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By a rare piece of good fortune, however, we have been enabled to secure a collection of documents possessing a vastly higher significance than those just mentioned. At New York City, in January, 1928, George McAneny, acting on behalf of Marianna Schurz, sole survivor of Carl Schurz's immediate family, turned over to this Society for transcription, with the privilege of publication, a group of Schurz's letters ranging in dates from the early 1840's to the year 1869. These
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in part illustrate his life prior to his settlements in our state, but a heavy proportion of the whole number were written during the eleven years when his legal residence was in Watertown, Wisconsin.
It was the residue left after supplying material for
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that work which was turned over to this Society by Mr. McAneny and the surviving Miss Schurz. The bundle contained two hundred and eighteen letters. About seventy of these duplicated letters published in
and those in our bundle, extend into the year 1869, when Schurz entered upon his senatorial career, though the book leaves off with his first letter after taking the oath of office on March 4, while we received manuscript letters extending to August 10, some of them highly significant as revealing the manner in which he attacked his senatorial problems. That point of termination corresponds with Schurz's own narrative as contained in volumes
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one and two of
Schurz was the first American citizen of German birth who felt himself to be possessed of powers of persuasion and argument equal to the task of proselyting in the service of a great and sacred cause millions of German scattered over a continent. The demonstration he made of those powers in 1860 was the basis of his later achievements. It made him available for a senatorship in a state where he had resided less than two years. The senatorship in turn afforded scope for the exercise of his high talent for practical statesmanship and shaped the issues out of which proceeded the movement for the organization of the Liberal Republican party, to which, as to the election of Lincoln, Schurz and the liberal Germans contributed so powerfully. His selection by President Hayes for a cabinet post was
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the natural corollary of his leadership in the Liberal Republican movement. Thereafter he had no public office, nor was his leadership of the liberal Germans so complete at any time after 1881 as it had been for two decades after 1860. Nevertheless he was able in 1884, in the interest of what he deemed essential political morality, to guarantee the defeat of James G. Blaine, an activity which entitled a loss of influence such as the non-partisan usually suffers in a time of rigorous organization. Thereafter he disregarded party ties with almost seeming recklessness; but he at all times, with voice and pen, earnestly supported policies he thought good, and just as earnestly fought those he beleived to be bad. He died May 14, 1906.
This collection of private letters of a distinguished political leader possesss special value for American history and biography, as well as special interest for the general reader. Schurz in his mature years was a charming letter writer and, his dominant interest being politics, his letters constitute a kind of running commentary on the changing political phases of th period through which he lived and wrote. Especially noteworthy are those written during the stirring days of campaigning in 1860, and those which follow the election of Lincoln and extend beyond his inauguration to the outbreak of the Civil War. The letters from Madrid later in 1861, while delightful as affording a glimpse of Spanish scenes and Spanish life, reflect very little of European politics, which of course was treated adequately in his letters to the President and Secretary of State. The letters Schurz addressed to Mrs. Schurz during the war, said by him to have been very full and absolutely continuous, designed to make a complete
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record of his observations at the front, were all lost in a depot fire at Detroit in 1866. We therefore have only a few letters written from the camp—one to his daughter, several to his parents, two to Petrasch. Those he wrote from the South while traveling at President Johnson's request to report on conditions affecting reconstruction, are in this file and they should be read in connection with his famous report.
The translation of the letters, after having been dictated by me, was subjected to a detailed criticism by a professional student and teacher of German. It was then revised by me, and put in form for the press. If the translation shall be judged to possess excellencies, it will owe these in large part to the careful work of Johanna Rossberg Morgan, (Mrs. B. Q. Morgan); to Professor B. Q. Morgan, who supplied the exquisite translation of the poem “Melancholy” and gave aid in other ways; and to Edna Louise Jacobson, whose rare competence in establishing a correct text for the printer
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I have had occasion to compliment in previous publications. For the defects which may remain—and these will doubtless be all too numerous—I alone am to be held responsible, because final decisions on all points were my own.
This volume professes to contain letters of Carl Schurz, yet the reader will find two letters each from his mother and his wife, and one letter from Kinkel to Christian Schurz. The reason for this will probably be apparent. His mother's letters to Schurz in his boyhood shed some light on his path in the years prior to the beginning of the series of Schurz letters. Kinkel's letter to Schurz's father settles positively any question about Carl Schurz's agency in the Kinkel rescue, as Kinkel regarded it. Margarethe Schurz's letter to Carl's parents, written just after her visit to his camp on the Virginia frontier, gives a charming picture of his military life and is included for that reason. For her letter from Bethlehem after the assassination of Lincoln there is of course the double justification that it supplements Schurz's letter to her on the same subject, and that it reveals her own feeling of loyal devotion to the Great Emancipator, a feeling which is doubtless in part the reflection of her husband's attitude and is therefore confirmatory of the views he expressed at various times. Her exclamation, “How glad I am that you served him
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so faithfully!” is a kind of epitome of the universal outpouring of love and loyalty which the news of the tragedy of April 14, 1865, evoked all over the North.
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Your departure today was very hard for me. I shed many tears after you left and have not got myself in
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hand yet. Was it your father's letter which I found yesterday; or is it a presentiment about the future? Dear Carl, you shall want for nothing, not a single thing. You see how hard it is for me when your dear father is a little severe with you. Give us pleasure; let it be your whole purpose to make yourself and us happy. It depends solely on your industry and deportment; you have talent.
That I am still unable to give you definite information about our removal to Bonn is owing to unforeseen
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circumstances. The matter will not be settled until Thursday. There is, however, the greatest probability that we shall spend our best years together. It is superfluous to add how much I rejoice in leaving good old, respectable, stupid Cologne, to live in a romantic region, by your side. With respect to quarters, I would request that you notify me of the best [available?], since it will be necessary for me to be in Bonn before you. If your father should not come to Bonn after Friday or Saturday, we might (with your consent) have the selection of a dwelling, it being understood that it suits you and your family to have us live together. But it would be best if we could have a personal talk about the matter in advance. We all regret that you cannot visit us for a few days during the present vacation. Perhaps this might still be arranged, particularly if I tell you that there is going to be a big hunt on Tuesday or Wednesday. For me to be here alone is so insufferably stupid that I can no longer entertain a reasonable thought. Yet you ask what is doing in poetry! It is gone from me when I am alone, and even when not alone it elude me. I bid you come, and await you most anxiously. Autumnal nature at best disposes to melancholy, and when one is so utterly alone—you can imagine it. I am truly frittering my life away. Still, I believe I am gathering some impressions for the future, so that the days here may not prove quite fruitless. In short, I hope and long for our prospective companionship in Bonn. In regard to your tenth departure I can only pity you.
The worthy brothers Winterschladen are right tiresome subjects, but they send greetings. Let us hope if possible for your early arrival. ... A fine impression
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of my prose style you will derive from this letter. (I am not at all in a writing mood.)
performed. There is something great about a Shakespeare. When a man contemplates the tremendous effect of such a drama upon the hearts and spirits of the auditors, he
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would like to be nothing but a dramatist. The dramatist enjoys his own poetry most of all, even more than the lyric poet, who hears his resounding songs from the lips of the common people. He produces the greatest general effect. If, however, one considers how prodigious the art and its difficulty as compared with one's own powers, one would not want to become a dramatist. Nevertheless, asking pardon for my vanity, I would be one. Whether or not I was born to be one will soon be determined; there will always be time enough to retreat, and the time spent in such effort is never wasted so far as my education is concerned, and it is but the curing of a disease from which otherwise I should have suffered all my life. I shall soon acquaint you more fully with my plans. I have still another dramatic composition of Lord Byron's:
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with plan and purpose. It is singular that we understand least how to portray the character of common people, inasmuch as this remains eternally the same. I believe that you can study the character of men in the lowest middle ages through those of today. Always the same spiritual darkness, the same fanaticism, the same natural wit, the same incompatibility, at least in respect to fundamentals! On the older hand, I do not call it singular that we know how to work out in ourselves the noble and idealistic traits but not the common and deeper-lying. It is peculiarly a trait of the human mind that it can always think itself into regions above its own, but into lower with difficulty or not at all. Therefore, Shakespeare knows so well how to delineate the folk character and folk wit because, until his riper years, he belonged to the lower classes; for it is known that in his youth he was a poacher. That at least contributed to his delightful descriptions, for surely he to whom Nature has sat will paint her more convincingly....
in Bonn suits me not at all. But I can live with my family and there will be many agreeable things there for me; therefore I willingly submit. You asked recently if I was acquainted with Nattmann. Oh, yes, but only in a singular way; we shall soon get into a long dispute during which we are likely to become mutually acquainted. He praises my description and language as (so he told Pütz) distinguished and polished, but he was not content that I had based education and the entire life of the soul upon freedom; in other words, that I present as antagonistic
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to freedom and as strange to humanity all instincts and voices if nature. We shall discuss this more in detail.
I have been sick several days, following which I became frightfully stupid. I can produce nothing sensible any more, and since the Christmas holidays I have made
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but six lines, on which I do not even trust myself to pass judgment. Listen:
What are you really up to? Have you written nothing new? No verses? I address this to your conscience. Take care that you do not become too hard a jurist. What would not I do were I in your circumstances! Among friends of high spirit and force, where everything stimulates and everything helps! And here—I am utterly, utterly alone; only von Weise associates with me. He is the sole one and I have great regard for him; but the time is not propitious, it does not bloom as it did last summer. Then it was quite different. Earlier I placed great hopes in our correspondence; I say earlier, for I have been mistaken; as to the reason,
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ask yourself. I shudder always when I think of my prospective life in Bonn. When we two have just spoken of academic liberty, and I remember that I shall have to learn Latin vocables by rote, or to con a French lesson, that will make a strong contrast in my mind. If that period were only over! One feels so timid; believes oneself not entitled to take a bolder step in the sanctuary of the mind so long as one is a gymnasiast. Could you but hear how Vosen cuts loose on Spinoza, Hegel, and Shelling; it is positively a comedy! Recently he said of me that I might amount to something had I not flung myself in the wrong direction. Honor and praise enough!
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is the original of an attempt to write a distinguished philosophical novel with less than distinguished powers. On account of its attractive philosophy it has had a long lease of popularity, but time will soon stick it under the bench, inasmuch as we demand our philosophy unsugared, and particularly without this sentimental coloring. Throughout this novel there appears an unripe manner; still, were it the work of a young winter, it would justify great hopes.
You bemoan your fate, that it has made unattainable your yearned for and striven for goal—but has it? Pecuniary circumstances cannot hinder you, for you will be docent before being advocate, and perhaps professor before solicitor. You speak of a wasted semester—better lose a semester than a life. It will cost you only words to change your profession and take up what will gratify you, for your father will not require what will cost your life's happiness. You regret bitterly that you have not been able to attain what you have long striven
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for, that you did not at the outset prepare for a different career. But what career?
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) are the best of my poetical writings; this is still my positive conviction. I beg you to read the thing over again. It is inconceivable to me [that you should regard them as you say?]. You recall perhaps that I developed a dramatic plan this winter. I thought the matter over further and met with unconquerable difficulties, so that I came to see that my powers were far too weak for the task, my versatility too little developed, and that I must study much more. For the present, I have put aside all dramatic plans, and doubt exceedingly if I shall ever accomplish anything in that line. I have achieved a degree of clarity respecting myself, and judge my capabilities as promising to make me, in time, a pretty tolerable quill-driver. For, what have I achieved in lyric poetry? Only occasionally, and rarely, did a lyrical poem come to me, about which, too, judgments differed. An epic poem never came to me, and I give up the drama. I see that the productions of
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my youth are altogether like those which escaped the youthful pen of a later novelist. You see that I am despondent, but still not unhappy. I feel on the contrary that I have taken more philosophical direction, for I am laboring earnestly to become clear in my views. Heretofore I only accepted this, rejected that, and not without valid grounds for my action; but I have not yet classified those I accepted and those I rejected. They stand side by side in my mind, but not logically connected. I have not yet made combinations and inferences, which will now keep me busy for some time. The results I shall soon be able to impart to you, if they interest you. You may call it nonsensical and answer it with a shrug, but to me it is not yet a matter of indifference. Do not imagine that I was in any measure influenced to this course by
Recently I read several legends of the Rhineland. You will recall that last summer you promptly condemned poetic legends—I begin to feel that they are the profoundest, most beautiful and real of all poetry. Of course, that depends largely on one's conception of
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it. A legend must not be told like a fairy tale, though as such it may also have its charm. In legendary poetry a high lyric movement unites with an epic interest, not to mention a profound, inexhaustible symbolism. In a legend you find the tenderest heart-clouds touched; you find suggestions of your own most poetical feelings. Let me give you an example—the legend of Roland. Does it lack anything of being true poetry? Nor is it the best selection from among worse specimens; only one of many. What is the charm in most of Uhland's ballads? Precisely this pure, light, and natural conception of the legend, rightly adapted treatment, and the childlike, mediaeval naïvité which is inherent in large measure in the legend itself. Of course there is no thought of the transcription of a “cow legend” (you will recollect), for one does not pick out the very worst, and on the other hand you cannot judge the species from the prosiness of one creation. Also, it goes without saying that the author must do his share.
Last Saturday and Sunday I expected you every moment, but in vain. Did you not come to Cologne at
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all? It would have been very wrong not to visit me. Shrove Tuesday I shall hope at any rate to meet you in Bonn.
You forthwith condemn my striving to gain clearness respecting myself, and remark, a trifle mockingly, that I may give you an account of it when I have finished with it. But what, my wise friend, if I am now finished with it? You say I shall become tired of that thing, but once more you judge from yourself. It amused me very well indeed. I am eager for your views on the subject, but believe that I can anticipate them. I
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understand how you can regard the whole effort as futile, for you have divested yourself of all belief and have then taken the trouble to prove that man does not need to believe. Then have you arrived at a pure indifferentism. But this entire business, particularly the indifferentism, I am obliged to reject. What, indeed, can interest you if you are indifferent to yourself? And are you not indifferent toward myself if you want to be indifferent toward everything of that kind? Whereby it can ba seen that you only wish to be indifferent, but really cannot be. One must have an opinion, and whoever denies this only wants to startle with a phrase. A man must know what he knows and what he believes; he must not believe that he cannot know anything and then still know the contrary.
it. You see the material world around you, but are you certain that it is as you see it? There is no proof, but you believe it on the not evident testimony of your senses. Take the systems of all philosophers and see how far they carry their belief and their knowledge, and we observe that their belief surpasses their knowledge twice over. They even believe what they believe they know, and they often expect in their pupils a belief which sometimes borders on the unbelievable. A
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man has to believe in something in order not to go mad. I trust you will see that. (You now see me on the straightest way to become a Catholic.)
But what shall I believe? Shall I fall back upon the old idolatries? Shall I adapt myself to a system? But how many systems have a claim on me? Almost all there are. All expect great belief of me, the one more and crazier, the other less and more sensible, but all more than I have in myself. A system lies prepared in all human hearts, but these fashion and disfigure it. “There is a God!” my soul proclaims. “There is a God!” says a voice in the cannibal's breast. I see Him smiling sympathetically through the whole creation, call Him Father and love Him. The cannibal merely hears Him thunder, calls Him the thunderer and fears Him. The ancient Greek called Him Zeus, personified His qualities in his nimble fancy, and smiled at Him as a fatherly brother in whom he discovered the transition to self. The Jew prostrated himself before Him and called Him Jehovah, the mighty creator, the ruler of all. The Christian also made himself a God, out of whom fancy and reason created a wondrous monsters—but enough of this! Name me a people that has no god. Name a person who seriously denies Him. The inward voice speaks irrefutably and we believe. Does not a voice in me speak of the immortality of the soul? There is no proof which amounts to a mathematical demonstration. But is not that voice again universal? Name a people which does not believe in a life after death! Various, indeed, yet issuing logically from the nature of the peoples. The Greek loved a beautiful heaven, a thoroughly joyous existence; yet, in his temperate nature, is satisfied to find on the other side the shadow of
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his earthly being. The German was less temperate. His Valhalla was a roystering beer hall where men could contentedly gather to boast, bicker, and fight, but all in greatest felicity. The serious Pythagorean, accustomed to keep in view the goal and purpose of existence, lets his soul wander till, in another state, it becomes what in this it could not be. The Christ unpityingly drags the poor soul around for thousands of years in purifying flames, and he also has a transmigration of souls, which however is not half so aesthetic and delicate as that of Pythagoras. But all live after death, except perhaps a pig let out of Epicurus' herd, which drowned its soul in wine and choked to death in gulping its food. Anyway, it is easy to infer the character of a people from its god and its idea of the future life. Furthermore, the fundamental features of morality are the property of every individual, though variously developed. Everyone has the ten commandments in his own breast, and I cannot think of anything more nonsensical than to compel a child to recite them. This is the revelation which every human being has heard, which everyone can understand because he carries it in his own breast.
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Quantity will not accomplish it; quality will, and by keeping a sharp lookout for quality at the outset the required quantity will also be forthcoming in time and you will have both together in perfect proportion. If, on the other hand, you begin by considering quantity, which is the easier way, there will in the long run be no thought of quality, and sooner or later the whole business will go to the dogs. We have living examples of this. I believe that in its beginning your society was far abler: first, because some outstanding men have gone away; and second, because less able ones were taken in. You answer, they are talented in their way. Of what man, rather of what educated man, is that not more or less true? We must not be able to detect too great contrasts among the members of the society.
You will doubtless say that I do not know your men. True, not minutely, still sufficiently to be able to pass a general judgment upon their intellectual worth. For the rest, your group suits me very well, and when I come to the university I shall not delay about joining provided my financial circumstances shall in anywise allow it, and you will have me—about which there will certainly be serious question inasmuch as I have really done nothing as yet to become better acquainted with your men. Yet, have patience; I will behave better next time. According to habit, I observed silence on principle, at least at times. I am well aware that this cannot wholly please you, that it may on occasion cause you some ridicule, as was certainly the case with Overbeck, to whom you probably cracked me up considerably without considering that in the beginning at least he might feel himself deceived. You will, however, excuse me if I assure you that I conduct myself in such a clumsy manner in
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order not to compromise you and myself still more through foolishness. I had much rather be thought awkward than insignificant, and to a sound question I had rather give no answer than a sickly one. Meanwhile you are quite right in calling me “loquax.” But take care lest all too soon I fall into the opposite extreme.
In the night the battalions were attacked with stones. They divided into detachments which scattered through the streets, a part of them holding the market place. Now began such sharp encounters in various places, despite the bayonet attacks upon the mob, that a picket of dragoons had to be called from Deutz. These indeed did not come to the market place, but forcibly cleared the high streets as far as my house and carried on villainously. A number of quiet citizens were severely wounded by them. About twelve o'clock I lay in the window, saw entire households of refugees, among them wounded persons, and heard the loud huzzas of the dragoons as they charged into the unarmed crowds. The
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police and several companies of the Sixteenth Regiment raged in the market place. One man died there as a result of wounds inflicted by the soldiers' bayonets. He had a terrible wound at the back of his head, probably from saber cuts, and many bayonet pricks in stomach and breast. He died on the hall floor in the home of one of my acquaintances. The tumult continued until daylight. A large number of houses were demolished and in many places the pavement showed prominent traces of blood. Besides the death mentioned, there are said to be five persons in the hospital and several in their homes who are lying mortally wounded. I have heard of three deaths already. Of seriously wounded there are twenty-two in the hospital. Many soldiers are supposed to have received wounds. I spoke to a surgeon who counted six wounded in his company. Also, a malicious brickbat is said to have come into most ungentle contact with the tender bosom of a young second lieutenant. Probably the higher officials regarded the matter in a serious light, for in the night there was quite a reinforced guard at the armory.
Yesterday the citizens were in an extremely irritated mood. An extra paper from the government appeared in the morning apologizing for their interference and exhorting the citizens to quiet. In the morning there was a big mass-meeting in the courthouse plaza. Many speeches were made by the leading men of Cologne. Franz Raveaux acted as chairman. The crowd was asked not to let the matter rest, but to report at once in the proper quarter concerning details. A tremendous volume of complaints is said to have flowed in already. Toward noon a second sheet appeared which was of much more moderate character. In the afternoon a citizens' guard was organized and the assembled militia
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received the order not to leave their barracks after eight o'clock. The town was tremendously animated, as at carnival; the citizens' guard patrolled the streets and maintained order among the crowded masses, but could not protect Count Canitz against some cat-music and the burgomeister living opposite from a thunderous “Hoch.” No red collar was to be seen, and only three volunteers who did not instantly heed the order of the citizens' guard to leave the market place at once were promptly arrested and removed. The night passed in perfect quiet after all. Today again two extras appeared, one of which invited to a ceremonious burial of the man who fell in the market place, the other praising the citizens for their peaceful disposition; and therewith the “Revolution in Cologne” came to its gentle end. Excesses are said to have occurred at Bonn also. Various things have been told about them.
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von Weise was here recently, but unfortunately did not see me because I was still in Liblar. But he is going to visit me on his return from Coblenz, on which occasion, if it can be brought about, I shall make him acquainted with Overbeck. My companionship with Overbeck was unfortunately interrupted by my visit to Liblar, although a good beginning appeared to have been made. As yet we are unable, I believe, to get very close to each other, and I doubt if we shall be able to do so soon. Yet it is possible that the fault lies in me. Shall I lay aside my “loquacity” with him? Perhaps I talk too little to suit him? When I am able to talk
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more, I shall talk more, and that time will doubtless come. He works industriously; visited Schirrmacher, who at the beginning of the vacation left for St. Goarshausen; for a couple of days just now, to his great vexation, he is accompanying a Hamburg visitor on walks. By the way, of your men those who are here now are Heim, Speltz, Privatdocent,
We have expected you all this week without seeing anything of you. Time drags heavily and the vacation is somewhat tiresome. For three or four days Overbeck
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took a young Hamburger walking, whom because of his loss of time he would have wished to the devil. He has only just returned to his work. His journey to see Schirrmacher he accomplished before I returned from my visit in Liblar. After him Privatdocent was there and he returned only last week. They say Schirrmacher will return today. The Omnibus is pretty well filled. Count Reichenbach has also arrived. Ph. Schwartz comes regularly to be joshed by Privatdocent about Schleswig-Holstein. Speltz, who generally holds his own against the Privatdocent with his jokes, was incarcerated last evening for three days. The financial depression, now general, is felt here also to such a degree that perhaps not a dollar could be extracted from the whole crowd, with the exception of Speltz and Grimm. In the Omnibus tin money is being resorted to, which, as it seems, on account of its unsuspicious appearance is handled pretty freely. Heim is accustomed, as has been at times observed, to inquire urgently the price of the punch before taking the first draught. There are, besides, two unknown Allemanians, three Fredericians (with Schwartz and Schmidt) and the little astronomer Schmidt to be encountered pretty regularly in the Omnibus.
A peculiar title, yet no more peculiar than the letters themselves.
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Enclosed is the first as a sample—inasmuch as we must not and cannot meddle with such absurdities during your visit. I chose this name because, on the one hand, names are very indifferent in that connection, and on the other because the finest sounding names are best. That they are borrowed from Schiller's philosophical letters is of no importance. This first letter may serve as representative of the lot, which is a long way from being completed and may possibly never be.
I am sorry you are not yet cured, particularly since I can easily gather, from the short but significant words
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in your letter—“loafing,” “coffee,” “new wine”—how splendidly you are dieting. Now I hardly pity you much unless for the reason that you are trying to get Schwentzer to join the organization. I have no judgment concerning this young man, since it would be regarded by you as exaggerated and I want to wean myself of that fault. Only I should like to watch your fencing from afar.
About my own circumstances I have very little to say, for they are the usual ones which you know. The examination affair does not yet look better to me, although I can say nothing certain about it. But I must admit that of late I do not wish so very much for all these feelings. The business is made difficult every year, as I learn from very confidential conversations and
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reports from Pütz, and I almost believe that despite all pains I shall not succeed. I beg you not on any account to reveal anything about this to my father or put any idea in his head, so that he may not by an unseasonable interference being to naught that which I have begun.
At last I find opportunity to set forth coherently my thoughts concerning a matter much discussed between us, without being interrupted by your holy zeal for your good cause. For it concerns our talk about the scholarship of the fraternity: how far it exists, how far it may be required, and how far it is actually required. You chose, in regard to this matter, to put words in my mouth which I never thought of, and then to laugh at them at manifesting “senility.” I formerly asserted the following and still do. What I understand by the scholarship of a society is the scholarly development of its
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members among themselves through their association and otherwise. You say the scholarly tendency requires no particular representation since it is represented in the members themselves. Good! Then it must be so represented, and in all members without exception, for only so will it have found representation in the society. If it does so, well and good; if not, then it is bad: for the society as a whole is not living up to its ideals; is therefore not that which it should be nor that which it boasts of wishing to be. By scholarship in the case of the individual member I understand not merely sociability but rather that he should possess a sufficient basis for knowing something, and that he should actually know something, and not merely something ordinary. For what else is scholarliness? In the end it does not take much to be a pleasant loafer and popular student and at the same time to be practical. But it takes a great deal to be a useful and all-round member of the fraternity. I am far from affirming that, outside of scholarly mutual furtherance, the association should not have other pleasant features. But a much more delightful one it certainly has not, and there ought to be no member in the society to whom scholarly development and the interests connected therewith are so remote that the opportunities for this could by any possibility easily be shifted to other and shallower things. It means simply that the society as a whole must not let itself be influenced by those members who merely fill out the numbers. You would not let your society come to grief by prating of names the reality of which it does not possess. I trust you will not find these ideas as crass as those you assigned to me. I have even been convinced by you that the convivial gatherings cannot be made and
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must not be made very different from what they are; only that the individual member must not deny by his conduct the more serious side of the association's being. I perceive that the scholarly gatherings, as they were, cannot last; that they were the outward representations of an inner tendency; but, with these outward representations of an inner must not also be sacrificed. Nor do I demand, as you say I do, that all members must be geniuses, but assuredly they should all be men—every inch of them. Do you not demand that, too? I surely hope you do.
We shall hardly see each other again before Christmas.
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Till then, therefore, accept a brotherly handclasp from your friend (And faithful freshman
Your assumption that our life in Bonn must be frightfully colorless and quiet is so accurate and pat that I would even call it boresome. Your hope that through it I might, by means of our “involuntary daily contact” with Overbeck, come into better relations with him is unfortunately futile, and your suggestion that such a consummation be attempted through friendly overtures on my side has been carried out more completely but also probably more fruitlessly than you might suppose. Our daily contact is also actually as
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involuntary and feckless as possible, for it lasts at most the few minutes in which I go to the market. I do not remember ever to have encountered Overbeck in any other than a friendly manner, barring the few maliciousnesses I pumped into him through my beer newspaper. However, if such a difficulty remains, even though quite without cause, I should rather not be troublesome or intrusive to the man, preferring to leave the matter as it stands. I do not know—I am not exactly the person for this business.
Overbeck's zeal for the affairs of the association is worthy of all recognition, and I certainly would not wish to assign the entire “hearty enthusiasm” to mere ambition even though this, as you yourself assert, has a considerable part in it. What you write about your criterion is all very fine, only thanks to my insatiable nature I am not quite satisfied to have the men show their heartiness, etc. only in the society. Meantime, as stated above, I have made efforts to get closer to Overbeck, but these efforts unfortunately turned out badly for the most part, so that I do not feel in the least degree comfortable with him. It is not possible for me to trouble myself about Overbeck, though I cannot tell you, in concise form, why this is so. If you desire to see pleasanter relations between us you had better go to him; for from my side, on account of my unfortunate personality, little can be hoped. Overbeck's moral and scholarly standpoint may as much be exalted over my own as he pleases; he does not stand so high, nor is my respect for him so unmeasured, that I would not be willing to give way to him in the slightest degree, particularly since I do not even know what he thinks on this point. This much is certain, that his judgment concerning me may be to me
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quite as indifferent as my judgment concerning him would be to him, and that I would sooner give Overbeck a malicious than an artful word. That sounds spiteful, but fundamentally there is nothing to it; for I have good will toward all men if only their praiseworthy qualities present themselves in such a way as to enable one to forget their disagreeable ones. If you have so much influence with Overbeck that you can move him to exhibit himself to me from his better side, that would be the more agreeable to me because our present concealed animosity (at least on my side) might in future tend to become uncomfortable—a condition I would be so glad to obviate that I herewith give you the following assurance: I shall not enter the association so long as I stand in uncomfortable relations with one of its most distinguished members, even though I should never get in; which would be so unpleasant to me, owing to my feeling of attachment for some of its men, that I would easily overlook any little discomfort which might ensue from the undistinguished part of the society. You see therefore how delightful to me in general a pleasant relationship would be and also how delightful it would be if J. A. Overbeck would condescend to me, for
As to Speltz, I must say, to my deep regret, that I have not established any kind of relations with him. You recall that you once told me, on the occasion of the beer newspaper, that Speltz was enthusiastic over me. That must not have gone very far. I have never doubted that he is an uncommon man, but I should like to know him from another angle than the habitual obtrusively
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juristic. You say I ought to attach myself to him as much as possible. How can one do that? I do not like to impose myself on the man unbidden.
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soon recover myself and proceed with it. Still, certain discomforts do not quite leave me after such reflection, and unfortunately I have no criterion to which I could go, yourself not excluded, so that at the conclusion the work is become a totally different one. I am sorry not to be able to give you some account of the whole, because this could not be done without excessive diffuseness. Still I beg you to give me as accurate a judgment as you can on the central idea of the edition (which you have seen), apart from all defects of form and treatment. You will probably recall the matter clearly enough. The thing interests me to insanity, and I have got it into my head that it must become either a perfectly crazy performance or else a bungling work of genius. I see you laugh, but it does not effect me. Aside form this I have written little, having worked myself so deeply into this subject, which has gained a fearful hold on my mind.
Concerning the incivilities you were pleased to direct to me toward the end of your letter, I find them perfectly agreeable but quite without influence upon me. Good God! Why not leave me in my sphere? You have judged quite falsely of my attitude toward Overbeck, which I regret the more keenly that motives, etc. are assigned to me of which I should have to be ashamed. I want simply to say in reply that Overbeck is just the type of man who, in a friendly relationship, could be quite indifferent to me if I were not likely to have to live with him. And yet I have not abandoned my hopes for the future because it must even be so. That I am the cause of his being angry with you twice for twenty-four hours pains me deeply, for I do not want to rob anyone of his friends; but all the because this might serve
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me as an argument against Overbeck. You say you are going to show him his baseness “orally and in writing.” But I pray you, for God's sake, don't too many words have been wasted over his matter already.
to make an excursion
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hither. “What I do not want to do I do not do, just because I do not want to do it. In this case there is no necessity so compelling as to bend a will, provided it be a true will. One can let himself be coerced by circumstances. A firm will does not permit itself to be coerced, and accidents are precisely the fire tests of the will.”
You will think that in the above treatment of a special case I have involved myself in vague unmeaning
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phrases, and this may to a certain extent be true—I am really but little concerned about a special refutation of your statement, but simply want to indicate to you the standpoint from which I am inclined to view such matters. Yet we shall be able to come to a clearer understanding of it in direct conversation.
You see, my friend, that I am frank. I do not know whether you will thank me for it, but I hope in any event, as we have said and wished from the first, that in this connection our friendship may not be a common and vulgar one. I cannot believe you want to be deceived
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by me, and you will recognize that I am your defender against others, your accuser to yourself. I trust in your noble-mindedness.
up to a certain turning point, which for you would be the coming fall vacation.
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I do not doubt that you have sufficient cause for interrupting your studies, but I believe it my duty to add than an absence of three months involves, according to present statutes, exmatriculation unless one can show proper cause for the interruption. If you can offer sound excuses, or should important changes in the student statutes in this respect take place within a short time, such as interruption would of course not be of much consequence from this point of view; and, aside from assuring you how sorry I am to see you drop so suddenly from our midst and from your proposed career, I will say no word further against your proposal because I cannot know what private circumstances have caused your change of plans. You may be firmly assured of having in me a sympathetic friend who can be as little influenced by untoward things to draw away from you as he can be attracted to you by success. May these latter considerations have remained inapplicable to the case.
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Overbeck will have to be very careful or he will sink. I promise you more detailed explanations in a couple of days, for I am just now busy preparing a
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proposal for this afternoon and it demands my whole time. Franconia has temporarily opened its doors to “social work.”
At last I have received in conjuring the elusive spirit of letter writing and the first thing I must do is to excuse myself for my irresponsible silence. Dear boy, your friend has become a fearfully overburdened man. The disturbed times have operated powerfully upon him; and further, with my responsiveness, their continued influence could not possibly turn to my advantage in pleasant ways. Our public life is exceptionally interesting and it occupies me the more since, from the beginning of this semester, a lively participation in it has pushed me far into the foreground, made me indeed a public character—which certainly carried with it satisfaction but likewise much inconvenience. The universal recognition that since the departure of our deputies to the Wartburg I have become provisional president of the student union, to remain such until the appointment of a definite directory, of course has for a young man of my ambition very much incitement. But all these things detract powerfully from my agreeable home and scholarly life, which I began to consolidate at the beginning of the previous semester. But—good God, who defends himself against the Devil when he comes in so flattering a disguise and—honestly, I have no regret about it because in this public business you acquire
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many a delightful bit of knowledge; and besides, on the personal side, I may perhaps be able to make a competent fellow of myself. Besides, the cause itself is extraordinarily interesting and of the highest significance; so that I do not understand how so many of our fellow students can be so exceedingly indifferent about it. The disposition of the matters coming before us, the mass of diverse plans before our eyes, the strangest considerations, as they criss-cross incessantly lead the mind to many a new philosophical viewpoint, and you obtain a clearer idea how inconceivably wide is the horizon of human activity if we could practically commit individual integral parts to a finer organization.
The union between us and the men of the corps goes forward fabulously, and I now see with great satisfaction how superfluous were all my plans of war and destruction which, at the beginning of the semester, my evil-boding soul conceived against the other party. In the elections, etc. the corps men are very just, and it is curious that I myself, who in the first assemblies roused
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much of the opposition to them, am now sure of a large number of votes among them. Since I have had occasion in my official relations to come into pretty close associations with some of the corps leaders in the discussion of our differences of principle and their issues, I often hear such strikingly sensible and liberal expressions, that my reason not infrequently seems to stand still in contemplating the decisive influence of a couple of momentous months. Ernthausen, for example, has suddenly gone so far in his liberalism that he promises to exceed all of us in radicalism. As to our political views and policies, we head fellows are all and sundry sworn republicans, but all in moderation and with deliberation. Our people of the Wartburg delegation have been back here for several days. They have done and arranged a great many things and, without exception, in those few days they adopted a strong and firm policy.
Dear fellow, this official life goes on with such fresh joyousness that one feels good in it, but gets intoxicated with it; but at home—well, you unfortunately know how
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it is—and our future still lies before us so gray, as if we had never had a past at all. In spite of this, however, I have preserved a comparatively fresh spirit, and if I have to censure myself occasionally for frivolity, still I rejoice inwardly over the cheery humor with which I select the individual good, however rare, out of the mass of evil. Where it all may lead to—my dear boy, I do not know. But I have always looked to something better than being a newspaper man. That I live here in the midst of most glorious natural scenery is a great good fortune and often dampens wretched doubts and base unrest when at times I am not strong enough to bear them with firm manhood. It may sound ridiculous, but it is true—we [you and I] have had a rich youth, not indeed as respects earthly possessions, but rich in change, rich in prospects, in points of view, in inner struggles and victories. Should we sometime get the benefit of this youth, we shall have raised ourselves for all time above the week and commonplace, since we have already been able to view and organize with the perfected experience of manhood, some, nay many, things with which Children of Fortune are still having to make desperate experiments.
Is it a certainty, then, that you are joining the warriors? That is a serious decision and I prefer to be silent about it in order that I may not bother and burden you with needless doubts. Franconia still continues as a “social fraternity.” We might have taken in the freshmen by the dozens, but let many of them go. We are really the pleasantest people in all Bonn, and I must say I have never felt so satisfied in a society as now. Over-beck has withdrawn from the fraternity. He has forsaken student life to devote himself to his doctorate.
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Unless I err, he will feel happier. Inasmuch as I have become an “older member,” as August Wagner puts it, I have taken a far [
You will not have failed to observe how political happenings have acquired the most intense interest. Neither will you have failed to observe that we approach distinctly nearer to the tremendous explosion of a universal popular revolution than at any time since the world-historical vote on the armistice. The bow is
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stretched and only awaits the moment when a hand shall loose the fateful cord and speed the deadly arrow to the breast of the foe, whether an accident or a premeditated incident announce the moment for the explosion.
