Page images
PDF
EPUB

line," etc., and regenerated skeletons "after taking" the nostrum, and all attested by the sacred testimony of clergymen, and other grateful, bedridden saints, who invariably send for the second bottle. But all the medical specialities of "the family newspaper" are put to blush by "the grand specific." We give its wonderful discoverer the benefit of a free adver tisement:

It cures:

A. ABSCESSES on the surface, or deep seated.

B. BOILS, caused by over-heated fluids.

C. CANCER, however malignant, or old.
C. CANKER, of all kinds, in young or aged.
C. CARBUNCLES, wherever situated.

D. DYSPEPSIA, recent or long standing.
E. ERYSIPELAS, however violent.

E. EVIL (KING'S), an inherited curse.

E. EVERY KIND of humor from bad blood.

F. FEVER SORES of the worst kind.

F. FEMALE WEAKNESSES it soon relieves.

F. FATHERS who are scrofulous give it to children.
G. GENERAL DEBILITY, from any cause.

G. GLANDULAR SWELLINGS of the neck, &c.
H. HERPETIC ERUPTIONS, &c.

[blocks in formation]

Our medical friend exhausts the alphabet, if he does not the list of "ills that flesh is heir to."

We shall finish the entertainments of the Saturday Evening Gazette with the following, for the benefit of those who are

distressed, or "crossed in love," or whose "insides " are at all disarranged:

MRS. FRANCIS, THE INDEPENDENT, WAKEFUL CLAIRVOYANT.-Is successful in describing past, present, and forthcoming events, all kinds of business, diseases and their remedies. Consultation, one dollar; questions answered for half price. Her Rose Ointment, for the cure of every kind of Humors, Scrofula, and Cancers, Sores and Bunches, Pimpled Faces, &c., 25 cents per box, and also a certain cure for Rheumatism, Dysentery, Diarrhoea, Coughs, Sore Throat, Dropsy, Gravel, Liver and Kidney Diseases, Dyspepsia, and all Discases arising from Indigestion and Impurity of the Blood. Her Magnetism is soothing and strengthening for weak and diseased Nerves, Neuralgia, &c. 14 Court Street, Room No. 1. Hours from 9 to 12, A. M., and from 2 to 6, P. M.; from 7 to 9, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Don't ring.

August 10.-I have written nothing in my journal for some days. In this time I have been sick, almost unto death, in these cruel walls. Tortured, too, from day to day, with every rumor and shadow of hope that flits through the prison, about the much-talked-of and long-deferred exchange of prisoners. From day to day I have carried the heavy burdens of sickness and disappointment; but though, at last, the strength of my body has rallied a little, the skill of the physician cannot so easily recover the mind. I can imagine a brutal submission to imprisonment, a sullen and coarse satisfaction in sleeping and dreaming away a life; but there are nervous, active sensibilities, to which a prison is more terrible than death-men who beat their souls against its walls and live in a frenzy of mad hopes. Alas for the fatal gift of excessive sensibility! Add to this a disease, which condemns one to the horrors of the bedridden in prison and fills the mind with gloom, and the circumstances excuse the most abject degrees of distress.

There was a little event of pleasant surprise in my life today. A box containing under-clothing, and, what was even better, something to eat, sent all the way from the distant prairies of Missouri, marked "from Kate W." So it was from no strange angel, but from the dear Virginia lady who had written me before, and who would take no refusal of her kind disposition to serve me. I accepted the gift with a feel

ing of gratitude in my heart, which my pen could but very poorly express.

I have often had occasion to meditate, in this war, upon the abundant humanity it has shown in women. The fierceness of its strife has too frequently steeled the hearts of men, and demoralized much of our better nature; selfishness, mean expediencies, callousness, a certain carelessness for the misfortunes of others, since misfortune has become so common, have taken much of the place of the charities and courtesies of society. But in these, the worst ruins of war, our women, steadfast and conspicuous in their better nature, have not forgotten, even in the sorrows of their own hearth-stones, the claims of sympathy; but everywhere, in the hospital, in the prison, in every walk of charity, they have followed the impulses, and illustrated the duties of tender and unfailing humanity.

And then, too, how much superior is woman's instinct in taking sides in such a war than the troubled reason of men. The women of Maryland and of Kentucky would give an overwhelming majority for the Confederacy; they, even while their husbands and brothers differ, are secessionists, almost without an exception; and even here, in the cities of the North, there are innumerable women who condole with the Confederacy, are in love with its virtues and sufferings, and dare expressions of sympathy and admiration in the face of prison, exile, and all the inhuman penalties which the Washington Government and its minions can proclaim.

There are some questions which require a certain complication of reason; others the key to which is found in a single direct and plain thought. Of these latter, women are the better judges. I have seen in a single paragraph in a woman's letter in a New York paper, the questions of this war more effectually disposed of than in all the sesquipedals of the editorial columns, and all the four years' arguments of the Yankee newspapers. "Men," says this female critic (she is talking of the male Yankee), "who would rather run than fight, any day, and who, if they are drafted, will hasten in abject terror to the first emigrant ship which arrives, to secure a substitute, talk loudly about the glory of fighting and dying for one's flag and one's country. What is one's flag and one's country? It is not a strip of rag, or a little dirt, a few stones,

and some water; these can be found anywhere, and demand no especial consideration. If our country and our flag are dear, it is because they represent to us a larger proportion of the blessings that make life desirable than can be found elsewhere. If these are forcibly taken away from us, if peace is gone, if liberty is gone, if friends are gone,-if home and plenty are gone, what is the country and the flag worth to me? All countries belong alike to God, and if a happy and peaceful life could be better secured on any other portion of this earth, that would become my country."

Thank God, we Confederates have a country to which we may claim a virtuous attachment, in which are wrapped up our individual welfare and our individual aspirations; in which we have pride and honor for the courage of its men, and for the benevolent missions of its laws to every home and fireside. Such a country a woman or child can love quite as intelligently as the man; for it is the expression of what makes life desirable, adorns it with unfailing objects of pride, and associates each member of the community, not notoriously unworthy, with the honors of familiar history.

CHAPTER XI.

OUT OF PRISON.-My Parole.-In Yankee Atmosphere.-A Letter from Boston.Waiting.

AUGUST 12.-A memorable day. For, on this day, after unspeakable and almost mortal sufferings, I was released from prison, on a parole, to remain with a relative within the limits of Brooklyn, until my special exchange, which I then supposed to be in negotiation, was completed. A concession obtained for me by friends, to whom my life-long, loving gratitude, is ever due.

In the morning, Risk, the laconic orderly, came to my casemate with the short and severe message, "I was wanted at the Adjutant's office." I went there and was told that I would be released on signing a "parole." The news upset my nerves, and brought my heart into my throat; but, alas! though liberated from the fort, I was yet to be confined in Yankee atmosphere. But I certainly was not disposed to quarrel with the partial favors of fortune, and so I signed the following document with a very lively satisfaction, and could hardly refrain from shouting for joy as I returned to the casemate to gather up my blanket and what few "duds" constituted my property in prison:

Parole of Honor.

"I, Edward A. Pollard, of the County of Henrico, of the State of Virginia, do hereby pledge my sacred word of honor, that, in consideration of being temporarily released from imprisonment in Fort Warren, I will proceed, within twenty-four hours after being so released, to Brooklyn, N. Y., and that, during the continuance of this Parole, I will not go outside the limits of said city, without the consent of the Secretary of the Navy, in writing, nor commit any hostile act against the .

« PreviousContinue »