Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864», sayfa 14
"More nitrogen!" gasps Leander, "more nitrogen, my charmer, or I die!" This is the real meaning of the words, when he says, "Let us have roast-beef for dinner," or when he asks you to pass him the butter.
Although beef, then, has little more than a quarter as much food in it as wheat has, you must have some beef, or something like it, because Leander, and you too, my rosy-cheek, must have nitrogen as well as carbon.
I beg you not to throw the "Atlantic" away at this point, my child. Do not say that Mr. Carter is an old fool, and that you never meant to live on vegetables. A great many people have meant to, and have never known what was the matter with them, when the real deficiency was nitrogen. Besides, child, though wheat is the best single feeder of all, as I have told you, because in its gluten it has so much nitrogen, this is to be said of all vegetables, that, so far as we live on them, we exist slowly; to a certain extent we have to ruminate as the cows do, and not as men and women should ruminate, and all animal or functional life goes more slowly on. Now, Hero, you and Leander both have to lead a rapid life. Most people do in the autumn of 1864. So give him meat, dear Hero, as above.
As for my being an old fool, my dear, I have said I am one hundred and nine, which is older than old Mr. Waldo was, older than everybody except old Parr. And after forty, everybody is a fool—or a physician.
Let us return, then, to our mutton,—always a good thing to return to, especially if the plates are hot, as yours, Hero, always will be. For mutton, besides such water as you can dry out of it, contains twenty-nine per cent. of food,—for meat, a high percentage.
Let us see where we are.
Our butter costs us one-tenth.
Our flour and wheat-bread cost us almost one-tenth.
Our beef costs us one-tenth.
Our other meats cost us a tenth and a half of what we spend for eating and drinking.
"Where in the world does the rest go, Mr. Carter? Here is not half. But I could certainly live very well on these things."
Angel, you could. But if you lived wholly on these, you would want more of them. You see we have said nothing of coffee and tea,—the princes or princesses of food,—without which civilized man cannot renew his brains. In such years as these, Hero, when our brave soldiers must have coffee or we can have no victories, coffee costs me and Lois fifty dollars,—cheap at that,—for, without it, did we drink dandelion like the cows, or chiccory like the asses, how were these brains renewed?
"Tea and coffee are the same thing," says Liebig; at least, he says that Theine, the base of tea, and Caffeine, the base of coffee, are the same. What I know is, that, when coffee costs fifty dollars a year, tea costs thirty dollars and eighty-nine cents.
For tea and coffee, Hero, allow about another tenth,—the cocoa and cream will bring it up to that.
Our sugar cost us fifty-four dollars and twenty-two cents; our milk fifty dollars and sixty-two; our cream ten dollars seventy-seven.
"Buy your cream separate," says Hero, "if you have as good a milkman as Mr. Whittemore."
You have not as many babies as we, Hero. When you have, you will not grudge the milk or the sugar. Lots of nourishment in sugar! Sugar and milk are another tenth.
I do not know if you are a Catholic, Hero; but I guess your kitchen is; and so I am pretty sure that you will eat fish Fridays. I know you are a person of sense, so I know you will often delight Leander, as he rises from the day's swim which, for your sake, Hero, he takes across the cold Hellespont of life,—(all men are Leanders, and all women should be their Heros, holding high love-torches for them,)—as he rises, I say, with "a sound of wateriness," I know you will often delight him with oysters, scalloped, fried, or plain, as entremets to flank his dinner-table. For fish count two per cent., for oysters two more, for eggs three or four, and for that stupid compound of starch which some men call "indispensable," and all men call "potato," count three or four more. My advice is, that, when potatoes are dear, you skip them. Rice-croquets are better and cheaper. There goes another tenth.
Tea and coffee, etc., one-tenth.
Sugar and milk, one-tenth.
Fish, eggs, potatoes, etc., one-tenth.
Thus is it, Hero, that three-quarters of what you eat will be spent for your bread and butter, your meat, fish, eggs, and potatoes, your coffee, tea, milk, and sugar,—for twenty-one articles on a list of one hundred and seven. Fresh vegetables, besides those named, will take one-fifth of what is left: say five per cent. of the whole expense. The doctor will order porter or wine, when your back aches, or when Leander looks thin. Have nothing to do with them till he does order them, but reserve another five per cent. for them. The rest, Hero, it is mace, it is yeast, it is vinegar, pepper, and mustard, it is sardines, it is lobster, it is the unconsidered world of trifles which make up the visible difference between the table of high civilization and that of the Abyssinian or the Blackfoot Indian. Let us hope it is not much cream-of-tartar or saleratus. It is grits and grapes, it is lard and lemons, it is maple-sugar and melons, it is nuts and nutmeg, or any other alliteration that you fancy.