It is superfluous for me to say how much good your letter did me. For, let me say it, you left me here not quite without a sense of injury. I was not quite proof against your aspersions (pardon the word), which troubled and lacerated me on precisely that side on which I least want to be misunderstood. Permit me
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the remark that by this method you will not convert anyone, but you will embitter every sensitive soul. But why speak further of anger when I see so clearly that your will, your brotherly partiality, remain the same as before? And have I not to ask indulgence the same as you? Dear Theodore, I am glad we have at last, in our letter-writing, come to speak of that evening in the garden at Neusser's. I have wanted to entreat you, earnestly, not to take seriously words the utterance of which at such a time and occasion even my lightest sense of propriety would have prevented. And you took it as my “judgment”? I have respect for every conviction as soon as I know it to be an honest one, and would never oppose it with extrinsic personalities. Shall I cover this with examples? Why did I say nothing about your complaint when you were here? I expected later to conquer you with reasons, not to outdo you with tirades. Or do you really believe that your announced views, of which I might cite a number to your great annoyance, would have frightened me less than you were frightened by that windy report concerning my political status and activity here? You spoke most excitedly about my political vehemence, and I bore it very quietly even when your words often unintentionally struck me, as well as the truth, squarely in the face. Passion, however, is intolerant and quiet patience will not serve, when the means of resistance and answer lie so ready at hand.
But let me come to what is the real purpose of these lines. I rejoice over your early return; but I pray you let us not draw into our conversation what tends to tear us apart, when we can and should mutually take delight in our good spirits. Let us keep to our agreement to write about everything that requires a deep and calm
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conversation. I beg of you, do not embitter my righteous joy in the pleasing consciousness that a bond of affection is not to be shattered upon a difference of opinion which deserves and must demand respect on both sides. Let us prove that we are not reckless boys and that we know what it means to show proper respect for honest opinion. There was a time when we regarded ourselves as noble; our faith in each other cannot have suffered shipwreck, and on that I base my confidence. And now farewell, hoping for an early and more cordial meeting.
I really expected it would not be possible for you to be responsible for the daily handling of the Austrian news. I cannot quite understand how you get time for
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your other numerous labors.
Permit me at this opportunity to give you my views on what I conceive to be the necessary character of our newspaper. It cannot be the policy of our little sheet to dish up to the public political news with great speed, or even without any delay. In this respect it is impossible for us to meet the competition of most of the bigger papers. A scramble for news or a motley accumulation of varied news reports in our limited columns does not seem to me to be admissible. We must rather seek our peculiar strength in this—that we examine and illuminate all facts and conditions from a consistently maintained party standpoint, thus introducing into our paper an essentially rationalistic element, which of course can be closely interwoven with the narration of events. This necessity has become even more sharply manifest since your election to the chamber. Since you, in whose name the newspaper is edited, through your entrance into an extensive field of activity have risen to a much higher
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plane of political significance, nothing is more natural than that you should lift the newspaper to the same plane and make it your personal and party organ, a thing which everyone has expected and will expect. Such a party factor it does not seem to me the paper has hitherto been, since it has, to be sure, kept alive your relations with the circle of your partisans, but has confined itself rather too narrowly to those relations. Does it not seem to you suitable that you should write rather extensive leading articles, upon more abstract subjects, upon matters under debate, upon the operation and attitude of the parties, upon the activities of the sections, upon the relation of the chambers to one another and to the crown, etc., etc.? I believe this might comport so much the better with the space limits of our journal and with your restricted working time, that you can shorten correspondingly the reports of the debates, which command permanent interest, after all, only if aphoristically treated. This would, in my view, carry the paper beyond the sphere of your former influence and make it a necessity in many political groups.
A second point is intimately connected with the above. The paper must get rid of its local character. All the time I have been conducting the journal in your stead this has been my constant effort; I have discussed no city affairs, no striking personalities, unless they had an obvious relation to some question of principle, and it is this characteristic which has won much praise and many subscribers for the paper. During the next quarter I hope for a considerable increase in the circle of subscribers, and this expansion would, in my opinion, be still greater if we were to publish as a concluding feature a series of articles from you as was indicated above.
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Your articles are fairly devoured, and our readers have certainly missed long and painfully the Kinkel “bell-wethers” at the top of the sheet. You cannot imagine what a sensation your
Concerning our party and other things I will write you soon and at length, if agreeable to you. I rejoice greatly that you will offer the resolution proposing the
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removal of academic jurisdiction. The Kappenheim affair has greatly intensified the zeal of our student body in relation to these matters. I can promise you a mass of petitions for the beginning of the next semester. The whole agitation is rather completely under my control and I shall know how to turn my influence to account. I have become a dreaded person to the university senate, especially since on the occasion of the banquet I spoiled their fun and wriggled out like a serpent. Rector and university court, according to their own statements, presuppose exceptional judicial knowledge on my part, which is the more gratifying to me inasmuch as they dropped a very dangerous charge against me which they believed themselves unable to sustain. The agitation is permanent here, and Bonn is the most unquiet city on the Rhine.
In great haste I am writing you, since I find myself in a tremendous difficulty. A considerable time ago I handed in the required evidences in regard to my one-year [military] service to the proper department's board of examiners without hitherto receiving any answer, much less the notice to volunteer. Since, by way of exception, the levy has already been in progress for eight days, because my papers had not arrived I was drafted, when naturally, after qualifying for any branch of military service, all else remained in suspense. On April 8 occurs the general muster, when the recruits are
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to be placed in the appropriate branches of the army. If by that time I shall not have my volunteering notice, or some other written evidence of having sent in my attestations at the proper time, I fear they will take great pleasure in sticking me into the infantry for a couple of years—especially since I have become
I am greatly obliged to you for your prompt reply. Unfortunately I must point out to you that simultaneously with my letter to you a dunning letter went off to the board of examiners quite in the manner indicated by you. It is the third one—and still no answer. From this it looks to me as if a new letter would prove as fruitless
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as the old. In giving me your advice you did not know of this circumstance and hence could not take it into account. Should it nevertheless appear to you effective to have recourse to writing once more, let me know—if possible, immediately. On the other hand, should it seem possible for me personally and orally to accomplish something with the commission concerned, I would come to Cologne during the next few days, although it is hard for me to get away.
I know how sorely I have injured you. I know the hopes you built on me, the pain of disillusionment which must be rending you. My dear ones! I would stand before you as a penitent, did not the proud consciousness
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of having offered up to you my future, my whole life, my principles forbid me to bow my head. Have I been one to chase after distractions? Have any of the baser motives impelled to overhasty action? Or have I been a reckless youth who, without reflection and good sense, followed a momentary impulse or childish ambition? This last thought weights upon my heart and I have often considered it when, during this siege, a sorrowful lonesomeness permitted quiet meditation. But, see! Now I face the day of decision; now the time has come when I shall have to die for my principles or be subjected to lifelong imprisonment. This moment finds me quiet and self-contained—like a man. At this moment, which in its devastating reality banishes every romantic illusion, the pleasant consciousness that I have done my duty with spirit and honor becomes doubly clear. I have never been prouder than now, for I know I have never had more right to be.
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I never flinched before the rain of enemy bullets through fear or because it drove me back. And though all of these fights proved futile I, and many others with me, saved our honor from the mockery and revilings of those who are our adversaries.
I forgot to indicate precisely the moment in which this letter is being penned. Our scouts returned this evening; they report simply that we are lost. Our army was destroyed several days ago; the Prussians, provided with all the equipment for a siege, are assembling great masses of troops about the city. It would be madness to try to hold the fortress longer. So we have the
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choice of two alternatives; either to cut our way through to the Rhine and thence to France, which is hardly possible; or, what is all but certain to be done, surrender the fort. All captured Prussians will be subject to martial law and, according to overwhelming probability, will suffer the penalty of death. Among these am I. When you read this letter I shall perhaps already be counted among the dead. Possibly I may be thrown into captivity which can be broken only by great events. I write this is cold blood because I am master of myself. I trust you will be the same when you read these lines.—And yet, when I think that I shall see you no more, you loved ones; you, who have given me so much affection, from whom my heart can only sever itself bleeding, my eyes seek to give way and I could cry like a child—but I must not weep now, for I stand in the presence of death.—I cannot offer you a word of consolation; it would be superfluous, for I hope it will be consolation enough for you to have the assurance that in life as in death I have been worthy to be your son.
Through a paper that the Prussians have sent in here I learn that Kinkel was sentenced to death at
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Karlsruhe by the military court. I know he can die like a man, because he has lived like one. If I could say the same of myself to the same extent, I should at this moment carry my head higher. But I am happy that weakness is as remote from me as cowardice; that I endure, with steadfast heart, the blows of misfortune and my own thoughts. Farewell! on the day of capitulation!
It is as yet uncertain what the next hour will bring us, but there are only two alternatives which agitate my imagination—death or permanent incarceration. The two facts that I am a Prussian and a political offender leave me no hopes beyond these alternatives. With serene spirit I face my fate, and desire still with calm clarity to cast a glance back over the delightful past out of which your images move so lifelike before my
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spiritual eyes. When I traveled from St. Goarshausen into the Palatinate, Wessel said to me in his dry manner: “Say, it would be fine if you were shot there; for it is interesting to be able to say that a good acquaintance went down in this or that affair.” I laughed over the remark at the time, but today it comes back to me in a wondrous way. And does it not contain much, very much significance? Of the hundreds with whom I was acquainted, will not the great majority on learning of my death say with a shrug of the shoulder: “Too bad about him; he had fine talent, but he was over-eager and excitable. He might have become an able man”? And so the thing is ended and the young soul, with all his good will, his warmth, his self-sacrifice, is forgotten.
Why? Because the majority do not know for what he sacrificed himself; and what he would have gained by his sacrifice if all had made the same sacrifice. It is easy for me to become reconciled to this thought because I can see that the majority are right. It is utility which rules all conditions, and my unselfishness is only then deserving of recognition when it turns out to the manifest advantage of others. I have done nothing to be remembered for, hence there is nothing more natural than that I should be forgotten. See the program of my ambitions before my end. I know that some of you have considered my ambition excessive and exclusive. I see that clearly in the moment when I am prepared to step out of myself and have a right to pass judgment on my past. It is true, I did not want to be second where I could be first; I did not want to serve where I understood how to command. But subordination under superiority has never come hard for me, and I have never denied recognition to superior power whenever I have
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found it. And yet I do not deny that I should have been ruined had I remained longer in those conditions. There was in me a certain untameableness which was bound to lead me to tyranny. The feeling of superiority in some things would have made me forget my limitations, and the words of those who, without knowledge or desire, would have caused me rather to overlook than to improve my own faults. I was on the way to become an intolerant person—indeed, should long since have become such had not a certain natural shyness which, by the way, I was most anxious to throw off, kept me by force on the right track.
Then I did a ridiculous thing which at the same time involved an act of treason; this marks a break in my life course. I went into the Palatinate, where I observed an agitation which quickly illustrated with sufficient clearness what demands a revolution makes on the man who hopes to play a rôle therein. I joined a group of men whose names were much spoken in Germany. It was not difficult to appreciate the superiority of some, the undistinguished powers of those; to learn and recognize that the fame of being a political notability by no means signifies a high grade of political ability and may be achieved at slight cost. The spectacle of all that had to be done in the Palatine revolution to assure it of even the appearance of a hoped-for success; the spectacle of an inefficient provisional government, soon caused me to ask myself whether I really would have had this or that idea or whether I would have been able to set it forth had a rôle in this drama fallen to me. I then quickly recognize that a lack of knowledge and experience branded me as an undistinguished individual whose present might well be exploited even though his future were
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lost. I chose, with steadfast resignation toward other offers, a quiet, contemplative position which might yield me a pretty deep and clear view into all groups and all conditions without imposing a responsibility which in my want of self-confidence might have become oppressive. So I traversed the revolution as a nature student traverses a mountain range, not without danger but without weariness. I have learned in these few months more, a thousand times more, than if fate had left me behind to my apparently independent but in fact illusory activities in our university city.
For the last time our drums are beating in the streets; for the last time I put on belt and sword in order to surrender to the enemy. ‘Tis time to bid you farewell. It is childish in me, yet now it pains me to think that at the time of my flight I did not even take leave of you.
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So then, farewell. To hope for a reunion would be folly. Remember occasionally a friend who pledged his life for the realization of an idea before the knew the means of achievement; whose greatest sin it was, contrary to his own theory, to be too regardless of egoism. Again, farewell.
Now let us speak of the cares of life. I am here in a Swiss village, near Basel. My money resources, because I was able to save little from Rastatt, are so small that I shall not be able to live on them three days. True,
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I have my diary, with great regularity and in extended manner and which I want to have printed. However, until after a necessary revision and until I can get it into a publisher's hand, at least one or two weeks must elapse, and even then it is very questionable that I shall receive money in hand at once. I ask nothing from you, for I know that I can suffer better than you. But this request I make: Ask of Frau Erbschlöh, or elsewhere, if someone may be disposed to support me up to the moment that I can sell my diary. I would then go to French Switzerland, probably to Geneva, to continue my studies and incidentally to learn to speak French fluently. I would have remained in France had the refugees dared to stop in Paris or near the boundaries. As I am in dire want of many things highly necessary to life, sums up to twenty-five or thirty thalers will be needed for procuring them—particularly as I do not dare remain here but shall be compelled to emigrate. No refugee may remain nearer the boundary than eight hours; so, should my tour to Geneva be long deferred, I would risk being arrested by the police, and set over the boundary or locked up, a result which might prove highly inconvenient. To this first request I join a second. Should it be possible, under a description (which fits me pretty well) with an assumed beloved name, to get me a passport it would have a special advantage for me. I should be able then to remain not only upon the French or Belgian frontier, but as near as possible to my home—even in the immediate neighborhood of Bonn—without the danger of being discovered. That this would prove of special advantage goes without saying. Anyway, I could stay in Paris, which would be most desirable from the point of view of my education. The
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only difficulty now is to pass the frontiers without being arrested, which is no small trick in the present watchful attitude of the police. As aforesaid, the passport may bear whatever name your choose—however, the description must fit me as closely as possible. If both these requests meet with a happy fulfillment, I hope to improve the duration of my banishment by the most useful and diversified employment possible.
Concerning the manner in which you are to send the money and the passport you may confer with some of my friends whom I shall designate. They will perhaps be able to put the proper means in your hand. Ask Sulzbach if he cares to published my diary. It will make about
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two hundred pages and contains, on the subject of the Baden revolution and especially the surrender of Rastatt, very important and authentic information which I was able to give because I was always in immediate contact with the commandant. Tell him that I am asking 2
I sit here, still a state of deathly exhaustion from my superhuman exertions in Rastatt, and labor incessantly upon the editing of my diary. I have learned to know life from new angles and shall know how to make that knowledge useful to myself. Just a little more help and I am wholly saved. I know that I shall not perish in the slime of idleness in which most of the refugees here are sinking. My intellectual needs guarantee my intellectual activity, and I feel clearly that I have gained more than I have lost in these last days. Nothing is yet lost! Therefore, courage and activity! No doubt one of my friends will write me. You can combine you letter with his. Once more I beg you to raise and send me the money at once, as quickly as possible—only do not tap your own resources. Do not write me under my true name, but at the following address: Mr. Gustav Stahl,
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in Hotel Zur Krone, Dornachbruck near Basel, Canton Solothurn. Write soon. I am waiting with feverish longing. Heartiest greeting to all.
the matter disquiets me greatly. I trust nothing has happened to him
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while seeking and not finding me. Had he only known my place of refuge, he might have been with me in Dornachbruck in less than a day. Answer about this
I have rented a good, cheap, and simple room here in a village not two hundred paces from Zürich. My windows open upon the lake nd the ice-covered mountains, and it is but a few steps to the top of a hill whence one can enjoy the grandest and most sublime of all views. I shall write you later how beautiful if is here—just now the spirit urges me to write of other things. Were you really without news of any kind about me during that whole long period? Your last letter I received through Anneke's wife the very day we were marched out of Kaiserslautern. And for that day forth I had to be in the saddle day and night, on marches and bivouacs, constantly near the enemy, and finding not a moment of leisure which would have enabled me to write, much as I longed to do so, aside from the few hours for sleeping granted me now and then. Finally, two days after the battle at Bruchsal, on the twenty-fifth of June, I went to Offenburg for the purpose of rendering myself fit for service as quickly as possible. While attending to my wound there I wrote you on the twenty-fifth of June and asked the innkeeper on the twenty-sixth to send it through France; and on the morning of the twenty-seventh, having been roughly put in shape, I had return to headquarters, which had then been established in Rastatt. Did you not receive this letter of June 25 written from Offenburg? It was the last
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one I wrote, for as soon as Rastatt was invested it was no longer possible to think of writing letters.
My friends have collected so much money for me that, for the present, I can live and labor in security. There is little lacking, particularly since I have the hope
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of recovering, at least in part, the things I took with me from home and which got out of my hand at the time of the withdrawal of the headquarters from Rastatt. I need only some shirts, say three or four, handkerchiefs, and a neckerchief. These things are very dear here, and I do not know if it would be more advantageous for you to buy them there and send them to me than for me to buy them here. The latter course would exhaust my means considerably. If you decide in favor of the former, buy one only colored shirts. I learned in the campaign how good and practical these are.
For the second time and momentarily in expectation of a letter from you, I am writing from this beautiful, wholesome, for me so lonesome, Zürich. I am writing merely because I do not want to let Strodtmann leave without utilizing the excellent opportunity of talking
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with you. I feel that I can here carry on a life full of lonely activity. Already, since the joyful greetings are over, I have renounced most of the acquaintanceships established during recent months. We live here undisturbed by the waves of political life, and all circumstances combine happily to establish a quiet, scholarly life. I shall endeavor to exploit it as far as possible. My health is almost completely restored. My fatigues seem to wish to spare me all their significant after-pains. This for your consolation in that connection.
Opportunity offering, I will add a few words to my letter of yesterday. I have considered more fully the matter of securing an individual amnesty from the minister of justice and find myself in a very peculiar situation in relation thereto. My interest is a double one: On the one hand I must try to get back as quickly as possible into the old routine. But, from another point
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of view, my hands are tied in many matters by popular opinion, which I dare not oppose because my entire future is based thereon. Through my part in the Palatinate-Badish Revolutionary. War, my popularity and standing among the people has risen considerably. I have won by it, but I recognize at the same time that I would lose all this should I stoop to prefer a request of the present powers. Also, it goes against my innermost nature to demean myself before my enemies for merely my own personal interest. It is in fact impossible for me, and I will not agree to it under any circumstances. It would be different if it involved the interests of others. You know how much I have been moved by the fate of Ungar. I am convinced that my participation in the lawsuit might have a material influence upon its success; it might be possible for me to save him.
Were it possible, without me personal cooperation, for others to secure an amnesty for me, under the condition that in the Siegburg matter I appear before my regular judge, I should have nothing against it. But even this matter would have to be handled with the utmost caution. I must have a reserve through which I can prove the purity of my motives to all and at all times. That might be secured in the following way: Some citizen, for example Hittorf or Räss, must be induced to write me urging that I apply for an amnesty. I would answer and this exchange of letters could later serve as a document to prove my sentiments. It could, in case of necessity, be printed, etc. One of you, along with one of the indicated citizens, or with Lawyer Schmitz, could hold a conference and consider what may perhaps be done in the matter. This gentleman must be told of my firm determination not to be admitted to private
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amnesty. Besides, they must in nowise be allowed to see that I knew about the step you were taking or had in the slightest degree suggested it. Finally, they must be urged to write to me directly about the matter, and quickly. Hittorf would be best. As aforesaid, I would not at any price stoop to a request which could place me before the people as a schoolboy begging off before his teacher. Also, I shall not take the first step which might cast a shadow upon my reputation or a doubt upon my views. If, in this whole business, I cannot stand out as a man whose honor and principles are dearer than his happiness, I renounce all elemency of a ruler. In the above suggested manner whereby I contest personally for my right, everything injurious an be avoided. Above all, however, do not approach Professor Sell and that gang; if a step is to be taken and they want to do something, there will always be time for it. It is not necessary to let men whose sentiments are very doubtful see our cards. Manage the business prudently. Honor is a sensitive thing, and remember how difficult it is to rid oneself of an imputation, however groundless it may be. I want to stand out clean, and you must all wish it with me. Hasten this matter and destroy my letter so that it may fall into no one's hands. I greet you all most heartily.
I hasten with the answer so that if possible my letter may arrive in time. I wrote you a couple of lines several
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days ago which you must have received now per enclosure. Therein I developed a plan which bases itself upon what the minister of justice, as you wrote me, sent out concerning individual amnesty. In the newspapers I have hitherto found nothing about this announcement of the minister of justice, wherefore I unfortunately came to the belief that the whole matter probably rests upon an error. If that is true, of course my whole plan falls asunder; the one, namely, which is described in my last little letter.
But I should like to know in the most definite way how things stand in regard to that individual amnesty,
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whether it is really in prospect or not. In the first instance I could at least request permission for a four weeks' stay in Boon such as Veneday actually received in 1840. If the matter were properly presented from our side it would hardly fail. But before I take a step in this matter I must have authentic and thorough reports, and I must say that something of that kind would be most welcome to me. A permanent return can hardly be thought of for me until a complete change in the aspect of things occurs, but I believe that we shall not have to wait for this longer than the second quarter of next year. Should I even now be able, with effort and humiliation of spirit, to secure an individual amnesty, I would at the very least be stuck into a regiment for two years, and these years they would know how to embitter for me to such a degree that it would probably be just as well for me to spend them in prison.
I am getting along as well as one in exile can. My health is once more quite sound. I am studying with much comfort and get along all the faster for having no other enjoyment. In order to establish a future as a learned man, this circumstance of banishment might not be so bad were I not always oppressed with thoughts of you and my home. I have kept up my courage, but I know very well that a reversal of things would bring a
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better but not less stormy future. Everything that was lost for us heretofore a single moment may restore. Accordingly, we should merely be careful that nothing more be lost and that that moment may find us yet. How are may sister? Are they well? Has Nettie decided to become a schoolmistress? ... Mrs. Kamm has told me a great deal about little Trina. I send greetings to her.
In our discussion as to whether I should carry out my design, we quite overlooked one point. I shall not be able to remain in Belgium without proper certificates of identity. I should have to have a new passport if possible for one year. I have reflected much as to which one of my relatives or friends could secure it for me, and have fixed on Herbert or Mathias-Joseph. But were I to remain in Switzerland a passport designated for France, Belgium, and Switzerland would be very serviceable
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to me. I beg you to inquire if it would be possible to secure such a passport from that source.
I have obtained information about the examination and find that I could easily be prepared for it within a year. If no new agitation in Germany shall have brought about a change in affairs by that time, I believe it would be my wisest course to stick to this project with utmost perseverance. It is pretty much a matter of indifference whether I find my living in Germany or in Switzerland, just so I find it. A certain inspiration to scholarly achievement now prevails here. Some of the refugees of the educated class have united in the decision to do as much as in them lies toward the education of the others, as well the wholly uneducated as those who have had good preparation. A sort of institute will be the outcome, to which the Swiss superior officers have already promised their approval and support. I am interested in it and hope that out of this educational movement certain not inconsiderable material advantages may emerge; for example a free dwelling place. A few more days will determine how far our expectations are to be fulfilled. If they should be reasonably satisfied, it would seem wisest for me to remain in Switzerland, particularly since, after a removal of Belgium, I should hardly have the prospect of coming back. The outlook for a future position is by no means to be despised, and I shall do my best. In case a new revolution should make the soil of the fatherland
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accessible again, a thing I hold to be very probable, such foundation-laying as is herein contemplated would not be “built in the wind,” for it is always good to keep open a door for unforeseen accidents. Write me your views as you have opportunity. I believe you will agree with me.
In this manner I trust that our misfortune, if it does not lift, may still become bearable. The period of suffering cannot last long. It will not be impossible, with my healthy powers, to gain a better future for us all, and you know that my will to do it is not lacking. For this reason, however, I can do violence to my intense longing to see you all, oppressive as this has become and may yet become in the future. Of this we may be certain, our reunion will be a joyful one. Be strong and do not let your spirit sink; for your spirit is mine. As soon as Strodtmann gets back, ask him to write and give
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me his address. I greet you, my sisters, and all friends most heartily.
My circumstances are such that I cannot complain. We support one another, according to ability, and together overcome our perplexities. At the end of December
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I gave up my old residence, it being too cold to work there. I now live with merchant Dolder, by the meat, in Zürich, to which place all your letters should be directed. More about this next time. My disquiet prevents me from giving you mire details about my situation.
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Yet I always hope it may not come to this. At present no kind of danger threatens us, but it is well to be prepared, as far as possible, for eventualities. Since Meler has been arrested, as I read with regret, I know no one among students at this moment with whom I could correspond. Strodtmann, since his expulsion, has not been heard from at all and his place of residence is altogether unknown to me. It would be particularly pleasing to me to continue in relations with at least one of the Bonn students. If any one of my people [of Franconia] should come to you, please request him to write to me.
The nearer the spring approaches, the nearer comes the decision. No one can have failed to observe that things are preparing east and west, north and south, which will materially alter our circumstances. I hinted in my last letter something in relation to an early action against the fugitives either through an Austrian armed invasion or through new edicts of the confederation chamber. The latest reports indicate that, while there
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is something to the above, we shall still be safe here for a time. I have written Herbert urging the sending of the passport with the greatest possible dispatch. I might need it soon, for the Zürich police appear to be extremely malicious toward the refugees. I beg, however, you will be as secret as possible about the passport business, for the police there, if they should hear about it, could either try to interpret the letter in the mail or else make things inconvenient for me here. My personal circumstances are endurable. I suffer no want though I cannot deny some money would be welcome, particularly because we are never quite certain but that sudden occurrences may make a change of base necessary. Be good enough to write me in detail, soon, how matters stand at the end. Every report is significant to us. The departure of the post makes it necessary to close this letter. For today, farewell.
Though I do not know at this moment where in all the wide world to place you, I cannot repress the desire to write you some words and will confide these lines to any favorable wind. First a reproach. Why have I heard not a single syllable from you since our last meeting? The way from you to me was always safely open to you through your brother, and I imagine we might have had this or that to say to each other. But I see
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what I must take the initiative again, a proceeding which has often been more flattering to me than in this case.
I write these lines in Berlin, whose walls have harbored me nearly three weeks and will probably harbor me longer yet, for I am chained to the place where I sit, like Prometheus to the rock, and cannot move. Do not be frightened; I am not occupying a prison cell or one of the iron-railed guard house, but a simple student room, which however is nearly as lonesome as the prison cell. I had to propitiate my good star through a bit of hard luck. The incident my interest you, for it is medical. One morning about two weeks ago I entered the bath in order to prepare fittingly for the heat of a day pulsing with activity. As, anointed by a health-giving ice-cold shower, I walked up through the bath-house, barefoot to my neck, in the pride of my Apollonian limbs, on a slippery step my feet shot out from under me with wondrous facility and I fell full length with corresponding force. After they had taken me home, with much labor (I suffered distracting pains), late in the afternoon two doctors (after an examination conducted with the aid of chloroform) decided that my right thigh-bone was not broken, but that a very severe contusion of the muscle had occurred. Now there had to be blood-letting, bandaging, etc., and after five days I was actually so far along as to be able to crawl out of bed and sit on a chair for several minutes. Now I slink around my room conscious of an hourly access of strength, but still unable to stand alone and obliged to hold on to chairs—longing impetuously for the time which will resolve me to a free, two-legged state. It is not far away now. Though I had marvelous pretty dreams during the chloroform sleep, and the cupping
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process was rare fun, I will not deny that my whole situation assumed a somewhat inconvenient and unpleasant character. But I have already got forward so handsomely in the practice of peripatetic study and have such fortunate sources of scientific aid here, that it has not been necessary to step outside of the circle nearest to my intellectual labors. So far all is well, and I have no particular inclination to be misanthropic.
How different it was in Paris in 1789, when the people had as yet done little more than storm the Bastille! Everything there was more universal, more authoritative
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for the civilized world. And even the French legitimate kingship was, in itself, an immensely more significant phenomenon. Apart from the tremendous material power, the court of Versailles ruled the taste of Europe for hundreds of years. If that court was frivolous and wicked, it became at once the duty of educated Europe to be frivolous and wicked. If a mistress in Versailles loved ostentation, all Europe took to showing off. If a king became old and pious, the world's “four hundred” dropped upon prayer stools. Though this phenomenon is often degrading and disgusting, it remains distinguished and splendid. And all these variegated affairs of Europe one can read upon the windows of the Tuilleries, in the Luxemburg gardens, and in the courts of Versailles. Shall I narrate the glorious memories of the revolution, the national pride in the Empire, of which every pillar there, every plaster cast, the name of every street seem to preach? Where would it be possible, here in Berlin, to feel the profound thrill I experienced one evening in the garden of the Tuilleries as I leaned, lonesome, against the pillar of Spartacus, in this overpowering image of revolutionary force and heard all around me in great circles the eternally thundering streets of Paris?
And then the people! I do not know whether you know the South German folk intimately enough to draw a parallel between them and the North Germans. How different they are even along the Rhine! Where do you find, among them, the sickly, spiritless apathy we find here; where the insufferable superciliousness, which even tries to exceed itself? At first, as was my habit, I regarded the people with all good humor, and cannot forbear to tell you a little incident. In coming
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hither on the railway I fell in at Magdeburg with a young woman returning with her children from a tour of the Rhine. The children cried and the mother was in a state of despair such as is not uncommon on a journey. Finally the desperation of the woman changed to an attack of anger. She was a Berliner. “On the railway,” she began, “everybody is treated alike. The officials run hither and thither as if they had wondrous much to do. No one asks who you are, and (she added weepingly) on the railway one cannot dress according to what one should really represent. If my husband knew that!” “I've got to punish that woman,” thought I, and asked with the most cold-blooded shamelessness: “What, then, is your husband?” “He is in the ministry,” she replied. “What, your husband is a minister?” said I. “He is in the ministry,” she said rather dejectedly. “Oh!” said I; “well, that will pass.” Fortunately the company was tactful enough to swallow the laughter that threatened to break out, but the woman was quiet as a mouse all the way to Berlin.
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in detail as soon as I shall have found some leisure for it on English soil.
When you receive this letter your Carl and I shall be at sea and practically in complete safety. I regard it as my duty to write first to my wife and next to you as the father of my rescuer, my truest friend. For on the occasion when you visited me at the casemate in Rastatt, mourning for your son, I saw fully how attached you were to him, and hence I can imagine that you and your entire household, in these months, must have suffered many anxieties on my account, because the staff of your age exposed himself to such great danger for my behoof. Yes, it is true: Carl has manifested a loyalty to me which I shall hardly ever be able to repay. His spirit, persistence, and resourcefulness performed a miracle, and I owe to him in the full sense the saving of my life, more endangered daily through hard usage. As to the
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way this all came about and how wonderfully up to the present all things conspired to the success of the venture, this I cannot and dare not yet narrate in writing. I hope, however (and a glance into the newspapers which I had to dispense with so long gives me the certainty of it), that Carl and I, after not too long a time, shall return to the fatherland, when under altered conditions all can be told with more peace and less danger, with a pint of new beer.
Though it will depend on a number of circumstances where I shall fix my residence, Carl and I will remain together for some considerable time, enjoying the hearty friendship struck up in the course of our common political activities and now rendered inviolate by
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Carl's loyalty and my gratitude. It was a rare moment in my life when everything had succeeded and he first embraced me there upon the free thoroughfare, when after a year and a half of torture leaning on his shoulder I rode forth into the rescuing night, and between dark lines of Brandenburg pine treetops the morning broke upon us happy ones. Given back to freedom, activity, my beloved wife and sprightly children, escaped from boundless distress! Only when full security in England envelopes me and complete quiet of spirit returns, shall I be fully sensible of how much I have become indebted to the loyalty of my party and above all to my friend. I believe also that in freeing me he has given joy to many, many other persons besides; for aside from the democrats, many hearts, stirred by the hard and unreasonable treatment accorded me, were inwardly moved to sympathy; all of them will be grateful to Carl for what he has done in my behalf.
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Our journeys are now ended. Now the return to London and we shall have peace. Work begins, and let us hope for good results. In regard to my sister Nettie, we have agreed on some things. I am pleased that she wants to become a schoolmistress. She has talent, quickness of perception, and I hope industry enough to carry on her education with good success. We are agreed that she should come to England with Mrs.
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Kinkel and remain in the Kinkel household and receive instruction there. You will be able to talk the matter over better with Mrs. Kinkel than I can explain it to you in writing. Only this much I assure you, that this offer of the Kinkel family seems to me a rare piece of good fortune for my sister. I hope to learn as soon as possible what you think about it.
At this moment I have a lively recollection of the time when I was still going to school. I used regularly,
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on December 31, to rule with utmost care a sheet of paper and then begin in anxious solemnity a New Year's wish to you such as the master had set for us. I would write and write, letter by letter, the perspiration coming out on my forehead; and at last, when I was quiet at the bottom of the page at “Obedient Son,” a drop of ink was sure to mar the page and I would have to begin all over again. And so over and over, my writing worse and worse, till at last it was very bad. You will recall that my New Year's letters never came out very well. That was a labor and a torture, and in connection with the many “Welfares” [
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But who knows when the day will come? Decades, in the life of peoples, are like a single day. The spirit of world history regards not the longing of men, but their weakness and their strength. Therein lies the free will of peoples. Whether today or tomorrow, no matter. We are all still young enough to witness the tragically absurd fall of those fools who must first learn,
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by the course of history, that they cannot bind down the storm with ropes.
What would it amount to if we were to sit quietly together here or there, and the four walls limited our horizon, and aims which are calculated for tomorrow or next day limited our hopes? Our family is severed anyway and we look upon that, I believe, without great pain. Has not each of us had his own kind of happiness? Is there not in store for each of us his kind of happiness? Certainly there may be much to be desired; but in compensation for that which man renounces, a favoring fortune proffers something else. Let us not belong to that
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perverse class who can neither recognize nor enjoy any other happiness than that which their own narrow imagination alluringly dangles before their eyes.
Your last letter troubled me greatly. Will it then be wholly impossible to remain longer in that house if
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no other is found? As for myself, I shall do what is in my power and you may count on this, that I would rather suffer want myself than let you suffer. But my position continues to be very precarious, my earnings uncertain. To promise something definite at stated times is impossible because I always have to wait for the outcome of an undertaking. I certainly hope in the near future to make a beginning in literature, but a secure position is not ot be though of in that connection. That I shall make many a fortunate move thereby I surely hope, but this hope is all I have yet in sight. As to Kinkel, his circumstances are in no respect bright. The reports of rich legacies, etc. are one and all legends. He will have to live by his pen, and will have all he can do to make a living. Then, too, his entire family lies sick in a city where living is so desperately high. He is overloaded with outside affairs and has hardly been able to think of his income-producing work.
I have a great deal of work to do and am in the house or the library almost all day, often having hardly an hour left for my walk. Of the carnival I saw only
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the opera ball. But I am in good fettle, able to be a little strenuous. Farewell for today. Greet my sister Anna heartily. Why has she not written me? Heartfelt greetings.
You must not take it amiss that I did not write you again after the very short letter telling of my arrest and subsequent release. You learned enough from the newspapers to quiet your fears. In addition, I was so overwhelmed with activities and business during my last days in Paris that I had hardly a minute to spare. Yet I have made so many acquaintances that the way into the society here will smooth itself. Then things will go better. My arrest and expulsion have had little in the
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way of unpleasant results, excepting the thing itself. Moreover, I would perhaps have gone to England earlier anyway. The expulsion by the police rather delayed than expedited my departure. It would have been easy for me to secure permission for a longer stay in Paris, but I did not care about it and I avoided everything that looked like a request.
This time I was in Paris just at the time of the wholesale arrest of strangers. I arrived Thursday, remained over night, and I do not know what urged me to hasten my departure as much as possible. Two hours after leaving Paris the arrest began there; thus I escaped, luckily. I stayed one night in Strasburg and next morning rode to Basel; from there to Zürich. Hardly had I arrived in Zürich when I learned that immediately
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after my departure from Strasburg arrests began in that place also. And so I had fortunately escaped the double danger. However, the matter was not so very dangerous after all. In case of my arrest, they would have kept me in confinement a couple of weeks, and then shipped me across the channel. The whole Parisian plot has ended in exposing the ministry to ridicule, and the poor devils who are still in prison perhaps have their own indiscretion to thank, at least in part.
Several days after my departure from London Kinkel set out of North America. The purpose of his journey is the promotion of the German national loan, which we have undertaken from London. Kinkel is now holding mass meetings in the large American cities, calling for subscriptions to the German loan and organizing the whole business on that continent. His results are colossal. I receive twice weekly a large packet of newspapers from America, which are full of news about the Kinkel mass meetings, his speeches, and the enthusiastic manner in which the people are taking up the German loan. Detailed accounts have thus far been received from two cities, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
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Kinkel's reception was cordial beyond all measure. Banquets, escorts of honor, escorts of honor, serenades, deputations vied with one another, and the sums actually paid in after the meetings showed sufficiently that this excitement is no mere straw-fire. In Philadelphia the mayor (
My tour in France gave me great hopes for the development of things in the year 1852. The agitation among the people is exceedingly active, and confidence is matched by determination. Never has the press given so inadequate a picture of what is going on down among
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the people. The new occurrences in France also show abundantly the temper of the reaction. How these matters may develop is in detail most uncertain; on the whole, however, after the observations made in the departments as well as in Paris, I consider a most fortunate outcome of the crisis to be not at all doubtful. It will be our problem to spread it over the rest of Europe.
