Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863

'He went away,' added my companion, with a tone of despair I can never forget, 'and this is the last day of my life.' He then walked to the glazed door looking out on the park (it was open), and he exclaimed:

'Oh God! I shall see no more this beautiful sky, these green lawns, these sparkling waters; I shall never again breathe the balmy air of the spring! Madman that I was! I might have enjoyed for twenty-five years to come these blessings God has showered on all, blessings whose worth I knew not, and of which I am beginning to know the value. I have worn out my days, I have sacrificed my life for a vain chimera, for a sterile glory, which has not made me happy, and which died before me… See! see there!' said he, pointing to some peasants plodding their weary way homeward; 'what would I not give to share their labors and their poverty!.. But I have nothing to give, nothing to hope here below … nothing … not even misfortune!'… At this moment a sunbeam, a May sunbeam, lighted up his pale, haggard features; he took me by the arm with a sort of delirium, and said to me:

'See! oh see! how splendid is the sun!.. Oh! and I must leave all this!.. Oh! at the least let me enjoy it now… Let me taste to the full this pure and beautiful day … whose morrow I shall never see!'

He leaped into the park, and, before I could well comprehend what he was doing, he had disappeared down an alley. But, to speak truly, I could not have restrained him, even if I would… I had not now the strength; I fell back on the sofa, confounded, stunned, bewildered by all I had seen and heard. At length I arose and walked about the room to convince myself that I was awake, that I was not dreaming, that…

At this moment the door of the boudoir opened, and a servant announced:

'My master, Monsieur le Duc de C – .'

A gentleman some sixty years old and of a very aristocratic appearance came forward, and, taking me by the hand, begged my pardon for having kept me so long waiting.

'I was not at the chateau,' said he. 'I have just come from the town, where I have been to consult with the physicians about the health of the Count de C – , my younger brother.'

'Is he dangerously ill?'

'No, monsieur, thank Heaven, he is not; but in his youth visions of glory and of ambition had excited his imagination, and a grave fever, from which he has just recovered, and which came near proving fatal, has left his head in a state of delirium and insanity, which persuades him that he has only one day longer to live. That's his madness.'

Everything was explained to me now!

'Come, my young friend, now let us talk over your business; tell me what I can do for your advancement. We will go together to Versailles about the end of this month. I will present you at court.'

'I know how kind you are to me, duke, and I have come here to thank you for it.'

'What! have you renounced going to court, and to the advantages you may reckon on having there?'

'Yes.'

'But recollect, that aided by me, you will make a rapid progress, and that with a little assiduity and patience … say in ten years.'

'They would be ten years lost!'

'What!' exclaimed the duke with astonishment, 'is that purchasing too dearly glory, fortune, and fame?.. Silence, my young friend, we will go together to Versailles.'

'No, duke, I return to Brittany, and I beg you to accept my thanks and those of my family for your kindness.'

'You are mad!' said the duke.

But thinking over what I had heard and seen, I said to myself: 'You are the same!'

The next morning I turned my face homeward. With what pleasure I saw again my fine chateau de la Roche Bernard, the old trees of my park, and the beautiful sun of Brittany! I found again my vassals, my sisters, my mother, and happiness, which has never quitted me since, for eight days afterward I married Henrietta.

THE CHAINED RIVER

Home I love, I now must leave thee! Home I love, I now must go
Far away, although it grieve me, through the valley, through the snow.

By the night and through the valley, though the hail against us flies,
Till we reach the frozen river – on its bank the foeman lies.

Frozen river, mighty river! – wilt thou e'er again be free
From the fountain through the mountain, from the mountain to the sea.

Yes; though Freedom's glorious river for a time be frozen fast,
Still it cannot hold forever – Winter's reign will soon be past.

Still it runs, although 'tis frozen – on beneath the icy plain,
From the mountain to the ocean – free as thought, though held in chain.

From the mountain to the ocean, from the ocean to the sky,
Then in rainy drops returning – lo the ice-chains burst and fly!

And the ice makes great the river. Breast the spring-flood if you dare!
Rivers run though ice be o'er them – God and Freedom everywhere!

HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS

At the outbreak of the present terrible civil war, the condition of the American people was apparently enviable beyond that of any other nation. We say apparently, because the seeds of the rebellion had long been germinating; and, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come. Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation, and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor, it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe; and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful, has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.

When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton – a staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the physical well-being of the whole civilized world. At the same time, the Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a rapidity beyond all former example. Agricultural and manufacturing inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that seemed to know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry, and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.

War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as those which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.

Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses. They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business, employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated, especially by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses, these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wish was father to the thought, has not been realized to any appreciable extent. The pecuniary losses have been in a great measure compensated by the immense demands of the war; and when faction has attempted to raise its head, it has been compelled to retire before the patriotic rebuke of the people. And although the vast expenditures of the war give present relief; by drawing largely on the resources of the future, yet the strength we acquire is none the less real or less effectual in overthrowing the rebellion.

But this sudden and grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the versatility of American genius and its ready adaptation to the new circumstances, are even more wonderful than any other exhibition made by our people in this great national crisis. There has never been any good reason to doubt the capacity of any portion of American citizens for warlike occupations, nor their possession of the moral qualities necessary to make them good soldiers. The long period of peace which has blessed our country, with the industrial, educational, and moral improvement produced by it, has rendered war justly distasteful to the Free States of the Union. They were slow to recognize the necessity for it; and nothing but the most solemn convictions of duty would have aroused them to the stern and unanimous determination with which they have entered on the present struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that our large agricultural regions and especially our frontier settlements were peopled with men inured to toil and familiar with danger, constituting the best material for armies to be found in any country. Nor was it in fact true that any considerable portion of our people, even those drawn from the stores and workshops of the cities, had become so far deteriorated in vigor of body, or demoralized in spirit, as to be unfit for military service. The Southern leaders looked with scorn upon our volunteer army only until they encountered it in battle. They were then compelled to alter their preconceived opinions of the Yankee character, and to change their contempt, real or pretended, into respect, if not admiration. Even when superior numbers or better strategy enabled them to beat us, they have seldom failed to bear honorable testimony to the unflinching courage and endurance of our troops. Nor do we need the admissions of the enemy to establish this character for us; our own triumphs, on many glorious fields, are the best evidences of our ability in war, and of themselves sufficiently attest the valor and energy of our noble volunteers. In this aspect of the matter, we must not forget the peculiar character and constitution of our vast army. It is indeed worthy to be called the wonder of the world. It is virtually a voluntary association of the people for the purpose of putting down a gigantic rebellion and saving their own government from destruction. This is a social phenomenon never before known in history on a scale approaching the magnitude of our combinations – a phenomenon which could only take place in a popular government, where the unrestricted freedom of individual action promotes the virtues of personal independence, self-respect, and manly courage. Even the Southern people, fighting on their own soil, in a war which, though actually commenced by them, they now affect to consider wholly defensive – even they, with all their boasted unanimity, and with the fierce passions engendered by slavery, have been compelled to maintain their armies by a conscription of the most unexampled severity; while the loyal States, fighting solely for union and nationality – interests of the most general nature, and offering little of mere personal inducement – have so far escaped that necessity, and are now just preparing to resort to it. After all, it must be acknowledged by every just and generous mind, whether that of friend or foe, that there is a substratum of noble sentiment and manly impulses at the foundation of the Yankee character. The vast movements of the Northern people plainly show it. Their contributions for the support of soldiers' families and for the relief of the wounded and disabled, are upon a gigantic scale. They raise immense sums for the payment of bounties to volunteers, and thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among ourselves, we have found time and means to assist in relieving their wants – an exhibition of liberality peculiar, and truly American in character.

