Jeremiah Porter, J. H. Dill, S. Day, Joel Grant, A. L. Rankin, W. G. Pierce, S. S. Morrill, H. E. Barnes, W. C. Scofield, and Daniel Chapman. These pastors have each a son in the army : Reverends S. G. Wright, S. H. Emery, J. D. Baker, M. Bushnell, D. Andrews, D. Mat- tison, E. Morris, O. Miner, E. Jenney, and probably many more. It is worthy of mention that Mr. Porter began his ministry in 183 1 as a chaplain at Fort Brady on the Sault Ste. Marie River, whence in 1833 he was transferred to Fort Dearborn (Chicago), where he organized the first church of the city. His commission from the Home Missionary Society instructed him to look after Fort Howard also (Green Bay) and Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien), which he has literally done by subsequent pas- torates at those places. He is accompanied by his wife, who is equal to most of the chaplains. 34 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. LETTER VIII. A TRIP TO THE ARMY. Cairo, 111., January 5, 1863. I am in charge of a car-load of stores, two hundred and twenty-seven packages, from the Chicago branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, and en route to min- ister to the soldiers wounded in the late battles down the Mississippi. I find here one thousand "contrabands," well cared for by the government, while a chaplain has been detailed to look after their spiritual welfare. Friend Headley, from Indiana, with his wife and niece, has opened a school, now in its second week, for the children. The teachers told me that on the first day of the school twenty of the pupils learned the alphabet, and I had the pleasure of hearing them read in words of three letters. It is a fine bit of retribution that the United States gov- ernment furnishes transportation for these people to all the north-western states, except Illinois, which had set up such a howl over this "negro inundation." The recent message of our governor, Richard Yates, aside from its eminent ability and statesmanship, is worthy of mention in this place for its reverent recognition of God's hand in our delays and defeats, in order to bring about emanci- pation, and for his generous word as to New England. He says : — It seems that providence has protracted this war and subjected our people to repeated humiliations and reverses for the purpose of making the destruction of slavery inevitable. He also says : — I regret that appeals are being made to the masses by a few public presses in the country for separation from New England. Not a drop of New England blood courses in my veins ; still, I should deem DURING THE WAR. 35 myself an object of commiseration and shame if I could forget her glorious history ; if I could forget that the blood of her citizens freely commingled with that of my own ancestors upon those memorable fields which ushered in the millennial dawn of civil and religious liberty. I propose not to be the eulogist of New England ; but she is indis- solubly bound to us by all the bright memories of the past, by all the glories of the present, by all the hopes of the future. I shall always glory in the fact that I belong to a republic in the galaxy of whose stars New England is among the brightest and best. Palsied be the hand that would sever the east from the west ! LETTER IX. on board steamer sir william wallace. January 8, 1863. This steamer has been chartered by the United States Sanitary Commission. We have our Chicago stores on board, and in all we now have one thousand and twenty- seven packages, about one hundred tons of necessaries and delicacies for hospital use. At Columbus we took on the balance of the stores. The agency there is to be united with that at Memphis. As a sample of what the Commission is doing, I was informed by the agent at the other place that during the last six months he had given out 2,346 bed-ticks, 308 blankets, 22,363 comforts, 8,558 pairs of drawers, 4,960 pillows, 8,402 pillow-cases, 7,387 sheets, 13,913 shirts, 3,003 pairs socks, 9,119 towels, 97 boxes of bandages, 3,946 pounds of butter, 2,260 pounds of codfish, 570 pounds of corn-starch, 1,067 dozen eggs, 16,279 pounds of dried fruit, 6,774 cans of fruit, 2,921 bushels of vegetables, 491 bottles of wines and cordials, and so on through a list of seventy-four articles. This is a minor agency with but one man, while that at Pittsburg Landing has had five busily engaged. The Commission has 36 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. followed up every battle with its ministrations. The aggre- gate of such articles furnished would be astounding, and the good accomplished simply incalculable. As to the pro- ducers of this immense treasure, it can only be said that the patriotic ladies of the north have vied with their brothers in doing for their country, while noble men have not spared themselves nor their business in managing the central and the branch commissions. Of the Chicago branch I can say that Hon. Mark Skinner, its president, E. W. Blatchford, its secretary. Rev. Dr. W. W. Patton, and the other members have given themselves to this work with a zeal only equaled by their patriotism. And now with one hundred thousand soldiers in our hospitals, while the government is doing all that is needed for those in active service, the country ought not to slacken its efforts in this great and glorious work of comforting our sick and wounded soldiers. Columbus, scarcely recovered from its recent big scare, is an immensely strong position from a military point of view, but a miserable town. Island No. 10, since the recent surprise which spiked so many guns, looked desolate and had but a few soldiers. The several rebel fortifications along the eastern bank will soon be washed away, but there are enough more of the mementoes of Commander 'Foote's patriotic deeds. The sweep from some of these fortifications up and down the river, as well as across the narrow channel, is truly awful. The great wonder was the sight of the narrow and crooked slough through which General Pope passed his men across the bend. It is night. It is densely foggy. We hasten on to reach our moorings here under the guns of Fort Wright, fearing to tie up elsewhere, lest the sweeping guerrillas should gobble us up. A strange feeling this, coming from DURING THE WAR. 37 the presence of our artillery and our soldiers. We have but one pilot along, his partner having left the boat at Cairo, notwithstanding the usual wages of 1^250 per month, fearing, as we expected to go below Memphis, that he might be picked off by the sharp-shooters, though the pilot-house was guarded with boiler iron. LETTER X. Memphis, Tenn., January 11, 1863. The weather is that of mid-October days. The city, located upon a high bank, built of brick, with a population of thirty thousand, is one of fine appearance. In its rapid growth and in the bluster of its business men, it reminds one much of Chicago. At present it is said that the only truly loyal people here are the soldiers and the negroes. As the place of residence, in palatial style, of nabobs, whose plantations are below on the river, it has been one of the most spiteful of rebel towns. Here is the great factory where the cloth for rebel uniforms was made. Here I find Rev. Jeremiah Porter, chaplain of the first regiment of Illinois artillery, but now detailed for duty in the garrison. He and his wife are very angels of mercy to the soldiers. Rev. Z. K. Hawley, also of Illinois, is acting as chaplain to the Overton Hospital, a grand hotel building formerly used by the rebels for the same purpose. With nine hundred patients it is under the best of management. Here there is a contraband village of two thousand people. Here is Miss Rose M. Kinney, who, under the American Missionary Association, had been with our garrison at Corinth, and connected with the hospital and school for the colored refugees at that place ; and who, as the post had to be abandoned to the 38 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. rebels, fled to this city with our soldiers and the refugees, pursued and fired upon by the enemy. But no sooner had she arrived than she was again at work in hospital and school service, a heroine indeed. In two months fifty chil- dren had learned to read. On New Year's day they had a celebration, at which an exhibition of the school, wor- ship, and addresses by chaplains Porter and Hawley and a colored minister were the exercises. It was a gala day. Their pastor, a quadroon, having returned to Mississippi to get his wife and children, had found that they had been sent farther south for safety. He had been kidnapped and sold for ^1,100 and was still in the care of the buyer, bound, when, our forces coming up, the tables were turned, the minister set free and the man-stealers made prisoners, being now as such in this city, while the man of God is dispensing the Word of Life to the people, a freeman. The heroism of this war is not all on the side of the men. Besides the missionary lady named, here are Miss Bab- cock, of Chicago, in care of sanitary goods ; Miss Mary Burnell, of Milwaukee, my niece, under the Christian Commission ; and " Aunt Lizzie " Aiken, a former parish- ioner of mine, serving as a nurse out of the greatness of her heart. Here are also Mrs. Hoge, of Chicago, and Mrs. Colt, of Milwaukee, women of great experience, on a tour of exploration among the hospitals and camps, dis pensing wisdom in counsel and in personal attention. We find that General Sherman has been repulsed at Vicks burg, and with his army on the transports is on his way up to capture Arkansas Post, and we are ordered forward to that point. General Grant has