deep interest of my parents in the anti-slavery movement and in the civil war.—we learn the evil of compromise.—a trip to kansas.—manners on the mississippi steamboats.—fort sumter is attacked.—mother’s poems of the war.—father’s work on the sanitary commission.—how the flag was treated at newport.—we ride in the “jeff davis.”
i cannot remember when my father began his anti-slavery work, because at that time i was an infant. it was the kidnapping of a runaway negro in the streets of boston that roused him to action. he called a meeting in faneuil hall over which john quincy adams presided. my father made the principal address. colonel higginson tells us that “every sentence was a sword-thrust.” the result of the meeting was the formation of a vigilance committee of forty with my father as chairman. its object was to prevent the returning of fugitives to the slavery from which they had escaped. to the descendants of the men who had fought in the revolution for the cause of liberty, the thought that “the port of boston had been opened to the slave-trader” was intolerable.
the records of that vigilance committee have never been published. it is to be hoped that some day they will be, unless they have been destroyed. thomas wentworth higginson has told us that my father’s part in the anti-slavery movement was almost unique and wholly characteristic of the man, who was a natural crusader or paladin.
the little howes did not know of the existence of this committee. neither did we know of our father’s strenuous labors in connection with the election to the senate of his friend charles sumner. we were too young to be intrusted with state secrets. but from our early childhood my father taught us to love freedom and to hate slavery. he told us of the successive aggressions of the slave power and of the steps by which it had grown to threaten the whole land. we learned of the missouri compromise, the dred scott decision, the kansas and nebraska bill.
we knew these, not as dry political facts from the office of a lawyer, but as the successive invasions of a fire that was destined, ere many years had passed, to involve our beloved country in the terrible conflagration of the civil war. to my father and his co-workers in the anti-slavery cause, these successive encroachments of slavery on the territory which the framers of our federal constitution had declared should remain eternally free, were a growing menace of evil. he strongly impressed upon our minds the sin of compromise of principle. did he not see, in the bloody struggle in kansas, the sinister results of those weak yieldings of the north?
the electric current of indignation that thrilled through our home we felt very strongly, as we did the stir of action. lowell’s lines, splendid in themselves, gained a new force and intensity as my father repeated them to us.
truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,
yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
standeth god with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
sometimes i would hear him and his friends talking together over the political situation with deep earnestness and indignation. those were exciting days. as children, we knew nothing of the approaching storm, but we felt the stir in the air!
brother harry, a child of eleven, wrote an indignant letter, after the capture of john brown, to governor wise of virginia. as it was couched in abusive terms, i fear it was never mailed. since few of our young mates agreed with us in opinion, we had many arguments. in the early days one of our friends at the stevenson school laughingly called us “little free-dirters,” because we belonged to the free soil party. as events moved rapidly forward feeling grew more intense. we were very indignant at the deadly assault in the senate chamber upon our friend, charles sumner. as he sat pinioned down by his desk, and so unable to rise, blows with a loaded cane were showered upon his head. some of the girls of our acquaintance sought to justify the attack. we countered with the testimony of henry wilson (later vice-president of the united states), who had witnessed the scene where a colleague of preston brooks stood guard, a pistol in either hand, to prevent any interference in behalf of sumner. for a long time, the victim’s life was in danger. his seat in the senate remained “eloquently empty” for three years. yet charles sumner lived to see slavery overthrown and the united states a free country. within a year his young assailant died of membranous croup. it was thought that remorse for his brutal deed hastened his death.
we children heard of sumner’s great sufferings, and of the cruel “mochsa” treatment—the burning of his back.
in the presidential election of 1856 we were greatly interested. i remember a political procession in which a dead deer was borne aloft with the device, “old buck is dead.” the result of the election was not certain for some time. we held on to hope as long as we could. from california no word could come for ten days! i asked my father whether the result there might not change the result. he said, “no. there is enough to settle the hash without california.” james buchanan, the last president of the slavery era, had indeed been elected.
my father was deeply interested in the struggle for freedom in kansas. when the colonists from the free states were almost overpowered by the border ruffians, he again called a faneuil hall meeting where money was raised and sent to help the settlers. he himself went out there, with great risk to his life.
in the spring of 1857 my mother and i accompanied him on one of his trips to kansas, but, as i became ill at louisville, he went on without us. part of our journey was made on the large steamboats of the ohio and mississippi rivers. great was the horror of the other women when my mother took out a pack of cards to amuse me. this was owing to the prevalence of gambling in that section of the country. many years later, in traveling through the middle west, i found this prejudice had not wholly died out.
there was little to do during the long spring days when the steamboats sailed along the great, quiet rivers. it seemed very strange that every one rushed so to get through the meals quickly. as the service was table d’h?te, it is possible that people hurried in order to get all that they could before the food was removed. my mother always made a practice of eating slowly; hence her excellent digestion.
