DDRESSES, LECTURES 
 
 AND PAPERS'** 
 
 WITH 
 
 ABTr>nR^PHIC SKETCH OF 
 
Class J£5 £66^ 
 
 Book ^Erl^ 
 
 Copyiight^j" h/0 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 
 
ADDRESSES, LECTURES, 
 AND PAPERS 
 
 OF 
 
 ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
A SELECTION FROM THE 
 
 ADDRESSES, LECTURES 
 
 AND PAPERS, 
 
 WITH 
 
 A BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH, OF 
 
 ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 OF UXBRIDGE, MASS. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 prtncet) at tlie liibnsritie pnss 
 
 1910 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 'C(.Aii?]749 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Foreword xi 
 
 I. Biographic Sketch 1 
 
 II. Myles Standish, a Lecture 15 
 
 in. Authorship of Shakespeare, a Lecture . 44 
 
 IV. Address at the Dedication of the Thayer 
 Memorial Library Bthlding in Uxbridge, 
 Massachusetts, June 20, 1894 .... 72 
 
 V. Address on the Occasion of the Services in j 
 Memory of General Grant, held at Ux- 
 bridge, Massachusetts, August 8, 1885 . 83 
 
 VI. Address at the Dedication of the Soldiers' 
 Monument in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, 
 September 14, 1898 100 
 
 VII. Two Unwritten Chapters of History: Chap- 
 ter I, The Yellow Fever at New Bern, 
 North Carolina, in 1864 ; Chapter II, An 
 Extraordinary Military Execution at 
 said New Bern, August 14, 1864. A Paper 
 given before the Military Order of the 
 Loyal Legion of the United States in 
 
 Boston, April 6, 1910 119 
 
 v 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VIII. Some of the Author's Verses 137 
 
 IX. The Pleasures of Poetry 150 
 
 X. Story of the Trip to New Bern to dedicate 
 the Monument to Massachusetts Sol- 
 diers. Told at a Meeting of the Loyal 
 Legion in Boston, December 3, 1909 . . 167 
 
 XI. Address at the Dedication of the Soldiers' 
 Monument, erected in Memory of the 
 Massachusetts Soldier-Dead in the Na- 
 tional Cemetery at New Bern, North 
 Carolina, November 11, 1908 181 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 An introductory word of explanation concerning 
 the publication of this book may not be out of place. 
 The volume marks the crystallization of a wide-spread 
 feeling that the addresses and lectures of our honored 
 fellow-citizen, Judge Arthur A. Putnam, should be 
 preserved in permanent form and made available for 
 general use. These lectures and addresses are a trea- 
 sure-house of historical data, and are replete with wit, 
 eloquence, and patriotic fervor, and should by no means 
 be lost to posterity. 
 
 There was also a general desire on the part of the 
 community to pay its tribute of esteem and affection 
 to our Nestor, who for so many years has entertained 
 and thrilled not only local but national audiences. Of 
 the more than forty addresses that have been delivered 
 from time to time during the passing years, ten have 
 been chosen as especially worthy of place in this hon- 
 orary volume. 
 
 As is the case in every expression of public senti- 
 ment, it was necessary for a few persons to represent 
 the larger circle of those interested in the project. To 
 this end the undersigned Committee of Sixteen organ- 
 ized for the purpose of publishing the Life and Lectures 
 of Judge Putnam. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 After the plans of the committee were fully matured, 
 the next step was to inform Judge Putnam of our pur- 
 pose, and to secure his approval of the enterprise. 
 While the proposal came as a great surprise to the 
 Judge, his consent and cooperation were finally se- 
 cured. The committee desires to express its appre- 
 ciation of his arduous labors in the preparation of 
 the manuscript for the printer. The committee also 
 desires to thank all those who have cooperated in 
 making the enterprise a success, and especially to ac- 
 knowledge its indebtedness to Rev. F. L. Carr for 
 his unstinted labors as Secretary of the Committee. 
 * (Signed) Dr. William L. Johnson, Chairman. 
 
 Mb. William A. L. Bazeley 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Daniels 
 
 Miss Abby E. Day 
 
 Mrs. Helen C. Hanson 
 
 Mr. William E. Hayward 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth C. Hayward 
 
 Mr. Harry T. Hayward 
 
 Mrs. Sarah W. Murdock 
 
 Mr, Arthur R. Taft 
 
 Mr. Fred C. Taft 
 
 Hon, George S. Taft 
 
 Miss Helen W. Taft 
 
 Judge Francis N. Thayer 
 
 Mr. Arthur Wheelock 
 
 Hon. Arthur F. Whitin 
 
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 
 
 [The subjoined biographical sketch is substantially 
 the same as appeared in the Worcester Evening Gazette, 
 December 7, 1897, except as modified and extended to be 
 applicable to the present time.] 
 
 The fact that Judge Arthur A. Putnam of Ux- 
 bridge recently completed the twenty -fifth year of his 
 service as Judge of the Second District Court of South- 
 ern Worcester, was not entirely overlooked. His per- 
 sonal friends, including attorneys, officers and other 
 citizens, were strongly disposed to signalize the twenty- 
 fifth anniversary by some testimonial or other in re- 
 cognition of the event, but were discouraged by Judge 
 Putnam's disinclination to receive it. Judge Putnam 
 belongs to the sturdy old school of attorneys whose 
 training was many-sided and experience broad. His 
 natural gifts and positive character have given him 
 prominence in the community. His activities have not 
 been confined strictly to the bounds of his profession, 
 for he has taken an interest in literary subjects, has 
 been successful as a political factor, — his services 
 having been entirely in the interest of others, — and 
 as an orator he has been much in demand. The old 
 proverb of a prophet without honor among his own 
 people cannot be applied to Judge Putnam, for, while 
 
 1 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 he is widely known, it has been by his own townsmen 
 in Danvers, Blackstone and Uxbridge that he has been 
 held in the highest and most affectionate regard — not 
 only as a prominent citizen but also as a personal friend 
 and wise counsellor. His fellow townsmen have always 
 given him attentive and enthusiastic audiences. The 
 testimony of those who have followed him closely, 
 during his long career as Judge, is that * 'Justice, tem- 
 pered with mercy," has been a marked characteristic 
 of his decisions on the Bench. 
 
 Born in Danvers, November 18, 1829, Judge Put- 
 nam is the youngest son of Elias Putnam, whose 
 grandfather, Edmund, was captain of one of the eight 
 Danvers companies that marched for Lexington on 
 the memorable 19th of April, 1775. On his mother's 
 side. Judge Putnam is of Revolutionary stock. His 
 great grandfather, Jabez Ross, was in the Revolution- 
 ary War, and had five sons who were in the service, 
 four of them being in the Battle of Bunker Hill. His 
 grandfather, Adam Ross, was in that battle and served 
 four or five years in the war. 
 
 The subject of this sketch was educated in the 
 lie schools of his native town, at the academies in West- 
 field, Massachusetts, and Thetford and West Randolph 
 Vermont, and at Dartmouth College. He left Dart- 
 mouth at the end of the sophomore year. He pursued 
 the study of law at the Dane Law school, in Cambridge, 
 and in the oflSces of Culver, Parker & Arthur (late Pres- 
 ident Arthur) of New York, and of Ives & Peabody, in 
 
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 
 
 Salem. During his academical course he taught school 
 several terms. In his youth he showed a marked pro- 
 pensity to be a musician. Without an instructor he 
 became proficient in playing various instruments, 
 including the bugle, posthorn, cornet, trombone, flute, 
 violin, violincello and piano. He raised and led a brass 
 band. He composed and arranged music for his band. 
 He also had a quadrille band. He got up one of the first 
 minstrel troupes and gave concerts. While a stripling 
 he played the first posthorn two seasons in the Salem 
 Brass band then led by F. W. Morse, who as a bugler 
 was second only to the famous Ned Kendall. Upon 
 going away to school, however, he dropped music, 
 save as he has always kept up his acquaintance with 
 the violin. 
 
 Judge Putnam was an earnest member of the Re- 
 publican party from its formation till 1900, when with 
 others in all parts of the country he left it, believing it 
 had grossly abandoned its principles in entering upon 
 the policy of colonial empire. He began making politi- 
 cal speeches about the time he became a voter. In the 
 Fremont campaign of 1856 he spoke frequently in 
 Essex county, and was that year elected a representa- 
 tive to the Legislature from Dan vers, being the young- 
 est but one of the then 357 members of the lower branch. 
 He was appointed one of the monitors of the House, 
 and was a member of the committee on elections. He 
 was at that time studying law, but, his eyesight failing 
 him, he was obliged to suspend study for two years. 
 
 3 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Resuming it, he was admitted to the bar in 1859, and 
 was that year again elected a representative to the 
 Legislature, and held the position of chairman of the 
 committee on probate and chancery. This unexpected 
 and unasked-for honor to one just admitted to the 
 bar was in recognition of his activity among Essex 
 County members in determining the election of John 
 A. Goodwin of Lowell as speaker, against Charles Hale 
 of Boston, who had been speaker the previous year. 
 
 It was in May, 1860, that Governor Banks called the 
 extra session of the General Court to take action in re- 
 lation to pleuro-pneumonia among the cattle, over 
 which the state had gone wild with excitement and 
 fright. The Legislature convened in all the solemnity 
 of a prayer meeting. After several days of alarming 
 prognostications by learned doctors of dire results if 
 something should not be done forthwith, the joint 
 committee, who had gravely heard the distressing 
 lucubrations, reported a bill in the Senate, and it was 
 rushed through that body. It came down to the House, 
 and under a suspension of the rules it was there going 
 through its several stages without a word of debate. 
 At the third reading the member from Dan vers moved 
 to strike from the bill as much as provided for killing 
 the cattle. This was about equivalent to moving to kill 
 the bill altogether. His act was regarded a piece of 
 madness, and the chair, then temporarily occupied by 
 Mr. Hale of Boston, hesitated to entertain the motion. 
 He, however, could not do otherwise, and the mover 
 
 4 
 
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 
 
 rose to speak on the question. He had carefully writ- 
 ten out his speech and memorized it. From open to 
 close he was interrupted by questions of order and other 
 manifestations of impatience, but he succeeded in 
 making his speech. The question was then put on the 
 motion. The mover alone voted for it, while the " nay " 
 was such an uproarious shout as all but startled the 
 old codfish over the Speaker's desk. 
 
 In the course of his speech, Mr. Putnam had pre- 
 dicted that in less than two weeks the excitement 
 would be over and the folly of the proposed legislation 
 be apparent. These were his words: "Stay here a week 
 longer and I predict you will not pass this bill. Already 
 there is a change in public opinion. People begin to 
 think there has been undue excitement on this subject. 
 When the cattle have been three weeks in the pastures 
 and on the hills, away from ill-ventilated barns and 
 breathing the free air of heaven, your pleuro-pneu- 
 monia will pass away like a mist before the rising sun." 
 The event literally verified the prediction and the legis- 
 lation of the extra session was soon a dead letter. Then 
 there was much curiosity to know what was the speech 
 of Mr. Putnam of Danvers, as the papers had not at 
 all reported it. It was published in the Salem Regis- 
 ter and distributed in response to many requests. 
 
 A few days after the assault on Fort Sumter Mr. Put- 
 nam presided at the first war meeting held in Danvers, 
 and then turned his law office into a recruiting office and 
 soon had raised a full company, composed of the best 
 
 5 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 young men of his part of the town. Elected captain 
 of it, he procured the services of Major Foster of the 
 Salem Cadets as instructor, and kept the company 
 under daily drill for over five weeks. His company 
 and nine others of Essex county were then ordered 
 into camp at Fort Warren, to constitute the 14th In- 
 fantry, afterwards the 1st Heavy Artillery. After a stay 
 of seven weeks at the fort, the regiment left for Wash- 
 ington, but Captain Putnam, along with other line 
 oflScers and the lieutenant-colonel, soon resigned on 
 account of differences with the colonel. He came home 
 and resumed his law practice, but in the summer of 
 1863 the war fever possessed him again, and he joined 
 Colonel Frankle of the 2nd Heavy Artillery in recruiting 
 the 3rd battalion of that regiment, holding war meet- 
 ings and speaking in various parts of Essex and Mid- 
 dlesex counties. The battalion was speedily recruited 
 and he was commissioned senior 1st lieutenant of Co. 
 K and afterwards captain of Co. E of the regiment. 
 
 The service of this regiment, which was the last of 
 the Massachusetts regiments to return home after the 
 war, was mainly in garrisoning forts along the Atlan- 
 tic coast and skirmishing with the enemy on expedi- 
 tions into the interior for the capture of cotton and 
 other spoils. When asked what principal battle of the 
 war he was in. Captain Putnam answers: "The battle 
 of Yellow Fever at New Bern," in which the mortality 
 was hardly less than that of many a big battle of the 
 war. He was in the midst of the pestilence in all the 
 
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 
 
 six weeks of Its prevalence, and was one of the few com- 
 missioned officers who kept on their feet throughout 
 the period. During his service in the 2d Artillery he 
 was judge advocate in the trial of cases at Plymouth, 
 North Carolina, and for a time was assistant provost 
 marshal of the District of North Carolina, having full 
 charge for several weeks of the central office at New 
 Bern, while his chief. Major Lawson, was in the hos- 
 pital. 
 
 Though he did not join the Grand Army of the Re- 
 public till 1886, he has been prominent in the order as 
 commander for two years of his post, as delegate to 
 state and national encampments and on the staff of 
 various department commanders, holding the position 
 in 1891 of judge advocate under Department Com- 
 mander Smith. He has spoken much at camp-fires and 
 has always been in demand as Memorial Day orator. 
 He has delivered a memorial address every year for 
 the last thirty-five years, sometimes giving two ad- 
 dresses the same day, and in one instance three. 
 
 After the war, Mr. Putnam was led by a mere in- 
 cident to take a law office in Blackstone. This he did 
 in the spring of 1866. There were then four other law- 
 yers in the town, but he soon acquired a practice, to 
 which he devoted himself till his appointment in 1872, 
 the year of its creation, as judge of the Second Dis- 
 trict Court of Southern Worcester. This office, he says, 
 he sought, and says it is the only office he ever really 
 did seek, and he sought it because he found his eyes 
 
 7 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 were giving way again, and he felt that he might per- 
 form the duties of the position and still keep his eyesight 
 in fairly good state. In the four years prior to his ap- 
 pointment, he tried some thirty cases, civil and crim- 
 inal, before juries in the Superior Court, and was con- 
 sidered fortunate in obtaining verdicts. Not a few of 
 his arguments are well remembered by older members 
 of the bar and ex-jurymen for the hilarity they created 
 in the courtroom. Perhaps his humor, irony and sar- 
 casm were most displayed in the slander suit of Blanch- 
 ard vs. Wheelock, and in the breach of promise suit 
 of Shugro vs. Scanlan. In the former the plaintiff was 
 a fish pedler and the defendant the proprietor of the 
 Union hotel in Blackstone. The trial lasted nearly 
 three days, and Mr. Putnam, for the plaintiff, was 
 pitted against Senator Hoar, S. A. Burgess, the old 
 attorney at Blackstone, and Samuel Utley, now judge 
 of the Central District Court. At the close of the sec- 
 ond day the opinion was prevalent that the plaintiff's 
 case had gone all to pieces, and the venerable Judge 
 Rockwell said as much to the plaintiff's attorney. But 
 there was a large bill of costs at stake, and on the morn- 
 ing of the third day there appeared as witnesses for the 
 plaintiff ten of the most substantial and best-looking 
 men in Blackstone. They did not know much for or 
 against the plaintiff, but as they loomed up along the 
 aisle with right hands raised for the oath, they added 
 materially to the respectability of his case. They 
 were examined in a mild way by both sides. Then 
 
 8 
 
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 
 
 came the argument, Mr. Hoar for the defendant and 
 Mr. Putnam for his client, whose character had been 
 remorselessly attacked. The jury found for the plain- 
 tiflF. 
 
 Though Judge Putnam has been considerably on 
 the political stump during the thirty-seven years of his 
 judicial life, his more notable activities in caucuses 
 and conventions were prior to his holding court. His 
 zeal and efforts in politics have been enlisted in behalf 
 of others, and he has participated in some lively con- 
 tests. It is to be remembered that in 1868, as well as 
 in years before, Blackstone was a Republican town 
 and sent five delegates to Republican conventions. 
 In that year occurred the memorable contest between 
 George F. Hoar of Worcester and Frank W. Bird of 
 Walpole for the congressional nomination. The town 
 had for a long time been dominated by a ring, and the 
 ring was confidently coimting on electing delegates for 
 Mr. Bird. As the time approached for the Blackstone 
 caucus, it became apparent that the five Blackstone 
 delegates were essential to the nomination of either 
 candidate. Consequently the attention of the whole 
 district was fixed on the pivotal town. The caucus 
 drew forth nearly every Republican of the town, and 
 it lasted till near midnight, every inch of ground be- 
 ing contested. By special understanding Mr. Putnam 
 made all the motions, and did all the talking on the 
 side of the friends of Mr. Hoar, and he combated on 
 the floor six or more speakers who had been accustomed 
 
 9 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 to do the smart talking in the Blackstone caucuses. 
 Seven test votes were had. By keeping forces well in 
 hand, the cause of Mr. Hoar prevailed at each vote by 
 a majority varying from three to twelve. The five dele- 
 gates chosen determined in convention the nomination 
 of George F. Hoar, and started him on his splendid 
 career of statesmanship. He had not sought the nom- 
 ination. It sought him as rarely nomination ever did 
 before or has since sought the man. A few years before 
 his death Senator Hoar, in conversation with Rev. Dr. 
 Alfred P. Putnam, inquiringly remarked: "Do you 
 know that it was your brother's action in the Black- 
 stone caucus that changed the whole course of my 
 public life?" 
 
 Judge Putnam began his contributions to the Press 
 in 1855 during his studentship of four months in the 
 office of Culver, Parker, and Arthur of New York, 
 writing a series of letters to the Salem Register on "Life 
 in the Metropolis." He has ever since written quite 
 often for the press — is the author of magazine arti- 
 cles and various pamphlets. For about a year in the 
 war time he was war editor of the Peabody Press. 
 While in the army at Plymouth, North Carolina, he 
 started and conducted for two months a small weekly 
 paper called The Flag, using for this purpose an old 
 printing-press left behind by the Confederates on their 
 evacuation of the town, and calling to his aid a printer 
 or two by trade, found among the troops. His book, 
 "Ten Years a Police Court Judge," published in 1884, 
 
 10 
 
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 
 
 is still sold. The history of Blackstone in the "History 
 of Worcester County," published by Jewett & Co. in 
 1879, is his contribution. As a lecturer before lyceums 
 he has attracted attention. His lecture on Myles 
 Standish has been pronounced a remarkable present- 
 ation of the Pilgrim story compressed into an hour. 
 This, which may be considered his favorite lecture, 
 he has given within the last thirty-three years in vari- 
 ous parts of the state and is still giving it as much as 
 ever. His lecture on the "Authorship of Shakespeare" 
 was the result of much reading of the plays attributed 
 to Shakespeare and study of the books on the "Ba- 
 conian Theory." This he has given many times in 
 cities and towns of the State, and his handling of the 
 subject, it has been said, almost persuades his hearers 
 to the belief of Whittier, — "Whether Bacon wrote 
 the wonderful plays or not, I am quite sure that the 
 man Shakespeare neither did nor could." Mr. Putnam, 
 while in Danvers, was the prime mover in organizing 
 the second Shakespeare Club in the United States. 
 The late General Henry K. Oliver, who, while a citizen 
 of Lawrence, was foremost in organizing the first one, 
 declared that the club in Danvers was the next in the 
 order of organization. 
 
 Besides various other addresses he has given that 
 were published at the time, should be mentioned his 
 Memorial address on General Grant at Uxbridge in 
 1885 and his address at the dedication of the Thayer 
 Memorial Building in 1894. 
 
 11 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Notable among his political speeches is to be re- 
 membered his arraignment of Joseph H. Walker as 
 the candidate for Congress in 1888 at the anti- Walker 
 meeting in Continental hall, Worcester. The anti- 
 Walker resolutions unanimously passed on that occa- 
 sion were, it is said, the joint production of himself 
 and T. C. Bates. The appearance of Mr. Walker as 
 candidate so soon after his opposition to Blaine's can- 
 didacy had aroused considerable feeling among the 
 Republicans, and this found expression in Judge Put- 
 nam's speech, which abounded in sarcasm and thrusts 
 that delighted the audience. 
 
 Judge Putnam has presided over various political 
 conventions : county, councillor, congressional and sen- 
 atorial. He was alternate to the national convention 
 in 1860 that nominated Abraham Lincoln, and to that 
 in 1876 that nominated Rutherford B. Hayes. He 
 early displayed courage, as for instance, on the occa- 
 sion of leaving Dartmouth College at the close of the 
 sophomore year. Though daily reminded of the con- 
 servative theology of the college, he had dared to write 
 and was proceeding to read in the class-room a his- 
 torical essay on Thomas Paine, author of "The Age 
 of Reason." He was stopped by the professor and told 
 to sit down. Probably no one was more surprised than 
 the essayist when, thirty-three years later, the college 
 conferred on him the honorary degree of A. M. 
 
 As before observed, the Judge left the Republican 
 party in 1900 by reason of its departure from Repub- 
 
 12 
 
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 
 
 lican principles. Immediately he joined the Anti-Im- 
 perialist League which not long before had been or- 
 ganized in Boston, with the venerable George S. Bout- 
 well, one of the founders in chief of the Republican 
 party, as its President. With this League he has ever 
 since been associated, being most of the time either one 
 of its vice-presidents or a member of its executive com- 
 mittee. On the occasion of the memorial meeting in 
 Faneuil Hall in honor of the lamented Boutwell, April, 
 1905, he was one of the speakers. In 1901 he was the 
 Democratic candidate for Attorney-General, and with 
 the Democratic party from 1900 to the present time he 
 has usually voted, believing he can in no available 
 way better give expression at the polls to his life-long 
 devotion to the principles on which the Republic of the 
 United States was founded and for which as a soldier 
 he contended in the Civil War. In the Presidential 
 year of 1900 he was permanent chairman of the mock 
 Presidential Convention held in Faneuil Hall by the 
 debating clubs of Boston and vicinity — a notable 
 occasion. In the last four years, though apparently 
 as decided as ever in his political opinions, he has 
 appeared but seldom at political meetings. 
 
 Judge Putnam removed from Blackstone to Ux- 
 bridge in May, 1877. For many years he has been, and 
 is now, a Trustee of the Uxbridge Savings Bank, a part 
 of the time a member of the financial committee. For 
 five years he was President of the Trustees of the 
 PubHc Library. He has served on the School Committee 
 
 13 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 in Uxbridge, and formerly in Danvers and Blackstone. 
 He was a member of the Library Committee of the 
 Peabody Institute in Danvers from the time of its es- 
 tablishment till he ceased to be a citizen of the town. 
 He is of the Unitarian denomination and for six years 
 was chairman of the parish committee of the society 
 in Uxbridge. He is one of the oldest members of the 
 Harvard Law School Association, as he is of the Alpha 
 Delta Phi Chapter of Dartmouth College. He be- 
 longs to the Military Order of the Loyal Legion as well 
 as to the Grand Army of the Republic, and is unfailing 
 in his attachment to these veteran organizations. He 
 is now in his thirty-eighth year as Judge of the District 
 Court, and it is believed there is but one other judge 
 in the State older in judicial service. 
 
 He recently delivered the dedicatory address on the 
 occasion of the dedication of the monument erected in 
 memory of the Massachusetts soldier-dead in the na- 
 tional cemetery at New Bern, having been selected for 
 that purpose by the unanimous voice of the Memorial 
 Committee, representing the surviving members of the 
 seventeen regiments who served during the Civil War 
 in North Carolina. 
 
 He was married November 25, 1868, to Helen Irv- 
 ing Staples, daughter of Arteman and Esther Staples of 
 Blackstone, Massachusetts. His children are Alden 
 Lyon, born October 27, 1869, and Beatrice, born 
 December 15, 1873. 
 
MYLES STANDISH^ 
 
 I AM here by your politeness to dwell for a while 
 in what some sometimes call the dead past, but which, 
 it would seem, were better named the silent yet ever 
 voiceful past; and it is to that, the past so viewed, 
 that I would, as well as I may, take and there detain 
 you an hour or so, if your patience should so long en- 
 dure, regretful though I am that mine is not a better 
 tongue to touch upon the persons and places, the 
 scenes and occurrences which should figure not in- 
 distinctly before us as we contemplate the extraor- 
 dinary and altogether peculiar circumstances of the 
 first, the initial settlement of New England. The set- 
 tlement, I mean, that took root; the one which in 
 all likelihood had never taken root but for the person- 
 ality of a single individual to whose share more par- 
 ticularly therein, in the epochal event, I venture to 
 invite your attention. 
 
 Of all the instances that illustrate how vital to the 
 completeness of historic narrative is the career of 
 
 ' Substantially as here published, this lecture was first given in 
 1877. Modified from time to time more or less in matter and phrase- 
 ologj', it was subsequently given several times nearly every year until 
 1909, before historical societies and literary clubs in various parts 
 of the State. In its present form it was given as the annual address 
 before the Antiquarian Society of Concord, Massachusetts, Septem- 
 ber 12, 1908, being the anniversary of the incorporation of the town 
 and the organization of the Society. 
 
 15 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 some one of the various personages of the plot, few 
 perhaps, if any, exceed that of the marvelous story of 
 the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock. To im- 
 ply the preposterous or the impossible in the domain 
 of art or letters we speak of " the play of Hamlet with- 
 out the part of Hamlet." With equal propriety and 
 force might we come to speak of the mission of the 
 Mayflower without the sword of Myles Standish. 
 
 The military hero of the Pilgrims, Myles Standish, 
 the Captain of Plymouth! of whom to speak is to dis- 
 course of the whole peerless little band who, to do 
 good and plant religion, quit native land and all the 
 cherished associations of nativity, and after their 
 protracted but unsatisfactory sojourn at Ley den in 
 Holland, embarked, fathers, mothers and children, 
 crowded and slimly provided, upon a doubtful bark, 
 to be tempest-tossed in a long voyage upon an untried 
 ocean, to land amid the blasts of winter upon an un- 
 known shore untrod by civilized man, there to en- 
 counter the inclemencies of the season, the attacks of 
 disease, the woes of famine and the ferocities of the 
 Savage; coping with all these terrors and distresses 
 patiently, bravely, trustfully, and so triumphantly 
 at last that civilization and liberty, civil and religious, 
 have ever since referred their freshest impulses and 
 grandest hopes and achievements to the "stepping 
 stones" laid by the hands of the "several Pilgrims," 
 who "did as the Lord's free people, join themselves 
 by a covenant into a church state to walk in all His 
 
 16 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 ways, according to their best endeavors, whatever it 
 might cost them." 
 
 I touch upon an old, old theme — old but never 
 to be out-worn ! A tale for more than two and three- 
 fourths centuries the favorite of historians, who have 
 never wearied with the details of the narrative or the 
 generalizations it irresistibly provokes; which has en- 
 grossed the attention of the profoundest statesman- 
 ship and amplified the range of philosophy; which 
 has lifted the discussions of theology to unfamiliar 
 heights and invested with a heavenlier significance 
 the discussions of the divine; which has kindled a 
 spirit of heroism the loftiest, and unfolded as with reve- 
 lation the possibilities of human enterprise; which has 
 intensified the enthusiasms of romance and inspired 
 the muse in many a strain of immortal verse; and 
 which, while it has sustained the general voice of ora- 
 tory in a kind of perpetual eulogium to enrich the 
 books of our schools, has called forth from the greatest 
 of modern orators the sublimest out-burst of com- 
 memorative eloquence in all the English language. 
 
 Nevertheless, it seems to mortal view that but for 
 Myles Standish the Pilgrims had never accomplished 
 the fact of colonial settlement — that their attempt 
 had sufiPered the fate of all previous efforts to colonize 
 New England, that of total failure; and that their 
 whole matchless pilgrimage and achievement, achiev- 
 ing the indefeasible foot-hold on this rugged northern 
 soil, "deep and strong enough for an empire," with 
 
 17 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 the measureless moral prestige that ensued and which 
 widens and strengthens at every circuit of the seasons 
 
 — that all this would have been an unknown factor 
 in the history of the world. It is equally logical, doubt- 
 less, to observe that but for Carver, but for Bradford, 
 Brewster, Winslow, the great train of results would 
 not have followed. But Carver, Bradford, Brewster, 
 Winslow were the head and front of that godliest type 
 of Puritanism which started out from Old England 
 to the New "for purity of worship and liberty of con- 
 science." With them the avowed, controlling motive 
 renders their pilgrimage extraordinary to be sure, but 
 far less extraordinary and peculiar. As for Standish, 
 it is of remarkable things one of the most conspicuous 
 
 — in all the Providences of God there seems scarcely 
 a providence more peculiar than that which numbered 
 Myles Standish as one of the One Hundred and Two 
 of the Pilgrim Band. 
 
 How came it as the fortune of that austere company 
 of Separatists from the Church of England to whom 
 the severity of rehgion was the chief of all concerns 
 and worldliness the least of all matters; who proved it, 
 first by long sufiFering at home, then by twelve years' 
 self-banishment abroad at Leyden, and still more by 
 their exodus through mountains of tribulation to the 
 wilderness of America — how came it that, in their 
 solemn departure on the strange Atlantic voyage, there 
 joined them and went and stayed with them unto the 
 end, a man, not of the church, not of the persecuted, 
 
 18 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 not of the conscience-driven, but a blunt, doughty, 
 rash, rough ranger, forsooth, "full of strange oaths 
 and bearded like the pard," who however, by reason of 
 his experience as a soldier, his comparative youth, his 
 sufficiency of culture, the loyalty of his nature, the 
 iron of his muscle and the headlong daring of his soul, 
 united with singular self-poise, coolness and sagacity, 
 was destined to be the shield of defence all through 
 the cradling infancy of the Plymouth Colony? 
 