As regard my past I can be brief; for it will interest you, as it does me, less than my future. From earliest youth I have lived in very modest circumstances, and while not exactly obliged to earn personally what I required, still I was always forced to get along with what I had. I decided early upon a scholarly career:
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finished the Gymnasium, and beginning with the spring of 1847 studied history at the University of Bonn, in order eventually to win a professorship at one or other of the German higher schools. Then came to events of 1848, and the mighty spirit of the drove me into the tumult of the political agitation. In the summer of 1849 I found myself compromised in the United Germany movement on the Rhine; had to leave my home, was in the Palatinate and in Baden, and after the unfortunate catastrophe went to Switzerland, where I continued till April, 1850, the studies I had interrupted for a short time. Kinkel's misfortune called me back to Germany once more. His release was achieved. I turned to Paris, where I lived half a year, and have now been in London since June, 1851. That is a concise sketch of my life. As to details. may that which you know of my life serve as guarantee to you for that which you do not know.
I do not expect to find any mountains of gold in
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America, knowing on the contrary that only a vigorous, uninterrupted activity will enable me to succeed there. But just this is what I seek in America and for this I hope to find there a broader and more fertile field than I can open to myself here. I am accustomed to work, to work hard, but I would that the goal of my effort were something more than mere bread. My nature cannot content itself with the life aims which are contained within my four walls. By and by I might have a good living here in England. But citizenship here, for the alien, is merely formal. The stranger remains a stranger here. Under which circumstances I cannot feel at home. What I am looking for in America is not only personal freedom, but the chance to gain full legal citizenship. If I cannot be the citizen of a free Germany, the I would be at least a citizen of a free America.
You understand that it is my duty to make and end of these insufferable conditions. I cannot permit the vengeance they cannot visit upon me to be visited upon my gray-headed parents. Some of my relatives are
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in America, in the state of Wisconsin, in pleasant and comfortable circumstances. Immediately following the December occurrences in France I conceived the plan to associate my parents with those relatives and to assist them in establishing themselves there. It is desired on both sides, and this matter has become dear to my heart.
This is what I expect to do first: I shall give lectures in the larger cities of the Union upon subjects which lie in the field of my scholarly studies. That I
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shall succeed in this is probable both from what has been written me from America and from the widely ramifying acquaintanceships I have there through my political relations. Such a tour will have as another object to find a location and position which may suit both of us. According to assurances received, there will be no lack of invitations. In six or eight months, perhaps sooner, this tour will be ended and I shall then settle down in the most favorable place.
Yesterday and today I received letters both of which have very gloomy contents. The first, from Mother and Anna, expressed the suspicion that I had half given up the thought of emigrating to America and living there with our family, and was beginning to think of remaining in London. I do not comprehend this misunderstanding. I wrote that Margarethe's brother did not agree to our immediate emigration, but that I expected to arrange the matter. It does not in the least follow from this that I myself am prepared to give up that plan. And, in fact, I am not thinking of it. My plan is still the same that it was three months ago, and I am still just as much convinced that I shall carry it out. That difficulties should have arisen was to be expected; and it is quite natural that I should attempt to overcome these difficulties amicably, and not needlessly bring on a break with the family by violent steps. The plan for me to go first to America rests upon what seems to
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me the very sensible idea that I ought not to let you journey at random into uncertainty. I must at least know in a certain measure where we are to lay our heads, and to find that out requires time. If a longer continuance in Europe is impossible for you, then very well; I will make a provisional dwelling place there for half a year or as long as may be necessary. Then we shall establish a definite home, and all will turn out well. But the complications here must be overcome or circumvented with wisdom. For two reasons I am not considering settling down in London: first, because in that case we could not arrange to live together; second, because I cannot endure permanently the kind of work with which I have to make my living here.
Farewell for today. Be prudent, and depend upon me to do everything that I can. Do write me at once
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as to whether the bill of exchange arrived properly. Adieu.
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on a point in the future for the attainment of which our active cooperation is almost wholly inhibited. I require close, definite goals and objects, and I am going where I can find them. I want to make the period of my exile fruitful.
As to my plans in detail, they are as yet not definitely fixed. So far as I can survey the possibilities, I shall first of all give lectures upon recent history in the large cities as I pass them. I shall take up directly that which has the most burning interest this year, the French catastrophe. In America they judge concerning it—particularly as incited by Kossuth—with much vivacity but with little knowledge. And I myself have learned so much by and through this episode that, for the first time in my life, I feel moved to bring my knowledge before the world. My principal theme is this: No country is so much misunderstood in its tendencies and its destiny as France. No history is so misinterpreted as the French. These successive convulsions of a folk spirit striving for liberty; these utterly contradictory events which so quickly follow one another now fiery proclamations of democratic principles, then shortly afterward a general acceptance of the usurpation of a new tyrant—all these things in colorful variety, and yet the inner life of the people always the same—always lack of freedom on the part of the people; a passion for government, within the democracy; a passion for individual distinction within theoretical equality; in a word, with the most fantastic political device that has ever appeared, “La liberté et un government fort,” Un government fort vis-à-vis de la liberté,” or, what amounts to the same thing, “Un government fort contre la liberté”! That is the red thread which runs through the
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most recent French history from 1780 to 1852. The affair of December 2 is the most instructive incident of recent history....
My letter was interrupted at this point by an illness which rendered me speechless for almost a week and kept me in bed several days longer. My wife had just been ill for a couple of days and I had nursed her as well as I could, when suddenly an inflammation developed in my gums which made swallowing difficult and speech almost impossible. a high fever followed, which soon showed symptoms of scarlet fever. So there I, poor devil, lay few days before my projected voyage to America. My wife's sister, Mrs. Ronge, suggested that in the midst of my fever I should undertake a trip to Malvern, a water cure, and submit myself wholly and with every convenience to this method of healing. I took the advice and with my wife made the long, bitter journey, on which I truly suffered. Arrived here I was pretty miserable, but my wife nursed me splendidly, the water cure applied its harsh remedy, and in a few days the fever was broken and my mouth reopened for speech and for food. My sickness, as is usual with me, was swift and sever in its onset, prostrating my whole organism for a short time; the just as quickly broken, and a prompt convalescene. I like the water cure. The operations are sensible, above all vigorous, decisive, and effective. But one must not be too exclusive even in this system of treatment. I consider it nonsense to set up as an incontrovertible, absolute principle that
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one must never take a drop of medicine—as though the results hitherto attained by empirical medicine were now at once to be stricken out of history.
We reached here only yesterday—precisely the day which we had set for our departure; my condition suddenly became worse, my wife also was somewhat unwell, and on the advice of the physician our departure was deferred until yesterday. Now we are here. This letter to you is the first thing I have undertaken. I have spoken only to a couple of persons, and news comes to me already in full strata. Kossuth is here again; also, an agitator of the German emigration has returned from America; the French are indulging new hope of an early development of the popular spirit in France; the fugitives are naturally in considerable motion again. Kossuth I have not yet seen. So I do not know what he himself says about his successes. He obtained considerable
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money, swam constantly on the tide of enthusiasm, and is said to be convinced that the happenings in Europe will very soon correspond to the hopes he proclaimed as his in America. The German agitator Gögg, of Baden, has organized a number of associations in America which have combined and centralized into a “German Revolutionary Confederation.” Their purpose is to support by every possible means the movement on the continent of Europe, and in the United States itself to throw the entire weight of the German population into the scale in connection with political questions such as elections, etc. It sounds good, but signifies little. First of all, the great majority of the “Revolutionary Confederation” consists of more or less new arrivals who, for the present, have no political rights; and in the second place, everything which is primarily in the hands of actual political refugees (especially Germans) soon dies. The Grays, the “old settlers,” soon withdraw from such enterprises because the Greens, the “newcomers,” make too much noise about their European humbug. Such an institution can hold together only for a time, just so long as it remains in a passive state. Its disruption begins the moment it comes into practical operation.
Dear Frederick, I am sending you a letter which, so to speak, is made up of mere shreds. Pardon me; I could not do better and yet I had to pay off my long overdue debt to you despite my shame. I hope to be on shipboard in a week. Until then my hands will be very full here, exclusively with business matters, which are not my specialty, and a multitude of calls upon political and other friends, some of whom are even trying to keep me here. As for myself, I am saying farewell
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to Europe with the certainty of being back again at the right time. My wife, whom you do not know, wants to greet you cordially. I regret that you two have never met. You are worthy of mutual friendship. Farewell. With all the old cordiality.
I proposed to you that I should put myself in touch with the loan committees in this country, and as soon as I had received from you any sort of instruction, to pass it on to this one or that one. This instruction I awaited in vain, and as you answered absolutely nothing at all I came to the conclusion that you in London had decided to operate on an entirely different basis, and were following new plans, and so I held my peace. Finally, I learned of the arrival of Willich in New York, and the
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newspapers announced the plans which he proposed to carry out. About three weeks ago, he arrived here and called upon me. I soon saw with what illusions he had come here, and realized that he would not allow himself to be convinced either by arguments or through his own observations. His whole agitation is a thoroughly moderate one. The transformation of the loan committees into little political clubs seems to me purposeless, as in general all showy undertakings, all noise-making, all forcible digging up of old stories, are entirely out of place. You yourself must have learned what the building up of a so-called moral force signifies here in America, especially as far as it depends on the Germans. ... The Revolutionary Confederation, begun and organized with such great enthusiasm, has failed almost simultaneously with its creation, because with the first ebullition its enthusiasm was spent, and it lacked objectives for its activity. To that result, to be sure, this beautiful annexation dream has contributed. But Willich has expounded to me something of the “great idea of the actual establishment of the German state in America, through the loan,” which is no less fantastic than the universal annexation and is exactly calculated to disappoint the practical American understanding, which little by little becomes operative in the German. On all that I expressed my opinion to Willich.
For seven months now I have quietly observed here, said little, and inquired much; and I believe I have not been superficial in forming my opinions. I believe as follows: Your agitation and Kossuth's and the Revolutionary Confederation have so used up the enthusiasm for transatlantic affairs, and the European events since 1851 have made the Americans so distrustful, that the
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people must be given rest and quiet to recover from their chagrin and disappointment. For that day which shall bring us great news from Europe, the explosive material must have been collected here once more. We need not fear that everything will lapse again. The constant embroilments with European powers, the Cuba and Honduras question, and a hundred other things keep the fire alive and force the foreign policy of America naturally into a new channel....
This winter we have lived very quietly. I have prepared a book which will go off to Germany at the first
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opportunity. It is not wholly the realization of my old plan for an account of the French Revolution; I have broadened the scope and drawn in the most recent history, and to that end briefly summarized the details. If I stay here somewhat longer, I shall begin a book on America, the plan of which already lies pretty clearly before me. It will be essentially different from what has heretofore been written about America....
... I will not undertake to give you a full account of my journey, because I hope that most of what I might tell, you may have opportunity to see personally. As soon as one reaches the Alleghenies the character of the country changes. At the point where the Susquehanna flows out of its mountains Pennsylvania ceases to be a flourishing, friendly garden. Dense forests
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cover the heights and whereas in eastern Pennsylvania only occasional groves stand amid the cultivated fields, here one sees only isolated cleared spots looking out from the dense woods, and these even more rarely. The mountains press close upon the stream, hardly leaving room for a narrow highway. One begins to see here for the first time the blockhouse (log cabin) in all of its primitive roughness, which gives one a remote impression of the hardships and privations which are inseparable from the life of pioneers. Unfortunately, I did not see as much of the Alleghenies as I wished, since we passed through mostly by night and only the contours of the mountains could be observed in the darkness.
Only the entrance into the mountains, where the railway crosses the broad Susquehanna, I enjoyed in most beautiful evening light, and I can recall but very few views which are so magnificent. We passed through Pittsburg about three o'clock at night and I saw nothing of it except the yellow, burned-out fires which were lighted in the streets as a defense against the cholera. The impression was distinctly what one calls “gloomy.” The rising sun lighted us over the boundary into Ohio, and I would have greeted that state with great pleasure had I not frozen so in the cutting morning air that even my thick winter overcoat was not warm enough. In Ohio the character of the land changes in the direction of friendliness; the “dark forest” has been mightily cleared, and though far the greater portion of the surface is still overgrown, the farmstead range themselves thickly side by side, the ensemble presenting a picture of rapidly progressing well-being. In many places the log house still predominates, though even in the forest
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solitudes people are beginning to establish themselves more pleasantly. The German tongue is heard everywhere, and often on the train we recognize our honest fellow countryman, even without hearing him speak, by his indestructible cap and his decorous long coat-tails.
The Ohio had so little water that at first I saw only a broad streak of sand where its bed should be, until finally I discovered the stream itself. When the river is at regulation height it is about as wide as the Rhine
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and its hilly banks are not much less beautiful. Cincinnati lies in crescent formation upon the Ohio and is bounded north, west, and east by high, steep bluffs. The aspect of the city is friendly, not so monotonous as Philadelphia, not so noisy as New York, but of course inferior to these eastern cities in magnificence. But there is so much building going on in Cincinnati, and the new constructions are on such a magnificent scale and so splendidly executed that the “Queen of the West” may soon proudly compare herself with the great eastern cities. The Germans live together in one part of the city—at least most of them—and their streets are easily recognized by the conspicuous but not very advantageous old-country customs. I stopped in Cincinnati only long enough to gain a general impression of the city, and yesterday afternoon journeyed to Indianapolis, to which place my business called me. I came in during the night and have seen only what a short walk this morning enabled me to see. I shall write you one of these days about this city, which looks to me very pretty. This morning I hunted up Mr. Bolton, who received me most cordially. He took me to see the governor of the state, F. Wright, who he had told about me earlier and who in a long conversation showed himself very obliging and pressed me to call on him. Mrs. Bolton, who is engaged in furnishing a house, and who on that account was absent this morning, I saw this afternoon.
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effort to induce me to remain here. I am thinking of entering at once upon the gas business; the auspices are good....
... I now know the city fairly well. Although it has at present only eighteen thousand inhabitants it covers a very extensive area. The great “Main Street,” with its stores, allows no doubt that Indianapolis is a state capital. It presents an extremely lively appearance, not like any one of the leading business streets of Philadelphia or New York; rather it bears a rural character. With its confused mass of farm wagons and equestrians (also equestriennes) it looks more like a permanent annual fair. There is much horseback-riding here. No farmer comes into the city afoot, and the women and girls mount their horses in their everyday clothes just as they are. Since there is much breeding of horses here, about half of the riders are followed by young colts. These gambol about in the street as if they were at home. Thus the beautiful broad street has an animated appearance and you hardly realize that you are from seven to eight hundred miles west of the Atlantic coast. Private dwellings, at least the more elegant ones, now begin to leave the innermost portion of the city and to move toward the outskirts, and charming rows of nice cottages are seen toward the ends of the business streets, which run out from the middle point of the city ten or fifteen minutes' walk into the forest. You might say, indeed, that the outermost houses of the city are in the woods. The Germans, who number about
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two thousand, dwell mainly together in their own part of the city, as in Cincinnati. The public buildings of Indianapolis, among them a school for the blind, an insane asylum, and a school for the deaf and dumb, concede nothing in external magnificence or in solidity of construction to the best eastern establishments. The railroads, with the exception of two or three, are all combined in one general depot and between twelve and one o'clock in the afternoon you can see, leaving the Union Station, six trains at once moving in different directions. So far I have not heard anything of accidents. To be sure, cows sometimes get on the tracks, but as soon as the engineer sees them he lets the locomotive whistle loud and long; whereupon the cows are generally frightened and hasten away. The roads are well built....
Today I can tell you about travel adventures which I am glad you have not had to share with me. From my last letter you saw that I was about ready to leave Indianapolis. This I did last Wednesday about twelve o'clock, and should have reached Chicago at 8:30 in the evening. You see the shortest way to St. Louis, from
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which place I go to visit Hecker, is at present through Chicago. But the train was so crowded and the accommodating of the passengers took so much time that we were very slow in getting started. The sun was already low in the west when we crossed the Wabash and saw on our left the bloody battle field of Tippecanoe. At twilight we entered the “grand prairie” which occupies the northwestern quarter of the state of Indiana. The movement out of the forest on to the prairie is comparable to that out of a stream into the high sea. On both sides of the railway track the woods recede farther and farther, just as the stream opens out into the bay; and as you gaze ahead ever on the level, endless prairie meadows, your eyes find no point of rest save the sharp, straight streak which the horizon makes; here and there perhaps a straggling clump of trees or a small farmhouse, which stand forth like single islands in the waveless grass sea. Finally the forest banks right and left disappear, and wherever you turn your eyes they see only the unbroken, inexorable, dead plains. I believe there can be no profounder sense of abandonment than to be alone upon a great prairie. The sea is much more alive than the prairie. There at least the waves shift grandly and the horizon changes with their movements; but even a storm leaves the prairie still. It must be a remarkable sight to witness from a distance a train rolling over the prairie. Flowers are abundant and of many colors, but when one regards the prairie as a whole its flowers are forgotten. The “grand prairie” has a rich soil and in some localities is already studded with farms; but however much I am compelled to love the West, at least what I have seen of it, I should not like to live upon a great prairie.
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It was nearly midnight when we reached Michigan City, and after two o'clock when we arrived in Chicago. Here my misfortunes began. I was taken to a hotel, but there was not a room or bed to be had. In vain I drove to a second and a third; everything full. By this time the omnibus which carried me had reached its terminus and I had to get out. The hour was now past three o'clock in the morning; yet dead tired as I was, I had to seek in a strange city, and afoot, some place where I might lay my head. Fortunately I had left my baggage at the railway station. So I wandered forth at random, and when I saw a bright jet of gas light, decided that there must be a hotel, which was true. Finally in a small public house I found a chance to sleep in the same room with another man. But inasmuch as my prospective bedfellow in his exterior was not to my liking, I had the energy, to me now quite inconceivable, to decline the offer and entrust myself anew to the night. Meantime it had become very solitary. I wandered from one street to another but saw no human being to whom I could direct a question. Still, the streets had living creatures, and very jolly ones. Chicago has “wooden sidewalks” under which live millions of rats. These rats regard the streets at night as their domain, and in my presence made great use of their freedom. Rats of all sizes and colors, old and young, white and gray, played charmingly about my feet. And when I stepped on one and it squeaked, it seemed to me as if I ought to beg pardon. I roamed around in this company until a tower clock struck half past three. Then, on one of the bridges, I sat down upon a curbstone to rest a bit. The rats gathered around me and I experienced something like what Heine did when he was stalled with the
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mail wagon in the Teutoburg forest, surrounded by wolves who spoke to him. A large rat, who seemed the oldest and wisest of all, stepped forward and began:
“Mr. Speaker and Fellow Rats! Though I am not accustomed to speaking to so large and respectable an audience in a language foreign to my native country, yet I feel myself compelled by the reasonable sentiments expressed by your honorable and worthy leader to venture upon a word or two. Mr. Speaker and Fellow Rats! I am exceedingly sorry to have trespassed upon your nightly rights and privileges by the unfortunate fact of my presence. But, gentlemen, you may be sure that I never should have taken such an indecent as well as dangerous course, if not [sic] beings of my own race, men with hearts of stone, had kicked me away from their doors and turned me into the deserted streets. I know, gentlemen, that you harbor feelings of kindness in your hearts and that you are not insensible to the sufferings of a distressed stranger, who in the vain pursuit of
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earthly things, as your worthy speaker expressed himself very appropriately, has improvidently left his dearest ones and threw [sic] himself into the wide world. Mr. Speaker and Fellow Rats! Deep regret creeps over my soul when I remember my dearest ones, and every one among you who happens to be separated from his spouse and offspring will readily understand my feelings in this respect. (Several rats begin to swallow hard.) Now, my friends, I see it is not impossible to kindle the holy fire of sympathy in the hearts of pure children of nature and, trusting to the world-renowned hospitality of the noble rats of Chicago, I throw myself entirely into your arms, and as men have forsaken me, I will sleep among you as one of your own!”
Thereupon the speaker pointed out to me a knothole
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in one of the planks of the sidewalk only big enough to enable me to stick two fingers in it. I was about to fall into a state of high indignation, when I was awakened out of my slumber by a man, who told me that I had been on the point of falling off the curb, etc. I told him my story, and he guided me to a hotel in which I found a room. Aside from a small air-hole over the door, this room had no window. The walls bore evidence of bloody bedbug battles. One of my predecessors had obviously attempted to kill the bedbugs by squeezing them with his finger against the wall until they burst, whereby he probably gained his purpose. I, however, threw myself like a daredevil into the bed, hoping to sleep until ten o'clock, for already the hour of four had passed. But soon after six I was awakened by a vulgar rapping upon the door, and heard a voice calling to me that breakfast was ready. I would gladly have renounced by breakfast, but thereafter I could not go back to sleep (particularly as I now felt the bedbugs more strongly than I anticipated); so I went out to visit my cousin Edmund and learned that a short time ago he had gone to St. Paul, Minnesota, on business, and would be away for four weeks. (Later I found several friends of the olden time—lawyers and newspaper men—who received me with extraordinary friendliness.) I will write you about Chicago next time. This young city is one of the most marvelous phenomena of America, or indeed of the world.
About ten o'clock at night I got into the Chicago and Mississippi train and arrived here yesterday about one o'clock in the afternoon. I visited an old countryman, a lawyer named Kribben, who promptly took me away from the hotel and forced me to stay in
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his home. I am enjoying as much attention and hospitality as I can use. As yet I have seen little of St. Louis, employing my first free time here in writing. Day after tomorrow I shall go to Hecker, who has been dangerously ill but is now quite well again. Perhaps I shall write you again before leaving St. Louis, but cannot be sure that they will leave me time for it here.
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same way, even should he withstand the present crisis. I shall try my best to prevail on him to undertake a journey, or something of that kind. They tell all kinds of remarkable stories here about the passion with which he pursues his new occupation, as though he were striving to dampen through the fatigue of bodily labors the fire which burns in him.
Day before yesterday I described to you my nigh entrance into Chicago. Today I shall say something about the impression the city makes by daylight. My friends took me around to see its greatest wonders. After reaching the lake, along the courses of the broad business streets with their high, magnificent marble structures, which in the activity of trade hardly yield to New York's Broadway, and making our way among colossal warehouse, we reached the great station. This is almost at the water's edge, and from it four or five railway tracks built on trestles extend through the water. We stopped in front of a small wooden building, constructed of logs and pierced on every side with loopholes, which obviously could have no relation to the tremendous life going on all around it. This, I was told was Fort Dearborn, which up to about twenty years ago served the few settlers of this place as a protection against the wild Indian hordes. This fort, the oldest building in Chicago, the most honored relic, is now thirty years old. The oldest native inhabitant of Chicago is a girl of twenty-two years. She was born when only three miserable huts stood there. Now the city has over eighty thousand inhabitants and an incalculable commerce. One sees the place growing as one walk its streets. The building and business activities are indescribable. That section of the town in which the well-to-do
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people live and which, on account of the gardens surrounding the houses, is called “Garden City,” shows an elegance in th buildings and beauty of streets which is not behind the best I have seen. The magnificent of the public improvements and undertakings, in relation to the youthfulness of the city, surpasses anything I have known. The prices of land in the vicinity are absurdly high because the people realize to what an extent Chicago will spread out.
St. Louis looks very imposing from the waterside. The warehouse and hotels range themselves side by
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side on the broad quay like palaces. But in the interior the city is dirty, and the streets of the “old” section are narrow—that is, according to American standards; in Germany they would be considered very wide.
Between the first half of my letter and this come my visit to Hecker. I reached him in the morning toward eleven and found him in a pitiable condition: countenance sunken and peaked, eyes languid, voice weak, skin yellow—parchment-like. I was affrighted to look upon him and still more to hear him. For four weeks he had not slept and was perpetually tossing back and forth with restlessness, though hardly master of his limbs. His illness is the so-called “congestive fever,” which manifests itself in a sudden rush of blood to breast and head, the third recurrence of which is generally regarded as fatal. In addition he suffers from abdominal ailments. I believe one can arrive at the true ground of his illness by hearing him talk. His sanguine-choleric temperament throws him from one extreme to the other, often in the most contradictory manner. His recollections of the past constantly torture his spirit and drive him to combat them through the hardest bodily exertions.
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He has become exceedingly nervous and permanently irritable. The violent, thoroughly foolish bodily exertions, the bitter rashness with which he exposes himself to the dangerous effects of the climate, have broken down his resistance, and the present distressing solitariness has confirmed him in the darkest possible views of life. When he complains, he accuses; when he censures, he damns outright. He feels old; believes it is no longer worth the trouble to live, and often wishes for death merely to be at rest. He is vexed because he craves vexation, and the things he cannot censure give him little pleasure, since there are so many other things to censure. He looks at everything with the eyes of his dejected spirit and complains bitterly about disillusionments where he never needed to have been deceived. I sat sorrowfully by his bed and tried, by dint of the greatest efforts, to cheer him up. At last we got into the swing, and as I brought up matters about which he could talk with some satisfaction all went well. Finally both of us became lively and got to laughing. I did my utmost and we kept on talking till late in the evening. Next morning I found him much better, and he said in greeting me, “Since four weeks ago, I have slept today for the first time, and you are the cause of that. You made me forget my fever period yesterday.”
He felt strong enough to get up and walk about the house. A great fire was kindled on the hearth and we sat in the large room. A joyful spirit was visible among the farm-hands when he came to the table once more, and things seemed in the way of turning toward his improvement. I advised him to leave his farm and seek the benefits of a water cure. He was agreeable to the suggestion, but I fear that as he comes to feel better he
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will not do it. He is being treated wholly according to the old methods and take unbelievable quantities of medicine. I have done all I could to dissuade him from it, but with only apparent result. I had intended staying a longer time with him, but a two-days' visit drove me forth, partly because I really was deeply dispirited by what I heard and saw, and could not wholly conceal it longer, partly because your letter was waiting for me in Chicago and I suddenly found I could not bear to wait longer. Therefore I gave up the hunting trip and all other Illinois delights, attractive as they were with millions of passenger pigeons flying over us. I returned to St. Louis as soon as possible, in order to get off today for Chicago, where I shall at last gain some rumor concerning you. I feel that I must get back to you soon. What is left to be done I shall complete as quickly as possible.
... My last letter I wrote from St. Louis shortly before my departure for Chicago. I rode through the night, and finding at Chicago letters from my Uncle Jacob [Jüssen], who urged me in a most pressing manner to pay him a visit, I took the night steamer which brought me across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. This voyage, crossing the lake on an indescribably lovely moonlight night, was one of the most beautiful of my journey, and in this riotous enjoyment of nature nothing was lacking save that I should have had you by my side. Well, you must sometime travel with me and see everything that I have seen. There is so much here
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which is grand and beautiful that it well repays one for the expenditure of a little time and some inconvenience. I believe you would quickly lose your dislike for the West if you could once see it. I will not say that in beauty this country surpasses the East. On the contrary, the tremendous plains on both sides of the Mississippi are not exactly interesting in the long run; but an infinitely fresh breeze blows through this land. Wherever you direct your gaze you see something great developing. Grandeur is the characteristic of all western life. All life looks at you hopefully, and the war against obstacles opposing civilization is carried on in the serenest confidence of victory. I have never seen so many cheerful people as here. The western American, however great may be his instinct for enterprise and acquisition, does not bear on his countenance the stamp of speculative determination which one meets so frequently among the eastern Yankees. The Westerner is sincere, talkative, direct; he makes friends with extraordinary ease, wherever he may be. The cold reserve of bearing which so often seemed freezing to us in the East is a stranger to the “Western man.” He is resolute in speech as he is in act, and the complete spontaneity of social intercourse makes one forget quickly that he should not look for a finely polished behavior among these people. You find an extraordinarily large proportion of sensible men and women, and in conversation you can usually be sure of discerning both an open mind and a sound heart.
The trip from Chicago to Milwaukee by boat takes eight hours, and when I awoke in my stateroom this morning I found the chief city of Wisconsin before me. The town is quite pretty, but for some time it has not
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been progressing very well.
I was received by my Uncle Jacob [Jüssen] and his family with the most hearty, even tearful, joy. You know I am sort of the pet of our family, the object of its modest pride; and as we met after so long a separation the happiness was extreme. My uncle is still the same noble, fine man, although he has had to make his
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way with great effort and care and sometimes rather poorly. But an inextinguishable and indefatigable cheerfulness reigns in the family, each lightening the load of the other as much as possible. My aunt is a very sensible and well educated woman who understands music and several languages and has a multitude of practical accomplishments. My uncle now has a business that goes well, and it seems to me he is beginning to prosper. No one deserves it more than he. I only wish you could see him. I am sure you would love him. I shall not see my cousin Edmund upon his journey, for he is just now on business several hundred miles farther west....
I received your letters yesterday and will reply at once to the points therein which are of importance. The passport which I carried in Berlin in the year 1850 has not been in my possession for a long time. I burned it shortly before my arrest in Paris, since it had lapsed. Besides, I do not see how the accused could be materially aided by it. That I bore a false name in Berlin is a fast established by a sufficient number of witnesses. The point is merely to show that Falkenthal did not
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know my real name as well ad my assumed one. In that connection my passport could not serve as evidence, since it would merely prove that I bore a false name, which is already proved. It is absolutely impossible to prove by
That they have changed to “Gissem” the name I bore at that time is especially pleasing to me. I am
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very anxious to have this “Gissem” satisfy them. Herbert is the actual head of his family, an excellent and in his group quite indispensable man. The loss of his freedom would greatly disturb, perhaps wholly disorganize, the life of the family. I would wish, therefore, to do everything to keep him clear of the whole affair. On that account I should not be able, in the statement concerning the name and passport which I bore, to go into greater detail; I should not like to weaken the “Gissem” idea. Perhaps this little error will stick. I think there have been sacrifices enough. Besides, according to the latest reports the trial seemed to me to be going so well for F. that he would have to employ all his inconsistency and indiscretion in order to alter the chances. Please remember, therefore, if you do anything in the matter, to keep H.'s interests well in view.
We finally reached our destination yesterday afternoon without railway accident, without being snowed in on the prairie, without suffering hunger or thirst, etc. I wrote you last from Chicago. We took the train there at nine in the morning, since the lake is not yet open for traffic. We reached Wisconsin by a detour, and in order to get to the railway which runs from Milwaukee
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to Watertown we were obliged to cover a stretch of six miles by sleigh. The weather was warm, the snow was thawing, and the sleighing party was most unpleasant. I was very glad that I had not taken you along, for the outing was really somewhat wearisome, particularly since in some places the snow was wholly melted away and we had to go on foot. About five o'clock we arrived at a small rural town, Jonesville, where we had to stay over night because we had got there too late for the regular train. Yesterday morning we left there in the finest weather, and are now here safe and sound. Today being Sunday we were able to do nothing for our purposes aside from amassing some information. But the results of these inquiries are very satisfactory. ... My Uncle Jacob and two of his children were somewhat unwell, but not seriously so. Otherwise, all well. Papa is in the best of spirits; his birds have promptly taken possession of their new quarters and feel very much at home....
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... In my earlier letters I forgot to write you about two political items which used to interest you greatly. One is the temperance movement in New York, the other the Know-Nothing movement. I had been in the New York two days before I recalled that prohibition was in force. All lager beer saloons are open and full of guests; you find in the hotels, as formerly, the tables covered with bottles, and the wine-list lies before you just as copious and unconcerned as ever. People drink just as they used to, but with the extra pleasure of talking about the temperature law over a bottle of wine. A couple of tavern-keepers lately indulged in a humorous and profitable speculation. They engaged temperance preachers to speak in the street in
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front of their places of business. That was done; of course it drew a great crowd, and the natural result was that the barrooms of the neighboring tavern-keepers were filled to suffocation with thirsty humanity. The only effect of the temperance law is this: that all persons found drunk in the streets are arrested and must pay ten dollars fine. If they will not or cannot pay they are jailed for several days. This arrangement is not bad, and it would seem as if such regulations should constitute the final residue of the great temperance movement.
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which the worthiness of a foreigner to receive American citizenship can be determined. That is the beginning of the end; and it is a question whether the existence of the Know-Nothing organization will last until the presidential election of the year 1856. Here and there, no doubt, individual small sections of the party will perhaps come forth strongly once more, but the bulk of the army is decidedly in retreat.
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how the business with Jackson stands, but in case the sale occurs the real work will have just begun. I shall then have to survey the entire tract and lay it out in lots....
... The reason for my journey to Milwaukee is principally that before definitely closing with Jackson I want to see once more what opportunities there are here for favorable investments. In addition, I shall try to make some acquaintances, business and otherwise.
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Today is Wednesday, and I expect to return to Watertown before the end of the week.
... It was very annoying to me that Mr. Jackson condemned me to another wait, for he neglected to give his relatives here the necessary power of attorney,
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which forced me to open a correspondence with him again....
... The active period has now begun for me; that is to say, the business activity, for otherwise my life here is pretty empty. Before I received Mr. Jackson's last reply, and thus before I had to take the definitive step, I again last week made a tour into the country twenty-five miles westward to Columbus. I was astonished at the extent to which this region is cultivated and with what energy people have developed the advantages which the soil offers. Several miles west of Watertown the woods cease to be dense and the openings take the place of the forest. These latter are great open spaces set with trees, orchard-like, the soil of which is mostly without any brush but covered with lovely turf. The openings of Wisconsin can best be likened to the open planted sections which one sees in the parks of London. Between the openings, which are crowned by hills, spread out the succulent meadow lands often enlivened by island-like patches of woods, but often also like valleys of small streams extending for miles between the highlands. These elements of the landscape give the most peaceful, pleasant, prosperous pictures. There is here nothing of the ruggedness which attaches
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to almost every American beauty spot. This type of region repeats itself in the friendliest variation, except that the openings become lighter and the meadow lands more extensive the farther west one goes; until finally at Columbus the far-spread prairie land lies before you. It is astonishing how very rapidly the building up of the country proceeds here; indeed, how rapidly in some neighborhoods even the log house disappears and the pleasanter frame house or a pretty stone building takes its place.
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There is something remarkable about such a place as Watertown. All the wealth here is personally amassed and, as it were, on the spot. There is practically no imported capital here. All residents, perhaps with two or three exceptions, came with nothing and now you see these same people building mills, factories, railways, gas works, great stores, organizing banks, etc. And all this has been accumulated and done in less than ten years. Everything was created from nothing by sheer industry, initiative, and persistence. And you should see the bustle! Long wagon trains loaded with wheat coming into the town from all directions are snatch up at the entrances by buyers who try to anticipate one another. Then, with pockets filled, the farmers distribute themselves around among the stores. The streets are crowded with wagons, and the sidewalks with people. It is a picturesque, lively scene, full of cheerfulness. Among the rest you see the newly-arrived, the green ones, with bashful countenances, who do not yet understand what it all means and which way they will have to turn. The last few weeks have brought us a goodly number of these pleasing apparitions. And almost every day I have opportunity to give advice to
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this one or that one who arrives here with the strange plans of the ignorant.
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We are all enraptured by the place on the former Jackson farm where we live, and everybody who visits us envies us the beautiful site. How much more beautiful it will be when the new gardens have been laid
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out! Aside from a quantity of fruit trees, we found here a nice strawberry bed which next year will cover almost half an acre. There are also currants and gooseberries in smaller quantities, and Father will arrange for raspberries and the like. There are also multitudes of melons and other good things.
I am writing you once more from here today because I am not certain of being in Philadelphia early enough to post my letter there. According to my original plans I ought to have been on the way by this time, but a multitude of petty circumstances combined to delay my departure for several days. First, I still have a couple of contracts to close concerning the building next spring, and it was impossible to get the men together. Then the threshing machine did not come, and that delayed the sale of our grain. Further, the state elections came on, which occupied everybody, and I was
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unable to get my notary to transcribe certain mortgages and the like. So things went, in a descending scale, down to the trifling circumstance that, having given my tailor my winter coat to turn, this tailor ripped the coat and then got sick and could not deliver it at the appointed time. You see that I am an unlucky wight, but in four or five days I trust all these things will be overcome and I shall be sailing cheerfully toward the East....
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enjoyment of a beautiful, happy recreation. Your letter was doubly good for me because it made clearer to me the picture of you which I took with me from London after all those sad days. We wish so often to have you here. How this marvelously serene Nature would benefit you! I hope it may be arranged in the future. I think Margarethe will have sent you news of our arrival here. We found that we had been looked after more kindly and obligingly here than we dared to expect. My brother-in-law, Henry, whom I have seen] here for the first time, is an excellent person, very well trained in his field; and I may say that we have become quite intimate, little as Charlotte [Voss] may have expected that. Neither timid in his ideas nor narrow in his conduct, he seems to me to be quite a free-thinking man, who, though he may be inclined to make concessions, is also not afraid to admit the consequences. We live together very agreeably, in splendid harmony, and without ever running out of conversation.
Up to now we have had wonderful spring days, always full of sunshine; splendid weather—in the morning a pleasant breeze, at noon and in the afternoon just as warm. All this has only one disadvantage, that one finds too much pleasure in strolling around and in rowing on the lake, and thinks too little about work. I know the country around pretty well; no day passes without a little excursion, sometimes by water, sometimes by land. But with all that, I have sent to London only one article on Wisconsin, and a very hastily written one at that. I hope you will find it printed in the course of a few days. The second one I have started; it will hardly be finished any sooner however. Sometimes I wish myself some days of bad weather—and
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then this wish will seem to me a little too rash. It has pleased us very much that August showed himself so thorough. But I did not expect it to be otherwise, and firmly believe that the course adopted will prove to be the best. Be so good as to write me everything about how the matter develops.