arrived here and his army will be joined to Sherman's. Then, in conjunction with Banks and Farragut, another move will be made upon Vicksburg. With a gun-boat escort we are off to Arkansas Post. DURING THE WAR. LETTER XI. 39 DISBURSEMENTS BY THE SANITARY COMMISSION. SURGERY IN THE ARMY. Chicago, January 22, 1863. As I have just returned from a trip down the Missis- sippi to the mouth of the White River, in charge of the stores of the Chicago Branch of the United States Sani- tary Commission, I desire to say a few words to the friends of this enterprise in the north-west in regard to the dis- bursement of goods by this patriotic and philanthropic agency. An impression has gained some currency that these sacred benefactions are not used as exclusively for the use of soldiers as they ought to be. As an arm of the government, appointed by the President and by him entrusted with the important function of the inspection of hospitals and camps as to their sanitary condition, and yet performing their service independent of the national treasury, this Commission deserves profound respect. The several branches at Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, are but the correlative parts of the central organ- ization at Washington, of which Rev. Dr. Bellows is President, and Fred. Law Olmstead Secretary. The appointees, as inspectors, general superintendents, and local disbursing agents, are all amenable to the one organic body. Thus in the south-west. Dr. H. A. Warriner, a man of eminent qualifications, is sanitary inspector of camps and hospitals, and general superintendent of sanitary agencies in General Grant's army. These are at Cairo, Columbus, Memphis, Corinth, and Jackson. He also con- trols the movements of the steamboat Sir William Wal- lace, chartered for the uses of the Commission in that 40 PILGRIM'S letters: region, a boat which, paying one half of its surplus earn- ings to the chartering party, does much towards meeting its own expense, while enabling the agents to carry their stores to such places and at such times as the exigencies of battle or the uncertain movements of war may demand. This boat is in charge of Dr. R. G. McLean, who is also United States inspector of hospitals, for which double responsibility his professional and military experience (in Mexico) eminently qualify him. On her last trip down, she carried one thousand and twenty-seven packages, or one hundred tons of stores, gathered up from the several branches. The local agencies are usually in buildings confiscated by the government and so costing nothing for rent, while the agents are held to a strict account for the goods in their charge, giving and receiving vouchers for the same. They or the general superintendent, if at hand, make appropriations to camp or general hospitals as needed. Then these goods are delivered into the possession of the head nurse of the hospital, who carries the keys of the rooms containing sanitary clothing and delicacies. She administers upon written requisition of the surgeon for each particular patient. Thus, at Memphis, the Overton Hospital, in a new hotel, and the Jefferson Hospital, and several others there, all confiscated property, are supplied by the agency of the Commission, which occupies and fills a store in one of the above-mentioned buildings, equal to any in Lake Street, Chicago. One reason why soldiers return home from the hospitals and sometimes say that they never received any thing from the Commission, is that the articles furnished through the system described above seem to them to come from the government. A soldier upon his cot eating canned • DURING THE WAR. 41 peaches made a remark to that effect, when it was shown by the marks that his peaches and his shirt and the bed- ding he had were all from the Chicago Commission. Another element of strength in this arm of the public service is that, while its sphere is not that of fighting, it yet hangs upon the rear and even seeks the front for its ministrations. Dr. E. Andrews, of our city, who was one of the three who were detailed to do all the amputating at Vicksburg, told me at Memphis, where he was then in charge, that before the battle began he had sanitary stores from the Chicago branch on hand, and that they did great good. And while from our distance from the scene of action we could not, as we had hoped, reach that field of carnage, we were glad to learn that the agent at Helena, Mr. Pattenburg, had hastened down with stores and was able to administer to the six hundred and fifty wounded on their way up the river, and, as he said, he was never so happy before in his life. At the mouth of the White River our boats found one hundred of the slightly wounded from Vicksburg on board the Adriatic, used as a hospital, and left there, that when recovered they might be within easy reach of the army. But in that by-place they were in great destitution of any thing like comforts. We supplied them with apples, tea, crackers, concentrated milk, beef, and delicacies, and necessaries of under-clothing and bedding. Never were poor fellows more grateful for such favors. At the same place our boat also discharged a supply for General McClernand's army up the Arkansas River. At Memphis, on my return, I found five companies of the one hundred and thirteenth Illinois, and I supplied them with the balance of the goods sent them by the Board of Trade, and also other articles as they needed. Some of them were sick, and all of them, having been 42 PILGRIAPS LETTERS. ■ upon boats for six weeks, were living upon hard bread and salt meat. Their apples, tea, crackers, etc., were all the sweeter for being a remembrance from friends at home. Let us not be weary in well doing. The one hundred thousand soldiers lying in the hospitals, sick and wounded, who have fought our battles for us, have a claim upon our material sympathy. Our obligation is not simply that of humanity, but that of debt. A valuable addition has been made to the literature of the war by Dr. Edmund Andrews, professor of surgery in the Chicago Medical College, and late surgeon of the first regiment of Illinois artillery, in a " Complete Record of the Surgery of the Battles fought near Vicksburg, December 27-30, 1862." Seeing that by the confusion of battle, the scattering of the wounded, and the imper- fect registration, the vast statistics of the war were slipping away, and that this costly experience of blood and life were giving but little aid to the settlement of many difficult questions in surgery, the doctor deter- mined to secure a record of the wounded of that battle up to the latest period possible. Here is an entire surgi- cal history of the wounds up to the twentieth day, at which time the question of life or death is usually settled, giving the case, name, operation, anaesthetics, and re- marks. Of the 750 wounds, 50 were of the head, 10 of the neck, 164 of the trunk, 69 of the arm, yj of the hand, 14 of the elbow, 43 of the forearm, 41 of the hip, 107 of the thigh, 25 of the knee, 79 of the leg, 50 of the foot. Of the wounds of the head, 10 died ; of the trunk, 20 ; of the arm, 4 ; of the hip, 3 ; of the leg, 7 ; of the foot, I. A predominance of wounds on the right side comes from skirmish-firing from behind trees, which is usually on the right-hand side. Of the 88 cases of DURING THE WAR. 43 amputation, 13 died. Dr. Andrews was detailed as one of three surgeons to perform these operations, and it is not likely that any poor soldier lost his limb or his life unnecessarily under his skillful hand. The result of his observation on ventilation is : " Let the surgeon see that he gets fresh air for his men in preference to food, warmth, or shelter. Men will live on snow, on wet ground, or under open sheds, and do well on bacon and hard tack ; but in closed hospitals they will die, though they have all the luxuries of the world around them." LETTER XII. EMANCIPATION MEETING. Chicago, January 31, 1863. It is the year of jubilee! Our colored brethren, on New Year's day, celebrated the glorious event. Future generations of all climes will hallow this era of emancipa- tion. Glory to God, good-will to men ! Addresses were made by Hon. John Wentworth, Rev. J. E. Roy, and E. C. Lamed, Esq. The last speaker told this story of himself : Recently he had been over in England. At his lodgings, coming down the first morning to his breakfast, he saw a colored man sitting at the table. He shrank back at first at the thought of sitting by the side of ^ the black man. Then he mentally thus addressed himself : " Earned, you are an old abolitionist ; are n't you ashamed of yourself } " He went and took his seat by the side of the sable man, and found him to be an English barrister ; a man well-traveled, a courteous gentleman, whose com- pany he ever afterwards sought and enjoyed. "That expe- rience," said he, "cured me of all color prejudice." 