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IY MANSE DURING THE ¥AR: 
 
 A Decade of Letters ' & 
 
 
 TO THE 
 
 REV. J. THOMAS MTJRRA1T, 
 
 Editor of the JAeihoalist Cprotestant 
 
 BY 
 
 
 T. B. BALCH, S. T. D. 
 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 
 PRINTED BY SHERWOOD & CO 
 
 N. W. COR. BALTIMORE AND GAY STREETS. 
 
 1866. 
 
 WESeaVATH* 
 
IDEJDIC-A.TIOISr. 
 
 TO THE REV. DANIEL BOWERS, 
 
 The followltt^'/playfiil Letters, are dedicated, as they are, because you think 
 them calculated in'sente <sai"all ^degree, at least, to allay that bitter sectional 
 feeling engendered by the disastrous war through -which our country has so 
 recently passed. Add to this that our intercourse as Christian Ministers for 
 the last few months has been highly agreeable to both parties. 
 
 HOTJ 
 
 AV#f 
 
MY MANSE DURING THE WAR. 
 
 LETTER No. I. 
 
 Can my readers become interested in a Manse ? Perhaps they may 
 if its inmates' tried to maintain Christian feelings when the war was at 
 its cedar gates. Religion alone or something allied to it ought to appear 
 in a paper professedly religious. Let statesmen manage their own con- 
 cerns ; but Moriah, Olivet, Tabor and Calvary belong to us who are the 
 ministers of good-will to our race. Isaiah says that the feet of Proph- 
 ets in his day wefe beautiful. Why so ? Because their sandals were 
 adorned with pearls whenever they ascended such elevations to an- 
 nounce glad tidings. 
 
 My resolution was fixed to preach the Gospel, and only the Gospel, 
 even should the war last so long as the one between the rival Houses 
 of York and Lancaster, which for thirty years desolated England. 
 What havoc did it everywhere create ? Green fields faded before it, 
 and moors became more dreary. Meadows and downs lost their smiles 
 when a rude soldiery crushed their flowers and dispersed their flocks. 
 Churches too shared in the general ruin. Was not George Fox, of Leices- 
 ter, a wise man in his opposition to all war ? Was not Sully, prime 
 minister of Henry Fourth, equally wise when he sought to bind all 
 Europe in a league of peace for a hundred years by way of experiment ? 
 And what a Europe would it have been at the end of that century. 
 Surely Russia would have been less barbarious, and Italy would have 
 worn a sunnier look. The Rhine would have multiplied its grapes and 
 France its lilies. Swiss Cantons would have become still more pastoral, 
 and the fleets of England might have left their docks on errands of 
 peaceful discovery. But let me keep to my Hermitage. 
 
 The first battle of Manassas was fought on a Sabbath. We wish that 
 men-at-arms would choose some other day for their sanguinary work. 
 Waterloo was fought on the day of sacred rest. It might as well have 
 been postponed till Monday. Christians may die on Sunday, but pro- 
 fane soldiers had better fix on some other time to be killed. My Hermitage 
 was full of refugees. Mrs. Commodore Jones, of Sharon, was one of 
 them, whose delicate health made her exceedingly nervous. The drama 
 was opened early in the morning of that brilliant day in July, 1861. A 
 neighbor rode by my house in great haste, with a spy-glass fastened on 
 hie shoulder, through which to peer at the combatants. Well : if it had 
 been Wednesday your correspondent would have staid at home, but 
 being the one which was kept holy in Eden, the vale of Hebron ; in 
 Shiloh, and by Siloa's brook — he took his Bible and spent the sacred 
 hours between sunrise and sunset in reading of Patriarchs, Prophets, 
 Apostles, Martyrs, and of Him who is Lord of all. That Bible must 
 
be handed down to some one as an heirloom. It was presented to its 
 owner by the Christian ladies of Greenwich Church. Paper fine, type 
 capital, and well suited to the eye of a Septuagenarian. Don't mind 
 these playful allusions, although they be personal. We would not pos- 
 sess the ponderous vanity of La Martine for the palace of St. Cloud. 
 About sunset my Bible was closed. It was time for our evening meal. 
 In 1745 the battle of Prestorpans was fought near a Manse in the Shire 
 of Haddington, Scotland : and certainly one and a half a score' besides 
 were fought near mine in the Shire of Prince William, Va. We say 
 nothing as to whose banner it was on which victory perched, because 
 then only one side would read this letter. Many a traveler knows which 
 way the tower of Pisa leans ; but no one shall find out my leanings. 
 That evening the sun went down superbly beyond the Eidge, to the 
 azure tints to which my eye has been fondly attached for thirty years, 
 but the next day it rained and kept raining. Plutarch says that it 
 always pours down after a battle. Showers perhaps are sent in mercy 
 to wounded soldiers. We retired for the night after reading at the do- 
 mestic altar the lamentation of David over Jonathan, for we felt certain 
 that friends had fallen to rise no more till the last trump shall sound. 
 What is the bugle of the warrior compared to that mighty trumpet 
 which the arm of Gabriel alone can wield. 
 
 For nearly a year after the battle of Manassas, the writer continued 
 to officiate to his people at a distance of three miles from the Manse. 
 The congregation was composed exclusively of Northern families who 
 had bought lands sixteen years ago in Pleasant Valley. Every Sab- 
 bath they sent a carriage for their minister, and there could be no 
 kinder people. But in the confusion of the country, with three or four 
 exceptions, they concluded to return to the North. The last day on 
 which service was held was one of sadness. My text was from the 
 Psalms : " By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept ; yea, we 
 wept when we remembered Zion." And now the kirk is solitary and 
 none repair to its solemn feasts. We can say with the Prophet, 
 " Where is that flock thou hast given me — that beautiful flock ?" Dis- 
 persed in the whirlwind of war. For several Sabbaths many of the 
 Federal soldiers attended at this Church and demeaned themselves 
 with reverence in the sanctuary. Some of them were professors of our 
 holy religion. The solitude of the Manse became enlivened by stran- 
 gers from Otsego Lake ; the sources of the blue Juniata ; the banks of 
 the Monongehela or the tangled prairies of the West. Two thousand 
 in all though not at one and same time. They came in groups. Many 
 humorous and some tragic incidents took place ; but the former might 
 be inappropriate to an ecclesiastical journal. To some of the soldiers 
 we presented a variety of religious tracts, which were courteously 
 received. They promised to give them a faithful reading. Sometimes 
 my consort would, of a Sabbath evening, go in where they were, read 
 and explain a chapter in the Bible, and then kneel down and pray for 
 them and all whom they had left at home. They showed deep feeling. 
 Some of them said we will remember you in our graves ; but we reckon 
 
they must have been from Ireland. Among them were officers of 
 'intelligence, some of whom were fresh from their respective colleges. 
 We could designate Col. Jones from Dartmouth, and Capt. Wheeler 
 from New Haven, which last has been called the City of Elms. Wheeler 
 had left the cloisters of science for^the pursuits of war, and the groves 
 of learning for the camp. He was quite colloquial ; fond of the piano 
 and thezether ; attended Divine service at my house ; claimed to be a 
 collateral relative of President Edwards, and his countenance was 
 always arrayed in smiles. He fell at Atlanta, in Georgia, leaving a 
 widowed mother at New Haven, in the profoundest grief for his loss. 
 Major Makalone was from Philadelphia. Well read, and a Catholic. 
 He attended service at the Manse. • My text was, "And he preached 
 in the synagogues of Galilee." He was mortally wounded in the battle 
 of Chickamauga, when about, to appear at the nuptial altar. One 
 heart in addition to his own was stricken into sorrow. But we cannot 
 designate that diversity of persons who came to my Hermitage in any 
 shorter space than that of a decade of letters. And permit me to say, 
 that some of the incidents' which occurred on my premises were fraught 
 with peculiar interest, but they will be reserved for some future time. 
 We must, however, allude to 'poor Hoskins, who fell near my farm. 
 He Was under the command of Mosby, and the son of an Episcopal 
 minister in Kent county, England. He was an author, and had served 
 under Garibaldi, and in the Crimea under Lord Baglan. Perhaps he 
 was present at the storming of the Malakoff Tower. When wounded, 
 he was taken to the kiosk of Charles Green, adjacent to Greenwich, 
 who was a native of Hailes Ower, Salopshire, England, but last from 
 Liverpool. There he received the kindest attention ; but no skill 
 could save his life. We laid him down in the cemetery of the village, 
 and his father has sent over funds to rear a neat tablet to his memory. 
 His steed had scoured the «pins of Italy, the margin of the Golden 
 fcHorn and Canadian snows, but he met his end among the larches of 
 Prince William. In riding by our sequestered kirk we sometimes 
 glance at the grave of the stranger in a strange land. One hot summer 
 afternoon, a Mississippi soldier was brought in an ambulance to my 
 house. He was very sick, and in a few days he died, not without 
 resignation to the Divine will ; for, though young, he had been a mem- 
 ber of the Church. Twelve of his comrades were detailed to attend 
 the funeral, and we buried him in a clump of cherry trees near the 
 gate of the Manse, the white blossoms' of which have since been 
 sprinkled on his mound. After the second battle of Manassas, a soldier, 
 dangerously wounded, lay about five miles distant from my dwelling. 
 He had sent to the writer for some religious books, which were trans- 
 mitted, together with a Decade of Letters about Scottish Manses, by 
 old Peter Bell, published in a Kichmond paper. We rode over to the 
 Swiss-looking village of Buckland to pray with the stranger, and found 
 him sensible, well-informed and affable. He was pale and emaciated, 
 but by gentle nursing he slowly regained his strength, and was then 
 put in a hand-carriage and moved to and fro over the yard. It is 
 
something to be drawn by ladies for a team ; but even for such a pro- 
 menading,' the writer would not consent to welcome a minnie ball* 
 through the shoulder. This gentleman, when recovered, went back to 
 Charleston, South Carolina, from which city he communicated to us the 
 pleasing news that he had connected himself with the people of the 
 Lord. Perhaps by his affliction he was led to Him who received not 
 one, but five wounds for our transgressions, and by whose stripes all 
 returning sheep are healed. 
 
 But the question may be asked by my Methodist Protestant brethren 
 was your_ Manse injured by the war? No ; from the last advices it is 
 still erect. Its bees are still riding on their chariot plants, its birds are 
 still twittering from its locust boughs, and its grassy knolls have not 
 been stained by a drop of blood. We told the knights that all their 
 passes-at-arms must be enacted outside of my sylvan walls, for they are 
 fit for nothing but to be scaled by squirrels and surmounted by wrens 
 or sparrows. My books are intact. We can still turn over volumes 
 teeming with ancient thought, or look on pictures ambrotyped from the 
 light of the mediaeval imagination. We have quaint Chaucer, cornuco- 
 pian Spencer, and can still go back to Eden with Milton for a guide. 
 Would that we could say the same of Ringwood, my once happy home, 
 which stands about five miles from my present abode. The war did it 
 no good, but the injury will soon be repaired. Hope so, for that spot 
 is associated with thirteen years of my hermit life, where morning so 
 often chased away the night, and evening so often drew its pensive star 
 from the urns of the sun. Its premises have been repeatedly sketched, 
 and it gratifies me to say that one of those sketches is from the pencil 
 of a Northern soldier. Nor could war affect its mountain views which 
 still range in the distance. The hues of the Ridge defy the sternest 
 look of the warrior, be he Taric the Moor, or Hannibal the Carthage- 
 nian. The Alps regarded the tread of Napoleon, and the Pyrenees 
 that of Wellington no more than the footstep of a sauntering goat. 4 
 There stands those monuments of Divine power, and there will they 
 stand, to the end of time. But one morning a train of wagons entered 
 my gate. What's to pay now, thought I. They had come to forage, 
 and a pair of officers dismounted. Major Bell was the spokesman. 
 Have you any oats or corn? he politely inquired. .Well, Major, I re- 
 plied, we have some of both, though my farm is not much larger than 
 that of Cincinnatus the Roman, or of Alcibiades the Greek, and this 
 year have been obliged to buy. Our horses are starving, was his reply. 
 And so are mine in the present scarcity of grain. They are so reduced 
 that they creep along like snails over the undulations of this county, 
 and they are obliged to rest under the old oak tree between this and 
 Greenwich kirk. You see, Major, that my home is among the pines, 
 and here is a burr brought me from Waterloo near Brussels. 'Tis not 
 so large as some of my cones. My interlocutor seemed quite willing to 
 prolong the colloquy. Some time since, said he, I was passing up 
 Georgetown, D. C, and coming to a Church my attention was struck 
 by a sepulchral tablet in the wall of the edifice, and it occurred to me 
 
that the deceased person might have been a progenitor to the one of the 
 same name who wrote the " Picturesques" in Stockton's Christian 
 World. My immediate progenitor, I replied, and his father came 
 direct from Wales to Maryland. But where did you read the Pictur- 
 esques ? In the far West, he rejoined. But have you written anything 
 besides, he confined. Do you see, Major, that heap of manuscripts on 
 the table. They contain the history of my Times, and he who takes my 
 grain will find an ugly niche in that gallery. Here, to cut a long story 
 short, said Lieutenant Hill, suppose you write to Gen. King, under 
 whose orders we act. Agreed, and in ten minutes the letter was written 
 and sent by a soldier. When the messenger returned Lieutenant Hill 
 waived off the teamsters by a motion of his hand. Very much obliged 
 to Gen. King. He was a Milwaukee editor, but has since gone to Italy. 
 Hope he will experience no annoyance from the lazzaroni of Naples, the 
 cardinals of Pome, or the banditti of the Appenines. In the evening 
 Major Halstead from Newark, New Jersey, who was one of Gen. Augur's 
 «taff; rode to my house to see after the preacher. Glad to hear from his 
 father, for he and the writer were well acquainted at college. The son 
 was taken prisoner at Cedar mountain in Culpepper, but was soon ex- 
 changed. 
 
