The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864

The artist in wax enjoys the best of opportunities for learning Botany, both analytically and synthetically. A series of models in wax would make the ocular study of botany possible throughout the year. The taste for wax flowers is becoming widely extended, and high prices are brought by the finest specimens of the art. Humanity should heartily welcome an employment which enables many to escape the suicide of the needle!

Denise. By the Author of 'Mademoiselle Mori.' In two vols. New York: James G. Gregory, 540 Broadway.

There is a strange charm about this book. The story is common enough, the characters have nothing original in their conception, and yet we are fascinated by the detailed truth of the portraiture from the first page to the last. The scenes are laid in Farnoux, a town in the old Provençal districts. The ancient views and manners are still retained, and interest us by the force of contrast with our own. Mademoiselle Le Marchand, an odd old maid, with a genius for painting, is really the character of the book. Denise, the heroine, is quietly and faithfully drawn. Various picturesque phases of the Catholic faith are artistically managed, while the faith itself is not treated with much courtesy. As a general thing we do not like theological novels written from foregone conclusions. We can imagine however that such a subject might be made intensely interesting. If a master mind of perfect impartiality would give us the effect produced upon two minds of equal mental power, of equal moral worth, by Protestantism or Catholicity—such a study would both interest and instruct. All religious nicknames should be avoided, as offensive both to charity and refined taste. Episcopalians do not like to be called Anglicans; Friends, Quakers; Baptists, Hardshells; Unitarians, Pantheists; nor Catholics, Romanists. Let us use courtesy to all men, that so we may have more weight when we attack erroneous principles.

By all means read Denise; its studies of the heart are close and accurate.

EDITOR'S TABLE

THE CAMPAIGN

[Furnished by a Friend of the Editor of The Continental.]

Three routes of operation are open to an army designing to proceed against Richmond: first, along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad to Charlottesville; second, along the railroad from Fredericksburg to Hanover Court House; and third, by the way of Fortress Monroe. The first has the disadvantage of presenting a long line of communication, constantly exposed to inroads from guerillas, and for the purposes of warfare may be considered as utterly impracticable. It would not, in fact, be worth considering, had not some critics of Gen. Grant's movements absurdly insisted that he ought to have adopted this route. The second route is far more advantageous, and had Gen. Grant's purposes been confined simply to putting his army before the rebel capital, and lying there to seize such opportunities as the developments of the campaign should afford, it might have been expedient to maintain by this route communications with the Potomac. But the intentions of our Lieutenant-General were of a much more comprehensive character. While, therefore, following this route in his march, because it gave the most direct and shortest line to Richmond, he did not use the railroad as a means of communication. His aim was fixed on an ulterior object. He designed to put his army in such a position that it should be constantly assailing Richmond by its presence, although not a gun should be fired. He, therefore, tried the strength of the rebel works, in passing, and finding that time would be spent uselessly in attempting to overthrow them either upon the north or the east, he proceeded to the new position south of the James, and adopted the third route mentioned for his communication with the North, having previously used it, also, for the transportation to the ultimate scene of conflict of a part of his forces under Gen. Butler.

Among military men, there have been, since the commencement of the war, many advocates for an attack on Richmond from the position at Petersburg. It has many advantages. The facilities for transporting supplies are easy, it isolates the capital of the Southern government from its southern and eastern connections, it interferes largely with the internal trade of the confederacy, it confines the rebel army in a narrow space, and it necessitates constant efforts on the part of the confederate commanders to expel the Northern forces, thus constraining them to leave their works and become assailants. In fine, the position affords more opportunities for strategically investing Richmond than any other which is accessible to our armies.