Nor are these the only interesting features in the bearing of the American people at the present crisis. Perhaps a still more remarkable one is the entire devotion of the national energies – of intellect not less than of heart, of skill, not less than of capital – to the great purposes of the war. This was the necessary result of our free institutions; of our untrammelled pursuits; the mobility of our means and agencies of production; and the plastic character of all our creations. The amount of thought expended on this subject has been prodigious and incalculable. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to enumerate the ten thousand inventions and devices of all kinds which have been presented for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of weapons and of all the appliances of war, as well as for adding to the comfort and securing the health of the soldier. Every imaginable instrument of usefulness in any of the operations of the camp, or the march, or the field of battle, has been the subject of tentative ingenuity, such as none but Yankees could display. The musket, the carbine, the pistol, have been constructed upon numberless plans, apparently with every possible modification. The cartridge has been covered with copper, impervious to water, instead of paper, and has its own fulminate attached in various modes. Cannon shot and shells have been made in many new forms; and cannons themselves have been increased in calibre to an extraordinary size with proportionate efficiency, and have been constructed in various modes and forms never before conceived. The tent, the cot, the chest, the chair, the knife and fork, the stove and bakeoven, each and every one of them, have been touched by the transforming hand of homely genius, and have assumed a thousand unimaginable forms of usefulness and convenience. India rubber and every other available material have been made to perform new and appropriate parts in the general work. The result of all this unexampled activity and ingenuity has not yet been fully eliminated. It would require years of experience in war in order to bring American genius, as at present developed, to bear with all its extraordinary force on the mechanical details of the military art. Beyond doubt, numberless devices, among those presented, will prove to be utterly worthless; but many of them will certainly stand the test of experience, will be ultimately approved and adopted, and will remain as monuments of the enterprise and ingenuity aroused by the necessities of the country in this hour of its sad calamity.

It would be a curious and interesting employment to estimate the number and character of these inventions, due wholly to the existing civil strife. Only then should we be able to form some adequate conception of the immense stimulus which has been applied to the national intellect, and which has caused it to embrace within the boundless range of its investigations, the highest moral and political problems, alike with the minutest questions of mechanical and economical convenience. But we should be greatly disappointed in not finding this phenomenon even partially comprehended by the powers that be. It is truly a melancholy thing to meet in the highest quarters so little sympathy with the noblest efforts of the popular mind, and to witness the cold neglect and even disdainful suspicion with which the most useful and valuable devices are often received, or rather, we should say, haughtily disregarded and rejected. Seldom or never do we find these inventions appreciated according to their merits. The Government is proverbially slow to adopt improvements of any kind; and the army and navy, like all similar professional bodies, are averse to every important change, and wedded to the instruments and processes in the use of which they have been educated and trained. This peculiar indisposition to progressive movements, in all the established institutions and organizations of society, has frequently been the subject of remark and of regret. It is, however, only an exaggeration of the conservative principle, which, when confined within proper limits, is wise and beneficial. Indeed, the actual progress of society in any period, is neither more nor less than the result of the conflict between the opposite tendencies, of retrogradation and advancement – a disposition to adhere to the old, which has been tried and approved, and a tendency toward the new, which, however promising and alluring, may yet disappoint and mislead. In the long run, however, the latter prevails, and the progressive movement, more or less rapid, goes on continually. Improvements gradually force themselves upon the attention of the most prejudiced minds, and eventually conquer opposition in spite of professional immobility and aversion to change. Observation has shown that the most important steps of progress usually originate outside of the professions, and are only adopted when they can no longer be resisted with safety to the conservative body. To the volunteer officer and soldier, or to those educated soldiers who have long been in civil life, will probably be due the greater part of that accessibility to new ideas which will result in important advances in the art of war. This assertion may seem to be paradoxical; but all experience proves that ignorance of old processes is most favorable to the introduction of new ones. And though in a thousand instances such ignorance may be disastrous, occasionally it finds the unprejudiced intellect illuminated by flashes of original genius, and open to the entrance of valuable ideas which would have been utterly excluded by all the old and established rules.

But the actual work of the unexampled mental activity of the present day, will not be fully known and estimated until after the close of the war. Until then there will be neither time nor opportunity to weigh and test the creations of the national ingenuity. In the midst of campaigns and battles, with the absorbing interest of the great struggle, the instruments of warfare cannot be easily changed, however important may be the improvement presented. The emergency which arouses genius and brings forth valuable inventions, is by no means favorable to their adoption and general use. On the contrary, by a sort of fatality which seems to be a law of their existence, they are doomed to struggle with adversity and fierce opposition, and they are left by the occasion which gave them birth as its repudiated offspring – a legacy to the future emergency which will cherish and perfect them, make them available, and enjoy the full benefit to be derived from them.