Yesterday we made up a little rowing party to the Hotel Byron, where you formerly lived. How glorious it is there, and how much it made us think of you! Is it not a great shame that you cannot spend a few weeks here before the beginning of hot weather? My
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brother-in-law goes away from here toward the end of this month, and perhaps we could live in these delightful quarters happily together. Consider seriously what you can do, and let us hear from you. I should be happy to have you here. Greet Charlotte heartily for me. Margarethe will herself write to her. With more warm heartiness than ever.
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That is, I believe, what you need; and why can you not be here?
It seems to me that Margarethe's condition, in general, has improved; at least many of the more disagreeable symptoms have disappeared or have greatly moderated. It is my opinion that a pleasant residence in a healthful climate, her own permanent housekeeping, in which all comforts can be looked after, a quiet country life without excitement, supported by strict regularity in diet and moderated treatment, would prove more beneficial to her than this uncertain search after anything that might be good and the continued uncertainty of existence which leaves us restless today over what may happen tomorrow. We have discussed the matter
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frequently and calmly, and are unable to arrive at any other conclusion. We cannot longer resist the conviction that Margarethe's illness cannot be cured by a half-year's water cure or an extended stay in a curative climate, as Dr. Gully first believed.
For nearly three weeks we have been alone and living an idyl. The region, which you probably know, is beautiful beyond all others, the climate precisely what we wanted; and were it not that the enjoyment of nature makes one intellectually a little dreamy and
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unproductive, it would be the most satisfactory way conceivable to spend time. At first my wife was continuously ill; she is now some better, but the pain with which she is afflicted still gives us concern....
During the presence here of my brother-in-law we read your volume of stories, and rejoiced greatly in
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“The Homeless,” “The Honest Youth,” “Musical Orthodoxy,” and “Household War.” “Margaret” did not please me so well. The beginning of the tale—the picture of the father—is splendid, but in the love story and the whole development the language seems not natural enough and the dialogue too sustained to enable it to produce a harmonious impression. You see that in my old age I am coming to study your works, and in that connection I cannot refrain from speaking of your famous “The Homeless” and to compliment your wife especially on “The Honest Youth” and “Musical Orthodoxy.” That is the general opinion among us here. I will not ask you to write, for I know how busy you are. Do not feel under compulsion about it.
Margarethe, my wife, was advised by her physician to spend one or two months in Montreux on Lake Leman
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before taking the sea voyage back to the West. The time was early in February, 1856. We traveled by way of Paris and Dejon through France and were obliged to take a mail coach somewhere on the Swiss frontier. Rooms had been ordered for us at Montreux by my brother-in-law Henry Meyer, who also for reasons of health wanted to spend the spring months there with his young wife Emilie. He occupied one floor in a very simple house, called “Maison-aux-Bains” because a brook flowing back of the house formed a tiny waterfall. Our rooms were in the same house, we being the only occupants, with the Meyers, aside from the family of the owner, who lived in a high ground-floor apartment.
On a bright moonlight night about eleven o'clock we reached Montreux, and the postilion of the mail coach was kind enough to set us off, with our baggage, at our destination, Maison-aux-Bains. Since the hour of our arrival had been left somewhat indefinite, my brother-in-law was not momentarily expecting us, for the house was still and dark. So we stood all alone on the street. We had to ascend a considerable number of stone steps leading to a side of the house, in order to reach a door whence we could gain the attention of the occupants. During the last hours we had now and then caught glimpses of the lake between the trees which lined the road. But as we climbed the steps and sort of half-turned to look behind us, a scene presented itself which was beyond all description. The moon was the brightest I had ever seen. The air was mild and in gentle motion. Before our gaze the lake spread out many miles in extent. A small boat, with sails like swallows' wings, glided lazily over the bright, shimmering water streaks,
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in which the moon mirrored itself. Over yonder on the opposite shore of the lake rose the dark mountain walls of Savoy; far to the left gleamed the white peak of Dent du Mide; directly before us, projected into the lake, was the celebrated castle of Chillon, its turrets showing, but the nether walls wrapped in black shadows. We held our breaths in our ecstasy, and instantly agreed not to knock at once for admittance but to enjoy the view a short time. So we sat us down on the stone steps, my dear wife at my side, the sleeping child on my lap. There we sat and sat, drinking in pure joy in full draughts. When, after a time, the one concerned for the other would ask: “Isn't it time?” the answer would come back: “No, not yet; we shall never see such beauty again.” Finally, having to confess, despite our inclinations, that we could not sit there forever, we rose and knocked on the door, to be greeted in heartiest manner by our friends.
When I now look back over my long life, recalling its happiest moments, this half—or possibly whole—hour upon the stones steps at Montreaux floats into my memory as one of the very happiest. Nor was the moonlight hour upon the stone step all of it. My brother-in-law, Henry, was a young man of very lively disposition, of jovial temper, and many attractive qualities; my sister-in-law, Emilie, not yet quite twenty, one of the finest and noblest of women; my wife Magarethe, at the height of her loveliness, and our child, already beginning to say the most wonderful things, the central point of interest for us all. We were very fond of one another, were young and blessed with an abounding love of life, full of hope for the future and not yet oppressed with the cares of the moment—each
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one anxious to contribute to the happiness of the other. Added to all this we had the natural beauties of the environment always before our eyes, were surrounded by all the glories of spring in this blessed corner of the world where, protected by sheltering mountains from all raw winds, the loveliest tropical fruits of earth ripen. To us it was as if all these gifts were ours, for Montreaux was not then the modern bathing resort it is today. So we rowed, wandered, or sat together in our comfortable Maison-aux-Bain, reading aloud from Thackeray, Dickens, or Shakespeare; or we discussed what Henry and Emilie would do in Hamburg, or what Margarethe and I were going to undertake in America, and how we must get together now and then. Yes, those were weeks of untroubled pleasure; pure, childlike, spontaneous joy such as comes to us on this earth only rarely. At last the hour of separation came. Tears flowed in streams, and when we four came together again later—which occurred at times under much altered circumstances—we never failed to warm our hearts with the recollections of those heavenly days at Montreaux. He who has once enjoyed such sunbeams of happiness—he may well thank his kind fortune—and I am truly thankful.
... Unfortunately, to our surprise, we found that our house here was not yet ready, so that for the present
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we have had to quarter ourselves in the small old house. This involves many an inconvenience, but we shall soon be past this bad time and then we shall enjoy the greater comfort with double pleasure.
I found Watertown changed in a number of particulars. Business was very quiet in the spring, due principally to the sudden drop in the price of grain after the peace. With the coming of summer everything became more active again, and the building of new houses and business places began in such an extensive way that one needed to make his arrangements early in order to secure workmen. In addition, the Common Council passed an ordinance that all streets must be graded and all cross-walks built of brick or stone. This required the work of all hands. On top of this not less than three railway lines were begun; one from here to Madison and beyond to Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi; a second from here to Columbus, where my newly-married sister lives, and thence farther to La Crosse on the Mississippi; and a third from here to Fond du Lac and the great pineries on Lake Winnebago. One sees and hears nothing but houses under construction, which are rising with the speed of the wind; excavating on every hand, and harvesting in the neighborhood. Before winter all three railroads are to be ready for traffic as far as the nearest main points. And if you look at the map you will find that Watertown is a railroad center of importance. All these roads have come into existence because of immediate need, and therefore have good prospects. The excellent outlook for Watertown is further improved by the fact that the last legislature made this place the county seat. The immigration in the spring was small in numbers but the immigrants
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brought a conspicuously large amount of cash, so that the farms round about have risen decidedly in value....
Our house has been finished for some weeks. Also, the equipment has been completed with the exception of a load of furniture which is hourly expected from Milwaukee. Most of our things were made here and are as nice looking as they are solid. Anything pleasanter than Margarethe's and my suite cannot be conceived. These rooms are on the ground floor, to the right of the corridor. Margarethe usually sits in her light bay window, which is shaded by the veranda roof, with views of the city, the woods, and the hills directly in
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front of her. My windows, the one directly opposite my writing-table and the other on my left, open upon the yard, the farm buildings, the river, and the woods behind. The rooms are fairly spacious, very high, not without a certain elegance and at the same time livable and homelike.
Up to now the climate, although ut has already given us a taste of winter, had not by far caused Margarethe the inconvenience which last year made our stay in England so unpleasant. All day long she is upstairs and downstairs in our fresh new house, and we begin to experience such profound satisfaction as we have not heretofore had in our home life and which I should never have had but for her taste and talent for arranging. If
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I could only give you some of my way of thinking and attract you hither! If I could only have you here a half-year on a visit, perhaps you would change your mind. The more I become accustomed to the broad fairway in this country, the less can I comprehend your pleasure in th confining, monotonous conditions in London. But I shall of course have to give it up, and I do it with deepest regret. Who knows when life's courses may bring us together again? I feel more and more that my lot is cast on this side the ocean, unless changes hardly to be expected shall occur over there. And fate, or your inner urge, seems to bind you ever closer to Europe, the more I detach myself from it.
In the past few weeks public matters have made more than the usual demands upon American citizens. You over there in your decrepit Europe can hardly understand any more how a great idea can stir the masses to their depths and how an enthusiastic fight for principles can displace all other interests; even, for a
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certain time, materialistic ones. It is the first time in seven years that I have taken part in politics—in a time which arouses even the sleepiest and in a cause which is second to none in the world in reach and greatness.
Our home life will interest you more than politics. We have been living for a number of weeks in the new
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house, and Margarethe has an extended field for her activities. ... Briefly, our house suits us so well that we prefer not to go out, and there is nothing lacking in it but a visit from you and a piano, on which we could play with satisfaction. For the rest, the cottage is situated so beautifully, and its external appearance is so tasteful, that envious looks have already been cast upon it....
I write you today out of the full pleasure of my home situation. Picture to yourself a handsome country house, upon a gentle acclivity, a gunshot distant from the town; an unhampered view over stream and town and the encircling hills before it, and looking out at the back upon an oak forest enlivened here and there by small dwellings. Within the house, to the right of the hallway, are two high and spacious rooms connected by a wide sliding door. In the bay window of the one room are a lovely young woman at work and a red-cheeked, angel-faced child at play; in the other is a person of the male species at the writing-table, surrounded with books—among them, Blackstone and Kent and their associates distinguish themselves by their thickness; on the walls guns, implements of the chase, and the like—the ensemble so cheerful and agreeable—the front room also not without elegance. Here you have my wife, Hans [Agathe], and myself as at this moment we live and have our being. Would you complete the scene, bethink you that December came in today with one of those snowstorms known only here in the West,
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which bring the trains to a stand in the open fields, snow in travelers on the wild prairie, and interrupt all communication. The storm sings a many-voiced song in the notched pointed arches of our veranda, and the whirling snow permits us, from the window, a view of but a few paces. “Such a moment was it after the great action”—that I got around to write you.
... I promised to tell you something about my journey. The weather was constantly bad, and the farther east we came the deeper was the snow. About eleven o'clock Thursday night we arrived in the neighborhood of the great suspension bridge over Niagara, and one of my wishes, to see this mighty phenomenon of nature and this triumph of human art, seemed about to be fulfilled. But the night was so pitch black that one could not see a foot before him, and I must say that the waterfall and the suspension bridge were ravishing in this illumination! I saw nothing, absolutely nothing of them. We were obliged to change at the station because the connection with the corresponding train had failed. The hotels were full, and so many portion was a soft place on the stone floor of a barroom, where however I slept splendidly for several hours. In the morning at six we went on, and I asked where the great “hanging bridge” and Niagara Falls were. The answer was, we had passed them in the night, and with this impression of the great phenomenon of nature I had to proceed in patience. About twelve o'clock at night
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I arrived here at the Prescott House, slept until seven, and immediately fitted myself out at a clothing store, as necessity required. At breakfast a surprising homage awaited me. The landlord was so delighted about the arrival of such a distinguished guest, that he brought on a bottle of champagne in my honor in order that he might clink glasses with me. My fame is now almost seven years old, and in the seventh year it still brings me a bottle of champagne! Is not that a strong testimony against the vanity and transitoriness of human fame? The hotel is elegant, the accommodations good, and everything in the finest order. I have every reason to be content, but although I have been here hardly a day I want to go back again....
... I have much to tell you about other things. I have heard Thalberg, seen Miss Heron, talked with the Baron, etc. In the Thalberg concert I heard for the first tie what real piano playing is, and I will demonstrate
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it to you when I come home. Miss Heron did not enrapture me so much. She is ugly and on the stage she constantly makes faces, which render her uglier still. Her voice is mediocre and does not nearly equal that of Davenport. Her acting is overdone; she does too much in all respects and is in general too excitable. She has unquestionably great talent, but will still have to undergo much training. It is folly to compare her with Rachel. She patterns after Rachel but cannot attain the plane of Davenport. She is a times a little grotesque and will have to civilize herself first. I fear, however, that she has gone too far already in the wrong direction....
... I am in the process of rising in the world to a certain extent, and according to all appearances I
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shall from now on hold quite an important position in Wisconsin. Inasmuch as the antislavery party here has a pretty large majority, the confirmation of my nomination by the popular vote November 3 is hardly doubtful, and I shall then advance at a single leap from the position of alderman in Watertown to that of lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin. Meanwhile the honor brings its own burden. I have a great deal to do and have to carry on an almost oppressive correspondence in order to prepare for my public appearance, so that I may do honor to my new position. In the next four weeks I shall have to travel a good deal and shall return to the full quiet of home life only at the beginning of November.
You were right when in your last letter you conjectured I should probably be so overwhelmed with other matters as hardly to be able to get at letter writing. The campaign kept me continually on the move,
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particularly since, long before the decisive day, we noted that the financial crisis was claiming the attention of everyone, so that we could easily lose our majority and the election. Since our party is composed chiefly of the most reliable element of the population—namely, the native American farmers, who follow politics with a great deal of conscientiousness but with little zeal, unless particularly exciting questions happen to be up for decision—we feared lest many, more than usually concerned about their business, should fail to go to the polls and leave us in the lurch. The strength of our opponents lies mainly in the populous cities, and consists largely of the Irish and the uneducated mass of German immigrants, and in the nature of things is easier to assemble and to handle. The result justified our concern. Only 90,000 votes were cast in the entire state, which has nearly 140,000 voters, and the bulk of the defections are on our side. Although the election took place on November 3, we do not yet have certainty about the outcome because the determining majorities were so small. All reports agree that of all candidates of our party I have the largest vote, and indeed a somewhat outstanding one. But, since my opponent was likewise one of the strongest, I hold—notwithstanding my American friends stoutly and firmly maintain that I was elected—that my election will not be certain until the official count is completed and I have in my hands the official letter of appointment. This count begins on December 15, and will perhaps, depending on the manner in which it is conducted, make necessary a decision of the supreme court, inasmuch as in such doubtful results frauds not infrequently take place. I do not intend to brag until I know the end. The office
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which would fall to me is that of lieutenant-governor, the deputy of the governor. During the sessions of the law-making body he is president of the senate, the upper house of the legislature, and in case of the illness or absence of the governor he has to conduct the full administrative power of the state. The position carries with it extensive influence and, for him who knows how to fill it, is the forerunner of many other things. However the final result of the last campaign may turn out, for me it has been the source of an outstanding influence and a considerable reputation which extends beyond the boundaries of Wisconsin and which will insure me a respected position in America.
I had intended to write you for New Year's Day, but a lot of pressing engagements prevented. My New Year's wish comes late on that account, but it is hearty. I am really glad that the mean calendar year 1857 is finally past. It was full of bad luck of every sort. Just think, in the election I was defeated by forty-eight votes—45,005 against 45,053—and that by means of an election fraud which lies practically open to the light
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but could be proved and determined only by some outlay of money. This I have no desire to spend in these hard times. I therefore content myself this time with the spurs I won in the campaign, in which we as a party were defeated through an irresponsible negligence on the part of the members.
Since last September, when my political career began to be decided, to take shape, and to make more comprehensive demands upon me, I have been wholly
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unable to enjoy home life, and as the superscription of this letter will show you I am not writing you now from my delightful home place.
So much about business; now as to politics. My activity and successes in the Fremont campaign of 1856 brought me more recognition than I expected. On September 2 last year the Republican convention nominated me for the office of lieutenant-governor with a
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majority approximating a unanimous vote, since which time I have come more and more into the foreground. Circumstances favored me decidedly. I got around the state widely during the campaign, and with my speeches I had the best success—even more with the English than with the German....
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In order to overcome your last scruple I send you herewith a speech of mine, the only one which during the last campaign was correctly reported. Upon this speech rests a large part of my reputation in this country. So, with becoming modesty I lay it at the feet of my master in the oratorical art. Excerpts from it have made the round of the American press and were well received. I need hardly say that I spoke after careful preparation. An extemporary speaker I shall never be. In debate it goes well enough; but without preparation—that is, relying on the inspiration of the moment—I shall hardly ever be able to make a great and beautiful speech. It would be of the greatest importance to me, but I believe I am lacking in the absolute command of form. In this connection I envy you; study and practice
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may achieve something, but they will not make the master....
This winter I shall live with Margarethe in Milwaukee. Sometime ago, in consequence of an invitation of the Republican State Central Committee of Illinois, I spoke before a great assembly in Chicago with such success that I was asked by a number of citizens of that place to settle there as a lawyer. They went so far as formally to guarantee me a respectable income, so that I was not disinclined to consider it. When this matter became known, some of the most
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prominent American merchants, bankers, and property holders in Milwaukee met for the purpose of making me the same offer for Milwaukee which had been made by Chicago, if I would remain in the state of Wisconsin. I embraced the latter proposition all the more willingly since I already have a pretty wide reputation in this state and because my pecuniary interests are concentrated here. For the future, our affairs will be so shaped that we shall live in Milwaukee in the winter, and in the summer in Watertown, an arrangement which the railway connections will make convenient for my practice.
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What Charlotte wrote us of your domestic life has
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given us the deepest pleasure. And then blessing which awaits you can only increase your happiness. The joy of having children you have not yet experienced, and you will find that your imagination could not give you and adequate conception of it. Our two have developed in a loveliness that surfaces description. During the summer Margarethe was ill much of the time, so that, although the doctors do not regard her illness as related in any way to climatic conditions, we have thought of a trip to Europe. He illness is the only shadow upon our domestic happiness. My health is as usual; that is, such that my body seldom reminds me of its existence.
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who will have to do so hereafter, who knows how often. Every blow should steel us against new blows and every loss harden us against new losses. We have not lived and fought nearly enough as yet. I see you standing before me as in the flesh, surrounded by your children who have lost not merely their first but also their second home. I see you facing the future with courage. I know you have it, and that the hardest trial cannot break it.
I have just returned from a dinner with Longfellow. I am dead tired. Oh, that I might have an hour
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in our cozy room I lying on the sofa, you beside me in the rocking-chair, the children clambering over me! I am once more surfeited with glory, but cannot keep it at a distance. I receive thirty to forty visitors between ten o'clock
My success in Massachusetts was decidedly brilliant. My way hither is opened. I have already made preliminary agreements respecting the proposed lectures and received the most cheerful assurances on all sides. George Summer, brother of the celebrated Charles, Longfellow, and others will see that I have plenty of engagements. My speech was read with admiration everywhere and has won for me the whole intelligent
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world. I was hardly able to accept one-half of the invitations with which I was overwhelmed. I was the “lion,” and was glad to get away. This “lionizing” is a very strenuous business, which I am hardly up to....
After a long, long journey I reached here yesterday morning about ten o'clock. The train on which I left La Crosse Junction was one of the slow kind. It was half past nine at night when we reached La Crosse. The steamer left at eleven, and when I awoke in the morning I found that on account of the heavy fog we had been forced to lay by in the night about four hours. We had not made twenty-five miles by seven o'clock in the morning. From then on the voyage proceeded cheerily through the wonderfully beautiful Mississippi Valley. But we had so much trouble avoiding sandbars, which on account of the low stage of the water appear everywhere, that we were hardly able to make eight miles per hour. At noon we actually stuck fast on a sandbar and got afloat again only after four hours' work. At five o'clock in the afternoon we reached Lake
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Pepin with its wildly romantic shores. We should have been there in the morning. Evening brought us a heavy storm. The rain came down in torrents, and flash after flash of lightning illumined our way among the wild, savage, lonesome islands of the river. We expected to be in St. Paul by eleven o'clock at night, so I went to bed with my clothes on. At four o'clock in the morning I awoke to find that we had again run upon a sandbar about four miles from St. Paul, within sight of the city. So we paced the deck restlessly until at last, after nine o'clock, we got free, and entered St. Paul after ten. The entire journey from La Crosse hither took about thirty-five hours.
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lonesomeness, sitting in the ladies' parlor with Mrs. Larrabee. Whether or not he will get to speak I do not know; certainly the Germans here will give him a warm reception if he should take it into his head to discuss me. Probably he will leave again without accomplishing anything....
Today I am writing from a little tavern in a small country place in the wilderness. What wilderness is and what primitive places are and what wilderness roads are we no longer known in Wisconsin. In St. Paul I was furnished a wagon and two horses with which to make the tour this week. Day before yesterday noon I got under way. My road led past Fort Snelling, which like the old castles on the Rhine stands on a high cliff on the Mississippi, at the point where it receives the Minnesota River. The view is magical. On the left the Mississippi, about as wide as the Rhine at Bonn, confined by high, steep, occasionally wooded cliff walls; on the right the Minnesota, with its hilly, gently descending banks, not unlike the most beautiful parts of the Rhine valley. Fort Snelling itself could pass for an ancient knightly castle with its round towers and
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bastions. The whole view awakened in me recollections of the fatherland. From there it is but one mile to Minnehaha Falls. The way led first across a flat prairie, bounded in the distance by a girdle of woods. This prairie formed the plateau on the hills which rise from the stream-bed. So you drive out on the prairie, on which the last thing you expect to find is a waterfall. Suddenly you encounter a bush-grown ravine. You hear the rushing of waters without seeing anything; you climb up and stand in view of one of the most entrancing natural spectacles. A small streamlet, no wider than our house with the veranda, falls from the height into the rocky gorge. The water falls from a bold overhanging rock roof, in the form of a wonderful curve into the green gorge. You go behind the fall, which is nearly sixty feet high, and stand as in a cave closed by a curtain of falling water. Through this curtain the lively sunlight plays and you find yourself wrapped in the rainbow colors of the rising mist. You too must see it as soon as an opportunity for another western trip offers. It is just too beautiful.
The people had given up hope of my coming, and my arrival aroused joyful surprise. Instantly a group of farm wagons was set in motion, and the only musical
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instruments the village, two small drums and one big one, announced the coming meeting. In the evening, accordingly, I found a densely crowded hall, Germans and Americans. I spoke both German and English, with the best result, and among the German countrymen there was no end of handshaking and of assurances that now they would vote Republican. The Americans were exceedingly enthusiastic. As they said, they had never heard that kind of speaking and I can assure you that in Shakopee my reputation is made and firmly established.
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by the worst possible roads, in winter almost wholly cut off from all communication with the world.
This is a great country. At four o'clock yesterday I was through with my meeting at Shaska and set out, by way of Shakopee, where I spoke two days ago, to go to Lexington, where I was to meet Grow of Pennsylvania. One mile from Shakopee my companion
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asked me to stop at a brewery on the way, which we accordingly did. Suddenly we heard the “band” of Shakopee, made up of the familiar drums, and behold! the people of Shakopee were coming in nine wagons, with flying banners, to give me a festive entrance to the place. My recent speech had delighted them so that they absolutely would more. Thunder of a cannon, a bonfire, a hall packed to bursting with people, all the beautiful ladies of Shakopee sitting on the front benches. The excitement was tremendous. I spoke as never before, and all, male and female, were highly inspired. Today for Lexington. There goes the whistle of the steamer which should take this letter. Adieu, adieu....
This is what I call a campaign! This is what I call life and travel in the West! You received my last letter from Shakopee. I wrote it shortly before our departure for Lexington. We got under way about eight o'clock. At first the way led over the rolling prairie, a healthful drive in the fresh morning air. At last the road shifted into the woods, and we still had sixteen miles to our destination. I spoke in my last letter about the forest roads of Minnesota, but what we found between Bell-Plaine and Lexington surpasses the boldest creations of fancy. Such corduroy bridges, such mudholes, such impenetrable thickets of stumps I have never seen. We had to get down from the wagon almost a dozen times in order to pull the wheels, and occasionally the horses, out of the mud. We made at
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times not more than two miles per hour. The time passed between laughing and cursing. Finally about three in the afternoon we reached Lexington, a town consisting of a tavern, a schoolhouse, and a store. Had we not found en route an American farmer who served us as guide, and loped steadily before our wagon at a jog trot, we should never have found the place.
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pleasant American who will probably go to the United States Senate.
In Henderson, a place of one thousand to fifteen hundred inhabitants, deep in the forest, we held our meeting during a terrific storm which sent down its lightning flashes right and left beside us. But the people were enthusiastic, and even the ladies would not be kept away by the down-pouring rain. The thunder of heaven punctuated my periods. I received there letters from the state central committee, who requested my presence in Stillwater and St. Anthony Monday and Tuesday. Accordingly, we left Henderson Sunday
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day morning to reach if possible the same day the sixty-miles-distant St. Paul. But it was not possible. Our fagged-out horses needed rest so badly that we had to stop at a country tavern seventeen miles from St. Paul. Yesterday afternoon at one o'clock we were as far as Stillwater. I spoke in a big warehouse to a numerous gathering. Last night—serenades with torches, etc. This morning at five o'clock we left Stillwater, and I am now writing you in the brief interval between my arrival here and my departure for St. Anthony, where there is to be a colossal mass meeting today. The newspapers announce that the populations of five or six townships are to meet me halfway and arrange for me a triumphal entry into St. Anthony, with music, thunder of cannon, etc. ... From St. Anthony I shall go to St. Cloud, and next Saturday I shall be back here again, where a great torchlight procession and a demonstration as magnificent as possible are to be arranged for me. The Germans here are very enthusiastic....
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You must have been sad when I failed to come last night. But what will you say if I do not come today? I reached here last night about twelve, in a “propeller” from Sheboygan. I found everybody here eager to see me. Things are so confused here that, as they tell
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me, I alone shall be able to help. In the expectation of my arrival, they arranged for a meeting tonight and are disposed to compel me to stay. I shall work at my Schiller speech tomorrow, and should I not complete it I must get sick on the day set for it. But I hope to have everything ready at the appointed hour....
The following morning at ten I spoke to a German gathering in Sheboygan and then took a special train to Plymouth, where I spoke at two. In the evening I returned to Sheboygan in order to take the steamer to Milwaukee. But the steamer was delayed, and I had to wait till yesterday afternoon for an opportunity. That was the cause of my delay. Now I am here, and the thought that I cannot get away oppresses me with Alpine weight. But, having done so much, I must still make this sacrifice. Nothing else will do. Do write me
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so that I may have your letter Monday noon. I can hardly wait as it is.
... Next Sunday I shall speak in Music Hall. By dint of hard, persistent labor I have completed my address on “America i Public Opinion Abroad,” and I believe it is going to please. I have labored unceasingly and am somewhat tired. Last night I lectured in Roxbury. The committee insisted on hearing again the lecture on France. This evening I shall be in Boston.
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I have a letter from Albany which makes it possible that I shall lecture there at the beginning of next week, but the matter is still uncertain. I have nothing thus far from New York, Hartford, and New Haven. Not to have them would be a nasty loss....
... I must tell you also how things stand politically. The Assembly at Madison has in it a majority of greenhorns who do not know how to do anything, but require a great deal of time to do it. They have already sat for six weeks and so far have accomplished nothing at all. At last a couple of young talents have come forward among them, and I hope the rest of the session, which will probably be drawn out to April 1 (at least so it seems to me) will be somewhat more fruitful. People are generally very well satisfied with Harvey and Howe, but Randall's popularity has declined greatly. Many of his former adherents now look upon him with distinct mistrust, and I fear there are some things in his administration, particularly in the land surveys, etc., which are not quite as they should
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be. Besides, he takes a most equivocal attitude on the states' rights question. He is both with us and against us, and on the whole I believe these questions of principle are to him indifferent. The people notice this, and the dissatisfaction spreads more and more. The question of who shall be chief justice is being sharply discussed, and the opposition to the former judge, A.D. Smith, who received La Crosse bonds, is taking effect. On the one hand he has gained many friends by his services, and on the other hand those who are opposed to the bonds are also his opponents in a very determined way. I belong to this latter group and shall oppose his nomination to the utmost. “Relentless war on corruption” is my platform, and I shall nail the party to it with iron rivets. The convention will be held on the twenty-ninth. I hear I have been elected delegate in Watertown. According to what I hear, there is no question about my being sent to Chicage from the “state at large.”
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... Tommorow morning I must go back to Madison, where another meeting of the Board of Regents is to take place. Wednesday is the state convention,
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which will select delegates for Chicago. I see by the papers that various assemblies in the state have passed resolutions demanding that I be elected delegate for the state at large. The nomination for chief justice will occur at the same time. I have thought out a speech in opposition to the corruptionists, which if I find it necessary to deliver, will ring in their ears. You will be satisfied with me in that respect. I hear that the A. D. Smith faction is pretty strong. But I shall not depart from the principles which guide me in my political life, even if I have to fight the whole Republican party. Be assured you shall never be compelled to blush for your husband. I am going to convince the Republicans that my declaration of war on corruption was meant seriously and that, in this fight, no quarter will be given. The Americans are not accustomed to that, but if they want to have the Germans who are under my leadership they will have to become accustomed to it....
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the majority of the Supreme Court adhere to their former position. But other complications have entered which will make necessary my early presence in Wisconsin.
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elected. The election occurs on April 2 and the matter is of so much general importance that we must not shun some work. The Republican ticket for the city, in general and in particular, is so unimpeachable and strong that it seems very possible that we shall make Milwaukee Republican this time. That would be the most brilliant result of all this spring's campaigns. Milwaukee, the citadel of the Democracy, Republican! That would give Douglas the coup de grace! Is that not worth “sweat of the noble”? Will you be angry if I give to this great and good cause some days of my labor? Where so much depends on me and my manipulation, you would not wish me to let the thing fail through negligence, would you? You can appreciate the responsibility that goes with my leadership, a responsibility which, to be sure, is not signed and sealed but is morally not less binding on that account. And would you not be proud if, on the morning of April 3, I should bring you news of a Republican victory in Milwaukee and you could say: “I have a share in this great outcome, too; I bought it with my sacrifice”? That is the way wives, even those in the humblest sphere, can make their contribution toward the victory of great principles—a contribution all the higher and more worthy of respect in that they do not have the stimulating excitement of active fighting. I know you live on too high a plane to forget, in the commonplace desires of life, the responsibilities of your position. Whatever you may think or say in a moment of vexation or dissatisfaction, I have always recognized in you the uncommon, the foundation for greatness, and have ever believed in it. And in this belief I have perhaps exacted of you sacrifices which were hard, but these exactions
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were directed to an unusual personality, inured to the stormiest labors of life....
The way my ratification speech takes is truly remarkable. The people here are still quite enraptured
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over it. Governor Morgan said he had read it aloud at least twenty times, so that his wife makes fun of him. Thurlow Weed and Horace Greeley have both printed it in pamphlet form....
... As you see, I have luckily escaped all the dangers which threaten the stranger in the great city of New York, the city where one can so easily lose himself and where there are so many bad men. Also, I have survived the Fourth of July unshot, unburned, unstabbed, and unslain, and have arrived happily in the secure haven of the doctor's home [Dr. Henry Tiedemann]. You will doubtless receive me like the sheep that was half lost and was found again. On the Fourth of July 1 left New York at eight o'clock in the morning, just as the troops were gathering and Governor Morgan
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was buttoning on his epaulettes in order to appear in the parade with the greatest brilliancy.
Just arrived. A deputation met the twenty-two miles from here, at the depot—the Governor, a multitude of people, music, cannon, etc. I had to make a short speech in reply to a speech of welcome. I am now at last left alone. It is scandalously warm, but still endurable. At the evening meeting the Wide-Awakes
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and accessories. I have already found letters which suggest extra appointments. These will, of course, be promptly refused. Of one thing you can be assured: I shall undertake nothing that I cannot carry out. As soon as I feel that the work is too heavy and is threatening my health I shall instantly stop. Rely upon that.
I am just at the point of leaving. A few hurried words. The demonstration yesterday was magnificent. The Germans are coming over in masses. The jubilation is almost oppressive. I am very well, although it
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is extremely warm. I am utilizing every possible moment for rest and was never in better voice. I believe I am growing stout. Everything would be well if it were not for serenades which get one out of bed at night. I have determined not to make another serenade speech, and to that decision I shall remain loyal.
Evening before last I went by train to Bath, slept there, and yesterday came here across country. The dust was frightful but the weather quite cool and pleasant. I arrived here last night and was quartered in the home of a German doctor who has been here for thirty years, and figures as one of the most active members of the party. I am uncommonly well and comfortable. Just now the farmers from the regions round about are coming in with music and banners; they are defiling past the house with hurrahs. It is the same old racket. I shall speak at two o'clock, and at five
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drive to Meredosia, sixteen miles from here, to get the Springfield train. Tomorrow I shall be with Lincoln—in “Abraham's bosom.” So far my activity has been accompanied with uncommon success. The Germans almost everywhere after my speeches have come over to our side in large numbers....
Today a great demonstration takes place here; the whole town is already bedecked with banners and wreaths. Hecker will be here and will speak along with me. The enthusiasm has everywhere risen to fever heat. My success was at all points brilliant. The Germans are coming over by hundreds and thousands. If it goes everywhere as in Egypt, where in 1856 there were
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hardly any Republican votes, then Lincoln's election is unavoidable....
I have been under a severe strain these days, but my successes have been splendid. Day before yesterday I came to Lafayette, where they had made great preparation for my reception, and that without distinction of party. At the station I was handed a bouquet by one of the leaders of the German Democrats which bore this
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card: “To the patriot Carl Schurz from the German Democrats of Lafayette.” That was nice, wasn't it? It shows that men are not everywhere bad. Then followed a series of welcoming speeches, bouquets from the “Ladies of Lafayette,” a very crowded meeting, and lastly, a complimentary supper with torchlight procession and serenade. Well, I just escaped with my life, but I dare say I have made a great many Republicans.
My train leaves for Vincennes in half an hour and I have just time to write to you. Yesterday I had a quiet day and enjoyed the rest profoundly. How beautifully I slept, hw gloriously I dreamed, and I wrote only so much as I cared to write. My Douglas speech is coming along; if I had two free days it would be finished. It is going to be a fine specimen, in which people are going to take pride. Terre Haute is the first place where I have been treated with genuine consideration. Last night the Wide-Awakes organized to give me a special torchlight procession and make me speak. I sent word that I would rather b left in quiet, and the people were sensible enough to do it. So yesterday I lived a godly life. I bowled almost an hour with my German brothers. I am quite as good at it as I used to be. You see, I am as cheerful as a fish in water and
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go at the work again with genuine enthusiasm. We have made tremendous gains here. A considerable number of German Democrats yesterday announced their change of party...
At last the bed men have left me for a moment and I can tell you my experiences. I would have written yesterday but feared to cause you unnecessary anxiety. You will have received my letter from Detroit. Saturday morning I thought to go to Cleveland by steamboat and then take the evening train Pittsburg—which would have been the most agreeable journey for me. We left Detroit about nine o'clock in the morning and after luncheon I lay down to catch up on the sleep I had lost during the night in the hotel, where I was nearly eaten up by mosquitoes. The water was a bit unquiet when I lay down, the and the wind was blowing pretty strong. But being a born seaman I went to sleep peacefully, and on waking up after several hours and going out to see how far it still was to Cleveland I learned to my great astonishment that we had put about and were steering for Detroit again. The captain had found the storm so terrific that he did not dare to proceed father into the lake. So he prudently turned back. You can imagine how vexed I was. Had we reached Detroit at the right time I believe that, in my vexation, I should have taken the Milwaukee train in order to be there at the Seward meeting and to take you with me. But it was too late. I therefore had to remain on the boat,
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where much out of sorts I went to sleep. Next morning the captain approached very respectfully, hat in hand, and requested a few words with me in private. He said he had just learned who I was, and excused himself copiously for not knowing at once. He then returned my passage money, saying he considered it an honor to have me on board; he would never accept pay for such an honor. “Well!” thought I. He then prepared for me his own cabin—a charming, elegant room,—called the stewards together, and gave orders that whatever this gentleman might wish must instantly be done. So I was lord on the vessel and enjoyed it pretty well. My anger subsided and I worked the whole day on my speech, which I already have largely by heart.
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Yet I often yearn to relive those Bethlehem days. Be patient. This strife also will come to an end and we shall have peaceful years, years such as we once had of
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quiet, innocent pleasure. Why should not the mature, action-strengthened man enjoy these things just as much? I am now in the fullness of my power which, undiminished, unwasted, blossoms and brings forth fruit. The period of action is come. Let me act, and peace will come to us as a reward for the fulfillment of duty....