on this trip our mother purchased a red toy balloon for brother harry. it was then a novelty and cost something like a dollar. as it was affixed to the tail of one of our dogs, it did not long survive. we had supposed this fascinating object would be a lasting investment.
on our outward journey we stopped overnight at harper’s ferry. i remember climbing the hill and looking down upon the valley where the judas tree was in blossom. did it bloom in somber foreboding of the blood to be shed there, a little later, in the john brown raid and in the civil war?
i remember too vast engines with which we climbed the terrifying slopes of the alleghanies. no sleeping-cars were then to be seen, but only cars with reclining chairs. hence the advisability of traveling by water whenever possible.
at cincinnati, then the principal city of that part of the country and much larger than chicago, we stayed with mr. and mrs. william greene, the former a cousin of grandfather ward. we visited the observatory and the longworths’ wine-cellar, where i was discovered in a corner, a glass of champagne tilted up against my nose. at the age of eleven i saw no reason why i should not partake of the wine, since they were kind enough to offer it to me.
my memories of louisville, kentucky, are sinister. here we were shown the spot where several negroes had been lynched. we also went to court, where a man was on trial for the murder of his wife. from the appearance of his face, i fancy he must have committed the crime while drunk.
we stayed also at the house of my father’s great friend, horace mann, then president of antioch college, a coeducational institution of ohio. mrs. mann believed in using cream in cooking, rather than butter. if you had no cream, you thickened milk with flour! the manns were “so glad to see us they almost ate us up”! mrs. mann was a woman of intellectual tastes and interested in good works. she was the sister of the wife of nathaniel hawthorne and of miss elizabeth peabody, who first introduced the kindergarten in america.
horace mann himself had a pleasant, kindly face and beautiful snow-white hair parted in the middle. this had suddenly turned white (in a single night, it was said) through grief at the death of his first wife.
in this year, 1857, there was a terrible financial panic, of which i heard some echoes. nickel cents were then first coined, replacing the large copper ones we had used previously.
during the winter of 1860–61 we heard rumors of war and secession. some young friends, the sons of admiral winslow of kearsarge fame, had visited the south, and assured us that serious preparations were going on there. still, we of the north hardly dreamed of the struggle to come. meantime traitorous officials of the federal government were transferring supplies of arms to the southern states, knowing well these would soon be used against the nation’s life. officers trained at west point and bound by oath to support the government to which they owed not only allegiance, but their education, were resigning from the regular army and going to the south. the north in 1861, like the english in 1914, was unprepared. many attempts have been made to disguise the issue. fifty years hence, when all the passions roused by the civil war have died away, as i pray they may, the truth will stand out clearly. for the rest, it was clear enough in 1860–61. as soon as the republican party came into power, on a platform declaring, as the framers of the constitution had declared, that slavery should be extended no farther, the southern states seceded.
my father was one of those who from the very beginning saw the issue clearly. when the news of the firing on sumter was received he came, with his quick, active step and gallant bearing, into the nursery at “green peace,” crying out to us:
“sumter has been fired upon! that’s the death-blow of slavery!”
he rejoiced that the irrepressible conflict had begun. of course he did not foresee—who could?—that the struggle would be so long and so terrible. but he knew it must come. throughout those four years he never lost faith that the right would triumph. on learning of the attack on sumter, he wrote at once to governor andrew:
since they will have it so—in the name of god, amen! now let all the governors and chief men of the people see to it that war shall not cease until emancipation is secure. if i can be of any use, anywhere, in any capacity (save that of spy), command me.[9]
9. from journals and letters of samuel gridley howe. dana, estes & co.
at the age of sixty, he was too old and too infirm in health to take the field as a soldier. but his early experiences in greece enabled him to give valuable assistance in safeguarding the health of the army. both governor andrew and abraham lincoln were glad to accept my father’s offer of his services. on the formation of the sanitary commission, he was appointed a member of the board. his letters and reports are expressed in his usual terse and vigorous style.
when fort sumter was fired upon a splendid wave of patriotism swept over the country. that shot, the attack upon the flag, consolidated the men of the north as nothing else could have done. “the union, it must and shall be preserved,” was the shibboleth of the hour. democrats and whigs, as well as republicans, rallied everywhere to the defense of the union.
it was said that if the confederates had kept to the old flag, instead of adopting a new one, they might have won. yet we know that was impossible, because the corner-stone of the sovereignty they sought to establish was human slavery. the politicians and leaders of thought on both sides knew this perfectly well from the beginning. the rank and file at first felt it only dimly. but in the northern army the men who were doing the actual fighting were not long in doubt as to the real issues of the conflict. they sang:
“john brown’s body lies a-moldering in the ground,
his soul is marching on.”