Now, pretty one, I can see you smile, and I can hear you say,—"Dear old Mr. Carter, I am very much obliged to you. I begin to see my way a little more clearly." Of course you do, child. You begin to see that the most desperate economy in lemons will not make you and Leander rich, but that you must make up your mind at the start about beef and about butter. Hear, then, my parting whisper.
Disregard the traditions of economy. What is cheap to-day is dear to-morrow. Do not make a bill-of-fare, and, because everything on it tastes very badly, think it is cheap. Salt codfish is cheap sometimes, and sometimes very dear. Venison is often an extravagance; but, of a winter when the sleighing is good, and when the hunters have not gone South, it is the cheapest food for you. Eggs are dear, if they tempt you to cakes that you do not like. But no eggs can be sent to our brave army, so, if you do choose to make a bargain with your Aunt Eunice at Naugatuck Neck to send you four dozen by express once a week, they will be, perhaps, the cheapest food you can buy. What you want, my child, is variety. However cheaply you live, secure four things: First, a change of fare from day to day, so as to have a good appetite; Second, simplicity, each day, in the table, so as to lose but little in chips; Third, fitness of things there, as hot plates for your mutton and cold ones for your butter, so that what you have may be of the best; and, first, second, third, and last, love between you and Leander. This last sauce, says Solomon, answers even for herbs. And you know the Emperors Augustus and Nebuchadnezzar both had to live on herbs,—I am afraid, because love had been wanting in both cases. If you have a stalled ox, you will need the same sauces,—much more, unless it is better dressed than the only one I ever saw, which was at Warwick, when Cheron and I were going to Stratford-on-Avon. It was not attractive. You will need three of these four things, if you are rich. Rich or poor, buy in as large quantities as you can. Rich or poor, pay cash. Rich or poor, do not try to do without carbon or nitrogen. Rich or poor, vary steadily the bills-of-fare. Now the minimum of what you can support life upon, at this moment, is easily told. Jeff Davis makes the calculation for you. It is quarter of a pound of salt pork a day, with four Graham hard-tack. That is what each of his soldiers is eating; and though they are not stout, they are wiry fellows, and fight well. The maximum you can find by lodging at the Brevoort, at New York,—where, when I last went to the front, I stopped an hour on the way, and, though I had no meals, paid two dollars and eighty cents for washing my face in another man's bedroom. A year of Jeff Davis's diet would cost you and Leander, if you bought in large quantities, sixty dollars. A year at Rye Beach just now would cost you two or three thousand dollars. Choose your dinner from either bill; vary it, by all the gradations between. But remember, child, as you would cheer Leander after his swim, and keep within your allowance, remember that what was dear yesterday may be cheap to-day,—remember to vary the repast, therefore, from Monday round to Saturday; eschew the corner-shop, and buy as large stores as Leander will let you; and always keep near at hand an unexhausted supply of Solomon's condiment.
BEFORE VICKSBURG
MAY 19, 1863
While Sherman stood beneath the hottest fire
That from the lines of Vicksburg gleamed,
And bomb-shells tumbled in their smoky gyre,
And grape-shot hissed, and case-shot screamed;
Back from the front there came,
Weeping and sorely lame,
The merest child, the youngest face
Man ever saw in such a fearful place.
Stifling his tears, he limped his chief to meet;
But when he paused, and tottering stood,
Around the circle of his little feet
There spread a pool of bright, young blood.
Shocked at his doleful case,
Sherman cried, "Halt! front face!
Who are you? Speak, my gallant boy!"
"A drummer, Sir:—Fifty-Fifth Illinois."
"Are you not hit?" "That's nothing. Only send
Some cartridges: our men are out;
And the foe press us." "But, my little friend"—
"Don't mind me! Did you hear that shout?
What if our men be driven?
Oh, for the love of Heaven,
Send to my Colonel, General dear!"
"But you?" "Oh, I shall easily find the rear."
"I'll see to that," cried Sherman; and a drop
Angels might envy dimmed his eye,
As the boy, toiling towards the hill's hard top,
Turned round, and with his shrill child's cry
Shouted, "Oh, don't forget!
We'll win the battle yet!
But let our soldiers have some more,
More cartridges, Sir,—calibre fifty-four!"