 ■ During the blockade it was very difficult to procure pens, ink and 
 paper, and this was a severe trial to a scribbler. My dilemma was 
 made known to Lieutenant Hill, who brought me eight quires of that 
 precious article letter press. How warm were my thanks. Col. Mann 
 sent me up from his camp a bottle of very dingy ink, and Lieutenant 
 Brockway gave me a couple of pens with gutta percha holders. The 
 last mentioned officer was from the vale of Wyoming, but he had trav- 
 eled along the Andes. His conversation was interesting. But most 
 unfortunately one of the glasses of my spectacles fell out on the floor of 
 the Manse. A sad tribulation, comforted, however, by remembering 
 that Generals Taric and Kutersoff had each lost an eye. In this emer- 
 gency Dr. Donnelly, who was from Ireland, came to my house. He had 
 lived in Brazil where he had fallen in with the " Lusiad " of Camoens, 
 of which he intended to publish a new translation. He asked me about 
 Mikle who rendered that Epic into English. He was, I replied, the 
 son of a Scotch minister who preached at Langholm in Dumfrieshire. 
 The translator went to Lisbon on mercantile business ; but afterwards 
 returned to Forest Hill in Oxfordshire, England, where he resided, and 
 where Milton was first married. Thank you, he remarked, for the 
 information ; and on my return from the city of fraternal love you shall 
 own a new pair of spectacles. The Doctor made good his promise, and 
 on his leaving us he begged my consort to remember him in her prayers. 
 A coincidence : My son Chalmers was carried to the old Capitol ; but 
 bearing the name of an illustrious Scotch divine, he was released in a few 
 days and sent round to Richmond. He was moneyless, nor were his 
 garments white as the snow of Salmon. In Richmond a stranger whose 
 name was Selden, proved a friend in need. It is somewhat remarkable 
 that precisely on the same day and at the same hour in which Selden 
 
was befriending him that Selden's son, half famished, rode to my door 
 and asked for breakfast. His appetite was keen. 
 
 An editor looks askance at a long article. Ergo : It may be well to 
 close at least for the present. 
 
 LETTER No. II. 
 
 In a previous letter mention was made of several incidents that took 
 place on my premises during the war which has just been brought to a 
 close. It is admitted that these incidents are not sufficiently dignified 
 to challenge the pen of the 'historian, but if not of the grand and in- 
 structive kind, they may serve at least to amuse your readers. To such 
 as have been already stated, suffer me to add a few more, which shall be 
 told in the most unpretending way. They are detailed, not to express 
 any political proclivities, but simply to promote the reign of good feel- 
 ing ; and for this reason no offence can be given to either Jew or Gentile. 
 These papers may be innocently read either by proud Castilians, or by 
 the knights of Morocco. Garrick introduced Hannah More to the 
 acquaintance of John Home. The one had written the tragedy of Doug- 
 las and the other that of Percy, and the great actor playfully remarked, 
 that now the Douglas and the Percy had shaken hands, he hoped the 
 fight in the Cheviot Hills would be forgotten. Amen, responds the 
 occupant of the Prince William Manse. There is a sterness in the, fol- 
 lowing couplet which occurs in the Lay of the last Minstrel, quite 
 uncongenial to my taste : 
 
 So \on% as Ettrick holds the Scott, 
 Shall feudal war ne'er be forgot. 
 
 It will be remembered that the Confederate army under Johnston, 
 lay at Centreville and Manassas during the winter of 1861 and 1862, 
 and some of the soldiers came- to keep Christmas at my house. At such 
 a period of distress they could not have expected the luxuries which 
 used to be common at that joyful season. In olden times Christmas was 
 kept at Branksome Hall, or Kenilworth Castle, in a mirthful way. Chief- 
 tans and their liegemen indulged in what is called wassail. Soldiers, 
 said I, tippling would be something very inappropriate to a Manse, but 
 we are not without some coffee, a berry of which Napoleon was fond. 
 At present it is unimportant whether it come from Mocha, Java, or Bra- 
 zil, provided it only be coffee. But have you any Louisiana sugar ? said 
 Corporal Draper. No : but we have some West India saccharine ; and 
 'bowls of coffee are better than mugs of wine. W,e can trim our fires, 
 give you some music on the zether, which will remind us of the Tyrolese 
 Alps ; and we can read to you Milton's hymn on the Nativity, Cowper's 
 Winter Evening in the Country, or the Scotch ballad called the Battle 
 of Bothwell Bridge, or the Braes of Yarrow, by Hamilton of Bargour. 
 We can furnish you with corncob pipes and send you off to beds soft as 
 
the down of the Gothland duck. Well, for a time like this, replied the 
 corporal, you can do more for us than we expected. Our guests enjoyed 
 themselves for a few days, when they decamped from my house and 
 returned to their shabby tents. The Manse then resumed its usual 
 serenity, and became just as quiet as the Warkworth hermitage in the 
 Shire of Cumberland, which has been celebrated in the ballads of Percy, 
 who was Dean of Carlisle : but subsequently Bishop of Dromore, in Ire- 
 land. But now the lady of the Manse was in a fix. Some socks had 
 been previously sent to an Alabama soldier who was stockingless. He 
 had written to express his thankfulness, but added that in taking aim 
 at the Yankees he would always think of his benefactress, and this was 
 just the thing which the lady did not desire. She remembered who 
 had said, thou shalt not kill ; and she did not send the socks as a promp- 
 ter to heroic deeds. Such tenderness of conscience is worthy of all 
 respect. Both Ney and Murat were in fifty battles, and each of them 
 declared that he was unconscious of ever having killed a man. Byron 
 used to wonder what were the feelings of a homicide. Bad enough, my 
 lord of Newstead Abbey, though the writer does not say so from per- 
 sonal experience. The creed of the writer about war is the same with 
 that of William Penn. War is an unlawful game, and for this reason 
 we do not envy the inventors of Colt's revolver, Burnside's pistol or 
 Dahlgren's gun. Men die fast enough without new implements of death. 
 But it gives me pleasure to say that the Alabama soldier on receiving a 
 note from the lady, withdrew his resolve to kill any body for her sake. 
 It is presumed therefore that if he slew any one, it was done on his own 
 account or from patriotism — but patriotism is nowhere commanded in the 
 Bible. That Book was not made for France, England and Austria, but 
 for the world. So thought Soame Jenyns, who from a deist became a 
 Christian, because he could not find in Holy Writ any command to love 
 England better than Greenland, Labrador or Tartary. We think as 
 Soame thought, and hope that no offence will be taken at our thoughts. 
 The reader must not forget that' in the spring of 1862, General 
 McDowell advanced into Virginia with quite a numerous force, as high 
 as Bristoe in Prince William. Johnston had fallen back to Gordons- 
 ville, and eventually in the direction of Yorktown. His reasons for 
 this movement are too obvious to need even a word in the way explana- 
 tion. Plis rear guard passed us, and a young lady in our vicinity, wrote 
 some very pretty lines, suggested by the sight of that guard. Falling 
 back is always a damper to troops ; but still they looked sprightlier 
 than the rear guard of Ney when he left Moscow for the Beresina. The 
 object of the Illinois General was to cover Washington and to aid Mc- 
 Clellan ; but a diversion was made in his plans by the movements of 
 Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. These papers, however, are not 
 graduated on a military scale. Whilst McDowell lay in the vicinity of 
 Bristoe, he. was visited by a snow-storm, quite unusual in our latitude 
 for the month of April. The violets had everywhere dotted the woods, 
 but the cowslips and buttercups were buried beneath mounds of snow. 
 Their streaks were lost to the eye and their fragrance neutralized on 
 
10 
 
 the vernal air. ' It was a wintry scene. The tents of the army were 
 cheerless. The men could not sleep, and permission was given them to 
 spread themselves through the country, and they rushed out in search 
 of better accommodations. The rooms of the Manse were crowded. 
 They were not brought there by the bugle of Roderick Dhu or Malcolm 
 Greame, but . by the horn of winter, which was howling rather than 
 winding along the azure ridge. The men occupied every inch of space 
 except my chimney nook, and that would not have been given up to 
 Wellington without a fight. Seated in my old arm-chair, no one dared 
 to dispute its. possession. Dominie, said one of the soldiers, can you tell 
 us what all this muss is about ? Certainly, said I, if you will hear me 
 patiently during an hour, for the causes of the muss run back to the 
 year of our Lord 1789. But mark me, you are not to know my politics 
 from the dissertation. They listened with an attention entirely respect- 
 ful. Among my audience was a chaplain who was from Troy, N. Y.,. 
 and it gave me pleasure to hear, through him, of Dr. Snodgrass of that 
 city, who was my fellow-student at the Princeton Seminary. The chap- 
 lain afterwards lost a limb in the war, and was sent to the Alexandria 
 Hospital. He will, no doubt, use crutches in ascending the pulpit. 
 We wish him well, for during his stay at my house he went to camp, 
 and brought me ten pounds of sugar and ten of coffee. The soldiers 
 were apparently serious at family worship, but the weather broke and 
 they all dispersed. One of them was named Abbot : he lingered longer 
 than the rest, and was extravagantly fond of music. Glad to hear that 
 he was no way connected with a person of the same name who wrote 
 the Life of Bonaparte, a production which has pleased many women 
 and children. 
 
 A few days after the above momentous events, a Federal soldier rode in 
 hot haste to the door of the Manse. He refused to alight. Understand, 
 said he, that you have three mocking birds, to sell at ten dollars a piece. 
 When leaving Wisconsin, my mother made me promise to send her some 
 Virginia birds, that imitated the note of all other birds. Your price 
 will be freely given. Your filial affection is worthy of admiration, I 
 replied, and we wish well to the good old Wisconsin lady, but really 
 my aviary is very scantily furnished at present. I am no Audubon, 
 and have not a wren, sparrow or hummer for sale. It was clear that 
 the man did not believe me, for he went about peering into every tree 
 and examining into empty cages. But his scepticism finally gave way 
 before his own examination, and he rode off, not without muttering his 
 discontent. It then occurred to me, that being April, some one in the 
 way of merriment had given the man a useless tramp of five miles. Or 
 perhaps the solution of the affair may be as follows : Three young 
 ladies at the Manse, and one of them a refugee, had played in succes- 
 sion the little Alabama song called the Mocking Bird. The three were 
 called up ; and young ladies, said I, we hold each of you at the rate of 
 .a billion of dollars, but you have been put down at the low figure of ten 
 •apiece. They were quite amused. We suspected Hill who wore the 
 straps of an officer, and we charged on him the sending of the man to my 
 
11 
 
 domicile. Was he simple enough to come ? he inquired, and laughed. 
 Poor Hill, he had been at war among the Aztecs, and had fought his 
 way up and down to the Halls of the Montezumas. He was badly 
 wounded at Bull Run Bridge, and reduced to a fraction at Antietam, 
 so that he left the army. Let us not judge men by appearances. His 
 exterior was 'not prepossessing, but he is a generous and high-minded 
 man. He took out a gold piece, amounting to two dollars and fifty 
 cents, and divided it among the servants. He offered pay for his ac- 
 commodation wherever he went. He was anxious to get. home that he 
 might see Frank, his little son. At prayer we remembered little Frank, 
 and the father seemed much affected. He was surprised that a South- 
 ern minister would pray for a Northwestern child, but we told him that 
 a Pagan had uttered the sentiment — I am a man, and nothing is alien 
 to me that appertains to humanity,' and surely. a Christian ought not to 
 b.e surpassed by a Roman. We wish well to Hill, he is a sensible sol- 
 dier. He liked to mix among men far better than among flowers, for 
 his imagination was not very arabesque. On taking leave of us, he re- 
 marked with deep feeling : Young ladies, if you will educate Frank, 
 he 'shall be here directly after the peace ; and we were surprised at his 
 desire to give his son a Southern training. Now these incidents may 
 appear trifling to the reader, but he ought to remember that these 
 papers are not the history of the great big war that convulsed the 
 country. They are simple affairs, that took place in my immediate 
 vicinity and beneath my personal notice, and therefore the recital of 
 them can be tolerated, even if they be not approved. 
 
 •It looked strange to see a quiet home in Prince William filled up in 
 part with Danes, Swedes and Russians ; and it is remarkable that they 
 stood the cold no better than the Confederates. In extreme latitudes 
 men seldom leave their stoves. Even St. Petersburg is shut up all 
 winter, and for this reason, when Russians venture out in a more 
 moderate climate they become chilly. Tis true the Cossacks pursued 
 Napoleon, but vindictive feeling against the man kept them warm, and 
 in the' chase of him they were going south. The Swedes talked of 
 Jenny Lind, and of Augustus Adolphus, the great champion of Pro- 
 testantism. The Danes had little to say about Tycho Brahe, for they 
 did not understand his astronomy. The Russians knew something of 
 Peter the Great, but nothing about Pushkin, their poet, who foolishly 
 lost his life in a duel. There was quite a diversity of temperament 
 among my numerous guests. Some were garrulous and other taciturn ; 
 some sullen and others easily pleased ; some grave and others merry ; 
 some lazy and others would hitch up my team and bring in a cord of 
 wood in a hurry. Captain Caldwell, from Dartmouth College, in New 
 Hampshire, was constitutionally excitable, but even with him a soft 
 answer could turn away wrath. He is a scholar, and his memory, if 
 he be still alive', is very retentive. In fact, Christian meekness can 
 keep down the quills of a porcupine in our intercourse with the world. 
 Among the Northerners was a man whom his comrades called Jersey. 
 We could not ascertain whether or not he was from that island in the 
 
12 
 
 English Channel, but he was last from Brooklyn. After leaving my 
 house, we heard that my friend Jersey had behaved badly; but the 
 report was false, for Lieutenant Hoysradt, who called on us after the 
 battle of Gettysburg, told me that he had distinguished himself in that 
 affair. The Confederates had captured one of the Federal standards 
 and borne it away ; but Jersey rushed' into the thickest of the fight, 
 and the standard was re-taken. For this deed he was promoted on the 
 spot. The writer cannot determine the exact number of soldiers who 
 came to the Manse during that April snow-storm. They amounted to 
 an inundation ; but in an overflow of the Nile the minarets of the 
 Delta are everywhere visible to the Egyptians, and it was my business 
 to ask them about their Churches, and bring into view the steeples of 
 their sacred edifices. Leslie, the Provost Marshal, was then at my 
 house. His name indicated that he was Scotch. He had come from 
 Balmoral in the Shire of Aberdeen, near to which place Queen Victoria 
 has a palace, and in its vicinity Prince Albert used to shoot grouse. 
 As General Ewell's residence, called Stony Lonesome, was on the hill 
 that overlooked my premises, Leslie very kindly took an . ambulance 
 and brought the General's books to my house. They were preserved 
 in that way, for some soldiers think no more of Homer's Iliad than of 
 the History of Tom Thumb, or of the splendid creations of Sir W. 
 Scott than of Lilworth's spelling book. When the General was told of 
 this fact, he was peculiarly gratified. But short articles are more 
 coveted at present than those that are long. 
 