 How such a character first came into favor with 
 characters so opposite we are, save as there is ground 
 for conjectiu-e and inference, without a ray of light. 
 To the love of adventure, it would seem, characteris- 
 tic of a man of his temperament, spirit and dash, 
 added to a discontent born of his defeat as rightful 
 heir to large ancestral estates, must we refer the event- 
 ful circumstance of Standish joining the Pilgrims some 
 time during their checquered stay at Leyden, and 
 henceforth sharing, while so largely shaping, their 
 fortunes. How long he was with them at Leyden, 
 whether a year or but a day, we know not, nor what 
 was his position there, — whether admitted to their 
 confidence and taking part in the anxious counsels 
 preceding the embarkation. Hardly less dim is our 
 knowledge of his antecedent life. That he was born in 
 Lancashire, England, about the year 1584 — that he 
 was of the landed house of Standish, long in its line 
 of ancestry — that during the fierce theological strife 
 of the sixteenth century the family divided into Catho- 
 
 19 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 lie and Protestant, the former taking the family style 
 of "Standish Hall," and the latter, with whom was 
 Myles, the style of "Duxbury Hall"; that his educa- 
 tion had a military turn and he had a lieutenant's 
 commission from Queen Elizabeth; that about the 
 time of his majority he went to Holland and served in 
 the Netherlands with the English forces against the 
 cruel armies of the Inquisition, until at least the year 
 1609, the year of the great truce between Prince Mau- 
 rice and the King of Spain; and that from 1609 to 
 1620, the hot period of dispute between the Arminians 
 and Calvinists, he remained in the Low Countries and 
 so perhaps there learned or unlearned much in the 
 matter of religious opinion — these are things suffi- 
 ciently certain to be treated as historical verities. 
 
 Accordingly, when Standish stepped foot upon the 
 deck of the Speedwell at Delfthaven, July 22, to touch 
 once more, after the lapse of many years, his native 
 shore of England at Southampton, there to join the 
 Mayflower from London, and then, after the two in- 
 effectual departures, the twice putting out and putting 
 back, to leave at length the leaky vessel behind, he 
 stepped finally aboard the Mayflower at Old Plymouth, 
 as one of its one hundred and two passengers, "the 
 seed which God had sifted three kingdoms to find," 
 he was doubtless some thirty-six years old. Short of 
 stature, but stout and stocky, he was in form and 
 build of Napoleonic cast, while, like Menelaus of Ho- 
 meric verse, he was a warrior of golden locks. Fair 
 
 20 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 and beautiful, it is said, was Rose, his wife. Children 
 they had none, and it does not appear that either man 
 or woman was knit to the project of the voyage by 
 any of those devout sentiments which inspired it. 
 
 The voyage, if we count its time from the first sail- 
 ing at Delfthaven (July 22) to the anchorage in Cape 
 Cod Harbor, covered one hundred and eleven days; if 
 from the final start at old Plymouth (September 6), 
 after the two ineffectual starts at Southampton (Au- 
 gust 5) and Dartmouth (August 21), sixty -six days. 
 And what a voyage it was! In vain shall language 
 seek to exaggerate. Search the annals of time, and 
 where in all the schemes of colonization, the feats of 
 exploration, the forays of conquest, or the hazards 
 of forlorn hope, whether in Phoenician, Grecian or 
 Roman story, or the thrilling chapters that carry you 
 amid polar ice and darkness along with Franklin and 
 Kane, or through Afric solitudes with Livingstone 
 and Stanley, shall be found the equal of that unpre- 
 tentious yet glorious passage and accomplishment of 
 the Mayflower? Men, women and children, farewells 
 on their lips to all and whatsoever there is in father- 
 land, crowding into a ship thrice beyond its fair ca- 
 pacity, a leaky, easy prey for the waves; mastered by 
 a captain under bribe to be hostile to the venture; 
 manned by a crew, coarse, profane, blasphemous, 
 encountering "cross winds and fierce storms" that 
 carry away sail, spar and shroud, and rack from place 
 the main beam itself; sighs some heart, growing faint, 
 
 21 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 for return? the great unbroken fortitude of the rest 
 
 responds, 'press on, though roll the waves higher and 
 
 higher, and more and more tosses the frail bark; 
 
 on board, sea-sickness, disease, death, and casualties 
 
 such as swept John Rowland fathoms into the deep to 
 
 be rescued for a life of over fifty years and be among 
 
 the very last of the survivors; at length the arrival, 
 
 not at Northern Virginia, their intended destination, 
 
 but, through treachery, at Cape Cod, 
 
 "The sea around all black with storm. 
 And white the shore with snow"; 
 
 then the five dreary weeks of coasting with the shallop 
 and exploring the sandy wastes of the Cape and the 
 region round about in the face of the rigors of winter, 
 the threats of the ship-master, the languishing of the 
 sick, the failing of supplies and the hostilities of the 
 barbarian, ere were found "a Harbour fit for ship- 
 ping" and "a Land good for scituation," with "divers 
 little running brooks" — such, such was the voyage! 
 
 "In grateful adoration now 
 Upon the barren sands they bow. 
 What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer 
 As bursts in desolation there! 
 What arm of strength e'er wrought such power 
 As waits to crown that feeble hour!" 
 
 But ere the Landing, — that day, the twenty-sec- 
 ond or the twenty -first, we name the Landing, — 
 thirty-odd days before the land-mark day of Plymouth 
 Rock, behold, if the two be separable, a greater day. 
 On the 11th of November, when the Mayflower had 
 
 22 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 but well cast anchor, these Pilgrims, still all on board, 
 for three months so buffeted by the waves and torn 
 as by outrageous fortune, draw up and formally sign 
 an instrument, a compact, which the mind of states- 
 manship has ever since pronounced the very germ, the 
 seminal principle itself of the American Constitution, 
 whether of the State or the nation. So Webster held, 
 so John Quincy Adams, so leading minds before and 
 since the Great Expounder and the Old Man Eloquent. 
 Says the latter, "This is perhaps, the first instance 
 in human history of that positive, original, social 
 compact which speculative philosophers have ima- 
 gined as the only legitimate source of government." 
 Or, to characterize it in the language of an eminent 
 statesman not long ago departed. Senator Hoar, "the 
 first written constitution that ever existed among 
 men." 
 
 You may say, indeed, that this majestic nation, 
 in all the grandeur of its constitution and with all the 
 possibilities of its future, two hundred and eighty -nine 
 years ago, was rocked as a babe in the cradle of the 
 Mayflower there on the deep, off or near the coast of 
 Provincetown. 
 
 The original draft of this extraordinary document, 
 so drawn up and so signed, is not supposed to be in 
 existence; but since the discovery in a grocer's shop 
 at Halifax of Governor Bradford's Letter-Book, and 
 later in 1855 of his manuscript history of the Plymouth 
 Colony in the Fulham Library of London, now through 
 
 23 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 the offices of the late Senator Hoar deposited in the 
 State Ubrary at Boston, there, with open page in Brad- 
 ford's hand-writing, to be seen through glass secure 
 in its enclosure; and since too the original of the will 
 of Peregrine White, whose birthplace was the cabin 
 of the Mayflower, and who Uved to the advanced age 
 of eighty-three, has within comparatively few years 
 come to the surface, hopes are indulged that even the 
 time-honored parchment of the Compact may yet be 
 added to other preserved papers of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 Still another memorable day before reaching Ply- 
 mouth Rock. "On the Sabboth day wee rested," 
 saith the quaint Journal of the Pilgrims. That is, the 
 company of them led by Myles Standish, who a few 
 days before had set out in the shallop on the third ex- 
 pedition to discover a goodly land and a safe harbor. 
 They were fresh from the battle of "The First En- 
 counter," having put to flight, under their brave 
 leader, a small army of Indians who had ferociously 
 attacked them. After the victory they took to the 
 shallop, and a storm drove them to an island, now and 
 ever since called Clark's Island from the name of the 
 skilful skipper of the boat, where they passed Saturday 
 toiling, repairing their shattered shallop, and Sunday 
 worshiping. Juan Fernandez! St. Helena! Many are 
 the isles of the sea that are famed and fascinating, 
 but the devout Christian points to that islet of Ply- 
 mouth Bay as surpassing them all. 
 
 24 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 "Amid the storm they sang 
 
 Till the stars heard and the sea. 
 And the somiding aisles of the dim woods rang 
 To the anthem of the free." 
 
 To mark this isle with a monument some reverent 
 men, Robert C. Winthrop and others, went thither 
 years ago, borne in a revenue cutter of the United 
 States, to select a site for the shaft. But as they stood 
 on the isle and noted near its centre a massive ledge 
 reaching down, down into the earth, they said, "Here 
 is the monument already erected. Let us inscribe it." 
 And in deep-set letters they chiseled thereon the sim- 
 ple words : — 
 
 "On the Sabboth day wee rested." 
 
 Last summer [1908] I was at Plymouth and suc- 
 ceeded, as I had not been able to do at any former 
 visit there, succeeded not without considerable trouble 
 in reaching the island; and there, on the western side 
 of the great ledge, almost perpendicular for some fif- 
 teen feet, the surface of that side about as smooth as 
 rough board, clothed more or less with moss and 
 shaded somewhat by wild wood, no culture of the soil 
 anywhere round about, the scene natural as nature 
 itself — there I distinctly beheld the unexampled in- 
 scription: "On the Sabboth day wee rested, Decem- 
 ber, 1620." And I rather wondered that in all the 
 speeches of our Massachusetts legislators on the ob- 
 servance of the Lord's Day, no one had ever thought 
 to quote that silent but speechful line, thus chiseled 
 on the lonely ledge, as the voice of the struggling 
 
 25 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Pilgrims laying in the wilderness the corner stone of 
 this august Republic. 
 
 And now, having reached it, we may pause to stand 
 on Plymouth Rock. As for two hundred and fifty and 
 more years back, so even now the idea is more or 
 less prevalent that the Rock is some manner of ledge 
 extending down into the sea as part and parcel of the 
 "stern and rock-bound coast." Whoever is not disa- 
 bused of this notion before making his pilgrimage is 
 doomed to a bewildering surprise or disappointment. 
 First he will have to notice that, except in the poetic 
 imagination of Mrs. Hemans, — the original manu- 
 script of whose renowned poem, I may say, if you do 
 not already know it, is now treasured in Pilgrim Hall, 
 the gift of the late J. Thomas Field, who received it 
 from the hand of its gifted author, — except in her fine 
 imagination there is no "rock-bound coast" at all, 
 but a long stretch of circular shore so free of rock that 
 scarce will you find a sufficient stone to drive a hitch- 
 ing-stake for a skiff. 
 
 Next you are constrained to infer that the Pilgrim 
 Rock is a far older pilgrim than the Pilgrims who im- 
 mortalized it — a boulder wafted or heaved to its 
 position by some mighty current or convulsion of a by- 
 gone age. An exotic it is, a foreign substance, as much 
 almost as would be a capstone of an Egyptian pyramid 
 set down on the bank of yonder river. It is unlike any 
 other stone or granite anywhere within known dis- 
 tance. It is altogether rare in its hardness and fine- 
 
 26 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 ness. It will polish smooth and glossy as any marble. 
 No sledge-blow easily severs a piece from its ada- 
 mantine side. It is singularly tenacious of its indi- 
 viduality. A piece of the size of a small nutmeg costs 
 half a dollar — did once. The price is said to be go- 
 ing up every day. Indeed, I am told there is none 
 now for sale in the home market, if anywhere else. I 
 bought my stock in the old Rock, a half-dollar's worth, 
 over twenty-five years ago, and all the whUe it has 
 been paying better dividend than the Standard Oil 
 or any other trust. 
 
 And then the sight of it, the Rock, up and quite 
 removed from the water's edge, stimulates inquiry till 
 you have learned its interesting history from the time 
 it began to attract attention. The story is too long to 
 be here told. I commend it to you as one of rare inter- 
 est. Time will only permit me to say that after vari- 
 ous experiences imperiling at times its very existence, 
 such as the chipping and thieving by relic-hunters, 
 and after various heated controversies regarding its 
 proper preservation, the Rock now lies quite remote 
 from tide-water, owing to artificial extension for wharf 
 purposes of the shore fine seaward; but very nearly, it 
 is believed, where it lay at the time of the Landing, there 
 securely enclosed by a granite structure under a canopy 
 supported by four pillars resting on a stone-work that 
 covers all but a small upper section of the old boulder. 
 You step under the canopy and step up upon a few square 
 feet of the Rock's natural, unchipped, time-colored 
 
 27 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 surface, once touched, forsooth, by the Mayflower feet 
 of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. There standing, 
 the monument to the Forefathers looking down on you 
 from yonder height, its arm of faith uplifted to the 
 heavens, your foot-rest the same whereon stepped 
 perchance one after another the disembarking ad- 
 venturers when the breaking waves dashed on the soli- 
 tary shore — so standing peradventure you may be 
 moved to recite aloud to the outlying bay, or in mur- 
 mur to yourself, those commemorative lines of a cer- 
 tain anonymous pilgrim to the shrine. 
 
 "Thou stern old Rock, in the ages past 
 Thy brow was bleached by the warring blast; 
 But thy wintry toil with the waves is o'er 
 And the billows beat thy base no more; 
 Yet countless as thy sands, old Rock, 
 Are the hardy sons of the Pilgrim stock; 
 The tree they reared in the days gone by. 
 It lives, it lives and ne'er shall die." 
 
 Following the labor of the Landing came the labor 
 of the Pilgrims in building the rude log houses they 
 hastened to build for shelter of themselves and their 
 effects. Having laid out their first street, now and 
 always known as Leyden Street, with lots assigned 
 thereon, a diagram of which, drawn by Bradford, is 
 to be seen in the Registry of Deeds at Plymouth, and 
 having built their common stone-house, they were 
 proceeding with as much dispatch as weather and 
 sickness would permit to build the first seven dwell- 
 ings, when they paused a day, Saturday the 17th of 
 
 28 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 February, 1621, and, to use the words of the Journal: 
 "We called a meeting for the establishing of military- 
 orders among ourselves and we chose Myles Standish 
 our Captaine and gave him authoritie of command in 
 our affayers." 
 
 Such is the record. There you have the conceded 
 origin of the New England Town Meeting — the exact 
 starting point of that elemental force so powerful in 
 educating and rousing the Colonies to the Declaration 
 of Independence, and which ever since the Revolu- 
 tion has been the chief pillar of support to Constitu- 
 tional Government: the New England Town Meeting, 
 from which De Tocqueville deduces the whole fabric 
 of the civil liberty of the United States. 
 
 "We chose Myles Standish our Captaine." But 
 there were other articles in the warrant. While acting 
 on them an Indian warwhoop provoked a speedy mo- 
 tion to adjourn, and before the warrant was disposed 
 of there were other adjournments for similar cause; 
 but finally, on the 23rd of March, the business was 
 finished by passing divers orders " behoof efull for their 
 present estate," and by choosing John Carver Governor 
 for the ensuing year, he having been elected for the 
 short term aboard the Mayflower. 
 
 And it is a singular fact that, as the election of Myles 
 Standish as captain was the first formal act of the Pil- 
 grims in town meeting assembled, so the first crime of 
 which they took legal cognizance was the offence of 
 John Billington for "his contempt of Captain Stand- 
 
 29 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 ish's lawful command." John Billington was the scape- 
 grace of the colony, a wretch who, it is said, was " shuf- 
 fled in" by some unaccountable trickery at London. 
 Governor Bradford in 1624 declared he was "a knave 
 and so will live and die." And so he did, for in 1630 he 
 was condemned for the murder of a brother Pilgrim. 
 Staining the soil of New England with the jfirst mur- 
 der, he has been styled the Cain of the Eden of the 
 New World. This Billington was the father of the boy, 
 Francis Billington, who descried "from the top of a 
 hie tree a great sea as he thought" — the same being 
 the large pond two or three miles from Plymouth vil- 
 lage, which has been called and mapped as " Billington 
 Sea" unto this day. 
 
 We should observe in passing that as the Town Meet- 
 ing originated with the Pilgrims in their first year at 
 Plymouth, so did the Thanksgiving, and a year or two 
 later the Fast Day, and about the same time that favor- 
 ite, darling exhibit of industrial Yankeedom, the Cattle 
 Show. A show it was of one hull and three heifers. It 
 was a Puritan cattle show — no horse race, no baseball, 
 no razor-strop man or any other fakirs. I venture the 
 remark that at no cattle show since have Jerseys, Dur- 
 hams, Holsteins, Ayrshires or any other breeds been 
 so looked over and stared at as were those four quad- 
 rupeds, the first cattle imported to the western world. 
 
 Be it remembered that, whatever the disposition 
 and designs of other early settlers upon American soil, 
 the mission of the Pilgrims was peace and good-will 
 
 30 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 to man — the red man not less than the white. What- 
 ever the religious intolerance of other settlers, theirs 
 was of a type far milder; and with whatever assump- 
 tion others asserted claims to territory, theirs was a 
 punctilious observance of aboriginal rights. 
 
 Upon their arrival they knew nothing of the Indian 
 language, and for a dreary while were without an in- 
 terpreter through whom they could communicate a 
 syllable of their friendly aims and ends. In their first 
 explorations, though clad in coats of mail and armed 
 to the teeth, their motive was but that of self-defence. 
 They followed the Indian trails and sought out hut and 
 wigwam, as bearing not the sword, but the olive 
 branch; and in the famous "First Encounter," when 
 Standish with a handful of men plucked victory from 
 the very barbs of unnumbered arrows, the warfare on 
 their part was purely defensive. They desired only 
 to "truck," trade with the natives, and God helping, 
 convert them; but as they could make known their de- 
 sire only through the enigma of signs, the untutored 
 savage beheld the panoply of their armor and heard 
 the awful sound of their musketry, and muttered, 
 " this means not peace but war ! " For three months the 
 red man had kept distrustfully distant from the new 
 settlement, all his manifestations were hostile, and no 
 word had been exchanged between him and the pale 
 face. But lo! how 
 
 "God moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform." 
 31 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 On the morning of the 16th of March, as the trou- 
 bled settlers were in a consultation over their affairs, 
 and otherwise busy, every man, and woman as well, 
 with one eye on work and the other on the look-out, 
 there came slipping into the little hamlet, along down 
 that first street of civilization, alone, but with a con- 
 fident carriage, peering curiously about as he passed 
 the rude log dwellings with their windows of oiled paper, 
 a tall, straight, near naked, stalwart Indian, exclaim- 
 ing in broken English, " Welcome, Welcome, English- 
 men!" 
 
 It was Samoset. Astonished more than pleased at 
 the appearance of the visitor, the settlers with favor 
 received and fed him, and through the imperfect speech 
 he had caught from English fishermen who aforetime 
 had touched thereabouts, they learned various im- 
 portant things : — that the name of their locality was 
 Patuxet — that four years before a plague had swept 
 the whole region and nearly depopulated it — that the 
 Massasoits were the tribe nearest to them and the 
 Nausites the next — that the latter were the tribe they 
 fought in the "First Encounter"; lastly, that all the In- 
 dians were greatly incensed against the white men by 
 reason of one Hunt, a ship-master who, "under color 
 of trucking with them," a few years before, had bar- 
 barously captured twenty-six Indians, carried them 
 to Spain, and sold them into slavery at twenty pounds 
 per captive. 
 
 Near all day the settlers held discourse with Samo- 
 32 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 set and then dismissed him with presents that made 
 him glad. Presently he came again and brought five 
 other Indians, who were well treated and sent away 
 pleased. Then in about a week came Samoset, and 
 with him another savage, world-wide known his name 
 
 — Squantum or Squanto ! the sole survivor of the pesti- 
 lence-destroyed Patuxets — sole survivor because one 
 of the twenty-six captives sold into Spanish slavery, 
 who, however, escaping to England, was there hu- 
 manely supported a while by good John Slaney, being 
 apt of tongue, learned the English language, and then 
 was sent back to his native shore, not designedly in- 
 deed, to be the interpreter and mediator between the 
 Pilgrims and the Massasoits; but who, through strange 
 experience, educated for the good office, filled it ; — 
 and so out of the wrath of the barbarous Hunt came 
 the praise at last — the Pilgrim Treaty with King 
 Massasoit, offensive and defensive, religiously kept 
 on both sides for over fifty years ! 
 
 Go now to the scene at Plymouth of that far-reach- 
 ing negotiation. Changed, all changed is it, but the 
 two Hills still look down upon the Bay — the one 
 where grouped the white men, the other where camped 
 the red; this then topped with forest, now thick with 
 the dusky, crumbling tomb-stones of the Forefathers, 
 
 — Bradford's, Cushman's, Howland's, Grey's and 
 the rest; that then wild with woods, now clustered 
 with cottages over whose prosperous inmates oft floats 
 
 33 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 from the surmounting flag-staff the Star-Spangled 
 Banner; between them (the hills) the stream that then 
 leaped untrammeled to the sea and by whose side bub- 
 bled the Spring, to Pilgrim sense the sweetest of all 
 waters, now is bridged, bridled and beset with mills and 
 all the transforming arts of manufacture. Neverthe- 
 less, though we read the historic page through the 
 mist of near three centuries, a draft from that Pilgrim 
 Spring, its waters to-day pure as of old, seems like 
 some enabling elixir to bring the scene of the Treaty 
 and the actors all vividly to view. Please bear in mind, 
 my friends, that the picture is not my invention, save 
 as I dip pen in the ink of the record and endeavor to 
 paint the action as seen all around us to-day in State, 
 school, church, family, farm, factory, and the fashion 
 of New England civilization now spread to the far- 
 off shores of the Pacific. 
 
 Here behold good, stern Governor Carver, with his 
 few wise counsellors about him, and all on that side 
 braced in self-reliance by the dauntless httle man. 
 Captain Myles Standish. Yonder see the great Saga- 
 more Massasoit, " a very lusty man, of grave counte- 
 nance and spare of speech," about his neck a huge chain 
 of white bone beads, his head and face oiled, his royal 
 apparel the beautiful skins of wild beasts, his ample 
 body-guard a train of sixty select savages, armed, 
 painted, plumed, skin-clad, and trinket-decked. Each 
 side fearing the other, the parley is slow to begin. Dis- 
 
 34 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 trustful glances gleam from side to side. Slyly the si- 
 lence breaks through Squantum, who goes back and 
 forth alone over the brook between the Hills. Pre- 
 sently the ready but discreet Winslow is dispatched 
 to the Indian camp, bearing presents to the King and 
 his brother Quadequina — "Knives, a copper chain 
 with a jewel, biscuits and butter and a pot of strong 
 water." The King is pleased, and leaving Winslow 
 behind for a hostage in the hands of Quadequina, ad- 
 vances, followed by twenty men minus bows and ar- 
 rows. Then goes out and down the hill to meet him 
 at the stream Captain Standish at the head of six 
 mail-coated musketeers. Met, the Captain salutes the 
 King and the King the Captain; and thereupon, with 
 as much pomp and circumstance as circumstances per- 
 mit, the commander-in-chief of the colonial forces 
 escorts his Majesty to a log hut, forsooth, the undomed 
 Capitol of the infant State, where for show and impres- 
 sion's sake have been spread a green carpet, divers 
 cushions, and the like. The King arrived, the drum and 
 trumpet strike up, and gravely approaches the Gov- 
 ernor, with such musketeers as can be mustered march- 
 ing after him. The rulers meet, the Governor kisses 
 the King's hand and the King the Governor's, and 
 they sit down. Some "strong water" is brought, and 
 the Governor drinking to his Majesty's health, his 
 Majesty drinks to the Governor's "a great draught," 
 and of the fresh meat served "the King did eat 
 wiUingly and did urge his followers." Then opens in 
 
 35 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 earnest the memorable parley, ending in the great 
 Treaty whose six articles were so long and sacredly 
 observed. 
 
 Yet was this notable feat of diplomacy planned and 
 consummated in the very midst of the deepest of Pil- 
 grim distresses and sorrows. Added to the inroads 
 upon health, consequent on the hard voyage, were the 
 climatic changes and all the nameless exposures in- 
 cident to the labor of the landing, the exploring, the 
 building, and the watching night and day of the en- 
 emy. Fearful diseases set in — fever, scurvy and the 
 wasting blight of quick consumption. Six died in De- 
 cember, eight in January, seventeen in February, thir- 
 teen in March — in all forty-four ! Thus on April 5th, 
 at the sailing of the Mayflower homeward to Old Eng- 
 land, of the one hundred and two who came in her, 
 reckoning the death aboard ship, but fifty-seven 
 survived. Yet was there no Pilgrim who, dismayed, 
 willed to return. In this harvest of death, lest the 
 savages should discern their waning numbers, their 
 growing weakness, the living felt constrained to bury 
 the dead in the darkness of night and then to level 
 with the sod and leave unmarked the graves. There 
 by the lonely shore, no requiem but the waves, un- 
 coflSned and unsung, with a faith sublime, but oh! 
 how sadly, they consigned the dear dust to the dust of 
 the bleak foreign coast. The scene! even the fervid 
 conception of Coleridge fails to image it. " Melancholy, 
 yea, dismal, yet consolatory and full of joy; a scene 
 
 36 
 
MYLES STANDISH . , 
 
 even better fitted to exalt, to lead the forlorn hopes of 
 all great causes till time shall be no more." 
 
 Throughout this unspeakable dispensation none was 
 more assiduous and delicate in ministering to the sick 
 than Myles Standish. As early as January the hand of 
 death had laid low his beloved wife. He, while brav- 
 ing most the arrows of the Indian, seemed ever fore- 
 most in facing the shafts of the great Archer of all. 
 Constant, unwearied, gentle, he went from rude cot to 
 rude cot, performing all the heavier offices of man and 
 the more exquisite of the nurse. When at one time all 
 but seven of the remaining Pilgrim band were help- 
 lessly prostrate, he who was chief of heroes in the ad- 
 ventures of the forest, proved chief of the Samaritans 
 in the hospitals of the sick. Brave, rough warrior that 
 he was, he had in him the angel tenderness of a Flor- 
 ence Nightingale! 
 
 I pass over several notable instances of the cap- 
 tain's courage, tact and genius, and for brevity's sake 
 omit the particulars of that, his incredible exploit so 
 celebrated by Longfellow, his slaying single-handed 
 the powerful leader-in-chief of that tribal conspiracy 
 formed for the extinction of the Weston colony at 
 Wessagusset, now Weymouth, and the Plymouth col- 
 ony besides — his daring deed in rushing upon the 
 gigantic Pecksuot, seizing from him his knife and plung- 
 ing it with fatal stroke into his heart, thus dismaying 
 his followers and ultimately dispersing his army and 
 rescuing from impending destruction the two strug- 
 
 37 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 gling colonies — one of the most daring feats of valor 
 ever dared by warrior, and one of the most decisive 
 battles in all warfare, though small the number of com- 
 batants and slight the bloodshed, because on the issue 
 thereof the fate of the Plymouth colony did verily 
 seem to hang, and thereby did hang so great a tale for 
 the pen of history and the inspiration of mankind. 
 
 It did infinite credit to the heart of dear old pastor 
 Robinson far over the wave at Leyden, who, when he 
 heard of the prowess of the Plymouth captain and the 
 slaughter, while he joyed in the event, could not but 
 exclaim, "Oh, how happy a thing it would have been 
 had you converted some before you killed any!" 
 
 Odd enough that this character, so mighty in war, 
 weighty in council, yoked to business, and void of the 
 stuff that dreams are made of, should have touched 
 that austere. Puritanic congregation with its principal 
 streak of romance. Curious contrariety of preaching 
 and practice, that he who blazoned his rule, — if you 
 would have a thing done well do it yourself — should, 
 when he would propose his love to Priscilla, depute 
 the young, the handsome, the engaging John Alden 
 to make the proposal — with what shipwreck of af- 
 fection on the Captain's part, with what course of true 
 love to run smooth on John's, the world all knows. 
 
 But, though Priscilla could charm the Captain into 
 breaking his favorite rule of action, she was not equal 
 to the breaking of his heart. Nay, it may be said that 
 
 38 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 as usual he came off hero. For not only did he alto- 
 gether forgive John Alden the atrocious offence of 
 outshining him in the maiden heart of Priscilla Mullens, 
 but when the twain were wed he magnanimously re- 
 marked : — 
 
 " Never so much as now was Myles Standish the friend of John 
 Alden," 
 
 and straightway he bestowed his affection, not in vain, 
 upon another fair maid who came to him in the good 
 ship Ann, Venus-like out of the sea, to fill well the wifely 
 oflSce of his lamented Rose. But I am not about to tell 
 my fair hearers in prose the tale they are so familiar 
 with in verse. I take great pleasure, however, in reassur- 
 ing them that the incidents have a groundwork of fact 
 in some of the old books; and one of the cleverest of 
 American poets has, to be sure, rounded them into 
 proportions of romantic beauty for the generations to 
 come. 
 
 From the "courtship of Myles Standish," in point 
 of time the earliest known on Columbia's shore of Pil- 
 grim passions the tender, I pass to the war-worn Pil- 
 grim himself, grown old to three-score and ten, weary 
 of the harness and ready for the farewell. Long since 
 he has settled on the farm allotted to him for great 
 service done — his one hundred and fifty acres within 
 the town called Duxbury, from Duxbury Hall of the 
 house of Standish. Contemplate him there, as with 
 tremulous hand he draws his last testament, appor- 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 tioning his little estate in the New World and devising 
 to his son, Alexander, his title to the great one of his 
 ancestors in the Old, whereof he the rightful heir, saith 
 the Will, was "surreptitiously detained." 
 
 Go with him as, feeble of step, he ascends for the 
 last time the bold hill of his name, to sweep with 
 dimmed eye the Harbor of the Pilgrims and the fa- 
 miliar landscape around Plymouth Rock. View him 
 borne now, in the final sleep, from his rude mansion 
 on the bluff to the spot of his resting, unmarked, un- 
 found, unknown forever! Like the date of his birth, 
 like the date of his wedlock the first and the second, 
 like the date of his death, the grave of Standish, what- 
 ever may be said to the contrary, is a place unknown. 
 While these and other facts we pursue elude research, 
 how few also are the relics by which we touch, as it 
 were, the garments of this man of the Mayflower. Of 
 his books, some forty, none; of his private papers, no 
 scrap; of his apparel, no shred; of his household effects, 
 a kettle and a pewter dish; of the house he built, burned 
 after his demise, no remnant but the scattered stones 
 of the foundation, the site still visible of the door- 
 yard spring, and a charred timber or two wrought into 
 the house of his son, Alexander, now standing in the 
 old neighborhood since 1666; of his equipments of war, 
 the cutlass preserved in the Rooms at Boston and the 
 ancient sword at Pilgrim Hall — the "Damascus 
 blade," which served him in Flanders, served him in 
 the battles of the wilderness and served we know not 
 
 40 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 how many of his warhke ancestors before him. The 
 Sword of Myles Standish! Scarcely has man left relic 
 behind to excite such interest and stimulate such in- 
 quiry as this mysterious blade. Longfellow sings of 
 it as 
 
 " his trusty sword of Damascus, 
 
 Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sen- 
 tence." 
 