OUR VISIT TO RICHMOND
WHY WE WENT THERE
Why my companion, the Rev. Dr. Jaquess, Colonel of the Seventy-Third Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, recently went to Richmond, and the circumstances attending his previous visit within the Rebel lines,—when he wore his uniform, and mixed openly with scores of leading Confederates,—I shall shortly make known to the public in a volume called "Down in Tennessee." It may now, however, be asked why I, a "civil" individual, and not in the pay of Government, became his travelling-companion, and, at a time when all the world was rushing North to the mountains and the watering-places, journeyed South for a conference with the arch-Rebel, in the hot and dangerous latitude of Virginia.
Did it never occur to you, reader, when you have undertaken to account for some of the simplest of your own actions, how many good reasons have arisen in your mind, every one of which has justified you in concluding that you were of "sound and disposing understanding"? So, now, in looking inward for the why and the wherefore which I know will be demanded of me at the threshold of this article, I find half a dozen reasons for my visit to Richmond, any one of which ought to prove that I am a sensible man, altogether too sensible to go on so long a journey, in the heat of midsummer, for the mere pleasure of the thing. Some of these reasons I will enumerate.
First: Very many honest people at the North sincerely believe that the revolted States will return to the Union, if assured of protection to their peculiar institution. The Government having declared that no State shall be readmitted which has not first abolished Slavery, these people hold it responsible for the continuance of the war. It is, therefore, important to know whether the Rebel States will or will not return, if allowed to retain Slavery. Mr. Jefferson Davis could, undoubtedly, answer that question; and that may have been a reason why I went to see him.
Second: On the second of July last, C. C. Clay, of Alabama, J. P. Holcombe, of Virginia, and G. N. Sanders, of nowhere in particular, appeared at Niagara Falls, and publicly announced that they were there to confer with the Democratic leaders in reference to the Chicago nomination. Very soon thereafter, a few friends of the Administration received intimations from those gentlemen that they were Commissioners from the Rebel Government, with authority to negotiate preliminaries of peace on something like the following basis, namely: A restoration of the Union as it was; all negroes actually freed by the war to be declared free, and all negroes not actually freed by the war to be declared slaves.
These overtures were not considered sincere. They seemed concocted to embarrass the Government, to throw upon it the odium of continuing the war, and thus to secure the triumph of the peace-traitors at the November election. The scheme, if well managed, threatened to be dangerous, by uniting the Peace-men, the Copperheads, and such of the Republicans as love peace better than principle, in one opposition, willing to make a peace that would be inconsistent with the safety and dignity of the country. It was, therefore, important to discover—what was then in doubt—whether the Rebel envoys really had, or had not, any official authority.
Within fifteen days of the appearance of these "Peace Commissioners," Jefferson Davis had said to an eminent Secession divine, who, late in June, came through the Union lines by the Maryland back-door, that he would make peace on no other terms than a recognition of Southern Independence. (He might, however, agree to two governments, bound together by a league offensive and defensive,—for all external purposes one, for all internal purposes two; but he would agree to nothing better.)
There was reason to consider this information trustworthy, and to believe Mr. Davis (who was supposed to be a clear-minded man) altogether ignorant of the doings of his Niagara satellites. If this were true, and were proven to be true,—if the great Rebel should reiterate this declaration in the presence of a trustworthy witness, at the very time when the small Rebels were opening their Quaker guns on the country,—would not the Niagara negotiators be stripped of their false colors, and their low schemes be exposed to the scorn of all honest men, North and South?
I may have thought so; and that may have been another reason why I went to Richmond.
Third: I had been acquainted with Colonel Jaquess's peace-movements from their inception. Early in June last he wrote me from a battle-field in Georgia, announcing his intention of again visiting the Rebels, and asking an interview with me at a designated place. We met, and went to Washington together. Arriving there, I became aware that obstacles were in the way of his further progress. Those obstacles could be removed by my accompanying him; and that, to those who know the man and his "mission," which is to preach peace on earth and good-will among men, would seem a very good reason why I went to Richmond.
Fourth,—and this to very many may appear as potent as any of the preceding reasons,—I had in my boyhood a strange fancy for church-belfries and liberty-poles. This fancy led me, in school-vacations, to perch my small self for hours on the cross-beams in the old belfry, and to climb to the very top of the tall pole which still surmounts the little village-green. In my youth, this feeling was simply a spirit of adventure; but as I grew older it deepened into a reverence for what those old bells said, and a love for the principle of which that old liberty-pole is now only a crumbling symbol.