44 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. The Chicago Sanitary Commission having requested the churches of the north-west to take up a collection on the third Sabbath of January for its uses, the result, as reported thus far, is an aggregate of $7,760, of which $3,444 was from the churches of this city. Such a simul- taneous remembrance of our wounded soldiers in our places of worship was a material expression of our reli- gious sympathy. As a sign of the times, it is worthy of mention that on the same day two of the local associa- tions of this state were in session upon slave soil : the Illinois, at Hannibal, with pastor Sturtevant ; the southern Illinois, at St. Louis, with Dr. T. M. Post. Telegrams of Christian fellowship and of patriotism were exchanged. At St. Louis the camps were visited, and it was cheering to see how much the loyal Christian people of that city were doing for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the soldiers brought among them. Those who propose to re-construct our disrupted Union by leaving out New England, would do well to consider such facts as those presented by Dr. Kitchel in his " New England Zone," and by Dr. Joseph Clark in his "New England in the West." The Puritan commonwealth of ideas, institutions, enterprise, stretches across the conti- nent. Emigration and evangelization have sown the seed broadcast, disseminating the spirit and the privileges of the Pilgrims from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The col- lee:es and the theological seminaries of the west are distinctively New England in their origin, officers, and early endowments. Marietta, as shown by its report of a quarter-centennial celebration, has sent out two hundred and twenty -two graduates, of whom ninety -two have entered the ministry. In the same time, at the beginning, Harvard graduated one hundred and forty-seven, and Yale DURING THE WAR. 45 one hundred and forty-five. No man can. estimate the influence of these institutions to mold society, to sustain the state ; and he would be a madman and a traitor who should propose to eliminate Puritanism from the west. LETTER XIII. CHICAGO BRANCH, BOSTON TRACT SOCIETY. Chicago, April 30, 1863. The Western Agency of the American Tract Society, Boston, under Rev. G. S. F. Savage, whose headquarters are in this city, and whose field runs from the Ohio west- ward, has already come to a large degree of prosperity. Its catholic spirit and its devotion to the moral needs of the soldiers are calling out the benefactions of our west- ern people. The annual report of the Agency, besides books sold, shows the receipt of $5,335- The larger part of this amount went to the supply of gospel rations to the army of the south-west. During the year the secretary has made five trips to " Dixie " for the purpose of visiting the soldiers in camp, on the battle-field, and in the hos- pital, and of distributing the tracts, books, and papers so elegantly prepared by this Society for this use. In this way he has given out twelve hundred hymn-books and one hundred dollars' worth of Bibles and Testaments. In the year, besides doing an overwhelming amount of office work, he has visited all the north-western states, traveling in all, 15,245 miles. The Tract Society, which opened its mouth for the dumb, is now brought into such usefulness in this the time of our nation's distress. Dr. Patton, a member of the Chicago branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, having just returned 46 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. from a trip to Vicksburg on business for that arm of the service, made a report to his church last Sunday evening, using as his text the passage of Jesse's sending David to the army with the loaves, ten cheeses, and parched corn, to see how his brothers fared. He had little hope of the speedy capture of that stronghold. Dr. Charles Jewett, that old temperance war-horse, in a recently published report of his labors in Illinois, says that in traveling over the state promiscuously, he has found only one temperance man disloyal or reading a disloyal paper. He thinks that liquor and disloyalty go together. LETTER XIV. A MAY ANNIVERSARY. New York, May 20, 1863. A WESTERN man notices that the New York anniversa- ries have not the numbers and the fervor they once had on the boards of the old Tabernacle, which must some- where yet be resonant with truth and eloquence. The anti-slavery society always produces a sensation and receives the commendation of the Herald for spice. The Boston Tract Society made a grand report of work among the colored people. Mr. Beecher had an anniversary of his own before the Home Missionary Society, with another western man to stand as preface to the volume which he unrolled in his own strain of eloquence. Mr. Beecher was not ashamed to say, " When I was out west as a mis- sionary." It was worth a trip to New York to witness the baptism of a slave child, to gain the sight of a vast congregation responding by their tears as godfathers and godmothers to the little stranger. DURING THE WAR. 47 They say that it gives breadth to an eastern man to go out upon the western prairies. It certainly gives a west- ern man elevation to come down among the hills. Every visit to them has given me a thrill. As they flitted by us on the railway, such individuality had they, that they seemed as old acquaintances. The Hudson is a never- ending glory. But the climax of my delight was a trip over the Erie Railroad by daylight. Seated in the rear of the rear car, with a view sidewise and backward, from morning till night my eyes were strained and my heart subdued. Such majesty, such kaleidoscopic beauty, such thrilling surprises ! What a path-finder is the locomotive ! On this track it coquets with four different rivers : the Passaic, the Delaware, the Susquehannah, the Chenango, shooting from one to the other as if by instinct ; now creeping along the sides of precipices, now snorting through cavernous tunnels, now bidding defiance to alti- tude. But who ever discovered, who ever cut out these water-courses, and why this piling of land into such un- serviceable shapes .'' Eor the same reason that the com- mon Author used up in a Lord Bacon enough material to make many ordinary men, and that to inspire reverence for His works. While thus musing upon the hills so care- lessly tumbled together, and wondering what could be raised upon them, a friend pointed out a little farm, with its plain homestead nestling between the base of a tall mountain and the Delaware, as the boyhood home of William Bross, one of the editors of our Tribune. Here nine boys had been " raised " and educated and then sent West — an editor, a doctor, a lawyer, a railroad operator, and such like. Then I saw the utility of that soil in pro- ducing men to people, subdue, and govern the empires springing out of the regions beyond. 48 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. But those horrid fences ! The grand old stumps of the field saturated with pitch, extracted by a mammoth den- tistry, and then set upon edge and in line for miles, as fences defying all intruders ! So may it be with the forest growth of rebellion in this land : chopped down, turned up by the roots, and then made to hedge in our government and our freedom, a warning against all future treason. And so may it be with that other conspiracy, the liquor traffic. LETTER XV. THE MORGAN RAID, Chicago, July 31, 1863. On a trip through central Indiana, during the late Morgan raid, I saw something of the patriotism of the Hoosier State. In forty-eight hours after the governor's call sixty thousand men had volunteered. At. Terre Haute eleven hundred men came in from two counties, and five hundred others were under way when orders came that they were not needed. At Kokomo, the call was received at ten o'clock a.m., and at one o'clock p.m. a company of eighty men, made up on the spot, of lawyers, doctors, ministers, editors, county officers and clerks, was on the cars bound for the seat of war, and four hundred more were at once raised from that county of Howard. And so it was all over the central and southern parts of the state. Although the country had been drained before so that the women were taking care of the crops, as soon as the hoof of the invader struck the free soil, its loyalists seemed to rise up out of the ground. On former Fourth of July occasions we have had the rhetoric of leaving the plow in the furrow, but here was a literal DURING THE WAR. 49 leaving of the reaper in the swath, for the harvest had just begun. Such demonstrations reveal the fact that the country is safe, after all, in the hands of the people. At Noblesville a squad of forty Americo-African recruits had come to take the cars for rendezvous at Indianapolis, and during the hours of waiting were scorching in the sun. A citizen, Joseph Gray, Esq., told them to go to the court-house green and hold up their heads. A crowd assembled, and Gray made a speech, and called upon the people to treat these soldiers as they had treated their white comrades before, with a dinner. Soon the tables were built and a bountiful repast provided, and then the sable warriors moved off with light hearts. Now Gray's harvest is ripe and no hands can be found. Driving to the capitol, he finds the leader of the squad he had befriended, and, telling his story, he is furnished with a half-dozen men whom the examining officer had rejected for inconsiderable disabilities. The jolly fellows put up the harvest in good style and received their two dollars a day — a generous reciprocity all around, LETTER XVI. THE FIRST SANITARY FAIR. Chicago, October 30, 1863. On the second and third of September a convention of ladies was held in this city to arrange for a great north-western fair and festival for the benefit of the Sani- tary Commission. Congressman Owen Lovejoy, Senator Chandler, and others made addresses. And now the women's fair is reported to be a great success. It has surpassed all expectation. We have had the glow of the feast of tabernacles protracted through two weeks and 50 ■ PILGRIM'S LETTERS. with culminating effect. The opening was an ovation. In eight year's residence here I have witnessed many civic, military, and patriotic demonstrations, but never any thing that thrilled the mass of the people as this did. Banks, schools, stores, and shops