 Much attention have antiquarians and scientists 
 given it, to determine, if possible, the place of its man- 
 ufacture and decipher its hieroglyphic inscriptions. 
 To this end some years ago a facsimile of the sword 
 was taken and sent to Gottingen, Germany, where 
 it was submitted to the inspection of various distin- 
 guished scientists, but to no purpose. It is a long, am- 
 ple blade, curved and fluted, and in the midst of the 
 inscriptions upon one of its sides are distinctly trace- 
 able the figures, "1149." Eleven hundred and forty- 
 nine! Seven hundred and fifty and more years old, 
 perchance! Forged, turned, tempered near a half- 
 thousand years before the embarkation at Delft- 
 haven, in what wars may it not have been? or flashing 
 its steel in however few or none, what wars and rumors 
 of war shook the continents while this blade may have 
 laid in its scabbard, awaiting a mission greater, I haz- 
 ard, than that of the sword of a Cortez, a Coeur de 
 Lion or the Maid of Orleans ! More potent in ultimate 
 beneficent result than all the martial array of the 
 Crusades, than all the blood-drenching Wars of the 
 
 41 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Roses, than all the bristling legions and thunder- 
 striking Armadas of Philip of Spain, was the army of 
 never more than fifty men, who followed the lead of 
 the spunky little Captain whose sabre is this memento 
 of the Pilgrims! 
 
 "In marshaling the degrees of sovereign honor," says 
 Lord Bacon, "place first the founders of States and 
 commonwealths, conditores imperiorum, such as Romu- 
 lus, Cyrus, Othman, Ismael." But as weighing honors 
 in the balances, with the streaming light of the centu- 
 ries to tone and temper the soul of judgment, write 
 out the full-measured share of Standish in founding 
 the great Repubhc of Washington, and over the clas- 
 sic-sung name of the founder of imperial Rome, above 
 that of the mighty prophet-told monarch of the Medes 
 and Persians, higher than that of the conqueror from 
 whose triumph sprang the resplendent dynasty of the 
 Ottoman Empire, and higher still than that which 
 inspires with veneration the hearts of many an Orien- 
 tal million, shall you write the far less heralded but 
 more grandly significant name of the Defender of the 
 little Plymouth Colony. 
 
 Appropriate as aught of commemorative art in the 
 olden time or recent, that there upon the Hill which 
 was the home of his choice, from whose summit, on 
 a day of bright sky, the eye takes in the long line of 
 sea that tossed the Mayflower, the out-reaching arm 
 of the Cape whose sandy shores the voyage-worn 
 Pilgrims first descried, and under whose shelter they 
 
 42 
 
MYLES STANDISH 
 
 first dropped anchor; and circling round, rests upon 
 the field of the First Encounter, the Island of the 
 First Sabbath and anon, upon the upland, still sloping 
 to the Bay, where sleep the ashes of the departed, and 
 below, in its accustomed bed near the lap of the tide, 
 lies the old Rock of the Landing — appropriate that 
 there upon that commanding Mount should rise the 
 ample granite shaft, the memorial of enduring monu- 
 ment, capped and impersonated with the statue of 
 Myles Standish. 
 
THE AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKE- 
 SPEARE^ 
 
 Who wrote Shakespeare? Who was, or to use a bet- 
 ter tense, is the author of those remarkable productions 
 commonly reputed to be the works of William Shake- 
 speare? It is a matter of transcendent interest to the 
 literary world. True it is that some rather flippantly 
 say, it is enough that we have the works, and no mat- 
 ter who wrote them. Ah! but human curiosity says, 
 't is matter. 
 
 Who was the architect that designed the Parthenon 
 or the Coliseum? Who the sculptor that chiseled a 
 Venus de Melos or the Dying Gladiator? Who the 
 artist that painted some anonymous masterpiece that 
 holds the gaze of admiring art? Under what conditions 
 of mechanical genius sprang the marvelous contrivance 
 that lifted to the clouds the huge capstones of the 
 Pyramids and set them in their places? Whither has 
 
 ' The above lecture was first given at the University Club in 
 Boston before the Verulam Society of Boston, a society organized 
 for the purpose of promoting investigation of the authorship of the 
 productions familiarly known as the Plays of Shakespeare. In many 
 subsequent deliveries of it the author has observed no reason for 
 making any changes therein as to matters of fact or otherwise, ex- 
 cept as he has found increasing cause to emphasize his statements 
 and the argument by a more forcible diction. Very nearly as here 
 published the lecture was given before the Shakespeare Club of 
 Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1905. 
 
 44 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 gone that variety of mortal ingenuity which so used 
 to excite our wonderment as we hstened with rapt at- 
 tention to the lecture of Wendell Philips on "The Lost 
 Arts"? These are questions that still cry for answer, 
 though the cry of ages has been vain. The sight of a 
 great creation, whether the world itself or great things 
 therein, irresistibly incites inquiry into the origin 
 thereof; so prone is the human mind to trace the source 
 of whatever captivates the sense or reason. It is not 
 enough to behold the mountains and the ocean and the 
 stars, and say, "the hand that made them is divine." 
 We would somehow see and touch the hand in its 
 power and cunning, what though the voice of Holy 
 Writ be, "Who by searching shall find out the 
 Almighty?" 
 
 So whenever the authorship of any considerable book 
 is in dispute, litterateurs are never inclined to drop 
 discussion of the question till it be settled. Much less 
 are they likely to cease agitation of the subject so long 
 as such dispute relates to a book which, as compared 
 with all others known to Christian civilization, unless 
 it be the Bible, holds the highest and securest place 
 in the realm of letters. . 
 
 The authorship of this wonderful book, comprehend- 
 ing the Plays and the Sonnets, so universally reputed 
 for two hundred and more years to be the productions 
 of Shakespeare, is in controversy. However hard or 
 painful for us it may be to relinquish the idea, part and 
 parcel as it has been of our education and faith from 
 
 45 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 childhood, that the glory of Hamlet, Macbeth, King 
 Lear, Othello, perhaps, says Macaulay, the greatest 
 work in the world, Romeo and Juliet, and all the 
 rest belongs to him whom we have lovingly styled 
 "the sweet bard of Avon," it is certain that there 
 are many men and women of learning, character 
 and high reputation, who believe that the idea is ab- 
 solutely without any foundation in fact. 
 
 The books taking such view, in America, Great 
 Britain and Germany, now number hundreds of vol- 
 umes, some of which are replete with learning and 
 cope in intellectual force with anything to be found 
 on library shelves in the field of literary research and 
 discussion; and what is very, very noticeable, they 
 are all in the good-tempered spirit of inquiry after 
 truth, very unlike, it must be conceded, very unlike 
 the impatient and evasive publications in reply. 
 
 Some of us, probably most of us here to-night, will 
 not live long enough to see fully accepted this view of 
 the heretics; but when it is considered how the heresy 
 has grown and spread in the last forty-five or fifty years, 
 it is hardly rash to suspect that it may be a matter of 
 some wonderment with the next generation how we 
 could so cling to our cherished idea in the face and eyes 
 of the mountainous improbabilities of its correctness, 
 not to speak of the large variety of adverse evidence 
 approaching the positive itself in character. 
 
 It is to be observed that not till a time compara- 
 tively recent was Shakespeare a well-known book in 
 
 46 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the sense of its being popularly known and admired. 
 Except as it was here and there read and appreciated 
 by a poet or other writer, it was for nearly two hun- 
 dred years in general disregard. With such rare ex- 
 ceptions the representatives of literature derided and 
 rejected it as altogether dispensable, if not unworthy 
 a place in any well-ordered library. In all the interval 
 of near two centuries from 1598, when the Plays ceased 
 to be anonymous, Ben Jonson, Pope, Milton, and 
 others are about the only conspicuous writers who 
 appear to have recognized them as the work of genius. 
 Dryden, with some qualifications, derided them as "in- 
 coherent stories meanly written." They were in gen- 
 eral disfavor. The drift and degree of this aversion 
 are perceivable if we take note of the animus of our 
 forefathers of the American Colonies. Embracing 
 many of the most cultivated minds, how few, if any,, 
 of them would have had Shakespeare in their libraries 
 more than Voltaire or Paine's "Age of Reason," if the 
 latter had then been written? As late as 1820, we are 
 told by Josiah Quincy that it was whispered among 
 the students of Phillips Academy at Andover, as a 
 startling fact, that a professor of the theological sem- 
 inary there had a copy of Shakespeare among his books ! 
 I myself remember what a disturbance it was to my 
 mother's mind when she discovered that one of my 
 older brothers and my oldest sister were reading 
 Shakespeare ! 
 
 It thus appears that chiefly within the last seventy- 
 47 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 five or eighty years has the book grown into public, 
 popular favor. Prior to that period it was mostly read, 
 where read at all, in secret or out of some curiosity. 
 This non-recognition of it was due in part to the adverse 
 criticisms it suffered during the seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries, and in part to the prevailing preju- 
 dice against theatrical plays. The theatre was not 
 deemed respectable in Shakespeare's time, nor for 
 generations afterward. Julia Ward Howe in her remi- 
 niscences {Atlantic Monthly, December, 1898) speaks 
 of her remembrance of the destruction by fire of the 
 first Bowery Theatre in New York, and remarks that 
 it was regarded as "a judgment" upon the wickedness 
 of the stage and its patrons. While the book was un- 
 recognized as one of surpassing merit, nobody deemed 
 it worth while to inquire much into its authorship. 
 But no sooner had it taken commanding rank than 
 scholars began to ask, who was Shakespeare that he 
 should have produced this prodigious book, eclipsing 
 everything that had gone before, or since has appeared, 
 in variety, power, pathos, penetration, and in uni- 
 versality of knowledge? Who was he.^* Accordingly as 
 we find a rational answer to the question must we find 
 whether William Shakespeare was or was not the au- 
 thor of the Plays bearing his name. 
 
 The first real doubt of record concerning the author- 
 ship was doubtless launched by Lord Byron in 1821. 
 In 1837 the flame of it was fanned by the Earl of Bea- 
 consfield in his " Venetia." In 1848 Joseph C. Hart, a 
 
 48 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 lawyer of New York and of the literary coterie there 
 in the time of Irving, was the next notable agitator of 
 the question. Following him, among others, a contrib- 
 utor to Chambers' Edinburgh Journal in 1852 touched 
 on the subject. Then out of much research and equal 
 ability and trial of soul, courage to dare the wrath of 
 nettled traditionalism — a courage too dauntless to 
 quail before the scoffs of Carlyle and a haughty host 
 of other scoffers, Delia Bacon advanced and main- 
 tained the Baconian theory. So maintained it that 
 Emerson was moved to say, "Miss Bacon has opened 
 the subject so that it can never be closed." The 
 fortitude of that lonely spirit in her wanderings and 
 solitudes at home and abroad, while forging, as she 
 believed, the thunderbolt to blast a bloated tradition, 
 is worthy the heroism of any of the martyr saints 
 since the time of him who spake as never man spake. 
 
 Doubt is said to be the key of knowledge. The doubt 
 of Columbus discovered this hemisphere. It rather 
 looks as if it might prove the key to this most singular 
 of all literary problems; for the doubt of Byron in 1821 
 has so grown and developed in intelligence and confi- 
 dence that it now amounts to positive conviction 
 on the part of a large representative body of the lit- 
 erary world that, whether Francis Bacon was or was 
 not, it is certain that William Shakespeare was not the 
 author of "Hamlet" and those other glories of dra- 
 matic poetry that so command universal admiration. 
 
 What now in brief is the argument to disprove 
 49 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Shakespeare the author and in support of the Baco- 
 nian theory? First and foremost is the improbability 
 that he was the author — an improbabihty so strong 
 that in the Hght of common reason it falls little, 
 if at all, short of Impossibility. Shakespeare, unless 
 you assume the authorship to be his, was an illiterate. 
 He was of an illiterate family. Both his father and mo- 
 ther made their signatures with a cross. His two daugh- 
 ters, — Judith, at the age of twenty-seven could not 
 write her name, and Susanna, who married a doctor, 
 could not read her husband's handwriting. The family 
 had no settled way of spelling their name. More than 
 thirty different forms have been found among their 
 papers, on their tombstones and in contemporaneous 
 public records. How William himself spelt it nobody 
 can quite say. His signature is illegible and so various 
 in scrawl as to be little better than hieroglyphics. The 
 three signatures to his will, so far as discoverable, were 
 written difiPerently each time. Nor is his signature 
 illegible only. It bears the unmistakable marks of 
 uncultivation. Many a cultivated person writes his 
 or her name poorly, but however poorly, we can see 
 that the subscriber is used to the pen; as witness the 
 signature of that great magician who used so to elec- 
 trify the courts of Boston and the Commonwealth, 
 Rufus Choate, who with his own restless hand per- 
 haps wrote more pages of notes of evidence than any 
 lawyer before him or since; of Talleyrand; of Nathan- 
 iel Bowditch; of Queen Victoria; some of you may 
 
 50 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 have seen her official autograph, Victoria, as dashed off 
 times without number. The facile pen is artistic in its 
 irregularities. 
 
 We have five specimens in facsimile of Shakespeare's 
 autograph in five signatures to legal papers; and ex- 
 cept as you detect something like William in two, pos- 
 sibly three of them, you are all at sea in making out 
 what William was trying to do. There is the stiff, me- 
 chanical groping of painful uncertainty in the trail of 
 his quill. Daniel Webster, who in very early manhood 
 was for a while a scribe or copyist in a registry of deeds, 
 said that his hand never recovered from the cramp 
 incurred in that service. You would think that Shake- 
 speare could never have recovered from the agony of a 
 single signature. Yet the editorial comment on the 
 manuscript of the Plays in the preface of the Folio 
 Edition of 1623, is in these words : — 
 
 "His mind and hand went together, and what he 
 thought he uttered (wrote) with that easiness that we 
 have scarce received from him a blot in his papers"; 
 a comment that might well apply to the manuscript 
 of Bacon, who wrote with exceeding legibility and 
 wrote his manuscript over and over before submitting 
 it to the printer. 
 
 Shakespeare died in 1616 — seven years before the 
 publication of the Folio Edition which first grouped 
 the Plays substantially as we now have them. Who 
 prepared the edition for the press.? In his will, made 
 the same year of his death, there is not a syllable 
 
 51 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 to Indicate that the reputed author had or ever had 
 any literary property: not the mention of a book, 
 much less of a library, nor of a manuscript, though 
 such choice dramas as "Macbeth," "The Tempest," 
 and "Julius Csesar" were then unpublished. Where 
 were the manuscripts of them then sleeping? Where 
 in the seven long years did they slumber? Who had 
 them in possession? Who should have had them in 
 possession, actual or constructive, but the author 
 thereof? Who better knew their priceless worth than 
 the master intellect that wrought the deathless verse? 
 Is it possible that the human being who created those 
 dramas and wrote out the whole pile of manuscript 
 without a blot could have made his last testament, 
 inventorying his estate in much detail, as he did, and 
 not even allude to the treasure? 
 
 But more of the will later on. Just now as to the 
 testator's education. He was born without doubt in 
 1564. It would appear that he went to London some- 
 time between 1585 and 1587, and if so, he was then 
 from twenty-one to twenty-three years old. Before 
 he went, there is no evidence that he went to any school. 
 Stratford was a small place where there was a small 
 grammar school, so-called, in which, according to Dr. 
 Morgan, there was "no such branch as grammar and 
 mighty little of anything in its place, but birchen rods, 
 the church catechism, the cris-cross row and a few su- 
 perfluous Latin declensions out of Lily's Accidence." 
 We may infer that William attended this school more or 
 
 5% 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 less. If he did, and if he was an apt scholar, the chances 
 were against him for more than a meagre culture. 
 Throughout his minority he was in an atmosphere the 
 very reverse of literary; in a town a few only of whose 
 inhabitants could read or write, including its officials 
 some of whom could do neither, and where it is esti- 
 mated (by Grant White) that there were, outside the 
 school and the church, not more than a half dozen books 
 all told. The town in which he was born and bred, 
 David Garrick as late as 1769, one hundred and fifty- 
 three years after Shakespeare's death, when Stratford, 
 like most other English towns, must have grown in 
 comeliness — as late as that, Garrick, the famous actor, 
 pronounced it "the most dirty, unseemly, ill-paved 
 and wretched-looking in all Britain." 
 
 Of affirmative evidence there is not a particle that 
 he went to London equipped with any book education 
 at all, while the inference is that whatever he had ac- 
 quired of it was very slight. The tradition is that, 
 while apprenticed to a butcher, he got into a fracas by 
 poaching in a deer park, and to escape consequences 
 ran or strolled away to London, leaving his wife and 
 children behind, having married at eighteen a girl of 
 whom nothing is known save that she was eight years 
 his senior, and that he was licensed to marry her as 
 one Anne Hathaway, November 27, 1582. 
 
 Arrived in London he became sooner or later a play- 
 actor, never one of note, and in time the proprietor or 
 a co-proprietor or the manager or a co-manager of one, 
 
 53 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 possibly two theatres — rude, pen-like structures on 
 the ruffian, cut-throat side of the river Thames, un- 
 protected against the weather, save as thatched roofs 
 sheltered mainly the stage — patronized mostly, but 
 most liberally patronized by the riff-raff of London and 
 the suburbs. He had a tact for the business aod made 
 money, amassed a considerable fortune, even as the 
 late John Stetson of Boston did in a like business in 
 these more enlightened times, though himself little 
 other than an illiterate. He was in London about 
 twenty-five years, some say not more than twenty. 
 During this time, besides playing on the stage and 
 managing his rough-and-tumble business, he wrote, 
 if he wrote them, thirty-six or thirty-seven dramas, 
 one hundred and fifty -four sonnets, and one or two or 
 three minor poems. That is, made, if he made it, the 
 mightiest book of Christendom, save, if you please, 
 the Scriptures. 
 
 Cotemporaneous with him were such eminent coun- 
 trymen, literary and political, as Raleigh, Sydney, 
 Spenser, Bacon, Cecil, Coke, Camden, Hooker, Drake, 
 Hobbs, Laud, Pym, Hampden, Selden, Walton and 
 others; yet there is not k scintilla of evidence that he 
 was known to either of these men or to any others of 
 less note among the statesmen, scholars, soldiers and 
 artists of his day, except a few of his fellow-craftsmen 
 (R. G. White). The prose works of the latter part of 
 the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century 
 contain abundant notices of every poet of distinction, 
 
 54 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakespeare alone excepted. "Since the constellation 
 of great men who appeared in Greece in the time of 
 Pericles," says Emerson, "there was never any such 
 society, yet their genius failed them to find out the best 
 head in the universe." 
 
 In 1610 or thereabouts Shakespeare left London and 
 passed the remainder of his days in Stratford, his na- 
 tive town — what doing? loaning money and, it would 
 seem, brewing beer, the unimpeachable record showing 
 that he brought suit to recover the price of a quantity 
 of malt sold which, in these days would be equivalent 
 to about twenty barrels of Jones's ale, delivered to one 
 person in two months. The sweet bard of Avon — like 
 the late potentate of Portsmouth — possibly was in 
 the wholesale business. A phase perchance of that 
 "dignified retirement" they celebrate. 
 
 A litigious man he was and penurious, in one instance 
 suing for an item of two shillings loaned. Little kind- 
 ness he had for the poor. A movement to enclose the 
 town commons he secretly favored against the protest 
 of the town authorities that it would be a grievance to 
 the poor people. He did, however, give ten pounds 
 to the poor in his will, but his biographers are not apt 
 to mention it. 
 
 Not a vestige of personal proof have we that he ever 
 wrote a line of verse or prose. 'T is otherwise with 
 Petrarch, Dante, and others who lived and wrote long 
 before his time. No manuscript or document or in- 
 strument or composition of any kind in his hand- 
 
 55 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 writing has come down to us, not even a letter, and 
 one letter only addressed to him and that was for a 
 loan of money. Almost to no purpose has been the 
 search of generations for a solitary scrap of traditional 
 conversation from the tongue of him whose reputed 
 effusions so illustrate the plenitude, power and possi- 
 bilities of our language. Not a glimmer of light have 
 we to catch a glimpse of his personal presence, whether 
 tall or short, stout or slim, handsome or homely, whis- 
 kered or shaven, or of complexion dark or light or 
 otherwise. Scores of portraits there are from fruitful 
 fancy drawn, over three hundred in all, but so unre- 
 semblant to one another that fainter is our notion how 
 he looked than if there were none. The two leading, 
 conventional pictures of him, the one in bust at Strat- 
 ford and the other of varying features commonly seen 
 in editions of the works, are as unlike as two faces can 
 well be. Few indeed are the great characters of history 
 of whom we do not have more or less anecdotes. The 
 only anecdote we have of Shakespeare is that he broke 
 a law of the land and was a fugitive from justice. Few 
 indeed are the celebrities of history whom we do not 
 more or less see through the mist of time, building the 
 structure of their fame and wearing its laurels. In 
 vain have the eyes of scholarship for the last century 
 been fixed to catch so much as a vanishing shadow of 
 Shakespeare in the exercise of an authorship that over- 
 shadows all other authorships. The dream alone of 
 unreasoning idolatry can depict him in studious re- 
 
 56 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 treat fashioning a plot recondite as subtle philosophy 
 and rounding it into incomparable verse for the delecta- 
 tion of future ages. As if the artisan who reared the 
 greatest of all monuments to his native language should 
 not have left some faint footprints in the sands of his 
 time, outside the handiwork itself, to identify the builder 
 with the masterpiece! True enough, some modern 
 scribes write of William, the builder, as if they were 
 personally acquainted with him three hundred years 
 ago, and almost as if they helped him in his monu- 
 mental feat; but alas! their pens are dipped in the ink 
 of naked assertion, ipse dixit pure and simple. 
 
 Nor will you, my friends, when you visit Stratford 
 on the Avon, be much less in the mist if you should ex- 
 pect to see there the house where William was born; 
 nor should you think that among the mass of articles 
 there displayed as relics there is so much as one gen- 
 uine relic. The reliable historian of Stratford, R. B. 
 Wheeler, author also of the guide-book there, pro- 
 nounces them all "scandalous impositions," and he 
 adds, "there does not exist a single article that ever 
 belonged to William Shakespeare." 
 
 As for the house itself, not till the year of the Garrick 
 Jubilee, so-called, two hundred and five years after 
 Shakespeare's birth, was there any serious attempt to 
 identify the structure. Then divers wise men got to- 
 gether for the purpose. They picked out three houses 
 in three dififerent parts of the village, one or the other 
 of which they reasoned or conjectured was it. This 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 was in 1769. The deliberations of the wise men contin- 
 ued, or rather slumbered, thirty-one years. Mean- 
 while one of the three houses was torn down. Two only 
 were then left to choose between. The business was 
 thus considerably simplified. It remained to determine 
 which one of the two should be the immortal house. 
 Why one more than the other was selected as the shrine 
 is not told. No man knoweth. We simply know that 
 we have the shrine and an abundance of relics, though 
 in the beginning there were no relics whatever. 
 
 He died, this renowned uncertainty, April 23, 1616, 
 not on his birthday, as is still said, lately so said by the 
 late Sir Walter Besant. He was baptized April 26, but 
 the day of his birth is unknown. About a month be- 
 fore his death he made his will. In it he leaves houses, 
 lands, messuages, orchards, gardens, and with all due 
 pains-taking bequeaths furniture, a sword, a punch- 
 bowl, rings and trinkets to nephews, nieces, friends and 
 acquaintances, and to his wife his "second-best bed." 
 Even this narrow, niggard, imspeakable bequest was 
 apparently an afterthought, for in the will it is an in- 
 terlineation. A will made with great particularity, 
 bequeathing an estate, yielding, it is supposed, several 
 thousands a year, and no mention of a book, without 
 allusion even by sentiment to that wondrous life-work, 
 the embodiment of all manner of sentiment, the great- 
 est book of the ages, penned, shall we say? by the 
 same hand that signed such a last testament! "The 
 man," says O'Connor, "whose ample page is rich with 
 
 58 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPE.^E 
 
 the transfigured spoils of ages, lived without a library!" 
 "We hunger," so groans Richard Grant White, as 
 vainly he delves for fact fit for his hero, "we hunger 
 and we receive these husks. We open our mouths for 
 food and we break our teeth against these stones." 
 
 Yea, the man whose conception of man was the 
 beauty of the world — how noble in reason, how in- 
 finite in faculty, in form and moving how express and 
 admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehen- 
 sion how like a god — he, dying, gave his second-best 
 bed to his wife and the mother of his children and gave 
 her nothing else! 
 
 On the heavy stone slab that marks his grave is this 
 inscription : — 
 
 *' Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear 
 To dig the dust enclosed here; 
 Blest be the man that spares these stones. 
 And cursed be who moves my bones." 
 
 The imprecation in these rude verses, so-called by Rus- 
 sell Lowell, forbade the laying of his wife by his side. 
 "There is not recorded of him one noble or lovable 
 action." "An obscure and profane life." "A record 
 unadorned by a single excellence or virtue." Three ex- 
 pressions of judgment respectively by Thomas David- 
 son, Ralph Waldo Emerson and William O'Connor, 
 all unquestionable authorities in Shakespearian bio- 
 graphy. Such in all substantial particulars, so far as 
 known, was William Shakespeare. Do men gather 
 grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Yet this thorn or 
 
 59 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 thistle of Stratford is the reputed author of literary 
 productions the range and richness of which have im- 
 pelled the most scholarly minds of the last century to 
 ransack their vocabularies for praise and panegyric. 
 Innumerable tributes might be cited in illustration. 
 A few will suffice. The writers speak of the author, 
 whoever he may be. 
 
 "The name of Shakespeare is the greatest in our 
 literature — it is the greatest in all literature." — 
 Hallam. 
 
 "There is the clearest evidence that his mind was 
 richly stored with knowledge of all kinds." — Prof. 
 Baynes. 
 
 "An amazing genius which could pervade all nature 
 at a glance and to whom nothing within the limits of 
 the universe appeared to be unknown." — Whallet. 
 
 "The great master who knew everything." — 
 Dickens. 
 
 "The range and accuracy of his knowledge were 
 beyond precedent or later parallel." — Lowell. 
 
 Little wonder then, in view of the total absence of 
 any liberal culture possessed by Shakespeare, upon 
 any theory other than the authorship itself, that John 
 Bright should say, "Any man who believes that Wil- 
 liam Shakespeare of Stratford wrote 'Hamlet' or 'Lear' 
 is a fool"; and less wonder that Whittier should say, 
 "whether Bacon wrote the wonderful Plays or not, I 
 am quite sure that the man Shakespeare neither did or 
 could." 
 
 60 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Did Bacon write them? We know only as we are 
 led to infer from a multitude of facts and circum- 
 stances. If living at a time contemporaneous with 
 the production of the Plays, as he did, and being of 
 sufficient age at the time of their appearance, as he 
 was, and having a mind and a cultivation of mind ap- 
 parently equal to their creation, as he had; there being 
 no other intellect of that period apparent to any fair 
 critical intelligence, of the requisite capacity, as there 
 was none, and there being no positive evidence that 
 any one else was the author, as there is not; we are 
 constrained, it would seem, by the very law of cause 
 and effect to conclude that he was, or rather is the 
 author. 
 
 Who was he, what were his attainments and his 
 genius, that he should be deemed capable of writ- 
 ing them? Let a few eminent authorities suffice to 
 answer. 
 
 "Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England 
 or perhaps any other country ever produced." — 
 Pope. 
 
 "His imagination was fruitful and vivid, a tempera- 
 ment of the most delicate sensibility, so excitable as 
 to be affected by the slightest alterations of the at- 
 mosphere." — Montague. 
 
 "Who is there that, hearing the name of Bacon, 
 does not instantly recognize everything of genius the 
 most profound, of literature the most extensive, of 
 discovery the most penetrating, of observation of hu- 
 
 61 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 man life the most distinguishing and refined?" — 
 Burke. 
 
 "The most exquisitely constructed intellect that has 
 ever been bestowed on any of the children of men. 
 . . . His understanding resembled the tent which the 
 fairy Parabanon gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold it and 
 it seemed a toy in the hand of a lady; spread it and the 
 armies of powerful Sultans might repose beneath its 
 shade." — Macaulay. 
 
 This scholar, the reach and versatility of whose 
 abilities scholars so celebrate, was a child of surpassing 
 precocity. At ten Queen Bess would pat him on his 
 curly head and call him her little Lord Protector. 
 Asked by the queen when a mere boy how old he was, 
 "I am two years younger than Your Majesty's happy 
 reign," said the infant courtier. 
 
 At thirteen he entered Cambridge, but ere the time 
 came to take his degree he had exhausted the curric- 
 ulum of the University. His originality detected the 
 system of instruction there as a servile deference to 
 authority; that all thought was following obsequiously 
 in the wake of generations gone; that progress was 
 thereby impossible; and he viewed his fellow students 
 as "becalmed ships." 
 
 Impatiently he left England for the continent, where 
 he traveled and studied for three years, invading the 
 territories of literature, art, science, government and 
 the languages, and bearing off as he went the spoils of 
 a masterful student. Not vainly to his uncle did he 
 
 6S 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 declare that he made all knowledge his province. For- 
 sooth he "saw the future in the instant." 
 
 He had a great ambition. He aspired to the highest 
 judicial position of the realm, and to this, step by step 
 up the ladder of law, he ultimately attained. But, 
 though ranking thus high as a jurist, he attained a 
 rank still higher as a philosopher. To these two dis- 
 tinctions add such others as he reached in the roles of 
 author, scientist, essayist, legislator, statesman, diplo- 
 mat, orator, and with more reason than in case of any 
 other man of his time his intellect may be pronounced 
 one of infinite variety. 
 
 His ambition was the highest, not only to excel in 
 the domain of pure learning, but to hold the nearest 
 place to the throne of his sovereign. Success in either 
 ambition would be hindered by publicity of himself 
 as a dramatist. To his judicial and political aspira- 
 tions it would doubtless have been fatal, for in his time 
 with the aristocratic circles the theatre was in disgrace, 
 and whoever contributed to the stage, whether as 
 writer or actor, was without caste. Yet was the theatre 
 then as in times of old recognized as a school for edu- 
 cation, as the "plectrum of the mind"; so Bacon called 
 it, that is, the device used by the performer to strike 
 the strings of his instrument. One of the leading im- 
 pulses of Bacon's mind was to be an educator of his 
 race and he would employ the drama as one of his 
 agencies. Add to this impulse a native taste for poetry, 
 a fervid, brilliant imagination, and a singular facility, 
 
 63 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 observable in his grave writings in the use of poetic 
 phrase. Add further what, if anything be known of 
 Bacon, is true, — a mind active to restlessness and a 
 proclivity to shine in every branch of literature. Then 
 contemplate, if you can, such an intellect, such a spirit, 
 and such a frenzy, living in health any considerable 
 number of years without doing much of anything to 
 give exhibition of his talents and powers. 
 