 We are happy to acknowledge the general accuracy of your printing. 
 But permit me to say that the concluding sentence of my previous let- 
 ter needs correction. You call my son Chambers instead of Chalmers, 
 and my manuscript stood as follows : But bearing the name of an illus- 
 trious Scotch divine he was released in a few days. Some of your 
 readers have accused me of- calling myself an illustrious divine. No ! 
 no : the writer is nothing but a shady divine. 
 
 LETTER No. III. 
 
 " Home — sweet home." This is the title of a song which was written 
 by my friend Howard Payne. He was a bachelor, and never knew the 
 charm of domestic life. ^ After wandering late and long, he died in 
 Algiers. A petition was sent to the Government that his remains might 
 •be brought from Africa to the United States, and, as the hurly-burly 
 war is over, we hope the wishes of his friends may be gratified. This 
 song was hummed on the way from Washington to my Manse. After 
 a long detention in that city, by the illness of Mrs. Genl. Macomb, how 
 refreshing is a sight of the Blue Ridge. 
 
 A writer should always be judged, by what he professes to execute. 
 In these papers the reader need not expect the movement of great 
 armies, or the recital of closely contested battles. Such things are 
 
13 
 
 freely handed over to our historians, whilst the writer proceeds with 
 his present unambitious task, which is to add a few incidents to those 
 already stated. These small affairs took place both with Federals and 
 Confederates, and in telling them we must keep in mind that narrow 
 pass in which Jonathan surprised the Philistine garrison. It had a 
 sharp rock on the North, and one equally sharp on the South : but the 
 writer hopes to get through without giving offence, that in all things 
 the Ministry be not blamed. 
 
 •The following incident is abont a little dog whose name is Bruto. 
 On the morning that Gen. Ewell left for* the war, the writer went over 
 to his residence to bid him adieu. It was a distance of five hundred 
 yards from my own dwelling. His brother committed the diminutive 
 creature to the keeping of my son, and a remarkable attachment grew 
 up between the parties. His temporary owner could not stroll to my 
 gate without being accompanied by the dog. He followed him wherever 
 he went, and was with him on the evening he was captured and taken 
 to Washington. Bruto returned after night, and we concluded that his 
 master would soon make his appearance. But he did not, for he was 
 safely lodged in the Carroll House. The dog was disconsolate, and for 
 several days refused every kind of nourishment, constantly looking in 
 the direction where his master was taken. When the prisoner returned 
 the canine affair could not suppress its joy. Till then the writer never 
 tolerated dogs. It was enough to know that they would bite. Byron's 
 attachment to his Newfoundlander was set down as a piece of affecta- 
 tion, and the St. Bernard stories as humbug. We had heard of their 
 protecting children, and that they had discovered murders, and how 
 they had defended Grampian, Pentland and Fyrenean shepherds, but 
 we regarded all this as gammon. But in future we must entertain a 
 better opinion of the canine species. When convicted of an error, that 
 error ought to be confessed. 
 
 The curiosity of the Federals who came on my premises, was intense. 
 It extended to the garden, carriage-house, cistern, and kitchen. They 
 peered about the walls of the Manse. What is this? said one of them, 
 who came from the Knickerbocker city. That is a sketch of the Cat- 
 skill mountains which run. through several counties of New York, and 
 you ought to have known it at sight. They seemed pleased at our hav- 
 ing any thing contiguous to Sleepy Hollow. But mark me, said I, the 
 two peaks of the Catskill, as measured by Captain Partridge, are not so. 
 high as those of Otter in the Blue Kidge. Virginia must not yield .in 
 its scenery to the land of the Gothamites. And what is this ? said another 
 of my guests. A picture of Evangeline, I replied, drawn, no doubt, 
 from fancy. Fancy might have made the heroine of Nova Scotia or 
 Acadia much handsomer than she appears in that representation. By 
 whom was it executed? he rejoined. By Mrs. Ewing of Orange county 
 — not in New York, but Virginia. And what is this? said, a third 
 soldier. A view of my native town, which lies on the north banks of 
 the Potomac. It holds the Manse once occupied by my Sire. But to 
 prevent any further, guessing, it occurred to me to become a kind of • 
 
14 
 
 cicerone to the little ornaments of my cottage : This is a sketch of 
 Lake Como in Italy, and one of the stone buildings on its margin. It was 
 presented by a lady who came to Virginia from near Woodstock, in 
 Oxford, England, together with many other pieces of English scenery, 
 and among them Tintern Abbey on the Wye. And here is a Swiss 
 cottage sent me by Prosinger who emigrated from Munich in Bavaria. 
 And here is a bust of Petrarch, from Florence, and of Boscoe, from Liv- 
 erpool ; and here is a branch of palm from the tomb of Paul and Vir- 
 ginia in the island of Mauritius ; and here is a staff from the Moluccas : 
 and lastly, as the schedule is s&newhat tedious, here is a large picture 
 of my small self. What, said Major Jones, do you preach in gown and 
 bands? No; but the likeness was taken by Mason, a young artist of 
 Snow Hill, who died at an early age. He worked under the instiga- 
 tion of a bachelor, who was not without some predilection for clerical 
 dress, and as his money paid the artist, it was not my province to inter- 
 fere with his fancy. The black gown is not amiss, but we should have 
 rebelled against the white surplice, because it is both Jewish and Papal. 
 Hope the reader will not regard me as a virtuoso, like Horace Walpole 
 of Strawberry Hill. 
 
 The blockade became more and more tightened. The want of leather 
 was general. My shoes were all down at the heel. My thoughts 
 about sandals were quite intense. The Bard of the Seasons wanted a 
 pair of shoes on the soles of which to pace the footways of London. 
 The window in Pembroke College is shewn to this day out of which Dr. 
 Johnson tossed a couple of hobnail commodities. And Josephine, when 
 going from Martinique to France, wanted a pair for her daughter Hor- 
 tense. What was to be done ? To superintend farming operations in 
 my stockings was rather awkward. We could not walk to the gate, 
 the spring or the meadow. But after a noon of lamentation, a pretty 
 twilight fell round the Manse, and a lonely horseman was approaching 
 my door. His name was Alexander, tie was not a combatant, but an 
 engineer. He was of Scotch descent, and on a visit to Washington, 
 had just fallen in with the chief of his clan, to whom he renewed his 
 homage. Dismount, I said, and pass the night. Some of your men 
 have just brought me several pounds of coffee. Could not, he replied. 
 But here's a pair of shoes ; try if they will fit. They fit exactly, was 
 my answer. You guessed well at my measure. He rode away very 
 briskly, for he had come five miles from his camp. But during the 
 whole war, night was turned into day and day into night. Nor was 
 this all the good fortune which befel the Manse about this time : for 
 hearing of my shoeless feet, Commissary Bundy sent me a pair of boots, 
 and Col. De Luc a pair of sandals with silk strings. The Colonel was 
 of French extraction, and hailed from St. Paul, on the east banks of the 
 Mississippi. He talked a great deal about the laughing waters of 
 Minnesota, and shewed me some ambrotypes of the aquatic scenery, of 
 which he was so fond. He was a lawyer, and, of course, a special 
 pleader for his State. But, Colonel, said I, look yonder. That is the 
 line of the Blue Ridge ; and though your country be undulating, it 
 
15 
 
 holds no such mountain as the one now in sight. That elevation is full 
 of cool fountains and fragrant leaves. Here the confab ended, but he 
 gave me an Oration which, had just been delivered in Boston, by 0. W. 
 Holmes, and upon which he requested some critical remarks. They 
 were prepared and sent down to camp by a Northern soldier, who rode 
 as express. It was a good-natured piece of criticism, with a request 
 that it might be forwarded, not to the Czar of all the Russians, but to 
 the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. The Colonel took all in good 
 part, for on the next Sabbath he was in the church at my house, and 
 heard a sermon from that blessed petition, give us this day our daily 
 bread. 
 
 Paper at present is uncommonly scarce, as you will see from the 
 scraps on which this communication is written. Perhaps some of your 
 readers may be glad of the fix we are in, because it has shortened this 
 letter. But we hope for a supply after my return from our Synod, 
 which meets at Lynchburg, in sight of the Otter Peaks. They will 
 look, we fear, less inviting than usual in their Autumnal dress. For 
 the present, adieu. 
 
 LETTER No. IV. 
 
 One evening my third daughter was riding from the Federal camp. 
 She -was accompanied by a servant : but a young officer rode up and 
 desired the privilege of seeing her safely home. He would listen to no 
 expostulation. He was told that he might be captured on the way, and 
 then she would be charged with decoying him into danger. But the 
 young knight persevered, for he had come from the smoke of Pittsburg, 
 and his sight must have been rather dim. The party reached the Manse 
 some time after twilight, and rode quite briskly up to the kitchen. 
 Since the absence of the young lady, three Confederate soldiers, all 
 armed cap-a-pie, had arrived on my premises with the purpose of spend- 
 ing the night. They were in the parlor, the door and windows of which 
 were open, for it was summer, and. the moon was throwing its reflections 
 into the room which they occupied. We heard distinctly the tramping 
 of the horses as they approached our culinary establishment. My con- 
 sort withdrew with the quickness of an Irish fairy or a Devonshire 
 pixie, and in a hurry warned the young man of his critical situation. 
 But he had lost the points of the compass, for the Avoods through which 
 he had come were exceedingly dense. Which way lies my camp ? asked 
 the bewildered knight. Don't know, said the lady, being myself a 
 keeper at home ; but my son is one of the Confederates,, and my creed is 
 that the rites of hospitality are more sacred than the laws of war. But 
 no talking. At that she ran with a footstep quite elastic for a lady of 
 sixty-two, and beckoned out the young soldier. Gulielmi, said the 
 mother, this young man asks you to go with him a mile, but go with 
 him twain. Don't mind your arms ; but trust to his honor. Were he 
 
16 
 
 to harm you he would be a fiend, whereas he seems to be a gentleman. 
 So he escaped : and who would not skedaddle sooner than to go to the 
 Libby or Fort Warren. He wore a sabre which he took off, because of 
 its dangling. If he call for it the weapon can be restored. Gainer by 
 this affair one sabre, but my anxiety to keep it is not very great : for 
 they who take the sword shall perish by the sword. Was it right to 
 save him ? Yes ; for he was performing an act of civility, and my politics 
 shall never outrun my chivalry. We choose to be polite, and taking men 
 prisoners is a very clownish business. The young man's name was Easton, 
 and wa, mention names for fear the reader may look upon these inci- 
 dents as fictions instead of realities. But permit me to mention an 
 incident somewhat resembling the above, although its termination was 
 not quite so happy. Another daughter went over to the Federal camp 
 to make a few purchases. She was introduced to Gen. Meade, who was 
 a kind of an American Creole, for he was born in Spain, probably at 
 Madrid on the Manzenarez. His father was Minister to the Court of that 
 city. When the fair daughter of Eve was about leaving his tent, the 
 General called an officer, and ordered him to guard the lady home. No, 
 General, said the lady, he may be sent to Belle Isle before you see him 
 again. Not the least danger, was the reply ; but in passing a clump of 
 woods out came two Confederates ; but being one to two, the officer 
 wisely surrendered. The lady protested, but little did the captors care 
 for the tongue of a woman. But scarcely had the prisoners reached 
 Richmond before a letter stating the circumstances was forwarded to 
 the Hon. James A. Seddon, at that time Secretary of War. He imme- 
 diately searched for the young man, and having found him, ordered his 
 release. The pen is sometimes more powerful than the sword. Arrests 
 were frequent. On a beautiful summer evening, a gentleman from New 
 Hampshire by the name of Snow, was driving me home from the Church 
 in which the writer had just been officiating. Wishing for a little pe- 
 destrian exercise, he dropped me a half a mile off from my house, and 
 was returning in his chariot when he was met by some Confederate cav- 
 alry and sent to Manassas, and from thence to Richmond. We wrote to 
 Gen. Beauregard in his behalf, and to the Rev. Dr. Hoge of Richmond : 
 and it gives me pleasure to say, that in three weeks he was set at lib- 
 erty. This gentleman knows how to bear the frowns of fortune. He 
 owned property in New York, but it was consumed by fire. He then 
 bought a farm in Prince William ; but in consequence of the war, not a 
 plank is left, either of his barn or dwelling. He then purchased a 
 steamer to ply between Washington and Alexandria, but it was sunk 
 into the Potomac. He then entered into the coal business on the Chesa- 
 peake and Ohio canal, but Mosby captured all his mules. Will any 
 one doubt that he is possessed of a brave heart and that decision of 
 character of which Foster has so eloquently written. 
 
 One bright afternoon three Confederates rode up to my yard. They 
 dismounted, but instead of coming into the Manse, they laid themselves 
 down in the shade of some locust trees, where they fell into a sleep as 
 sound as was that of Gulliver's in Laputa. All the previous night they 
 
17 
 
 had been, scouting. Sleep has been eulogized by Dr. Young, and we 
 only wish that the repose of these knights could have been witnessed 
 by the Bard of Welwyn. Soldiers should be on their guard. Saul 
 went to sleep in a Hebrew cave, and lost in that way the skirt of his 
 garment, but our knights, Martin, Smith and Boteler, came near the 
 loss of their lives. We have heard of the Three Graces ; the three 
 witches on the Forres Moor ; of the three wise men of Gotham, but this 
 triple group were not very sagacious in slumbering when they should 
 have had wide open the hundred eyes of Argus. For who is this run- 
 ning from the kitchen and laying her ebony hands on the three sleepers 
 and shaking them to pieces, and crying out — they are coming ! they are 
 coming ! It was a servant woman who had descried fifteen Federals 
 descending the slope of a hill, and spurring steeds that were flecked in 
 foam. They were commanded by Lieutenant Littlefield, and a John 
 Gilpin race was commenced. The knights sprung to their saddles 
 sooner than they coul'd whistle Jack Robinson. They cleared the bars 
 of my fence — crossed a brook which flowed through a holm — ascended 
 a hill, and though not killed, buried themselves in the woods. In the 
 meantime the Federals lost ground by taking down instead of leaping 
 the bars. As no mischief was done we enjoyed the chase. When the 
 Lieutenant returned, the lady of the Manse expressed her satisfaction 
 that his men had not fired. We thought your son of the Black • Horse 
 was one of the three, he replied. We only wanted to tuck them away 
 into Fort Delaware. Poor Littlefield. He was a meritorious young 
 man, but in a few weeks afterwards he was taken sick with the camp 
 fever and died in Washington, far away from his Northwestern home. 
 Towards night the Confederates returned in search of a bag of oats they 
 had left in their flight, and which the Federals had overlooked. They 
 were supplied with milk, and let me advise the reader to enter into a 
 long rumination on the usefulness of the cow. Like Dr. Jenner, of 
 Gloucester, England, the writer often leans over the bars of the cowpen 
 to think of his vaccine discovery, for which Parliament voted him ten 
 thousand pounds, when they ought to have given him ten times the 
 sum. And as men will go to war in contrariety to his opinions, the 
 writer is not sorry that Morgan whipped Tarlton at the battle of the 
 Cowpens. This letter is sufficiently brief to suit the most scrupulous 
 editor. There is at present a scarcity of paper in Old Prince William, 
 though the county be named in honor of a Dutch King. We hope to 
 procure a supply. A paper-mill might be useful at present in this part 
 of the Old Dominion. 
 