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... I have appointments in Indiana for the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth. We have come to the crisis of the campaign. I have scored triumph after triumph and achieved almost superhuman results. Yet a few days' labor, a brief effort in Pennsylvania and Indiana, then a successful state election on October 9 in both of these states—and the battle will de decided. Being so near the goal it would be sinful for me to spare any effort. I am standing in the very thick of the fight. The blows I delivered in several places were glorious. Every day I speak more effectively and my power grows with the heat of the struggle. The old Pennsylvania Dutch, who only half understand me, run after me like children. The Democrats are beside themselves, and wherever I have spoken they telegraph like mad in all directions for German speakers to neutralize my efforts. But it is all in vain. The Democratic newspapers have berated me wildly, with the result that even German Democrats become angry and everybody is eager to hear me. So all my meetings are crowded and I drive everything before me. I have become as much the subject of newspaper discussion as if I were myself a presidential candidate. My printed speeches are being distributed all over the country by hundreds of thousands and are being called for more and more. I feel better than ever in this turmoil. It seems as if victory could not fail us and, by Jove, I have done my share towards it. ... You have been anxious about my success in New York; you might have imagined that the rapturous inspiration of the moment would have carried
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me through. On October 18 I shall speak to the German there and will work out a speech for the occasion. On this I am going to do my best and exceed everything I have so far done in German. You distress yourself over the insults of the
... I am so tired of this work, with all its noise and show, that I should like to throw up everything and go home. But when I reflect that on the decisive day we might fail by just a few votes, and that with a little more effort I might have added what was necessary; that in the end I should have to confront myself with the dire question: Why did you not do this thing more since you might have done it?—how terrible that would be not to me alone but also to you! Is it not true? And when I consider the efforts I am making I find that they tire me very much less than others. I am often very tired, but a night's sleep brings me out again as bright as a lark. Everybody else around me was exhausted—Curtin, Curtin, Corwin, Blair, etc. Their voices sounded like cracked kettles, and mine still showed th old metal unchanged. My lungs feel sound and light as ever. Indeed, they seem to have acquired new power. Nor
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does my throat suffer. I was hoarse only once. That was in Reading after I had spoken to a gathering of old Pennsylvania farmers. It was a mass meeting of from five to six thousand. But it [the hoarseness] left me the following day and since then I have felt no inconvenience. ... You see there is no call for anxiety about me. My triumph in New York was colossal, was
With each day which brings my departure nearer my heart grows lighter, and I count the hours with conscientious care. Last night I spoke here to a great
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gathering; tomorrow night I shall speak four miles from here. ... In any event I shall be with you Tuesday evening. Hallelujah! Thereafter we shall travel together....
I am writing you in great haste. The train is about to leave for Oshkosh. I, of course, arrived here in good condition. My reception was the grandest affair that has ever taken place in the state. I was lodged in one of the finest parlors of the Newhall House, spoke in the afternoon, and in the evenings at eight the torchlight procession marched by me at the Newhall House, which was illuminated from top to bottom. There were about three thousand, the Milwaukee Wide-Awakes at the head with a new banner which had upon one side, painted in oil, my picture and on the other side a sentence out of my ratification speech. Then came the citizens of all classes—Mitchell, Crocker, Tweedy, and all the first people of the city, carrying torches and marching in the
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procession. My picture and selected sentences from my speeches frequently appeared on transparencies. In marching by the Newhall House the whole tremendous column, which was more than a mile and a half long, fired off rockets and shouted hurrahs. The affair ended at half past eleven. It was the greatest demonstration Milwaukee had ever seen and far surpassed the Douglas procession.
In Watertown, where the Wide-Awakes now number nearly two hundred, they have invited all Wide-Awake companies for the purpose of giving me a great reception. At the first Wide-Awake demonstration there they had a fight. The Wide-Awakes were attacked near Richer's Saloon by the Rothe band, whereupon
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upon they formed for a regular attack, raided the saloon, and caught Rothe, who begged for his life, was then pardoned and dismissed. Various others received serious blows. By this incident the Wide-Awakes have won great respect, and since then nothing has been heard about any kind of disturbance. But it is said that even the Democrats—that is, the decent ones—were so angered by the conduct of their fellows that many of them have come over to the Republican party....
Yesterday morning I returned from Watertown and spoke here in the county. The carriage now stands before the door to take me on a new expedition. Thus
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has every minute of my time been claimed and I hardly know what I am about. The speaking is the least of it. It is as if, in the hour preceding the battle, the general staff rides along the front directing a few encouraging words to the troops. The chief thing is the driving. It demands more time than strength. I am perfectly well and strong....
The election is over, the battle is fought, the victory is won. I remained in the city in order to work at the polls to the last minute. The day preceding the election I spoke in various places and did my best. The campaign was lively. Both sides took every precaution. When the voting was concluded we gathered in the Chamber of Commerce at Spring Street bridge to receive the telegraphic reports. The hall was crowded. As the dispatches arrived the excitement mounted; and when Lincoln's majority appeared ever to be growing, the cheering was tremendous. Finally came New York, the actual battle ground of the campaign. Early dispatches spoke of a majority of 40,000 in the city against
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us. The stillness of dread among the Republicans! Then the telegrams came, stroke after stroke, and the formidable count melted away, first to 35,000, then 28,000, and finally 25,000. Everyone breathed freely once more. Then, like a veritable hailstorm, the Republicans reported majorities from the western portion of the state. The crowd went wild with shouts and cheering; hats were flying to the ceiling, against the walls, and to the floor as if they were worth nothing at all. Finally at about two o'clock the telegraph announced: “According to reports received, New York is good for a majority of 50,000.” The cannon was now dragged out and we woke up the Democrats, they having withdrawn from the streets pretty early in the evening. And when the first boom of the cannon announced that the great work was finished, the great victory won, nothing was lacking save that in this auspicious moment I should have had you with me. The victory belongs to you also, and I have not been able to separate my enjoyment of it from the thought of you. Now, now the time of trial is over. Love, peace, family, happiness! The future threatens no further separation. I shall proceed at once to get my lectures ready, and as soon as this work is finished I shall take the train. A half-dozen letters are still out which will bring certainty regarding the dates of my engagements. When these come nothing will delay me further. This afternoon I go to Watertown to remain till next week Tuesday or Wednesday. I am much wearied and require several days' “vegetable-sleep.”
I shall write promptly from Watertown. I am happy in the thought of the future. We are to be one
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again, and unless I am greatly deceived we shall bring back a part of the old idyllic life.
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I finally have a minute in which to write you. It is late; I come directly from my lecture;the day's work is finished and I can write you without interruption. Yesterday I received your letter in Albany and would have answered at once had there been time. When I had finished my lecture on “American Civilization” (I gave it in Auburn and the success was remarkable), I read in the newspaper that a revolutionist gathering in Boston was broken up by a band of Democrats and Bell-Everetts. The thought came to me that a lecture on freedom of speech would be very timely. Saturday I
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began the work and today, five minutes before the lecture, it was finished. The gathering (Tremont Temple was quite full) received me with much applause and the thing went wonderfully. Do you not see now why I had no time to write you? I work continuously, pausing only to sleep and eat. ... My engagements increase daily. I have enough to keep me going from the twelfth to the thirty-first of December, and from the first to the fourth of January. ... (What shall I do—give up my engagements and the money I could earn and come to New York and Philadelphia, or assemble riches for wife and child as becomes a good husband and father?) I believe it would be better to postpone the celebration of Christmas until after our return home. It is very sad to me separated at such a time, but under the circumstances it is our duty to submit to necessity....
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Yesterday ad today I rested and tomorrow I shall get to work again. I can tell you with great pleasure
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that the danger of the degradation of the Republican party is less than ever. Lincoln himself stands firm as an oak, and his determination is imparted to the timorous members of the party. The letters I receive from Washington (and my correspondence with my friends there is very lively) have in recent days been full of the most encouraging reports. The spirit of our people seems to rise in the same degree in which the embarrassment of our opponents increases. So far as my opportunities have permitted, I have fired my charges into the situation vigorously from a distance, and almost daily I send over my views and suggestions about what ought to be done. It seems as if matters in Congress would go well. One thing, however, has become practically certain: there will be a struggle between the North and the South whose duration will depend upon the determination with which it is conducted; that is to say, the more vigorously the North attacks, the shorter will be the crisis. It is a time for men of decision and resource, and I should not be surprised if your husband would be called into service again....
We are living at a great time and we should not be smaller than the requirements which the time makes on us. If things do not deceive me, the end of the political slave power draws near. The Republican party needs only to understand its might in order to carry through
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with one single stroke a reform which will be among the most notable of our day. Why cannot I be in Congress at this time? I could say things there which would make our fearsome brethren shake their heads. And by the way, I am not so far removed from Congress as people think. I am just now engaged in working out a speech which is to be delivered by a Representative in Congress. Is that not lovely? If I cannot be there in person, my speeches nevertheless make themselves heard there. I have already noticed traces of the letters I have sent thither.
The Secessionists are trying to draw Virginia and Maryland into the movement. Should that be accomplished, their next step will be to seize Washington, which is chinked in between Virginia and Maryland. Since this would take place during Buchanan's administration, or on the fourth of March, should the plan be carried into effect military measures will have to be taken not only to carry out the policy of the next administration
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but also, in advance, to secure for Lincoln the privilege of entering upon his office. This whole complication, in my opinion, can be avoided only if the northern states arm as quickly as possible and show their determination to maintain the government by force of arms and at every cost. Such preparations and a practical proof of such a determination appear to me the only things through which the southern desperadoes can be frightened away from their object. These people rely upon their theory that the Northerners have no desire to fight. Therein they are mistaken. As our representatives in Washington become bolder the fighting spirit among the people rises. In whatever manner the war may break out I am convinced that it will not last long. The helpless situation of the South will quickly be apparent, and contingent slave uprisings, which are not outside the range of possibility, would all the more bring the business to a swift close. This morning I saw Senator Wilson, who was in complete agreement with my views. I am writing today to Lincoln to lay before him the basic ideas of a plan arming the free states.
You see what kind of things occupies my innermost mind, and I must say that often, when I am giving a lecture, I am thinking of things quite other than those of the immediate lecture. This makes the lecture business quite distasteful to me. But what is the use? Money has to be forthcoming and so I must stay at my post. For the life of me, I should love to spend a few days in Washington, but it cannot be done. On the other hand, I am also restless about getting home, but my conscience forbids me to give up any appointment. I do not yet have the list of my engagements in the state of New
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York; they will probably keep me every day up to the fifteenth of January. ... The owners of the
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If the report is true, and I do not doubt it, our victory is assured and the great struggle between slavery and freedom is finally decided. Glory to him! (Long live Lincoln!) We live in a wonderful time. It is not merely an age of the adventurer and upstart whom cleverness and favoring circumstances have raised up; it is likewise the age of conscience-ruled men who dominate affairs by the force of honesty and shatter all opposing obstacles. I often regret that I was too young in 1848 to take a leading or even official part in affairs. But now I thank fate that I am precisely at the right age at a time when in Europe Garibaldi comes forth as knight errant, fighting for an ideal; Garibaldi, man of unshakable faith and determined will—a man who has achieved greatness against forces that measured their development by centuries. And if now, in America, the rise of a tyrannical party and the lawless attempts of an antisocial element break down under the honest will-power of a simple man [Lincoln], is it not a proper ambition to want to be worthy of such a time? Is it not worth sacrificing peace and comfort to perform the duties which such a situation lays upon one? To be compelled to live in a petty age and expend one's energies
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upon trifling matters is but a sad fate. But if, living in a great age, in the midst of mighty problems, one yet disregards the exalted objects because of petty aims and desires, would he not be a thousand times more pitiful creature? Whatever comes to you and me, we shall at least live upon the heights of the time, shall we not?
In my last letter I spoke of the firmness and trustworthiness of Lincoln. Today I shall tell you something
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which will not please you. You recall that Cassius M. Clay requested me to write a letter to Lincoln in furtherance of his ambition for a cabinet post. The reason he gave me for it was the absolute need in that body of a firm and energetic man to save the Republican interests from the disturbance of the equilibrium through compromise. This morning I read in the
What do you think of Seward, my child? Have you read or heard about his last speech? The mighty is fallen. He bows before the slave power. He has trodden the way of compromise and concession, and I do not
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see where he can take his stand on this back track. This star also paled! That is hard. We believed in him so firmly and were so affectionately attached to him. This is the time that tries men's souls, and many probably will be found wanting. Lincoln still stands like a stone wall. Every report from Springfield confirms my faith in him. A great majority of the Senate are with him, and between eighty and eighty-four members of the House. This week and the next will decide. Some great reputations will go down in this whirlpool and possibly some new names will write themselves in history. Between us, it would not surprise me if Lincoln should recall his invitation to Seward to head the cabinet. It would be a sharp, perhaps a dangerous, stroke but a just one; for Seward, whatever he may think privately, has no right on his own responsibility to compromise the President's future policies against his will. What has now become of our Chicago convention Seward enthusiasm? Where are the lovely oratorical bouquets with which we covered his defeat?
Governor Chase stands firm and true upon his old principles. I wrote him yesterday and urged him strongly not to decline the proffered place in the cabinet. He will be our staff and support there. I think it not impossible that this week or next some sort of compromise may be brought forward in Congress. Still, I have not abandoned the hope that things may take a more favorable turn. The South will not be easy to satisfy, and it is not unlikely that the shamelessness of our adversaries [the Democrats] may influence our enemies. It is well at times to have out-and-out enemies, particularly when one belongs to a party which is temporarily smitten with cowardice. The brutal aggression
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of the one side sets bounds for the cowardice of the other.
I am still in uncertainty. Yesterday I learned through the newspapers that the Wisconsin legislature
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would still and commissioners to the peace conference in Washington and that my name was among them. Whether or not the resolution on the subject actually passed the Assembly I have not been able to find out. At noon today I telegraphed to Randall and Harvey,
Whatever the probable results of the conference, I don not believe that anything lasting can come of it. Should an agreement be reached on the slavery question, another question would instantly arise which for the moment is of surpassing importance, namely: Shall the laws be enforced in the seceded states and the Union by all means preserved? This question the northern states will answer in the affirmative, the southern in the negative, and since this is a definitely practical question it will lead to a new and final break however the abstract question of slavery may be adjusted. I therefore look for no decisive result from the conference. Anyway it will have no influence upon the cotton states, and in the end the War of Secession will have to be waged. You may ask: Why then go to the peace
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conference? It shows the South our desire to meet its complaints. It enables us to cultivate good relationships with the border slave states—Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc.,—to quietly discuss the cause of dispute, tell them the truth, prolong the debate and, what on our side is of critical importance,
... Because I had suggested the presentation of Virginia's invitation to the legislature, together with a recommendation, I telegraphed to Randall to inquire
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what had become of that matter. Now what is the secret of the bad use he has made of it? In the end it will recoil upon him, not upon me. I found here a letter from Madison in which I am requested to clear the thing up. I shall give the clarification at once, when it will appear in its true light, and be terminated. Who would trouble himself about such pettinesses?
I expected to make Peoria in the night and Monmouth in the morning. Toward midnight, about half an hour before we reached the junction where I should have taken the train to Peoria, our train broke down, the coaches left the rails, and we were stalled. No one was
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hurt, and the accident was unpleasant simply in that it compelled us to lay over the night in an open field. It was nearly five o'clock in the morning when an engine summoned by telegraph brought us to the junction house of Chenoa, where I slept on the floor one hour. Then, at eight o'clock, we went to Peoria by freight train and at evening to Galesburg. But I was unable to reach the place of my appointment and therefore lost this lecture. I have now slept off all of these fatiguing incidents and am as fresh as ever....
Tonight my third lecture, and then three days more and I shall be with you all again! ... This, by the way, has been the hardest tour I have ever made; a continual succession of small accidents and disappointments! I wrote you day before yesterday from Burlington. Yesterday morning at ten o'clock I was to give at Monmouth the deferred lecture which could not be give Tuesday evening on account of the railway mishap. In order to do it I had to leave Burlington about half past five in the morning to cross the Mississippi and connect on the other bank with the train which would carry me eastward. I rose in time to be greeted by a raging snowstorm which made travel difficult and unpleasant. I took my seat in the omnibus in the expectation that, as on the previous day, I should ride comfortably over the ice of the Mississippi. But on reaching the bank the driver said he could not risk driving the heavy vehicle over the ice before daylight, particularly since on account of the snow he could not see the holes. So there
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was no choice but, with the other passengers, to make my way on foot across the Father of Waters. There were about twenty of us. A man with a lantern took the lead and we fell into the march. A raging storm drove the snow directly into our faces. Water stood about three inches deep on the ice, and since our leader could not see five feet ahead of him, it was almost impossible for him to keep his course. So we wandered some three-quarters of an hour on the Mississippi before reaching the opposite shore. In a sorrowful state we arrived at the station, and you ought to have seen the group which pressed around the stoves, emptied the water out of their boots, and dried their socks. But even that has been endured. I gave two lectures that day and now feel as if nothing had happened. Yet I do feel that I have earned my rest, and I will have it....
I have tried for two days to write to you, but this is a frightful life. Not a moment's quiet. Last night
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Ottenburg arrived and handed me your dear letter. I thank you.
has aided much. Lincoln desires that I shall go to Sardinia and has definitely promised me a mission of the first class. There has been a rumor that Brazil would be offered me. It is certain that those who want Sardinia
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for another are pressing for this solution. So far I have given my friends to understand that I should not accept it. If lincoln brings the matter up I shall insist upon Sardinia, without however definitely refusing the other mission. The salary in $12,000 and Rio de Janeiro is said to be very beautiful. Still, I am sure that Lincoln designs me for Sardinia. He will at least not dispose of that mission without first consulting me.
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A succession of calls will have to be made tomorrow, among them one upon the Spanish minister, and then at three o'clock I depart for New York to make the necessary financial arrangements for our voyage. Monday morning I shall set out from New York, travelling
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day and night. Now, my wifey, everything is all right. Get ready for the voyage as soon as possible. Seward desires that the ministers depart soon.
was only barely averted. The
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Probably you have received by the post my letter from Annapolis and two from here. I have “three
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months' leave of absence” and the commission to organize a cavalry corps. All goes well here. Soon things are going to happen. I am well and expect to leave here tomorrow unless I am not wholly through with my business.
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would now be ready to receive its guests were it only possible for me to get
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these guests together. Still, the “service” (as we would says in Prussia) and the African heat do not yet permit this. In a few weeks it will be possible.
At the close of your letter you promise me “more in the next.” I beg you to keep your word. Shall I perhaps
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meet you in Paris also? It would be delightful if we could spend a few days there together.
to the Queen. The presentation of the letters of credence was effected with the usual mumble-jumble. I made an address to the Queen in English, of which she understood not a single word, and she answered in Spanish, of which I understood nothing, and we were extremely satisfied with each other. Something else happened at this audience which would not have been thought possible in this stiffly ceremonious Spain. Lacking a uniform, I appeared within the sacred precincts of the royal palace in a black frock coat, a proceeding so frightful that Madrid could not get over it for a number of days. Several days ago, however, I
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received fro Paris my embroidered coat, and I believe the European equilibrium is again restored. I lived in a hotel about a week, paying six dollars per day for two small rooms and very middling board. Then I rented a country house directly in front of the Alcola gate. The house has a fine suite of large rooms and stands in a garden comprising about fourteen acres. It is the property of Queen Christine, who lived there several years ago with her husband, the count of Riangarez, the former guardsman Muñoz. In the year 1854, the occasion of the revolution, the people of Madrid took certain liberties with the property of the despised Christine, and the last traces of these I am compelled to efface at this time. It is too bad that in Madrid furnished apartments are not to be had, so I am forced to buy the furniture I need, and since everything of the kind is horribly dear in Madrid I shall have to make my purchases in Paris and import them here.
It is extremely difficult to run a household here. It is assumed that the wife of a minister shall concern herself about nothing that goes on in the managerial department, and the Spanish domestics are so habituated to stealing that one is not sure of the buttons on his coat.
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Unless careful supervision is exercised, you may expect that half the household money, and at times more, will find its way into the pockets of the help. This business has developed to such a system that you cannot keep domestics if they are not permitted to steal. Luckily, I have the best support in Perry, who has lived many years in Spain and whose wife is a Spanish lady. Strangers who have no acquaintances here and are obliged to submit to circumstances undergo the most unheard-of plundering. Margarethe expects to bring several members of our personnel from Hamburg.
It was a rare good fortune that I found the country house with large garden. The environs of Madrid are so dreary and treeless that the houses are more attractive than the landscape. The Manzanares, that celebrated stream that waters the capital, has just water enough in summer to dampen the soiled clothes of Madrid, so that the stream itself is hidden by shirts and drawers. The city has about 800,000 inhabitants. Several streets and walks are lovely, but in general this capital, pronounced by the Spaniards one of the most splendid in the whole world, does not exceed in magnificence a German princely capital of the second or third rank. The people are at least a hundred years behind the rest of the western Europeans in civilization. There are, to be sure, highly educated people here, but on the whole the ignorance of the lower and middle classes is unbelievable. Even the higher circles you stumble upon a kind of superstition at which among us young children would laugh. It is said that the Spaniards have made great progress in the last ten years, and I think that is true, but still it is certain the have much more progress to make if they are to overtake the rest
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of Europe. I have seen a bullfight at which the people, which means all classes of society, were radiant in the glory of their enthusiasm. This indicates in general their plane of culture.
So much is said, written, and sung about “lovely Spain.” It is a fable, unless all beauty is concentrated in the southern part of the country. On my way hither I took the route from Paris via Marseilles and Alicante. Alicante is a harbor on the Mediterranean pretty well toward the south. The road from there to Madrid leads through one of the dreariest stretches of country that I have ever seen—wild, rough mountain chains without tree or shrub, or wide, bare plains with at best but scant vegetation. The forests were destroyed in earlier times. The part of Spain occupied by the Moors was once carefully cultivated and well populated. Blooming fields and fruitful gardens covered the plains. As the Christians advanced, everything was destroyed. The monks preached that trees were a dangerous luxury promotive of sensuousness, and a belief spread among the peasantry that a rich forest growth made the land unhealthful. So the most fruitful regions were transformed into desert steppes. Only in the most southern part, particularly in the district of Granada, where the Moors remained longest, does the old-time art of cultivation partially persist. There are still some forests in that district, particularly in Estremadura, where the cork-oaks cover broad plains and far-stretching ridges. The population still retains the striking Moorish type. It is impossible not to detect the African blood in the physiognomy and the whole character of the people. That is responsible for the chief difference between the Spanish people, particularly those in the south, and the
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remaining Romanic stocks. The Basque province throughout is occupied by a distinct aboriginal race and is not considered in the above statement. It is thus not wholly wrong to say that Africa begins at the Pyrenees. It will take effort to make these people like the other races of Europe. Up to now, the interior of the country has not been much traveled and for that reason remains little known to outsiders. The opening of new lines of communication, especially railways, will prove a veritable lever of progress and civilization.
Of social life in Madrid I have as yet seen little because everybody is away during the summer. I must say that I am not particularly curious. The diplomats, by reason of their stations and their duties, come in contact with the upper aristocracy, the dukes and counts and whatever they may call themselves. Splendid titles are here as abundant as blackberries, but usually there is little to them. If the diplomats did not have social life among themselves, things would be somewhat gloomy for us. I cannot deny that I wish myself back home again. I would ten times rather labor hard there than sit idle here. I cannot endure people who abase themselves as they do here, and I am ashamed when all manner of honors and reverences are hurled at me. Nowhere can I feel right save in a land where the people stand erect in their own boots. It will still be a couple of weeks before I can go for Margarethe. Tomorrow I go to La Granja, a summer residence of the Queen, to stay probably two or three weeks. So far I have had enough to do. The uncertain state of our politics calls for work which otherwise would be unnecessary. You must fight better in America so that we in Europe need not be ashamed. Ten times rather would I fight along
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with the rest in America than explain our defeats in Europe. It is a hateful business.
This picture may seem somewhat distorted, but it is
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on the whole true. I do not understand how this country gained its reputation for beauty. Rough, desert mountains only rarely wooded, wild and inhospitable; treeless, waterless plains: that constitutes the landscape. There are, of course, exceptions, but only a few. I spent September in San Ildefonso, one of the summer residences of the Queen, in the Sierra Guadarrama. The mountain formations are here and there grotesque, most of the ranges completely bare, some of them covered with pine groves, very sparingly provided with streams, and from the highest peaks you look far away upon nothing but the yellowish earth color of desert plains. Thus far I have seen no respectable trees in Spain except the elms at the Escurial which Philip II received from England. All the rest, with the exception of the pines, are dwarfish, crooked stuff. It is said there are beautiful oak forests in Estremadura. So much I know, that Mancha and Castile are the most desert countries I remember to have seen.
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Application of such means demands more spirit and decision than the government possesses. You have noticed the anxiety with which Fremont's proclamation was qualified. That is the way to allow great popular movements to disappear in the sand. Were I in America, I should make an attempt on my own hook to win official favor for this radical cure. Possibly necessity will compel the adoption of a measure which they have
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not the spirit to seize upon—but I fear it will then be too late. You see I am not particularly sanguine in regard to the future. When one looks at things from a distance he is sometimes in better position to discover controlling issues than when, near by, he is exposed to to deceptive influence of seemingly favorable details.
Had I been able to find leisure for letter writing I would long since have informed you that after the Bull Run affair, and again about five weeks ago, I requested the government to accept my resignation or, as an alternative, to give me an indefinite leave of absence. My first letter was answered with new instruction for my activities here, my second was, however, so worded that it was necessary to agree to one or the other alternative. I expect the answer at the beginning of next week. The reason for this step is my conviction that over there they have no understanding of the true situation of affairs and blindly run themselves into the most irresponsible courses. It almost seems as if no one there knew the truth—or no one who has the courage to speak it. The one case is almost as bad as the other. Since I worked so prominently for the election of Lincoln I feel, concerning the manner in which the business there is conducted,
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a personal responsibility which I cannot justify in the quiet enjoyment of a diplomatic position. It is, however, probable that the leave of absence will be granted me. I hope to receive the answer next week and shall depart immediately. Since the Prussian minister here assured me that my journey through Prussia will encounter no difficulties, I expect to go direct to Hamburg.
... In another hour we shall see the cliffs of Dover and shall be in Southampton tomorrow morning about
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six o'clock. Thus far the weather has been as quiet as in midsummer. The waves of the North Sea were no higher than those of the Alster....
The telegraph has probably notified you that we are here, safe and sound. Our sea voyage was particularly unpleasant. We saw the sea in its most threatening aspect and the storm in its most dreadful rage. The ship lost four boats, the bulwarks were crushed in, sails ripped to tatters, the yards torn down and broken, sailors forced overboard, and the ship made to look like a wreck. We stood it well and everything is all right now.
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We are here, well and cheerful as ever. I have leave for three months and shall make good use of it. Today I go to Washington, where we shall remain at least two or three weeks. I believe I have come at precisely the right time. You shall hear from me soon. Then we will visit you in Watertown and I hope we shall find you happy. In a few days I shall be able to write you more at length. I am full of work. You will excuse my brevity today.
As for myself, I do not at this moment know in what direction to turn my steps. A few days ago I had a conversation with the President, from which it appeared to me the that he desired my presence in the country in view of the political struggles which must come. I gave him to understand that I was prepared for this, whereupon he remarked that I must then take up a position here corresponding to my previous position over there. That could be only a position in the army, for three are no more civil offices open. We have as yet come to no decision in these matters. In a few days
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however a decision must come, since my leave will soon expire.
We hope to be relieved of our uncertainly within a short time. The President has not yet accepted my resignation nor declared himself concerning my future. Still, I shall hear something definite in two or three days. This condition of uncertainty about the immediate future
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is decidedly unpleasant, but one must become accustomed to slowness of decision in our government.
When you examine the entire situation of affairs the thought will come to you of itself that the cause is worthy a sacrifice. It is true I should often think more of the question of personal advantage, but you must pardon me if I cannot always do so. When one
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has done all he can for a good and great cause, the consciousness of fulfilling one's duty in great measure is also not without value. If the President shall now refuse to accept my resignation, I shall have done my part and we will go back, but in no case without seeing you all again.
We arrived here today on our retreat through Harrisonburg [Virginia] and I utilize the first free moment to write to you. Margarethe has probably informed you that I left for the army on June 2 with my general staff officers. Since the way by Harper's Ferry was cut off we went via Pittsburg to Wheeling. On account of the swollen streams which had carried away the railroad bridges, we lay in the mountains two days, came finally on the sixth to cumberland, on the seventh to Winchester, where we found Banks and Sigel; the same night rode on cavalry horses lent me by Banks to Strasburg and arrived at Harrisonburg after a two days' ride. On the morning of the tenth, two days after the encounter at Cross keys, for which we were too late, we started to go to Fremont's headquarters when on the way thither we were notified of the retreat of the
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army. The same afternoon the army reached Harrisonburg. The weather was bad, the roads were filled with mud, and the men presented a pitiable appearance. The army had suffered much: continued rapid marches; extremely inadequate provisions, at times absolutely noting to eat; shoes worn out, a large proportion of the men barefooted; the horses through want of regular feeding worn down and decrepit; the cavalry for the most part beneath contempt. The men generally fought well at Cross Keys, but the army had come so absolutely in need of better provisioning, reorganization, and rest, and in addition Jackson was so superior on account of reinforcements, that Fremont decided to withdraw to the strong position on Mount Jackson. We reached New Market yesterday and arrived here today. We are comfortably quartered and will enjoy some days of undisturbed rest. As soon as the reorganization of the army shall have been achieved I shall have a regular command, probably of two brigades. I have very able and agreeable staff officers with me: One Major Hoffman, formerly Prussian engineer officer, who later served in the English-German legion during the Crimean War, and then at the Cape of Good Hope, then with Garibaldi in his Sicilian-Neapolitan campaign, and finally in the Piedmont army; one Captain Spraul, former Badish Infantry officer, who also served in the English-German legion and with Garibaldi; and Fritz Tiedemann and Willy Westendarp.
We are all well and cheerful. Of myself I can say that for years I have not been as healthy as now. The country here is so wondrously beautiful, the mountains so picturesque, and the valleys so luxuriant and fruitful, that in peaceful times I could not live anywhere more
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gladly than here. But the way this glorious land suffers is indescribable. Both armies have traversed it four times; and four times has the march left behind it the evidences of its devastation. But what a temper in the population! Every drop of blood is secessionistic. Although I had already so clearly seen the difficulties in the way of ending the war and reëstablishing the Union, despite our victories, that for the country's sake I gave up my diplomatic position in Europe, yet these difficulties presented themselves with redoubled magnitude when I had gained on the ground a view of the actual situation of things. The women here in the South are as if possessed, and that is one of the worst symptoms.
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We drove from Winchester Wednesday morning about eighteen miles, and then had only twelve miles more to Middletown. On the entire route we met only our own provision wagons and saw the horses of our troops feeding in the high wheat fields. Several old farmers stopped us and begged Fritz with quavering
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voices to forbid the men to burn the fences and destroy the fields. I felt sorry, but Fritz has no pity for rebels.
We greeted Sigel, who remembered me well, having seen me in London; and then rode to Carl's lodging, which is but a mile from Sigel's. Carl stands very well with Sigel, and for Sigel's appointment we have Carl alone to thank. He and the assembled officers would have resigned if Rufus King had been appointed. This he telegraphed to the President, whereupon Sigel was named. Carl and his staff live together in his cottage, and the bureau was also there. You know Major Hoffman is chief of staff, Fritz and Spraul adjutants, Wermerskirch quartermaster, and Willy engineer. Spraul and Hoffman are able leaders, from Garibaldi's staff, and Fritz has become a spirited, energetic young man. I am enclosing for Father the picture of Joe and Fritz. We spent six beautiful days with Carl. One day we ate with him at Sigel's headquarters at noon, and on the Fourth of July Sigel ate with us. We hung wreaths everywhere. We helped about the cooking, and Carl and the whole staff felt themselves very fortunate. Carl looks very well and feels quite contented.
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His troops were encamped around his dwelling, and the encampment in the woods with all of the old overgrown huts looked extremely poetical. I often walked with Carl through the camp, and when he offered a “Good morning, men,” a hearty “Good morning, General” resounded from all sides. He is already very popular with his men. He immediately took care to secure new clothing and new provisions, for the poor fellows often marched twenty miles on a single cracker. Now things are different, and that brings great contentment.
So now we are back again on this lonesome farm, and the heat, as I know it must be on the march, causes me much worry. I fear and now certainly believe that the army is destined for Richmond, for McClellan has shown his incapacity. We may daily expect reports
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telling us that Pope's army is probably already near Richmond—and the climate and the water are both on bad there! I wait with actual impatience for Carl's letter and will give you the news immediately on receiving it. I pray you write at once.
I would have written earlier oftener had not the business of my command kept me steadily in action. Even when the army is in camp there in work to do
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every minute, and if one will have his affairs in good order he must concern himself about every detail. Accordingly, I get at letter-writing only rarely; even here in Washington it is not often that I have quiet for fifteen minutes consecutively.
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Your first letter, dear father, I received just as I became ill. ... Margarethe and the children are well. They live in Philadelphia and have very pleasant rooms. You can imagine that the parting was exceedingly hard,
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for the near approach of a new campaign makes it improbable that we shall see one another again soon. Possibly Margarethe will make a journey to you this summer, and I wish it sincerely....
I have finally succeeded in securing a couple of week's furlough and have been able to spend several days with Margarethe and the children. You can imagine that we have been very happy together. I had an attack of camp fever, and the rest in quiet Bethlehem does me good. ... Of course I am still tall and thin as formerly, but I am looking well and they say I have become distinctly broader. This much is certain, that the strenuous exertions of war have so far had no unfavorable influence upon my health. On the contrary, I feel healthiest when we knock about most. I would gladly have used my furlough for paying you a visit in the West, but the time was so short that I should have had hardly a day for rest. And since I should have had to take the whole family the journey
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would have been more expensive that I could bear at this moment. So I have had to defer it until winter, when it can probably be done better. ... My furlough will be out on the seventeenth, when I must go back to my command. Matters have finally come to a point where we can have well-grounded hopes for an early conclusion of the war. Our army, strengthened by the draft, must finally give the coup de grace to the rebellion—but let us not set our hopes too high.
years in Cologne. We were at an age when a couple of years' difference means much. I was younger than you, bashful by nature, with the budding consciousness of strength which I did not yet rightly trust. You had already ripened to a certain manliness which to me had something imposing about it. You spoke out with boldness what I often thought but hardly dared to express. I often wondered how you could become thus attached to me, and did not understand it. When I now recall how far ahead of me you were at that time I still do not understand
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it. I leaned upon you with enthusiastic friendship; you drew me out of the narrow sphere which my circumstances and training built about me and gave me a glimpse into life. You taught me first to overcome my anxious bashfulness. I have to thank you for every encouraging word, because you were the first to awake in me the consciousness that I did not belong to the commonplace. Then, when I had just gained courage to stand on my own feet and the ability to be something to you, the vortex of life seized us both and drew us asunder. And only now do I receive a word from you and you from me.
Finally, in the year 1856, as the movement against slavery spread tremendously, I found myself drawn into public life. I knew that I could accomplish something worth while. America is the country for striving talent, and the foreigner who studies conditions here
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fundamentally and knows how to appreciate them can open for himself an even greater career than the native-born. My success surprised even me. I saw my boldest expectations exceeded. I suddenly found that I had become a celebrity in America. I threw myself unreservedly into the antislavery movement and therein showed the Americans something new. The broad German conception of life which opened to them wider horizons; the peculiar speech of the foreigner which, although modeled upon the best patterns of English literature, still indulged in a multitude of unfamiliar variations; the power of true conviction which is not found too often in its purity, all of these things had a rare attraction for Americans; and so I won, perhaps more quickly than anyone here in this country, a continental reputation; a reputation which in many particulars exceeded my deserts. My activities were very extended and had a large and direct influence upon the political development of the country. I have been told that I made Lincoln president. That is, of course, not true, but that people say so indicates that I contributed something toward raising the breeze which carried Lincoln into the presidential chair and thereby shook slavery in its foundations. I devoted my whole strength to it and became exceedingly wearied with the herculean labor.
As happens in moments of exhaustion, I sought rest. For that reason I went as minister to Spain, but I soon found that rest at a time like this was for me the most irritating exertion. The rebellion which is to decide the future of this country quickly reached enormous proportions. The noise of the struggle penetrated even to my hermitage in Madrid. It became uncanny to me
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in my quiet. The enforced apathy of insipid diplomatic life was terribly oppressive to my temperament and my conscience. Then the news of the first great disaster to our army, the battle of Bull Run, came like a thunder-clap. I immediately begged the President to recall me. I belonged to the party that had brought on the crisis; I could not avoid the chances of the struggle. Finally, in December, 1861, I received a leave of absence, returned hither at once, laid down my ministership, made another effort to induce the government to adopt the policy of emancipation, thus smoothing the way among the people, and then entered the army. In the course of the summer campaign of 1862 I was advanced to the position of major general, the highest rank one can attain in the army of the United States. I shall doubtless continue in service to the end of the war. Then I will return to my old activities with the satisfaction not only of having labored definitely for the future of this country, but also of having loyally shared its fate.