 True, however, it is that for the space of some ten 
 years, from 1597 to 1607, years cotemporaneous with 
 the appearance of "Hamlet" (re- written), "Julius Cae- 
 sar," "King Lear," and "Macbeth," the life of Bacon, 
 if he did not write the Plays, or write or do other things 
 of which we have no record, was a comparative blank. 
 During this period he was holding no public office, was 
 pecuniarily embarrassed, and was twice imprisoned 
 for debt. His high preferments under King James did 
 not begin till 1607. It is also true that previously, from 
 1579 to 1597, during which interval all the earlier Plays 
 took form and name, Bacon was apparently unem- 
 ployed, except as he served briefly in Parliament, was 
 attorney for the crown in some unimportant cases, 
 and prepared his first volume of essays which was 
 published in the latter year, 1597. Any hypothesis 
 that a mind prone to industry, as was his, and so teem- 
 ing with lore and wit, should be comparatively idle 
 in these long intervals would seem grossly absurd. 
 
 James I ascended the throne in 1603, and Bacon 
 as yet had held no public position of note, though 
 
 64 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 forty-two years old, and constantly aspiring to the 
 highest in his profession. To be known as a poet would 
 be against him, for poetry then, whether dramatic or 
 other, was in little favor with princes or the courtiers 
 of princes. Hence Swift's cry — 
 
 "Unjustly poets we asperse." 
 
 Upon the death of Elizabeth John Davies, a courtier, 
 went to Scotland to meet King James, who was about 
 to take the crown of England. To him Bacon addressed 
 a letter, asking kind intercession in his behalf with 
 the king and expressing the hope that he (Davies) 
 would be "good to concealed poets." 
 
 John Aubrey, a friend of Milton, who learned much 
 about Bacon from persons who knew him personally, 
 said "his lordship was a good poet but concealed." 
 Bacon himself a little before his death solemnly averred 
 that he had sought the good of mankind in some works 
 usually "despised," and which therefore he had writ- 
 ten in a "weed," or under a pseudonym. To these 
 works, it is believed, Sir Tobey Matthew referred when 
 he declared the author "the most prodigious wit of 
 all the world, though known by the name of another." 
 
 To Ben Jonson, one of the most ironical of men, to 
 him more perhaps than to any one else, resort is had 
 to prove that Shakespeare was the great poet. He, it is 
 said, gave the characterization, "the sweet bard or 
 swan of Avon." He also, who at one time was Bacon's 
 private secretary, made a list of thirteen of the great 
 men of his time he had known, placing Bacon at the 
 
 65 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 head and styling him "the mark and acme of our 
 
 language," but not including his friend Shakespeare 
 
 in the list. He also, who presumably was in the great 
 
 secret, if secret there was, wrote the epigram on the 
 
 occasion of Bacon's sixtieth birthday, in which occur 
 
 these lines of peculiar significance: — 
 
 " 'T is a brave cause of joy, let it be known. 
 For 'twere a narrow gladness kept thine own." 
 
 He also penned the lines on the page opposite Shake- 
 speare's portrait in the Folio Edition, quoted often as 
 eulogistic, but regarded ;by closer observation as ex- 
 quisite satire : — 
 
 "Oh, could he but have drawn his wit 
 As well in brass as he hath hit 
 His face, the print would then surpass 
 All that was ever writ in brass." 
 
 To detect the satire one must look at the portrait, 
 called by Ingleby "a monstrosity," by Morgan, "a 
 face, with the wooden expression of the Indians used 
 as signs on tobacco stores," and by Grant White "a 
 hard, wooden, staring thing." 
 
 But here is something that is not satire, but bold, 
 indignant indictment, and admittedly it is Jonson's : — 
 
 "Poor poet-ape, that would be thought our chief. 
 Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit. 
 From brokerage is become so bold a thief 
 As we, the robbed, leave rage and pity it. 
 At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean. 
 Buy the reversion of old plays. Now grown 
 To a little wealth and credit in the scene,^ 
 He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own, 
 66 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And told of this, he slights it. Tut! such crimes 
 The sluggish, gaping auditor devours; ' 
 He marks not whose 't was first and after times 
 May judge it to be his as well as ours." 
 
 K Ben Jonson's mental brush did not paint Shake- 
 speare in that picture, will some Shakespearean please 
 name the "poet-ape" he did paint? 
 
 Passing on now, with just a glance only at the mass 
 of other testimony so material to the issue: testimony 
 to the effect that whoever wrote the Plays must have 
 been not only the soul of poetry and a master of dic- 
 tion, but an accompUshed historian, a profound phi- 
 losopher, an adept in statecraft, a lawyer technically 
 exact as well as fully grounded in the principles of 
 law, a physician in point of learning, a hnguist, a bota- 
 nist, and scientist in other lines, a musician in under- 
 standing of the principles of harmony; if not a navi- 
 gator, versed in the art of navigation, apparent from 
 evidence other than an unusual familiarity with nau- 
 tical phrases; if not a courtier, schooled as if from child- 
 hood in the customs, speech and etiquette of the courts 
 of royalty, and a traveller on the continent no shore of 
 which, it is believed, Shakespeare ever touched or saw, 
 if indeed he ever smelt salt water outside the muddy, 
 murky tide of the Thames — to all which requirements 
 the mind and life of Bacon answer in every detail; 
 testimony including also the tell-tale parallelisms, that 
 array of thoughts, phrases and figures of speech found 
 in Bacon's known works and which are so imaged and 
 echoed in the tattling pages of the Plays; including 
 
 67 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 still further certain plaints, hardly less significant, in 
 the letters of Lady Bacon, the marvellous mother, 
 which, if they mean anything, mean a maternal fear 
 that her gifted son was in peril of fame as a dramatist; 
 and including lastly, what should not be lost sight of 
 from first to last, the fact that so odious was the fame 
 of dramatic composition in Shakespeare's time that 
 many a play went on the stage anonymously or in the 
 name of some one other than the true author, and so 
 common was it to attach to a play the name of Shake- 
 speare, who among playwrights had acquired the nick- 
 name of "Jack at all trades," that there came from 
 the same dramatic nest eagles and geese alike; omit- 
 ting discussion of such things which so "thunder in 
 the index," I will relieve your kind patience after a 
 single reflection more that seems too vital to be un- 
 spoken in any treatment of the case. 
 
 In the career of the peerless dramatist — so com- 
 mentators concur in thinking — there must have been 
 some dark period, some harrowing experience, some 
 stroke of calamity, or some profound meditation that 
 cast a lasting shadow over his mental and spiritual 
 life. The dramas, in various passages, some of the trage- 
 dies in their whole tenor, reflect a pervading sorrow 
 and gloom that possessed the soul of the author. We 
 know of no dark period in the life of William Shake- 
 speare. If there was one, no searchlight of all the num- 
 berless torches scholars have lit to search and peer 
 with has found it out. In the "Encyclopedia Britan- 
 
 68 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 nica" thirty -four of its ample pages are devoted to 
 him. Dig out of the mass all that is actually known 
 of the man, put it in decently brief English, and a sin- 
 gle page will contain the whole and hardly embrace a 
 material fact not stated or intimated in this discourse 
 here to-night. All the rest is conjecture, speculation, 
 inference, guess-work, fancy, impertinent pedantry, 
 and sheer rhetoric to disguise the distressing silence 
 of history. To make out the necessary "dark period" 
 to identify the man of whom so little is known with 
 the authorship ascribed to him, a speculative writer, 
 in a flutter of fancy, theorizes that Shakespeare must 
 have been bowed with depression by ''jear that genu- 
 ine poetry and the deep seriousness of the Christian view 
 oj life were about to be banished from the age" — an idea 
 so far-fetched and, in view of his mental and moral 
 character inferable from his business and divers acts 
 of his narrowness and venality, so vacuous, that no- 
 thing at last is wanting to mark the one step from the 
 sublime to the ridiculous. 
 
 But it is a matter of indubitable history that there 
 was a dark period in the life of Francis Bacon. We 
 know who and what he was. We know the heavy shock 
 that came to him in the execution of his former bene- 
 factor, the Earl of Essex, to which he himself, alas! 
 had contributed; of the fear of assassination that 
 haunted him by reason of that unhappy event; of the 
 death of his only and most beloved brother caused 
 thereby; of the anguish he endured in the hopeless 
 
 69 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 insanity of his revered mother. Here indeed was dark- 
 ness that might well inspire such dark, tragic concep- 
 tions as startle us in " Othello," " Macbeth " and "Lear," 
 tragedies, all creations after the taking off of Essex 
 and its train of woe. 
 
 Then we know of that other and more sorrowful 
 chapter of darkness in his career — how he of the colos- 
 sal intellect and vast acquirements — of the large and 
 tender heart — of the nature so sensitive as to be af- 
 fected by the slightest alterations of the atmosphere — 
 how he aspired to the utmost heights of fame and did 
 scale the arduous pathway till he reached a summit of 
 renown that placed him indisputably above all competi- 
 tors and contemporaries, where he "trod the ways of 
 glory and sounded all the depths and shoals of honor." 
 And then this man of proud spirit and matchless erudi- 
 tion and lofty official station, with all the dignity of 
 the woolsack, fell ! 
 
 How the great jurist, statesman and philosopher 
 writhed and sorrowed in his prostration — how the 
 penalties imposed for his fault were speedily remitted 
 — how friends who knew the nobility of his soul and 
 all the extenuating circumstances of the time and the 
 occasion could easily, upon reflection, excuse the in- 
 firmity that cut him down, but how neither the re- 
 mission of judicial penalty nor the sympathy of a 
 kingdom, nor the bounty of the crown nor the remem- 
 brance of his mighty accomplishments in the august 
 cause of learning and letters could restore the con- 
 
 70 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 scious spirit to its accustomed pride and bearing, what 
 
 though the catastrophe itself was powerless to abate 
 
 one whit his amazing intellectual vigor and activity, 
 
 so true of him it was in his retirement, — 
 
 "Though fortune's malice overthrow my state. 
 My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel," — 
 
 all this is of the story of Francis Bacon, 
 
 To him, whether it was penned before or after his 
 fall, — afterward, so the evidence points, — who had 
 so measured the ups and downs of human vicissitude, 
 whose capacity was so adequate to the portrayal alike 
 of glory and shame, whose eloquence was such, saith 
 Jonson, that, being heard, the hearer feared lest he 
 should make an end — to him no stretch of credulity 
 is required if we assign that consummate burst of ex- 
 altation and lament — the immortal speech of Wolsey. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE DEDICATION OF THE THAYER 
 MEMORIAL LIBRARY BUILDING IN UX- 
 BRIDGE, MASS., JUNE 20, 1894 
 
 This should be and assuredly is a joyous day in the 
 history of the town. A public want has been supplied. 
 What they have needed long and sorely craved, the 
 people of Uxbridge now have in full, ample measure 
 — a suitable and beautiful habitation for their library. 
 Convenient in location, elegant not less than sub- 
 stantial in construction, commodious in all its appoint- 
 ments, tasteful and happy in its surroundings, the 
 building is at once an ornament to the town and a 
 benefaction to all its inhabitants. 
 
 We are assembled in grateful recognition of the gift 
 to us of this fair edifice. Let us hope that our pride 
 in it is, and is to be, equalled only by gratitude to the 
 giver. Him, out of much fullness of heart, we this day 
 thank and honor not for ourselves alone; but looking 
 forward and down the line of time we fain would 
 speak the thankful emotions of the unborn whose 
 privilege it may be in the advancing tide of years to 
 frequent the place and grow familiar with its apart- 
 ments, while gleaning of the knowledge stored within 
 its walls. 
 
 72 
 
THAYER MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
 
 The giver has built for himself a monument, and in 
 wisdom built it. Greatly we felicitate ourselves on 
 this act of his munificence. May we not also congratu- 
 late the benefactor that, having the ability, he has had 
 the rarity of mind to erect such a memorial — a 
 memorial more enduring to his memory than shaft of 
 marble or bronze, because it is a deed done in the field 
 of public enterprise and public good, and registered 
 where every day the people of his native town will 
 turn the leaf to read it. Fortunate, doubly fortunate 
 among men are they who in the clear sky -light of their 
 life-time use their possessions to upbuild and prosper 
 the community — who are not content simply to have 
 their works live after them, but prefer both to live and 
 die in the presence of some noble, far-reaching action 
 whose mission is to alleviate and elevate mankind. 
 
 Donations of a public nature there sometimes are, 
 questionable as to propriety or merit of the object, or 
 if the end in view be faultless, the gift itself, hampered 
 by restrictions, becomes a source of controversy in the 
 neighborhood and the benefit is less than the vexation. 
 Not so with the donation accepted here to-day. While 
 the object of it is far above criticism, the transfer of 
 the estate, unhedged by subtile and petty conditions, 
 is as absolute as utility requires. We, the people of 
 Uxbridge, by grace of the donor, unfettered by em- 
 barrassing reservations, own and possess this comely 
 edifice, ample in space, admirable in arrangements, for 
 all the practical and polite purposes of a free public 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 library. How much that declaration means for the 
 welfare of the town, means for the adult population, 
 for its youth, for its schools! Not a school-house but 
 is handsomer to the eye by reflection of the material 
 beauty of this structure; not a school but is to be better 
 directed on its educational pathway and upborne to a 
 clearer apprehension of the significance of books by 
 reason of the appropriateness of the library home; for 
 the human mind is so touched, turned and tempered 
 by the external fitness of things, that where the fitness 
 does not prevail there is ever a waste of mental force 
 in warring with incongruities of the situation. A good 
 library is a blessing though housed in a hovel. That 
 its power to bless is quite in ratio to the conveniences 
 and niceties of its abode would seem self-evident. 
 
 The library of the town now comprises, as nearly as 
 count may determine, 6750 volumes. Established in 
 April, 1874, with some 650 books as a nucleus, the con- 
 tribution of the Agricultural and Social Library Asso- 
 ciations and individuals, it has steadily grown to its 
 present proportions, and the record of the librarian 
 shows that the popular appreciation of it has been 
 commensurate with the growth. Throughout the 
 twenty years of its existence the library has had an 
 earnest, intelligent and discriminating friend in the 
 Hon. C. A. Wheelock, who has given much time and 
 taken great pains not only in the selection of books, 
 but in the cataloguing of them, which in itself is an art. 
 The town is under special obligations to Mr. Wheelock 
 
 74 
 
THAYER MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
 
 for his devotion in this field of labor. Nor should we 
 omit kindly mention of those who for many years were 
 his considerate and faithful associates in the work — 
 Messrs. Macomber, Capron, Taft, Thayer, Slater and 
 Sprague. Others who have come later into the service 
 have given evidence that they are not unmindful of the 
 responsibility of their high office — the trusteeship 
 of a free public library. 
 
 It may be safely remarked that as compared with 
 other public libraries of similar size ours is as free as 
 any of objedional books. By this expression is not here 
 meant books of immoral tone or tendency. Against the 
 introduction of such into a public library we should 
 feel assured that the sentiment of New England, if not 
 of American society in general, erects an all sufficient 
 barrier. Objectionable books others than those of 
 immoral argument, purpose or spirit there are very 
 many, and of making them there would seem to be no 
 end. Grant that they do not litter the earth, it is 
 literal truth that they are to be seen in alarming heaps 
 at stores and stations, while there is no train or steamer 
 or summer- side where their voice is not heard. So 
 extraordinary their prevalence that it baffles calcula- 
 tion how an industrious press contrives to turn out the 
 amazing superabundance, and the wonder grows as we 
 essay to conceive whence cometh and where campeth 
 the army of scribblers who reel off the trash. Where 
 do they live? How do they look? What is their faith? 
 Under what stars were they born? We never seem to 
 
 75 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 know personally any of them. Everybody looks inno- 
 cent enough. In face, form, voice and walk, if not in 
 conversation, people appear about as they were in the 
 dear old days of the fathers. Outwardly there is not 
 much racial change; yet is there an incredible percent- 
 age of the human kind whose inhuman pursuit is to 
 generate volumes in the similitude of books in flagrant 
 distortion of all the accepted attributes of both man 
 and woman, and patrons of the preposterous craft are 
 so legion in name as to swell demand for an ever- 
 increasing supply of the rubbish. Newspapers con- 
 spire with booklets, and magazinelets with picturism, 
 to blizzard and cyclone the realm of mental endeavor. 
 Peace of mind is found only in headlong escape from 
 the bewildering chatter of noveleers and frantic wood- 
 cut appeals to fatigued humanity. With such a surging 
 deluge of pale ink and print to match the flood, vitiat- 
 ing to intellect, corruptive of taste, enervating to 
 mental and as well to the moral faculties, the task of a 
 discreet selection of books for intellectual development 
 and elevation grows more and more arduous. To 
 measure the difficulties of a committee in their toil to 
 enrich a library by enlarging it one has but to recall 
 his own perplexity when he would buy a new book and 
 good for himself or a friend. What to buy? What to 
 read? The problem, though not recent for solution, 
 waxes harder and harder to solve. To read a book all 
 through before buying, besides being a breach of good 
 manners, is sometimes inconvenient. To return it to 
 
 76 
 
THAYER MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
 
 the vender when found worthless after purchase, would 
 still keep the article cumbering the earth even if the 
 purchase money were restored. A perilous thing it has 
 come to be to buy a book, unless it be safe to take the 
 word of the genial book-agent who calls now and then 
 to assure you that the indispensable publication of the 
 age is forthcoming to illumine your home with a great 
 and perpetual light. Quoth Byron: — 
 
 A book's a book although there's nothing in't. 
 
 The great bard's jest appears to have been taken in 
 dead earnest, 
 
 I am not contending that books are not produced 
 now, as good as there have been in generations recent 
 or in the long, long ago. In press or manuscript, or 
 taking shape in human thought to-day, are doubtless 
 classics of the future equal in a general way to the 
 famed works of ancient or modern authors, whether 
 in the domain of history, philosophy, science, fiction 
 or poetry. A sorry reflection on our civilization it 
 would be to admit, in view of all our lore in literature 
 and art derived from the remote past, the unspent and 
 unspendable legacies of Rome, Greece, Palestine and 
 the land of Confucius, and gathered in larger volume 
 from the fields of bountiful culture since Tacitus and 
 Pliny wrote, Hortensius and Pericles spoke, Socrates 
 and Aristotle thought, and Isaiah and Homer sang, and 
 in further view of our greater opportunities, better 
 than ever before, for education, for enlargement of 
 understanding and for the triumphs of intellect — so 
 
 77 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 equipped to admit that we were not producing authors 
 the equals alike of the ancients and their rivals whose 
 names star the firmament of the world of modern let- 
 ters. As much now as ever, more now than ever, we 
 ought to be able to believe that there are Bacons and 
 Newtons, Lockes and Gibbons climbing into incon- 
 testable fame; Macaulays, Bancrofts, Irvings and 
 Prescotts; Miltons, Byrons, Bryants and WTiittiers; 
 Carlyles and Emersons; Scotts and Goldsmiths; Thack- 
 erays, Eliots and Hawthornes. Solid wheat enough is 
 pouring from the press, the product of living men and 
 living women. We are far from famine. Famish we 
 need not. Our danger is seK-destruction in devouring 
 chaff. Against this peril they may do much who have 
 in charge our free public hbraries. Old and young alike 
 are apt to read first and most what books they may, 
 without money and without price.Let them find noth- 
 ing in the free library that cannot be read with profit, 
 that will not improve taste, nurture a pure and rugged 
 sentiment, kindle lofty aspirations, and inspire the 
 imagination to body forth in healthful strain the 
 forms of things unknown. A library so guarded and 
 free is a fountain-source of infinite joy and advantage 
 to a people whose possession it chances to be. Then in 
 the right sense of the phrase it is a collection of books 
 of such sort as Wordsworth celebrates : — 
 
 a substantial world, both pure and good: 
 
 Round these with tendrils strong as flesh and blood 
 Ouj pastime and our happiness may grow; ' 
 
 78 
 
THAYER MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
 
 Within whose silent chamber treasure lies. 
 Preserved from age to age, more precious far 
 Than that accumulated store of gold 
 And orient gems, which for a day of need, 
 The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs. 
 
 Another thought is due to the hour. While it is of 
 signal importance that we read only good books, it is 
 to the last degree desirable that we do not undertake 
 the reading of too many. In the old Greek apothegm, 
 " beware of the man of one book," nestles a lot of fine 
 sense. If one aim to shine, whether in public or social 
 life, he will in the measure of his natural ability be apt 
 to figure to more purpose if, instead of tasting a thou- 
 sand, he has grasped the contents of a few sterling 
 books. Instances enough go to show how true is this 
 remark. Perhaps the most notable one in all history 
 is that of Abraham Lincoln, who, though he had hardly 
 read more miscellaneous books in number than the 
 years of his life, had yet read so much that he was of 
 surpassing intelligence, of profound wisdom, and at 
 times so elegant in his diction that some of his utter- 
 ances are the marvel of scholarship. The explanation 
 of the phenomenon, if phenomenon it be, is that most 
 books are but reflections of others, insomuch that who- 
 ever has fairly mastered an author of repute in one 
 branch of literature little needs to touch other authors 
 in the same line. Comparatively speaking, the multi- 
 tude of ideas is, after all, not large. Of variations of 
 ideas there is an infinitude, but the variations do not 
 change the thought. Simply they modify it, and how 
 
 79 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 often without bettering it and how often too without 
 inciting thought in the reader. One of the ablest of 
 American jurists, who however had no special repu- 
 tation for scholarship in jurisprudence, said that he 
 could guess pretty well what the law was or ought to be 
 in a case from what he knew of law in general; and so 
 habitually did he guess pretty well that his opinions 
 were rarely set aside. He had grounded himself by 
 mastery of the standard text-books and leading deci- 
 sions. In like manner many others touch bottom in 
 other departments of literature. 
 
 Observe too, if you will, the mania both to write and 
 read new books on old subjects, though often they 
 shed no fresh light thereon, none save as the author 
 may embellish his theme by drawing on his imagina- 
 tion. A striking illustration we have of this in the score 
 of biographies written, and of course read, of the 
 Saviour — He who spake as never man spake. A life 
 of Christ swelled to two considerable volumes was 
 written by Ward Beecher, yet did the genius frankly 
 admit that the only story to be told was all in the Gos- 
 pels. The pamphlet of Thomas Paine, called " Common 
 Sense," published on the eve of the Revolution and 
 productive of such effect as to win for its author the 
 appellation of " Hero Author of American Independ- 
 ence," contains about all there is to be said in favor 
 of republican form of government as distinguished 
 from monarchy. Nobody in a hundred and twenty 
 years has eclipsed the Common Sense that fired the 
 
 80 
 
THAYER MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
 
 souls and illuminated the understandings of the sol- 
 diers and statesmen of the Revolution. It is a joy for- 
 ever to get at and into a book that is a nut full of meat. 
 Rufus Choate, himself a prince of book-worms, ex- 
 claimed to a friend: "Read Burke, he knew every- 
 thing!" The advice was at once an exaggeration and 
 a confession of one who had roamed through the uni- 
 verse of letters. Exaggeration, yet how laden with 
 truth; for in the Burkes as in the Shakespeares we have 
 near all ideas in action; master-hand touches on near 
 all subjects, and medicine that medicines the mind 
 into wholesome aversion for the things that do not 
 stimulate it. It would thus appear that, if we make the 
 right selection of books and exhaustively use them, 
 we shall read not less, but more, because more thereby 
 is the gain of knowledge. 
 
 Far from my desire is it to say aught to abate the 
 zeal for book-reading. Something, if possible, I would 
 say to keen the edge of discrimination, to the end that 
 loose, flimsy, sensational catch-penny publications be 
 slighted, as we slight offensive people — shoved off 
 the shelves if they have place thereon, and if they have 
 not, excluded. This be our thought to take home here 
 and now for a guidance in the vast field of mental and 
 moral culture — just in proportion as we cultivate 
 taste for the better literature, choose and hold fast to 
 the best authors in history, philosophy, political 
 economy, theology, ethics, fiction and the poetry that 
 touches the passions but to ennoble the soul, shall we 
 
 81 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 create demand for pithy and high-toned literary pro- 
 ductions, and the supply will equal the demand. 
 Writers write for the market. Elevate the tone of the 
 market and the tone of authorship will rise to the level 
 of the mart. 
 
 To such a lofty labor of love the edifice we dedicate 
 invites those who have control of the free public library 
 that is to be stored and treasured in it. Along with the 
 dedication of the building let the literary servants of 
 the town dedicate themselves to a still nobler service. 
 Expectation of results, while not unreasonable, should 
 yet run high even as it is a high trust to be charged 
 with — the shaping of the character, the mission, and 
 the wide-spreading influence of this institution whose 
 future weal at this hour so holds place in our mind and 
 meditation. For a faithful stewardship in guarding 
 and uplifting it to be an unmistakable light and benefi- 
 cence in the community, the praises of the living shall 
 reward the doers of so great a work, nor less shall the 
 on-coming generations contemplate their action and 
 hold their names, together with the honored name 
 inscribed over the portal of the Memorial Building, 
 in lasting, grateful remembrance. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE SERVICES IN 
 MEMORY OF GENERAL GRANT, HELD AT 
 UXBRIDGE, MASS., AUGUST 8, 1885 
 
 In the early hours of the great war for the Union of 
 the States, a brief letter was addressed to the War 
 Department of the imperiled government, tendering 
 the writer's service as a soldier. The letter was not 
 answered, and, after diligent search, is nowhere to be 
 found among the papers of the war oflBce. Presumably 
 it was read and tossed into the waste-basket. The 
 hand that wrote the letter was the same that four years 
 later indited the memorable message to General Lee, 
 suggesting the avoidance of further effusion of blood 
 by the surrender of the insurgent army, then battling, 
 as for years it had battled, in defence of the Capital 
 of the Confederacy. The writer was Ulysses S. Grant, 
 late the chief of the armies of the Union, and President 
 of the Republic preserved by their valor, whose death 
 has draped the land in mourning and bowed the hearts 
 of all the people in a common sorrow. It is, therefore, 
 fit that we should suspend our avocations for the day 
 and join in the universal expression of respect for the 
 memory of the departed chieftain and chief magistrate. 
 We pause at his grave to pay the homage of hearts 
 
 83 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 deeply grateful for a career so illustrious and indis- 
 solubly blended with the weal of the country. 
 
 The story of his life is a great history. It is to be 
 found in many volumes already written, and is to be 
 read in many more yet to be penned by the future 
 scribe in the clearer light of succeeding time. Here and 
 now we can but glance at the story so touching that it 
 thrills with reverent joy every home, and so grand that 
 it elevates and inspires every nation. 
 
 In a little house still standing in the little Ohio town 
 of Point Pleasant, and for the possession of which, as 
 a notable relic, several states are now competing, the 
 boy whose baptismal name was Hiram Ulysses, was 
 born April 27, 1822. The youth showed no sign of 
 aptness for war, unless in his coolness as a mere child, 
 firing a pistol, and his mastery in riding a horse. "Of 
 all the possible futures I ever dreamed of when a boy, 
 being a soldier was not among them," said the hero 
 not long ago. But it happened to him at seventeen 
 to be appointed to a cadetship at West Point, and in 
 the matriculation accident changed his name. The 
 initials, H. U., were symbolized into U. S. Grant. 
 
 At the school, save as he distanced all cadets in 
 horsemanship, he made no mark of military promise. 
 In a class of over a hundred he '' never succeeded in 
 getting very near either the bead or the foot." " I 
 graduated," such his words, '' as No. 21, and was glad 
 to get it." 
 
 Then, as of course, he became a lieutenant of the 
 84 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 army, and as such served through the Mexican War 
 and, except Buena Vista, fought in every battle of it. 
 He there gained no noisy note, but showed the stuff 
 he was made of. Throughout his Mexican service the 
 Grant of Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, 
 Appomattox, is easily traceable in the later light of 
 those exploits. An anecdote told by Zachary Taylor 
 is illustrative : The lieutenant was in charge of a party 
 of men detailed to clear the way for the advance of 
 boats laden with troops. Unable to make his men 
 understand by words how to do their work, he jumped 
 into the water up to his waist and took hold with his 
 own hands. Some foppish officers, looking on, began 
 to jeer at his zeal, when General Taylor, " Old Rough 
 and Ready," came upon the scene and thus silenced 
 their raillery: "7 wish I had more officers like Grant" 
 
 Of army life the lieutenant, at length a captain, grew 
 weary. Little was the charm of it after his marriage 
 to Julia Dent, now the widowed and honored mother 
 of his children, and so he withdrew from the service 
 and became a farmer and then a tanner, and a tanner 
 he was along with his father at Galena when the bloody 
 waves of the rebellion began to break. He remembered 
 that he was educated at the government's expense and 
 owed the government a duty, but the offer of his ser- 
 vice at Washington was unnoticed, and the Governor 
 of his State also heeded not his application. "Forty 
 applicants I have," said the Governor, "to one place 
 to give." Yet had this modest West Pointer, whose 
 
 85 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 patriot hand was thus extended and spurned, at that 
 very time written a private letter which, in judgment 
 and prescience, displayed a grasp of the national sit- 
 uation, outrunning all contemporaneous calculations 
 and forecastings. One man there was in Illinois, Elihu 
 B. Washburne, glory be to his name ! who knew enough 
 to know that there was a great hope bound up in this 
 unpretentious ex-captain of Galena, and he had influ- 
 ence enough to start the willing patriot at the head of 
 an Illinois regiment, albeit the coy colonel questioned 
 himself whether he knew enough to command a regi- 
 ment. 
 
 Then began that career which the world celebrates. 
 Then into the texture of the Army of the West was 
 steadily woven that combination thread of skill, cour- 
 age and character which was to strengthen it for the 
 rising emergencies. 
 