 LETTER No. V. 
 
 It is not pleasant to deprive books of their blank leaves, but what 
 scribbler will fail to do this should he be pushed for paper? It was 
 done by Addison and Pope. Why not, then, by the occupant of a 
 dwelling hid in the woods, and far away from towns, where paper is 
 
18 
 
 sold? Throughout the war, the Manse was subject to calls both by in- 
 dividuals and companies. My feelings were quite interested in young 
 Allston, who sojourned awhile at my house. He was without a horse, 
 but subsequently obtained a very superior one in a raid. He was brave 
 to a fault, but we exceedingly doubt whether bravery be a virtue. 
 Were all men destitute of this quality, would there or could there be 
 any fighting ? Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were gentle as a pair 
 of doves skipping along the walks of Eden. War was one of the evils 
 which came into the world with the loss of our original innocence. We 
 ought therefore to oppose it under all circumstances if we ever expect 
 to recover in the Second what was lost in the First Adam. But a word 
 or two about my young friend, for he did not seem to have been more 
 than nineteen years of age. He was born in Ireland, but was taken 
 when a boy to the city of Hereford, in the west of England, which is 
 situated on the north bank of the Wye. In coming from Hereford, I 
 remarked, you come from the birth-place of the celebrated Garrick. 
 Dr. Johnson said of him, that he promoted the gaiety of nations, but 
 nations need to be solemn rather than gay, especially in time of war. 
 All traditions of him, he replied, have died out in Hereford, but he is 
 still spoken of in London. The confidence with which my young friend 
 replied, convinced me that he was quite intelligent. I have caught 
 trout in the Wye and the Severn, he continued, and have gone in my 
 boat as high as the Shire of Montgomery. Then you have been at 
 Ludlow wood and Ludlow castle ? Yes, and the wood is still green, 
 but the castle is brown with age and stern in its ruins. My skiff could 
 touch at Ohepston, Tintern Abbey, or the town of Ross, where lived 
 John Kyrle, the good old bachelor. - The trees he planted in Ross are 
 still erect. Have been up the Welsh rivers and over the rough mount- 
 ains of the principality, but always glad to see Hereford again, for 
 absence- only sweetened home. What bait did you use in angling? 
 Anything, he' answered, that resembled a fly, and like Sir Humphrey 
 Davy, we could make a bait out of the feathers of the peacock. ■ And 
 what induced you to leave such juvenile pleasures for the scenes of 
 war ? We heard, he replied, that there was a great fuss in your country, 
 and we concluded to cross the sea and help the Confederates, who were 
 thought in England, to be the weaker party. The conversation of this 
 soldier was instructive, but he was captured in the battle of the Wil- 
 derness. His comrades in arms have taken special pains to ascertain 
 his fate ; and the conjecture is that he died either in prison or in a 
 hospital, at Richmond. If so, he will never again behold the coral 
 reefs of England. There is a bare possibility, however, that he may 
 have returned to Hereford, the city from which he came. 
 
 A soldier from Minnesota. He had been taken prisoner, but the 
 squad by whom he was captured, not wishing to lose time in going to 
 Richmond, paroled him on the spot. He was a Frenchman, and we 
 asked him to sing the Marseilles hymn in the language in which it was 
 written. With this request he immediately complied. It stirred my 
 heart like a trumpet ; but after ten minutes reflection, the military fire 
 
19 
 
 fell down to zero. Who would repudiate his books for one of Sharp's 
 rifles or a Dahlgren gun ? Certainly no civilized man would be guilty 
 of such folly. The Frenchman was quite anxious to acquire the pro- 
 nunciation of our language, and we set him to reading a volume of my 
 manuscript sermons. You do slap now and ten at the Pope, he 
 remarked, as he went on with his task. Its a part of my religion, I 
 replied, never to spare the old man of sin. Dat is right, he answered, 
 for de French be not dependent on de Vatican. Napoleon III. supply 
 him .wid de bayonets because he want him to feel his great dependence. 
 Are there many of the frog-eating nation in Minnesota ? Good many — 
 good many do go from Montreal ; but de priests do not like de going, 
 for de Methodists do catch de Catholics as de French do catch de 
 frogs, and de priests are left in de Church. In the lurch, you mean. 
 Dat is right, he said, in de lurch. De priests have to fry some fish. 
 No ; you mean that the priests have other fish to fry than going after 
 those that the Methodists catch ! Dat is right, for mineself have seen 
 how de priests do grab all dey can get. Have you had, I asked, any 
 hair-breadth escapes in the war ? One, he answered, that do deserve 
 mention. Mineself was under de apple tree, and a shell come at de 
 tree and de apples fall down and bruise mine head, and where de shell 
 did explode lift up mine haversack way up in de air, and cut up de 
 haversack to pieces. And what became of the apples ? I did eat up 
 de apples, for in de heat of de battle one great tirst did come to mine 
 mouth. Now, said I, you must quit your de, dey, mineself, tirst and 
 all such things, for the English is a manly, language. You must read 
 my manuscripts for one month, and your pronunciation must be cor- 
 rected as you proceed. This proposition was agreed to, and the French- 
 man improved surprisingly under my tuition. He began to talk like a 
 man instead of chattering like a monkey. ' He gave me the outlines of 
 Minnesota — its undulations, St. Paul's, the Falls of St. Antony, the 
 prairies and their interior lakes. He imitated the barking of the 
 prairie dogs, which was very amusing. These little creatures, how- 
 ever, are greatly lessened in numbers since Lewis and Clarke explored 
 the Missouri in 1805. My guest had enjoyed the advantage of a good 
 education among the Jesuit priests of Canada. We went over to King- 
 Wood, and took a sketch of my former home, and attended the meeting 
 of Presbytery at Greenwich, near my residence, and was much pleased 
 with a discourse from the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of 
 Alexandria. His name is Oliver Barry, but written by himself Olivier 
 Barre. We wish him well in the future. 
 
 A third soldier arrived at the Manse. He was from Philadelphia. 
 He was sick, and his disease was clearly cf the pulmonary type, and of 
 course he was unfit for servce. His name was Pullen, and we nursed 
 him as well as we could in the famine produced by the war. In a week 
 he partially recovered, and went out to enjoy the shade of my yard. 
 We looked up and saw a Confederate soldier from Abbeville, South 
 Carolina, by the name of Guffin, riding Jehu-like to my dwelling with 
 a Burnside pistol in his hand. Pullen, said I, throw up your arms in 
 
20 
 
 token of surrender. We then took Guffin aside, who immediately 
 wrote him a parole which was witnessed by myself, as my sign manual 
 was known to several persons in Washington. When he left, we walked 
 with him a mile, and he offered me a greenback, amounting to what 
 Barry would call five dollar. Don't keep an inn, I remarked, but my 
 beau ideal has always been to keep one, and talk to travelers whilst 
 my man Jess should attend to the horses. Why, you heap coals of 
 fire on my head. No, you mistake the meaning of that text. When 
 we are kind to an enemy the kindness makes the recipient heap the 
 coals on * his own head. Hope that they will not scorch your fingers. 
 When you get home, present me to your wife and children. That I 
 will, he replied, and send you some Harper's. So do ; but not the 
 numbers containing Abbott's Life of Napoleon. These Manse reminis- 
 cences will be continued. 
 
 LETTER No. VI. 
 
 The waiter was standing one day at the door of the Manse looking at 
 two of his horses grazing on a hill just above Cat Tail Run, which emp- 
 ties into a broader stream, called Kettle Run. What names for a pair 
 of pretty brooks winding through velvet savannahs ! Dr. Johnson, 
 however, was very fond of his cat, and Cowper of his kettle. We are 
 therefore reconciled to the names ; but not to what took place on Arrel- 
 ton Hill. Some Federal soldiers started the animals, and there was 
 quite a chase and a race. The horses knew that their owner had given 
 them as good nubbins as his crib could afford, and were therefore op- 
 posed to being taken prisoners. They liked Cat Tail water, as it would 
 have been called by the Scotch, but poor things, they were noosed — 
 lassoed — bridled — captured and borne away over the very stream at 
 which they had so often slaked their mouths. Like the renowned Vicar 
 of Wakefield, your correspondent determined to take everything in good 
 humor, for otherwise, the sun might have gone down on his wrath. 
 The pillow often soothes displeasure, and the next morning we sent the 
 following good-natured note to the officer in command : 
 
 Colonel : — Yesterday a squad of your men took off a couple of my horses. One of 
 them is cream-colored, like the steed that Washington rode at Yorktown in 1781, and 
 the other a bright sorrel, like one mentioned in the Arabian Nights. Please consult 
 Blackstone on the mighty difference between meum and tuum. Possession is nine out 
 of twelve points of the law, and therefore you have no moral or military right to Fan 
 and Reuben. It is not my purpose to use either of them in making a raid on your 
 camp. A Presbyterian minister must not turn soldier as if he were a Romish Pontiff. 
 One of the animals is a pony that carries my corn and wheat to Langley's mill, and 
 you must not forget that Henry Clay was a millboy. With the going down of the 
 sun, let me see both my steeds in their own fragrant clover fields, and the vesper 
 beams of the orb of day will reflect renewed lustre on your deeds. Permit me to sub- 
 scribe my middle name, in the hope that your sense of justice will be in full flower. 
 
 T. Bloomer Balch. 
 
 Who took this note to camp ? We were obliged to employ the daugh- 
 ters of Eve as our plenipotentiaries, because their tongues are so much 
 
21 
 
 more reserved than those of gentlemen. A very discreet young lady 
 and a pedestrian offered to go on the errand. She found the horses all 
 packed for travel, and about moving for the Eappahannock. Unpack 
 those horses, said the heroine ; they belong to one who lives in a Manse, 
 and were you to take a hawthorn bud out of a Scottish Manse, the Cold- 
 stream guards who figured at Waterloo would be up and at you. The 
 Colonel caught the tones of her voice and hurried to the muss. Colonel, 
 said she, read this epistle, and then tell me to ride back this pony like 
 a Virginia Die Vernon. The Colonel reading. Who wrote this note ? 
 My sire. Then your sire must be an odd fish, for he commands a mili- 
 tary man, instead of asking a favor. ■ He commands you, Colonel, to do 
 to others as others ought to do to you. That's all. What favor is it to 
 restore his own ? Aristotle so teaches and so does the Decalogue, as' 
 expounded in the Sermon on the Mount. Let the pendulum of your 
 determination swing itself to the side of justice and. all will be well. 
 Take your horses, said the gallant Colonel, and as we are breaking up 
 ■our cantonment, take home anything we leave. The last was done ac^ 
 cording to Gunter. Gainer by the temporary absence of my steeds, 
 three water buckets bound in brass hoops ; four brooms, the sight of 
 which made me shudder ; one mug, one Pilgrim's Progress, and one 
 arnbfotype of Napoleon, which should have been sent to Abbott rather 
 than to the owner of the Blue Ridge Manse. Thus ended the adven- 
 ture of the horses, and on getting back, Reuben ranged as proudly as ■ 
 did the war-horse of Wellington after the affair at Waterloo. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to record some of the generous actions of the 
 Federals. Let me tell the following : Corporal Finlan was passing 
 my house. He was called in and offered a cup of milk. Where do 
 you come from, corporal ? From about Meansville, he replied, on the 
 east bank of the Susquehanna, Bradford county, Pennsylvania. That 
 county, I rejoined, may have been named from the town of Bradford- 
 on-Avon in the English shire of Wilts. Not posted up in such things, 
 said the corporal. He went on his way. Two or three weeks had 
 gone by, when the writer was aroused one dreary night, about twelve 
 o'clock, by some one fumbling at the door of the Manse. Who comes 
 there, I called out, with a stentorian voice. A friend, was the reply. 
 We opened the door and Finlan entered. Some fresh combustibles 
 were put on the fire. Quite an unseasonable hour, he remarked. 
 Couldn't elude my pickets till late, or our officers who were scouting. 
 Lost my way and strayed off to an old field ; encountered dogs ; 
 asked the way to your house ; have found it at last. As there are lots 
 of Presbyterians in Bradford, have brought you some notions. At that 
 he opened his haversack and out rolled a baker's dozen of Northern 
 apples, and as many of golden oranges. Here, too, is some sugar, tea 
 and coffee, and fifteen papers of Anderson's solace, and enough gazettes 
 to keep you reading for a week. Finlan, said I, go up and take a bed. 
 No ! must be back at camp. At this the lady of the Manse made her 
 appearance. You don't go without a bowl of coffee, one for you and 
 one for the Dominie. And none for yourself ? No; not at this hour 
 
22 
 
 of the night. And so we two sipped our coffee and piped away on 
 Anderson's weed. lie rose to go. Stop, said I, here's a greenback to 
 reward you for your pains. None of it, none of it, he answered, and he 
 hurried away. We hope that all minnies, shells, balls, pistols and 
 sabres, spared the life of that man, and that he was welcomed home by 
 his Bradford friends. 
 