The navy has always justly been the pride of our country; and it was to be expected that it would first feel the impulse of inventive genius. Confident in our strength and resources, we had long remained comparatively sluggish, and regardless of those interesting experiments which other great maritime powers had been carefully making with a view to render ships invulnerable. We looked on quietly, observed the results, and waited for the occasion when we should be required to put forth our strength in this direction. When the war commenced, we had not a single iron-clad vessel of any description. It became necessary that the immense Southern coast of our country should be subjected to the strictest blockade. This was a work of vast magnitude, and a very large and sudden increase of the navy was demanded by the extraordinary emergency. Cities were to be taken, and strong fortresses to be attacked. The rebels had managed to save some of the vessels intended to be destroyed at Norfolk, and had converted the Merrimack into a formidable monster, which in due time displayed her destructive powers upon our unfortunate fleet in Hampton Roads, in that ever-memorable contest in which the Monitor first made her timely appearance. The chief result of the vast effort demanded by the perilous situation of our country, was the class of vessels of which the partially successful but ill-fated Monitor was the type. These structures are certainly very far from being perfect as ships of war; nevertheless, they constitute an interesting and valuable experiment, and mark an advance in naval warfare of the very first importance. They establish the form in which defensive armor may perhaps be most effectively disposed for the protection of men on board ships; but at the same time, it must be conceded that they utterly fail in all the other requisites for men-of-war and sea-going vessels. They are deficient in buoyancy and speed. In truth they are nothing more than floating batteries, useful in the defence of harbors or the attack of forts. The melancholy end of the Monitor shows too plainly that vessels of her character cannot be safely trusted to the fury of the open sea. They may do well in favorable weather, or may escape on a single expedition; but a repetition of long voyages will be almost certain to result in their loss.

We want lighter and swifter vessels to be equally formidable in ordnance, and alike invulnerable to the attacks of any adversary. To combine all these requisites is not beyond the ingenuity of American constructors. Most assuredly such vessels will soon make their appearance on the ocean. Some new arrangement of the propelling apparatus, and lighter and more powerful machinery, will accomplish this important end. And then, too, with greatly increased speed, and with a construction suitable to the new function, the principle of the ram will be perfected; so that the projectile thrown by the most powerful ordnance now existing or even conceived will be insignificant compared with the momentum of a large steamer, going at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, and herself becoming the direct instrument of destruction to her adversary. Ordnance may possibly be devised which will throw shot or shell weighing each a thousand pounds; but by the new principle, which is evidently growing in practicability and favor, the weight of thousands of tons will be precipitated against vessels of war, and naval combats will become a conflict of gigantic forces, in comparison with which the discharge of guns and the momentum of cannon balls will be little more than the bursting of bubbles.

The exploits of the rebel steamer Alabama, so destructive to our commerce and so humiliating to our pride as a great naval power, sufficiently attest the vital importance of the element of speed in ships of war. Her capacity under steam is beyond that of our best vessels, and she therefore becomes, at her pleasure, utterly inaccessible to anything we may send to pursue her. We have built our steamers strong and heavy; but proportionately slow and clumsy. The Alabama could not safely encounter any one of them entitled to the name of a regular cruiser; but she does not intend to risk such a contest, and, most unfortunately for us, she cannot be compelled to meet it. Of what real use are all the costly structures of our navy with the tremendous ordnance which they carry, if this comparatively insignificant craft can go and come when and where she will, and sail through and around our fleets without the possibility of being interrupted? They are perfectly well suited to remain stationary and aid us in blockading the Southern ports; but the frequent escape of fast steamers running the blockade, serves still further to demonstrate the great and palpable deficiency in the speed of our ships of war. We may start a hundred of our best steamers on the track of the Alabama, and, without an accident, they can never overtake her. The only alternative is to accept the lesson which her example teaches, and to surpass her in those qualities which constitute her efficiency and make her formidable as a foe. This we must do, or we must quietly surrender our commerce to her infamous depredations, and acknowledge ourselves beaten on the seas by the rebel confederacy without an open port, and without anything worthy to be called a navy. The ability of our naval heroes, and their skill and valor, so nobly illustrated on several occasions during the present war, will be utterly unavailing against superior celerity of motion. Their just pride must be humbled, and their patriotic hearts must chafe with vexation, so long as the terrible rebel rover continues to command the seas, as she will not fail to do so long as we are unable to cope with her in activity and speed. Nor is it certain we have yet known the worst. Ominous appearances abroad, and thick-coming rumors brought by every arrival, indicate the construction in England of numerous other ships like the Alabama, destined to run the blockade and afterward to join that renowned cruiser in her work of destruction. Stores of cotton held in Southern ports offer a temptation to the cupidity of foreign adventurers which will command capital to any amount, and the best skill of English engineers and builders will be enlisted to make the enterprise successful – a skill not embarrassed by bureaucratic inertia and stolidity.

