The Breitmann Ballads | Page 8

Twine turned a village of Smith-voters into the Breitmann camp. The village is German and Democrat. Smith has forgotten his meeting, and Twine, who is very like Smith, and rides into the village to watch the meeting, is taken by the Germans for Smith. On this, Twine resolves to personate Smith, and give his supporters a dose of him. Accordingly, on being asked to drink, he tells the Germans that none but hogs would drink their stinking beer, and that German wine was only made for German swine. Then he goes to the meeting, and, having wounded their feelings in the tenderest point, - the love of beer, - attacks the next tenderest, - their love for their language, - by declaring that he will vote for preventing the speaking of it all through the States; and winds up by exhorting them to stop?guzzling beer and smoking pipes, and set to work to un-Germanise themselves as soon as possible. On this "dere coomed a shindy," with cries of "Shoot him with a bowie-knife," and "Tar and?feather him." A revolver-ball cuts the chandelier-cord; all is dark; and amidst the row, Twine escapes and gallops off, with some pistol-balls after him. But the village votes for?Breitmann, and be "licks der Schmit."
The ballad, "Breitmann's Going to Church," is based on a real occurrence. A certain colonel, with his men, did really, during the war, go to a church in or near Nashville, and, as the saying is, "kicked up the devil, and broke things," to such an extent, that a serious reprimand from the colonel's superior officer was the result. The fact is guaranteed by Mr. Leland, who heard the offender complain of the "cruel and heartless stretch of military authority." As regards the firing into the guerilla ball-room, it took place near Murfreesboro', on the night of Feb. 10 or 11, 1865; and on the next day, Mr. Leland was at a house where one of the wounded lay. On the same night a Federal picket was shot dead near Lavergne; and the next night a detachment of cavalry was sent off from General Van Cleve's quarters, the officer in command coming in while the author was talking with the general, for final orders. They rode twenty miles that night, attacked a body of guerillas, captured a?number, and brought back prisoners early next day. The same day Mr. Leland, with a small cavalry escort, and a few friends, went out into the country, during which ride one or two curious?incidents occurred, illustrating the extraordinary fidelity of the blacks to Federal soldiers.
The explanation of the poem entitled, "The First Edition of Breitmann," is as follows: - It was not long after the war that a friend of the writer's to whom "the Breitmann Ballads" had been sent in MSS., and who had frequently urged the former to have them published, resolved to secure, at least, a small private edition, though at his own expense. Unfortunately the printers quarrelled about the MSS., and, as the writer understood, the entire concern broke up in a row in consequence. And, in fact, when we reflect on the amount of fierce attack and recrimination we reflect this unpretending and peaceful little volume elicited after the appearance of the fifth English edition, and the injury which it sustained from garbled and falsified editions, in not less than three unauthorised reprints, it would really seem as if this first edition, which "died a borning," had been typical of the stormy path to which the work was predestined.
"I Gili Romaneskro," a gipsy ballad, was written both in the original and translation - that is to say, in the German gipsy and German English dialects - to cast a new light on the?many-sided?Bohemianism of Herr Breitmann.
The readers of more than one English newspaper will recall that?the idea of representing Breitmann as an Uhlan, scouting over France,?and frequently laying houses and even cities under heavy?contribution,?has occurred to very many of "Our Own." A spirited correspondent of?the Telegraph, and others of literary fame, have?familiarly?referred to the Uhlan as Breitmann, indicating that the?German-American free-lance has grown into a type; and more than one?newspaper, anticipating this volume, has published Anglo-German poems?referring to Hans Breitmann and the Prussian-French war. In several?pamphlets written in Anglo-German rhymes, which appeared in London in?1871, Breitmann was made the representative type of the war by both?the friends and opponents of Prussia, while during February of the?same year Hans figured at the same time, and on the same evenings for?several weeks, on the stages of three London theatres. So many imitations of these poems were published, and so extensively and familiarly was Mr. Leland's hero spoken of as the exponent of the German cause, that it seemed to a writer at the time as if he had become "as regards Germany what