 When Gibbon, the deist, was writing the History of the Koman 
 Empire, he was employed on an objective task, or one outside of him- 
 self ;■ but when he wrote his Memoirs, he was subjectively employed. 
 Sorry to make myself the subject of these papers. Can't help it; for 
 shall the writer be mum when others are talking or asleep ; when 
 others are awake or lazy ; when others are active. We will go on with 
 incidents in which my lilliputian self bears a part. The writer one 
 Sabbath afternoon was occupying his arm-chair, superior as it is to the 
 one owned by Gay the poet, and musing on that cloud of war which 
 was expanding itself more and more in dark folds over the land. A 
 young man of eighteen entered. From what point of the compass do 
 you come ? Richland District, South Carolina. Very well, then ; you 
 probably know something of Dr. Thornwell of Columbia, whom it was 
 my good fortune to meet in the Presbyterian General Assembly, which 
 convened at Richmond, in 1847. My father, the youth replied. Was 
 he well when you left Columbia ? At that he took from his pocket- 
 ■ book an obituary notice of the Doctor, of whose decease the writer was 
 ignorant, for armies bar out both joyful and distressing intelligence. 
 My father, rejoined the son, would have studied his eyes out had he 
 lived. Then, I replied, he would have been like Homer, Milton, 
 Ossian, Saunderson and Prescott. It is not well, however, to be over- 
 bookish even to work our way into such a distinguished group. Too 
 many books are one. but no books at all are another extreme, and you 
 must pass between the extremes if you would learn to think. Just 
 then, two additional young men entered the parlor. Their names 
 turned out to be Logan and Bowie, who were comrades of Thornwell. 
 Are you connected, said I, to the first, with a Scotch minister of your 
 name who preached in South Leith, near Edinburgh ? My sire, he 
 replied, is a minister in South Carolina, and his ancestors were Scotch. 
 Then here is a little memoir of the South Leith Logan, which can be 
 read in thirty minutes. He wrote several beautiful hymns and the 
 Braes of Yarrow'; but everybody seems to have written about those 
 Braes. And are you the son of a minister? said I, to Bowie. Only 
 the grandson, he replied, of the Rev. Dr. Coffin, President of Greenville 
 College, in East Tennessee. Knew him well, and officiated for him in 
 1818, at Greenville, on the French Broad. Happy to. return his hos- 
 pitality in the person of his representative. He was from Newbury- 
 port, Massachusetts, on the Merrimac, and became the pioneer of learn- 
 ing to the valleys of the South-west. Now, then, young gents, take 
 notice. We four, including myself, are sprung from ministers, and as 
 such we must behave ourselves throughout the war like Cristians. In 
 came Sparks from Louisiana, who before the war was preparing for the 
 
23 
 
 ministry. Great office that to which he looked. Our fathers, where 
 are they, and the prophets, do they live forever ? The next day my 
 guests took their leave of the Manse, but alack, alack, two of them fell 
 in skirmishes. Sparks on the farm of the widow Bedine, and Thorn- 
 well at Lindon, near Warrenton Junction. We heard the pistol 
 which laid Thornwell low. After his wound he was taken to a hospital 
 in Alexandria, where he received the kindest attention from the friends 
 of his father. The lady of the Manse wrote to Mrs. Thornwell detail- 
 ing the circumstances connected with the fall of her son, and received 
 a reply which evinced the anguish of a mother's heart. We are com- 
 manded to weep with all who weep. Oh! Pagan Mars, what sad deeds 
 have been enacted in thy name. 
 
 Eode to the Federal camp, and was introduced to General Howard, 
 from Augusta, in Maine. The town is on the Kennebec, the navigation 
 of which is interrupted by the Tetonic falls. The General, however, 
 was. not very romantic about cascades. He had lost his right arm in 
 the battle of Seven Pines, but had since learned to scribble with his 
 left. We sat at his tent door, not in the heat of the day, but some time 
 after the sun had passed his meridian. How glorious he is on his noon- 
 ■ day line, but how lovely when he bestows his tints on cloud and woods, 
 or when he inserts them into the arch of the rainbow. We were glad 
 to find that the General was a professor of religion, and that he some- 
 times addressed his men on topics of vital importance. We discussed 
 at large the state of the country, and it was clear that my interlocutor 
 wanted to find out my leanings, but he was baffled in all his efforts. He 
 told me, unequivocally, that he doubted the propriety of a Christian's 
 going to war. 'We pointed his attention to the faith of Centurians as 
 . mentioned in the Gospels ; but remarked at the same time that the 
 responsibility in making war was thrown not on them, but on the Caesars 
 of Rome. Tools are not to answer at the great day, but they who em- 
 ploy the tools. Not the invincible guard, but Napoleon who created 
 that guard. Just at that moment a soldier stepped up to the tent, and 
 asked me, Are you the author of the Ringwood Discourses ? 'Tis so said, 
 was my reply. Read them down in Maine. He disappeared. Who 
 can tell which way a book will travel when published. It may go to 
 China or Peru, to Juan Fernandez or Tahiti. A legless soldier then 
 came for the purpose of asking the General to make him a sutler. Very 
 well, v said the General, but be on the look out or Moseby may get your 
 goods and chattels. Understand, said Major Balloch, that you have 
 been in Newburyport. In 1819, I replied, and preached six times over 
 the dust of Whitfield. Then don't ride, said he, till we get you some 
 Java. And Major, please add to it an ounce of the hyson and a thim- 
 bl'efull of white sugar. The writer then rambled home, beneath an 
 evening, in the presence of which Tintoretto would have dropped his 
 pencil in despair. For the present, adieu. 
 
24 
 
 LETTER No. VII. 
 
 In my last, mention was made of General Howard, and in the present 
 letter it is my wish to say something to his credit. The village, or 
 rather the hamlet of Greenwich stands more than two miles from the 
 Manse. 'Tis on a hill, and commands a fine view of the Bull Run ; but 
 we wish that the mountain had a less homely name. Its environs 
 abound in oak and pine. It has a Swiss cottage, built by Charles Green, 
 who, in winter, resides in Savannah, Georgia, and who brought me some 
 poppies from the villas of Cicero and Pliny. His residence is shaped 
 like the houses of Helvetia. On the southern edge of Greenwich stands 
 another kiosk, reared by another Savannah gentleman, whose name is 
 Sorrel, a native of one of the Carribean islands, perhaps Martinique. 
 At the Northwest of the settlement is a cottage which was occupied by 
 an English lady from Liverpool, England, who once was a member in 
 the Church of Dr. Raffles, a relative of Sir Thomas Raffles, who intro- 
 duced so many reforms into the berry island of Java. Her cottage was 
 called " Leasowes," in honor of Sherstone's grounds near Hagley Park, 
 Worcester, England. Upon the breaking out of the war she went to 
 Canada, and her home was occupied by a gentleman whose name was 
 Jourdan. There were two Churches in Greenwich — one Free, and the 
 other Presbyterian. The Free was of plank, and the other of brick. 
 The plank one perished in the war ; but the brick is still standing a 
 monument of religious taste, and uninjured in the hurricane of civic 
 strife. Jourdan was taken prisoner by McCabe and sent to several 
 prisons. He reached home, but soon after, died. McCabe was killed 
 near Richmond. Sorrel's Kiosk was burnt. But what connection has 
 all this with the humanity of General Howard? We thought that the 
 reader would like to know the locality at which a military court was 
 convened for the trial of seven deserters from the Federal army. It 
 was a solemn time. The lives of six were saved, and the Maine General 
 exerted himself to save the seventh, but all in vain. The culprit was 
 taken out a solitary victim, and under the fire of twelve men, he fell 
 over into his grave in the rear of the Presbyterian Church. Not wish- 
 ing to hear the fatal shot, the writer wandered away from the Manse 
 into the very centre of our densely-matted pines. What was the use, 
 thought I, of killing that one man. To prevent desertion. Why, in 
 his dying speech he earnestly exhorted his comrades to desert. Four 
 or five were shot near Brandy Station, and for a week afterwards refu- 
 gees from the army were streaming by my house. At all events, the 
 culprit was launched into eternity in a moment, for 
 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, 
 Was never spoken of the soul. 
 
 A man at the bars. He seemed loth to advance, but he need not 
 have been afraid of dogs, for Gen. Ewell's terrier was just as harmless 
 as the lap-dog of Josephine the Empress, or Madame Sevigne, the letter 
 
25 
 
 writer. We went towards him that his apprehensions might he quieted. 
 How is your Honor, this morning ? Not a member of Congress, I re- 
 plied, but a preacher. How then, is your Reverence ? The brogue of 
 the stranger settled the point that he was from the Emerald Isle, and 
 we walked in company towards the Manse. There was an Irish warmth 
 in the manner of my guest, whilst we immediately perceived that he 
 was not devoid of the eloquence peculiar to his nation, and before leav- 
 ing us it became certain that he had been to Blarney Castle. The pitch 
 of his language was high. We like Ireland. It holds the broad Shan- 
 non and Ovoca, that spreads its green tints by the side of its manifold 
 brooks ; and the esthetic Killarney which by reflection doubles trees, 
 buds and stars ; and the Giant's Causeway which supplies numerous 
 pilgrims with its crumbling pebbles. But by this time we had reached 
 the Manse. What news, I asked, do you bring from the seat of the 
 war. They are fighting, he replied, beyond the Rappahannock ; but as 
 it is sanguinary work a notion took me to give 'em French leave. 
 What : are you a deserter ? Nothing of the sort. Not- being a natural- 
 ized citizen of the United States, Uncle Sam had no right to the ser- 
 vices of a man from a land out of which St. Patrick drove all the snakes 
 and dislodged all the toads. May it plase your Reverence, it was just 
 walking away. Deserters run. Mine was a ramble at leisure along the 
 bye-ways which led me straight to your home so renowned for Irish 
 hospitality. Was not aware that the Manse was celebrated for its hos- 
 pitality. Then your Reverence is not posted up in what you ought to 
 know. People told me on the road that you never turned off a Savoy 
 hand-organist, a Swiss emigrant, or a wandering Gipsey ; and the good 
 Book says, be given to hospitality for thereby some unawares have en- 
 tertained angels. You are positive then that you are no deserter. No,, 
 Sirree. No Irish gentleman like myself, descended from a Limerick 
 Baron, would forsake his colors. We fall with our feet to the foe, but 
 General Lee reflects no discredit on any cause. He could fight our Irish 
 Wellington, or take the plume out of the chapeau of Napoleon First, 
 Second and Third. Such is the fragrance of his powder, that like 
 Sicilian hounds, we lost the scent of him, and he may be at Thorough- 
 fare Gap for aught General Pope can tell. Perhaps your Reverence 
 goes with the Confederates. Don't wish my politics to be known, I 
 replied. Your Reverence is right. Solomon must have whispered to 
 you so wise a determination in these days of fama clamosa. Were you 
 to preach from the Book of Esther at present, some would say that by 
 Haman you mean President Lincoln; and Jeff. Davis by Mordecai the 
 Jew, when such a thought might not have entered your spotless mind. 
 Couldn't, I answered, pervert the Bible to any party purposes. Another 
 wise determination. 
 
 How unlike the Irish priests, who, instead of saying, repent ye, 
 mumble out, do penance ye. Such a perversion will never cross your 
 innocent mind or escape your eloquent tongue. The long and broad 
 area of Ireland does not hold on its surface so generous a soul as your- 
 self, and perhaps your Reverence would like to swap some old clothes 
 
26 
 
 for my soldier garb, which, is better than the brocade of Ispahan, though 
 variegated with gold and silver. Uncle Sam dresses up his army and 
 says, dress, men, dress. No doubt you have a pair of pants that the 
 Pope might wear, and a vest that Wellington would have caught at, 
 and a coat like that which Joseph paraded about Shechem and Dothan. 
 All the danger is, that my gratitude for the swap might kill me, as my 
 heart is a combustible that consumes me more and more at every favor 
 bestowed. Shouldn't like, I replied, to swap without paying the differ- 
 ence in ijhe value of the articles. Difference. _ Is your Reverence seri- 
 ous? Why the difference will lie on your side, payable in a greenback, 
 with my lasting thanks thrown into boot. Come, lets drive a trade; 
 The lady of the Manse, I replied, has gone up stairs. She knows what 
 you want, and is rummaging in her old chests, drawers and trunks. I 
 saw her for a lady. It required no second sight to find out that she 
 was equal to any Countess in Ireland. She is worthy of a Erin go 
 Braugh, said the soldier. So we drove a bargain. But woe to me, 
 said I, if they catch me in your regimentals. No danger, he rejoined. 
 They would as soon send an Ezra or Nehemiah to the old Capitol. . My 
 guest, so redundant in blarney, went on his way. My suspicion is con- 
 siderable that he was a half deserter. 
 