In the political phases of the new developments which this revolution must produce, I shall undoubtedly have an important part and my voice will be heard. This is the bright external side of my life. I have labored much, struggled much, endured much, and also suffered much—so much that I needed strong convictions to keep me upright. How often in moments of irritation have I wished I could be one of those who, in humble occupation, can eat their bread in peace with their loved ones! The petty jealousy of the German who would rather subordinate himself to natives than to a fellow countryman who overtops him; the ambitions of the native who begrudges the foreigner his
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influence and his distinction; the poisonous slanders of the political opponent to whom not even personal honor is sacred, all of this has caused me many bitter hours. I might have worked myself up to that sovereign contempt of men which is said to make a man great, but that is against my nature. I would rather remain insignificant. I love people in spite of themselves and possess that invincible confidence which, deceived a thousand times, is also a thousand times revived. This is perhaps artless but I cannot do otherwise, and that keeps me young and cheerful and hopeful.
My letter has remained untouched for several days because I was suddenly interrupted by a marching
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order. We had to be ready in twelve hours and then two army corps made a twelve-hundred-mile journey by rail. Rosecrans lost the battle of Chickamauga and we came to his aid. Now the enemy cavalry has appeared in our rear and threatens our lines of communication. That will delay my letter some days longer.
I suspect that some things in our military practices must be inexplicable to you European soldiers. Our armies can nowhere live off the country, and the distances we are obliged to traverse are tremendous. The distance between the Army of the Cumberland and its nearest depot is one hundred and eighty miles—a stretch which, long as it is, has to be protected in the most careful manner at every single point; for the burning of a railway bridge might threaten the existence of the army. Such circumstances change the whole manner of conducting a war. Only think that since the outbreak of the war, namely, since the summer of 1861, our armies have seen no cantonment. The soldiers have been obliged to bivouac summer and winter without the slightest relief. That, of course, costs an enormous number of men, the armies melt away with the greatest rapidity, and it requires the highest tenacity on the part of the government and the people to sustain the conflict from year to year. There is perhaps no people on earth who would not have been appalled by the enormity of the misfortunes overtaking us and the greatness of the sacrifices which had to be made. What a tremendous problem and what a mighty cause! I am happy to live in this country at this time. In comparison with the splendid goal, what are our little sufferings and our individual sacrifices! Slavery is being driven out of its last citadel; the insulted dignity of
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human nature has been avenged. The people of the new world are taking an immeasurable step forward in it cleansing and ennobling. And out of this republic we shall make an empire in relation to which, speaking Carl Moorishly, Rome was a pre-school affair. In this nation, the sum, the amalgam of all civilized nations, there is a Titanic strength which will draw humanity forward like a giant locomotive. Old Europe is going to feel its power.
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I am very glad indeed that you wrote to me, and the news which you give is exceedingly agreeable. It is nice that you are once more going to school, and if you will be industrious I do not doubt that you will soon
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overtake the big girls in your acquirement. I have an idea that you are somewhat behind in your arithmetic, and you should apply yourself particularly in that subject. Arithmetic must be practiced, and when you have made some progress therein you will pursue it with genuine pleasure. Geography will be particularly easy for you. You have already seen many more strange lands than most children of your age and you will be able to find on the map many widely separated places in which you have already been. You always enjoyed world history, and that pleases me greatly. It is the most educative and the pleasantest of all studies. I desire also that you pursue your piano playing industriously and that you learn to draw. That is an activity which is equally pleasant and useful, and a source of satisfaction throughout life. You have observed how much pleasure Mama and I get out of music, and I have often regretted that I did not learn drawing properly. But now my youth is past. I am almost too old to learn new things, and besides I have too many other things to do.
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Actually, we soldiers live much better than the natives of the country. You have no conception of the poverty which prevails here. The people live in log houses in which the chinks between the logs are entirely open so that light and air pass through. Naturally our tents are much tighter and better. Women and men are dressed in the most poverty-stricken way and live almost exclusively on corn bread and pork. Nearly all females smoke and chew tobacco. And then they are so ignorant that the knowledge of reading and writing is a great rarity among them. The difference between this population and that which we see in the North is tremendous. But there is a quite natural cause for it. In this country, the state of Tennessee, which
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you can easily find on the map, slavery prevails. There are here a few rich people who own many negroes. These negroes do all the work for them and the rich gentlemen therefore gain the idea that they themselves were not born to work but rather to govern and rule. They did not want to rule merely their negroes but also, particularly, the poor white people who did not have enough money to buy slaves and for that reason were forced to work themselves. In order to rule them better the rich people sought to keep the poor ignorant, and so it came about that there are very few schools here and most people have enjoyed no instruction whatever. Since they know nothing of the many discoveries and appliances which have been made during the past century they remain poor and miserable.
For these people and their children the present war is a genuine blessing, for it shakes them out of their sleepiness and brings them in touch with keener and more active people. They become aware how miserable their condition is; their indolent habits are interfered with; they are compelled to help themselves and are thereby forced to turn their thoughts toward new things. They hear how very different life is in other sections of the country, and later, when in the train of this war other people come to settle here, they will be influenced by the industry around them; for the country itself is beautiful and fruitful, and an industrious people could live happily and amass much wealth. That will certainly happen after the war, for the northern men who came down here with the army already see what beautiful regions there are in the South and what splendid opportunities can be found here for human activity. So you see how good can come out of evil. The war is
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certainly in itself a very great misfortune and brings frightful distress to large numbers. But some of its results will be highly beneficial to mankind.
Weary and exhausted as I am, I can today only acknowledge the receipt of your letter from Dorchester
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and bid you and your wife a most hearty welcome. I shall be unable tonight to open up new prospects to you or give any advice; for I have thus far not had time to reflect and—pardon me—I must also get some sleep first. So you must be satisfied with these few lines. Tomorrow or next day I will write more. That you can count on me in every respect goes without saying. My wife is in New York with our children and I know she would be infinitely glad to see you. She knows you from my accounts of you and your letters—the old ones, that is, which I still have. You can learn her address at the mercantile house of Sinclair and Rose in New York. I would gladly take a couple of weeks' furlough if I could, but I fear that under existing circumstances it would be impossible.
To secure for you an officer's commission would not be so difficult, but I should not like to see you in the army under the rank of major. Advancement to the captaincy comes quickly; also sometimes from major upwards; but whoever is the youngest of the ten captains
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in the regiment must arm himself with patience, and could I today offer you a captain's position I would advise you not to take it but rather to wait patiently until there shall be a vacancy in a staff officer's post. The latter will probably happen in the near future on my own staff.
I wish above all you could find it possible to go to New York and visit my wife. She would at once gain entrée for you into an extensive circle of excellent, and in some cases influential, friends; and I know it would give her the most genuine and great pleasure. Your wife, who probably still feels somewhat strange here in this country, would have in her a hearty friend and find much encouragement and good cheer in her friends'
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company. I believe that to remove from Boston to New York would under existing circumstances be the best thing you could do. Boston, although it is my favorite American city, is for the unknown newcomer a somewhat exclusive place. There are splendid people there, but one has to know America in order rightly to find himself there.
I wish heartily I might secure a furlough of some weeks and assist you personally, but just at present I cannot get away. The Eleventh Army Corps, to which I belong, has shriveled up so much through a succession of battles and hard campaigns—at Bull Run my losses amounted to twenty-six per cent, at Chancellorsville twenty-three per cent, at Gettysburg nearly sixty per cent—that we are now to be strengthened and reorganized; since I am second in command in the corps and have to assume a personal interest in it, I cannot leave, at least not until the reorganization has been completed. I regret this all the more because we shall probably lie still for several weeks and camp life in this uninhabited region, despairingly desolate, is monotonous and boresome. Besides, the condition of the Army of the Cumberland is one nowise to be envied. We have indeed gained one of the most brilliant victories of the war, a victory which you would find unbelievable could you have seen the position out of which we drove the enemy. But after this victory we are unable to move. Our lines of communication are so long and our transport so inadequate that we have hardly been able to supply provisions for our troops. The country within a radius of twenty to thirty miles is totally desolated and affords absolutely nothing more. We were forced to send back our field artillery to the railway station on the other
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side of the Tennessee because we could no longer feed the horses....
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In the last campaign we had to perform pretty severe labor; not so much with our weapons as with our legs. We suffered little in actual fighting, but our march to knoxville and back was all the sharper for it. Now we are lying in comfortable winter quarters. The weather around New Year's was excessively cold for several days; but now are enjoying the most delightful spring temperature. In the afternoons it is so warm that one would find it pleasant to wear summer clothes. I have been perfectly well all the time, and the more madly things go the better I feel. The thing that suits me least, physically, is the quiet camp life. The thing I have to complain about most is bad luck with my horses. My best campaigner died suddenly; another is in such condition that I shall never be able to use it again; a third is lame; and the fourth, a splendid English
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stallion, is just now recovering from a long railway journey of last August. Well, one must learn to endure such things....
treats, the case is this: Hooker, who is a very equivocal gentlemen, seems to have intended to make my position under his command as unpleasant as possible. So, in order to deal me a blow, he put a remark in his report concerning the night battle of Wauhatchie which intimated that I executed too late an order he had given me to sent forward a brigade to the support of Geary. As soon as the report, about which I knew absolutely nothing, became public I demanded of General Thomas an investigation into its truth by a court of inquiry. That took place, and I proved before the court through a mass of witnesses that General Hooker in his own proper person held up the brigade which was to have come to the support of Geary and brought it to another position; while the sent me an order to take and hold, with another brigade of
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which I was leader, a hill occupied by the enemy. The latter order, as he himself testified, I fulfilled well, while he made impossible the carrying out of the first through personally holding back my bridges. Since this matter was clearly proved the court naturally decided that Hooker's statement was groundless, and Hooker fell into the pit that he had dug for me. The decision is now in the hands of General Thomas for confirmation and will then be published. When Hooker comes to read my defence before the court of inquiry he will be convinced that it is dangerous to play with sharp instruments.
I arrived here yesterday on my furlough. I received your letter a few days before my departure from the army. I did not answer it earlier because I hoped to be able to get away at any moment and be able to see you. I should be very glad to look you up in Boston if it were possible. But my time is sharply limited. I
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shall be able to be with my family only a few days and then shall probably have to go to Washington once more before I return to the army. You must set aside one or two days to visit me. Do it as soon as possible. I am counting upon it.
I write you today from Nashville, where I am waiting for orders. When the Eleventh Corps was combined with the Twelfth and placed under Hooker's leadership it was self-evident that I would have to be transferred. Accordingly I left my command last week and reported to General Sherman. He has telegraphed to Washington to learn what command I should have and we expect an answer any moment. It is possible that I may receive a district on the Mississippi, but I think a transference to the East, perhaps in Sigel's department, is rather more probable. I must confess that it is pretty much a matter of indifference to me where I go. You can imagine that the separation from my old division, which I commanded almost two years, was very painful to me. But my relations with Hooker had become so impossible, particularly after the well-known court of inquiry, in which I attacked Hooker pretty keenly, that no choice remained. And, everything considered, I am quite content with the change. Whatever my command may be, in the matter of its size I can hardly fail to be placed better than I was. As soon as I
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receive further orders I will let you know. I shall hardly have to wait longer than two or three days.
As you see, I am still here. I would have been glad to spend the time of waiting elsewhere, but through General Sherman's orders I am detained here. He promised me a command when I reported to him in April, but wrote that as my instruction camp here had to be broken up I should simply be patient; he
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would remember me as soon as a command was open. So, day after day passes without any particular change in my situation. I am living with my officers in a nice house outside of the city and we do our own housekeeping as formerly. In as much as I can have plenty of books here it is not particularly difficult for me to busy myself with studying and writing. A daily pleasure ride keeps me in exercise so that my health is pretty good. Should I receive advice from Sherman that I cannot expect a command at the front for some time, I will do what I can to secure permission to spend the balance of my waiting time at home.
At last I have received your letter, but how and when! I was not in New York where you directed your
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letter; it was forwarded to this place, where I have enjoyed several weeks with my family. When it came I had just gone away to visit a friend near Philadelphia. After a short rest in Bethlehem the letter was forwarded again, but when it arrived I was gone. Now at last the unlucky wanderer lies before me and looks at me reproachfully.
You have reason for dissatisfaction with me. Letter such as these and from a friend such as you are
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deserved an answer long ago. And so I have been somewhat conscience-stricken on account of the delay. But at bottom I feel that I am not so greatly at fault. In the last five weeks I was overwhelmed with the most pressing business; my wife and my children complain that my presence is only a half-way affair, and since they finally had to be content I know you will not be less just. You know how it is with letter-writing if one does not want to put a friend off with a few words and still has no leisure to express himself properly. Now at last I have found a little resting place and it belongs to you.
The account of your family happiness has enabled us, my wife and me, to relive old times again and to enjoy the present doubly. I understands your happiness fully because I know it personally from experience and meet it daily at my own family hearth. Therefore, we rejoice doubly with you. I speak always of us, for your letters belong to my entire family. I have of course learned to see and to prize the family heaven in another light—as an always sure and peaceful haven in time of storm. There is nothing in heaven or on earth that exceeds the feeling of peace and of loving understanding in the midst of the home circle. I see in your letter a suggestion of the question how can desert such a haven for the struggle of the elements. Like many a seafarer I have often asked myself this question—but one does it. That is life—fate, I had almost said, if it did not sound too superstitious. One must not spurn the demands which life makes. We owe to those who have them not, that we use the abilities we possess. If the fulfillment of this duty demands sacrifices, we must make them. That is a matter of inner responsibility
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which can be felt better than described. I had hoped to be able to visit you in the course of the fall, and your letters have sharpened that desire.
Now I shall have to schoolmaster you a bit. I cannot share your opinion about what I ought to do or not do in the present crisis. You certainly would not have judged in this manner had you participated in the great battle which lies behind us. Perhaps you were surprised when I came out publicly for the present administration. I believe, however, that a few words on my view of things will make the matter clear to you. Every crisis in human affairs has its main question to which all sides issues must unconditionally subordinate themselves. We are engaged in a war in which the existence of the nation—and that means everything—is involved. A party has arisen in the country which threatens to throw away all the results of the war, and this at a moment when by a firm adherence to the present policy the outcome can hardly be doubtful. The government has unquestionably committed great errors; the individuals who direct the affairs of the country are doubtless not ideal statesmen, although not nearly so undistinguished as people would like to represent them; but all this is incidental. The main thing is that the
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policy of the government moves in the right direction—that is to say, the slaveholder will be overthrown and slavery abolished. Whether it [the government] moves in that direction prudently or imprudently, slowly or rapidly, is a matter of indifference as against the question of whether a policy should be adopted which would move in another, an opposite and destructive, direction.
Under such conditions my choice was easily made; it was not doubtful for a moment. If Fremont and McClellan had been my bosom friends and the members of the present government my mortal enemies, I would have come out for the latter without hesitation. The counter arguments of a personal character which you advance, such as base criticism, etc., could not enter into the scale. If we want to accomplish something important we must not let petty things disturb us. I have long been beyond such things. People may say of me what they please. I do not expect thanks, nor even recognition. After all the only genuine compensation one has is in himself. The satisfaction which I desire I have every day, to day just as much as formerly. It consists in this, that the ideas put forward in my own way are repeated by a multitude of the people in their way, and thus spread. Whether or not my patent right is respected is a matter quite indifferent to me. The real purpose of the propaganda of ideas is better attained if the origin of the ideas is forgotten. I have seen and experienced many things of this sort which give me the profoundest satisfaction. The signs of the time at this moment are exceedingly favorable. The reëlection of the President is almost beyond question—it could be prevented only if a tremendous reverse should occur upon the theatre of war, and this is not to be expected.
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The outcome of the election will mean the end of the war, and we shall be past the worst.
On two other points I should like to clear your mind. Your opinion of the President is too deprecatory. He is indeed a man without higher education and his manners harmonize little with the European conception of the dignity of a ruler. He is an overgrown nature-child and does not understand artifices of speech and attitude. But he is a man of profound feeling, just and firm principles, and incorruptible integrity. One can always rely upon his motives, and the characteristic gift of this people, a sound common sense, is developed in him to a marvelous degree. If you should sometime find opportunity to read his official papers and his political letters you would find this demonstrated in a manner which would surprise you. I know the man from personal observation as well as anyone and better than most. I am quite familiar with the motives of his policies. I have seen him fight his way heroically through many a terrible battle and work his way with true-hearted strength through many a desperate situation. I have often criticized him severely and subsequently have not infrequently found that he was right. I also understand his weaknesses; they are the weaknesses of a good man. That he has made great mistakes in the endless complications of his office cannot be denied but can easily be explained. Other men in the same situation would
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perhaps not have made the same mistakes, but they would have made others. Lincoln's personality, however, has in this crisis a quite peculiar significance. Free from the aspirations of genius, he will never become dangerous to a free commonwealth. He is the people personified; that is the secret of his popularity. His government is the most representative that has ever existed in world history. I will make a prophecy which may perhaps sound strange at this moment. In fifty years, perhaps much sooner, Lincoln's name will stand written upon the honor roll of the American Republic next to that of Washington, and there it will remain for all time. The children of those who now disparage him will bless him.
Another point about which I want to clear your mind if this: You believe that this government has treated me with great want of consideration. The matter stands thus: I had a particularly profound difference with my commander, General Hooker, who is a man devoid of sound principles but a good soldier; who in addition has a talent for setting his achievements before the world in the most favorable light. Because of as in justice he attempted toward me I demanded an investigation, from which I got off very well and he very badly. The natural result, however, was that for my own security I had to give up my command under him. Unfortunately, just at that time the reorganization of the western army was complete and the campaign ready to begin, so that Sherman was not able to fulfill his promise to give me a new command immediately. I decided then, voluntarily, during my wait in Nashville, to take over a training camp in order not to be idle. The government had absolutely nothing to do
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with it. When I finally requested permission to report myself in Washington, a command was immediately placed at disposal which was much more important than my former command. There were two reasons which induced me to decline it temporarily: First, the health of my wife made it desirable that I should spend some time with my family; second, the political situation was such that I would be able to accomplish more here than elsewhere. Accordingly I am where I am with my own consent.
It is not strange that these matters should have been otherwise represented in this or that German paper. One must pay no attention to these things. It never occurs to me openly to deny such statements. Besides, if I really had grounds to complain, that would not have altered my course. In times like the present we are concerned with weightier matters when than the interests or sensibilities of individuals. He who cannot rise above them must shrivel to the point of “selling his cheese.” I feel so exalted by the great and hopeful change things have assumed that I should be able to make much greater sacrifices than those which fate has required of me. This is a great people and the present is this great people's time of greatest trial. We are in the melting pot; the metal flows beautifully while the dross hardens. We shall have a mighty future. But let me not enter upon this chapter. I know that you do not yet value America according to its true worth. You have not yet worked your way through the hard, thorny crust, and what I could say to you must be discovered itself in order to be correctly understood. Here one sees humanity as it is, with all its apparent faults and all its hidden virtues. One must not allow the former to
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frighten him away from the effort to understand the latter. Then only will one find oneself.
First now, your personal affairs. The news contained in your letter respecting an insurance agency pleased me greatly because it shows me that you are getting around among people. To give you wholly reliable
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advice in regard to the acceptance of the agency would be difficult for me because I do not know the Insurance Society of Maine; still, I know from what I have learned, that such undertakings almost all go well. The one to which I belong enjoys, as I recently saw in Milwaukee, a very great prosperity. The chances, accordingly, are that the business will go. Of course you must secure data which will confirm this to a certain extent. One thing should be considered: The German element, to which your activities would be limited, is not very numerous in Massachusetts and it would therefore be very desirable if your territory could be enlarged to include the other New England states, particularly Connecticut, where there are more Germans. I reasonably favorable arrangements in this respect can me made, I surely believe the position will be quite a profitable one. The letter of recommendation from Mr. Wilson I send you herewith enclosed. I do not remember his uncle at all, but it is of course possible that we met at some time in the Mutual Insurance office in Milwaukee. As to the other letters of recommendation, they are of course all at your service. The question is merely this: Have you perhaps in view certain definite persons to whom I could give you letters of recommendation, or should I not rather give you a general letter of introduction which would serve you with all men with whom I am acquainted? In using the latter—and such an one would probably be of most service to you—you would merely have to be careful to determine in each individual case whether a given person is one whom a recommendation from me would impress; for you will find that the political party spirit plays into all possible situations. Since you are not in a hurry for these recommendations,
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you can doubtless let me know which sort of letter would be most agreeable to you. One warning permit me to repeat. Lose no opportunity to advance your mastery of English language.
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I cannot get away yet. Grant has been in North Carolina. We hope for his return. You can imagine I am perishing with impatience and weariness. Yesterday morning I had a long conversation with Lincoln and Stanton. Both were very friendly, particularly the former, as cordial as ever; but as was to be expected, I was given hopes that Grant would come and decide the matter. ... Yesterday I was in Congress when the
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amendment to the Constitution was passed which abolishes slavery. The scene that followed the announcement of the result of the vote was worthy of the great event. The galleries were crowded and even the floor of the House was filled with spectators. All arose as at a word of command. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs, the men threw their hats into the air, they embraced, they shook hands, and ten minutes passed before the hurrahing and the enthusiastic racket ceased. The House immediately adjourned and the news of the event spread through the city. Meanwhile cannon were brought out to greet with their thunder this great step on freedom's path. It is worth while to live in these days. I must confess to you that in the movement when the enthusiasm broke forth in the House I did not join in the shouting. I believe I should have been unable to speak. In such moments one feels that he has his reward for laboring in the interest of great ideas even though in other respects one has ever so much to quarrel about with his fate....
I arrived here safely last night and reported to General Hancock, who received me with great cordiality. We immediately entered on a long conversation about our business concerns, in which it was disclosed that matters relating to the Veteran Corps were less favorable than had been expected a short time ago. The War Department has not yet done away with certain embarrassing regulations; and although the recruits are coming
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in in growing numbers, the business is still going so slowly that the completion of the Army Corps before the opening of the spring campaign is improbable and indeed impossible, unless uncommonly effective measures are taken leading to unexpected results. As things now stand, it is probable, unless such a favorable change takes place, that Hancock will give up the new organization in a few weeks and request permission to go back to the command of the Second Corps. I shall, nevertheless, make a journey to the West to see what can be done there. If the recruiting is effective beyond expectation, well and good; if not, then according to General Grant's promise I shall receive another command....
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I arrived here yesterday afternoon and to my great distress found that the recruiting officer whom I most especially needed to see, who had come here in response to the dispatch which had been sent from Washington and was afterward countermanded, had gone away. I telegraphed him again last Friday from Springfield but do not know whether the dispatch reached him. Yesterday we had a heavy snowstorm which disorganized the telegraph lines so that I am without the means of prompt communication; so yesterday and today I have been running around doing what I could, and have decided to go to Madison tonight in order to see if my man can be found there. If I do not find him there and if I cannot reach him by telegraph (the rascal lives in Mineral Point) I do not know what I shall do. ... I cannot wait, for my appointments in Michigan are due. What to do? I think I shall place myself under the guidance of the higher powers. If I find things in any
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degree satisfactory at Madison I shall go forward in God's name....
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I had reached this point when a letter from Grant arrived which makes it probable that I shall have to go
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to Sherman's army soon after my arrival in Washington. I have, therefore, deferred my departure from here until next Monday. Meantime, I shall make ready my field luggage. Let us rejoice that the war is now hurrying with giant strides to its end—an end which will stands as one of the greatest events of world history. Then, looking back over the great achievement of the war years, we shall enjoy life with greater comfort.
You have no doubt followed with interest the course of events upon this continent. We have never before enjoyed so uninterrupted a series of brilliant successes. The glorious campaign of Sherman in Georgia and in
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the Carolinas; the capture of the seaports Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington; the destruction of the great railway communications of the South have, so to speak, sapped the veins of the Confederacy. What I told you in earlier letters about the complete draining of that region in men and material has all come true. I believe the total strength of the rebels at this moment does not exceed 150,000 effectives, of which, in the most favorable situation, at most 120,000—probably not more than 100,000—could be concentrated. Against this number we have under Grant in front of Richmond and Petersburg some 100,000; under Sherman directly, including the cavalry, 75,000; under Scofield, who is merely in communication with Sherman, 40,000; under Sheridan, 25,000. All these are working together upon the great eastern field of operations. In addition we have under Thomas in Tennessee and Georgia at least 50,000, and under Canby on the Mississippi some 40,000 men. Besides, there are garrisons which lie distributed at various points. These are all old troops. The levy of this year, which is going ahead satisfactorily everywhere, will have given us before the first of May at least 250,000 fresh troops, which are already for the most part designated to the armies in the East and the West. This colossus of at least 550,000 men will in the spring hurl itself upon the remains of the Confederate army in the East and West and, unless miracles happen in favor of the South, the war must be concluded toward midsummer.
I remember, to be sure, that Lee, with his main army, has the advantage of a central position and, if he can make up his mind to give Richmond, may win from us petty, temporary advantages. For instance, he could
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hurl himself against Sherman with all his troops, although it would seem to be almost too late for that since the latter, after his union with Schofield, would have a force sufficient to parry all dangerous blows. But Lee might move north again and make an attack upon the free states which would perhaps be successful until our armies could reach him. But, even in the most favorable circumstances, this would only postpone for a brief time the inevitable end. The losses which he suffers in battle cannot be made good, for the fantastic plan of arming negroes, even if it were practical for the South, would now be too late. The negroes need months of training and discipline to make them fighting soldiers. Lee's resources are accordingly at an end. A victory would but add to difficulties while our means still spring abundantly out of the earth. The London
Accordingly we see the end before us. It is possible that there may still be a couple of battles. It is also possible that the business will to come to an end in great measure without further fighting. The leaders of the rebellion feel their weakness; that is manifested in everything. It would therefore not surprise me if one day Lee should be made dictator for the purpose of concluding a capitulation; or, in the most extreme case, if he should retire from the chief command, whereupon of course the whole machine would collapse. Perhaps they may also wage a final despairing fight, and then it will depend upon their troops whether anything can be accomplished. The outcome in any event is no longer doubtful, and developments have been such that for
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this great revolution results are guaranteed which the most sanguine could not have painted more brilliantly. It is truly the rebirth of the republic on a basis of full freedom and a vastly augmented power.
In financial matters also things look more favorable now. At the beginning of the war our financial arrangements were of course hazardous enough, and we could have saved hundreds of millions had we at that time recognized the nature of the struggle and prepared accordingly. But, assume that we emerge from the war with a national debt of three billion dollars; assume that the interest rate for the consolidated debt is fixed at six per cent, we shall then have to pay one hundred and eighty million dollars interest. The internal revenue in the next fiscal year will yield four hundred million dollars. Our peace time budget will hardly exceed one hundred and twenty millions, so that a hundred millions will remain over as an amortization fund. The taxes are indeed heavy but not out of proportion to the productive ability of the country. But it must not be forgotten that the taxes at present are paid from only a part of the country, namely, the North. As soon as the South comes back the tax burden will be spread over a much greater population and the pressure will thus be lightened. With the taxability of this country a public debt of three or four billion dollars is not excessive. Therefore, quietly buy United States bonds over yonder. It is my firm conviction that for capitalists there is no safer investment. The new popular loan here, the so-called seven-thirtys, the interest of which is to be paid in currency and not in gold, goes forward rapidly. Confidence is indestructible, and quite rightly so. Gold fell in the last four weeks to about sixty per
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cent, and the farsighted policy of the new secretary of the treasury will undoubtedly soon restore us to a specie basis. We could carry on another war without seriously affecting the material resources of the country. Had the Europeans understood the situation they would have sold all our gold interest-bearing paper. The best chances are of course past, but great sums are still are still to be made. Perhaps you have opportunity here and there to get something about America into the press. To that end you may use the notes I have given you, of course without naming me.
To my great regret, I did not find General Hancock here. He is in Winchester and thither I shall go in the morning to report to him. But I have found out here that the prospects for the corps look very dubious. The recruiting has gone very badly in the East. Of course,
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I cannot know what further arrangements can be made until I have seen Hancock.
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I saw Lincoln for a few moments at City Point. He was very hopeful and evidently awaited the hour when the proposals of surrender should occur over yonder [at Richmond]. I came hither from City Point on the same boat with Mrs. Lincoln. The first lady was overwhelmingly charming to me; she chided me for not visiting her, overpowered me with invitations, and finally had me driven to my hotel in her own state carriage. I
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learned more state secrets in a few hours than I could otherwise in a year. I wish I could tell them to you. She is an astounding person. Lincoln himself will remain some days longer at City Point, probably with the secret hope of receiving there the capitulation of Richmond, which indeed may come in a very few days...
At last I can sit down quietly and tell you where I am and what I have experienced. I left Washington a few hours after the glorious news from Richmond. Washington was, of course, in the wildest excitement
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when I left. On the morning of the fourth, toward eight o'clock, we were in Fortress Monroe. From there we went to Norfolk and then, by a small steamboat, through canal and sound to Roanoke Island. The journey led through desolate, wild swampy regions—a corner of the Great Dismal Swamp, which deserves its name from every point of view—morasses with rank vegetation in which no human creature can live. The night of he fourth and fifth we spent in a little tavern not far from Currituck Sound, which you can find on the map, and on the morning of the fifth another steamboat received us and carried us to Roanoke Island, where we arrived toward noon and remained until six o'clock in the evening. I utilized my free time to visit one of the negro settlements established on this island. The negroes have built themselves little wooden huts. Every family has enclosed its own little garden and in that way those who are able to work gain their own support, while the government supports those who are too old or are otherwise unable to work. There are many thoroughly industrious people among them who, by sensible and persistent activity, make much more than they require.
I saw there a picture I shall no easily forget, Just as we were getting ready to go to Newbern, I saw approaching a little procession of negro women and girls, singing loudly. At their head was a white women somewhat beyond the years of youth. As the group neared the vessel a leave-taking scene of extraordinary cordiality occurred. I then heard that the white lady was a school teacher, naturally “from Massachusetts,” who had just received orders from the missionary society to go to a different post. It was a moving scene, this
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demonstration of love and attachment on the part of those simple natures for the person who had led them within the portals of civilization; and this young woman behaved like a great loving mother who was parting from her children. On shipboard I was introduced to the young woman. who could not tell me enough of the eagerness to learn and the loyal devotion of these black children of nature; and also of the difficulties and dangers which beset the women teachers. These are truly missionaries, and indeed greater ones than many about whom history tells wonderful and famous things.
Since writing to you the reports have been more and more favorable. It looks as if it would not be possible
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for Lee to form a respectable concentration. The business will hardly end in a capitulation, but probably in the dissolution of the southern army. In accordance with these reports Sherman had modified his plan. He will march from here to Raleigh, after which circumstances will determine his course. Probably local commands will then be formed and the armies employed for occupation. It is said indeed that Johnston is still between here and Raleigh with some effective forces, but it hardly seems possible to me; there is nothing he can do here. I do not believe that this army will need to fire another cannon shot. It would be madness for the rebels to seek another engagement. I have received an order to report to Slocum, which I have done. Since the allotment of one division makes necessary the deposition of one of the present division commanders, who in the present situation can be prepared (particularly since the army in all probability will no longer have to fight), I have not insisted upon it [the division command] but have declared myself willing to march to Raleigh with the headquarters of the army of Georgia and then later, as soon as the local commands shall have been formed, to take one of them. I will hold this command a short time and then leave the service. Perhaps in any event a large portion of the army can be discharged within a short time.
Yesterday I called the general of the Twentieth Corps and, as I rode through the camp of my old regiment, I was received with loud cheers and much handshaking. On the whole, however, the impressions I have received in this army are of a depressing nature. The wild manner of carrying on war which Sherman introduced
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must necessarily have produced an extremely demoralizing effect upon the troops....
We arrived at the capital of North Carolina yesterday morning. Since the beginning of our march from Goldsborough the previous Monday we continually had enemy cavalry in our front, which made a stand here and there and retreated as soon as our skirmishers fired upon them. So the march had the aspect of a continual progress in the immediate presence of the enemy. We moved constantly over bad roads, through swamps and dense thickets. On the eleventh we came to a small place called Smithfield on the river Neuse. Johnston's army had camped in the neighborhood and several days before had held a great review there. It was at that point that the report of Lee's capitulation reached us. The rejoicing of the soldiers was tremendous. We naturally supposed that Johnston's capitulation would follow on the twelfth; instead we again heard the accustomed skirmish fire in our front as we moved in the direction of Raleigh. In the evening, however, as we bivouaced at Sully's Station, fourteen miles from Raleigh, the whistle of a locomotive suddenly surprised us and soon there appeared a small railway train under the white flag. This did not, indeed, signify the capitulation of Johnston, but it brought us, through a deputation, the surrender of Raleigh. Accordingly, yesterday morning about nine o'clock we entered the city after a march of fourteen miles. Kilpatrick's cavalry preceded us by
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a couple of hours and had already taken possession of the city. It is a beautiful little place of not more than seven thousand inhabitants. The fears of the people, who had heard so much of robbery and arson, were soon quieted. They became trustful, and before night the inhabitants came out with great praise of the exemplary order observed by the soldiers.
As to the immediate future, it is probable that Johnston will follow the example of Lee. Some of his generals had already expressed themselves in the matter before they left Raleigh. In the event he shall not capitulate within the next few days, the army will occupy those points at which he must cross the streams if he attempts to proceed southward. By very rapid movements he might perhaps slip past us, but I do not think it probable since he must realize the total uselessness of a further continuance of the war. According to all reports that we receive here, his army is hardly twenty-five thousand strong and in a miserable condition in every respect. ... In any case it will not be many days before the complete dissolution of the last rebel army occurs, and as soon as that takes place your husband will immediately send in his resignation to the Secretary of War, and as soon as the acceptance comes will make his
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way to his wife and children. Then all dreams of campaigns and battles will forever be past and I shall pillow my head upon the bosom of my family.
I am very well. The weather is wonderfully beautiful, and we are environed by the glory of the southern springtime. The trees are already in full bloom and the gardens are gay with flowers. Do you know the
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beautiful song “Now all, all must change” [
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I had paper on the table and was about to sit down comfortably when General Slocum arrived with his
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staff, thus for several hours making it impossible to think of writing. Yesterday I had an interview with the President concerning the Davis case, and he appeared to take up with much satisfaction the idea that I should participate in it. But inasmuch as other things relating to this matter are still all in the dark, particularly as it is not yet known whether the case will be tried here or in Richmond, I have naturally been unable to reach a decision as yet.
better give his direct orders in the
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matter, since he alone could give instructions to his secretary of state. He laughed and said I was right, but he would do what I had advised. This incident shows that I am in a good way to acquire here a personal influence which, in certain contingencies, may prove of great significance....
which arrived while I was in North Carolina to help catch Johnston's army. We are now
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through, at least with the war, and can give ourselves quietly to the problems of peaceful development. The uniform has been laid aside, the sword hangs on the wall; the children play with the riding-whip and spurs. I left the army immediately after the surrender of the rebel armies and am sitting happily in the midst of my family. We would already have gone West had it not been so difficult to undertake the long journey with our baby in this summer heat. Besides, I have certain literary labors in hand which I can finish here as well. With the end of the war new ways naturally open for me—but of these I will write you later when I see somewhat more clearly....
I now write again, and with the full consciousness of how inexplicable my long silence must seem to you
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and how inexcusable it appears to me. The period we have just completed concentrated the mind with such inexorableness upon immediate problems that it was difficult to keep up a correspondence with those who were not, like ourselves, under the direct influence of the same events. And once you get out of epistolary contact with even the dearest and most trusted friend, the resumption of relationships becomes more difficult day by day. You understand that and will forgive me.
At last we are past the time of trouble, storm, and stress. The thunder of the cannon has ceased, the dead have been buried, and we begin again to make plans for the future without the stipulation: “Provided, that until then the bullet shall not have found me.” The perplexities into which the war cast us are disappearing and the problems of the immediately future begin to present themselves more clearly. I see that Europeans know how to appreciate the value of our victory, and inasmuch as I have observed things directly and have occasionally gained insight into hidden causes, I can say to you it is impossible to speak too highly of the American people. In tenacity, readiness to sacrifice, contempt of danger, moderation in victory, loyalty to purpose, no nation of the world has ever exceeded them. In Europe you know only the externals of our affairs; you have an approximate idea of the battles we fought, the numbers of killed and missing, of the taxes we paid, and the tremendous sums we expended. But you know nothing of the voluntary efforts put forth or the voluntary sacrifices made by private individuals who simply followed the impulses of patriotism. You do not know, over there, how in everything that was done and sacrificed the spirit of the people outran the government, and
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with what stoic resolution the masses went to the ballot box in the last presidential election to vote upon themselves taxes, conscriptions, and battle fields.
