"What's the matter with him," sez I, "don't his vittles sit well on his stummick?"

"That Eagle, Sir, will continner to scream all over this Brite and tremenjus land!"

If your Eagle can amuse hisself by screamin, men annoyed me for I was Bizzy makin

a matter of dooty

"You're right, Capting. It's every man's dooty to visit my show," sed I.

"And that's the reason you are here!" sez I, larfin one of my silvery larfs. I thawt if he wanted to goak I'd giv him sum of my sparklin eppygrams.

"Sir, you're inserlent. The plain question is, will you haul down the Star-Spangled Banner, and hist the Southern flag!"

"Nary hist!" Those was my reply.

"Your wax works and beests is then confisticated, & you air arrested as a Spy!"

I was carrid to Montgomry in iuns and placed in durans vial. The jail was a ornery edifiss, but the table was librally surplied with Bakin an Cabbidge. This was a good variety, for when I didn't hanker after Bakin I could help myself to the cabbige.

I had nobody to talk to nor nothing to talk about, howsever, and I was very lonely, specially on the first day; so when the jailer parst my lonely sell I put the few stray hairs on the back part of my hed (I'm bald now, but thare was a time when I wore sweet auburn ringlets) into as dish-hevild a state as possible, & rollin my eyes like a manyyuck, I cride: "Stay, jaler, stay! I am not mad but soon shall be if you don't bring me suthing to Talk!" He brung me sum noospapers, for which I thanked him kindly.

At larst I got a interview with Jefferson Davis, the President of the Southern Conthieveracy. He was quite perlite, and axed me to sit down and state my case. I did it, when he larfed and said his gallunt men had been a little 2 enthoosiastic in confisticatin my show.

"Yes," sez I," they confisticated me too muchly. I had sum hosses confisticated in the same way onct, but the confisticaters air now poundin stun in the States Prison in Injinnapylus."

"Wall, wall, Mister Ward, you air at liberty to depart; you air frendly

to the South, I know. Even now we hav many frens in the North, who sympathise with us, and won't mingle with this fight."

"J. Davis, there's your grate mistaik. Many of us was your sincere frends, and thought certin parties amung us was fussin about you and meddlin with your consarns intirely too much. But J. Davis, the minit you fire a gun at the piece of dry-goods called the Star-Spangled Banner, the North gits up and rises en massy, in defence of that banner. Not agin you as individooals, - not agin the South even—but to save the flag. We should indeed be weak in the knees, unsound in the heart, milk-white in the liver, and soft in the hed, if we stood quietly by and saw this glorus Govyment smashed to pieces, either by a furrin or a intestine foe The gentle-harted mother hates to take her naughty child across her knee, but she knows it is her dooty to do it. So we shall hate to whip the naughty South, but we must do it if you don't make back tracks at onct, and we shall wallup you out of your boots! J. Davis, it is my decided opinion that the Sonny South is making a egrejus mutton-hed of herself !"

"Go on, sir, you're safe enuff. You're too small powder for me!" sed the President of the Southern Conthieveracy.

"Wait till I go home and start out the Baldinsvill Mounted Hoss Cavalry! I'm Capting of that Corpse, I am, and J. Davis, beware! Jefferson D., I now leave you! Farewell my gay Saler Boy! Good bye, my bold buccaneer! Pirut of the deep blue sea, adoo! adoo!" [Charles Farrar Browne], Artemus Ward his Book (New York, 1865), 162–169 passim.

76.

"Our Country's Call" (1861)

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Bryant was the oldest of the greater American poets at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was also a journalist, and as editor of the New York Evening Post had for many years been prominent as a fearless advocate of numerous good causes, including that of anti-slavery. — For Bryant, see Henry Matson, References for Literary Workers, 322-324. — Bibliography in No. 75 above.

And ye, who throng, beside the deep,
Her ports and hamlets of the strand,
In number like the waves that leap

On his long murmuring marge of sand,
Come, like that deep, when, o'er his brim,
He rises, all his floods to pour,
And flings the proudest barks that swim,
A helpless wreck, against his shore.

Few, few were they whose swords of old
Won the fair land in which we dwell;

But we are many, we who hold

The grim resolve to guard it well.
Strike, for that broad and goodly land,

Blow after blow, till men shall see

That Might and Right move hand in hand,

And glorious must their triumph be.

William Cullen Bryant, Thirty Poems (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1864), 104-107.

77. A War Meeting (1862)

FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Under the editorship of Joseph Medill, the Chicago Tribune became one of the most prominent Republican papers in the West and a firm supporter of Lincoln's administration. The meeting described in this extract is typical of those held in all the larger cities of the North in answer to the president's call, on July 1, 1862, for three hundred thousand more volunteers. - Bibliography as in No. 75 above.

ATURDAY night was a night long to be remembered in the munici

SATURDAY waga, as well as in the history of the State of Illi

nois. One occasion only has furnished its parallel — the public gatherings at the fall of Sumter. . . .

Bryan Hall was jammed to overflowing; Metropolitan Hall was full; five thousand people were in the Court House square. Earnest, able and eloquent speakers addressed them; patriotic songs were sung; voluntary contributions poured in; by unanimous vote men asked to be taxed to meet the present emergency. The vast assemblages were moved by one common impulse.

Perhaps the most gratifying feature of these meetings was the fixed

Let it be done,

determination that Chicago traitors must be rooted out. root and branch. Spare none of them, males or females. They must leave this city instantly, every traitor and every sympathizer with a traitor. . .

A prevailing characteristic of all the meetings was the unanimous and hearty approval of every sentiment favorable to the confiscation of rebel property, foraging upon the enemy, and the employment of the blacks. in fighting against the rebels. Every allusion to either of the measures was greeted with thunders of applause. Every man was in favor of employing the negro upon the trenches, of arming him to fight, if necessary, and of giving him his freedom for it. These sentiments most eloquently urged by noted speakers, spoken in plain terms by common men, found a lodgment in the great popular heart, and that heart gave back a response with no uncertain sound. . . . Vox populi, vox Dei was never better exemplified. The people always loyal, always true, have indeed risen to the full appreciation of the crisis and now demand in thunder tones that every means God has placed in our hands [are] to be used for the vigorous prosecution of this war, the swift and terrible retribution of its authors.

Precisely at the ringing of the bells and firing of cannon, the doors of Bryan Hall were thrown open, and the immense crowd surging around the entrance rapidly poured in and filled up the hall, until every available inch of standing or sitting room was occupied. The stage, which had been. han:lsomely decorated with flags, was reserved for the speakers, prominent citizens, the committees and the band- Barnard's Light Guard Band. About eight o'clock the band came forward and played Hail Columbia, Star Spangled Banner, and Yankee Doodle in a manner which appealed to the patriotism of the assemblage and called out the most enthusiastic applause.

After the close of the music, Eliphalet Wood, Esq., announced the . . . officers of the evening, who were elected. .

The meeting was then opened with a solemn and impressive prayer by Rev. Wm. H. Ryder, delivered amid profound silence. . . .

Dr. O. H. Tiffany came forward amid the most prolonged applause, which continued for several minutes. He congratulated his fellowcitizens upon the character of the gathering. . . .

They were here to-night not for talk, but to provide for the removal of traitors from our homes, as well as the South; to provide means for action. . .