 Soldiers, both Federal and Confederate, often lost their way in our 
 Prince William woods and lanes. One Sabbath afternoon an officer at 
 the head of six men rode in a hurried manner through my gate. "The 
 men stood back whilst the Major advanced. Though invited, he 
 declined to dismount. Your cedars hereabouts, said he, are very intri- 
 cate. They are so, indeed, I replied. Which is north and where is 
 west ? If you tell me, I remarked, the exact point which you wish to 
 reach, or where your camps are pitched, it will be easy to put you on 
 your road. He was perfectly bewildered, but we gave him a map, so 
 that he reached his tent in safety. We were always curious to know 
 from what quarter strangers might have come. He reported himself 
 as Major Robertson from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; then decamped. 
 In a few days 'he paid us a friendly visit, bringing with him Chaplain 
 Hunter, brother to the attorney at Charlestown, va., who prosecuted 
 John Brown. He lived on an island near Detroit, Michigan, and was 
 quite eloquent in his description of the scenery by which he was sur- 
 rounded. We invited him to preach in the " Church which is in my 
 house." He partially accepted the invitation, but said something about 
 Apostolical succession. We told him that the English House of Lords 
 was a curious source from which to draw our authority to preach the 
 Gospel, seeing that the bishops were required by law to proclaim that 
 Gospel but four times out Of fifty-two Sabbaths in the year. He hinted 
 that the Prelates were intended to keep the Presbyters in order. 'Tis 
 strange, then, I answered, that their twenty-five crosiers could not 
 bang Wesley and Whitfield into good behavior. We waited for him 
 beyond the hour for service, but the Detroit Chaplain did not make his 
 appearance. Major Robertson was very amiable ; fond of the piano ; 
 was acquainted with my friend Dr. Plumer by reputation ; admired 
 
the Pittsburg ladies, and had made the grand tour of Europe. The last 
 fact rendered his conversation quite entertaining ; but we have not 
 since heard either from the Chaplain or the Major. We are indebted 
 to the loss of his way for a visit from the celebrated Major Moseby. 
 He called about nine o'clock at night, and dismounted under some 
 locust trees before the door of the Manse. A full moon was shining, 
 but the shade of the trees prevented me from a good view of his con- 
 tour, but this is not important, as John Scott, Esq., is preparing a bio^ 
 graphy of the Major, which will be, doubtless, quite as interesting as 
 the adventures of Daniel Boone, of Baron Trenck, or even of Alexander 
 Selkirk. It has been said that Confederates were liable to lose the 
 road. Two of them took their supper, one night, at a house about 
 three-fourths of a mile from the Manse, and were then pressed to stay 
 till the crack of light, but they alleged that they had never seen the 
 scribbler of the Decades, and wished to see him before they went back 
 to the Opelousas country. Well, they missed the sight by missing the 
 road,- and got over to a neighbors on the other side of Arrelton Hill. 
 Glad they did'nt come. Why, says the reader. An hour before day- 
 light the Federals, twenty strong, surrounded my house looking for the 
 gents as if they had been the two spies who entered Jericho in the time 
 of Joshua. We had no flax stalks in which they could have been con- 
 cealed. So the Federals went away whilst the two were asleep^like a 
 couple of bugs in a carpet rug. And one evening, when strolling out-, 
 side of my gate, the writer met a company of Confederate cavalry, 
 under the command of Captain Alfred Carter, who lost an arm at Luray, 
 Page county, Va. They wanted to know the shortest cut to Catlett's, 
 and that cut lay exactly by the door of my kitchen. One of the men 
 spied an oven in which were sixteen or twenty rolls of bread which the 
 fire had browned. They were torn asunder in a twinkle, though we 
 grant its being clone by as well bred gentlemen as the Master of the 
 Holls in England. There was a scrambling as if they were beggars 
 from Naples, and each man, unlike the Idumean Patriarch, devoured 
 his morsel alone. Every one ran from his comrades like a chicken 
 that gets a crumb. At first the writer was out of humor, but my ire 
 lasted not so long as the tints of the rainbow, when we felt reconciled 
 to the raiders on the oven. Happy to say they found rations upon 
 their reaching the depot at Catlett's. Nor did we all go supperless to 
 bed, for we waited patiently for a second oven full, made out of a 
 barrel of flour sent me by General Sykes. He was a Maryland gentle- 
 man, for Maryland is famous both for its ladies and gentlemen. For 
 the present, adieu. 
 
28 
 LETTER No. VIII. 
 
 The famine had become grievous in the land, and there was no Egypt 
 into which we could send for supplies ; nor any balm which could be 
 presented to those who held the keys that were locking up oats, corn 
 and wheat. How often had the writer doubted whether a dearth of 
 provisions would ever reach that portion of Virginia in which his lot 
 had been cast. Little do we know of the future. It became clear that 
 my pictures of continued plenty had been penciled on green leaves 
 which were destined to fade, or on clouds subject to evaporation. My 
 services, as a minister, began to take their complexion from the circum- 
 stances in which we were placed. One of my discourses, or rather one 
 of my talks, was from the text, " The Lord will provide." Habakkuk 
 says that the Christian has a dependence on something higher than the 
 buds of the fig-tree, or the blossoms of the vine. The Idumean believer 
 went living on, after his olives had perished and his fields were smitten. 
 His flocks were killed, and his stalls were empty; and the Idumean 
 eagle could plume his wings from a warmer nest than the one occupied by 
 the Patriarch. Our Lord assures us that man liveth not by bread alone. 
 Even at such a time we thought it right to celebrate at the Manse the 
 supper which our Lord had instituted on the night before his crucifix- 
 ion. We had no wine, however, on our premises, and it was a rare 
 element throughout the neighborhood. But Charles Green, member of 
 the Independent Church of Savannah, being apprised of my wishes, 
 sent me enough to supply the communicants, for w T hich my sincere 
 thanks were returned. Two silver goblets belonging to Mrs. Jones of. 
 Sharon, had been left at my house, and they were used on the solemn 
 occasion. The day was bright, and the congregation crowded. Some 
 were under the trees of the yard, some on the steps of the stairs, and 
 others in the rooms of the Manse. Several ministers were present who 
 gave me help in the service, and seldom has it been my lot to attend on 
 communicants more apparently devout. May they advance in grace. 
 The Divine Life has in it both an upward and downward tendency. 
 The Japanese permit their trees to attain their full growth : but then 
 dwarf them down to the smallest possible dimensions, and carry them 
 about in diminutive vases. So with the great Husbandman. The more 
 his people tower on high, the more does he reduce them into lowly vio- 
 lets. And here, allow me to ask, why may not the Lord's Supper be 
 administered in a lower as well as an upper room — in a Manse — a grove, 
 or on the slope of a hill, as well as in a Church ? When were the Cov- 
 enanters more happy than when they sung among the braes and kneeled 
 on Scottish heather ! or when were Whitfield and Wesley more success- 
 ful than when they stormed the air circulating on the open fields and 
 sequestered downs of England ? 
 
 Mention has been made of what may be called an incipient famine. 
 Destitution has at times taken place in Canaan, Egypt, the Canary Isles, 
 and often in Ireland, but particularly in the seige of Londonderry. The 
 
29 
 
 reader, perhaps, may smile incredulously when we speak of a famine in 
 Virginia : but we can assure him that we are not inventing a fiction. 
 The blockade grew tighter and tighter, and many were starved at last 
 into the semblance of patriotism. It became my' duty then to employ some 
 means in the way of providing for my own household, or else be deemed 
 worse than an infidel. To beg we were ashamed. The writer never 
 could relish the works of Goethe, because of his spending so much of his 
 ink in describing coarse German meals : but the calls of the appetite 
 must be satisfied either by hook or by crook About this time we heard 
 that Gen. Sykes was encamped near Ringwood, my former residence. 
 He was reported to be from Maryland, and we knew that every Mary- 
 lander must be a gentleman from absolute necessity. My note to him 
 is withheld because such a variety of those missives were written, that 
 their insertion would swell these reminiscences to an undue proportion. 
 My youngest daughter was sent with the communication, and we told 
 her first to read what the Apostle James had said about the use of the 
 tongue, and also the incident in the life of JEsop, whose master told him 
 to buy the best thing in the Roman market, and the next morning to 
 buy the worst thing, and each time he took home a tongue. "With the 
 tongue, said the Fabulist, we praise God, and with the same member we 
 abuse our neighbors. Trust me said the young lady, to be gentle as the 
 ring-streaked dove, and meek as the meekest bird that flew in Paradise 
 before the Fall. She found the General engaged in his tent ; but the 
 voice of my ambassadress penetrated to the ear of Captain Jay, who 
 was a member of the General's staff. The Captain made his appear- 
 ance and received my letter. You are, doubtless, said the lady, a col- 
 lateral relative of Chief Justice Jay. The Jays of New York are a 
 distinguished clan. We h<ave heard of them even among the pines of 
 Prince William. A relative of mine married one of the clan, but he 
 was not a brother ; for then he would never have been a Prelatist, or 
 been ordained by a bishop instead of a Presbytery. How soon had the 
 young lady forgotten the epistle of James and. the wit of iEsop. Why, 
 said the Captain, your father speaks in his very legible note of all the 
 denominations as representing the cardinal points of the compass — as 
 sailing on the same ocean and steering for the same haven. True, Cap- 
 tain, but the tongue of a lady is privileged to box the circle of the 
 world. My remarks were meant to be playful, and win you over to a 
 little sympathy in the affairs of one who is as fond of Mocha as was 
 Napoleon First, and who, in a running way, has preached from the 
 Merrimac to the Cumberland, leaving at the same time a few of his 
 exhortations in Chatham, Cedar and Wall streets in the renowned city 
 of the Knickerbockers. Let me consult the General, replied the Cap- 
 tain. Be in haste, when serving a lady, for she can say to one, go, and 
 he goeth ; and to another, come, and he cometh ; and the captain reap- 
 peared in a few minutes. And what says the General ? asked the lady. 
 He says that a private can drive you and myself to the Manse. What, 
 then, Captain, will become of my steed ? A soldier shall ride him along 
 at an easy pace ; and accordingly the ambulance was started. It reached 
 
30 
 
 my house about twilight, and we found my new acquaintance to be a 
 perfect gentleman, of about twenty-one years of age, and well-informed. 
 He sat with us till nine of the clock, but on taking leave remarked : 
 Gen. Sykes requested me to present his respects, and assure you, that 
 to-morrow, he would send supplies to your house. Present my respects, 
 Captain, to the General, with many thanks for his kindness. The next 
 day the ambulance arrived well stocked with provisions ; and over and 
 above the substantial, Captain Jay had added an olla podrida, com- 
 posed of materials from spice islands. We found some cinnamon from 
 Ceylon, and a good deal of pepper from Borneo, and some superior mus- 
 tard from Tewsberry, England. Come driver, said I, come and partake 
 of the repast, to be provided out of the commodities you have brought. 
 We must enjoy together a cup or two of this Java. In the mean time 
 the lady of the Manse will express her gratitude to Captain Jay, for 
 one of her letters is worth a score of my own. The soldier and the 
 dominie, or the boss, as he called me, sat down to our meal, and he told 
 me of his neat little home near Boston, his vegetables and sundry flow- 
 ers that he collected into bouquets for the ladies of that city, until the 
 writer conceited himself to be talking to that Roman Emperor who 
 boasted so much of the products of his Dalmatain farm, or to Pliny, 
 who wrote con amore about the poppies of his villa. Captain Jay ac- 
 companied Sherman from Atlanta to the sea coast, and we hope that he 
 escaped all injury in the closely-contested battle of Bentonville. 
 
 The writer is a believer in a special Providence ; and the man who 
 does not so believe, cannot be far short of atheism. He can keep to his 
 dreary creed, if he please : but hope he will not seek to deprive me of 
 a faith which has sustained my courage in the darkest hours of what 
 men call fortune. But about this time we heard of several boxes pro- 
 vided in Washington, and awaiting transmission to my house : but how 
 to get them up was the question. A letter was addressed to General 
 Ayers from the State of Maine, explanatory of my wishes, to which he 
 replied in the politest terms, that they should be sent to his care. A 
 married daughter of yours, he remarked, sent me a quantity of ice when 
 we were encamped in the hot fields of Virginia, and it will give me 
 pleasure to comply with jour request. This was acting like a gentle- 
 man ; and the affairs arrived with an additional one from Baltimore. 
 The one from the Monumental City inspired peculiar emotions, because 
 it was sent by persons in no way connected with the Manse. The last 
 was opened in a full congregation of the family, both white and black, 
 and we wished that we could all have been photographed at the 
 time when the hatchet flew at the box. Its contents would have been 
 valuable in peaceful times ; but how much more so at a period of 
 scarcity engendered by war. Thanks to my friends on the Patapsco, 
 with an assurance that their kindness will not be soon forgotten. It 
 will perhaps give them pleasure to hear that my two daughters imme- 
 diately became as fine as a couple of Baltimore birds. The lady of the 
 Manse was dressed like a fiddle. The boys drew on the socks and boots, 
 and the ebonies came in for a share of the spoil, whilst the Dominie 
 
31 
 
 devoured the books, and handed over the greenbacks to his better half. 
 But from time to time scarcity would continue its cheerless visits. 
 One day, however, a carriage arrived at my door, driven by Gibson 
 Catlett, Esq. It was laden with the good things of this life. To whom, 
 said I, is the Manse indebted for this unexpected help ? Not to be told, 
 was the reply. The gentleman does not know the difference between 
 his right and. left hand in acts of this kind. Very well ; the ebonies 
 will help you in taking out, as the Dutch say to their guests at meal 
 time. The reader may say, perhaps, vours must have been a humili- 
 ating position. But let him remember that my position was not the 
 result of idleness : though the writer does not deny his being the idlest 
 white man in Virginia. Nor was it within my province to make the 
 war, for we honestly deprecate all war, except when the Creator reveals 
 it as His, and not our scourge. King David was once obliged to eat the 
 shew bread, and King Alfred was once glad enough to devour a few oat 
 meal cakes when pressed by the Danes. Often our supply of the Mocha 
 was scanty, and what scribbler could live without coffee ? In the use 
 of it Napoleon could fight, and Schiller could write. It is better than 
 the nectar which the Pagan deities used to drink, but it is not good 
 without sweetening. Honey or sugar is indispensable to the fragrance 
 of that berry. A Federal soldier called. The next time you come, said 
 I, bring me some sugar, if it be only as much as can be held in the palm 
 of my hand. At that he stepped out to his haversack, and on his return 
 he poured out some seven thimblesful of saccharine into a hand quite 
 cheerfully extended. You must have grown covetous, the Marylander 
 may say, for there was plenty in the oyster State. Not guilty so far as 
 my neighbor's house is concerned, but guilty on the specifications and 
 counts of coffee, green tea and sugar. Does not Irving tell us what sort 
 of tea General Washington drank at Mt. Vernon, and at what hours he 
 called for the beverage. Rather minute, we think, on the part of the 
 Knickerbocker historian. Good taste demands that we should not go 
 too much into detail about trifles. But quite fortunately, the writer 
 had fallen into company with Captain Hazard, at the house of Dr. 
 Osmyn. He had been an editor in the Northwest, and was quite com- 
 petent to an historical discussion on the state of the country : and the 
 discussion was carried on in the finest humor. We then advised him, 
 when the war was over, to come down into Virginia ; to get married, 
 and live in a cottage in sight of the Blue Ridge. This advice so cajoti- 
 vated his fancy that he sent me twenty pounds of coffee and sugar. 
 Hurrah for Captain Hazard. But the reader may ask, have you not 
 erred by introducing into these papers your consort, sons' and daugh- 
 ters ? Perhaps so, but then each one had to play his or her part in the 
 domestic drama. Every man thinks his own sons Solomons, and his 
 daughters queens of Sheba. What would the Vicar of Wakefield be 
 if we take out of it the wife and children of the old Vicar ? Hope the 
 reader will pardon, even though he may condemn. For the present 
 week,' adieu. 
 
32 
 
 LETTER No. IX. 
 