Had not events shown that Jeff. Davis had never seen that old liberty-pole, and never heard the chimes which still ring out from that old belfry? Who knew, in these days when every wood-sawyer has a "mission," but I had a "mission," and it was to tell the Rebel President that Northern liberty-poles still stand for Freedom, and that Northern church-bells still peal out, "Liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof"?
If that was my mission, will anybody blame me for fanning Mr. Davis with a "blast" of cool Northern "wind" in this hot weather?
But enough of mystification. The straightforward reader wants a straightforward reason, and he shall have it.
We went to Richmond because we hoped to pave the way for negotiations that would result in peace.
If we should succeed, the consciousness of having served the country would, we thought, pay our expenses. If we should fail, but return safely, we might still serve the country by making public the cause of our failure. If we should fail, and not return safely, but be shot or hanged as spies,—as we might be, for we could have no protection from our Government, and no safe-conduct from the Rebels,—two lives would be added to the thousands already sacrificed to this Rebellion, but they would as effectually serve the country as if lost on the battle-field.
These are the reasons, and the only reasons, why we went to Richmond.
HOW WE WENT THERE
We went there in an ambulance, and we went together,—the Colonel and I; and though two men were never more unlike, we worked together like two brothers, or like two halves of a pair of shears. That we got in was owing, perhaps, to me; that we got out was due altogether to him; and a man more cool, more brave, more self-reliant, and more self-devoted than that quiet "Western parson" it never was my fortune to encounter.
When the far-away Boston bells were sounding nine, on the morning of Saturday, the sixteenth of July, we took our glorious Massachusetts General by the hand, and said to him,—
"Good bye. If you do not see us within ten days, you will know we have 'gone up.'"
"If I do not see you within that time," he replied, "I'll demand you; and if they don't produce you, body and soul, I'll take two for one,—better men than you are,—and hang them higher than Haman. My hand on that. Good bye."
At three o'clock on the afternoon of the same day, mounted on two raw-boned relics of Sheridan's great raid, and armed with a letter to Jeff. Davis, a white cambric handkerchief tied to a short stick, and an honest face,—this last was the Colonel's,—we rode up to the Rebel lines. A ragged, yellow-faced boy, with a carbine in one hand, and another white handkerchief tied to another short stick in the other, came out to meet us.
"Can you tell us, my man, where to find Judge Ould, the Exchange Commissioner?"
"Yas. Him and t'other 'Change officers is over ter the plantation beyont Miss Grover's. Ye'll know it by its hevin' nary door nur winder [the mansion, he meant]. They's all busted in. Foller the bridle-path through the timber, and keep your rag a-flyin', fur our boys is thicker 'n huckelberries in them woods, and they mought pop ye, ef they didn't seed it."
Thanking him, we turned our horses into the "timber," and, galloping rapidly on, soon came in sight of the deserted plantation. Lolling on the grass, in the shade of the windowless mansion, we found the Confederate officials. They rose as we approached; and one of us said to the Judge,—a courteous, middle-aged gentleman, in a Panama hat, and a suit of spotless white drillings,—
"We are late, but it's your fault. Your people fired at us down the river, and we had to turn back and come overland."
"You don't suppose they saw your flag?"
"No. It was hidden by the trees; but a shot came uncomfortably near us. It struck the water, and ricochetted not three yards off. A little nearer, and it would have shortened me by a head, and the Colonel by two feet."
"That would have been a sad thing for you; but a miss, you know, is as good as a mile," said the Judge, evidently enjoying the "joke."
"We hear Grant was in the boat that followed yours, and was struck while at dinner," remarked Captain Hatch, the Judge's Adjutant,—a gentleman, and about the best-looking man in the Confederacy.
"Indeed! Do you believe it?"
"I don't know, of course"; and his looks asked for an answer. We gave none, for all such information is contraband. We might have told him that Grant, Butler, and Foster examined their position from Mrs. Grover's house,—about four hundred yards distant,—two hours after the Rebel cannon-ball danced a break-down on the Lieutenant-General's dinner-table.
We were then introduced to the other officials,—Major Henniken of the War Department, a young man formerly of New York, but now scorning the imputation of being a Yankee, and Mr. Charles Javins, of the Provost-Guard of Richmond. This latter individual was our shadow in Dixie. He was of medium height, stoutly built, with a short, thick neck, and arms and shoulders denoting great strength. He looked a natural-born jailer, and much such a character as a timid man would not care to encounter, except at long range of a rifle warranted to five twenty shots a minute, and to hit every time.
