Border and Bastille | Page 6

to the corruption and peculation prevalent
in all high places, diluted in its downward percolation till sutlers and
horse-thieves would strive in vain to emulate the fraudulent audacity of
their superiors. It was well he spared me then, for soon after landing,
my eyes and ears grew weary with the repetition of all these ignoble
details. To illustrate how heavily the taxes were already beginning to
weigh on the non-militant part of the population, my informant proved
to me by very clear figures that, if he individually could secure
permanent exemption from such burdens by the absolute sacrifice of
one-tenth of his whole property, real and personal, the commutation,
would be decidedly advantageous to him. True, he represented a class
whose incomes exceeded a certain standard, and therefore suffered
rather more heavily; but the same calculation, with very slight
alterations, applied to all other subordinate ones.
Grave and mild of speech was the Philadelphian philosopher, without a
trace of dogmatism or self-assertion in his tone; nevertheless, I judged
him to be a man of mark somewhere, and I afterwards heard that, albeit
not a violent or prominent politician, he had great honor in his own
country.
Strong head-winds and a heavy sea baffled us till we had cleared the
longitude of Cape Race; then the weather softened, the breeze veered
round till it blew on our quarter, and we had clear sky above us all the
way in. We sighted the first pilot-boat on the afternoon of January 3d,
and, as she came sweeping down athwart us, with her broad, white
wings full spread, our glasses soon made out the winning number of the

sweepstakes, "22." It was long past dinner hour when the beautiful little
schooner rounded to, under our lee, but all appetite just then was
merged in a craving for latest intelligence.
It was a caricaturist's study--the crowd of keen, anxious faces round the
gangway--as the pilot came aboard. He was a stout man, of agricultural
exterior, looking as if he were in the habit of ploughing anything rather
than the deep sea; but it is the fashion of his guild to eschew the
nautical as much as possible in their attire. The "anxious inquirers" got
little satisfaction from him--he seemed taciturn by nature, if not
sullen--and they came back to where the rest of us stood on the
hurricane deck, muttering discontentedly, "Gold at 46. No news." It
seemed very odd--such a complete stagnation of affairs, military and
civil--but we went to dinner in spite of our disappointment. Before we
rose from table the truth began to ooze out. One or two New York
papers, that had slipped on board with the pilot, were more
communicative than he would or could be.
Thousands of corpses, the full tale of which will never be known till the
day of judgment, lying rolled in blood, with a handful of earth raked
over them under the fatal Fredericksburg heights; the finest army in
Federaldom hurled back upon its intrenchments; nothing but darkness
covering a disastrous, if not shameful defeat; the papers crowded with
dreary funeral notices, showing how, to every great city of the North,
from hospital and battle-ground, the slain are being gathered in, to be
buried among their own people; a wail of widows and orphans and
mothers, from homestead, hamlet, and town, overpowering with its
simple energy, the bombastic war-notes and false stage-thunder of the
press; rumors of a terrible battle in the far West, where, after three days'
hard fighting, Rosecrans barely holds his own, and yet "there are no
news!"
It is an excellent quality in a soldier not to know when he is beaten, but
whether blind obstinacy will succeed when it influences the rulers and
destinies of a great nation, is more than questionable. Pondering these
things, I remembered how, four thousand years ago, a stiff-necked
generation were brought to their senses and on their knees. It was on

the morning after the visit of the Dark Angel, when Egypt awoke, and
found not a house in which there was not one dead. If such fearful
waste of life goes on here, with no decisive or final advantage on either
side attained, that ancient curse may not be long in recurring.
I rose when the sun ought to have risen, on the following morning,
intending to admire the famous harbor which Americans love to
compare with the Neapolitan Bay. But long before we reached the
Narrows,
"A blinding mist came up and hid the land As far as eye could see."
Very soon we were buried in fog, dense and Cimmerian, as ever
brooded over our own Thames or the Righi panorama. More and more
slowly the paddles turned, till they stopped altogether. It was dangerous
to advance, ever so cautiously, when the keenest