 Great want of coffee and sugar. The lady of the Manse kept hiding 
 the Mocha. You must not put away anything of the sort, I remarked 
 to my better half. Suppose, then, she replied, that company should 
 come in, how can we entertain our guests ? In the following way : If 
 we lay up our stores Providence will not send us any more, but if we 
 use them, that Providence will know all about our destitution, and He 
 will be sure to provide for our wants. Agreed, said the fair daughter 
 of Eve. The last berry from Java shall be put into the mill, and then 
 some will come. But who will go for us to the Federal camp ? The 
 writer had instructed his family to call the Northerners not Yankees, 
 but • Feds, until we found out that they preferred the former designa- 
 tion. Then my scruples immediately vanished. Go, said I, to the 
 youngest daughter of the household, go to the Yankee camp, and tell 
 General Newton to sell me some Java. You bear the name of Julia, a 
 name once held in respect among the war-like Romans. Let me 
 give you some advice. Keep your tongue. Let it be quiet as a bird 
 when asleep. Remember that you spoke to Captain Jay quite authori- 
 tatively. I'll mind, said the lady, and stand in his presence like the 
 aspen you planted at Ringwood before Julia Ringwood was born. But 
 notice, I replied, one thing: A night or two since, Moseby made one 
 of his Spanish forays, and on that account Gen. Newton may look at 
 you as sternly as Joseph on his goat-herd brethren. Speak to him 
 softly and persuasively in the rich silver tones that should always 
 characterize a Manse, where Siloa's brook ought to murmur by day and 
 by night. Start. The cream-colored pony is at the rack, and if you 
 evince the milk of human kindness we shall certainly skim off some- 
 thing better than milk. My neighbors say that the owner of the 
 Manse knows no more about human nature than Dominie Sampson 
 who figures in Guy Mannering, or the preacher that Sir W. Scott 
 represents as asking after the health of his parishioners, when the 
 objects of inquiry had been twenty years in their graves, or a mouse 
 that will certainly be caught in the trap of the Old Capitol. Be off — 
 be off — 
 
 And through the pines the lady went, 
 On getting Mocha, firmly bent. 
 
 Newton was in his marque when the General Ambassadress presented 
 herself, arrayed in her hazel eyes and ruby cheeks, set off by a parcel 
 of smiles. My sire, General, wishes your permit to purchase at the 
 commissary store a little Java, Mocha, Brazil or even Liberia coffee. 
 In a few hours — say twenty-four in number — he will be three score 
 years and ten, and we wish to celebrate his birth-day, not in Jamaica 
 or Burgundy, or even in bad Falermar, or the weak wines of Switzer- 
 land, but in a liquid more harmless than any drink ever made out of 
 
33 
 
 Athenian currant. Do yon know, Said the General, that but yester- 
 night, Moseby made a dash on our camp and stole fourteen horses. 
 We have so heard, said the Roman Julia, but he probably conceited 
 that they were wild horses running on the Western prairies. Besides, 
 when that was done, we who live at the Manse were asleep in our 
 hammocks. Moseby must be a kind of somnambulist. He seems to 
 mount, ride and fight in his sleep, and no man can be responsible when 
 unconscious of what he is about. Your father, you say, is above the 
 military age. Long ago, General, long ago ; but were he young as 
 Adam before his fall, he would not in nine hundred years engage in 
 war. He is not an Esau roaming in quest of game, but a plain man 
 dwelling in tents, and like Isaac, he often goes forth to meditate at 
 evening-tide. Is the old man well ? said the General. Quite hale and 
 hearty. He can still walk off his five miles ; but sends me because no 
 Knight of La Mancha can deny a few berries to a lady. But don't you 
 harbor Moseby ? No, General. He called one night, but we could not 
 force him into our quiet haven. He seemed to be asleep, but in his 
 dreaming he spurred his horse, and the steed flew away like the one 
 mentioned in the Persian Tales. Besides, my sister Mary had been to 
 your camp in Fairfax, and on her coming out she met the Major, who 
 threatened to serve her as Mary, the Queen of. Scots, was served, if she 
 would not tell him the position of your pickets. But she refused on a 
 point of honor, and the Major fell into a nap, and she passed on with- 
 out being sent to Lochlevin Castle or decapitated. He menaced me in 
 the same way, but Julia Ringwood would not have told on your 
 pickets, even had the Major wielded the club of Hercules, or strung the 
 bow of Powhatan, or held the sword of Wellington flashing in her hazel 
 peepers. We must entertain the Yankees, because if we don't they 
 will take what they choose. The Confederates, too, are armed, and we 
 are before them like so many trembling humming birds. They can 
 imperiously say to us, get that zether — put on your thimble and make 
 its wires sound out a Tyrolese air, or go to that piano and give us the 
 Bonnie Blue Flag, or Bruce's Address to the Scots, or the Marseilles 
 Hymn. You know, General, that we ladies catch beaus more by our 
 music than by our looks, and it would be hard to deny us a chance. 
 True, my sister is involved in Hebrew Paradigms, Algebraic equations 
 and Conic sections. She will never be satisfied till she quadrate the 
 circle, or, like Mary Somerville, understand the Mechanique Celeste of 
 La Place. Therefore, in the twenty-two years she has lived we never 
 heard her say beau once'; but as for me, were a handsome one like 
 Adonis to propose he might be accepted, after due consideration. Not 
 very anxious, however, till the right one come. But don't you think, 
 said the General, that the deeds of Moseby would justify us in laying 
 waste Virginia? Never, never, replied the lady. The true hero is 
 content with the sword. He never flies to the torch. You were born 
 in Virginia. You must love her twin capes, broad valleys, blue moun- 
 tains, her unrivaled law-givers and her inspiring legends. Would you 
 turn out mothers and children to the wintry storm, and old men to the 
 3 
 
34 
 
 raging tempests ? Every Athenian wore a gold grasshopper in the 
 button-hole of his coat to intimate that he jumped up from classic soil. 
 Can Virginians do less than they who forced Socrates to drink the 
 hemlock when they ought to have feasted him on the honey of Hymet- 
 tus? Attack Moseby, but not our matrons and damsels. Here the 
 eyes of the General were somewhat moistened. You are quite eloquent. 
 No, said the lady'; not the least pretension in that way commonly, but 
 when pleading for a Java-less father I can talk as earnestly as did 
 Jeanie Deans to Queen Caroline. We must celebrate his birth-day — 
 and surely you don't wish it done in coffee made out of rye, wheat, or 
 John Barleycorn. Come, General, grant the boon we crave. My 
 tongue is tired. It has talked long enough to have gained all the 
 gums of Arabia, the poppies of Turkey, the barks of Quito, and the 
 aromatics of Borneo, instead of a few berries. Now, at this stage of the 
 affair, who should appear but Col. Bankhead. He had overheard the 
 diplomatic colloquy like a curious Erasmus, though born in Fredericks- 
 burg and not at Rotterdam. General, said the young friend, you are a 
 man who listens to argument, and then yields to conviction. Such is 
 the mark of a wise commander. The father of this young lady is known 
 to my Colonelship in the following way : In 1840, he officiated for 
 eight or nine moons among the crags of Fredericksburg, and on one 
 occasion he preached from the text — " I shall die in my rest." The 
 Mocha is indispensable to the comfort of his nest, and if he die without 
 it we may be. accessory to his premature demise. True, Gen. Grant 
 has ordered a tight blockade, but he is not like Wellington, an iron- 
 hearted Duke. His peepers are often suffused with tears, and the 
 application before us, from a tearful lady, would melt an Osceola or 
 Tecumseh. Let us not be impracticable, for secession was engendered 
 among the impracticables of New England during the time of the 
 embargo, and then adopted by those of South Carolina; and the 
 putting of it down is likely to cost us banks of money and scores of 
 lives. Allow me to assure you, General, that his Reverence of the 
 Manse is a harmless man. When in 'romantic Fredericksburg he had 
 a cushioned-chair in Charles Wellford's store, and with his ankles rest- 
 ing on a ledger he talked about various things ; such as the currant 
 bushes of Athens with Menceos a Greek ; and then about the flowers in 
 the vales of Spiraz and Cashmere, though there was neither Persian 
 nor Hindoo in the place ; and then about the Bridge of Sighs at 
 Venice ; the marble palaces of Genoa ; the Gonfaloniers of Florence — 
 then about the Great Mogul — the Ghauts of the Himalayah, Chinese 
 junks, et cetera. But, said the General, didn't he shoot over the heads 
 of his hearers ? He did ; but that arose from his aversion to killing 
 any body. Every man's hand is for him, but his against no man. He 
 is not an Arab. We must not send him to Babylon to hear the shriek 
 of the bittern and the cry of the cormorant, and like Nebuchadnezzar 
 to browse on Chaldean grass. Does he never simplify his talk, asked 
 the General. Yes, his discourse runs carelessly about the feet when he 
 wants us to trample down error ; and he has had a skirmish with 
 
35 
 
 Abbott about bis calling Napoleon a great man. He regards tbe Cor- 
 sican as a pickpocket, but Wellington as baving restored bis plunder- 
 ings to tbe purses of European kings. But be keeps his politics sub- 
 rosa, for be bas been menaced alike with the Carroll and the Libby. I 
 can't remain mum any longer, said the lady. Colonel, your speech was 
 as sweet as if a hogshead of sugar had spoken, though it came out of a 
 bead, the bank of which is rich in tender, beautiful, truthful, historical 
 thoughts. Young lady, said the General, go and buy what you want, 
 whispering at the same time upon the tympanum of Bankhead's ear, 
 " put her money into the mouth of her sack." So the fair one came 
 ambling to tbe rack of the Manse about sundown. On leaving the 
 camp she was accosted by an officer bearing a sugar-dish. The lordly 
 dish, he remarked, is the property of Uncle Sam, but tbe contents are 
 my own. Please, said the lady, wrap it in a Washington Chronicle or 
 in Bennett's Herald, and then it can be carried in my hand. I can take 
 the sugar in my right hand, and, like Lord Raglan, guide my steed 
 with the left. Wish that General Newton, Colonel Bankhead and 
 yourself could come up and help us to celebrate the seventieth birthday 
 of my father. We would take no denial, but that wizzard Moseby is 
 in' the saddle. You sent infantry after him through our farm. Do 
 you think that cavaliers can be caught by snails. The officer laughed. 
 Conclusion next time. 
 
 LETTER No. X. 
 
 Lieutenant Miller came to my house, bringing some music, which be 
 bad purchased either in Washington or Baltimore. The young ladies 
 were quite thankful, as the pieces he brought were new. It seems 
 strange, that both Federal officers and privates always preferred the 
 performance of secession songs. The Star Spangled Banner was certainly 
 at a discount ; but its being below par, might have arisen from want of 
 novelty, for it has been in vogue since the war of 1812. Tbe writer 
 bas studied throughout these papers to conceal his politics ; otherwise 
 be might say that secession pieces were played with a little more spirit, 
 and patriotism for tbe time being, may have been sacrificed to tbe grat- 
 ification which skill is sure to produce. And then so many of the 
 soldiers were from abroad, that German airs and Italian duets were 
 quite acceptable, together with pieces from Spain or Hibernia. The 
 Lieutenant was devoted to the piano ; and, indeed, fondness for music 
 was far more a characteristic of the Northerners than tbe Southerners. 
 Lieutenant, said I, you have been in several battles, and did you stand 
 up to the fight like an Egyptian pyramid ? Can a pyramid run, be 
 archly replied. Jackson flanked us at Chancellorville, and we put off 
 in a hurry, officers and all. It was impossible to stand his battery. 
 He was accompanied by an Irishman, who said in my presence that 
 Napoleon First was a great man. This fired me immediately ; but in 
 
36 
 
 planting my batteries the Lieutenant suddenly rose and said he must 
 go, though pressed to remain for tea. But he persevered. They had 
 not been gone more than three minutes before two Confederates, not 
 mounted, but armed, approached the Manse. "We then rejoiced at the 
 going, not wishing that my premises should be moistened by a drop of 
 blood, though the dew of Hermon is perfectly welcome to fall over the 
 whole of my farm. Those fine steeds which the Federals rode might 
 have tempted the Confederates to a skirmish, perhaps on the floor of 
 the Manse, and the kitchen darkies would have been alarmed. One of 
 these darkies was named Beauregard, not by the lord or lady of the 
 Manse, but by his mother. My proclivities not to be known. 
 
 The anniversary of my seventieth birth-day had arrived. The fami- 
 ly had been in the habit, for many years, of noticing the day, but the 
 writer never cared much about Christmas trees, or rustic collations, or 
 family meetings, so pleasing to the taste of many persons. But three 
 score years and ten make quite an era in the frail life of any man. It 
 was my wish, however, to postpone the affair until peace should come, 
 in hopes that if life were spared another year, the very unimportant 
 day could then be remembered, under more propitious auspices. But 
 before rising, my young ladies came into my chamber, saying : as this 
 is your natal day, we wish you to appear in Yankee dress. We have 
 already prayed that you may live as long as Parr of London, or Jen- 
 kins of Lincoln, or the white-headed Methuselah. Yankee dress, I re- 
 plied, when only half awake. Why, the Confederates will send me off 
 to Belle Isle if they catch me in such a costume. There are none of 
 them about at present. Moseby is up in the mountains, and the Black . 
 Horse are scouting on the Bapid Ann, and the Provost-Marshal at Cat- 
 lett's has sent you a heap of things. They are laid on the chairs, and 
 its time to rise. But one of you must stop and explain the articles. 
 Well, then, here's a felt hat sent by a New Hampshire man, and the 
 boots that Bundy gave ; or you can decide between the shoes which 
 Alexander brought, and those of Col. Le Due ; and here are pants, 
 waistcoat, and coat ; the last without a seam, and presented by a Yan- 
 kee surgeon. They will answer, I replied, for the exterior — but the 
 under-garments. Here, then, are four or five of the affairs about which 
 Tom Hood wrote a song, and a bundle of socks out of which you can 
 choose. They came from Lowell, where Gen. Butler lives, and where 
 ittl'e pale-faced girls work sixteen hours a day. Sorry to hear it. Poor 
 things, for ebony Beauregard won't work sixteen seconds. Was always 
 opposed to excessive industry. And here, too, are several stocks. Now 
 dress and appear like Solomon in all your glory, as he did on his gala 
 days. The morning had worn away imperceptibly to a sleeper, and 
 we had scarcely risen, before a runaway couple had entered the Manse. 
 We want to be married, said the groom. At that Cassius Carter step- 
 ped forward as groomsman, and presented the license. Why this is not 
 a printed license ? Don't print it these times, he replied. The clerk 
 wrote it with a pencil instead of a pen. Stand up then ; and the bride 
 was first on the tapis. They were in a hurry, and off immediately. 
 