were closed, and the people turned out in a procession three miles long, that took fifty-eight minutes to pass a given point, while the city every-where was a-fiutter with flags, and resounding with vocal music and jubilations. Instead of the captive kings who were wont to grace the old Roman triumphs, a half-dozen captured rebel flags were borne upon a band chariot, while the convalescents from the Soldiers' Home and Hospital were carried in the wagons of the express companies. Most notable in the procession was the dele- gation of farmers from Lake County, who drove one hun- dred teams that were loaded with the choicest stores of their farms, dairies, poultry-yards, and cellars, to the value of three thousand dollars, which was immediately dis- patched to the army in camp and hospital. At the dinner given to the farmers, in responding to the presentation address. Dr. Patton, in behalf of the Sanitary Commission, but expressed the experience of many of the people when he said that the sight of the farmers' procession entirely overcame him. On a later day, sixty-four loaded farm- wagons from four townships in Cook County marched through our streets, amidst the enthusiasm of our people, to the sanitary rooms. But these farmers, by their con- tiguity to the city, became only the representatives of their brethren of the soil, who for more than a year have been making their contributions through other channels to this blessed cause, and the honor done was as to their class. The conception, preparation for, and the manage- ment of this stupendous affair seems a marvel. None DURING THE WAR. 51 but the ladies could have conciliated and consolidated so many interests, and could have done that only in the interests of the soldiers. The skill which managed this scheme would have engineered a battle or a campaign. I do not go into the details of the fair. Suffice it to say that Bryan Hall was a wonder for the beauty and elegance of its adornments ; that it was filled with arti- cles of value, of luxury, and of curiosity, from thousand dollar shawls, six hundred dollar pianos, and threshing machines, down to fancy-work and trinkets ; that it was visited by an average of five thousand and ninety persons daily ; that the dinners served by the ladies were patron- ized by an average of fifteen hundred persons ; that the curiosity shop was a Barnum's Museum ; that Metropoli- tan Hall was kept warm every night by concerts, read- ings, and lectures, of which two were given by Anna Dickinson, at a dollar a seat, to enthusiastic, crowded' audiences, and several on the last evenings by governors of the north-western states and Hon. Owen Lovejoy ; that on the last day a dinner was given to the sick and wounded soldiers in the city ; and that the total receipts were sixty-five thousand and fifty dollars ! Besides the vast amount of comforts that will be dispensed to the sick and wounded braves from the magnificent donation, it will carry to them a flood of sympathy from their friends at home. As a demonstration of the patriotism of the people at home, and of the enthusiasm in prosecut- ing the war, the fair was worth all it cost. It was a fitting accompaniment of the recent political triumphs that were worth as much to the government as sanguinary victories. PERIOD III. DURING THE WAR {Cojitinued), 1864-65. The Virginia Union Flag. — Death of Owen Lovejoy. — Triennial Convention on the State of the Country. — Death of Colonels Mulli- gan and John A. Bross. — Tour Among the "Bushwhackers." — QuantrelTs Raid. — Lincoln's Second Election. — Plot to Release Rebel Prisoners at Chicago. — Illinois Responds to the Call for Five Hundred Thousand More. — Blatchford's Sanitary Report. — Revolutionary Incidents. — Turner and Pratt go to Missouri. — Rebel Prisoners in Camp Douglas. — Richmond Fallen. — Lee's Sur- render. — Lincoln Assassinated. — The National Pageant. — Chicago's National Fair. — " Little Tad." — Boston National Council. — American Missionary Association Accepts the Trust Proffered by the Boston Council. LETTER XVII. UNION FLAG FROM VIRGINIA. DEATH OF OWEN LOVEJOY. Chicago, April 5, 1864. Dropping in to-day at Bryan Hall, where were dining the eighth Illinois cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel D. R. Clendenin, whom I had prepared for college (how we like to stand related in some way to these brave fellows !), and who had led that splendid raid tlown between the Rappahannock and the James, I found Mr. T. B. Bryan, the proprietor of the hall, one of our noblest patriots, standing upon one of the tables and holding up a beautiful flag. " Here," said he, with suffused eyes, "here is the first Union flag presented by Virginia, given to this regiment for its good conduct while in Alexandria, by the Union ladies of that city. God bless them ! I know that place. I was born and brought up there. I know some of the ladies." When some one proposed DURING THE WAR. 53 three cheers for eastern Virginia, Mr. Bryan replied : "No; not till she is redeemed." Then it went, three cheers for the future of Virginia, and three more for the Union ladies of Alexandria. The death of Owen Lovejoy occurred on the twenty- fifth of March, at Brooklyn, N. Y., when he was a little over fifty years of age. Born at Albion, Maine, the son of a Congregational minister, graduated at Bowdoin, then a student in theology, he came to Illinois in 1836, and in 1839 ^2.s ordained pastor of the Congregational church at Princeton, in which service he remained for seventeen years. In 1854, as an indication of the Liberty party movement, he was elected to the legislature of the state. In 1856 he was elected to Congress, and then was re- elected three times, so that he had served a longer period, with four exceptions, than any man ever elected to that position from Illinois. This fact, as he had always championed the unpopular anti-slavery party, shows the hold he had upon the people. His death has been a per- sonal bereavement to the old anti-slavery men who have known the devotion of his life to the cause of the slave. Twenty-four years ago, in 1840, when he was moderator of the Rock River Association, which had met in Lyndon in my father's house, my young blood was fired by his recital of the murder of his brother, Elijah P. Lovejoy, at Alton, and of his solemn oath of enmity to slavery, taken over his lifeless body. I well remember one item in the charge he gave to a young man, George B. Gemmel, who was ordained at that time : " I charge you not to preach that there were two Adams ; one white and one black." He was a brave man. Indicted once by a grand jury for giving food and raiment to a poor woman who came, footsore and starving, to his door, on her weary way from 54 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. a land of chains to a land of freedom, he faced court, jury, witnesses, and, against their statutes and their special pleading, beat them with the righteousness of his act. At another time he faced an armed and threat- ening mob, who had seized a man and bound him, whose only crime was a dark skin, cut his fetters and let the oppressed go free, while the mob, awe-struck, slunk away in silence. This bravery the nation was made to know when, on the fifth of April, i860, in Congress, after having repeatedly endured the insults and felt the oppression exercised upon those who battled for freedom and the rights of free speech, he met the confronting bullies of the south, who strove to silence him, and declared : " You shall hear me. I will speak. I stand here to say what I have to say upon the great crime of the nation. I will not yield the floor." The congressional committee bearing his remains were met in this city by a large delegation from Princeton. The funeral was held in the church where he had preached for seventeen years. It was fitting that the sermon should be delivered by Dr. Edward Beecher, who, as President of Illinois College, having attended at Alton the organiza- tion of the anti-slavery society, and having witnessed the safe landing of the press, had returned to Jacksonville only the day before the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, supposing that all would remain quiet. The sermon, an hour and a half long, delineated accurately and gratefully the character of the deceased and the crisis in which he was called to act. The preacher stated that Mr. Love- joy, having sought ordination in the Episcopal church at the hands of Bishop Chase, was required by him to pledge in writing that he would hot agitate the subject of slavery. His answer was: " My right arm shall drop off DURING THE WAR. 55 before I will sign that pledge. If I should sign it I should expect it to drop off." The bishop then agreed that he might lecture on slavery if he would not preach against it. " Promise not to preach against prevailing sin .^ Never ! " And so he turned to the freedom of the Congfre- gational way. Dr. Beecher also stated that at the funeral services in Brooklyn, a common soldier, a stranger, came and knelt by his coffin and kissed him ; also that an old colored woman kissed him and held up her child to kiss him. President Lincoln said that there was no man he could so ill afford to lose. The American Home Missionary Society seems to be marching into this battle of the great day of God Al- mighty, reentering the field from which it had been driven by its anti-slavery testimony. Besides Dr. T. M. Post's church in St. Louis and Rev. J. M. Sturtevant's in Han- nibal, a mission has just been started in Kansas City by Superintendent L. Bodwell and Pastor R. Cordley, both of Kansas, while two or three freedmen's churches have sprung up in that region. At Memphis, Tenn., Rev. T. E. Bliss has organized a church. I learn that there is one Congregational church in Mississippi, one in Georgia, and one in South Carolina. The friends of the American Missionary Association at the west are delighted with the appointment of Rev. M. E. Strieby, of Syracuse, as one of the secretaries of that institution. With a western training, an eastern pastoral experience, with eloquence and executive capacity, and with a lifelong devotion to the cause of the slave, he will make a very effective officer. 