The Breitmann Ballads | Page 8

meeting, he is
unanimously voted "a brickbat, and no
sardine."

After this brilliant success, the author is obliged to pause, in order to
proclaim the intellectual superiority of Germans to the whole world. He
gets tremendously be-fogged in the process, but that is no matter -
"Ash der Hegel say of his system,' Dat only von mans knew Vot der
tyfel id meant; and he couldn't tell,' und der Jean
Paul Richter, too,
Who saidt, 'Gott knows, I meant somedings vhen
foorst dis
buch I writ,
Boot Gott only weiss vot das buch means now, for I hafe
forgotten it!'"
But, taking the point as proved, our German still allows that the
Yankees have some sharp-pointed sense, which he illustrates by
narrating how Hiram 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