37 
 
 Happy to say the two families that had quarreled about the match, had 
 a great making up next day, for what's the use of crying over that 
 which can't be undone. Handed the fee to the lady of the Manse, ten 
 dollars, partly in Confederate money, greenbacks, fractional currency 
 and specie. All worth something at the time. Spent several hours in 
 ruminating on my boyhood, when everything about Georgetown, D. G, 
 looked green to the eye, and though not a poet, actually wrote forty lines, 
 expressive of thankfulness for all the way in which my gracious Lord 
 had led me ; lo, these seventy years in the wilderness, and not without 
 a hope of soon reaching that paradise, one of whose flowers has never 
 been agitated, nor one of its leaves rustled by the pestilential breath of 
 war. But Mary Landon and Julia Ringwood now entered the parlor 
 with a bowl of the Java, on which the cream was floating quite as pret- 
 tily as the cork of an angler. Each one of you, black and white, said 
 I, may take a cup ; but this bowl is for my special use. So we all en- 
 joyed the Java as if we had been at the table of St. Cloud, in the time 
 of Napoleon, the great coffee drinker. But, said I, did not Ella Ed- 
 monds, the rebel, and Sarah Ruby, the Union, each send me a bottle of 
 blackberry wine ? They did, but they are locked up, said the lady of 
 the Manse, who is great on temperance. Remember, she continued, in 
 your picturesque voyage sent to Dr. Reese, that after the Black Bird 
 escaped out of the Sea of Alcohol, the ship entered Wine Sea. Oh, 
 that was a sea made out of Burgundy, Oporto, Talernian, Madeira, and 
 not blackberries culled from Prince William fields. Blackberries can 
 never prevent a man from counting the horns of the moon. Didn't 
 Mrs. Osmyn, from Jersey, send me four bottles, and Charlotte Mitchell 
 three, and Irene Leach two, and Mrs. Green five. Don't all the reli- 
 gious papers exhort us to make blackberry wine for the promotion of 
 temperance.. Unlock, or else people will say that you are as hard to 
 manage as was Mrs. John Wesley, in England. It is my wish to drink 
 the health of Gen. Lee. Then your politics will be known. No, my politics 
 are not pinned to the sleeve of Gen. Lee, but he is your cousin. Whilst he 
 was a captain, we never heard you claim kin with him ; but now its 
 cousin Lee. So we remembered the general, and the servants went off, 
 wishing old master many happy years to come. A Highland chief, 
 when arrayed in his right-angled plaid cap and plume, never felt hap- 
 pier than the owner of the Prince William Manse, on the day to which 
 allusion has been made. The bagpipe, however, was not present at the 
 entertainment, for my enjoyment of music is not remarkably vivid. 
 
 A preacher called to forewarn me, that my arrest might take place at 
 noon. Didn't believe one word of the marvelous story. But in the 
 event of its being true, the writer resolved to take along with him the 
 history of his times, and continue it in the Old Capitol, remembering 
 that Sir Walter Raleigh wrote the History of the World in the Tower 
 of London, and Bunyan, his Pilgrim's Progress in the Bedford prison. 
 The lady of the Manse was requested to fold up a few articles of wear- 
 ing apparel. The minister who took such an interest in my welfare, 
 was about skedaddling to Richmond, but it was not in vain that Nehe- 
 
38 
 
 miah left on record the following words, " Shall such a man as I flee ?" 
 Never, whilst the temple of God is to be built. But about noon, the 
 ebonies reported the rapid approach of two Federal officers. They were 
 descending the declivity of a hill, which lies to the east of the Manse ; 
 and they dismounted in a twinkle after coming to the rack. Draw 
 chairs, gentlemen. Lieutenant Zimmerman, said the younger of the 
 twain. Are you not of Swiss descent, Lieutenant, probably the grand- 
 son of some Zurich Burgomaster, and the Burgomasters are looked upon 
 as an orde^r of nobility in the land of Wilhelm Tell. My reason for 
 asking you, is as follows. In a decade of letters by Ulrich Bodmer, 
 which appeared in a Richmond paper, and purporting to be written 
 from the Bear city of Berne, mention is made of an author, who pub- 
 lished a book on Solitude, and afterwards became physician to the King 
 of Hanover. Not a doubt of your being a collateral relative of that 
 distinguished man. It may be so, the Lieutenant replied. And you 
 seem to be all alone as Zimmerman used to be, among the Bernese rocks. 
 Yes, Mary Landon and Julia Ringwood are from home. My son, Wilr 
 liam Cowper, is in the Black Horse, and my other sons, Charles Carter 
 and Robert Monro, are in Forrest's Legion, to the Southwest. But 
 hope you will both dine with me, and you will then see the lady of the 
 Manse, a person worth seeing. Understand, Lieutenant, that you are 
 the arresting officer. Just so, he replied, and it is a most unpleasant 
 office, but a soldier is obliged to "obey his orders. It need not be so to 
 you, I rejoined, for being an officer you can resign. Resign, then, forth- 
 with, and all men will hold you in the highest esteem. Don't you 
 know, he remarked, that we own this part of Virginia. Col. Pierce, I 
 answered, holds Manassas, but Moseby seems to dispute his possession, 
 and Jackson in three days may dislodge him from his stronghold. Nev- 
 er, never, he answered, quite in haste. But do you think he is any 
 where north of the Rappahannock ? Don't know, but he seemed to be 
 pluripresent in the Valley, and perhaps that pluripresence will not for- 
 sake him on the east of the Ridge.. Dinner was announced. Gentle- 
 men, it is a war dinner, but warriors like Marion, ought to get used to 
 such repasts. But we can give you a bowl of coffee, and you can choose 
 between the Mocha and the Java. Glad to see you, gentlemen, said 
 the lady of the Manse ; but it seems to me, that instead of coming to 
 the war, it would have been vastly better that you were both leading at 
 home a lowly and devout life, feasting all the time on the sweet and 
 rich promises of the Bible. War illustrates that solemn declaration. 
 What is your life ? It is a flower that cometh up in the morning : but 
 in the evening it is cut down and withereth. We are not Christians, 
 they replied. But you ought to be, she rejoined. Were you disciples 
 of the Saviour, you would lose your taste for war ; and if not, you have 
 no time for such a dangerous pursuit, unless, like Mohammed, you be' 
 lieve that upon falling in battle you are in consequence translated into 
 paradise. That is not our creed. Rejoiced to hear it, replied their 
 interlocutrix ; but they rose from the table and took a respectful leave. 
 Present, said I, my kind regards to Col. Pierce, and tell him that to- 
 
39 
 
 morrow, at the hour of eleven, A. M., it is my intention to preach near 
 his camp. Let him reduce his charges against me to writing, and let 
 the paper be endorsed with three hours' allowed for the defence. Let 
 your file, of men arrive in time to hear the sermon. The writer went, 
 and soldiers came, but each one was mum about my arrest. We politely 
 invited them to repeat their visit at my next appointment, and they 
 gave me a cordial grasp of the hand as they rode off to their camp, and 
 this was the last of the rumor about my arrest. But precisely in three 
 days Jackson was. thundering at Manassas. Col. Pierce escaped to 
 F.airfax, and my friend Zimmerman was taken prisoner, and sent to 
 Libby. It made me sad as he went by Greenwich, but he bore up like 
 a man in. his adverse fortune. We hope he may prosper. 
 
 Visited Bristoe, which is four miles from the Manse, where soldiers 
 were laying, who were wounded in the skirmish between Ewell and 
 Hooker. It was a mournful sight. Dr. Strickler was in attendance as 
 a surgeon. He was from Luray in the County of Page. A handsome 
 young lady was aiding the Doctor in nursing the mangled victims of 
 war. So the lady and surgeon made up the match, and subsequently 
 called on me to tie the knot. This was done at Brentsville, on a pleas- 
 ant morning, just after breakfast. The writer, before the ceremony, 
 waited on Col. Grill, the Federal officer in command, and asked him if 
 he had ever seen a Yirginny wedding ? . He ; replied negatively. Then, 
 said I, the minister has always the right to v invite a guest. So come 
 along, and make yourself at home. ... The wedding party set off for the 
 Blue Ridge immediately after the refreshments common on such joyful 
 occasions, and the writer returned through Brentsville to the Manse. 
 Poor Brentsville, 
 
 Whose roofless homes, a sad remembrance bring, 
 Of what its gentle people did befall : 
 
 for we saw lawyers without offices, doctors. without, medicines, ministers 
 without Churches, and women and children without any shelter but the 
 sky. Shades of George Fox and William Penn, what a sight. How 
 pensive and appalling to the man who longs for the time when the lion 
 and the lamb shall repose in the same shade, and when warriors shall 
 spur their steeds into olive groves, and not into Aceldemas. 
 
 It is well known after the battle of Gettysburgh, in Adams County, 
 Pa., that Gen. Meade advanced on the south of Rappahannock. He was 
 compelled to fall back on his ramparts at Centreville. At that time 
 Lee's army passed us at quite a short distance from the Manse. Gen. 
 Stuart was a man of fine-commanding presence, and upon making my- 
 self known, found him remarkably polite, but he hurried on, for a battle 
 was being fought in the front. But the chaplains, of course, kept out 
 of the fray. They had gone on with the army, but hearing that the 
 author of the Picturesques and the Decads was left in the rear, returned. 
 We will call the roll, though at, present they cannot answer to their 
 names. Parris of Norfolk, Methodist Protestant ; Garland, Methodist 
 South; Hughes of North Carolina; Voss of Amherst; Hopkins of 
 
40 
 
 Berkeley ; Kennedy of Alabama. The four last were Presbyterians. 
 Come, brethren, and spend the night. The manse is the very place for 
 chaplains. The hours glided imperceptibly away. Before retiring, the 
 Methodist South, gave us a truly devout prayer, and in the morning the 
 Methodist Protestant did the same thing. Parris remarked to me : You 
 turn out to be a smaller man than I expected. We have traveled with 
 you from Japan to Rotterdam, and sundry other places, and thought 
 that you must be somewhat robust to encounter so much fatigue. Oh, 
 said I, Marco Polo was not a large man, though a very large wanderer. 
 My person is the finest in Prince William. Were it a little more iso, 
 nothing of me would be left. How much do you weigh ? About ninety- 
 nine and three-fourths of a pound. Come, lets be off to camp, said 
 Hughes and Garland, and the writer walked with them to Gen. Ewell's 
 residence, but the General was with the army. 
 
 To conclude these recollections. There are materials for another 
 Decade, but at present it may be wise to stop. There is nothing in the 
 character of Addison which commands my admiration so unreservedly 
 as his gratitude. And in closing these reminiscences, it is ornamental to 
 thank my Creator for all His goodness. He often planted a hedge 
 around me and mine, during the war ; but the hedge often became laden 
 with flowers, and some wicket-gate crowned with blossoms, was often 
 opened, by which to escape into the green pastures of our Heavenly 
 Shepherd. William Cowper and Charles Carter received no wound 
 during the war, though under them three horses were killed, and three 
 more were killed under Robert Monroe, my eldest son. The last was 
 wounded either at Fort Donelson, or Shiloh, but as the ball did not pro- 
 duce either a simple or compound fracture, the wound will not affect 
 his standing at the Memphis bar. Under a furlough from Forest, Charlie 
 came in once to see his mother, after an absence of years. Great was 
 our joy at his arrival. In the review of these incidents, my heart glows 
 with thankfulness, but not without sympathy for the multitude of moth- 
 ers and sisters in our land who refuse to be comforted. May they all 
 seek and find the balm of Gilead. 
 
41 
 
 Reference was made in my preceding letters to several poetical lines 
 which were written in commemoration of the writer's seventieth birth 
 day. The following are the lines : 
 
 My heart inspire, oh, Lord, with gratitude, 
 
 Throughout this day, in all its round of hours !' 
 
 Recall each hill-side slope and copse of wood, 
 
 From which were cull'd my knots of school-boy flowers. 
 
 Remind me, too, of when my footsteps strayed 
 'Mid poplar walks 'round Nassau's classic Hall ! 
 
 And the dense beech-trees cast their summer shade, 
 Ere evening bade its vesper star to fall. 
 
 Remind me, too, of early comrades gone, 
 
 Who play'd with me till yonder sun had set, 
 And yet till darkness came, we lingered on, 
 
 Then hurried home with dews of evening wet. 
 
 Prompt me to think of travels far and wide, 
 
 On land or wave— o'er sundry hills and plains — 
 
 On waters rough — on streams that smoothly glide — ' 
 Beneath Thy power, that o'er this vast world reigns. 
 
 And why not think of birds whose lovely plumes 
 
 Gleamed through the air, or flashed from forest trees ? . ■ 
 
 All gone ! although they sang in sylvan rooms, 
 Unlock'd for them by summer's shining keys. 
 
 And in the niches of my chequered years, 
 
 No brighter, purer, sweeter days have shone 
 Than Sabbath days, when all exempt from cares, 
 
 And free to muse on God, and Him alone ; 
 
 • Or hear the solemn Kirk- ward going bell 
 
 Call to the hill and dale — the lane and street — 
 
 Ye people come and by your presence swell 
 The sacred court where dense assemblies meet. 
 
 But is there no futurity for men ? 
 
 No morn to break beyond sepulchral sleep ? 
 If so, may we of three score years and ten, 
 
 For our spent days of anguish weep. 
 
 To this coarse earth a Paradise succeeds, 
 
 Where every leaf is of the deepest hue ; 
 And off its Tree of Life the Saviour feeds 
 
 His ransomed flock on fruits forever new. 
 
42 
 
 Oh, beauteous fiqck^-the flock of happy souls==* 
 Who wing thejr way on more than wheels of fire j 
 
 And always drink their fill from golden howls, 
 Yet in their rush for bliss can never tire. 
 
 Adieu ! adieu to years forever gone ; 
 
 The clue is waving now from gates of pearl, 
 
 And in the act of swiftly beckoning on 
 
 To where sweet clouds of incense always curl. 
 >. 
 
 He reached the age of six and thirty years, 
 Then Byron wrote some lines of tenderness, 
 
 In which no spark of gratitude appears, 
 For bonnie gifts and mercies numberless. 
 
 But may my memory on this day review 
 My way through life's all tangled labyrinth, 
 
 And watch the hand that holds the certain clue, 
 That winds me down to funeral hyacinths. 
 
 Among the archives of Thy throne on high, 
 Oh, Lord ! my Lord, lay up this song of praise ; 
 
 And then, perhaps, some Arch-angelic eye 
 May read the chart of my departed days.