Let the genius of American constructors and engineers be brought to bear on the subject, and the important problem will be solved in sixty days. Indeed, there are plans in existence, at this very hour, by which the desired end could be at once accomplished. But the inertia of official authority, and especially of the bureaus in the Navy Department, is such that any novel idea, however demonstrably good and valuable, is usually doomed to battle for years against opposition of all kinds before it can hope to secure an introduction. In all probability, the war will have been ended before anything of great importance ever can be accomplished through those channels. The adoption of the Monitor principle was not due to the skill and intelligence found in official quarters; it was forced upon the Navy Department from the outside. And like the boa constrictor, after having swallowed its prey, the Department must sluggishly repose until that meal is digested before another can be taken. One idea, of the magnitude of this, is enough for the present crisis. We shall not have another, if the stubborn resistance and fixity of ideas in the bureaus can prevent it. The invulnerability of the Monitors, and the peculiar arrangement by which this important end is obtained, are but one of the items necessary to make up the complete efficiency of war steamers. They are only one half what is required. They accomplish one of the great desiderata in armaments afloat; but they leave another equally important demand utterly unsatisfied. There is a counterpart to this achievement – its complement, equally indispensable to the efficiency of the navy, and waiting to be placed by the side of the recent improvement. It must and will be brought forth, whether the naval authorities assist or oppose. American genius, only give it fair play, is equal to all emergencies.

The immense activity of thought and ingenuity elicited by the war, and extending to all the departments of enterprise appropriate to the great crisis, is a phenomenon peculiar to the American people. It could be exhibited nowhere else, to the same extent, among civilized nations, because nowhere else is the same stimulus applied with equal directness to the popular masses. The operation of this peculiar cause is conspicuously plain. The Government of the United States is the people's Government; the war is emphatically the people's war. Every man feels that he has a personal interest in it. He understands, more or less clearly, the whole question involved, and has fixed opinions, and perhaps strong feelings, in regard to it. His friends and neighbors and brothers are in the army, and they have gone thither voluntarily, perhaps impelled by enlightened and conscientious convictions of duty. His sympathies follow them; he ardently prays for their success; and he is stimulated to provide, as well as he can, for their comfort. All other business being greatly interrupted, if not wholly suspended, he thinks continuously of the mighty operations of the war. He dwells on them night and day, and in the laboratory of his active mind, excited by the mighty stimulus of personal and patriotic feeling natural to the occasion, he produces those extraordinary combinations which distinguish the present era.

In addition to these impulses which operate so generally, there is the still more universal and all-pervading love of gain which stimulates his inventive faculties, and causes them to operate in the direction in which his hopes and sympathies are turned. Aroused by motives of all kinds, the whole mind and heart of the country is absorbed in the great contest, and all its energies are applied in every conceivable way to the work of war. The man who carries the gun and uses it on the battle field is not more earnestly engaged in this work than he who racks his brain and sifts his teeming ideas for the purpose of making the instrument more destructive. Even the victims who fall in the deadly strife and give their mangled bodies to their country, are not more truly martyrs to a glorious cause than the inventors who sometimes sacrifice themselves in the course of their perilous experiments, or by the slower process of mental and physical exhaustion during the long years of 'hope deferred,' while vainly seeking to make known the value of their devices. A great power is at work, operating on the character and capacity of each individual, and affecting each according to the infinite diversity which prevails among men. A common enthusiasm, or, at least, a common excitement pervades the whole community to its profoundest depths, and arouses all its energy and all its intellect, whatever that energy and intellect may be capable of doing. It carries multitudes into the army full of patriotic ardor; it inspires others with grand ideas, which they seek to embody in combinations of power, useful and effective in the great work which is the task of the nation, and for the accomplishment of which all noble hearts are laboring earnestly and incessantly.