 First of note among the exploits of the soldier, who 
 was now in action, was the feat at Belmont, where he 
 dispersed a camp of secessionists plotting to rebelize 
 Missouri. This and his movements immediately sub- 
 sequent, together with his earlier sally at Paducah, 
 were of timely moment. They operated to hold the 
 Ohio River and keep Kentucky in the Union. When 
 Fort Henry had succumbed to Commodore Foote, 
 Grant, then a brigadier, moved, with inferior numbers, 
 against Fort Donelson, the key to Nashville. After 
 three days of hard fighting, followed by a vigorous 
 assault, he demanded of Buckner, his old schoolmate 
 
 86 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 and this day one of his pall-bearers, the " unconditional 
 surrender." The surrender ensued. — This was the 
 first considerable success of the war. It wired in thun- 
 der-tones the victor's name to Washington and brought 
 him a major general's commission. Aided by the cap- 
 ture of Fort Henry, it opened the Cumberland and 
 Tennessee rivers. It was a bracing influence every- 
 where. Then came the hot battle of Shiloh, where the 
 Union force, whatever the dispute as to the details of 
 the contest, was left in possession of the field. Farra- 
 gut had thundered up from the Delta and passed New 
 Orleans, and Grant now pushed southward to meet 
 him and open the Mississippi. The stronghold of 
 Vicksburg stood a bristling mountain in his pathway, 
 but his daring and strategy were equal to its subjuga- 
 tion. Six times, in six different ways, it is said, he tried 
 his hand without avail. His seventh plan was so pene- 
 trating and intrepid that feebler minds trembled for 
 his judgment; but the plan was right, and on July 4, 
 1863, the country was electrified by the news that that 
 gigantic fortress had fallen, and presently thereafter 
 the great river ran un vexed to the sea. It is enough 
 to say of that siege and capture what Admiral Porter, 
 who commanded the fleet, will say of it in his forth- 
 coming work: — 
 
 "If General Grant had never performed any other 
 military act during the war, the capture of Vicksburg 
 alone would have entitled him to the highest renown. 
 He had an enemy to deal with of twice his force, an 
 
 87 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 protected by defences never surpassed in the art of 
 war. I saw myself the great strongholds at Sevastopol, 
 of the Malakoff tower and the Redan the day after they 
 were taken by a combined army of 120,000 men, and 
 these strongholds, which have become famous in bal- 
 lads and story, never in any way compared with the 
 defences of Vicksburg, which looked as if a thousand 
 Titans had been put to work to make those heights 
 unassailable." 
 
 The fall of Vicksburg severed the Confederacy. It 
 placed the hero at the head of the armies of the West 
 and the cry came from every quarter, Place him at the 
 head of the armies of the Union. It was done, and the 
 tanner of Galena, who in 1861 could not get his letter 
 answered, was in 1864 Lieutenant General of the 
 United States. Then he came East to take the reins 
 of the splendid Army of the Potomac. But he came 
 fighting his way. His passage eastward was a march of 
 war which, for prowess in arms, has but few parallels 
 in history. The campaign of Chickamauga, the battles 
 of Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, 
 — " Hooker's fight above the clouds," — these were 
 the later heralds of his approach from the West. The 
 Army of the Potomac! Splendid it was in material 
 and discipline, and emphatic was the victory it had 
 achieved under Meade, simultaneously with the blow 
 at Vicksburg; but until Grant appeared in Washington, 
 where for the first time after three years of war he 
 took the hand of President Lincoln, the armies East 
 
 88 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 and West had, to use his own expression, "pulled like 
 a balky team." It was his mission, as it also proved 
 his genius, to inspire them by a single will to move and 
 act in concert and unison. To this end it was much in 
 his favor that he had gained so much of the public 
 confidence; but the public mind had become so fevered 
 and impatient by reverses and disappointments here 
 and there under so many generals, that the fund of 
 confidence would speedily have been exhausted but 
 for the ability and constancy of a leader to keep the 
 supply up even with the demand. Altogether, com- 
 mander never assumed supreme command under 
 graver circumstances. Thousands of families that had 
 given of their sons were feeling sore, and thousands 
 more that had sons to bleed were growing restless. 
 Recruiting was dull. The sound of draft grated on the 
 ear. Political opposition was taking advantage of the 
 despondency to embarrass the administration and dis- 
 hearten the army. On every hand was heard the mut- 
 tering which a few months later broke out in the 
 declaration that the war was a failure. 
 
 Under such circumstances Grant entered the Wilder- 
 ness to face Lee's army and fight, pursuant to his plan, 
 the only feasible plan, to "pound away," and pound 
 the rebellion down. Of necessity the carnage was 
 awful, and against this fighting general the cry was 
 raised of " Butcher! butcher! " But he heeded not the 
 taunt, he reeled not back toward Washington; he 
 pushed steadily toward Richmond, and, though when 
 
 89 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 he reached the James he had lost forty thousand men 
 in killed, wounded and missing, he was there to stay. 
 He was there to fight it out on that line if it took all sum- 
 mer. It took all summer and more too; but when, in the 
 execution of his far-seeing plan, he had started the 
 gallant Sherman careering to the sea and had sent the 
 winged Sheridan to keep rebels busy elsewhere, he 
 laid his iron hand on the throat of the Confederacy, 
 and Richmond fell. The surrender of Lee! Who that 
 was living to hear that news, as with the wings of 
 lightning it flew on a thousand wires, will ever forget 
 the effect of it? Then the weary country drew a long 
 breath of relief. Then was Grant's fame fixed as a star 
 in the firmament of martial achievement. One thing 
 only remained to complete it as eclipsing all heroism 
 in warfare — magnanimity to the fallen foe. 
 
 This he had the soul to exercise in such measure as 
 conqueror never measured out before. To most people 
 at the North it was distasteful then. So cruel was the 
 war they had been called to wage purely in defence 
 of civil liberty, so reckless had been the insurgents in 
 their prolonged efforts to pull down the pillars of 
 republican government, so heartless had been their 
 treatment of the federal prisoners, that it seemed to 
 the mass of loyal people hardly other than inhuman 
 to treat such a foe as human. But General Grant saw 
 the future in the instant. Nobody questions now the 
 wisdom of his moderation, but what a sagacity of mind 
 and serenity of soul it required to rise above the heat 
 
 90 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 and passion of the hour and resist the clamors of the 
 victorious host of the field and the exultant multitude 
 of the land! 
 
 It is to be observed — what is not generally remem- 
 bered — that when his officers, in the flush of their 
 excitement over the glad event of Appomattox, began 
 to thunder with their artillery in signalization of the 
 triumph, the commander bade silence to their guns. 
 He thought that the enemy, who were yet to be 
 countrymen, should not thus be further humiliated. 
 As for the conqueror himself, he cared so little for the 
 appearance of triumph that he went not into Rich- 
 mond nor even crossed over the lines he had so battled 
 to break through. 
 
 The time was now ripe for a farewell order to the 
 armies. In it the Lieutenant General thus eloquently 
 spoke: — 
 
 "Victory has crowned your valor and secured the 
 purpose of your patriotic hearts, and with the grati- 
 tude of your countrymen and the highest honors a 
 great and free nation can accord, you will soon be 
 permitted to return to your homes and families, con- 
 scious of having discharged the highest duty of Ameri- 
 can citizens. To achieve these glorious triumphs and 
 secure to yourselves, fellow-countrymen, and posterity 
 the blessings of free institutions, tens of thousands 
 of your gallant comrades have fallen and sealed the 
 priceless legacy with their blood. The graves of these 
 a grateful nation bedews with tears, honors their 
 
 91 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 memories, and will ever cherish and support their 
 stricken families." 
 
 Straightway the commander began to muster out 
 the troops that they might return to their homes. By 
 November 15, 1865, he had sent home 800,963 men. 
 The number was monthly increased until 1,023,021 
 had received their discharge. — As a crowning appre- 
 ciation of his services Congress revived the grade of 
 General, and to that high office the hero of many 
 fields was duly appointed. 
 
 The assassination of Lincoln, while yet the pseans 
 of victory were filling all the air, had rendered critical 
 in the extreme the whole situation. How much we were 
 indebted in those anxious days to the cool head of 
 Grant in steadying the ship of state and keeping her 
 off the breakers we have always understood somewhat, 
 but the secret is growing an open one that TN^ithout 
 Grant, while the recalcitrant Johnson was forgetting 
 his loyalty, there might, probably would, have been 
 a revolt more fearful than that which at such a cost 
 of blood and treasure had been subdued. If this view 
 be correct, how immensely it adds to the debt of grati- 
 tude which the country owes to the patriot whose life- 
 less form the solemn procession to-day follows to the 
 grave! With such a contingency unknown and un- 
 thought of, no wonder that intelligent freemen, looking 
 the action of the great soldier all over, from the sur- 
 render of Buckner to the surrender of Lee, called him 
 to the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. If such was 
 
 92 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 the contingency and Grant was the patriot averting 
 the catastrophe, should we not at this day lament if 
 so great a servant had not been elevated to the presi- 
 dency? Nor is there, indeed, aught to regret in him 
 as president, if we marshal his brave acts and good and 
 place them beside his little faults, every one of which 
 leaned always to virtue's side. His plain, unosten- 
 tatious bearing, matching the democratic idea, his 
 integrity which enmity itself could not impeach, the 
 clearness of his apprehension touching the grave ques- 
 tions of finance, his sturdy resolution in asserting his 
 convictions to stay financial disaster, the jealousy of 
 his regard for the public credit, the stand he took, firm 
 as a rock, against repudiation, his policy of justice and 
 fair play for the freedmen, his advanced views regard- 
 ing reforms of the civil service and his efforts to give 
 them effect, the common sense which pervaded all his 
 messages and handled our foreign relations in such tem- 
 per and such quiet dignity as to keep us as a people 
 high in the esteem of the world — these are things 
 which make his administration for eight years of the 
 national government memorably honorable. 
 
 If we come to some estimate of the man as finding 
 a place for him on the scale of greatness, it is quite 
 impossible to find it by comparison with others who 
 have figured largely on the stage of human action. 
 He was Grant. Though there were heroes before Aga- 
 memnon, there was never a Grant before the composed 
 and self-reliant person as we now see him, from the 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNA^I 
 
 time of his graduation as a cadet to the hour when he 
 closed his eyes at Mount McGregor. 
 
 As a soldier he was unique. So naturally and un- 
 fussingly he did his work that critics, even while his 
 performances were challenging world-wide attention, 
 shrank from ranking him among great captains. The 
 simplicity of his manner, the non-parade of his action, 
 and the remarkable ease with which he bore his ^^cto- 
 ries staggered military criticism at first. Not till the 
 historian Motley made his speech in the political can- 
 vass of 1868 was there applied to him the word genius. 
 Motley applied it boldly. Then others, as they thought 
 over his accomplishments, began to feel, though 
 hardly to say, that possibly there might be genius in 
 such consummations. If they said so, they were quite 
 sure to exclude him from the niche of the world-famous 
 warriors. Up to the time of Grant, leadership in arms 
 had so far been identical with vaulting ambition that 
 judgment near forsook its seat when a leader appeared 
 whose only ambition was to serve his country in the 
 role of an honest countryman. Grant could not be 
 a Caesar in war, 'twas thought, because he showed 
 otherwise no signs of Caesarism. The pretence that he 
 was Csesarly inclined was the effect, not of his likeness 
 to the spirit of the Roman, but of his achievements, 
 which were of such Roman magnitude. Gambetta, 
 however, viewing his exploits from afar and vrith the 
 disinterested eye of genius, pronounced Grant's mili- 
 tary career the most brilliant since the days of Napoleon. 
 
 94 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 He said he even surpassed the great French captain 
 in this — that he never failed. Welhngton drove 
 Napoleon from Waterloo; the ill-armed Teutons of the 
 Rhine drove back the splendidly-equipped Romans 
 under Julius Ciesar, fresh from the battles of the trium- 
 virate; Xerxes failed in his expedition against Greece, 
 and Alexander's successes, as well as his reverses, were 
 against armies for the most part inferior to his own. 
 But General Grant met his equals in intelligence and 
 military skill, and, if he was hard pressed at one or two 
 places, notably at Pittsburg Landing and Cold Harbor, 
 it was the enemy and not he who ultimately retreated. 
 "Moreover," says the same authority, "no other gen- 
 eral known to history ever commanded such large 
 armies for an equal period of time with success." 
 
 But, though so mighty a man of war, he was emi- 
 nently a man of peace. It has been said, doubtless 
 truly, that no soldier of the army was gladder than the 
 Lieutenant General when the war was over. War he 
 did not like — he liked neither the business nor the 
 pomp and circumstance of it. In England, one of the 
 highest honors that can be accorded a foreigner is to 
 tender him a review of the regular troops. This honor 
 was tendered Grant. Respectfully he declined it, and 
 then to his near friends who were with him he said: 
 "I have seen enough of soldiers." WTiat could be 
 more impressive of lofty republican citizenship than 
 the promptness with which, after the surrender, he 
 sheathed his sword and proceeded to muster out of the 
 
 95 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 service a million soldiers that they might do what he 
 aimed to have the defeated Confederates do by his 
 parole of them — go home and beat their spears into 
 pruning-hooks ! How too, as pointing the nobility of 
 the chieftain, came from him like a benediction upon 
 all the people that great speech of four words — ''Let 
 us have 'peace." 
 
 Thus was he, after as well as during the strife, the 
 precise man for the surpassing occasion. — True it is 
 that every considerable crisis in national life is apt to 
 bring along the right person to head and control it. 
 We never tire of referring to the instances. Cromwell 
 in England, Napoleon in France, Garibaldi in Italy, 
 Washington in the uncertain struggle of the Revolu- 
 tion, Lincoln at the helm in the storm of the Rebellion. 
 These are the more familiar "providences " of modern 
 times. Yet looking the list all over, however long it 
 may be made, there seems no instance more signal of 
 one suited and proportioned to a complex emergency 
 than that of Grant, rising out of obscurity and going 
 majestically up to the head of the embattled legions 
 which he finally led to the grandest of all victories. 
 How easy to see that we might have had given us the 
 man to achieve the victory, and then have soiled his 
 name by not knowing how to use it. How easy to see 
 that we might have had the successful warrior, but so 
 inflamed by success and unbalanced by ambition as to 
 rock from its base the very Republic his arm had saved. 
 How easy to see that, if neither of these evils had 
 
 96 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 ensued, the laureled victor might otherwise have 
 clouded his reputation and his fame not have been an 
 inheritance to treasure. Such was not Grant. Great 
 as he was in planning the campaign and waging the 
 battle, he was greater still when the battle was over 
 and the enemy was at his feet. Much as he showed in 
 the highest positions alike military and civil, his man- 
 hood was yet more sublime as the simple citizen, 
 travelling around the globe, showered by all the hon- 
 ors the potentates of the earth could bestow, and carry- 
 ing himself with such poise among kings abroad and 
 his countrymen at home that envy itself could not but 
 joy in the lustre of his name. Still more — supreme 
 as he was as soldier, excellent as he was as magistrate, 
 admirable as he was as citizen, it was yet reserved that 
 he should evoke the applause of all beholders as the 
 hero at the door of death, wonderful in patience under 
 the tortures of disease, and resolutely toiling on to the 
 last in thoughtful provision for the beloved family he 
 was to leave behind. 
 
 Such qualities well considered, who shall deny him 
 the title to greatness in the broadest sense of the word? 
 Who shall say that the Richmond Dispatch, however 
 belated the tribute, overstates what will be the voice 
 of posterity? that journal, once so hostile, whose words 
 are: "He is not only one of the immortals, but he is 
 one of them by right. He was so pervaded by greatness 
 that he seemed not to be conscious that he was great. 
 He was magnanimous, modest, faithful to his friends, 
 
 97 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 just to all men so far as his surroundings permitted, 
 above simulation and dissimulation, self-poised and 
 equal to every occasion." 
 
 Here is testimony, emphatic and quite conclusive, 
 that the conqueror of an insurgent people in arms, the 
 most difficult to placate, conquered also the hostile 
 hearts. Of Christian mould this victor ! In the glowing 
 light of such a fame, the renown of the mightiest Julius 
 and the Macedonian loses lustre and fails to charm. It 
 is for this character, unequaled it would seem, take it 
 all and in all, that we should, as a people, be reverently 
 grateful — a character which is eminently the product 
 of the United States and the institutions thereof, a 
 character now the possession past recall of republican 
 America for each and all of us to be proud of, thankful 
 for, and henceforth to cherish as a glorious, precious 
 memory. 
 
 We may glory in his name as he was a mighty war- 
 rior in a noble cause; we may rejoice in it as he was a 
 tribune of the people and betrayed not the trust; we 
 may praise him for that he was faultlessly generous 
 toward his associates in arms; we may admire him, 
 because he was imperturbable, unsoured, undeterred 
 from duty, however assailed by calumny or wronged 
 by detraction; we may take pride that he made the 
 circuit of the globe in such triumph as never mortal 
 made it before; but, after all, our abiding satisfaction 
 must be that, through good report and evil report, he 
 bore himself as a citizen in whom was no guile, a 
 
 98 
 
GENERAL GRANT 
 
 man of lofty virtue, whose honesty, in pubHc station 
 and private life, was only equaled by his modesty. 
 
 The corse of the illustrious departed to-day is borne 
 to the final resting-place. Sacred be the dust that will 
 there repose on the bank of the historic Hudson. Se- 
 cluded by ample area from the turmoil of the town, 
 beautified and hushed by the gracious umbrage of 
 stately trees, the spot there to be marked by appropriate 
 monument shall be consecrated ground, whither the 
 lovers of Liberty regulated by Law will repair from 
 every clime to do homage to the memory of him who 
 was the ideal warrior of a free people and a potent bene- 
 factor of mankind. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' 
 MONUMENT IN UXBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 
 
 14, 1898 
 
 It is thirty -three years and more since the close of the 
 great war for the salvation of the American Union. A 
 round generation has rolled away since the event which 
 marked the triumph of the Union arms. The time has 
 wrought many changes and made us oblivious of many 
 things, but our recollection of the soul-stirring event it 
 has but little dimmed. Almost as if it were yesterday 
 we recall how the hearts of all patriots of the land were 
 thrilled — how the homes of all combatants of either 
 side breathed with sensation of relief in that hour of 
 supreme victory. It came after four years of continu- 
 ous strife on land and sea — after the shock and strain 
 of more than two thousand battles — after an expendi- 
 ture of blood and treasure appalling to contemplate — 
 after a conflict so vast in proportions that it fixed the 
 attention of the world; and yet how quietly it came at 
 last! 
 
 The calm, modest correspondence that ended April 9, 
 1865, in the surrender of Lee, and the ceremonials of 
 the field tjhat ensued, so unmarked by customary show 
 
 100 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 and blare, seemed at first thought all out of proportion 
 to the magnitude of the struggle that then drew to its 
 close. The pomp and circumstance of war were so put to 
 blush by the magnanimity and unostentation of the con- 
 queror, in the final scene of the prolonged hostilities, 
 that for the moment the victory had semblance of the 
 commonplace. It took a little time to penetrate the 
 greatness of the victor's soul and comprehend the 
 achievement. The warrior's nobility, unparalleled in 
 the annals of warfare, was to the ordinary apprehen- 
 sion a kind of infirmity shading the glory of the tri- 
 umph. Men paused as if inquiring whether all the out- 
 lay, contention and uproar which had convulsed the 
 nation ought to terminate without some imposing dis- 
 play there on the field — some triumphal manifesta- 
 tion, emphasizing the accomplishment ere the curtain's 
 fall on the mighty drama. 
 
 But presently, as surprise pondered a little, the dis- 
 appointment, such as it was, flamed into admiration, 
 and men clearly saw how the splendor of the victory 
 was enhanced by the abnegation and simplicity of the 
 victorious chieftain. It was seen that a war waged, as 
 was that of the government, against a domestic foe and 
 purely in the interests of liberty and humanity, ought 
 to end precisely as Grant the Great ended it — in the 
 spirit of absolute brotherhood, without other humilia- 
 tion to the vanquished than the defeat, and with an ex- 
 ercise of generosity as great as possible, consistently with 
 high public duty. And so ended the war of the rebellion, 
 
 101 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM * 
 
 or, as we may better call it in this later time, the Civil 
 Commotion which re-cemented in the bonds of a more 
 perfect union the United States of America. 
 
 It was for "a more perfect union" that the founders 
 of the Republic framed the Constitution, and in the 
 adoption thereof the object was attained so far as pecu- 
 liar conditions would then permit. But the slavery 
 which the Constitution recognized and protected was 
 a growing canker that kept the Union imperfect and in 
 constant peril of dissolution. The suppression of the 
 rebellion, in the providence of God, turned out to be 
 another and more masterful movement to perfect the 
 Union. It blotted out slavery as the exciting motive 
 for disunion. It extinguished what was at once the dan- 
 ger and the disgrace of the nation. A rarity, sute, in 
 national experience ! In all history, sacred or profane, 
 what more notable for contemplation than that a tre- 
 mendous war should rise within a great country for the 
 two-fold purpose of disrupting it and perpetuating an 
 enormous evil, and result in the total extinguishment 
 of the iniquity and the complete unity of the war-torn 
 and bleeding country itself! 
 
 Such was the magnificent outcome of our civil con- 
 flict. Little wonder that all the people of the land, the 
 vanquished along with the victors, should ultimately 
 rejoice with exceeding joy. Looking back a generation, 
 lo! what increasing cause there appears for gratitude 
 and for pride not vain ! The retrospect constrains us to 
 admiration, so swarming the changes, enterprises and 
 
 102 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 accomplishments which have followed in the wake, so 
 to speak, of that decisive event of the Surrender. So 
 phenomenal, indeed, our national growth and develop- 
 ment since the indivisibility of the Republic was assured 
 and the Proclamation of Emancipation became emanci- 
 pation in fact, that one all but feels as if the continent 
 itself, conscious and impatient, had been waiting for 
 the day of Appomattox to rise and demonstrate to 
 mankind the wondrous capacity of a country under the 
 benign influences of a flag whose colors should mean all 
 that the Declaration of Independence declared — all 
 that it declared touching the equality of man and man's 
 inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness. 
 
 The national development is the more observable, 
 not to say startling, if we keep in mind the grievous 
 waste and desolation of the war, and the extraordinary 
 interest-bearing debt and pension liability thereby in- 
 curred as a national burden to be borne. Despite these 
 impediments, necessitating onerous taxation, there 
 has been a progress, steady and rapid, along nearly 
 all the lines that lead to a rounded prosperity. In 
 population it has been from three and thirty millions, 
 say, to more than seventy millions; in valuation 
 assessed, approximately, from thirteen to thirty bil- 
 lions; in statehood, from thirty-six to forty -five stars 
 in the field of blue, with islands now of the sea, let us 
 hope, ere long to be stars in the republican firmament; 
 in mileage of railway from thirty -five to one hundred 
 
 103 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 and eighty thousand miles, the increase including 
 those unsurpassed stretches of mountain-climbing 
 route that lock ocean to ocean; a mileage equal to 
 forty per cent of the total of both hemispheres. Not 
 less striking has been the increase in the value of 
 manufactures, and generally of the products of in- 
 dustry; of exports and imports; while the vast na- 
 tional debt of $2,680,647,869 which had rolled up at 
 the close of the war has, without jar or strain, been 
 reduced in the sum of $870,000,000, not reckoning 
 late extraordinary expenditures; in the meantime over 
 two and a half billions in interest having been paid 
 on the public debt and over two billions in pensions; 
 to which add, leaving out of account the cost of the 
 war just closed, other ordinary expenditures of the 
 government amounting to some five billions — sums 
 of money incomprehensible in any of our ante-bellum 
 calculations of governmental expenditure. 
 
 Keeping pace with this march of material progress 
 have been the activities in the domain of pubhc instruc- 
 tion, education, scientific research, art, invention, 
 discovery, and the diffusion of knowledge. The system 
 of free public schools, while expanding proportionally 
 to the growth of population, has been enriched by a 
 multitude of improvements answering to the ever- 
 increasing demands of experience, in methods of in- 
 struction, variety of study, classification, apparatus, 
 and in the convenience, elegance and comfort of the 
 school-house. Other schools of private enterprise in 
 
 104 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 number baffling estimate, preparatory, commercial, 
 technical and the like, have sprung up and flourish as 
 added proof of the universality of elementary and mul- 
 tifarious culture. Nor less pronounced is the increase 
 in the higher institutions of learning. Including such 
 colleges and universities only as take principal rank, 
 the number is safely placed at four hundred. Of these 
 full forty per cent date their organization since 1865. 
 Within the last decade, as a distinct accession to the 
 college, has been inaugurated the system of university 
 extension, greatly widening the scope of its educational 
 influence. 
 
 As the complement of this array of schools of near 
 every grade and shade are the libraries which in late 
 years have so grown in number and volume; and other 
 productions of the press seen in the amazing multi- 
 plicity of periodicals and journals, so out-reaching in 
 enterprise, so copious in illustration — the dailies 
 reflecting as from a mirror set in the heavens the 
 occurrences of the world below, and the weeklies whose 
 oflBce is to espouse and promote special industries and 
 interests. 
 
 Equally, if not more, noteworthy have been the 
 achievements of invention and discovery, which have 
 expedited the processes of labor, changed the courses 
 of business, multiplied the branches of' industry, 
 enhanced the facilities of travel and communication, 
 revolutionized the enginery of war, augmented the 
 phases of social life and released life itself from many 
 
 105 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 a condition of severity, pain and peril; and other tri- 
 umphs of mind so startling to sense, which have added 
 to photography the marvel of the biograph, picturing 
 scenes in all the realism of action — the rushing loco- 
 motive, the pageantry of parade, and Niagara in its 
 awful roll, foam and plunge; and added to print, the 
 miracle of speech, anthem and encore, stored for re- 
 utterance in any clime, and perchance in ages unborn. 
 Meanwhile, as these advances have been made in 
 the material prosperity, educational conditions and 
 social betterment of the nation, what a passing away 
 we have to note of those who were active in the mili- 
 tary and naval service during the great struggle for 
 national life! Of near two millions of soldiers and 
 sailors of the Union army and navy, surviving at the 
 dawn of peace, not less than a million, probably more, 
 are now numbered with the dead. The leaders, save 
 a few, are all gone to the other shore. Grant, the in- 
 comparable captain of armies, the brilliant, chivalric 
 Sherman, whose devotion to his chief was only equalled 
 by his chief's loyalty to him, the intrepid, irresistible 
 Sheridan, Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, Thomas, 
 "the Rock of Chickamauga," Logan, "the Prince of 
 Volunteers," Hancock, Halleck, Pope, Rawlins, Ander- 
 son, Kilpatrick, Burnside, McClellan, Hooker, Fre- 
 mont, Custer, Hayes, Terry, Gresham, Rosecrans, 
 Banks, Butler, Hinks, Devens, Walker, Porter, Dahl- 
 gren, Dupont, Rodgers, Farragut, the fearless, whose 
 fame even by that of Dewey, the Don-destroyer, is 
 
 106 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 uneclipsed, Gushing, the daring youth, whose exploit 
 on the Roanoke is unmatched by the heroism of Hob- 
 son in the fiery mouth of Santiago — these, these and 
 many more whose names are familiar, have joined the 
 host of disenthralled spirits in the Grand Army above. 
 
 Mark, too, the leave-taking of those who were con- 
 spicuous in Gabinet, Congress, and other high positions 
 of civic trust during the strife. Besides the immortal 
 President and commander-in-chief, the martyr whose 
 martyrdom so sanctified and subdued the paeans of 
 peace, we recall Sumner, Chase, Seward, Stanton, 
 Stevens, Chandler, Wilson, Cameron, Dix, Fessenden, 
 Andrew, Morton, Adams, Garfield, Wade, Wheeler, 
 Conkling, Bingham, Morrill of Maine, Anthony, 
 Arthur, Conness, Trumbull, Frelinghuysen, Morgan, 
 Randall, Washburne, Hamlin, Colfax, Blaine, Dana, 
 and more than these who, let us believe, are still 
 watching the course of the Ship of State they did so 
 much in guiding over the perilous sea of the war-time. 
 
 Nor should we omit mention of those departed 
 heroes who, upon the platform, in the pulpit and the 
 press, did such valiant work in shaping public opinion 
 both before and during the clash of arms : — Beecher : 
 remember his voice in Great Britain, not to speak of 
 his trumpet-tongued appeals at home; Garrison: con- 
 sider his steadfastness that would not retreat an inch 
 and would be heard; Phillips: recall his electrical elo- 
 quence and all the force of his resplendent genius laid 
 on the altar of humanity's cause; Pillsbury, the sledge- 
 
 107 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 hammer of abolition; Douglass, born a slave, and a 
 giant born to shake the system degrading his race; and 
 others less famous, but not less steel-true, who had 
 the courage of burning conviction to take unalterable 
 stand against the monstrous wrong of human bondage. 
 These, the great anti-slavery agitators, the foremost in 
 the fray, the pioneers of emancipation who fought 
 a life-long fight for the sake of pure principle and 
 down-trodden humanity; undismayed by calumny, 
 ridicule, stripes and ostracism, have one by one, their 
 work finished as never reformers' before, passed from 
 the scenes of their moral heroism and are fixed as stars 
 in the pantheon of history. 
 
 And lo! while all this various growth and evolution 
 of the nation and change in its personnel have been 
 going on, how nature has done her gracious work in 
 healing the wounds and obliterating the scars of the 
 transcendent struggle which, through inscrutable 
 Providence, raised an erring and hesitating people to 
 larger and better life! Look, where erst the land was 
 fretful with imaged menaces of war in fortress, bas- 
 tion, breast-work, mound, magazine, trench, and pit. 
 Leveled or sunk now by the hand of time or sloped 
 beyond the trace of outline are those barriers of hostile 
 forces, while over them all are grown the sodded grass, 
 the thicket and the shade-bearing tree. Scattered even 
 or decayed, almost beyond recognition of the horrid 
 spot, are the frowning stockades and other dire memen- 
 tos of the unspeakable wretchedness of Andersonville. 
 
 108 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 So kind nature hastens to eflface the physical evidences 
 of man's ill-nature to man. How, too, has she softened 
 the personal and sectional animosities of men against 
 one another arrayed in deadly combat; and assuaged 
 the griefs of the myriad hearts afflicted by loved ones 
 lost in the prolonged encounter until enmity, its vision 
 clarified, has warmed into brotherhood, and the sorely 
 stricken, with widened horizon of view, seeing to what 
 good end the sacrifice, have grown reconciled and 
 rejoice. 
 
 Behold also, to crown the change, another genera- 
 tion on the stage, active and in large degree dominant 
 in the control of public and other affairs — in admin- 
 istration, legislation, business, management, the pro- 
 fessions, and the great work of education, whether 
 through the schools or the press. The war of the re- 
 bellion is over ! In far fuller, higher, deeper sense than 
 that in which the politician has sent up the cry — 
 the war is over. 
 
 What then? Shall we not still observe Memorial 
 Day? Shall we not still strew flowers on the graves of 
 departed patriots? Shall we not still recall their 
 heroism in discourse and celebrate it in song? Invol- 
 untarily we revolt at the thought of any neglect so to 
 honor their memory and attest our gratitude. Not 
 too late then is it, in manifestation of the same senti- 
 ment, to build enduring monuments of granite and 
 bronze. 
 