Lincoln's strength consisted not in his genius, for he did not possess actual genius. He was strong because he was the living embodiment of the popular will. He felt instinctively the convictions and determination of the people because these went through the same course of development in him as in the masses; and what he said and did was the popular opinion expressed in the popular speech and fulfilled in the popular manner. For this reason he was slow in taking steps, and never stepped backward. Also, that is the reason why the assassination of Lincoln affected the popular heart so deeply. Never was the sorrow of a nation more universal and more sincere. It was a genuine family sorrow freed from official affectation. The people never had a more loyal representative. For the moment, his death did not indeed change the political situation, but I fear the development of things will teach us to mourn him doubly. Lincoln indeed was not the enlightened mind who could instantly grasp the whole tendency of a period; but through clear observation and slow decision he always at last came to the right view. Besides, he was definite and inflexible. Johnson, I fear, is a narrower mind. He is not devoid of talent, but we shall have to see whether he possesses clearness and decision. The problem which remains for us to solve is in one respect more difficult than those problems already solved. To restore the Union in political form is a trifling matter. The former rebels are taking the oath of loyalty with pleasure and are eager to come back into the old rights of self-government under the constitution.
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But our aim is not fulfilled by that means. The Union must be reconstructed upon the basis of the results of the great social revolution brought about during the war in the South. A free labor society must be established and build up on the ruins of the slave labor society.
The question is now being agitated with great energy; the next Congress will have to decide it for the time being. A particularly important rôle has been assigned to me in this business. President Johnson, whose confidence I possess to a considerable extent although I do not share all his opinions, asked me to make a journey for him into the southern states to study the conditions and make reports and recommendations to him as to the policy that should be pursued. My report, which will probably be laid before Congress, can perhaps
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be so shaped as to play a distinctive rôle in this weighty business. I shall probably start out in a few days to perform this duty.
Last week, the day after I wrote you, I went into the interior as far as Columbia, the ruined city, in which
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eleven hundred houses were burned during the presence of Sherman's army. Had you been with me you would have had to laugh at your earlier worry about travel in this region being insecure. It is not more peaceful in any quarter of the world. There is not the slightest trace of guerrilla warfare. Our military commanders no longer think of surrounding themselves with slightest protective measures. The people here are glad that they are alive from day to the next and that the government gives them rations if they have nothing to eat.
There is no visible trace of contagious diseases, and according to official reports the entire coast is free from them. There is a very strict quarantine which renders it probable that we shall get over the summer and fall smoothly. Yesterday I came to this place from Charleston and shall remain with General Gillmore today and tomorrow for the purpose of working out my report to the President, at least so far as it relates to South Carolina.
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I have come to the firm conviction that the policy of the government is the worst that could be hit upon. At this moment it is impossible to calculate the results.
Savannah is a beautiful country town of twenty to twenty-five thousand population, in times past the winter home of rich planters. There is no special elegance about the houses, and what make the city actually pretty are the beautiful shade trees along the streets and the multitude of small parks and squares which one finds almost every three blocks. My investigations are making good progress. I see many a new thing which strengthens me in the conviction that the restoration of civil government is not yet possible. To be sure, there is
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profound peace; of the predicted guerrilla war there is no trace. Our officer go hither and yon through the country without the slightest danger, but it is only a passive submission. The new labor system is nowhere taken up with eagerness, and they are unquestionably thinking of subjecting the negroes to some kind of slavery again after the restoration of civil government and the withdrawal of our troops. There is the greatest confusion of ideas about what is to be done, and if the people here shall now be permitted to make their own laws the confusion will be worse confounded. In my report about South Carolina I advised the President to suspend the reconstruction movement until later because the people are becoming more and more confused.
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Yesterday morning I left Augusta in the railway coach originally equipped for General Thomas, consisting of a small salon with four sofas, a bedroom, a dining room with table and armchairs, and a kitchen. So I came to this place in a comfortable manner. But who should greet me here at the railway station? Prince Salm, who is commanding here! He has done everything to make me comfortable. The Princess is also here, but sick. Atlanta may have been a more beautiful place formerly. Sherman burned about three-quarters of the city. The main streets, especially the whole business section, lie in ruins. They have just begun to erect small one-story buildings out of the bricks of the ruins. The whole makes a sorrowful impression. The population is a bitter as ever. This is the only place in whose neighborhood there is still something like guerrilla warfare, which however is directed only against negroes. Almost every day some are brought in with gun- and knife-wounds. The planters of the neighborhood appear to have organized themselves for the purpose of compelling negroes to work as they formerly did in
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slavery, and when a negro dares to leave he is shot. Only yesterday a negro was shot in the stomach here on the street. I visited him in the hospital. This evening he died. The assassin was arrested and will soon get his deserts at the hands of the military commission. They will doubtless hang him as an example....
My last interviews have been held. My report on the status of things in Georgia is ready and tomorrow I shall leave the city to go to the capita of Alabama. When I reached here last Friday Governor Johnson was gone to Milledgeville, whither I was obliged to follow him. I ordered a special train immediately and went the same evening. Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia, is a miserable little place about which there is nothing more remarkable to tell than that a remote, miserable place can be the capital of a state. I passed the night with Governor Johnson and am glad to be able to say that I found in him the kind of man we need. He recognizes fully the significance of the problem we have to solve and the magnitude of the difficulties by which it is surrounded. He is willing to go hand in hand with us in regard to all regulations we may find necessary for introducing a general system of free labor. Of all men with whom I have come in contact in
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the South, he is the clearest, most resolute and determined. If the accident which made him provisional governor were to give us similar men for the other states, matters would stand much better.
I spent two days in Vicksburg with General Slocum, who being in conflict with the governor of the state received
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me as a real help in time of trouble. Slocum is fully in the right when he opposes the organization of a state militia, especially to the extent proposed by the governor. If the government disavows him and sustains the governor, it will be the most irresponsible trick so far enacted in Washington. I have done everything that was possible through reports and telegraphic dispatches. If it fails to help, it will not be my fault. If the President persists in pursuing a false course he must not be surprised if, later, I bring into the field against him all the artillery I am assembling now. He will find the armament pretty heavy, but I continue to hope it will not be needed...
I found a genuine mine of information here in the headquarters and in the Freedman's Bureau, and in order to cover it properly I shall have to stay here several days. Besides, conditions here, by reason of the
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long occupation, are more developed than elsewhere and I have a multitude of persons to see. We have reconstruction and civil government in all stages of development here. Probably in the course of the week I had may go for a couple of days to Mobile, where the commander of the department of Alabama has his headquarters; in that department there is much rottenness. On my return I shall visit a couple of places in the interior of the state and then ascend the river to St. Louis. I am, moveover, expecting a dispatch from the President which may call for the investigation of one or another specific matter...
You have doubtless heard of the conflict between General Slocum and General Sharkey and the subsequent decision of the President. Nothing could have been more unfortunate than this decision. To withdraw the troops now and organize the militia means to re-arm
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the rebels. The result will be a sharp and perhaps bloody persecution of the negroes and the Union men. It is now my function to investigate the results of this unfortunate policy, and I am unable to forecast how long that may delay me. At all events, the inquiry must be thorough to the end that it may yield dependable results. The developments here on the whole are bad. The proslavery element is gaining the upper hand everywhere and the policy of the government is such as to encourage this outcome....
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... Since you wish it so much we shall spend Christmas in Bethlehem. It is annoying indeed that I have no
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house as yet. I certainly hope to have one before the session of Congress reopens after the holidays. When we once can be together here in the home, many things can be arranged better. It looks as if the President were beginning to grow tame. The determined attitude of the majority in Congress must have convinced him that he is not “head of the house.” I am told that he says he is going to let Congress do as it pleases.
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Though it is nearly midnight, I must write to you yet today. A proposition was made to me yesterday which may prove importation to us. A large capital has been assembled in Detroit, a joint-stock company organized,
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and all, arrangements made for establishing a new newspaper. Everything is completed up to the selection of the head. A deputation from the board of directors came here yesterday to propose to me the acceptance of the editorship. I told them I was negotiating with parties in St. Louis and that I could not accept another proposition until the St. Louis undertaking should be proved impracticable. It was then stated under what conditions I might accept the Detroit offer should I withdraw from St. Louis aggregation....
My report has had great success among the Congressmen. Sumner moved in the Senate for the publication
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of a hundred thousand copies. The House also has demanded it. The President expressed himself as follows to a Senator: “The only great mistake I have made yet was to send Schurz to the South.” I believe it!
I received your letter last night and am hurrying the application along. I gave my residences as Watertown, Wisconsin, because what is here called my “legal residence” is there. I shall, however, before the expiration of six months establish myself permanently either in St. Louis or in Detroit, where extremely enticing propositions have been made to me. I hope the application is properly drawn up. I leave the arrangement of the payments to you. Send me the notes with the amounts inscribed, so that I shall need only to sign them. Semi-annual payments would be the most agreeable to me. For the sum now due draw on me a draft payable by Jay Cooke and Company, Bankers, Washington, D. C., where I have my account. As I understand you the first cash payment will amount to $96.68, and since the payments are to pass through your hands I shall rely on you to notify me regularly in time; otherwise they will be forgotten. You sill, give yourself no scruples for having called the matter to my attention
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again. I would have done it anyhow, and to insure myself with you is a quite particular pleasure.
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It is great that you want to come here. You will probably find this a good field. The German population of the city amounts to nearly 20,000 and it is very numerous in the vicinity. The climate is changeable
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but it has the reputation of being healthful. Rents are high; that is, the rental of an entire house. Board is cheaper than in the East—I believe decidedly cheaper. I know a small family which secures very good board for sixteen dollars a week. Clothing is dearer here than in the East, but foodstuffs are cheaper. The total population of Detroit amounts to about 70,000; of the state of Michigan nearly 1,000,000, including fully 20,000 Germans. The state has great resources and the population is “doing well.” Detroit is a decidedly flourishing city.
My heartiest good wishes upon your birthday. It is unnecessary for me to recount all that I wish you. The recent years have been hard; full of uncertainty, worry, and excitement. Now that peace has returned and everything swings back into the ways of customary life, a quieter time will return for us also, and in a few months I hope to see fulfilled a great wish which I have carried about with me for years and which you have undoubtedly shared: the wish to live once more under the same roof with you. At last the outlook is becoming more favorable. I have found a field in which I can establish for myself a secure living, and next fall will doubtless find us all united. Then you shall spend the
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evening of your lives in the midst of the family which loves you. Keep well and active, that our life together may be untroubled. I would gladly come over to see you one of these days, but the duties of my present position hold me so fast in my newspaper office that I dare not take a day off. I have a great deal of work, and having decided to spare no pains to make our present undertaking successful I naturally cannot take it lightly. So far the auspices are good. Of course one must not except too much the first year....
... How do the reports from Europe suit you? The operation of the Prussians are beyond all measure brilliant. Prussia is in the way to swallow up the
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greater part of France, and it would not surprise me if within no long time a war should break out between this new great power and France....
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My speech is not yet quite finished. I shall be obliged to prepare the peroration in Philadelphia. The
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material has become too bulky. We are leaving tonight, quite a numerous company.
The people in Philadelphia appear to have organized themselves in permanent mass meetings. From early morning till late at night—at least till after sunset—some thousands of men are assembled before the Union League House to listen to speeches. Aside from this there are meetings with speeches every evening in the National Hall. But orderly speaking is hardly possible. The people simply want to shout, and if this thing continues several days longer all Philadelphia will be hoarse. I have not spoken yet at all, although I am called for several dozen times every day. In the open
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air I cannot and will not speak, and in National Hall it is so hot that no speaker can hold out longer than twenty minutes. They want to arrange for an assembly solely for me next Saturday, but I am not sure I ought to agree to it. Unless the weather changes it will hardly be possible. The Southern Convention is dragging out considerably and they will hardly get through before the end of the week. If I do not accept the Saturday meeting I shall speak in New York before my return.
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I found here a stack of letters containing invitations to meetings. Of course I shall accept only a very few. There are several which I cannot decline; for instance, from Colfax and from Ashley, who represents the Toledo district of Ohio. Come and let us be together again soon. Come on Monday. You ought to have locked up your beautiful Hamburg chest by this time. My Philadelphia speech is beginning to take n wider
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circles. The newspapers are already talking about it and the State Committee has ordered twenty-five thousand copies in pamphlet form. The Union League in Philadelphia has likewise printed it.
You are a fine comrade to ask me if I will “permit” the youngster to be named after me! That is fine! If between you and me such a thing is not a matter of course, what ought you to think of me and I of you? Shame on you, old Peter; and do not do the like of that again. You must have left yourself that it would have pleased me particularly to see that you had settled everything yourself without thinking of any of those formalities one observes in relation to the “rich uncle,” but not in relation to an old and true friend. And do not forget to tell this to your wife. Her scrupulousness in this regard is really the first difference of opinion which has arisen between her and me. But everything is all right now and we shall all rejoice in the little stranger—and may I make myself worthy of the godfathership. My wife just as heartily wishes you and your wife happiness, and begs you to accept from her a little piece of embroidery that will arrive by express soon. She is just now busied with arrangements about Christmas, which in our family is the greatest event of the entire year. Our rooms have for several days looked like a factory, and since my wife has to lead and constantly
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cooperate in the whole business, you will excuse her for not writing at this time.
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This evening I shall be obliged to speak in German and as yet I know not one word of what I shall say, though it will be necessary to begin in an hour. How am I going to get on? I must depend upon the inspiration of the moment and the adroitness with which I can translate my English manuscript into German. I am hoping to get through. That I am well and cheerful
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goes without saying, but this journey is of pleasure trip. The sole delightful moments are those in which I put the money earned into my pocket and think: “Something more for wife and child.” The Mississippi, seen through my window, is frozen over solidly, and vehicles of all sorts are upon it. I shall take the sleigh ride to the opposite bank—my second ice tour on the Mississippi, which however, thanks to the steady cold, will surely be drier and pleasanter this time than it was seven years ago. Adieu for today. I must think of the German lecture.
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Since I shall not be in St. Louis in time to write from there by the next Hamburg post, and since I
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know how you will long for a word from me after your arrival in the old home, I sit down this morning to talk with you. I can think of nothing else. Yesterday noon we
As you will have heard, I was in New York two weeks ago to put my family on board the Hamburg
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steamer. Naturally I looked for you at once but learned in the office of the company that you were in Boston. I had forgotten your home address. Nobody in the insurance office knew it, and no one of the acquaintances I happened to meet could give it to me. So I passed along Fourth Avenue in the hope of remembering the place, for I wanted very much to see your family and to rejoice in the little boy. But I saw no house which resembled the one I had formerly visited, and for want of time I was obliged to give up the search. I was in New York two days, and you can imagine how we all regretted our failure to see you.
through which I have come into a circle of activity which, although at the moment it does not particularly meet any fancy, promises nevertheless to expand and above all to secure me, according to my notion, an abundant living. The business is extraordinarily good and a few years will suffice to make
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me wholly independent in my finances. That would have given me more satisfaction at an earlier time than at present, but, as the old saying goes, it is still a consideration not to be set aside.
I can tell you very little about my life here. There is actually nothing new. I live in my regular occupation after the fashion which you know. Preetorius has been here again since last Tuesday, and our bachelor housekeeping is as peaceful and simple as you can imagine. In about two weeks he will spend a week or two in Madison with his family, and after his return I may take a short vacation. Where I shall go and what I shall do is as yet uncertain. Probably I shall spend several days with Tony and my parents. Meanwhile we have in mind to make little tours every Sunday to near-by places in the state of Missouri or to Hecker's.
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Next Sunday we are going to Augusta, an old settlement of educated Germans some fifty miles from here which dates from the thirties.
Let the children write to me often. They will all give me hearty pleasure. And you—you must be
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courageous and think about winning back your former strength and more than your former health. I am gaining for you a good living and you must gain for me health, and the courage to face life. Let us make such use of this (may we hope) last separation, that we shall always remember it with satisfaction.
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We were received by an old Mr. Münch from Darmstadt, a sometime theologian and professor who has been in Missouri for thirty-four years. He is a brother of the well known “Far West,” Frederick Münch, who has developed such a useful literary activity in the German press. Our host, after an enthusiastic greeting, took us to his house, which of course lay on one of the many hills, and from which one has a view across the vineyards for many miles along the Missouri. These old German patriarchs do not live elegantly, but cleanly,
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neatly, and if one does not demand too much, comfortably. There are no carpets, but beautifully scoured floors; no upholstered furniture, but tables spread with fresh white covers, with books upon them. Our host had children also, of whom the eldest son was at least thirty-five years old, while the youngest was hardly more than eight or nine.
After the dinner, however, came the great event. Our arrival had become well known in the town; and the population of Augusta, old and young, male and female, gathered together in a small grove to welcome us. They brought along their band, which was made up wholly of amateur musicians, but not at all bad. There was plenty of Augusta wine. Quite naturally speeches had to be made. First I had to talk to the men, then to the women, then to both. Following this, Preetorius came on; then the old Müuntil we all declared it was
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enough of a good thing. Of course all the speeches were in German, for in Augusta there are no Americans except the shoemaker's apprentice, who has recently arrived and who is learning German, and several negro families, among whom the children can already speak German. An evening meal at the home of a German doctor concluded the delightful affair. About eleven o'clock we went up and down the hills until we reached the home of the sixty-eight-year-old “young” Münich, that offered us a welcome bed.
The little German colony in Augusta certainly gives the impression of prosperity. The old people have preserved the tradition of the German spirit and German training, but they are unable to bequeath this tradition to their children. It is an observation which I have almost everywhere, that here in America, perhaps with the exception of individual cases in the great cities, the children of educated Germans contrast strikingly with their elders. The German spirit fades away. If the training remains wholly German and all contact with Americanism is avoided, a stupid Pennsylvania Germanism results. Where that is not the case,
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the waves of Americanism soon overwhelm the second and third generations. “The mission of Germanism” in America, about which some speak so loudly, can consist in nothing other than a modification of the American spirit, through the German, while the nationalities melt into one. In a few years the old patriarchs in pleasant little Augusta will be dead and their successors must be carried away by the universal movement.
... Life goes forward with peaceful uniformity. The business makes the same demands every day and so
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I work away quietly. We are now engaged in reorganizing our editorial personnel....
I know not why it is, but the picture of our child will not fade from my mind. A hundred times during the day while I am writing or conversing, her image crosses my thoughts. I cannot observe a bit of shaded turf without feeling that all this is of no value any more since she cannot play on it; nor can I make any plan for the future without a sensation of desolation. It has constantly grown worse even though, when I have people about me, I force myself to seem cheerful and can also for brief periods forget myself. I shall have to struggle against it in order to recover my equanimity. I suppose that everyone who has a heart must endure
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pain for a season after such a bereavement, and if I set myself strongly against it I shall finally master it. ... I hope that you are now pleasantly installed and that you will take every advantage of the environment, according to your strength, to regain your health. Have no concern about me, but think more about yourself, and do not let your stay in Europe be in vain.
My life goes quietly along on its even path. I have recently gone often to the German outdoor theatre, which is indeed very good considering the conditions here. One sits under a roof borne upon stone pillars,
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otherwise quite airy and free, smokes his cigar, and watches some performance. That occupies one or two hours immediately after dinner, if one is weary from the day's work and does not feel quite ready to go to work again. In this recreation I regularly, during Preetorius' absence, have had the company of a certain Dr. B., a very agreeable and sensible person, who however has the fixed idea that he belongs to a secret society which is developing a world government and which is soon to bring about a great reversal of affairs in Germany. I am to have not unenviable position of prime minister. Besides this doctor, I have with me also a German writer named Udo Brachvogel, who is a very spiritual young man. That is about the only diversion I have, but it suffices.
Today I am writing you in the actual sweat of my face. This noon the thermometer indicated 99 degrees
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and around two o'clock it must have reached 100 degrees or over. It is now nearly six o'clock in the evening and the drops of perspiration roll quietly down my face. Still it is much cooler than it was two hours ago, and I hope the night will be quite endurable.
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Among Germans the enforced observance of Sunday and the temperance business are making quite a disturbance; that is, not here in Missouri, but elsewhere, particularly
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in Chicago and Milwaukee. This naturally causes much rumpus in the party; it begins once more to crack in every joint, but Johnson's doings, the deposition of Stanton, Sheridan, etc., have once more so excited the popular mind and so united all independent elements that the party will doubtless hold out though the next election....
You write me that Adolf will visit his wife in Motreux and then come to Ragatz for some days to see you. How the name awakens precious memories! Do you recall that night when I carried ur child up the stone steps of the still house and we looked back upon the blue lake and the Savoy mountains, as they shimmered in the white moonlight! And how we then lived like children in the full, joyous appreciation of wonderful nature! But those were golden days; that was youth! In this country I was still an unknown, unrecognized man. The newspapers knew nothing of me and I had not yet heard the applause of assembled thousands. But how much happier were we, and with what carefree souls did we enter into the joy of living! That is over now. The sunshine now has a different tinge for us, and when we consider our lives we think not alone about what is to be but also about what has been. The time is gone when we could separate our future from our past. And yet I know that if we were to find ourselves together again as at that time in Montreux, we could be very
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happy—a happiness indeed of a different kind, less driven by the winds of hope, and more peaceful in the enjoyment of what has been vouchsafed us. I have attained this and that in life, and how often have I found, upon attaining it, that it was a chimera! One mourns his lost illusions as he regretfully remembers beautiful dreams. But every illusion lost is fundamentally a gain. There will always be enough left to keep our blood warm. But after experience has taught us to trust them less, the deceptions will prove less painful because they will contain less of the element of surprise. When one has gone through this process of development, then indeed the goblet of life does not effervesce so much; but the wine is still there, only it is quiet. Assuredly we can be happy gain and we shall be when we get our little flock peacefully under a single roof and have the means of a pleasant life. Our hearts will never be so shriveled as to be unable to raise a shout of joy at a view like that in the night upon the steps in Montreux....
... Politics would be terrible stupid if Johnson did not entertain us with his capers. He is a madman. Now that Congress is not in session he carries on as if he would stick the world in his bag; yet he knows that the game will last only a couple of months. He will possibly cause a little confusion in the South, but aside
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from this his doings can have no practical result. Even the most moderate Republicans now speak of impeachment, and if Johnson goes on like this for a while longer the stream cannot be dammed up after the reassembling of Congress. Sheridan, who hereafter will have his headquarters in Leavenworth, must pass through here on his journey thither, and it is intended n that occasion to make a great demonstration for him which shall ring in the President's ears.
The political situation becomes more interesting every day; I might almost say more threatening. The way Johnson is carrying on with his creatures raises the fear that he may be thinking of a coup d'etat. It is not impossible that be is preparing to resist the impeachment with force. That would lead to new confusion which, however, considering the universal detestation in which Johnson is held, could end only in his swift overthrow. He now bites at all about him like a wounded and anger-crazed boar. And so long as Congress is not in session there is no means of chaining him unless Grant should give him formal notice that he will no longer obey and should refuse to carry out his orders. Grant, in my opinion, made a bad mistake in accepting the secretary-ship of war and there by rendering easier the removal of Stanton. Since then, he has conducted himself as well as his embarrassing position permitted. Naturally he immediately came into violent conflict with the President, whom he sought to restrain by protest from supplanting Sheridan and Sigel. Of course that had no
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effect. Stanton's method of crossing the President's plans is foreign to Grant. So the tussel goes on, but it is to be expected that Grant will resign from the War Department or that the President will put in some other man. Sheridan will probably come through St. Louis on his way to the scene of the Indian war, and we are engaged in preparing a great demonstration which will reveal to the President the temper of the people. The affair will probably come off toward the end of next week....
I can write you only a little today because I can take hardly half an hour for it. Sheridan reached here Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning about one o'clock. A committee, of which I was the head, received him at the station and accompanied him to his hotel. Besides that I have had to be on my feet constantly to manage the preparations for the whole demonstration, and in addition had to make a speech, since the official reception in the name of the city and of the state was left to me. That filled my time Sunday and yesterday. The whole business came off last night, a demonstration never surpassed in St. Louis. There were thousands in the torchlight procession; it was about three or
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four times as long as the distance between the Southern Hotel and Washington Avenue. Before the Fourth Street front of the hotel men stood shoulder to shoulder for almost three blocks. There were many thousands. I gave my speech of welcome from the great balcony, which also was crowded full of gentlemen and ladies. My speech, of which I am sending you a printed copy, received much applause and I believe you will like it.
—the business has been a genuine hardship for me. I am very glad that Sheridan is leaving today and that my old-time habits are to begin again. My speech will probably go through the entire Republican press, because everybody has been awaiting with eagerness the great welcoming demonstration in St. Louis. I translated the speech myself into German for our
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paper, and so my own German version will doubtless be the current one.
Yesterday I returned from a little excursion which I had undertaken Sunday. I went with my young
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friend, Udo Brachvogel, a very lovable and talented literary character, to the farm of his brother at Vineland near De Soto. This brother is already an elderly man, who was a considerable property owner in Europe. Last year he bought a large farm of upwards of six hundred acres, laid out vineyards, built mills, and is now in an active and promising business. The family lives in a large log house with rather extensive outbuildings. One sees everywhere the hand of the busy housewife, who understands how to arrange things tastefully even when luxury is absent. I felt in this home the true German comfort. Mrs. Brachvogel is also elderly, with a good education and accustomed from youth to the comfortable and rich living of the well-to-do in Germany. Now she has taken hold courageously to make for her family a pleasant home, even though her heart still yearns for Europe. On the other hand, the old gentleman Brachvogel has already become an enthusiastic American, who is quite charmed with his new activities; and when I heard this couple so eagerly discussing the relative merits and advantages of America and Europe, there came to my mind many a conversation which you and I have indulged in with each other. The son of the family, a splendid young man of about twenty, was formerly with the Prussian Marine. He has now taken hold of his new calling with full vigor and has become quite an American farmer. I spent a very delightful day there. We walked about the place, enjoyed the fine forest air and much agreeable conversation. Yesterday morning I returned by railway, quite refreshed. Here I found your der letter written upon your birthday....
Last week we had a visit from a great German literary man, Frederick Gerstäcker, who is on a journey
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through the continent and to South America. We ate together regularly at Bühler's and attempted to extract from him, conversationally, some of the Münchhausen-like stories in which he so excels. But he seemed to smell a mouse and we were able to get absolutely nothing out of him except one single hyena that he claimed to have shot during a night hunt in Africa. It was delicious to hear one of his acquaintances, with whose brother in Arkansas Gerstäcker formerly lived for nine months, tell us that they had tried at that time in vain to induce this man, who has given to literature such tremendous hunting stories, to undertake one single hunting expedition during the whole time he was there; and yet some of the most remarkable of his stories were written after that very period. When he left here for the Indian country he enveloped himself in a gray hunting-coat trimmed with green and equipped himself with a double-barreled gun and a powerful stag hunter as if to indicate that now things were going to happen. We shall doubtless read wonderful adventure stories by him. We had a delightful time with him and he promised to come again after having seen the Indian gatherings near Fort Laramie, which probably will not take place.
I am just now writing an account of the Eleventh Corps in the battle of Chancellorsville, which is to be
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printed in the New York
My speech to Sheridan has been much read and much admired. It was telegraphed entire by the Associated Press all over the Union, and I have received letters from various persons expressing themselves on it very enthusiastically. Today I am sending you my letter about the temperance question and the attitude of the Germans in the Republic party. This letter has been issued only five days but has already made the round of all the great political papers of the West, which express themselves very appreciatively on it. I shall soon find it also in the Republican papers of the East, and I hope that it will have a good effect generally.
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You will observe that it is intended especially for the Americans. The temperance movement has begun again almost everywhere, and in the party we observe the most disquieting symptoms of disintegration. Now the reaction caused by the temperance people has set in strongly and the Republican state conventions in the West are hastening, one after another, to accept the demands of the Germans. My letter is calculated to give this reaction a new impulse, and from what the press says I conclude that it will not fail of its object.
I have been approached from many directions on the subject of accepting the nomination for Congress, and am always told that if I would accept it the matter
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would take care of itself. The so-called
I returned from my excursion to Booneville at two o'clock this morning. I left Wednesday morning at
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eight o'clock over the Pacific Railroad, accompanied by my loyal squire Schinkowski, an old Polander whom I made one of my adjutants in the Grand Army. At seven o'clock in the evening we reached Tipton, a small prairie village from which place we had to make the remaining twenty-five miles by wagon. A couple of Booneville gentlemen were waiting for us, and after a frugal supper such as we are accustomed to in the country hotels here, we took our seats in the carriage. The night was wondrously fine; no moon, but bright starlight. So we rolled along cheerfully over the prairie and through stretches of woodland, and made light of the jolty road until one of my Booneville friends hit upon the unlucky idea of taking a “better” way, which ran parallel to the main road. We did so. Suddenly we found ourselves on the open prairie, and the trail on which we were driving began to look very blind. But we did not want to turn back. We looked at the stars and found that the track ran in the right direction, so we followed it with confidence. It led us into the woods, which became very dense and dark and, as it seemed to us, had no end. In addition the trail was so narrow that the limbs of the trees constantly scraped the carriage on both sides. Finally two of my companions got out. Luckily they had a box of matches with them, which they lighted one after the other and in this manner illuminated the trail. The scene reminded me strongly of my trip in the Alabama woods in the year 1865, when a young planter's boy had to light me through the forest with a tallow candle. In this manner we finally reached a fence, hunted up and found the farmhouse pertaining thereto, and the farmer directed us back to the main road. We were glad to reach it and did not any longer yearn for the “better way.” About two o'clock at night
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we finally reached Booneville. They put me up at the City Hotel, the nicest country hotel I have found in America—and how I slept in the soft, wide bed after my severe ordeal!
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The principal event came at night. The Turners had arranged a ball, and a table abundantly supplied with Booneville wine was placed upon the stage for me and my company. The men desired me to dance with their daughters and wives, but, as you know, that could not be. At last, when I returned to my hotel, came the inevitable serenade arranged by the Booneville amateur brass band. It was not quite unendurable. I thanked them in a little speech and thought that now I could betake myself to my bed and peacefully give myself over to sleep. But I had hardly got under the coverlet when I heard another noise. It was, as my Squire Schinkowski reported, the American Glee Club, made up of several singers, two violins, one bass viol, and one bass horn. The singing was introduced with a sort of prelude in which every instrument seemed to amble quite at will through all possible keys. Then a tenor voice struck in and sang a song whose refrain was: “Mother, kiss me in my dreams!” The climax of the song was the following voice and instrumental effect: tenor voice in highest pitch, and piano, “Mother”; violins, very softly, “Diddle dee”; tenor voices pianissimo, “Mother!” violins, still softer, “Diddle dee”; chorus, in thunder tones and crashing bass horn, “Kiss me in my dreams!” So it went through an endless succession of strophes. “Well,” thought I, “now I can sleep.” But hardly had I got ready for it again when a Turner Singing Society appeared and sang several really pretty songs in front of my window. Schinkowski came to get me out for another speech, but I was determined not to let myself be disturbed again and so my squire went down and told the Turners that I had got into a perspiration; if I were to get up I might take cold and become ill and die,
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and the loss would be too heavy. The good Turners appreciated this and left me in peace. But the American Glee Club (incidentally, as I heard later, made up principally of former secessionists) had bewitched me. Instead of being kissed by mother in my dreams, I dreamed I belonged to a robber band of skinners and was being followed by the police with abominable yelling.
Yesterday I made a speech here before a great and very enthusiastic gathering. It went beautifully. After
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the meeting a torchlight procession and a great serenade were given me. To please the Americans, who were present by thousands, I had to make a short speech from the balcony of the Weddell House. The whole thing went off in the most satisfactory manner.
I reached Chicago day before yesterday morning about six o'clock and went to Tony's, where I spent the day. She is quite the old Tony, bright and cheerful as ever. ... In Chicago spiritualism now prevails frightfully in German circles. B. is an enthusiastic follower and is said sometimes to do the most comical things at the spiritualistic seances. Br., also a believer, is still in the first stage of enthusiasm and could not resist bringing out a little table while we sat at dinner. When the noon meal was over the matter was continued. ... I think about spiritualism just as I used to. The phenomena are, to be sure, exciting and interesting, and where they become personal they touch the heart. But what do they prove? I have seen nothing which cannot be explained on the theory of animal magnetism, just like the other magnetic phenomena which people tell about. B. became enthusiastic to the point of laughableness. He told me that when the name of a certain Irishman was initialed he would set a glass of whiskey on the table; and when V., who is a heavy smoker, made himself known, he offered him a cigar. This beats everything. R. also takes part in the seances, which are now being
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held weekly in Chicago with considerable regularity; but he has not yet been able to come to any decision.
I wrote you earlier that the results of the October elections seemed to me quite doubtful and that I did not expect any particular favorable results for the Republican
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party. This prediction was fulfilled somewhat too completely. In Pennsylvania we have probably lost our candidate for the supreme court. The matter is not wholly settled. In Philadelphia the Democratic ticket was elected with an appreciable majority; and in Ohio we lost the legislature but saved our gubernatorial candidate by a very narrow margin. In a world, the Republican party has suffered a reverse, and the Democrats with President Johnson at the head are raising wild cries of rejoicing. These incidents have no immediate practical significance since the work of reconstruction so far as concerns its completion remains as it was, in the hands of Congress. But the thing has given Johnson, the northern Democrats, and the old rebels of the South new courage, and it is feared that Johnson will attempt to hinder by executive means the carrying out of the congressional policy. It is indeed not improbable that in case of an impeachment and his suspension during the trial, Johnson would resist. The confusion which would result from such a step cannot be reckoned in advance. While it is certain that the northern people would soon put down any attempt at a coup d'état, nevertheless such an event might lead to all kinds of complications. Towards the end of November the business will clear up, for Congress is to resemble on the twenty-first.
During the first two days after the election the reports from Washington were very threatening. It was then thought we had lost the governor and the whole state government of Ohio. Later reports, that this was not the case, seem to have cooled the ardor and enthusiasm of the Johnson people to some extent. The elections in New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas
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will take place at the beginning of November. If these yield a good result I do not believe that Johnson will venture anything; but I have some fears about New York.
Your last letter, of September 22, describes the glories of the Rigi, and I rejoice heartily in all of the wonders you have seen. Yes, it is too bad that we could not have enjoyed it together. But I console myself with the thought that you at least have seen it, and when I look upon the promising and consistent prosperity of our business, which answers all my expectations, I hope confidently that the time is not far distant when we can
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give ourselves a good time in all comfort. ... It is a sort of profanation to associate a paragraph about money matters with talk about the Rigi; but you understand the relationship.
appears cracked as usual. He has already done us great harm, but I hope that by the beginning of the presidential campaign we may be able to tame him. So much will be at stake then, and the lessons the party received this year are so significant, that he will finally be obliged to accept the inevitable. Johnson is of course considerably encouraged, yet I hardly believe he will attempt positive opposition to Congress unless in the impeachment they supersede him and suspend him from office during the trial. Whether
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or not Congress will go forward with the impeachment has become somewhat doubtful since the Ohio and Pennsylvania elections. The majority will possibly lack the courage.
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At last I am again sitting quietly and securely at my writing-table. My letter from Milwaukee must have
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seemed to you short and hurried, but I was so beleaguered that I could not possibly command a quiet hour for writing. You know how it goes in an election campaign. My journey in Wisconsin was indeed a pretty strenuous one, yet on the whole quite pleasant.
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farm on the Northwestern. You can imagine what pensive thoughts of home the view of the house brought me, and what recollections arose in me. An American lives there now, and the flower beds are planted to potatoes and onions.
We have been victorious again in the Wisconsin election, with a somewhat reduced majority but yet sufficiently decisive. The Republican majority in the state will be between six and eight thousand. But in New York we were badly beaten; also in New Jersey, while Massachusetts and Minnesota remain loyal with
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strong majorities. I had long foreseen the defeat in New York. It was brought about principally by the Sunday law and the corruption of the last legislature. In Massachusetts the temperance people within the Republican party have suffered a decided overthrow, which together with the backfire against the Sunday law in New York will have the effect of finally putting an end to both of these things which have already given us much trouble.
I am much pleased to know that you are happily settled in Wiesbaden and I do not doubt you will make
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things comfortable for yourself. You have done right to set up a small establishment. It will afford you pleasant activity and entertainment. When I am once there, what charming times we shall have! ... Preetorious will move into his new house next week. I wanted to rent a place, but he protested most energetically against it. ... He said that a room in the new house was set aside especially for me.
I shall leave here next week, spend a couple of days in Washington, and then on December 5 go aboard the
442
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one of the best ships of the Bremen line, and shall sail from New York on the fifth of December. Probably I shall touch German soil just one week after this letter. I will not undertake to describe my joy. You will see for yourself when I arrive. From Bremen I shall of course go direct to Hamburg by rail, without delaying en route. If we are to celebrate Christmas together in Wiesbaden I shall leave Hamburg at once and shall apparently have more than time enough to reach Wiesbaden before Christmas Eve, unless the Prussian government places difficulties in my way. I have written to Bancroft and Bucher, and hope to find letters from both in Hamburg giving me certainty about the matter. I really have little desire to write much, for I already see myself with you. I busy myself, aside from my current editorial labors, with nothing except preparations for the journey, and my thoughts are always on it. However, I
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have been to the theatre three times lately and have seen Edwin Booth as Hamlet, as Richard III, and as Iago in
Our Christmas celebration was very lively and joyful, so that the sad memories which accompanied us—and you know well how sad they are—were always forced into the background. Aside from Adolf and Marie, Mathilde and Falke with the children and Therese with her Hugh were here. Only you and Amelia were missing, but we thought of you affectionately. Now it is quiet here once more. Adolf is about to leave and we shall probably go too, spending several days in Weimar with Amalie, and in Berlin. Margarethe's physical condition, which at first did not suit
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me very well, seems nevertheless to be somewhat improved. Dr. Genth, a well and favorably known physician, expresses the hope of being able to arrive at the cause of her illness through a summer cure, and to send her back to me next fall with restored health. The children are as well and as good as I could wish to see them.