56 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. LETTER XVIII. THE TRIENNIAL CONVENTION ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. Chicago, May 30, 1864. The deliverance of the triennial convention of the Chicago Seminary upon the state of the country met the living issues. It was in two parts : one by President Stur- tevant, approving the policy of arming negroes, demanding for them a parity of treatment and protection with the white soldiers, asking that the same measures in the Fort Pillow case be resorted to as though the same number of white soldiers had been massacred in like circumstances, and endorsing the movement in Congress to amend the Consti- tution so as to exterminate slavery. The other part of the report, by Dr. T. M. Post, set forth the duty of the Con- gregational churches of the United States to inquire what they owe to this vast and solemn crisis, recommended correspondence among frieiids and associations in regard to calling another National Convention, and declared the duty of self-extension as coordinate with the right of existence in any ecclesiastical order, and the duty of indoctrinating our seminaries, ministers, and churches in the Puritan ideas. The Association of Illinois, held at Ouincy, approved the idea of a National Council and appointed C. G. Ham- mond and Drs. Sturtevant and Bascom a committee to confer with other bodies upon the matter. Rev. M. E. Strieby, the new secretary, was warmly greeted. He presented eloquently the idea of a new element in civili- zation, to be introduced by the Africans. The great theme of the meeting was the war, the soldiers, the freedmen. DURING THE WAR. 57 and the relation of all this to the kingdom of God. A telegram of congratulation and of assurance of prayer and sympathy was sent to President Lincoln. A visit was made to a camp of six hundred freedmen, and to the four hospitals, where prayer and addresses were offered. Dr. Milton Badger, whose heart has not grown old in his twenty-nine years of service in the American Home Missionary Society, assured us that the society was ready to press into the opening fields of the west and south. Well may Abraham Lincoln say : " Praise God for the churches ! " LETTER XIX. THE DEATH OF COLONEL MULLIGAN AND OF COLONEL JOHN A. BROSS. Chicago, August 3, 1864. The funeral of Colonel Mulligan in this city yesterday was a grand pageant. At Lexington, Mo., when sum- moned by General Price, to surrender, he replied : " If you want us, come and take us." At the recent encounter at Winchester, after he had fallen, pierced by two balls, a squad of men picked him up and were about to carry him off when the flag being endangered, he ordered them : "Lay me down and save the flag." They did so. He fell into the hands of the enemy and died among them. He was a rising young lawyer of high repute and a zeal- ous Catholic. Yesterday we learned of the fall of Colonel John A. Bross of the twentieth United States colored regiment, the first raised in this state. He went down in that terri- ble assault after the explosion at Petersburg. He first raised a company for the eighty-eighth Illinois, and fought 58 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. with them at Perryville, Stone River, and Chickamauga, and then came home to raise a colored regiment. A brother of the Hon. William Bross of The Chicago Tribiuie, and an honored member of the bar in this city, a Christian gentle- man, he went into the service from pure patriotism, and early identified himself with a movement for arming the black men. He was a faithful officer, caring for the spir- itual as well as the physical wants of his men. The hor- rors of Fort Pillow did not deter him from the service so precarious in its risks. It is ascertained after the assault, foremost among the bodies found and furthest inside the rebel works, was found the body of Colonel Bross. A surviving captain says that not a man of the regiment faltered, and that every one that came out shed tears over the fall of their commander and friend. A pri- vate letter from one of those black warriors to a friend in this city, after detailing the incidents of the night of prep- aration and the explosion, says : — The rebels poured a heavy volley upon us, wounding Corporal Max- well severely, and he was compelled to let the colors fall. Corporal Stevens then seized the colors and bore them up to the top of the works. He was quickly cut down. Corporal Bailey seized the colors and was killed instantly. Thomas Barret, a colored private, seized the colors and bore them up to the top of the fort again. He quickly fell dead. Captain Brockway then seized the flag and was mortally wounded, and was obliged to let the colors fall. Colonel Bross then seized the flag, rushed upon the top of the fort, planted it upon the parapet, drew his sword, took his hat in his hand and cried: "Rally, my brave boys, rally ! " The boys did instantly rally up to him. He quickly fell. DURING THE WAR. 59 LETTER XX. A TOUR AMONG THE "BUSHWHACKERS." St. Joseph, Mo., September lo, 1864. The field superintendent had orders to explore the land of Missouri with reference to opening church work in this state. On the first night out we had a collision which killed six passengers and wounded fifteen. I came out unhurt. At Hannibal I found Pastor Sturtevant intrep- idly leading on his church. Along the Hannibal and St. Jo, at the crossing of the rivers, were yet standing the block forts which had guarded the bridges in the earlier days of the war. And still, at Hannibal, St. Joseph, and many other places on the route the boys in blue are guard- ing the peace of the country. General Price is moving his rebel army up this way. As I passed along, two trains had been stopped and robbed on the North Missouri by guerrillas. At Brookfield, the halfway place, General C. B. Fisk, in command of the district, had been pouncing down with his train of soldiers to set things right and to collect of the secesh the value of the property stolen. The day before I stopped at New Cambria the "bush- whackers " had robbed nine citizens in daylight. The house at which I was entertained at Callao has since been searched by the banditti, who, finding a returned Union soldier at the bedside of his sick child, took him out to the edge of the town and shot him. Nearly all of the old churches in this region, by the con- flict of unionism and secessionism, have fallen into dis- organization. Their congregations have been broken up and their houses closed. Farther south, within the Con- federate lines, the people have kept up their church life. 6o PILGRIM'S LETTERS. The great work here will now be to re-organize upon the basis of loyalty and spirituality. Many of the people, weary of the conflict in the church as well as that in the state, seem now disposed to welcome a church that has been free from this entanglement, and which, by its liberal polity, offers a rational ground for union. Population will be flowing into Missouri, which is really a western state. New towns will be springing up on these fair prairies. I shall recommend that a superintendent be secured, and that the work be pushed with vigor. LETTER XXI. quantrell's raid. Lawrence, Kansas, September 21, 1864 The last time I visited this place, seven years ago, I found a regiment of federal soldiers encamped here to watch this Yankee, liberty-loving town. Then all over the territory the United States troops were used in com- plicity with the plot of the border ruffians to throttle the freedom of Kansas. Now I find Lawrence and all the eastern border of Kansas under the protection of Uncle Sam's boys, the difference being caused by a change of administration. Besides the fortifications on Mount Oread, a battery of one hundred and twenty men, a company of infantry, and some cavalry, the militia of this town and neigh- boring country is under organization and drill. Recently, fifteen hundred of them had a review and a sham-fight, in which the Lawrence Sable Company bore off the palm, re- ceiving a cavalry charge under an old army officer in splen- did style. Five block-houses in different parts of the town are garrisoned every night by these men. One of the DURING THE WAR. 6l forts is under the care of the colored company. And this is the preparation for a return of Quantrell. If he should come every year with his recruits, fiends from the infernal regions, he could not dislodge the genius of liberty from this historic spot. That raid was on Black Friday, August 21, 1863 ; and so it is just a year and a month since the deed was done. It burned two hundred buildings, among which were seventy-five business houses, and destroyed property to the amount of $1,500,000. And now Massachusetts Street is nearly re-built, and in better style than before. In all, two hundred new houses have been put up on the ruins of the old ones. Business is now lively. But how can those satanic emissaries atone for the slaughter of one hundred and fifty citizens .