But in this tempestuous hour, as in more peaceful times, good and bad ideas, valuable and worthless devices, noble and generous as well as sinister and mercenary purposes are mingled in the vast multitude of projects which are presented for acceptance and adoption. The power of the nation is magnified by the impulse which arouses it; but in its exaltation it still retains its errors and defects. It is the same people, with all their characteristic faults and virtues, stimulated to mighty exertions in a sacred cause, who have been so often engaged in petty partisan contests, swayed by dishonest leaders, and carried astray by the base intrigues of ambition and selfishness. Yet, as the masses, at all times, have had no interest but that of the nation which they chiefly constitute, and have sought nothing but what they at least considered to be the public good, so even now, in these mad and perilous times, the predominating sentiment and purpose of the people, in whatever sphere they move, are, on the whole, good and worthy of approval. Every one must at least pretend to be controlled by honest and patriotic motives; and in such an emergency hypocrisy cannot possibly be universal or even predominant. Although men may seek chiefly their own interest and profit, they must do so through some effort of public usefulness. They must commend themselves, their works, and ideas, as of superior importance to the cause of the country; and in this universal struggle and competition – this mighty effervescence of popular thought and action, it would be strange and unexampled, if some great, new conceptions should not dawn upon us. The very condition, physical, social, and moral, of our twenty millions of people in the loyal States is unlike all that has ever preceded it. Their general intelligence, the result of universal education, makes available their unlimited freedom, and establishes their capacity for great achievements. The present momentous occasion makes an imperative demand upon all their highest faculties, and they cannot fail to respond in a manner which will satisfy every just expectation.

What the Government has undertaken in this crisis is worthy of a great people and springs from the large ideas habitual to Americans. The blockade of the whole Southern coast, with its vast shore line, and its intricate network of inlets, harbors, and rivers; the controlling of the mighty Mississippi from Cairo to the gulf; the campaigns in Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas; and the pending attacks on Charleston and Savannah – these gigantic and tremendous operations have something of that grandeur which is familiar to our thoughts – which, indeed, constitutes the staple of the ordinary American speech, apparently having all the characteristics of exaggerated jesting and idle boast. We frequently hear our enthusiastic countrymen talk of anchoring Great Britain in one of our northern lakes. They speak contemptuously of the petty jurisdictions of European powers contrasted with the magnificent domain of our States, and they sneer at the rivers of the old continent as mere rills by the side of the mighty 'father of waters.' The men whose very jests are on a scale of such magnitude, do not seem to find the extensive military operations too large for their serious thoughts. No American considers them beyond our power, or for one moment hesitates to admit their ultimate success. No difficulties discourage us, no disasters appal. We move on with indomitable will and determination, looking through all the obstacles to the grand result as already accomplished. Does slavery stand in the way, and cotton seek to usurp the throne of universal empire, dictating terms to twenty millions of freemen, and demanding the acquiescence of the world? The first is annihilated by a word proclaiming universal liberation; the second is blockaded in his ports, surrounded by a wall of fire, suffocated and strangled, and dragged helpless and insensible from his imaginary throne. A proud and desperate aristocracy, rich and powerful, and correspondingly confident, undertake to measure strength with the democratic millions whom they despise. These Northern people, scorned and detested, have ideas – grand and magnificent as well as practical ideas, nurtured by universal education and unlimited freedom of thought and act. The fierce and relentless aristocracy rave in their very madness, and defy the people whom they seek to destroy; but these bear down upon the haughty enemy, slowly and deliberately – awkwardly and blunderingly, it may be, at first, but learning by experience, and moving on, through all vicissitudes, with the certainty and solemnity of destiny to the hour of final and complete success. The confidence in this grand result dominates every other thought. All ideas and all purposes revolve around it as a centre. It is the internal fire which warms the patriotism, strengthens the purpose, stimulates the invention, sustains the courage, and feeds the undying confidence of the nation, in this, the hour of its desperate struggle for existence.