To give us a moonlight view of the Richmond fortifications, the Judge proposed to start after sundown; and as it wanted some hours of that time, we seated ourselves on the ground, and entered into conversation. The treatment of our prisoners, the status of black troops, and non-combatants, and all the questions which have led to the suspension of exchanges, had been good-naturedly discussed, when the Captain, looking up from one of the Northern papers we had brought him, said,—
"Do you know, it mortifies me that you don't hate us as we hate you? You kill us as Agassiz kills a fly,—because you love us."
"Of course we do. The North is being crucified for love of the South."
"If you love us so, why don't you let us go?" asked the Judge, rather curtly.
"For that very reason,—because we love you. If we let you go, with slavery, and your notions of 'empire,' you'd run straight to barbarism and the Devil."
"We'd take the risk of that. But let me tell you, if you are going to Mr. Davis with any such ideas, you might as well turn back at once. He can make peace on no other basis than Independence. Recognition must be the beginning, middle, and ending of all negotiations. Our people will accept peace on no other terms."
"I think you are wrong there," said the Colonel. "When I was here a year ago, I met many of your leading men, and they all assured me they wanted peace and reunion, even at the sacrifice of slavery. Within a week, a man you venerate and love has met me at Baltimore, and besought me to come here, and offer Mr. Davis peace on such conditions."
"That may be. Some of our old men, who are weak in the knees, may want peace on any terms; but the Southern people will not have it without Independence. Mr. Davis knows them, and you will find he will insist upon that. Concede that, and we'll not quarrel about minor matters."
"We'll not quarrel at all. But it's sundown, and time we were 'on to Richmond.'"
"That's the 'Tribune' cry," said the Captain, rising; "and I hurrah for the 'Tribune,' for it's honest, and—I want my supper."
We all laughed, and the Judge ordered the horses. As we were about to start, I said to him,—
"You've forgotten our parole."
"Oh, never mind that. We'll attend to that at Richmond."
Stepping into his carriage, and unfurling the flag of truce, he then led the way, by a "short cut," across the cornfield which divided the mansion from the high-road. We followed in an ambulance drawn by a pair of mules, our shadow—Mr. Javins—sitting between us and the twilight, and Jack, a "likely darky," almost the sole survivor of his master's twelve hundred slaves, ("De ress all stole, Massa,—stole by you Yankees,") occupying the front-seat, and with a stout whip "working our passage" to Richmond.
Much that was amusing and interesting occurred during our three-hours' journey, but regard for our word forbids my relating it. Suffice it to say, we saw the "frowning fortifications," we "flanked" the "invincible army," and, at ten o'clock that night, planted our flag (against a lamp-post) in the very heart of the hostile city. As we alighted at the doorway of the Spotswood Hotel, the Judge said to the Colonel,—
"Button your outside-coat up closely. Your uniform must not be seen here."
The Colonel did as he was bidden; and, without stopping to register our names at the office, we followed the Judge and the Captain up to No. 60. It was a large, square room in the fourth story, with an unswept, ragged carpet, and bare, white walls, smeared with soot and tobacco-juice. Several chairs, a marble-top table, and a pine wash-stand and clothes-press straggled about the floor, and in the corners were three beds, garnished with tattered pillow-cases, and covered with white counterpanes, grown gray with longing for soapsuds and a wash-tub. The plainer and humbler of these beds was designed for the burly Mr. Javins; the others had been made ready for the extraordinary envoys (not envoys extraordinary) who, in defiance of all precedent and the "law of nations," had just then "taken Richmond."
A single gas-jet was burning over the mantel-piece, and above it I saw a "writing on the wall" which implied that Jane Jackson had run up a washing-score of fifty dollars!
I was congratulating myself on not having to pay that woman's laundry-bills, when the Judge said,—
"You want supper. What shall we order?"
"A slice of hot corn-bread would make me the happiest man in Richmond."
The Captain thereupon left the room, and shortly returning, remarked,—
"The landlord swears you're from Georgia. He says none but a Georgian would call for corn-bread at this time of night."
On that hint we acted, and when our sooty attendant came in with the supper-things, we discussed Georgia mines, Georgia banks, and Georgia mosquitoes, in a way that showed we had been bitten by all of them. In half an hour it was noised all about the hotel that the two gentlemen the Confederacy was taking such excellent care of were from Georgia.
The meal ended, and a quiet smoke over, our entertainers rose to go. As the Judge bade us good-night, he said to us,—
"In the morning you had better address a note to Mr. Benjamin, asking the interview with the President. I will call at ten o'clock, and take it to him."
"Very well. But will Mr. Davis see us on Sunday?"
"Oh, that will make no difference."