 Without implying any prematurity in the erection 
 109 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 soon after the war of monuments to soldiers who fell 
 in the service, it is worthy inquiry whether delay in 
 commemorating noble deeds, so far from being danger- 
 ous, may not be more efficacious for the object in view. 
 It was fifty years after the battle before the corner- 
 stone was laid of Bunker Hill Monument, and sixty- 
 eight years before its completion. It was forty-eight 
 years after the death of the Father of his country before 
 the corner-stone was laid of the Washington Monu- 
 ment, and eighty-five ere its dedication. The shaft at 
 Tarry town which commemorates the loyalty of Pauld- 
 ing, Williams, and Van Wert, who frustrated the trea- 
 son of Benedict Arnold and perhaps saved the cause 
 of the Revolution, was not erected till some seventy 
 years after the act of their incorruptible patriotism. 
 It is in late years that the men and deeds of the revo- 
 lutionary time have been most remembered in shaft, 
 statue and tablet; and it would seem all the better that 
 the Revolutioners and their immediate descendants 
 left us so much to do in monumental work. It is alto- 
 gether questionable whether it would have been as well 
 for us if, within a few years after the Civil War, all 
 had been done that meritorious service required in the 
 erection of visible memorials; for, however, when once 
 built, they may stand as enduring object-lessons to 
 inculcate the virtue of loyalty to country and other 
 duty, there is much to be considered in the effect upon 
 the youth of the land who may see the monuments 
 rise, witness their dedication, and be thereby led to a 
 
 110 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 closer study and understanding of the history they 
 point to and illustrate. The youth who beholds the 
 towering shaft at Washington may know from his 
 books what the imposing column means; but he who 
 in childhood observed the dedicatory display and heard 
 the speech of the people at the time, has received a 
 more lasting impression. 
 
 It was my fortune as a boy to witness the demon- 
 stration on the occasion of the completion of Bunker 
 Hill Monument. I saw the people swarming in pro- 
 cession and crowd as they poured from Boston over 
 to Charlestown. Then I saw the few venerable sur- 
 vivors of the battle, bowed and decrepit, as they 
 tottered up to seats upon the stage, and I heard the 
 shouting of the multitude, like the roar of many waters, 
 in salutation of their appearance — applause louder 
 far than greeted the President of the United States or 
 the great orator of the day; and I cannot doubt that 
 my appreciation, whatever it may be, of the signifi- 
 cance of the majestic pillar, "the powerful speaker 
 that stood motionless" before the assembled thousands 
 on that joyous day, has ever been deeper and keener 
 by reason of what I then saw and heard. I have 
 never beheld the stately structure from the passing 
 train or from steamer in the harbor, or from other 
 point of view, but I have thought of the grandeur of 
 the scene, and of the old tottering soldiers, on the re- 
 nowned hill, as the most observed part of it; and though 
 I did not hear the famous oration of Webster, I have 
 
 111 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 repeatedly read it with livelier and warmer attention, 
 moved by that incident of my boyhood. Great lessons 
 are often carried through the eye to the mind. Not 
 seldom are they all the more impressive and invigorat- 
 ing when a community after a long lapse of time, 
 rousing its recollection of some past heroism, takes 
 fresh mental hold of it and brings it to public view in 
 visible celebration. 
 
 Let it not then be said or thought that the people 
 of Uxbridge are in any just sense dilatory in erecting 
 yonder monument in memory of her soldiers. Much 
 less be it said, if perchance any have ventured the 
 remark, that there has been anything like shameful 
 neglect. Inapplicable the adage, "better late than 
 never." Our thought rather is, better now than ever. 
 Better that the rising generation, whose clattering 
 footsteps are just now on the stage of school-life, 
 should be thus affirmatively directed to the lessons 
 which the monument we dedicate to-day is designed 
 to instil and enforce. Their late predecessors in the 
 schools were more within hearing of echoes of the war 
 and under the spell and influence of its traditions, 
 while tradition was less vague and shadowy. Had the 
 monument been built a decade or more ago, the chil- 
 dren of to-day would indeed observe it in its place and 
 in the common course of education know the purposes 
 of it, but they would be without the peculiar inspira- 
 tion they will ever feel from having had hand and 
 heart in the memorial work, contributing their mites 
 
 112 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 to the cost, watching the progress of the movement and 
 sharing with their elders in the general joy of this hour 
 that comes of a public duty done. All honor to those 
 who have been foremost and indefatigable in their 
 efforts to cause the comely structure to rise there in 
 its appropriate place. They may be assured that their 
 work will live after them. 
 
 What now, in a word, is the story of great interest 
 which the people of the town seek by this act of com- 
 memoration to keep fresh in mind as a salutary remem- 
 brance for themselves and to hand down for an inspi- 
 ration to those who shall come after them? The hour 
 admits but a glance at the record. 
 
 At a time when republican government was little 
 other than a tale of the past and a dream of the future, 
 our forefathers of the American Colonies, animated 
 by a lofty spirit of liberty and seeing liberty in peril, 
 declared their independence of the monarchical reign 
 of the parent country and projected the formation of 
 a republic. A long war ensued, during which their bold 
 enterprise was often on the perilous edge of failure; 
 but at length, after heroic endurance and prodigious 
 sacrifice, aided at a critical period by the friendly 
 oflfices of a foreign power, their independence as a 
 people was recognized and the United States of 
 America became one of the nations of the globe. Then 
 it was presently seen that the government, which had 
 proved equal to the exigencies of the Revolution, was 
 inadequate for the purposes of commerce, currency, 
 
 113 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 taxation, and other functions of nationhood. To 
 remedy these grave defects it became imperative to 
 form a constitution, vesting in the general government 
 a sovereignty supreme, in important concerns, over 
 that of the several states. What a task was here, to 
 reconcile the rivalries and jealousies of the thirteen 
 parties to the Union, each a proud state itself, repre- 
 senting such different localities, such diverse local 
 interests. Above all, what a problem to be solved was 
 that one alone which grew out of conflicting views on 
 the question of slavery, a system planted in the soil 
 in early colonial time, but become repugnant to north- 
 ern sentiment, yet deemed identical with southern 
 welfare. Statesmen never had a more arduous task 
 than the solution of this problem in the interests of 
 mankind. However we may wish that the solution 
 had been different, we are bound, in the light of his- 
 tory and the final outcome, to believe that the best 
 thing was done that then could be done in the cause 
 of constitutional representative government. In com- 
 promised form and as a necessary condition of com- 
 pact, the evil of slavery was recognized as an interest 
 to be protected by constitutional provision, and the 
 Constitution, framed at last through mutual conces- 
 sions, was, after much serious discussion, adopted by 
 the requisite number of states and the ship of the 
 Republic was fairly launched on the sea of national 
 life. 
 
 Though deemed an experiment and one loudly dis- 
 114 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 trusted without and somewhat within, the novel nation 
 was not unprosperous from the start. Indeed, it soon 
 commanded admiration abroad and was the rising 
 pride of its devoted founders. It was hailed by the 
 oppressed of European peoples as the harbinger of a 
 new and better era for the race of men. It grew apace 
 in population, wealth, strength, influence, public con- 
 fidence and in all the attributes that constitute a 
 potential nationality. The daring deed of the Declara- 
 tion, defying the proud power of the British crown, 
 was a revelation of human possibilities to untold 
 millions struggling in hope for the dawn of a brighter 
 day. The brilliance of this star of empire in the west 
 attracted the gaze of the kingdoms and tribes of the 
 earth, and the interest in civilization and human 
 progress was largely transferred from the eastern to 
 the western hemisphere. 
 
 Yet was this stately ship of state obnoxious to ani- 
 madversion, censure, taunt, such as no ingenuity of 
 logic or plausibility of ethics could silence; for whereas 
 it floated at the masthead the flag of freedom, it carried 
 beneath the shining banner a race of slaves. No states- 
 manship could long be equal to the successful naviga- 
 tion of such a craft — a craft so emblazoned, yet so 
 burdened, among whose owners there prevailed and 
 increasingly prevailed a conflict of sentiment as to the 
 moral propriety and principle of right involved in flying 
 the banner of liberty over a deck spot-stained and iden- 
 tified with the enormity of involuntary servitude. Espe- 
 
 115 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 cially was this apparent when those who favored the 
 thraldom came with surpassing boldness to insist, as 
 they did, that either they should be permitted to fortify 
 and extend the bondage and hold the helm or they 
 would scuttle the ship. This insistence on the part of 
 the slave propagandist precipitated the issue, more 
 sharply defined perhaps than ever before, of liberty in 
 death-struggle with slavery. On this momentous issue 
 was begun and fought out the war of the rebellion, the 
 civil strife of four years' duration, vast in its propor- 
 tions, intense in the heat of its battles, measureless in 
 its cost of treasure spent and hearts torn, but ending in 
 "joy unspeakable and full of glory." Not the sheer 
 glory of martial triumph, of warrior over warrior in 
 ambitious fight for spoils, power, and personal supre- 
 macy, but the glory that glowed on the victorious ban- 
 ner of the Union arms at Appomattox, whereon could 
 be read as in letters of heavenly light all and what only 
 the bleeding nation had contended for — the imity of 
 the Republic under a constitution so amended and 
 enlarged as to be co-equal in its scope with the Decla- 
 ration of Independence. 
 
 The war of 1861 to 1865 ! In grateful memory of the 
 soldiers of this town who bravely served in that war, so 
 beneficent and far-reaching in results, we dedicate yon- 
 der monument. 
 
 As I pause for a moment to measure the significance 
 of our action to-day, my thought reverts to a similar 
 act of commemoration some two generations ago, the 
 
 116 
 
DEDICATION OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
 
 constant educational influence of which upon the mind 
 of the local community in keeping alive the flame of 
 patriotic sentiment and reverential respect for heroic 
 effort in a noble cause, it is not quite easy to estimate. 
 In one of the eastern towns of the state sixty -four years 
 ago there was erected a plain, unpretentious shaft in 
 memory of the seven sons of the town who sixty years 
 before fell at Lexington in the first armed encounter of 
 the Revolution. It stands near by the town's principal 
 thoroughfare and near the populous border of the his- 
 toric city of Salem. It is impressive to take thought of 
 the countless multitudes who, in passing along the busy 
 way in the three score and four years past, have beheld 
 that memorial of the early patriotism of those who died 
 that there might rise for the weal of their fellow- 
 men and their posterity, this majestic structure of 
 republican liberty. 
 
 In less degree for public view, but with equal motive 
 for salutary effect we have placed on the old-time 
 Green, hard by our chief highway, the memorial that is 
 to commemorate the patriotism of those whose soldier 
 service contributed to the completion of our republican 
 liberty. There will it stand in attestation of our simple 
 duty as citizens to perpetuate the memory of their devo- 
 tion as soldiers. There will it stand in summer's heat 
 and winter's cold, as the rains descend and the snows 
 fly, in cloud and sunlight, in the rush of day and the 
 silence of night, and through all the vicissitudes of the 
 passing year, through all the varying fortunes, let us 
 
 117 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 hope, whatever they may be, of the state and the na- 
 tion in many, many years to come. The citizens of the 
 community, the scholars of the schools, the visitor, the 
 traveller, the stranger, shall contemplate this me- 
 morial tribute of the townspeople and, as they note the 
 names, in enduring letters, inscribed thereon, and re- 
 mark the reason of the inscription, be it theirs to take 
 increased devotion to the cause of that government 
 whose nature and genius are always best expressed in 
 those words, forever famous for their felicity, the words 
 of the immortal Lincoln : government of the people, by the 
 people, for the people. 
 
TWO UNWRITTEN CHAPTERS OF HISTORY ^ 
 Chapter I 
 
 THE YELLOW FEVER AT NEW BERN 
 
 There are, it is said, in the story of every war always 
 more or less unwritten chapters, certain occurrences 
 or incidents, even eventful circumstances sometimes, 
 which, though they may hold a lasting place in the 
 memory of those who were cognizant of them, have 
 little or no place in the books historic of the war itself. 
 
 An incident may turn the tide of battle and escape 
 not only the notice of the general in command, but, 
 later, the research of the historian himself, whose work 
 will thus be minus the vital fact or influence determin- 
 ing the particular event recorded. 
 
 It is said by good authority that the fate of the battle 
 of Gettysburg, at a critical stage in that tremendous 
 clash of arms, hung on a spider's single thread. How 
 easily the sharpest sight from the best point of view 
 might have failed to detect the slender thread ! 
 
 A recent publication, a pamphlet written by a 
 gallant staff-oflBcer who figured heroically in that 
 
 ^ Being a paper given before the Massachusetts Commandery, 
 Military Order of the Loyal Legion, at Boston, April 6, 1910. 
 
 119 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 decisive battle, but was killed in a subsequent engage- 
 ment, written not with any view to publication, but 
 in letters to his brother solely in brotherly corre- 
 spondence and all within less than a week after the 
 mighty combat, has attracted much notice. The let- 
 ters were edited and first published for a limited circu- 
 lation by the writer's classmates of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege. This commandery, as you are aware, not long 
 ago issued a larger edition of the pamphlet, and it is 
 being widely read and greatly admired. Brilliant, 
 precise, intelligent, and eloquent in description, it is 
 likely to hold a high place in army literature. 
 
 In it the author, with words that seem almost to 
 have been penned on the sanguinary field itself, points 
 as with index finger to the critical point of time in 
 Pickett's furious, famous charge when the fate of the 
 Union arms, perchance of the very union of the States 
 and with it the Stars and Stripes, hung on a spider's 
 single thread. Eminent authorities recalling the situa- 
 tion have named the then unf amed oflficer, Lieutenant 
 Haskell, as the one who discerned the thread and 
 rallied disheartened and retreating troops to save the 
 day; and it was saved for you and me and the world. 
 
 It is not, however, to such eventful occurrences that 
 I am to call attention, but rather to one or two others 
 which, though they determined no military result, 
 made on the minds of the soldiers of whose experience 
 they were a part a deeper impression perhaps than 
 anything else in their term of service. 
 
 120 
 
YELLOW FEVER AT NEW BERN 
 
 While I would not favor a disposition to recall the 
 horrible, the sorrowful, the gloomy, the tragic, the 
 heart-rending scenes of the war-time; while it would 
 seem enough to remember the calamities of war with- 
 out fighting over its battles; some benefit may yet 
 result from the retrospect if the expression of one's 
 remembrances may lead to a detestation of war and 
 a purpose to eschew it. With epigrammatic force 
 never surpassed General Sherman exclaimed, "War is 
 hell!" It follows that everything pertaining to it must 
 needs be hellish, even in righteous wars. Only the 
 righteousness enables us to endure with patience the 
 wretchedness. 
 
 WeU enough it is now and then to glance at the 
 hellish features, that we may be stirred to such hatred 
 of the murderous business as to shun it henceforth; 
 always excepting the case where we may justly take 
 arms against some aggressive sea of troubles and by 
 opposing end them; or may be stirred, in other words, 
 to adopt as an abiding rule of national life that em- 
 phatic declaration of Lucien Bonaparte, a brother of 
 the great warrior. Napoleon, who in his memoirs near 
 fourscore years ago thus wrote : — 
 
 "War, excepting the case of legitimate defence, that 
 is to say, unless it be made for the welfare of one's 
 country and in defence of its homes, is simply a bar- 
 barity, a ferocity, which differs from that of savages 
 and ferocious beasts only by greater skill, deceit and 
 futility in its object." 
 
 121 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 That from a Bonaparte — a voice of peace from a 
 belligerent zone that may well kindle a fresh flame of 
 arbitration in this later time of peace congresses. 
 
 The only motive I have in the narratives I am about 
 to submit to you, apart from whatever information 
 they may convey, is to excite or increase your detesta- 
 tion of war, if for a moment I may presume that yours 
 is any less than my own. 
 
 As every old soldier is apt to be, so now and then I 
 have been asked what principal battle of the war I 
 was in. My answer has been, "The battle of the 
 Yellow Fever at New Bern, North Carolina, in 1864"; 
 in which the mortality, including the death-list of 
 non-combatants, according to a moderate estimate 
 by those who should best know, was greater than the 
 mortality, on the Union side, in many an engagement 
 that takes rank among the historic battles of our civil 
 conflict. 
 
 The epidemic I am to speak of began its rage in the 
 sultry time of the last week of August and did not 
 wholly subside till the approach of November. I have 
 no language to describe the scenes which, in common 
 with some of my comrades, I witnessed during that 
 period of seven or eight weeks; much less the sensa- 
 tions experienced — the apprehension, the suppressed 
 excitement, the gloom, the grief, the discouragement, 
 the emotions, at times, of despair. It was my fortune 
 to be one of the comparatively few commissioned 
 oflScers who were able to keep on their feet for duty 
 
 122 
 
YELLOW FEVER AT NEW BERN 
 
 throughout the pestilence, and as a consequence I saw 
 more of its ravages than most others. That the scenes 
 I witnessed, of distress, of sorrowing and woe, of help- 
 lessness and hopelessness, are well engraved on my 
 memory, should, I think, be readily believed. Often 
 even now, in the visions of night, pictures rise before 
 me as I beheld them during the weary prevalence of 
 that insidious distemper, when the troops stationed in 
 and about the city, including a portion of the second 
 Massachusetts Heavy Artillery of which I was a poor, 
 but I trust not unfaithful soldier, were shut up as 
 within a stockade, cut off, not unlike prisoners within 
 dungeon-walls, from all communication with home 
 and the rest of the world, except as the government 
 for the sheer necessities of the service permitted 
 occasional inlet and outlet. 
 
 I remember the heat and the dust of the time, the 
 anxieties and perplexities of the situation, the tireless 
 efforts made, the resident population, such as remained 
 after the evacuation, resolutely joining hands with us 
 to stay the desolating pestilence; the rank vegetation 
 that largely encompassed the town, and the labor of 
 cutting, drying and burning it, to dissipate the miasma 
 infesting the air; the policing of the streets, yards and 
 pest-holes; the precautions taken to avoid unnecessary 
 contact with the disease; how all who could be on 
 duty had to do double service; how the surgeons, 
 galloping from camp to camp and from hospital to 
 hospital, bearing what comfort they might to the sick 
 
 123 
 
^mXHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 and dying, were painfully overworked, some of them 
 falling victims to the very malady they would relieve. 
 
 To bring the matter quite near home, I may mention 
 the case of Dr. Dixi C, Hoyt of Milford. He was 
 assistant surgeon of our Massachusetts Artillery. He 
 was a jovial, cheerful spirit and one of the most active 
 and efficient surgeons of the time. The gallop of his 
 horse and the good-nature of his face brought cheer 
 to the men whenever he appeared in camp. Nearly 
 all through the trying visitation he was indefatigable 
 in ministering to the sick and in kind offices to soothe 
 the dying; but when the fever had all but abated, he 
 was attacked by it and died in less than twenty-four 
 hours. 
 
 I remember, ah! I remember, how the new graves 
 lined up in long rows in a fresh burial-ground set apart 
 in a suburban field; how ever and anon on the way 
 thither the muffled drum was heard, yet only when a 
 detail of soldiers could be spared for escort to the corse 
 of a departed officer; how care would be taken every 
 night to select a guard for the morrow that might hold 
 out for a twenty-four-hours' duty, but how apt its ranks 
 were to be decimated by disability ere the day's work 
 was over; how once, when it fell to me to be officer of 
 the day, the guard at the morning inspection seemed 
 all right; yet on going the rounds at midnight two men 
 of it were found dead in the guard-house who at the 
 inspection handled their muskets with every sign of 
 bodily vigor. So suddenly and in volleys did the archer 
 
 124 
 
YELLOW FEVER AT NEW BERN 
 
 let fly his arrows in those days, weeks, of the yellow 
 fever at New Bern. 
 
 I recall how once in a while it would come over me 
 that those soldiers who were thus laid low in hospital, 
 tent, and by the wayside, were dying a rather inglori- 
 ous death; falling not in sight of the enemy, not in the 
 heat and exhilaration of the fray, not facing danger 
 visible as musketry and the cannon's mouth and 
 audible as the fierce rolling wave of combat, but falling 
 before the plague that walks unseen, powerless to 
 ward off peril by arms however aggressive or valor 
 however indomitable, and in their solitudinous leave- 
 taking of comrades ungladdened by any parting word 
 from familiar lips or any glimpse of the starry Flag 
 they went forth from their homes to uphold. 
 
 But on second thought it would come to me that 
 they died in the service and the line of duty just where 
 command had placed them, and, though opportunity 
 was not theirs for any display of zeal and gallantry 
 in the final hour, they should yet have their country's 
 praise equally with the heroes who breathed their last 
 rushing in the furious charge or carrying on high the 
 colors in the clash and smoke of the fight; equally with 
 the hardy braves who fell at a Cold Harbor, a Chan- 
 cellorsville, a Chickamauga, a Gettysburg, or in the 
 Wilderness, where Grant in the coolness of his sagacity 
 and the loyalty of his soul fought it out to final tri- 
 umph at Appomattox; equally almost, shall I not say.'' 
 with those who, gnawed by hunger, cuffed by insult, 
 
 125 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 and mocked by the monumental meanness of a Wirz, 
 wasted and perished in the unspeakable pen of Ander- 
 sonville. 
 
 Such in brief, very imperfect in detail and descrip- 
 tion, is the story of the yellow fever at New Bern in 
 the great war-time; an unwritten chapter of history, 
 for in vain have I looked in the books for any account 
 of the calamity that is at all adequate. There are no 
 definite data to determine the number of deaths even 
 of the soldiers who were stricken down by the plague, 
 much less of residents of the city who so died. In the 
 confusion and distraction of the time officers may not 
 have kept sufficient records, or, if kept, the returns did 
 not clearly show what losses were from the fever and 
 what, if any, from other causes; while in the city, 
 which was under martial law, no one not a soldier 
 appears to have concerned himself to guess at the 
 number of civilians who so died. Estimates by ob- 
 serving officers, — including my good old careful Colonel 
 Frankle, very justly at the close of his service a briga- 
 dier-general by brevet, and who, in the absence of 
 General Palmer, was in command of the defences of 
 New Bern throughout the melancholy period, — place 
 the number of soldier deaths at not less than four 
 hundred. No conjecture, I think, should rate the 
 mortality among non-combatants in and about the 
 city at less than one hundred and fifty — a total of 
 five hundred and fifty deaths from the fever, or an 
 average of about twelve a day; more than the loss on 
 
 126 
 
YELLOW FEVER AT NEW BERN 
 
 the American side in any of the battles of the Revo- 
 lution, four alone excepted — Brandywine, German- 
 town, Hubbardton and Camden. 
 
 Authentic statistics name twelve principal battles 
 of the Civil War, figuring their importance, or, if not 
 their importance, their deadliness, from the number 
 of deaths in battle on the Union side. Of these twelve 
 Gettysburg heads the list, with a loss in battle of 3070, 
 and Fredericksburg is at the foot of the list, with a 
 loss of 1284, Of the two thousand and more battles 
 of the war, the bloodshed in any case was deemed 
 exceptionally large if five hundred men on either side 
 were slain. 
 
 Thus the battle of the Yellow Fever, if I may so 
 call it, measured by the loss of life, was one of the 
 principal engagements of the conflict of '61 to '65. 
 
 Yet when we, the survivors, nine or ten months 
 afterward, the cruel war of the rebellion being pretty 
 much all over, returned to our homes and neighbor- 
 hoods, nobody, hardly anybody, appeared to be aware 
 that there had been any battle at all down at New 
 Bern. One of my intelligent neighbors, to whom I 
 intimated the Httle circumstance as an incident of my 
 soldiering, said, "Oh, yes, yes, seems to me I did see 
 in some paper or other that you had some yellow fever 
 down there. Did n't last long, did it? Not many 
 died.''" — "No, lasted only seven or eight weeks; only 
 five or six hundred died." That's all the credit we got 
 for our yellow fever. 
 
 127 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Attracted, you see, the newspapers were by the brist- 
 ling scenes of thunderous combat, and its concomit- 
 ant carnage, and, as their readers could read only the 
 reports of the reporters, they missed a thing or two of 
 what was going on down in Dixie. Hence the unwritten 
 chapter which, after the lapse of five and forty years, 
 I venture to submit in vague abstract. 
 
 Now, my friends, as for the lesson, if there be one. 
 It was at the time of the aflBiction the opinion of some 
 United States authorities that the fever was smuggled 
 into the city of New Bern in rags and other refuse, as 
 an artifice of warfare by the enemy, and those whose 
 judgment should have weight have never been quite 
 convinced to the contrary. New Bern had not been 
 subject to yellow fever, is not in the tier of states to 
 be climatically affected by the scourge. That the pest 
 was purposely introduced rather than transported, 
 as was contended at the time, in clothes from Cuba as 
 an act of charity, there is reason to suspect if not to 
 believe. Accept the suspicion as a matter of fact, and 
 we have another instance, and a notable one, that 
 whatever may be said to the contrary, whatever may 
 be said of the honor of soldiers in war, — and of honor 
 therein there are lofty illustrations: none greater than 
 are found in the career of him who sleeps the sleep of 
 the noble, magnanimous warrior in the mausoleum on 
 the riverside of the majestic Hudson, — whatever may 
 be said to the contrary, there is hardly anything in 
 strategy or stratagem to which an army will not resort 
 
 128 
 
A MILITARY EXECUTION 
 
 to overcome its antagonist. The very nature of the 
 business cultivates recklessness and heartlessness. 
 Anderson ville, Libby, and other prisons are proofs 
 enough, but no stronger proofs than that depravity 
 which, if it did not in the case of New Bern, has before 
 and elsewhere, sundry times, as disclosed by history, 
 been known to steal into a city to spread pestilence 
 among the soldiers there stationed and the people 
 there resident. 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 A MILITARY EXECUTION 
 
 Some six months after the outbreak of the rebellion 
 came the first military execution of a Union soldier. 
 I recall the sensation that possessed me as I read of the 
 killing, and how others, both soldiers and civilians, 
 were similarly affected, not to say shocked. That a 
 young man who had enlisted in the service of his 
 country, not enticed by bounty, but presumably from 
 high, patriotic motives as a volunteer, should be shot 
 to death by his fellow soldiers, constrained by their 
 government so to do, because, overcome by weariness 
 in his service, he had fallen asleep as a sentinel on his 
 post — such an act of the government seemed un- 
 grateful, unnatural, cruel. Why was it done? Why 
 had the like been done before? Why is it still done and 
 why will it be done so long as war shall last? Because 
 
 129 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 army government is despotism and despotism never 
 scruples to do whatever may serve or seem to serve 
 its purpose, however inhuman or remorseless the 
 deed. It is a happiness, oh! a happiness, to remember 
 that the cloud and forked lightning of the despotism 
 throughout the clang and service of the Union arms 
 was largely relieved by the abounding humanity and 
 mercy of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 When I read of that first military execution, in a 
 war waged, if ever one was waged, in national defence 
 and in the sacred cause of liberty and humanity, I 
 could not but express the hope, as others also did, 
 that it might not be my fortune to see a similar spec- 
 tacle. Unhappily, however, it became my lot not only 
 to witness, but in a measure to be party to the execu- 
 tion at once of six fellow soldiers, a larger number, it 
 is believed, than were executed at one and the same 
 time during the Civil War. The tragedy, for such it 
 was in the ending, if not from the very beginning, was 
 enacted on Sunday morning a little after sunrise, the 
 14th day of August, at New Bern, about two weeks 
 before the advent there of the yellow fever that 
 wrought the desolation to which attention has just 
 been called. To tell the tale of the action is in no wise 
 pleasant to the narrator, and the narration should be 
 equally unpleasant to the hearer. My only object in 
 reviving recollection of the occasion and the blood- 
 shed is to excite so far as I may a just execration for 
 war. The historian, when he writes of battles, will 
 
 130 
 
A MILITARY EXECUTION 
 
 tell you in very considerable detail of the marshaling 
 of the opposing forces, of the glittering, glistening, de- 
 fiant array of the soldiery on either side, of the on- 
 slaught and the slaughter. He is expected to do it, 
 and unless he does, he is not deemed a careful, pains- 
 taking historian, fair and faithful to the fierce fighters. 
 A great mortality by a plague, as we have observed, 
 he passes over with a stroke of his pen, because he 
 sees there no valor or heroism to depict or celebrate. 
 If the yellow fever shoots down a half thousand men, 
 he says in effect, "A plague on your yellow fever!" 
 and passes on to the portrayal of other and grander 
 battles by shot and shell. 
 
 So in the histories I have read I have never read a 
 detailed account of a military execution. Mentioned it 
 may be, stated as a fact. The subject is then dropped 
 as if the less said about it the better, and the better sure 
 enough in one view. Yet I have found, whenever allud- 
 ing in conversation to the military executions about 
 to be described, that there has been a decided curios- 
 ity to hear somewhat particularly about the ceremony 
 and the scene, and very noticeable it has been that the 
 particulars have appeared to arouse a fresh aversion 
 for war. If a like effect should be here or elsewhere 
 produced, I shall not have written in vain. If any 
 should regret hearing the tale, I shall regret having 
 told it. Heard, it is not likely to be forgotten. After 
 five and forty years the impression made upon me 
 by indirect participation and actual sight is but little 
 
 131 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 eflFaced. In no degree shall the story be embellished. 
 It is enough, simply told. 
 
 On the Sunday morning already mentioned six sol- 
 diers were simultaneously executed. Their names could 
 be given, but are here withheld: one of a New York 
 regiment, two of a Rhode Island regiment, and three of 
 a Connecticut regiment, the offence in each case being 
 desertion, " Bounty -jumpers " deserters were called, 
 as you remember, in those latter war-days; that is, hav- 
 ing obtained a bounty, they entered the service and then 
 deserted it. Such was the offence and a grave offence 
 it was, to be sure. The offenders were all compara- 
 tively young men and all had family friends. They 
 were imprisoned for several weeks, and until the day 
 of their deaths, in the New Bern jail under the general 
 charge of the Provost Marshal of the district, — 
 Major Lawsonof our Massachusetts regiment; a fine, 
 noble-hearted man who sorely felt his responsibility 
 and wasted a good deal under the weight of the care. 
 Besides superintending all the arrangements for the exe- 
 cutions and oflBciating as the chief officer of the occa- 
 sion, he was required to be more or less personally 
 with the prisoners after their conviction, examining 
 their correspondence and assisting in it, and neces- 
 sarily hearing their griefs and petitions for mercy. 
 When it was all over, the worn and weary Major went 
 to the hospital at Beaufort, and not long thereafter 
 died of yellow fever. 
 