■* There was method in their insanity. Some of them had heard Pastor Cordley preach a national sermon the Sabbath before in Kansas City, and so they were looking for that " one-eyed abolition preacher who had preached in Kansas City." But he escaped, with the loss of home, library, sermons and all, and the next Sunday he was ready to preach from the text : " The morning cometh." And now he stands his night-watch on guard. His friends have made up the $1,500 of his loss. And so did Superintendent Bodwell escape for other years of usefulness. A visit to the grave of my brother, Aaron D. Roy, who had given his life to Kansas in her early single-handed struggle with that power which has since struck at the life of the nation, revealed to me a glimpse of the horror of the raid, in the long trench where, in rough boxes, lay the mangled and charred remains of fifty or sixty of the victims. As every man who could^ find a horse and a revolver had gone in pursuit of the flying 62 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. demons, it was not possible to get separate graves dug for all. But one hundred of the raiders, it is said, have already been made to bite the dust. LETTER XXII. Lincoln's second election. — plot to release rebel prisoners. — illinois responds to the call for FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE. — BLATCHFORD's RE- PORT. REVOLUTIONARY INCIDENT. Chicago, November lo,. 1864. Thank God, Lincoln has been reelected ! We had here in the summer a convention that voted, "the war a failure." It was a painful and significant fact that in the scores of speeches made in the convention and from the hotel balconies, scarcely a word was uttered of sympathy with the government as engaged in a deadly con- flict with gigantic treason, or of condemnation of secession, or of generous recognition of the soldiers and their ser- vice. The harp of a thousand strings was thrummed by almost every speaker ujDon the despotism of Abraham Lin- coln. The only way to save our property, liberty, and life is to overthrow the reigning dynasty. In all the reported speeches it would be hard to find an honest word of reproba- tion of Jeff Davis. Vallandigham has been the admired of all admirers. A friend, sitting by my side, a refugee from Mississippi, who with three brothers fled before blood- hounds from the conscription, has been into the great con- vention. He says that by the spirit of the convention he was made to feel as though he were back in Columbus, Miss. ^The tone and the talk were just such as he had been accustomed to there. But now the answer to all this is the people's return of Abraham Lincoln. DURING THE WAR. 63 The discovery on the day before the election of the plot to release the nine thousand prisoners here in Camp Douglas, to pollute our ballot-boxes and to burn the city ; the arrest of rebel officers and of home traitors and of one hundred butternut accomplices imported for the occasion ; and the* seizure of cartloads of arms and ammunition secreted near the camp, was a merciful and a providential deliver- ance. The navy revolvers, already loaded and capped for the use of the rebel prisoners, were used in part by the four hundred volunteer mounted patrolmen who have guarded our city the last two days. I have never seen a general election more quiet ; but there was intense feel- ing and every body worked. I had myself the honor of driving a neighbor's carriage for half a day to bring to the polls invalid citizens and the halt and the blind from the soldiers' home. Chicago gave a majority of 1,776 — a significant number for the Union and for the war until the rebellion is dead. A new stor}'- of the President may come in here. During our state fair at Decatur, a friend was calling upon the family of Rev. Mr. Crissey, who is now a chaplain in an Illinois regiment. The mother stated that many years ago her little boy, when playing out in the street, had fallen down and was crying. A tall young man came along, driving a yoke of oxen. Picking the little fellow up and setting him inside the gate, he re- marked : — "You will never make a soldier if you cry like that." His ambition touched, the little soldier cleared up his face. The mother, after relating this, turned to a young captain just returned on a furlough, and said : — "This is the son, and the tall young man is the commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States!" 64 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. Illinois responds with men as well as with votes. On the new call for five hundred thousand more, we have thirty-five thousand ahead of all former calls, and the remaining twelve thousand of our quota we can call out any day. We have reenlisted sixteen thousand three- year veterans. General Oglesby, the Union candidate for governor, who, like our President, was of lowly Kentucky origin, told us recently in this city how he became an anti-slavery man. One old negro. Uncle Tim, who belonged to his father's estate, was sold to a man whose son laid one hundred lashes upon the back of the noblest black man he had ever seen. Though but a boy he determined, if he ever could get the money, to buy the old man free. Coming to manhood, a cruise in California brought him the money. He returned, set the old man free, and swore vengeance upon the institution of slavery. Mr. E. W. Blatchford, treasurer of the Chicago Sanitary Commission, in a published report, shows that in three years and two months 68,803 packages have been sent to the army, at a cash valuation of $964,059.71. This was at an expense of $32,154.01. This is only three and one half per cent, of the value of the supplies distributed. How grand this tributary uprising ! An incident of Revo- lutionary times, just brought to my knowledge, illustra- tive of the patriotism and 'suffering of that day, finds its counterpart in this present struggle. My great-grandsire, a young man in New Jersey, engaged to be married, with his wedding-suit ready, was plowing in the field, barefoot, and with only the rustic dress of a shirt and pants, when the British came to the house and stole all he had. Leav- ing his team in the field he went seven miles that night in his plowman's rig and enlisted for the war. On the next day he recognized the buttons of his wedding- DURING THE WAR. 65 dress on the hats of the enemy. Captured, he lay six months in the "block-house" in New York, where many were starved lo death. That must have been the place where our modern cavaliers learned this refinement of torture. After a service of seven years, for which he never got one cent of pay, as he was leaving Washington's Guard — so the domestic legend runs — the patriot gen- eral cried because his soldiers were no better clad. With a blanket, but with no hat or shoes, the soldier marked his track home for fourteen miles with the blood of his feet upon the frozen ground. " His blanket he had cut into a coat and was married in that." My great-grandfather on the other side was one of five brothers in the Revolu- tionary army, their father being a justice of the peace under the king. LETTER XXIII. TURNER AND PRATT GO TO MISSOURI. REBEL PRISONERS IN CAMP DOUGLAS. Chicago, February 21, 1865. On New Year's day Rev. E. B. Turner left to become missionary superintendent of Missouri, taking with him Rev. C. H. Pratt as his "son Timothy." The man who got Mr. Turner away from his people is called by them "Rob Roy." When these men left my house at mid- night of New Year's in the teeth of a terrific storm to go and breast a fiercer commotion of the moral elements, my heart sank within me for the moment as being accessory to their running a fool's errand or making a sacrifice of themselves. But they are now getting well under way in their work. Leaving Hannibal, they were obliged to wear their old clothes and to carry material weapons. Timothy 66 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. is located at Brookfield, the halfway place on the Hannibal and St. Jo, where he preached his first sermon in the bar- room of the hotel. The Congregational ministers of Kan- sas evidently belonged to the Church Militant. When Price was pushing across Missouri for the invasion of Kansas, Storrs and Robinson, and Rice and Harlow, and McVicker and Guild responded to the call for troops. Adair was already in the field. Cordley was on duty day and night with his company, which was left as a part of the garrison for the block-houses in Lawrence, Kansas. On the day of that battle, Sunday, there were present in one of their congregations one hundred and fifty women and only six men, and these all physically unfit for duty and legally exempt. Of the eleven thousand prisoners here in Camp Douglas, three thousand refuse to be exchanged, Major Hosford, the commissary, having made it so pleasant for them. They occupy the barracks which were built for our own soldiers. They have splendid hospitals. He bakes his own bread for them. He took pride in showing me through his stores of inspected flour and beans. Our home is near. We hear the reveille every night, and every day we see heavily loaded wagons, hauling fresh meat to the prisoners. How does this contrast with Andersonville and Libby and the other soldier prisons of the south ! The government has put in a grand sewer from the camp to the lake shore. Alas, for the filth of those southern prison pens ! DURING THE WAR. 67 LETTER XXIV. RICHMOND FALLEN. — LEE SURRENDERS. LINCOLN ASSAS- SINATED. THE NATIONAL PAGEANT. Chicago, April 4, 1865. Richmond has fallen. Yesterday Chicago ran riot with joy. It blossomed all over with red, white, and blue. Never before such excitement here ; business stopped ; streets crowded ; merchants marching ; fire departments out ; guns firing all day. Nor was the Author of all this joy forgotten. Besides the noonday prayer-meeting, which throbbed with the great emotion, at four in the afternoon there were meetings for thanksgiving in the three divisions of the city : at the First Baptist, Grace Methodist, and the First Congregational churches. Then on Monday there was a mammoth street parade. April 5, 1865. General Lee has surrendered. Praise God ! The exuber- ance of joy is tempered with reverence in the presence of the mighty providence. And what shall now be done with the leaders of the rebellion .