A clear perception of these advantages determined Gen. Grant to adopt the position at Petersburg. He was aware that Richmond could not be directly invested except with a very large army. He desired to accomplish the results which such an investment would give. He sought to cut off the city from its principal channels of communication—to deprive it of its main resources. Have these purposes been effected? At the time we write it is announced that the army occupies the railroad leading to Weldon, thus breaking the communication with North Carolina; that our cavalry has destroyed a portion of the road leading to Lynchburg; that the forces operating under Gen. Hunter have also destroyed portions of the Virginia Central and the road between Gordonsville and Lynchburg; they have also damaged the James River Canal. The only railroad communication now existing between Richmond and the South is that by way of Danville. Before this reaches our readers we trust that the effects of these efforts to isolate the capital of the confederacy will become evident; that the rebel army will be forced to leave its intrenchments and meet our brave soldiers in the field, and that the conflict may have resulted in victory for the cause of the country and of freedom.

The various steps of the process by which the army gained the position at Petersburg are already well known. From the time the camps at Culpepper Court House were broken up, until the lines were established south of the James river, the series of movements consisted in masterly marches by the left, compelling the enemy constantly to fall back from his intrenched positions to points farther in his rear. Such movements were not, however made until after trials of the enemy in the front, some of which resulted in splendid partial successes. They were, however, not conclusive. The flank movements of our army belong to that class which are considered among the most difficult in warfare, requiring great skill in commanders to arrange their details, and endurance and discipline in the troops to effect them. It is no easy matter to change position in the face of a wary and vigorous enemy, ready to fall upon any exposed point in the long array of a marching column. Yet, several times, the manœuvre has been skilfully and successfully performed, and each time the rebels have learned it too late to profit by the chances offered for a surprise.

Hundreds of miles distant from the principal point of attraction in Virginia, the other great army of the Union, under Gen. Sherman, has also been performing similar feats—turning by well-directed marches, one after another, the intrenched positions of the enemy in the mountainous district of Georgia. Atlanta, the object of its toils, is a great centre of railroad communication, and when our armies obtain possession of it, the confederacy will experience another severing stroke, almost as severe as that which cleft it in twain by the capture of Vicksburg and the reopening of the Mississippi. By such strokes the pretentious imposture of a Southern nation must be broken into fragments, even should the armies supporting it remain for a time organized and defiant; for, under the appliances of modern civilization and commerce, the possession of a railroad or internal depot of trade is almost equivalent to the destruction of an army.

The campaigns of 1863 produced great results, as well geographically as in the capture of men and munitions from the rebels. At the commencement of the year they held the Mississippi, they threatened Kentucky and the borders of the Ohio, they were able to draw supplies from Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas. They were, moreover, arrogantly defiant toward the North, and boasted of their ability to march to its great commercial centres. At the close of the year they were driven to the confines of Georgia, they were separated from the trans-Mississippi region, their boasting had been brought to humility at Gettysburg. The objects to be accomplished in the great campaign of 1864 are to drive in upon each other the two armies which resist our progress in Virginia and Georgia, and to compress the rebellion into the Southern Atlantic States. This done, the existence of secession is practically at an end, though it may brag as loudly as ever and keep on foot its armies. For without Virginia, and without the connections of Atlanta, the existence of an independent government in the South is impossible: sufficient country would not remain to support so magnificent an affair. The loss of Virginia in fact would be the fatal blow to the rebellion; for, however South Carolina may exalt herself, and however the other States of the South may aspire, yet it is Virginia which gives tone and respectability to the Southern confederacy. It is for this, far more than because it is the rebel capital, that the capture of Richmond is desirable.

But should it happen—which fortunately is not a reasonable surmise—that the objects of this year's campaign should not be attained, we consider that the Southern confederacy exists only in pretence. Should its ports be to-day opened, should our armies fall back to their primary bases of operation, should European Powers formally declare that a slave republic exists, yet the new nation would be practically a nonentity. Does any one suppose that the United States would yield Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, New Orleans, and the Mississippi; that the freemen of Western Virginia would be forsaken; that Fortress Monroe and Port Royal would be abandoned? How long would a nation so surrounded, so intersected, exist, or how could it achieve any prosperity, character, and stability? Constant war, in the effort to expand and perfect its borders, would be its necessity; but such a necessity would be its destruction. There is no possibility of compromise or arrangement in the contest in which we are engaged, except with the parallel of the Potomac and the Ohio as the dividing border; but such an arrangement is impossible; entire reconquest becomes the imperative; it may be delayed, our present hopes may be disappointed, but the march of our armies thus far has trodden out the life from the Southern attempt at independence, and any future existence it may have will be merely muscular paroxysms—not the steady, regular, automatic movements of freedom and spontaneity.