 The scene of the executions was the large plain in 
 132 
 
A MILITARY EXECUTION 
 
 front of Fort Totten, that is, beyond it as you ap- 
 proached the fort from the city, Totten being the large 
 fort on the elevated western outskirt of the city and 
 about a mile from the city jail. Always at an execu- 
 tion the regiment of the convict and such other 
 troops as can be well spared are paraded on the 
 shooting-ground, that they may be impressed and 
 awed by the spectacle — the parade forming three sides 
 of a square, the alignment on each side being in two 
 ranks, the open side, called the open field, being in the 
 direction of the shooting. 
 
 Early on the August Sunday morning, the dawn of a 
 hot, sultry, breezeless day, the reveille sounded and all 
 the troops detailed for the parade were at once in mo- 
 tion, presently in company order to march to the plain. 
 As they were leaving their respective camps to parade 
 thereon in the manner indicated, the strains of the dead 
 march were heard, faintly away down in the city, gradu- 
 ally becoming more and more distinct. The solemn pro- 
 cession had left the jail and was slowly moving toward 
 the deadly plain. It consisted of the six convicts in an 
 uncovered wagon, followed by six coffins in a wagon 
 and six clergymen in carriages, escorted by forty sol- 
 diers, armed and equipped, marching in rectangle en- 
 closing the convicts, the coffins and the clergymen, the 
 cortege under command of the Provost Marshal. 
 
 As the procession drew near the sally-port of the Fort, 
 through which was the entrance to the plain, it was 
 halted and reformed. The coffins were taken each upon 
 
 133 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 the shoulders of four unarmed men, formed into line 
 as of two ranks. The prisoners left the wagon and were 
 formed also in two ranks in rear of their coflBns, each 
 prisoner accompanied by a clergyman. The escort 
 then formed as before in rectangle, the band resumed 
 its position in advance, and preceded by the Provost 
 Marshal in full uniform, — with sheathed sword, tall, 
 slender and pale from overwork and a keen sense of of- 
 ficial obligation, — the procession moved to the music 
 of common time, and was soon within the great square 
 described on three sides by the alignment of about 
 three thousand soldiers. It proceeded with that slow, 
 measured step that marks the time of the dirge to the 
 upper side of the square, opposite the open field, where 
 were six open graves in a row, several feet from one 
 another. Then the procession halted again and the 
 music ceased. In the stillness of the hour, not a breath 
 of air stirring, every voice, every movement there at the 
 place of action could be easily heard by the attentive 
 but uneasy audience. 
 
 The coffins were placed each at the foot of a grave 
 and in line with it. The prisoners were seated each on 
 the foot of his open coffin. The escort was divided into 
 six shooting squads of six men each, with a reserve of 
 four or more men, each squad having six muskets, five 
 loaded with ball and one with blank cartridge, no man 
 knowing whether his piece carried ball or cartridge only. 
 The shooting squads took position, each eight paces 
 from a prisoner and facing him as he sat on his coffin. 
 
 134 
 
A MILITARY EXECUTION 
 
 The Provost Marshal now read aloud the sentence of 
 the court-martial, and the order or warrant for the exe- 
 cution. With tremulous voice, faltering with emotion, 
 the chaplain offered a prayer, and the prisoners were 
 blindfolded. The Marshal then took position at the 
 right of the line of the shooting squads, sujBiciently in 
 advance of it to be distinctly seen, with a white hand- 
 kerchief in his hand. As he raised and for a moment 
 held it, the soldiers aimed, and as he dropped it, they 
 fired. Four of the blindfolded men fell backward into 
 their coffins, apparently killed at the instant. The 
 other two struggled and writhed and groaned, and not 
 till the reserve could be ordered forward, take position, 
 receive command and fire, was the misery at an end. 
 
 Here and there along the lines of the soldiery on pa- 
 rade men fainted; others were stomach-sick; some reso- 
 lutely averted their faces and kept in line, while others 
 looked on seemingly unmoved, but so in appearance 
 only we must suppose. 
 
 At length, the agony over, the captains of the com- 
 panies cried, "Attention! shoulder arms; right, face; 
 forward, march"; and to the beat and roll of the drum 
 and the ear-piercing fife, they all marched in quick- 
 step to their respective quarters, there to ponder and 
 wonder for the remainder of the Sabbath and perchance 
 for many a day thereafter. 
 
 Far, far, from my object it has been, companions, to 
 make this festive occasion funereal in the observance. 
 
 135 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 I have but glanced at some of the shadows that flit 
 athwart the sky of recollection, as we recall the crowded 
 past in which it was our fortune to figure, as duty 
 pointed the way, in the momentous struggle for a united 
 and better country. Great as were the griefs in that 
 transcendent ordeal, the triumphs outnumbered and still 
 outnumber the sorrows. Yea, the heavens that brooded 
 over this land and now arch the wide domain were so 
 lighted up and are still so illumined by the sun of Ap- 
 pomattox that the darknesses of the war are but as 
 the specks on the glorious orb of day. We cannot but 
 feel that God himself was in it all, and that all the 
 losses were lasting, golden gains for common humanity. 
 
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S VERSES 
 
 I 
 FIFTH ANNIVERSARY^ 
 
 Five years have flown of wedded life, 
 
 And happy all they seem, 
 To husband sure, perchance to wife 
 
 Who made them so to him. 
 
 Look back! the time is but a day, 
 
 And yet how long the space, 
 If we review the traveled way 
 
 And scan it as we trace : — 
 
 The hours of toil, the hours of chat. 
 The thousand wondrous plans. 
 
 The rarity of tit for tat, 
 Unmindful of our banns. 
 
 Lowly, in sooth, has been our course. 
 
 Not aiming much to shine, 
 Nor borrowing from an alien source 
 
 To flaunt in colors fine. 
 
 * Composed in 1873. 
 137 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Early to rest our chosen rule. 
 
 And middling so to rise; 
 Our study the art of keeping cool, 
 
 To spare each other's eyes. 
 
 Few Erin maids, or other sort, 
 
 Have domineered our cot; 
 For these too simple and too short 
 
 The annals of our lot. 
 
 Nor prancing steeds from cottage side 
 Have rolled with us away; 
 
 But now and then we 've ta'en a ride 
 Upon a summer day. 
 
 Most time we've led with us along 
 
 "The 'ittle Alley Boy"; 
 And he has been a cheering song, 
 
 E'en when he'd most annoy. 
 
 Howe'er he 's tripped upon the road 
 And chased for butter-flies. 
 
 He 's lightened every marriage load 
 And sweetened all its ties. 
 
 So, thankful for the blessings rare, 
 In five years come and gone, 
 
 Of health and hope and joy and care. 
 And whatsoe'er is done, 
 138^ 
 
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S VERSES 
 
 We hail the Future, trusting still 
 
 To Him who reigns on high. 
 And what betides, or good or ill, 
 
 As five years next go by, 
 
 The Past, at least, is all secure. 
 
 The little story 's told; 
 Excel it ye, who feel too sure, 
 
 A reveling in your gold. 
 
 II 
 JENNIE^ 
 
 I KNEW her when a lisping child. 
 
 So lightsome, frank and free; 
 And many an hour I was beguiled 
 
 By her simplicity. 
 
 I knew her when a little sprite 
 
 She tripped to school betime; 
 And how the very room ran bright 
 
 As Jennie read the rhyme. 
 
 I knew her as she older grew. 
 
 Still younger than the rest, 
 And how the prize she ever drew 
 
 For scholarship the best. 
 
 * A feeble tribute to a beloved niece, Jennie Butler Dudley. Com- 
 posed in 1876. 
 
 139 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 I knew her in the higher planes 
 
 Of study still pursued; 
 And, though she wrought with dainty pains, 
 
 The palm not less was wooed. 
 
 I marked her course what time arose 
 
 Her star along the sky; 
 Nor caught a glimmer such as shows 
 
 A ray of vanity. 
 
 I heard them celebrate her mind, 
 
 And marvel at her grace; 
 'T would seem as if she thought us blind, 
 
 So consciousless her face. 
 
 I saw the rich her presence crave. 
 
 And fashion's wiles allure; 
 But vain their arts to her enslave. 
 
 Who daily blessed the poor. 
 
 More wondrous far, howe'er admired, 
 
 And loved this favorite friend; 
 Of all the throng, not one was fired 
 
 An envious shaft to send. 
 
 Her life was spellful as the rays 
 
 Of summer's sunset beam; 
 And at the setting of her days. 
 
 The past ran like a dream. 
 140 
 
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S VERSES 
 
 A dream, too brief, too sweet, to last ! 
 
 Too soon its charms abate. 
 And leave our sky all overcast, 
 
 And hearts all desolate. 
 
 O how it seemed, as word rang round. 
 That Jennie's breath had fled — 
 
 O how it seemed the very sound 
 Would resurrect the dead ! 
 
 To mortal view, to human sense. 
 So homeward came the thought. 
 
 That one of such pure influence 
 Should longer here have wrought. 
 
 But so she lived, and living, died. 
 
 Beloved of all who knew; 
 The pride of all, without a pride. 
 
 Save pride to live life true; — 
 
 To nature true, whom Nature gave 
 
 Her darling gift and rare — 
 A beauteous mind, and its frail slave, 
 
 A beauteous dust to wear. 
 
 The diamond worn a sandy hour 
 
 To rayless ashes fades; 
 The mind, celestial in its power. 
 
 Forsakes the realm of shades; 
 141 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Forsakes, and yet is present there, 
 All-seeing, though unseen; 
 
 Pervades with spirit all the air, 
 And keeps the memory green. 
 
 What else, when dust to dust returns. 
 Prolongs sweet friendship's tie, 
 
 Unless it be some flame that burns 
 Throughout eternity? 
 
 Some quality ethereal, 
 
 Unsub jugate to clay; 
 And still forever personal 
 
 As in the mortal day? 
 
 Methinks, though vision fails me now. 
 But winged by Faith to rise, 
 
 I see the form, the face, the brow. 
 And e'en the angel eyes 
 
 Of Jennie changeless, save as grown 
 
 Angelic more and dear; 
 And lo ! the voice is still her own — 
 
 I hear it very near ! 
 
 And nearer hear, and nearer still. 
 
 The seraph accents fall; 
 And clearer grows my vision till 
 
 I see the Good in All. 
 
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S VERSES 
 
 III 
 MY OLD VIOLIN ^ 
 
 I HAVE in my house an old violin, 
 
 A hundred years old, I guess; 
 In many a dance and choir it has been 
 
 And orchestra more or less. 
 
 Deft fingers sometimes have touched its strings 
 That rivaled Ole Bull's in his pride. 
 
 And still in my ears the music rings 
 That I heard till I almost cried. 
 
 Not always it has by a master hand 
 
 Been so enlivened to speak; 
 More often at mine or other's command 
 
 Its notes have inclined to squeak. 
 
 'T is old, forsooth, but all the more fine, 
 
 As every old fiddler knows : 
 For fiddles are like unto ruddy wine. 
 
 The older the better it grows. 
 
 'T is not for sale, the idol I praise, 
 
 But a shekel I venture to bet, 
 If here Paganini were round nowadays. 
 He 'd buy 't, though it run him in debt. 
 * Composed in 1910. 
 143 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 O how many waltzes and jigs have been danced 
 
 To this vioHn of my care ! 
 What couples past midnight hours have pranced 
 
 In hornpipe and quadrille so fair ! 
 
 What matches near made and even unmade 
 
 It has seen in many a hall ! 
 How watched the whirling promenade 
 
 And eyed the belles of the ball ! 
 
 So too in church, when playing the psalm, 
 The worshippers it slyly has viewed; 
 
 And never the scene so solemn and calm 
 New bonnets its eye would elude. 
 
 To me long ago from a brother it came. 
 
 Who found it all dingy with age 
 In a plantation attic ere slavery's shame 
 
 Had ceased its brutal rage. 
 
 'T was minus alike of tailboard and screws 
 
 And bridge and strings every one, 
 And polish not a bit it had to lose. 
 
 And o'er it cobwebs were spun. 
 
 "O say," cried my brother to the plantation king, 
 "Wilt thou sell me the instrument?" 
 
 "O pshaw! 't is nothing, just take the thing," 
 Responded the lordly gent. 
 144 
 
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S VERSES 
 
 So the teacher, when ready his teaching to quit, 
 Far down where the cotton is grown — 
 
 Brought home the fiddle as his luckiest hit 
 Of all his southern sojourn. 
 
 In a box as old as itself it is kept, 
 
 At least very old I could swear, 
 For there when sleeping the fiddle has slept 
 
 Till the lining is very threadbare. 
 
 Poor box! what a scarcity it shows of paint; 
 
 Pretty much it has vanished from view; 
 And on it are knocks that warrant complaint 
 
 For assaults a full score or two. 
 
 No wonder the wear, for traveled a good deal 
 
 It has on land and the sea. 
 And a footstool has been in times of the reel 
 
 For the players who played with me. 
 
 'T is not such a one as players now show, 
 
 Very like the fiddle in shape; 
 Save rounded ends 't is straight as a row, 
 
 But tapering toward the nape. 
 
 'T is arched a little along the top side 
 
 And thereon is a handle of brass; 
 And in it are pockets spare strings to hide, 
 
 And all else of the outfit class. 
 145 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Quite new is the bow, but much now impaired 
 
 By forty years' use or so; 
 So long it is since I had it re-haired 
 
 There scarce is a hair to the bow. 
 
 But the fiddle, I trow, ah! that is all right. 
 And though I play it nevermore. 
 
 If any one thinks that money can buy 't. 
 Let a Rockefeller try his out-pour. 
 
 Here ends my poor ditty in memory fond 
 
 Of the dear, dear old VioUn; 
 E'en stronger than mine I pray be the bond 
 
 To knit it unto my kin. 
 
 IV 
 
 MY MOTHER 1 
 
 My mother, I remember her, 
 Remember her to-day. 
 Remember her as well 
 As when at boyhood's play 
 Where I was used to dwell; 
 There 'neath the broad old willow trees, 
 And hear their lofty branches stir 
 As through them went the summer breeze. 
 ^ Composed in 1870. 
 146 
 
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S VERSES 
 
 My mother, I remember how, 
 
 Just how she looked to me; 
 The goodness of her face. 
 The features all I see, 
 And see her in her place, 
 
 There in the quaint old mansion rude; 
 
 And well I mark her thoughtful brow. 
 
 As oft the Good Book she construed. 
 
 My mother, I remember all 
 Her unwearying care 
 For me and others dear. 
 Who did the bounty share 
 Of her kind love and cheer; 
 What joy would o'er her mild face run, 
 What shadow o'er it quickly fall, 
 As right or wrong was seen or done. 
 
 My mother, I remember part 
 Her busy life and long; 
 How toilfuUy she wrought 
 With feeble hand or strong. 
 Lest she should fail in aught; 
 Nor seemed to view her burdens sore. 
 Though oft they tried her noble heart, 
 Till weary grown past years four score. 
 
 My mother, I remember too, 
 Her open hand and free 
 147 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 To beggars at the door; 
 And, sooth, her charity 
 Ofttimes excelled her store; 
 For she the poor could ne'er deny, 
 E'en though their tale were quite untrue, 
 Lest some in need should vainly cry. 
 
 My mother, I remember what 
 
 Was her persuasive speech 
 When men, too swift of tongue. 
 Their fellows would impeach 
 For what unproved was wrong; 
 
 "Nay, spare to chide in hasty phrase; 
 
 Perchance, the truth, full told, will not 
 
 Thy brother blame, but crown with praise!" 
 
 My mother, I remember when 
 
 If sickness laid her low, 
 
 Or other troubles came. 
 
 The patience she would show. 
 
 All trustful in the Name 
 She early vowed to reverence; 
 What faith she proved in Jesus then — 
 How resolute her confidence ! 
 
 My mother, I remember dim 
 
 My childhood's tender days; 
 Remember, or do feel. 
 The prayers her love did raise 
 148 
 
SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S VERSES 
 
 To guard my future weal : — 
 O could I now but faintly test 
 Her invocations unto Him, 
 My spirit were sin-washed and blest! 
 
 My mother, I remember — no ! 
 For memory 't is vain. 
 If ever I retrace, 
 Nor strive by steps to gain 
 The summits of the Place 
 
 Where thou art beckoning me to thee; 
 
 While I, still slothful here below. 
 
 Forget to mind eternity. 
 
 My mother, me remember still. 
 
 In thy orisons pure 
 
 Up near the Heavenly Throne! 
 
 And may thy love allure 
 
 Me there and there alone; 
 For more and more I weary here. 
 And hopeless am of rest, until 
 My soul through grace to God draws near. 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 Not a little embarrassed I feel in responding to your 
 invitation to speak of the pleasures of poetry. 
 
 How can any one who is not a poet so discourse? 
 Who but a poet can tell what is poetry? If any one but 
 a poet essay treatment of the subject, may he not as 
 likely descant on the pleasures of prose as poetry, 
 unaware of the di^^ding line? Even poets are not 
 always agreed where begins or ends the invisible, 
 shadowj- hne. Some deny that that is inspired by the 
 Muse which others celebrate as the Muse's loftiest 
 inspiration. Dryden pronounced the plays of Shake- 
 speare "'ridiculous and incoherent stories meanly 
 written." Addison noted them as "ven- faulty." 
 Dr. Johnson said that the author could not write six 
 consecutive lines without fault. Milton censured 
 Charles I for making "the Plays and other such stuff 
 his daily reading." Tate, poet-laureate of his time, 
 styled "Othello," characterized by Macaulay as the 
 greatest work in the world, as "a mere thing." And 
 Steams said that only an act of Parliament could 
 make any one read the Sonnets, Not till within 
 a hundred years have the plays, by something like 
 consensus of ^-iew, been ranked as master-pieces in the 
 realm of dramatic art and poetic genius, while now 
 
 150 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 their rank is questioned by critics not a few who point 
 to passages in the works as turgid, dull, overwrought, 
 witless, and here and there so unintelligible, that com- 
 mentators never cease changing the test to make 
 sense. Similar variances of judgment there are re- 
 garding the productions of other poets of great repute. 
 
 The explanation of it all would seem to be that 
 what is poetry to some is not always such to others, 
 or is not till time may have tested the ore and found 
 gold. One may reject as prosaic what another may 
 accept as poetic; but however minds may diflFer in 
 classifying compositions under the heads of poetry 
 and prose, there is, it is beUeved, in every soul the 
 poetic sentiment that responds to one quality or an- 
 other of verse, just as there is music in every soul 
 detecting, according to the fashion of one's ear, the 
 melodious from the unmelodious and harmony from 
 discord. Thus there are poets who never write poetry. 
 Yea, in that "fine frenzy" the bard of Avon speaks 
 of, there are bards in varying degrees numerous as the 
 race of man. Limitless almost they are in the choice 
 of authors. 
 
 Some enjoy most a Homer or a Horace, a Milton 
 or a Dante, a Goethe or a Coleridge, a Burns or a Byron, 
 a Browning or a Tennyson, a Longfellow or a Whittier; 
 some, possibly, a Kipling beyond all others who ever 
 climbed or strove to climb the arduous heights of 
 Parnassus. But whatever the choice, the reader reads 
 his favorite author because he finds in him what most 
 
 151 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 appeals to his poetic sentiment, what most satisi5es his 
 love of verse, his ideal of style, rhythm, and strain of 
 thought. The pleasure of every reader is, I suppose, in 
 the proportion he finds his own thoughts, emotions, 
 meditations, and aspirations, his own loves, aversions, 
 moods, and merriments, aptly or happily expressed. 
 What more pleases a reader, not alone in his reading, 
 but in his living, than to come upon a passage in a 
 book that reflects in felicitous, poetic phrase some 
 well-remembered experience, mental or spiritual, of 
 his own life; some struggle of his emotions, his sensa- 
 tion of joy or sorrow, exaltation or depression of his 
 soul; his sense of right in sharp distinction from the 
 wrong; his conception of the humorous or the ironic; 
 some meditation he may have indulged on the great 
 problems of life and death; or that reflects perchance 
 that indefinable sensation of joy commingling with 
 solemnity, reverence, and gratitude, as he has contem- 
 plated the natural world, the scenes of its beauty, the 
 manifestations of its grandeur and the evidences of 
 its beneficence, yea, the unspeakable impressiveness 
 of the visible creation, whether the land, the sea, or 
 the heavens above? 
 
 Such portraitures, on the printed page, of his inner 
 self, his consciousness, his mental, moral, and spiritual 
 condition and experiences, one delights to meet, recall 
 and cherish. With them, one holds silent communion 
 and in them takes refreshment and repose. Hence men 
 and women as well of laborious or busy life, official, 
 
 152 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 professional, commercial or other, resort often to their 
 favorite poets for recreation and rest. So Cicero flew 
 from the care and stress of the forum to revive his 
 spirit, ennoble his nature, and enrich his diction. So 
 was he inspired for his immortal defence of the Greek 
 poet Archias, to whose voice he could hear the rocks 
 and solitudes respond. It matters not whether you 
 and I are or may be in accord with the reader. A, B or 
 C, as to the phraseology that best versifies his or her 
 particular thought, emotion, or conceit. Every one 
 judges for himself, catches at the verse, lodges it in 
 memory, and as occasion prompts, quotes it in dis- 
 course or lisps it in retirement. 
 
 Yet in the vast volume of poesy, olden and recent, 
 there are certain passages or lines of the song, the 
 ballad, the hymn, the lyric, the drama, the poem, the 
 epic, which by a kind of universal assent are exception- 
 ally complete in their expressions of human thought 
 and feeling as awakened in our relations with the 
 world in which we live, move and play our little parts. 
 Instances crowd on us for illustration. As the rarest 
 are apt to be not uncommon, I make no apology if I 
 should use such as may be familiar to your memory as 
 well as mine, to intimate some of the pleasures of 
 poetry, be it rhyme without wings or verse inspired 
 by the muse alike in cadence and flame, caustic or 
 ethical, humorous or serene, grave or pathetic, beauti- 
 ful, solemn, or sublime in sentiment, or both senti- 
 mental and flashing with the fire of imagination. 
 
 153 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Mindful of the infinite pleasure afforded from time 
 immemorial to children of the nursery by the drollery 
 and jingle of her doggerel, it would hardly seem out 
 of course if we should venture here some samples of 
 Mother Goose's melodies; but as the congregation is 
 but little, if at all, sprinkled with the fancy of child- 
 hood, perhaps it were better to omit the Humpty 
 Dumpty and the Hey Diddle Diddle, the Old King 
 Cole and the Old Mother Hubbard of the dear old 
 lady, and address our illustrations rather to the adult 
 mind. 
 
 So many gems have I plucked from one mine and 
 another, and at one time and another packed away in 
 the little satchel of my memory to help me on the 
 journey of life, that I am more or less embarrassed 
 here, first, because of some abundance of riches, next 
 because you and I may differ as to what jewels had 
 better be produced from the satchel, and lastly, be- 
 cause the limitation of time admonishes me that I 
 cannot long have your attention. 
 
 Few things in literature are more satisfactory than 
 a bit of verse embodying a truth of world-wide recog- 
 nition, so pungent, so epigrammatic as everywhere to 
 invite quotation. An example is had in that old, but 
 never outworn couplet of Butler in "Hudibras": — 
 
 No rogue e'er felt the halter draw 
 But had poor 'pinion of the law. 
 
 Side by side with this famous couplet none may be 
 better placed for quotableness than that of him 
 
 154 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 (Whittier) whose verse and sweet memory you cele- 
 brate to-night. If other lines should not, these are 
 likely to perpetuate the story of "Maud Muller ": — 
 
 Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 
 The saddest are these, it might have been. 
 
 If I begin with the law, do not fear that you will 
 have much more of it. — The application of course 
 being to every one who blames the law when a case 
 goes against him, as about everybody does, the world 
 all over, including in these latter days the grafter and 
 the soulless corporation. 
 
 A pun, if witty, is doubly enjoyable in rhyme. 
 Such the one perpetrated by Hood : — 
 
 His death that happened in his berth. 
 
 At forty-odd befell; 
 They went and told the sexton 
 
 And the sexton tolled the bell. 
 
 "To be or not to be," quoth Hamlet. To do or not 
 to do, that also is the question that must oft give us 
 pause lest we do what we would undo and may not 
 be able. While an important measure was pending 
 in the British Parliament, and debate ran high and 
 warm, a wit of the House of Commons rose and said : — 
 
 "I hear a lion in the lobby roar; 
 Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door 
 And keep him out, or shall we let him in 
 And see if we can get him out again?" 
 
 A melancholy pleasure it is to see pictured in verse 
 that streak of human nature that abandons a man in 
 
 155 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 adversity, but hastens to do him honor when too late 
 for such appreciation to be of any worth to the unfor- 
 tunate. The brilHant Sheridan, orator, statesman, and 
 poet, died, as you may remember, in poverty, harassed 
 by hungry creditors and neglected by the society of 
 learning, wealth and fashion that had fawned on him 
 while his genius commanded the applause of Ustening 
 senates. To his burial turned out all the ^lite of Lon- 
 don, as if, instead of in a hovel, he had died a prince 
 in a palace. 
 
 O it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow. 
 And friendships so false in the great and high-born; 
 To think what a long line of titles may follow 
 The relics of him who died friendless and lorn ! 
 
 How proudly they press to the funeral array 
 Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow; 
 How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day 
 Whose pall shall be held by nobles to-morrow! 
 
 And in the visions of romantic youth 
 What years of endless bliss are yet to flow; 
 But mortal pleasure, what art thou in truth? 
 The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below; 
 
 exclaims Campbell. 
 
 To that sweet season is age apt to revert and con- 
 trast its tardy pace of time in its flight when locks are 
 gray and eyes begin to sight the gates that open to 
 the undiscovered country. Hence Dryden's portrayal 
 of the reflection: — 
 
 The more we live more brief appear 
 Our life's succeeding stages; 
 156 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 A day in childhood seems a year 
 And years like passing ages. 
 
 Heaven gives one years of fading strength 
 Indemnifying fleetness, 
 And those of youth a seeming length 
 Proportioned to their sweetness. 
 
 Doubtless we have all taken notice now and then 
 of a certain type of piety, more or less prevalent in 
 every Christian church of whatever denomination, 
 like that, for instance, depicted by Pope. 
 
 Together lay her prayer-book and her paint. 
 At once t 'adorn the sinner and the saint. 
 
 There is a poesy of measured, plaintive flow, with 
 a pathos of sentiment and a tone of farewell in its 
 accents, that singularly calms the spirit of man, tends 
 as 't were to wean him of life or, if not that, serves 
 somehow to soften the pang of the departure. In the 
 dying hours of Daniel Webster at his Marshfield home 
 by the sea, when his family and other friends were 
 gathered silently round the bed, the great statesman, 
 rousing as from deep thought and with a freshness of 
 voice not unlike that heard from his lips at Bunker 
 Hill, cried out, "Poetry! Poetry!" A momentary 
 embarrassment ensued, lest none should make an 
 appropriate selection. Presently the son, Fletcher, 
 hastened to the library, and returning with a book and 
 sitting by the father's side, softly read : — 
 
 "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. 
 The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 
 157 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me." 
 
 "Yes, yes, that's it, that's it," said the dying Sec- 
 retary of State. And the son read on, on near to the 
 close, and ere long the mightiest of American orators 
 breathed his last. 
 
 Have you ever lisped the lines of that wondrous 
 Elegy to lull you to sleep when naught else would quiet 
 thought and allay the tossing of weariness.? 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight. 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds. 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight 
 Or drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. 
 
 Keep on, keep on, and perchance, ere you have reached 
 the final numbers, slumber will have enfolded you. 
 
 Who has not felt a peculiar pleasure keeping step 
 with constant conjecture in following those exquisitely 
 ingenious lines of Byron's "Enigma"? Lest some of 
 you may not have read or heard it, it not being found 
 in all the Byronic editions, I will say that the answer 
 to the enigma is a certain letter of the alphabet. If you 
 should follow closely the lines and keep orthography 
 in mind and the sound full or faint, you will no doubt 
 readily detect the letter. 
 
 'T was whispered in heaven, 't was muttered in hell 
 And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell; 
 On the confines of earth 't was permitted to rest 
 And the depths of the ocean its presence confest; 
 'T will be found in the sphere when riven asunder. 
 Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder; 
 158 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 'T was allotted to man with his earliest breath. 
 
 Attends at his birth and awaits him in death ; 
 
 It presides o'er his honor, happiness and health. 
 
 Is the prop of his house and the end of his wealth ; 
 
 Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam. 
 
 But woe to the wretch who expels it from home ; 
 
 In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found. 
 
 Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drowned ; 
 
 'T will not soften the heart, an d though deaf to the ear, 
 
 'T will make it acutely and instantly hear; 
 
 But in shade let it rest, like a delicate flower, 
 
 O breathe on it softly, it dies in an hour. 
 
 What a blast is this in exposure of what too often 
 passes for administration of justice under human gov- 
 ernment ! 
 
 Plate sin with gold 
 And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; 
 Arm it in rags, a pigmy straw doth pierce it. 
 
 Not thus does the same peerless bard see the uneven 
 weighted balances in the court on high. 
 
 In the corrupted currents of this world 
 Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice. 
 And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself 
 Buys out the law. But 't is not so above; 
 There is no shuflBing; there the action lies 
 In his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd 
 E'en to the teeth and forehead of our faults 
 To give in evidence . 
 
 Sometimes a single line of verse is a whole volume of 
 discourse in its expression of opposite ideas — ideas, 
 say, of humanity and inhumanity. Rare indeed the line, 
 but such the last but two of Byron's graphic picture of 
 the Dying Gladiator, pouring out his life-blood before 
 
 159 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 the heartless, shouting multitude of the Roman Coli- 
 seum. I will recite as well as I may the two stanzas pic- 
 turing the shocking scene and then repeat the line I 
 refer to. 
 
 I see before me the Gladiator lie; 
 He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 
 Consents to death, but conquers agony. 
 And his drooped head sinks gradually low, 
 And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
 From the red gash, fall heavy one by one. 
 Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now 
 The arena swims around him; he is gone 
 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. 
 
 He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes 
 Were with his heart, and that was far away; 
 He recked not of the life he lost nor prize. 
 But where his rude hut by the Danube lay; 
 There were his young barbarians all at play. 
 There was their Dacian mother, he their sire. 
 Butchered to make a Roman holiday; 
 All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire 
 And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! 
 
 Butchered to make a Roman holiday. 
 
 There is humanity breathed in undertone, and there 
 the inhumanity loudly expressed. 
 
 Liberty! To us who value the boon it is pleasurable 
 to read of the deathlessness of its spirit. 
 