-* General Grant's magnanim- ity with Lee and his men, approved at home, must surely be appreciated at the south. The most notable thing in this second Monday's celebration was, that in a procession, which was an hour in passing a given point, and between the Board of Trade and the Commercial College, marched three hundred colored citizens, with manly bearing. And well might they find their place, for had not their brethren marched shoulder to shoulder with the white soldier,-' When a base fellow pulled a black man off from his dray in the march, he was at once seized and sent to the lock-up. 68 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. April 19, 1865. " My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof." In the hearts of the people, Abraham Lincoln has made for himself the place of a father. Illinois gave Mr. Lincoln to the nation, but she claims no preeminence in grief ; yet her wail of sorrow is deep. This city has become a Bochim. On Saturday, business stood still ; strong men cried upon the streets ; an over- crowded prayer-meeting was held at four o'clock in one of the largest churches ; and in the evening our two largest halls were filled with mourners. On the Sabbath all the churches were filled to repletion, all were draped, all resounded to the tones of lamentation, . Of course all the pulpits sought to give the Word of God for the crisis. In the absence of Dr. Patton at City Point on sanitary duty, I was called upon to preach in his church. The text was : "The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day," and this was followed in the evening by a discourse on the Chris- tianizing of the south. In our South Congregational Church, Pastor W. B. Wright, who had entered Richmond with the President, and who had pulled the first bell-rope there to call the soldiers to worship in one of the forsaken sanctuaries, enriched his funeral service by an account of what he had seen, as a delegate of the Christian Commis- sion, of God's work of grace in the army. At an inquiry- meeting one morning at Point of Rocks there were more inquirers than five of them could converse with. He feared not the return of the soldiers. To-day all business places are closed, and nearly all the churches have been open for worship during the time of the funeral services at Washington. Peter Glass, a German from Wisconsin, is now in this city, halted by the national tragedy on his journey to DURING THE WAR. 69 Washington, bearing as a present to the late President and his wife a superb center-table and work-stand of mosaic art. The stand cost him three months of work and the table nine. The two are composed of twenty-two thousand pieces of wood with exquisite polish. Without the use of paint or varnish there are twenty-one colors. Upon the top of the table there are vases of flowers, twenty-five kinds in all, fifteen kinds of birds, five kinds of pears, besides apples, peaches, plums, cherries, and strawberries. There are also portraits of Messrs. Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, and Butler. All are wrought in black walnut from rails on the farm of the father of the late President, and in white holly, colored to suit the varied articles represented. The whole was designed as an offer- ing of patriotism by an adopted citizen. May 2, 1865. The solemn national pageant has reached our city. Yesterday the remains of the beloved Abraham Lincoln were followed to the rotunda of state by a procession, six abreast, that occupied four hours in passing a given point, while scores of thousands lined the track of the mournful cortege. Through the entire night and now on to the day the mourners have passed in solemn step to behold the face of their departed father, at the rate of seventeen thousand per hour. It is much for a strong man to bow in grief ; now a nation bows in sorrow and in reverence too, for all do see that God alone is great. 70 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. LETTER XXV. THE woman's national FAIR AT CHICAGO. "LITTLE TAD." Chicago, May 30, 1865. To-DAY the last of the patriotic fairs, the second of the north-west, is in process of inauguration in this city. How strange the contrast of this gala day with that on which the cortege of our dear Lincoln passed through our streets ! It was the first plan to open the fair on the twenty-second of February and to close it on the fourth of March, both notable days in the national annals. But so had the idea grown, even to the aspiration of half a million of income, that the time of opening had to be postponed. The crowning glory was to be the presence of Mr. Lincoln, which he had assured, if it were possible, to Mrs. Hoge and Mrs. Livermore, who had been on to Washington to see him. The day had been set for com- mencing the building, which was to cover the whole of Dearborn Park. The mayor had issued a proclamation requesting a suspension of business to honor the ceremo- nies. Military companies were to give brilliancy to the procession. A long line of teams was to come to the site, loaded with the lumber that had been given for the structure. Public school children, a thousand or more of them, were to sing in the park. Several companies of rebel prisoners, who had taken the oath of allegiance, were to enhance the occasion. But that day brought news of the assassination. There was no procession ; there was no ceremony ; so sharp was the precipitation from exultation to horror. But the opening on this the thirtieth day of May has been a grand pageant, though DURING THE WAR. 71 softened by an undertone of sadness. As in the grief, as in the joy, as in the funeral procession, so now in this of the fair celebration, are our colored citizens again participants. June 20, 1865. The great Sanitary Fair has moved along grandly. It has lasted three weeks, and is now to close. It has netted nearly $85,000. Of this, $50,000 was given to the Christian Commission, and the remainder was equally divided between the Sanitary Commission and the Sol- diers' Home. This total was not the half a million at first planned for, nor had this ending of the war then been anticipated. In the place of the President we had his youngest and much-loved son, "little Tad." He wan- dered from booth to booth, and was finally found by a lady sitting apart in bitter weeping. To her inquiries he replied : " I can not go anywhere without seeing a picture of my father." "You did love your father very much ? " said the lady, her own eyes humid with sympathy. "Oh, yes!" exclaimed the little child, "no- body ever had such a good father ! He was always kind, and there was one thing that he never forgot, never!" said the child, with loving emphasis. "And what was that .^ " inquired his interested auditor. " Every day, no matter how busy he was, he never forgot to say a prayer with me. If he had time for only four or five words, he would lay his hand on my head and say them." The glory of the exhibition is Carpenter's national painting of the Reading of the Proclamation. Native genius must have been touched with patriotism to have produced this crowning representation of our country's achievement. In the Hall of Trophies a coincidence appears, though not perhaps designed. Upon the front 72 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. of the platform stands the immense catafalque on which rested in state the remains of Abraham Lincoln, and just below and in front is an ox-yoke manufactured by John Brown, with the carbine placed upon it with which he and seventeen others had attacked the sovereignty of Virginia ; and down by the side of the yoke is a walnut rail, split by the late President, as testified to by his old friend, Mr. Hanks. John Brown tried to break the yoke of four million of bondmen, but he had not the power. Abraham Lincoln came to have the power and he used it so, as is evinced in symbol by the pile of fetters, chains, iron yokes, and whips which lie by the side of these larger emblems. The old John Brown song, having served the purpose of rallying our soldiers, of comforting the enslaved, and of terrifying the rebellious south, now comes to our aid at the north in toning up public senti- ment to the dignity of justice, as expressed in the line, " We'll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple-tree; " and when it shall have been relieved from this judicial application, its "Glory, Hallelujah" may go on into the millennium. LETTER XXVL THE BOSTON NATIONAL COUNCIL. Boston, Mass., June 24, 1865. The idea of this National Council took its rise in the west. Judge Warren Currier proposed it. Dr. Post pre- sented it at the triennial convention of the Chicago Theo- logical Seminary, held in May, 1864. That body approved the plan and referred it to the Congregational General Association of Illinois, to meet the same month. This DURING THE WAR. 73 body endorsed it and appointed a committee to bring the matter before other associations and to act with any com- mittees that they might appoint for fixing the time and place of meeting and for making arrangements for the same. The several such committees, meeting at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in November last, issued letters missive by which this body of delegates from the Congregational churches of the United States was convened. It has representatives from twenty-five states and territories. It numbers five hundred and nine- teen ; of whom fourteen are honorary members, and eleven from foreign countries. It has for moderator Governor W. A. Buckingham ; for assistant moderators, Colonel C. G. Hammond and Rev. Dr. Joseph P. Thompson ; and for chief scribe. Rev. H. M. Dexter, d.d. The idea of the convention grew out of the state of the country, out of the patriotic inquiry, What will be the duty of this denomination toward the south and toward the west, as the war shall come to an end .