Any notice of the operations of our armies would be incomplete without tributes to the ability of commanders and the valor of our soldiers. In no previous period of the war have these been more strikingly exemplified. The capacity of man to endure and his ability to exert himself continuously without exhausting his energy, are very wonderful. The reader of military history is constantly struck with this, in perusing accounts of sieges and marches and battles. War is always accompanied with a host of terrors—exposures to heat, cold, and tempests, marches through swamps and snows, suffering by hunger and thirst and fatigue, lying with bleeding wounds for days and nights between the lines of friends and foes, toil, danger, privation, pain, in every form. But among the memorable campaigns in the history of war, none is more marked for its incessant activity and the cheerful alacrity with which every hardship was endured, than that in which our army marched from the Rapidan to the James. From Georgia, too, we have similar accounts of difficulties met only to be surmounted. Heaven bless our gallant soldiers everywhere! A nation's hopes and prayers are with them. May they know the soldier's dearest delight—victory!

notes

1

Λἁβωρον, also λἁβουρον; derived, not from labor, nor from λἁφυρον, i.e., præda, nor from λαβεἱν, but probably from a barbarian root, otherwise unknown, and introduced into the Roman terminology, even before Constantine, by the Celtic or Germanic recruits. Comp. Du Cange, Glossar., and Suicer, Thesaur. s.h.v. The labarum, as described by Eusebius, who saw it himself (Vita Const. i. 30), consisted of a long spear overlaid with gold, and a cross piece of wood, from which hung a square flag of purple cloth, embroidered and covered with precious stones. On the top of the shaft was a crown composed of gold and precious stones, and containing the monogram of Christ (see next note), and just under this crown was a likeness of the emperor and his sons in gold. The emperor told Eusebius (I. ii. c. 7) some incredible things about this labarum, e.g. that none of its bearers was ever hurt by the darts of the enemy.

2

X and P, the first two letters of the name of Christ, so written upon one another as to make the form of the cross:

(i.e. Christos—Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end), and similar forms, of which Münter (Sinnbilder der Alten Christen, p. 36 sqq.) has collected from ancient coins, vessels, and tombstones more than twenty. The monogram, as well as the sign of the cross, was in use among the Christians long before Constantine, probably as early as the Antonines and Hadrian. Yea, the standards and trophies of victory generally had the appearance of a cross, as Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Justin, and other apologists of the second century told the heathens. According to Killen (Ancient Church, p. 317, note), who quotes Aringhus (Roma Subterranea, II. p. 567) as his authority, the famous monogram (of course in a different sense) is found even before Christ on coins of the Ptolemies. The only thing new, therefore, was the union of this symbol in its Christian sense and application with the Roman military standard.

3

Cicero says, pro Raberio, c. 5: 'Nomen ipsum crucis absit non modo a corpore civium Romanorum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus.' With other ancient heathens, however, the Egyptians, the Buddhists, and even the aborigines of Mexico, the cross seems to have been in use as a religious symbol. Socrates relates (H.E. v. 17) that at the destruction of the temple of Serapis, among the hieroglyphic inscriptions, forms of crosses were found which pagans and Christians alike referred to their respective religions. Some of the heathen converts, conversant with hieroglyphic characters, interpreted the form of the cross to mean the Life to come. According to Prescott (Conquest of Mexico, iii. 338-340) the Spaniards found the cross among the objects of worship in the idol temples of Anahnac.

4

Late Southern newspapers speak of the obstinacy of the garrison at Fort Pillow, and assert that Forrest would have stopped the massacre at any time after the capture, if our soldiers had manifested any disposition to yield.

5

The writer's father saw these skulls hanging in the cars on a railway in Georgia, after first Bull Run, and saw them handed through the cars amid the jeers of passengers.