 Power at thee has launched 
 His bolts and with his lightnings smitten thee; 
 He could not quench the light thou hast from Heaven. 
 Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep. 
 And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires. 
 Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound, 
 160 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 The links are shivered and the prison walls 
 Fall outward ; terribly thou springest forth 
 As springs the flame above a burning pile. 
 And shoutest to the nations, who return 
 Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 
 
 In striking contrast with the undying nature of Lib- 
 erty is the fleetness of fame. How Holmes marks its 
 evanescence in his little poem on Bill and Joe! 
 
 Ah! pensive scholar, what is fame? 
 A fitful tongue of leaping flame; 
 A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust 
 That lifts a pinch of mortal dust. 
 A few swift years and who can show 
 Which dust was Bill and which was Joe? 
 
 The sensations produced by music no poet within 
 my limited reading has adequately described, perhaps 
 for the reason that they are indescribable. Tom Moore's 
 happy confession that language is unequal to the de- 
 scription is more satisfactory than most of the attempts 
 to versify the effect wrought by the lyre of Orpheus, or 
 any of his imitators. 
 
 Music! O how faint, how weak. 
 
 Language fades before thy spell ! 
 
 Why should feeling ever speak. 
 
 When thou canst breathe her soul so well? 
 
 There are songs that never fail to touch the heart- 
 strings, however familiar, however oft repeated; that 
 have in them that one touch of nature that makes all 
 the world kin; whose very simplicity penetrates to the 
 very depths of human feeling. Of such are "Home, 
 Sweet Home," "Oft in the Stilly Night," "The Last 
 
 161 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Rose of Summer," and " Auld Lang Syne." Not unlike 
 these in touching simplicity and naturalness is that 
 song, if we may so call it, of Thomas Hood, which, 
 though of a diflferent order, still haunts us the same, 
 however the poet's fond memories of childhood be 
 shaded by the melancholies of age. 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 The house where I was born; 
 The little window where the sun 
 
 Came peeping in at morn; 
 He never came a wink too soon, 
 
 Nor brought too long a day; 
 But now I often wish the night 
 
 Had borne my breath away. 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 The roses, red and white, 
 The violets and the lily-cups — 
 
 Those flowers made of light ! 
 The lilacs where the robin built. 
 
 And where my brother set 
 The laburnum on his birthday — 
 
 The tree is living yet. 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 Where I was used to swing. 
 And thought the air must rush as fresh 
 
 To swallows on the wing; 
 My spirit flew in feathers then 
 
 That is so heavy now. 
 And summer pools could scarcely cool 
 
 The fever on my brow. 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 The fir-trees dark and high; 
 I used to think the slender tops 
 
 Were close against the sky; 
 162 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 It was a childish ignorance. 
 
 But now 't is little joy 
 To know I 'm farther o£P from heaven 
 
 Than when I was a boy. 
 
 However great our enjoyment in beholding the glo- 
 ries of natural, terrestrial scenery, enhanced is the keen- 
 ness of it if our emotions be voiced in the outburst of 
 some impassioned lover of nature pouring himself out 
 in poetic strain. So Bryant, back for a while from the 
 metropolis to his Berkshire hills, gives unaffected voice 
 to the rapture that possesses him. 
 
 I stand upon my native hills again. 
 
 Broad, round and green, that in the summer sky, 
 
 With garniture of grass and grain. 
 
 Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie. 
 
 While deep the sunless glens are scoop'd between. 
 
 Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen. 
 
 Here have I 'scaped the city's stifling heat. 
 Its horrid sounds and its polluted air. 
 And where the season's milder fervors beat, 
 And gales that sweep the forest borders, bear 
 The song of bird and sound of running stream, 
 And come awhile to wander and to dream. 
 Aye, flame thy fiercest, sun, thou canst not wake 
 In this pure air that plague that walks unseen. 
 The maize leaf and the maple bough but take 
 From thy strong heats a deeper, glossier green; 
 The mountain wind that faints not in thy ray. 
 Sweeps the blue streams of pestilence away. 
 
 The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all 
 The wide earth knows; when, in the sultry time. 
 He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall. 
 He seems the breath of a celestial cUme, 
 163 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 As if from heaven's wide open gates did blow 
 Health and refreshment on the world below. 
 
 If we turn from the land to the sea, our mood some- 
 times is to see it as seen in the placid, dreamy lines of 
 Longfellow: — 
 
 It is the sea, it is the sea 
 In all its vague immensity. 
 Fading and darkening in the distance ! 
 Silent, majestical and slow 
 The white ships haunt it to and fro. 
 With all their ghostly sails unfurled. 
 As phantoms from another world 
 Haunt the dim confines of existence ! 
 But ah! how few can comprehend 
 Their signals or to what good end 
 From land to land they come and go! 
 Upon a sea more vast and dark 
 The spirits of the dead embark. 
 All voyaging to unknown coasts. 
 We wave our farewells from the shore 
 And they depart and come no more 
 Or come as phantoms and as ghosts. 
 
 But if we would employ the speech of poetry to en- 
 able us to hold communion with the deep, its grandeur, 
 its vastness, its vehemence, the sublimity of its might 
 and the solemnity of its calm, its awful beauty and 
 ceaseless undulation, whether viewing the expanse 
 from shore or ship, we have all the help our sense can 
 crave in the matchless apostrophe of Byron : — 
 
 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll! 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 
 Man marks the earth with ruin, his control 
 Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain 
 164 
 
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY 
 
 The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
 
 A shadow of man's ravage, save his own. 
 
 When for a moment, like a drop of rain. 
 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
 
 Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined and unknown. 
 
 I readily assume that you are too familiar with the 
 entire apostrophe to indulge me here in repetition of it. 
 It is such a burst of poetic genius that every one 
 should hold it in memory, line on line, as he surveys 
 the ocean, whether 
 
 Calm or convulsed, in breeze or gale or storm. 
 Icing the pole or in the torrid clime 
 Dark-heaving, boundless, endless and sublime. 
 
 But ah! over and above the land and the sea are 
 the heavens, and if we would behold them with the 
 poet's eye, our vision always finds aid in the familiar 
 paraphrase of the Nineteenth Psalm by Addison. 
 
 The spacious firmament on high. 
 
 With all the blue, ethereal sky. 
 
 And spangled heavens, a shining frame. 
 
 Their great Oriqinal proclaim. 
 
 The unwearied sun, from day to day. 
 
 Does his Creator's power display. 
 
 And publishes to every land 
 
 The work of an Almighty hand. 
 
 Soon as the evening shades prevail. 
 The moon takes up the wondrous tale 
 And nightly to the listening earth 
 Repeats the story of her birth ; 
 While all the stars that round her burn 
 And all the planets in their turn. 
 Confirm the tidings as they roll 
 And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
 165 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 What though in solemn silence all 
 Move round the dark terrestrial ball; 
 What though no real voice or sound 
 Amid their radiant orbs be found? 
 In reason's ear they all rejoice 
 And utter forth a glorious voice, 
 Forever singing as they shine, 
 " The hand that made us is divine! " 
 
 Finally, if we would feel the blood of patriotism 
 stirred, feel the thrill of the love of country, not so 
 much in passion for war, yet in such willingness for 
 sacrifice as makes one feel 't is sweet and beautiful to 
 die for his country, — 
 
 Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, — 
 nothing, nothing perhaps of verse so touches the 
 patriot heart-strings of us of America as the good old 
 national hymn. Suppose we all rise and join in singing 
 the opening stanza, — 
 
 My country, 't is of thee, 
 Sweet land of liberty. 
 
 Of thee I sing; 
 Land where my fathers died. 
 Land of the Pilgrims' pride. 
 From every mountain side. 
 
 Let freedom ring. 
 
THE STORY OF THE TRIP TO NEW 
 BERN TO DEDICATE THE MONU- 
 MENT TO MASSACHUSETTS SOL- 
 DIERS 
 
 TOLD AT A MEETING OF THE LOYAL LEGION 
 IN BOSTON, DECEMBER 3, 1908 
 
 Of the many veterans and others who made the 
 trip last month to New Bern, North Carolina, for the 
 purpose of dedicating the monument there recently 
 erected in the national cemetery to our Massachusetts 
 soldier-dead, there are not a few, I am sure, right here 
 in this hall who could give you a far better account of 
 the trip and the occasion than myself, and I hardly 
 know why I am here to attempt the story. My narra- 
 tion must needs be quite imperfect, for I have taken 
 no such time to methodize and phrase it as I would 
 or ought before addressing an audience so large and 
 intelligent, even though indisposed to be critical, as 
 the one I see here before me. Besides, I am of late 
 somehow seriously failing in language, so absolutely 
 impossible did I find it to express the sensations that 
 possessed me upon revisiting New Bern and its vicin- 
 ity after the lapse of three and forty years. We are 
 sometimes led to feel that we cannot to much purpose 
 
 167 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 talk about a matter, however much we may know 
 about it; and others, I suspect, not less than myself, 
 so felt when we got down there in Carolina under the 
 old Flag and tried to realize the measureless dissim- 
 ilarity of conditions now and then. 
 
 I suppose it is altogether true that Massachusetts 
 lost more men, far more men, during the war, in North 
 Carolina, than any other state that contended for 
 the integrity of the Union. A conservative estimate 
 has placed the number at not less than three thousand, 
 either as killed in battle or dying from disease or the 
 effects of wounds. 
 
 As early as 1867 the government procured several 
 acres of a plain about two miles from New Bern town 
 and enclosed and otherwise laid out the land for a 
 cemetery. The area was subsequently enlarged, until 
 at present the cemetery comprises about seven acres, 
 and later improvements, including the planting of 
 trees, have added much to the comeliness of the burial 
 ground. As often as the remains of any Massachusetts 
 Union soldiers have been discovered in any part of 
 the state they have been disinterred and re-interred 
 there, until now there are about five hundred graves 
 of our Massachusetts soldier-dead in the quiet cem- 
 etery, all marked with head-stones, each indicating 
 as well as may be the person of the sleeping patriot 
 boy who wore the blue. Yet not till a time compara- 
 tively recent was there any definite action taken for 
 the erection of a monument in memory of those dead 
 
 168 
 
A TRIP TO NEW BERN 
 
 who so gave up their lives that government of, by and 
 for the people might not perish from the earth. Other 
 states, notably Connecticut and New Jersey, years 
 ago had set up monuments there, though their dead 
 combined and doubled in the Old North State are far 
 less than those of the Old Bay State. At last General 
 Frankle, — praise be to his name ! — who was Colonel 
 of the 2nd Heavy Artillery, along with a few others, 
 roused himself and resolved that there should go up 
 down there near New Bern some monumental token 
 of the state's respect and gratitude, if possibly some 
 effective appeal could be made to our Legislature. 
 
 Accordingly a petition was started, and by much 
 industry was numerously signed by veterans and other 
 citizens, business men and other men of character and 
 influence. With it we went before the Joint Legislative 
 Committee on Military Affairs and had a hearing. 
 The committee were attentive and sympathetic, and 
 so well was the case of the petitioners made out that 
 at the close of the hearing some members of the com- 
 mittee did not hesitate to say that if the petition had 
 asked for an appropriation of ten instead of five thou- 
 sand dollars, the prayer might have been granted. 
 A resolve was reported, appropriating five thousand 
 dollars, and it went through both branches of the 
 General Court without much, if any, dissent. 
 
 Then a monument committee was appointed, con- 
 sisting of General Jones Frankle, General A. B. R. 
 Sprague, Major Daniel W. Hammond, Major Charles 
 
 169 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 B. Amory, Captain Joseph A. Moore, Sergeant Ephraim 
 Stearns, and Corporal James B. Gardner, the latter 
 as secretary. They employed for a sculptor Malgar 
 H. Mosman of Chicopee, himself a veteran, an accom- 
 plished designer of many soldiers' monuments and 
 other similar works of note. The design was cast in 
 the well-known Ames foundry of Chicopee, and in 
 due time the cast was erected in the cemetery by the 
 sexton thereof, under directions of the committee in 
 association with the sculptor. It is a bronze female 
 figure of "History," mounted on a base of Barre 
 granite, with bronze tablets on three sides and dedi- 
 catory inscriptions thereon. The statue or figure of 
 History is represented as inscribing on a shield held 
 in the left hand this sentiment : — 
 
 AFTER LOYAL SERVICE, UNION AND PEACE 
 
 Good authorities have pronounced the figure grace- 
 ful, excellent in proportion, and beautiful in detail. 
 
 At the late session of the Legislature (1908) an 
 appropriation of four thousand dollars was made to be 
 expended for the proper representation of the Common- 
 wealth at the dedication of the monument. The 
 resolve of appropriation provided that the state dele- 
 gation for that purpose should consist of the Governor, 
 the Lieutenant Governor, two members of the Gov- 
 ernor's Council, the chief and one other of the Gov- 
 ernor's Staff , the President and Clerk of the Senate, the 
 Speaker and Clerk of the House, the Joint Legislative 
 
 170 
 
A TRIP TO NEW BERN 
 
 Committee on Military Affairs, two representatives of 
 each of the seventeen regiments that served in North 
 Carohna, and such other guests as His Excellency 
 might personally invite. His Excellency invited two 
 ladies to act in unveiling the monument and one 
 esteemed Recorder of this Commandery whose pre- 
 sence with us all the while was a joy and an inspiration. 
 
 Here I should say that we had to regret the absence 
 of the Governor by reason of ill-health, and also that 
 of the Lieutenant Governor and Speaker Cole. 
 
 Besides the state or official delegation there were 
 two others, volunteers, so to speak, who paid their 
 own expenses, starting before and getting to New Bern 
 in advance of the official delegation, and getting, too, 
 some of them, better hotel accommodations than did 
 some of the official dignitaries. The latter left Boston 
 Monday evening, November 9, and arrived at New- 
 Bern Wednesday forenoon the 11th, at half -past nine 
 o'clock. Going down, we stopped in Washington 
 Tuesday six or eight hours by day, and returning 
 tarried there Friday a like number of hours of day- 
 light. We saw considerable of the capital, saw the 
 Capitol, of which the Indian said, "White man no 
 make that, Great Spirit make that"; saw the Supreme 
 Court, the Congressional Library, the towering monu- 
 ment to the Father of his Country, the White House, 
 and President Roosevelt, The chief magistrate was 
 very gracious and, though not much used to speaking, 
 made us a little speech, ending it with the remark, 
 
 171 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 "You who went to the war did well, but your wives 
 who staid at home did better"; rather an equivocal 
 distinction perhaps. 
 
 Our travel was mostly by night, some of us not 
 sleeping much, owing in part to the good-natured 
 hilarity of some of the fellow passengers, and partly 
 because we were not all of us good sleepers in "Pull- 
 man sleepers." 
 
 Arrived at New Bern, our reception was generous, 
 hearty, hospitable. If possible, it was rather warmer 
 than that which awaited us forty-six years before. 
 The population, uncolored as well as colored, all was 
 in a rivalry to welcome us. We failed to detect any 
 trace of sourness or soreness or even lingering disap- 
 pointment. The darkies bubbled over. The generation 
 that had come upon the stage knew by tradition who 
 the "Yanks" were, and they eyed us as friends. The 
 radiance of their faces added not a little to the bright 
 sunshine of the day. 
 
 The day of our arrival was the day of the dedication, 
 beginning at two p. m., and an ideal day it was — a 
 cloudless sky, no undue breeze, the temperature about 
 that of July in New England, overcoats not needed, 
 hardly middle-weight flannels. The Mayor of the city 
 and others of the municipal government were with us. 
 The banks, schools, and stores were nearly all closed, 
 and the town had a holiday aspect. 
 
 The several delegations formed in line at the Gaston 
 House, and, escorted by a military company from 
 
 172 
 
A TRIP TO NEW BERN 
 
 Kinston, the New Bern Naval Reserve, and the local 
 Confederate Camp, marched to the music of the Kin- 
 ston band to the railroad station, where cars were 
 taken to a point near the cemetery. Re-forming there, 
 we marched into the cemetery and took position gen- 
 erally around the monument, those having parts in 
 the exercises taking seats on the platform, facing the 
 veiled monument a few rods away. The throng of 
 people there gathered numbered by estimate four 
 thousand, about half of whom were the colored pop- 
 ulation in their best attire. 
 
 Chairman Frankle of the committee called the 
 assembly to order, and a fervent prayer was offered 
 by the Reverend Doctor Hall of the 44th Regiment. 
 The school children, the girls in white with uncovered 
 heads, then finely sang the "Blue and the Gray." 
 Next, the secretary of the committee, Mr. Gardner, 
 read a letter from Governor Guild, deeply regretting 
 his inability to be present and eloquently referring 
 to the occasion so intimately associated with the name 
 of the Commonwealth. 
 
 Following the letter the sculptor in a few words 
 presents his work to the committee, and then the 
 monument is unveiled, three ladies aptly manipulating 
 a cord and the Stars and Stripes falling from the statue 
 and gathering in folds round the pedestal and base, 
 each lady a moment thereafter being presented with 
 a liberal bouquet. 
 
 Here I should pause to speak a word or two of those 
 173 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 ladies. Mrs. Hartsfield, a New Bern lady, was invited 
 to participate in the ceremony out of courtesy to her 
 husband, Colonel Hartsfield, commander of the Con- 
 federate Camp. Alice Alden Sprague, the fair youth- 
 ful daughter of our Commander, General Sprague, 
 is a lineal descendant of John Alden and Priscilla 
 Mullens of the Mayflower. Of the other, Mrs. Laura 
 A, Dugan, there is a tale at once pathetic and pleasant. 
 In the time of the yellow fever at New Bern in 1864, 
 that scourge that so decimated the ranks of combatants 
 and non-combatants, one of the unwritten chapters, 
 I may say, of the story of the Civil War, Colonel Amory 
 of the 17th Regiment, together with his wife and four 
 children, was at Beaufort, not far from New Bern. 
 Both the father and the mother died of the fever, 
 leaving Laura, a babe five months old. Colonel 
 Frankle, then in command of the defenses of New Bern, 
 had much to do in caring for the orphan children, and 
 more than once had this infant in his arms, though 
 Mrs. Palmer, the wife of the general, had the special 
 care of the child. As soon as transportation could be 
 provided consistently with the quarantine, the child 
 was taken to her grandparents near Boston, and there 
 lived till adopted by her uncle. Major Amory, of our 
 Order. After forty-four years Mrs. Dugan returned to 
 New Bern to see her birthplace, even the house where 
 she was born, and to help unveil the monument erected 
 in memory of comrades in the same local service as her 
 gallant father. Hardly should I omit to add that the 
 
 174 
 
A TRIP TO NEW BERN 
 
 lady who so officiated is highly accomplished and 
 singularly beautiful, insomuch that she attracted gen- 
 eral attention, and all the more because she seemed 
 literally unconscious of the unusual charms she pos- 
 sesses. 
 
 As the flag dropped from the statue, and the bright 
 sun shone upon the glossy bronze, there was an in- 
 voluntary expression of admiration. From a woman 
 very near the side of the platform came the voice, 
 "Oh, how beautiful!" I turned and saw that the ad- 
 mirer was a lady of obvious taste and refinement. 
 On our way homeward I mentioned the incident to the 
 sculptor, and he thought it among the finest compli- 
 ments he had received. 
 
 The chairman of the committee, in a brief, apt 
 address, now accepts the monument and presents it 
 to the State of Massachusetts. In an address exceed- 
 ingly appropriate President Chappie of the Senate, 
 representing the Governor, accepts it and turns it 
 over for proper care to the sexton of the Cemetery as a 
 representative of the United States. This done, the 
 band renders the "Star-Spangled Banner." The 
 dedicatory address follows and the exercises conclude 
 with "America" by the band, the great congregation 
 joining to swell the strain of the national hymn. 
 
 In the same way we came from the town we re- 
 turned, and upon arrival at the hotel the band played 
 "Dixie," then "Marching through Georgia," and 
 finally "America" again, the crowd singing at the 
 
 175 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 tops of their voices, and crowning the conclusion with 
 three rousing cheers for the Kinston band, whose 
 music, be it said, was spirited, cultivated, and almost 
 Bostonian. 
 
 Some supplement now there is to all this that has 
 been so imperfectly set forth, and perhaps it were 
 worth your while to hear it. 
 
 In the evening following the dedication the Daugh- 
 ters of the Confederacy gave in their decorated hall 
 a reception to the Yankees. It was aflfable, kind, and 
 touching. The collation was both bountiful and dainty. 
 The singing of their songs was stirring and sweet. The 
 chat and charms of the Daughters and their uncon- 
 scious overtures were so fascinating, so irresistible, 
 that some, if not all of us, nearly surrendered, so did 
 Cupid's darts take effect. Almost we wished that we 
 were young once more, that we might be beaux if not 
 "rebs." 
 
 As you of course know, a certain frankness and 
 spontaneity are characteristic of the fair below Mason 
 and Dixon's line. While equally modest with our dear 
 women above the line, they are notably less reserved 
 and coy. At the risk of being a little personal, I ven- 
 ture to mention a little incident in illustration of their 
 naivete, if that be the right word. With Mrs. Stevens, 
 the President of the local chapter of the Daughters, 
 I had some conversation, and in the course of it allu- 
 sion was made to the Daughters of the American 
 Revolution, and I said I had a niece who was State 
 
 176 
 
A TRIP TO NEW BERN 
 
 Regent of the Massachusetts organization. "Oh! do 
 tell me!" she said, "how I wish I could send her some- 
 thing. Please excuse me a moment. ' ' And she withdrew 
 and presently returned with a bunch of beautiful 
 pinks and asked if I would be so kind as to send that 
 to my niece. I thought I would and did. But as if 
 that were not enough, the next evening when we were 
 all aboard the train and about to start home, Mrs. 
 Stevens came hurrying through it with her husband, 
 inquiring for "Major" Putnam. 
 
 A lot of titles I got down South. The Southrons, you 
 know, are fond of them and liberal in bestowing them. 
 I was styled "captain." To that I think a committee 
 of this commandery has found me entitled. Then I was 
 called "Judge," whether rightly some lawyers may 
 doubt. Then "Major," then "General" and lastly 
 "Chaplain." When I saw the latter in the New Bern 
 Journal there was a minister near at hand and I asked 
 him whether he thought I was going up or down in 
 rank; He looked rather queer and said he thought 
 some might take me for a clergyman. I told him I did 
 have a narrow escape. 
 
 But as I was saying, Mrs. Stevens came hurrying 
 through the train and at last came upon "Major" 
 Putnam. She had in her hand a dozen or more minia- 
 ture flags of the stars and bars each upon a staff, one 
 of silk and the rest of coarser fibre, just the sort of 
 memento our boys had been most eager to get. The 
 one of silk she gave me for my niece and the rest she 
 
 177 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 distributed to the old boys in blue, who gathered wist- 
 fully around her till the stock was exhausted. 
 
 Besides the reception by the Daughters, the Mayor 
 of the city and the resident judge of the Superior Court 
 came to the hotel and cordially received us in the par- 
 lor. The Congressman of the district chartered the 
 revenue cutter, "Pamlico," and took us up the Neuse 
 River, past various points of interest associated with 
 the war; the leading lawyer of the city, Mr. White- 
 hurst, who entered the Confederate service at sixteen, 
 and another lawyer, Mr. Dunn, took a party of us 
 across the Trent to see "James City," which they re- 
 garded as about as interesting as anything in or about 
 New Bern, — a typical darky village of about a 
 thousand inhabitants, which had grown up since the 
 war-time, typical in its huts, shanties and appurte- 
 nances, its fences, streets and gardens, its cats, dogs, 
 hens, ducks, razor-back pigs, and little shiny-eyed, tod- 
 dling darkies all about the door-ways. 
 
 One of our darky drivers over the long bridge 
 spanning the Trent, half a mile long, was a character. 
 I asked him if he voted. "No." — "Why not?" — 
 "Why, day make ye read a paper as long as from 
 here to dat yare mule dar, and den day ax ye questions. 
 I got 'bout half froo and den cried quits. 'T ain't no 
 use, O 't ain't no use. De freeholder can vote, O yes, 
 he can vote." 
 
 We all more or less visited the old places, the forts 
 and the camping-grounds, the fields of battle and 
 
 178 
 
A TRIP TO NEWBERNE 
 
 skirmish. We found them changed, all changed; the 
 fields overgrown with wood or cultured for cotton, 
 and the forts sunk, sloped or wooded quite past 
 recognition. So kind nature hastens to efface the 
 physical evidences of man's ill nature to man, even 
 as she has softened the personal and sectional ani- 
 mosities of men against one another, once arrayed in 
 deadly combat. 
 
 Along with the old-time places we noted a growth 
 of the town, a beautification in many a spot, a con- 
 siderable prosperity, and a promise of greater growth, 
 more beauty, and a prosperity more pronounced in a 
 future not distant. 
 
 We started homeward Thursday evening. On the 
 way we took up a collection for the purchase of a 
 testimonial to the Daughters of the Confederacy, 
 raised a hundred and more dollars, and chose a com- 
 mittee to select the testimonial and forward it to 
 the "girls we left behind us." We arrived in Boston 
 Saturday morning at quarter past seven, exactlj^ on 
 schedule-time. 
 
 Looking back over the way, and at the memorial 
 ceremony, we failed to recall an accident, a miscarriage, 
 a hitch or a jar either in the trip or the dedication. 
 A breakfast awaited us at the restaurant of the South 
 Station. Thither we repaired, and after the repast the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms made a speech. He commended us 
 for our good behavior. He seemed to feel himself 
 bound in the name of the Commonwealth to do so. 
 
 179 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 Other junkets he had engineered, but never had he 
 known young men to behave much better. As children 
 who had never before been abroad, we unanimously 
 voted him thanks for his service, and especially for 
 his commendation. Wrapping the letter in our memo- 
 ries, each of us then grasped his favorite, trusty satchel, 
 and with good-byes on our lips we separated, feeling 
 that we had had a fine time and rather memorable, 
 however our joys were commingled with reflections 
 of sadness as we remembered the war with its sacrifices 
 and its gains, its sorrows and its triumphs. We all 
 felt, I think, that we loved our country a little better 
 than we did ere we revisited the Old North State on 
 so dutiful a mission after so many years of absence 
 from the soil where grows as nowhere else the lofty, 
 long-leafed Pine. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SOL- 
 DIERS' MONUMENT ERECTED IN 
 MEMORY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS 
 SOLDIER-DEAD IN THE NATIONAL 
 CEMETERY AT NEW BERN, NORTH 
 CAROLINA, NOVEMBER 11, 1908^ 
 
 Ladies, Comrades and Gentlemen : — 
 
 In common with all of you who are here, cherishing 
 remembrance of old regimental associations, I rejoice 
 ever so much in the erection at last of a monument in 
 memory of our Massachusetts soldier-dead here in 
 this southern state. To you as to me it must seem 
 right, salutary, and beautiful. As it was said by Web- 
 ster upon the completion of Bunker Hill Monument, 
 so may we also not inappropriately now say, "A duty 
 has been performed." If so, then may we all rejoice 
 here together, whether we be of the Old Bay State or 
 the Old North State. 
 
 Assuming, as perhaps we may, that there prevails 
 here such a unanimity of sentiment, nothing can be 
 much more impressive, gratifying and heart-gladden- 
 
 ' Reprinted from Massachusetts Memorial to the Soldiers and 
 Sailors Who Died in the Department of North Carolina, 1861-1865. 
 
 181 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 ing than this simple occasion. A single thought beyond 
 all others at this hour must needs possess us, as we 
 recall the sanguinary and tempestuous past, and then 
 consider our mission here to-day, so peaceful, and our 
 treatment here received to-day, so hospitable and 
 fraternal under this Carolina sky. Two score and more 
 years it is since I toiled beneath it in the hot, sultry 
 summer of sixty -four, and almost I am overcome as 
 thought comes over me of the measureless dissimi- 
 larity of conditions now and then. 
 
 Verily, it is one of the happiest signs — rather it is 
 the happiest of all signs — of the fraternal solidity 
 of our country, that the people of the northern states, 
 through their representatives, can come down here 
 among the people of the southern states for the pur- 
 pose of erecting and dedicating memorials in memory 
 of their soldier-dead and feel that they come among 
 friends. 
 
 Looking back three and forty years, and recalling 
 the relations of the two great sections of the land, 
 northern and southern, then fresh from a fiery conflict 
 of four years' duration, how little did we dream that 
 at any time hence the country would be so cemented 
 in the bonds of complete union as it is to-day! Then, 
 to be sure, there was peace; arms had ceased to clash; 
 campaigns were no longer in contemplation; soldiers, 
 weary, were retiring to their homes, and glad, glad to 
 retire, and but one flag was recognized to be in author- 
 ity. But oh! what sores were bleeding, what animosi- 
 
 182 
 
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT NEW BERN 
 
 ties were still alive, what disappointments were still 
 felt, and abov6 all, what convictions still remained 
 on the one side and the other that the one was right 
 and the other wrong in the tremendous struggle ! 
 
 How out of so much soreness could there come 
 friendliness? How out of so much antagonism could 
 there come unity? How out of states discordant, if not 
 dissevered, acrimonious, if not still belligerent, should 
 there come a republic one and indivisible? None could 
 quite say. None could forecast. It was beyond the 
 ken of man to see, beyond the scope of statesmanship 
 to devise. 
 
 Nevertheless, all the while from the inception of the 
 conflict, through all its entanglements and flaming 
 fields, down to the season of ultimate reconciliation, 
 there was a divinity shaping our ends, rough hew them 
 how we might. If we cannot point to this, that or 
 the other measure of human device or any number of 
 human devices combined, which led us to feel and 
 believe it far better that we should dwell together 
 in peace as a people of one blood, we can yet somehow 
 understand what manner of Providence it was that 
 wrought the consummation. Who shall say that we 
 were not inspired by the God of hosts to contemplate 
 afresh this continent of our denizenship, so washed 
 by ocean on the east and the west, so laved by incom- 
 parable lakes on the north and bounded so much on 
 the south by the grand old Gulf; with mighty rivers 
 coursing from their mountain sources in every direc- 
 
 183 
 
ARTHUR A. PUTNAM 
 
 tion, with manifold mines of untold wealth still asleep 
 in their rocky beds, with a soil leaping for culture and 
 forests primeval beckoning the axe, and all to tempt 
 the hands of a common industry ; and thus contemplat- 
 ing, to see and know that Nature herself, here as no- 
 where else, had fashioned a land and bountifully 
 stocked it for the abode and growth, the power and 
 happiness of one people under one government, the 
 Stars and Stripes for its ensign, no star henceforth to 
 be erased, no stripe to be polluted, its motto evermore 
 to be, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and 
 inseparable." 
 
S^P 19 19W 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div.