-• What can we do in the matter of moral re-construction and of spiritual healing .? And so the invitation of the national committee, addressed to all the churches of this order in the land, named as the first subject to be considered : '* The Work of Home Evangelization devolving on our Churches — a work includ- ing all the efforts which they are making, or ought to make, for the complete Christianization of our country, particu- larly by planting churches and other institutions of Chris- tian civilization at the west and at the south ; by cooper- ating in labors for the instruction and elevation of the millions whose yoke of bondage God has broken ; by help- ing to build houses of worship in destitute places ; and by providing the wisest and most efficient methods for the supply and support of an able, learned, and godly min- istry." 74 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. To this end for ten days the Council has addressed itself. The grand opening sermon, by Pres. J. M. Sturtevant, of Jacksonville, III, from the text, " Ask for the old paths," was an inquiry after the seeds of our national life in the early history of New England, the causes which have hindered the sowing of them more generally in our country west and south of the Hudson, and the line of practical wisdom and Christian duty in this crisis. Here is the nub of the sermon : " Negro slavery shall no longer resist the organization of the Church on the basis of equal- ity of the Christian brotherhood over half our country." The Council, in the line of its patriotic impulse, made haste to telegraph President Johnson their Christian salutations, assuring him of their profound sympathy in his great and trying labors, promising him loyal support and prayers, and expressing to him their solemn convic- tion that the hundreds of thousands of worshipers in their churches would most heartily cooperate with him in extending the institutions of civil and religious liberty throughout the land. On one day was observed a special service of devotion for the acknowledgment of the marvelous and merciful dealings of Almighty God in connection with the war, and for supplicating a gracious dispensation of the Spirit of God upon our land, that our restored national unity may be consecrated to righteousness and in the peace and joy of the Holy Ghost. The Council, declaring the late rebellion a crime transcending the enormity of treason recorded in the history of other countries, — a crime against freedom, civilization, and human nature itself, — held it as due from our government, in its final adjudication upon this highest of crimes, that, while blending mercy with justice, it shall so deal with treason that the sense of its DURING THE WAR. 75 guiltiness be not impaired, and the majesty of the law and the divine sanction of legitimate government be sustained in the mind of the nation. It also declared the present to be a crisis in the nation's life, demanding the immediate appliance of the most efficient means of education and evangelization in our power. And so with this view accorded the action of the Council, which determined to raise $750,000 this year for that object, and of this amount to assign $300,000 to the American Home Missionary Society, $250,000 to the American Mis- sionary Association, and $200,000 to the American Congre- gational Union. As to the American Home Missionary Society and the American Missionary Association, the Council also said : " Nor do we find any difficulty in recogniz- ing the respective spheres of these two societies. For while no separation is or can be made by a geographical line, and still less by any invidious distinction of color, we yet dis- cover in the past labors of the American Missionary Asso- ciation among the colored people of America, the West Indies, and Africa, and in the ready facility with which it has adapted itself to the peculiar condition of this people at the south, an instrumentality providentially provided for their evangelization." And still further: "In Vir- ginia, North and South Carolina, and along the banks of the Mississippi, the colored people began early in the war to come within our lines and were immediately provided with teachers and schools by this association. In the progress of the war this work has continually grown in magnitude and importance until, by the overthrow of the rebellion, the whole colored population of the south is to be brought within the reach of teachers and missionaries. Never was a missionary field more inviting." The Council also found that the American Home Missionary Society 76 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. had already ten new churches in Missouri, one in Memphis, and openings in Washington, Bahimore, and other places in the south. The fellowship was enriched by a delegation from Canada, by one from Nova Scotia, by one from France, by one from Wales, and by one from England. The members of the last-named delegation were Rev. Drs. Robert Vaughan, Alexander Raleigh, and James W. Massie. Pastor Theo. Monod said : " We of the three hundred churches of France were with you to a man, a woman, a child. Our families observed the days of prayer and humiliation appointed by your Executive. The fall of Richmond pervaded all hearts with' joy. We draped our sanctuaries at the tidings of the death of Lincoln and mourned at the loss of a dear friend." "We," said the Welsh, " were with you from the first and all the time. Many a Welsh mother in our homes across the sea mourns her son slain on your battle-fields in this holy cause." The English seemed not only to have come to bring the salutations of the mother country, but to rejoice with us in the making good, after nearly one hundred years, of our declaration of independence and of freedom ; they having been stanch friends of our country in its late trial. Dr. Vaughan said : "It is your joy to know that your institu- tutions, which deceived and false prophets had affirmed would snap at the touch of adversity, had borne the strain and the snap had not come. Your struggle for liberty has taken place in the sight of all nations. Your victories have given a new song to humanity and sent a message of despair to tyrants. Your triumphs were ours. Your armies have gained victories that have placed you in the first rank of nations, and what now more fitting than that you should show yourselves capable of realizing the victo- DURING THE WAR. 77 ries of peace." Dr. Massie had made a visit to our coun- try during the war as the messenger of many thousands of friendly EngHshmen who desired that our troubles should end in the abolition of slavery. But after these friends had been heard, on motion of Henry Ward Beecher, a committee was appointed to prepare a suitable reply to these delegates, inasmuch as the attitude of various religious bodies in Europe toward the United States, dur- ing the past five years, requires a careful discrimination and statement. Dr. Leonard Bacon brought in that com- mittee's report, which did make discriminations, giving undiluted praise to the Welsh Congregationalists and French Evangelicals for their sympathy and their prayers. Duly acknowledging the sincerity of friendship of not a few Englishmen, and especially of the operatives, he yet had to give vent to the grieved affection occasioned by the turning toward us of the cold shoulder on the part of the English people and even of many of our Puritan ancestors. The report said : — Our brethren who bring to us in this assembly the congratulations of the English Congregational Union must not be permitted to return under any impression that we have not felt deeply and sorrowfully, through these four years of national agony, the actual position of the English Congregationalists. Faithfulness to them and to Christ for- bids us to forget that honored brethren who went from us to them, for the purpose of explaining our position and asking their sympathy and their prayers, were refused a hearing. Yet we accept the presence of the beloved and honored delegates who have stood in our assembly as a proof that they do now understand us, and that the ancient fraternity and unity between them and us shall be perpetual. Dr. Quint, who had been a chaplain, in moving the adoption of the report, took occasion to make a pungent arraignment of the British government and sentiment in reference to our cause. He said that when he found his 78 PILGRIM'S LETTERS. men dead, killed by English rifles in the hands of rebels who were clad in English garments, he had a right to express his indignation. Dr. Raleigh rallied with a story of a Scotch exegete, who, coming to a hard passage, was wont to say : " Let us look the difficulty straight in the face and pass right on." Then Henry Ward Beecher, who, in the interest of ou