old john brown, who had died on the gallows that men might be free! they had hanged him and buried him in the ground, but his spirit led the northern troops to victory! the “battle hymn of the republic” was a nobler expression of the idea dimly outlined in the john brown song.
reading in later years the accounts written by southern men and women, i have realized that the war was never brought home to us in new england in the same way as to the people of the south. it never came near us, nor did we expect it would. some timid souls were anxious lest the confederate rams should visit our northern ports. but this was only a brief scare.
while we were spared the grim horrors of actual warfare in our midst, almost every aspect of life was affected by the four years’ conflict. in the spring of 1861, on my daily walk to boston, i saw the posters calling for seventy-five thousand troops to serve for three months. we heard with deep indignation of the assault of the plug-uglies on the massachusetts regiments as these passed through baltimore. several soldiers were killed—the sons of the old bay state being the first to shed their blood in defense of the union.
during the stormy prelude to the civil war my mother had written many verses expressing her indignation at the crime against kansas, the attack on charles sumner, and the treatment of john brown, as well as her hatred of slavery itself. while the war was in progress her pen continued active in the cause of human freedom and of patriotism. we of the younger generation were especially interested in the composition of “our country” because the music was written by our master, otto dresel. the song had power and dignity, with the swing important in music of this sort. a prize had been offered for a national song, but i do not think it was ever awarded. to my mother’s regret, mr. dresel afterward decided to use the tune as a setting for oliver wendell holmes’s “army hymn.” she told him that the words and music belonged together and ought not to be divorced.
the hour was not yet ripe for the writing of a true national song. in these earlier poems we see how much my mother was moved by the tragic events of the day as the panorama of our national history unfolded itself before her eyes. the white heat of emotion was only reached when she saw the stern realities of war—the bivouacs, the camp-fires, the rows of burnished steel, the hosts of our country’s defenders. the soul of that army, the army of freedom, took possession of her after that wonderful day when her carriage was surrounded by the marching soldiers. that night the “battle hymn of the republic” was written.
so she gave back to the soldiers of the republic their half-expressed aspiration, clothed now in words of fire. in every hour of national crisis, whenever our country is in danger, those words flame up anew in the hearts of men.
nor are they for our country only. in this present war they have been sung with wonderful effect under the great dome of old saint paul’s in london as well as at the battle-front. for the “battle hymn of the republic,” terrible as it is, is a christian song. no one could have written it who was not familiar with the language and imagery of the bible, old testament as well as new. it was the daughter of samuel ward, puritan, who wrote, “he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.” but it was the wife of the old revolutionist, the man whose life had been one long battle in behalf of his fellow-men, who wrote, “he has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.”
“the flag” was written after the second battle of bull run. in ante-bellum days newport had been a place of summer resort for southerners, some of whom appeared there during the first year of the war. they behaved very badly toward the flag. women would draw aside the full skirts, then universally worn, to prevent their touching the stars and stripes. it was said that in the episcopal church, when the prayer for the president of the united states was read, the “secesh” would rise from their knees to mark their dissent, resuming their attitude of devotion at its conclusion. i have always fancied that the line, “salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule,”, was inspired by the behavior of the “secesh” toward “old glory.” general dix’s famous saying, “if any man attempts to pull down the flag, shoot him on the spot,” was much quoted in those days.
the attitude of the southerners was very irritating. they really supposed themselves to be the superiors of the northern men. the former subserviency of the latter in political matters was one reason of this belief. another was that constant association with an inferior race, the negroes, had given them an exaggerated idea of their own talents and capacity. we know now that this was, and still is, a great misfortune to them.
when the members of a certain family expatiated in our presence on the whipping the north was to receive at the hands of the south we were not pleased.
my mother decided to give them a lesson. at one of our paradise picnics she asked mrs. david hall, the mother of my future husband, to personate america. there was a certain realism in the selection, for mrs. hall’s eldest son, rowland minturn hall, was then fighting for our country in the northern army. we crowned her with flowers as the queen of the occasion and saluted her with patriotic songs.
we did not feel very pleasantly toward jefferson davis, whose ambition had much to do with bringing on the war. a photograph of him, in the likeness of the devil, was circulated, while the soldiers sang:
“we’ll hang jeff davis to a sour apple-tree.”
by a strange caprice of fate a carriage intended for the president of the southern confederacy fell into the hands of a northern abolitionist. owing to the war, the vehicle could not be delivered to mr. davis, and my father bought it. it was a closed carriage, more strongly built than the confederacy itself, and lasted for many years. if we wished to go to newport on a rainy day, some one would say, “oh, take the jeff davis, and you won’t get wet!”
for the first two years of the war we were disheartened by repeated defeats. in mcclellan my father never believed, and we were glad when he was displaced.
after a long period of anxious waiting we were rejoiced by the taking of vicksburg and the victory over lee at gettysburg, all on one glorious fourth of july. the tide had turned at last!