Yesterday we were finally restored to our quiet family life. We left Berlin Saturday evening and
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came through without change. The tour was indeed a little strenuous, but Margarethe held out bravely and is feeling very well. ... The short stay in Berlin was of incalculable value to me. I could not have regretted anything more than the fact that you were not able to stay a couple of days longer. Of course I was able to see almost nothing of the sights in Berlin that are worthy of being seen, except the worth-while people; and even of these I could see not nearly so many as I ought to have seen. I should have required at least two weeks more in order to do the task as it deserved. Still the single week which was vouchsafed gave me quite a deep insight into the state of affairs here. Naturally I came to know a group of the most distinguished members of the Chamber—but to my deepest regret Schulze-Delitsch escaped me; and you will have learned through the papers that I met Bismarck. It came about at his own request. He sent word through our secretary of legation, Bucher, that he wanted to see me. After our first meeting he invited me to dinner, on which occasion I had him to myself almost two hours; and afterwards I saw him once more.
I have reason to believe that it was his idea in the beginning to attract me into the Prussian state service. On his question whether I designed to remain in Germany I declared without hesitation that I had no idea of leaving the United States. What, indeed, could he have offered which would have answered my expectations was or furthered my interests? Otherwise my long and rapid conversation with Bismarck was of extraordinary interest. He expressed himself with complete frankness on all possible situations, even the most delicate, which astounded me; and he displayed a knowledge of men and conditions which I have not found in
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any other statesman of my acquaintance. When one has learned to know Bismarck, one thing becomes quite clear. When this force which clearly knows what it wants—and then wills with its whole energy—meets another force that does not clearly know what it wants and which lacks unity and sustained energy, the competition for power will not long remain doubtful. Bismarck is an individuality strong in himself, who has impressed upon current affairs, against all parliamentary opposition, the stamp of his superiority. This superiority as against the Chamber makes itself felt particularly where he is obviously in the wrong; for example, in the debate over the endowment of the dispossessed, which we see going on. I could tell you very interesting things about our conversation which have given me the key to many a matter hitherto dark. Perhaps I shall have opportunity to do so before my return.
All in all our journey will remain unforgettable, and I only regret that we could not have had you with
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us throughout. For the days you devoted to us we cannot sufficiently thank you. I only wish we could be something to you sometime. Now to business....
My stay in Berlin was a very hectic one. I naturally became acquainted with a multitude of distinguished persons and I found several old acquaintances in Parliament. Adolf had but just left us when I received a letter from one of the subordinate officers of the foreign ministry notifying me that Bismarck wished to see me, and if agreeable to me I should let him know. Of course I did it, and Bismarck appointed a time for the next evening. I went and had an hour-and-a-half interview with him. He invited me to dinner next day, where I encountered some dozens of bestarred and becrossed private counselors, judicial counselors, and other counselors. After dinner Bismarck dismissed the company,
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except me, and we had nearly two hours together. Friday evening I saw him again.
Nothing could have been more comical than my appearance at the ministerial table. Of course in the beginning nobody knew me, nor did I know anyone. Afterwards, when we were just ready to sit down, Bismarck introduced me to several persons. A flutter now went round the table and the astonishment appeared to
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be great. Steadily the old and the young perukes became more confidential and we amused ourselves very well. When we finally gathered in the salon for coffee and cigars I became the center of quite a group. Bismarck himself seemed conscious of the comical situation, for when he had dismissed the others and we were alone he said: “It is really funny that we sit together here so peacefully and smoke cigars. Fifteen years ago neither of us would have dreamed of it.” And immediately after this he expounded to me his policy for the future of Germany.
About ten days ago I heard from an apparently trustworthy source that you were to come to Frankfort in a short time, on which occasion I hoped to see you and talk with you. Now I hear that this was a groundless report. The matter has resulted only in delaying my writing to you. How gladly I would have sought you out in Zürich, but I was unable to do so. Now my departure for America draws near. We expect to go
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to Hamburg day after tomorrow, and I sail on the steamer
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Hard as it is to be separated from you and the children some months longer, I yet take my leave with a feeling of great satisfaction. What a delightful time we had together! How many hours of genuine happiness! How splendid our children were! What love was shown us by the brothers and sisters! And with what well-grounded hopes I now go forth after seeing your old doctor! It was an actual rau of sunshine, and though such days come only now and then, we still have
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light and warmth enough for many which have gone before and which may follow them. Let us be thankful for them and not let our reflections be troubled by the complaint that they were so short. Have we not reason to look more cheerfully toward the future? May we not hope to be more free and to sweeten our labor now and then with self-erected pleasures? And how many hands are extended to us with warmest affection! Surely we should look to the future in a contented mood, and not complain too much about the few bitter drops which flow into the goblet of life now and then.
reached her dock at five o'clock this evening. Between Hamburg and Southampton we already had unpleasant weather, but hardly we left Cowes when a very bad wind began blowing from the west directly against us, and so continued for almost nine days and nights without intermission. It was indeed not quite so bad as we experienced
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in January, 1862, but sometimes there was not much difference. The sea which opposed us was colossal and the vessel labored through it with great difficulty. On the ninth day our voyage was hardly half completed, but on the tenth day the weather suddenly changed and we shot forward on a quite sea with great rapidity. The
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Greatly as many things in Germany pleased me I am bound to say that this country seems home to me.
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How fresh and hearty life is here and how one feels at every step that he can accomplish something! This is a great cause. You recall that I described to you the political situation which I left here in December as very unsatisfactory and even doubtful. All of our friends at that time felt depressed and it was believed that only with the most strenuous exertions could the Republican party guarantee its success in the presidential election. That situation has suddenly become quite different. I have rarely seen so quick and complete a change. Everything now is hopeful....
I arrived here yesterday morning after a wearisome railway journey. ... About ten o'clock I went to the
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office and was received with genuine pleasure by all. That did me much good. ... Preetorius especially received me with the most friendly heartiness....
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In one respect I am very well satisfied with the outcome of the spring elections. While they do not in any way lessen our chances of victory, yet on the other hand they show that we must work for it and that the mere nomination of Grant, which is expected on all hands, will
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not suffice to make it absolutely sure. We shall have an active campaign,and that is exactly what I want. Nothing could be more dangerous to the party than lazy self-confidence. The impeachment will probably come to an end in eight or ten days you will have the result before these lines reach you. I hope we shall then have a Republican administration once more and go forward under full sail. ... I am already beginning the preliminary preparations for my forthcoming campaign speech. I have several excellent ideas which can be worked out very nicely if the newspaper work does not split me up too much....
Tomorrow the vote on the impeachment charges will occur in Washington. It will be a decisive day and we look forward to the result with throbbing hearts. Last week all kinds of disquieting rumors were sent out about he desertion of several Republican Senators, but most of these appear to be unfounded. For several days those who desire Johnson's conviction have been much more confident. On the whole the trial was conducted in a very weak manner on the side of the prosecution, at least so far as the arguments went. Bingham's speech alone was in any way adequate. But even it was not what could have been desired on so great an occasion. There are so few American speakers who have learned that the greatest effect will be produced by illuminating, simple strength and not by rankly abundant speech. Fortunately the case of the prosecution was so strong as to compensate for the defects in its presentation. In
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forty hours we shall know the final result. Let us hope for the best.
I have rejoiced heartily over your letter. It is intelligent, in correct style, and I find no extravagant expressions in it. I now believe that you will learn to write very well if you keep on in the same way. Let me give you a principal rule: One should write precisely as he thinks and express fittingly what he what he wants to say. One must not admit any artfulness of expression nor use figures of speech, particularly adjectives, without knowing exactly what is intended to be expressed thereby. One must not involve sentences too much but
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arrange his thoughts simply, one after another, just as they naturally follow one another. That is the whole art of style. The simplest and clearest is always the most effective and best. Young persons always try to express beauty in high-flown superlatives. They think it sounds well, but what signifies a good sound if what one has to say doesn't mean anything? By the way, that is a stage of diseased taste which almost everybody has to pass through. It does not do much harm provided one gets done with it promptly. Having once catered to a false taste and gained a better one, one needs to be careful not to fall back into the old errors. If you develop your present manner of writing you will save yourself this transition period, which would be much better. Do write me frequently, every week or every two weeks, about what goes on around you, and I will give you other hints from time to time.
At last I am in peace again. I returned yesterday from the Chicago convention, the results of which you
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have undoubtedly learned already, through the telegraph. The business went off very well. I had a little triumph there too. They made me temporary chairman. I opened the convention with a short speech which pleased so extraordinarily well that I was almost smothered with congratulations. The newspapers are full of praise. I also presented a couple of supplementary resolutions which were accepted with the greatest unanimity and brought me almost as much recognition as the resolutions themselves. The convention was held in Crosby's Opera House and presented a very impressive spectacle. The city was so full of strangers that at certain times one could hardly get through the main streets. At first the whole affair was a bit tame, but the enthusiasm rose little by little. When the nomination of Grant was completed, after the call of the states, the whole great assembly broke into never ending applause. The scene was so moving that one of the Prussian ministerial secretaries, Von K—, who was present and who wrote me his impressions, found the tears streaming down his cheeks. The election of Colfax also aroused much enthusiasm. Along with most of the Missouri delegation I voted for Wade, although I soon became convinced that he could not be nominated. We had to give him a large vote on account of his peculiar position in the impeachment trial. Colfax is a very popular man and on that account a strong candidate. His abilities are not distinguished but are just sufficient to make him acceptable to the masses. They are fond of happy mediocrity.
On the whole I think, if good work is done, we can be pretty sure of success. Something, it is true, depends on what kind of candidates the Democratic party will
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nominate July 4. If an extreme Copperhead is chosen the game will be easy for us. But if a man like General Hancock shall be nominated we shall have to work very hard. Nevertheless I think that even in that case the old forces can be led to victory once more.
From the date of this letter you will see that I am in the midst of the campaign. I left St. Louis last
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Wednesday, spoke in Bloomington, Illinois, in the evening; spent Thursday in Chicago with Tony and Mama; spoke Friday evening in Indianapolis, and last night here. Today I succeeded in keeping my enthusiastic friends away for several hours. Oh, the whole business is on once more: ceremonial receptions at the stations, processions, serenades, and this frightful noise, which in 1860 was already so hateful to me, and which now again follows me even into my dreams. In Bloomington my friends thought they ought to do something special for me. So, secretly, they telegraphed to Mr. Olshausen asking what kind of wine I preferred—just imagine—and when I came to my hotel I found in my room an entire case of bottles of fine Rhenish wine together with boxes of cigars, ect. I, poor man, was to help drink all of this, but at last I had to call in my German brothers to assist, which they did, and before I left at midnight the bottles were actually empty. And the serenades! The meeting was German, but the Americans insisted that I speak in English for a few minutes from the hotel balcony. I finally succumbed to my fate and agreed. When I had finished and returned to my chamber, imagine my fright—for, while the “brass band” was still working away madly with tremendous noise out in the street, a Männerchor suddenly cut loose on the gallery in front of my chamber door. The good Germans had written a poem about me and set it to music, in which I was described as God knows what kind of hero and champion of liberty in two hemispheres, and this hymn was being chanted before my door by the Männerchor, whose tenors tortured their voices into a ghastly falsetto. I finally took myself in hand, stepped out among the terrifying singers, told
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them how deeply I was touched, and asked them to enter and carouse over the remainder of my gift wine. They did so; but I was not to get off so easily, for afterwards the worthy singers bade me a good-night tunefully.
This week I had a very pressing invitation from Grow, former speaker of the House of Representatives,
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whose sister you like so much. Grow is now chairman of the state central committee of Pennsylvania and he begged me most pressingly to speak there at eight or ten meetings. I have consented and will go there after filling my engagements here. Probably, on the same trip I may give a great speech in New York. Then, in the first or second week of September, I hope to be in the West again and spend the last month of the campaign in Missouri.
This letter will probably arrive by your birthday; at least, so I calculate. And here I sit in a pleasant little town on the banks of the Ohio, in Indiana, and my thoughts are all with you. They have been so for several days. I wanted to make a poem for you on your birthday—but God knows the rhymes will no longer come properly. Also, the poetical efforts were constantly crossed by all kinds of prosaic matters—Grant and Seymour, reconstruction, the national debt, the greenback
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or gold question, etc., etc. Poetry cannot thrive in such company. So I got only a fragment done, and since the letter must go now in order to reach you on your birthday I cannot wait longer for poetic inspiration....
My engagements run to election day, with some interruptions for rest. The last five or six weeks of the campaign will be devoted entirely to Missouri. I have several reasons for that, one of which I have not yet given you. It is this: This winter the legislature of Missouri will elect a new Senator in place of Henderson.
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The latter would have been reëlected had he not rendered himself impossible by his attitude in the impeachment. Some voices have already been raised in the state in favor of sending me to the Senate. The main argument against it is that the holdover Senator, Drake, is from St. Louis and they never like to take both Senators from the same place. Usage has long been against it. For this reason I shall not become a candidate. But inasmuch as there are several candidates from the rural sections and the probability is that they will neutralize one another in influence, it would still be possible that in the end I could be elected, particularly if I make a strong impression throughout the state by my speeches before the presidential election. I do not speak to anyone about it and also restrain my friends who want to bring my name forward. But if, in the course of events, the election should come to me wholly without effort on my part—a thing I do not regard as probable nor yet as impossible—I would accept it. I certainly would not come out as a candidate in the way the others do, because I wish to avoid unpleasantnesses. I shall wait quietly and see what fate may decide. If it does not come I shall have the advantage of not being disappointed, because I did not count on anything and the newspaper always remains to me....
... Preetorius writes me that the Americans in Missouri are talking more and more about putting me
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in Henderson's place as Senator and that several papers have already formally placed my name at the heads of their columns. He asked me what he should say and I answered, “Nothing at all.” I shall not be a candidate, but if the thing settles itself, as is not wholly impossible, it would not be so bad—what do you think?
I am much pleased that you have a taste for historical studies. If you want to read, for yourself, world history to the Reformation, take the old Becker's general history; or, if you can find it there in the library, Schlosser's. I believe Becker's is the better. It is written more attractively for beginners and is less difficult to understand. It is important at present that you acquire a regular survey of events and an approximate notion of each historical period. Becker's world
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history is very good for this purpose. If, later, you wish to study some historical situation seriously, I will cite you other books. Much stress is laid in the schools on names and dates. These are valuable only as providing the “framework” into which the weightier matters—the development of events and characters of different periods—are fitted. The great point is to secure an understanding of the latter, and if you would have historical matters impress themselves upon your thought, you must not lose sight of the important things through attention to incidentals. The books of Freitag which we bought last winter are on this account of very special value. They impart to history dramatic life and color. It does us little good to know that Alexander, king of Macedon, overthrew Porus, the Hindu king, if we do not know what kind of men Alexander and Porus really were, under what conditions they lived, and what their deeds actually signified in that age....
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I am happy over the news you give me concerning your health. You have no doubt gone over everything with Adolf and in one of your next letters I hope you
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will give me the result. Until then I will take no part in the matter. ... My best greetings for you loved ones....
My last tour was quite wearying, less by reason of the distances covered than because th horses which drew me were so horribly slow. Give me rough roads, a miserable carriage, but not slow horses. Were I obliged to travel three months continuously in the way I did the latter part of last week I should develop nervous fever. But not everything has ended fortunately and I have the feeling that I have performed my duty. The Republican press, too, has extended to me full recognition for what I have done. Our papers have been full of my doings, and the demand for me to become Senator grows daily. The matter begins to trend toward a higher probability. What is said and written about my entrance into the cabinet is nothing but empty rumor. Grant certainly has given no intimation himself and he will doubtless go his own way. It would be strange if other people knew the least thing about it. It is, to be sure, not impossible that Grant should fix upon me, but I do not consider it at all probable. He is too little acquainted with me and will scarcely be disposed to treat
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the matter in a hit-or-miss way. I certainly do not believe he would proffer me the one portfolio in which I could achieve something; namely, that of foreign affairs. The circumstance that I am foreign born operates strongly against me. I should prefer the senatorship to any other place in the cabinet. I could accomplish more there; it would be more advantageous for me financially inasmuch as my connection with the business could be continued, and it would leave me much more freedom. More than that, it is the only position through which it might be possible, sometime, for me to attain the secretaryship of state. Do you recall that a seat in the Senate was from the first the highest position we desired for me? If that should now come its own accord we must not be so ill-bred as to want something else. Let us wait patiently for the good things fate may present to us.
Your anxiety about me, which expresses itself in your letter, has fortunately been quite unnecessary. During the entire campaign I was everywhere treated with the greatest friendliness, and even the abuse of the Democratic press has been far less virulent than upon earlier occasions of the kind. By several opposition papers of this state I was treated with actual distinction. The tone of things in Missouri has definitely improved. Here and there the two parties still confront each other with virulence, but on the whole such localities are very few. Night before last both parties held their final demonstrations, torchlight processions, etc. here in St. Louis. No excesses whatever occured. Once the two processions met, but the Democratic parade stood still to let a division of the tanners pass by obliquely. A few weeks ago such an occasion would have led to shooting
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and stabbing. But that is past. So we are looking forward to a peaceful election day. We are having glorious Indian summer weather and I sincerely hope it will continue until tomorrow night. The result of the election you will have received through the telegraph long before this letter reaches you. At present we can speak only of hopes, but they are very dependable. ... I am expecting that the electoral college of this state, whose head I am as the first elector-at-large, will send me to Washington to deliver the electoral vote of Missouri in favor of Grant. That will be toward the beginning of January and will give me some days in Washington.
Now the election has happily passed and I rest on my laurels. Everything went off splendidly; only here in Missouri we lost the amendment giving negroes the right to vote. This type of reform, however, comes about only step by step, and a temporary failure is but
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a step toward final victory. The election went off, as I predicted, in perfect quiet and now the profoundest contentment prevails. I had hoped my labors would be over, but so it goes. The Republicans of St. Louis have decided to hold a ratification meeting next Tuesday and naturally I was again asked to present in a speech my views on the present situation. Just as naturally I was unable to decline. “We want to hear you,” it was said again; “the people will come to hear you,” etc. And inasmuch as the matter is of some importance, so shortly before the senatorial election, the speech being in a sense my program for the future, I am once more at my writing-desk, as if the campaign had just begun. Of course this speech must be short, but I have only three days to prepare it and that time is largely filled with the regular newspaper work. But I have made a vow that for several months to come this is to be the last extraordinary labor, for I am actually tired of the exertion....
The election being over, new sorrows have come for me: First, the office seekers who want my support—and you know the bedbug-like stickiness of many of these. I keep them away as much as I can, but it is a constant fight. Then comes the senatorial election. On the one hand, I have to listen to my friends, who insist on telling me fully what they are going to do for me, and who also tell me about every conceivable kind of intrigue which is being concocted against me, and give the best-meant advice. Naturally, I have to listen to all this with deadly contempt but without moving a muscle, and it is hard for me to convince the people that I cannot and will not be active in the matter myself. Next come the friends and agents of my rivals, who offer me
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every imaginable office, or at least their support for it, in order to get me out of the way so far as the senatorship is concerned. These people again are hard to convince that I do not want any office under the administration, and that if I did want one I would not require their assistance. Of course all kinds of levers are worked and I tell you I wish the time of the senatorial election, which is fixed for the twentieth of January, were past. I would rather, if it were possible, go away from here in order to avoid being worried by this business. If I had you here everything would be much easier, for together we can make light of many things. However, my old equanimity, which as you know never forsakes me, comes to my support here too. My chief opponent is Drake, the Senator who holds over until 1872. He knows that if I am elected and there are then two Senators from St. Louis, his place would be vacated at the end of his term. But since he has already lost much of his influence in the state, his opposition, although not to be despised, will in no way be decisive. So there are plenty of things, as you see, to occupy me though not precisely in the pleasantest way....
That your life in Wiesbaden is now more lively and pleasant in a social way pleases me much. That is necessary
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for you. I hope that the people with whom you associate will continue thoughtful as they are at present. That is the best help toward your cure. If I could only be with you for a couple of weeks! How it would thaw me out! But I am obliged to banish the thought from my mind because it is impossible.
Last week I had a charming letter from Papa. He has made a speech. Here is what he says: “I helped in
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the preëlection work. One night an American made a speech here and there was no German present. I went to the platform and made a speech with the greatest applause. A serenade was given me, of course a Monee serenade. Schiffer and Anna were present at the speech. They said they sat there in the greatest anxiety and were afraid I would get stuck. Mama wept and feared I would not live long. I was elected chairman. But everything went well.” I anticipate much pleasure in hearing form Mama about it. I think of going there next week....
In half an hour I shall have to go to our Saturday dinner, and in order to mollify the premonitory stirrings
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of my stomach, which are already lively, I will tell you about this new arrangement. Inasmuch as I am now really a kind of orphan boy, the idea came to me of bringing about a somewhat more social relationship between the Germans and the Americans here in St, Louis. To that end, shortly after the election I suggested to several of my German and American friends that we eat together every Saturday in a perfectly informal manner and without any sort of organization. The suggestion was taken up eagerly and two weeks ago today we began with seven, all men of consequence—journalists, advocates, and a couple of merchants, all congenial people. I did not attend the second dinner because I had gone to Chicago, but today there will probably be eighteen or twenty. We eat at the Planters House, where they serve a very fine dinner—of course in a private dining room. We begin at three o'clock and separate about seven. There we assemble the ablest men of St. Louis, and I am convinced that in a short time the Saturday dinner will exert a decisive influence upon the politics of the state. Has not your husband here again had a happy inspiration? He has to amuse himself now as best he can, and in this business he is trying to combine the useful with the pleasant....
As to the hope you continue to harbor that I may be with you at Christmas time, that is quite impossible. It is not alone the newspaper. As elector of the state, I
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must day after tomorrow be in Jefferson City, where the electoral college assembles to cast the vote of Missouri. And it is probable that I shall be sent to Washington to deliver the vote to the president of the Senate. Besides, I must be here on account of the senatorial election. Were I to leave now it would cost me perhaps twenty per cent of my chances and that cannot be ventured. The Republican papers in the interior of the state are now coming out for me one after another, particularly those in northern Missouri, where I expected to find the strongest opposition. My attitude is of course quite passive, but I have to be here. Every moment members of the legislature come who at least want to see me and ask my opinion on this or that question. And I have to be accessible. Is not that so? You see that yourself, do you not? My chances, indeed, seem to be improving constantly, and unless a decided reaction sets in against me before the twentieth of January, we can consider my election almost assured. While I do not count upon anything with certainty, still I cannot resist now and then allowing myself pleasant dreams of how, during the next years, we shall install ourselves comfortably in Washington and for the most part live pleasantly in an environment which I know you will prefer to St. Louis. And I can very nicely retain my connection with the newspaper, to which, as Senator, I can be of the greatest advantage and so be splendidly situated, socially as well as materially....
How I rejoice over what you tell me about your health! You will now at last be perfectly well; be sure to bring back your second youth unharmed. We shall then strive to retain it. I also am quite well. The labors of the presidential campaign have left no traces whatever
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upon me, and the abundance of office work affects me just as little. I was made to be a regular work-horse, and should I enter the Senate this working power will make itself felt in a worthy field....
I found your letter on my return from the soldiers' reunion at Chicago. On the whole this was a confused and somewhat tiresome affair. The first evening there was a meeting with endless speeches. The only thing which actually thrilled the gathering was the reveille which was performed at the beginning of the business by the trumpet corps and which brought back a very vivid recollection of the camp and campaign life. The first stirring notes were greeted with a genuine explosion of cheers. On the second evening we had a great banquet in the hall of the Chamber of Commerce. There were over fifteen hundred officers at table. But the hall was so large and there was so much noise that
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the toasts and responses could hardly be heard. Accordingly, there was much confusion and on the whole the affair was not very satisfactory. I responded to the toast, “The Loyal and Patriotic Press.” I was listened to with greater attention than anyone else, but I spoke only a few minutes. On such occasions one performs a distinct service by being brief.
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is said he relies a great deal upon me; Sherman, for example, says that, and consequently it must be true. Who shall be taken into the cabinet, who shall fill the higher offices, is still all in doubt. Grant, naturally, is dumb as a fish. Supposition exhausts itself; the most varied combinations are being made, but at the end we know as much as at the beginning.
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Now we are in the new year. How I should have liked to give you and the children the New Year's greeting
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and kiss personally! But I was obliged to content myself with the lovely home pictures which my fancy painted! May the new year bring us many blessings; above all, meeting and reunion! Everything else will then be easy to bear.
I am beginning the new year with a regular battle. Drake, Henderson, Loan, and their gang have lined up and are moving heaven and earth to defeat me. Their organs among the newspapers attack me most bitterly, but in a manner which has thus far done me more good than harm. Following these attacks, more and more newspapers throughout the state have come out in my favor. There are now thirty-eight English and ten German papers, while my strongest opponent has only thirteen. Besides, the Republican press outside of Missouri has come out strongly for me so that as far as public opinion goes there can be no possible doubt. That, however, does not suffice to decide the matter. My opponents omit to intrigue which may produce an effect upon the public mind. You have idea of the things they tell and the rumors they circulate. Henderson causes telegrams to be sent and written daily to the Democratic papers here, stating that General Grant is strongly for him and very decidedly against me. Naturally the whole story is made up, and denial follows these reports immediately. I have letters from a member of Congress, E. B. Washburne. Grant's most trusted friend, which speak of my election with genuine enthusiasm. Such lying reports as are mentioned above recoil with full force upon the originators. The rumor has also been started that I have taken my family to Europe because I do not intend to remain in Missouri, and that I will leave the state permanently after the senatorial
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election. You see that even you have to be brought in; and so it goes to an unbelievable extent.
These matters require me to be in Jefferson City during the senatorial election for the sake of contradicting the lies, and I am going down there this afternoon. I do it reluctantly; it is most disagreeable to me, but there is no way out of it. Naturally it will not be hard for me to keep my opponents within proper bounds, and I hope to extract from the attacks made upon me a definite advantage. But is it not sad that a man who feels he has the stuff in him to accomplish important things must contend for the place which will afford him a worth-while field of endeavor, with all sorts of rabble who have nothing but petty interests in mind and cannot see beyond the commonplace? And I cannot deny that it always pains me to see baseness, particularly if this baseness proceeds from men who belong to the same party with me. On the whole, things are favorable. But, as I have always said, I count on nothing with certainty, and if intrigue should defeat me I would not be surprised. That success would be much more agreeable to me that defeat, you can well suppose. But even the latter could be endured. Therefore, do not fear that even in the worst case I would stand whining like a water-soaked poodle. I have you love me, I always have good friends, I shall maintain my reputation, and I have an assured living. A defeat would amount to one less success, but it would not be a disaster. I am what is called “in splendid fighting trim,” and in that condition I am going to the theatre of war. The election occurs on the nineteenth of this month, but the matter will probably be decided in ten or twelve days through a caucus nomination. Therefore, good luck! You see I
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am full of politics, which you will doubtless find very natural....
I have been here for a week. The battle in which I am engaged does not turn solely on the senatorship. It involves the leadership of one or the other element, the narrowly despotic or the liberal people in Missouri. Senator Drake came hither from Washington to lead the fight against me. I took up the gauntlet. Last Thursday I made a speech to the Republican members of the legislative which dealt a terrific blow to the opponents. I will send it to you. Loan and Drake will answer Monday and Tuesday, and shall follow with a closing speech. The matter has aroused the greatest interest throughout the state and in many portions of the country. Here it is called the “battle of the giants.” Mass meetings are being held and addresses circulated in many portions of Missouri, in which the attacks upon me are condemned in the strongest terms and members of the legislative are instructed to vote for me. It is causing unexampled excitement in the whole state. So far I have enjoyed a brilliant success. I have driven my opponents out of every position. Last night my opponent Loan and talked before a gathering of southwestern delegates on the subjects of the railway interests of the state, and swept Loan so absolutely from the field that his friends were ashamed of him. I already have a majority of the radical members of the legislature
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on my side, and believe my victory is assured unless wholly unforeseen circumstances intervene. The debate Monday and Tuesday evening will be decisive. I am in good spirits, have hosts of friends, and was never in better “fighting spirit.” If I win, as I probably shall, my victory will be an event not only for me but for the state and the entire party.
Drake charged last night that personally electioneered against Hilton at the voting place of the fifth ward. The assertion was based on a letter from Hilton. Cannot you, since you were constantly with me on election day, testify in case of necessity that did not influence
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a single voter against Hilton? I do not remember a single such case and I believe I am certain of it. I therefore denied the charge. I believe, however, the intrigue is played out.
The battle has been fought. It is the greatest triumph of my life. The opposition was powerful. Senator Drake came to Jefferson City from Washington to prevent my election in order to make sure of his own reëlection four years hence. Drake was the actual dictator of the party. My speech on Thursday of the previous week enticed him out into the open. He took up my challenge and announced that he would answer it. He took a day to prepare. Last Monday the debate began. Loan spoke first, weakly and tediously. Then Drake began his attack upon me. He had spoken about half an hour when I asked him certain questions about his attitude in the constitutional convention of Missouri, which so completely unnerved him that he did not regain his composure the rest of the evening. At half past ten he broke off to resume again another day. Tuesday night he came and made a deliberate attack upon the Germans. Now he was in my hands. When he had spoken two hours the crowd which jammed the assembly hall became impatient and called for me. As I ascended the platform I was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. With a single sentence I demolished Loan's speech. Then I went for Drake. Never in my life have I spoken better, perhaps never with so much
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fire and instant effect. My defense of the Germans was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. Drake interrupted me several times, but my answer always came stroke upon stroke, throwing him back into his seat shattered. The excitement of the people rose to fever heat and Drake remained in his seat a pitiful picture of defeat. Next day a Democratic Senator remarked: “Whenever that German drew his shining rapier the blood of his antagonist seemed to shoot up to the ceiling. In thirty years the legislative halls of Missouri never witnessed anything so brilliant. Even Benton in his best days never equaled it.” The victory could not have been more complete. Immediately after the adjournment Drake hurried to his hotel, recovered his laundry from the laundress, packed it, wet, in his trunk, and started off. It was a genuine flight. The one-time dictator of the party ran way from it, followed by the laughter and hisses, not only of his opponents, but even of those who up to that time had remained his friends.
My nomination had been very probable before; now it was a certainty. In the evening after the great debate the caucus of radical members of the legislature assembled and I was nominated on the first ballot, and before the result of the ballot was announced one of my former opponents arose and upon his motion the nomination was made unanimous. The jubilation now was unbounded. My rooms at the hotel were crowded until three o'clock in the morning. They sang the John Brown song and shook hands as if the yoke of a tyrant had been loosed from the people. After the first hour my right hand was so crushed that I had to use the left. Toward one o'clock at night a music corps was assembled and I was given a serenade. Musical organizations paraded the streets until daybreak. Next morning
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telegraphic congratulations arrived from all parts of the country. I started back here about four in the afternoon and arrived at midnight. Yesterday and today I have been stopped on the street by dozens of men whom I have never known and who desire to congratulate me on the great victory. I believe I can tell you without exaggeration that I am today the most powerful man in Missouri.
I have not heard from my parents since New Year's but I can imagine how happy they must be. I am already making all sorts of lovely plans for having them come to us several weeks next winter when we have a house in Washington, in order to let them, in their advanced age, have the extreme pleasure of witnessing the
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success of one of their children. My heart warms when I think of it. How I should like to take my old mother and my father to the gallery of the Senate and let them look upon their son in the highest position which a foreign-born person can reach in this country, and which no German before me has attained! This pleasure they shall enjoy before they die. And the manner in which the success was gained should double their pride.
The formal election is over and I am duly appointed Senator of the United States. There is nothing left but to be sworn in, which will take place on March 4, the inauguration day of General Grant. Last Monday evening I went to Jefferson City. Tuesday was the official canvass in the legislature, at which I received the entire Republican vote. Wednesday at twelve the result was announced in the joint session of the senate and the house, and I gave a speech which received enthusiastic applause not only from the Republicans but also from the Democrats. At night I returned to St. Louis greatly pleased, with the certificate of election in my pocket. Last night they gave me a great torchlight procession here, which I look upon as the closing incident of the senatorial election. The business went off very well; my words of appreciation were properly
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cheered, and I was glad when it was all over. You have no conception of the interest which the election has aroused throughout the country. The newspapers were full of it and the whole Republican press of the land was on my side. This time the German Republican press also was unanimous in its recognition and its joy. I know of no exception. Even the Democratic papers with a few exceptions conducted themselves becomingly. Only Heinzen scolds away lustily in the old manner. My good friends consider my election the beginning of a new era for Germanism in America. From all parts of the country, north and south, east and west, congratulatory letters are flowing in. Every mail brings fifteen or twenty. You could see a confusion of papers on my writing-desk now such as was never before seen there. Severe of the most distinguished men of the country have sent me their congratulations. The telegraph has earned a nice sum of money on my account. For me to answer all letters is impossible. Still I shall have to acknowledge some forty or fifty of them. My success aroused great enthusiasm in Washington. Grant is said to have expressed great pleasure over it. I have received invitations to dinners from Boston and from New York. It is possible I may accept the latter. You see I have been celebrating a regular triumph, which will perhaps be renewed when I go East.
But now comes the work. I have decided to be a distinguished Senator, and that involves a great deal. Even at this moment my correspondence along with my regular editorial duties leaves me no free time. I have a couple of letters from my parents which brought tears to my eyes. My success has made them more than happy. When I go to Washington I shall make
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a side trip to Monee and spend a day with them. It does my heart good to witness their pride.
For the first time since my election I was in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. You can imagine how I was greeted by my old friends. For about half an hour I was the center of a veritable crowd
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in each house. Even the doorkeepers insisted on shaking hands with me. Involuntarily the recollection of my first visit in Washington comes back to me.
Today, for the first time, I write you from my place in the Senate. I sit in the front row, in the second seat from the wall, to the President's left. My right-hand neighbor is the former governor, Brownlow, of Tennessee, and my left-hand neighbor is Senator Poole of North Carolina. Brownlow is a half-paralyzed old man, who shakes constantly; while Poole is classed as
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one of the “clever fellows.” My place I think is very good for speaking, but for the present I shall aim at modest silence.
This has been an eventful week. Last Thursday was the inauguration—a magnificent affair, well carried out. The new Senators were sworn in in the presence of the diplomatic corps and a great crowd, as soon as Colfax had taken his seat as vice-president. Then came the inaugural address, which you have undoubtedly read in the newspapers. The crowds were greater than I have ever seen them in Washington. It was almost impossible to get through on Pennsylvania Avenue. Then came the cabinet, which the Senate was to confirm the day following the inauguration. We gave the confirmation without discussion, but it became clear at once that General Grant had had every reason to keep his selections secret, because the most decided opposition would have arisen against several of the leading men on the list. Though the Senate showed a willingness to let things take their course, the matter was not ended with the confirmation, and the administration unexpectedly found itself in a cabinet crisis. A law was discovered which makes it impossible for a merchant particularly an importer, to be secretary of the treasury. So A. T. Stewart had the alternative of divesting himself of his great business in New York or resigning the secretaryship. Grant, indeed, sent a message to the Senate asking Congress to repeal the troublesome law. But Congress showed itself so little disposed to do it that Grant quickly saw his mistake and recalled his message. As I write, the crisis is not fully passed. A. T. Stewart offered to place his business in the hands of trustees to be administered in the public interest.But
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But it seems that is not satisfactory. We shall probably hear tomorrow or the next day how the matter has been concluded.
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You will think me a very lazy correspondent, but if you could see how I am plagued your anger would soon turn to sympathy. Every night I work till one or two o'clock, and when my eyes through weariness close involuntarily or when my back is ready to break there always remains a mountain of letters to be answered. It is a horrible business. People come to me from every part of the country. Sometimes I receive twenty-five to thirty calls before ten o'clock in the morning, and throughout the day I run around among the departments during the intervals between sessions, so that I am sometimes ready to sink down from exhaustion. I have hardly time to read the newspaper, let alone to write for it. The few reports I have written had to be prepared in the middle of the night. If I have ever been convinced of the necessity of civil service reform, I am so now. It is positive drudgery. Of course it
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will be better when the patronage shall have been parceled out, but at present it is hardly endurable....
This is the first time I have allowed a post to go three days overtime without writing. But is is literally true that I was too overloaded to be able to talk with you in reasonable quiet. First, there are the office seekers, who continually swarm around me like grasshoppers; second, my correspondence, which it is hardly possible any longer to take care of; and third, the study of a problem about which I made my maiden speech in the Senate yesterday. It relates to the repeal of suspension of the law fixing the duration of terms of office, which makes the removal of officials dependent upon the approval of the Senate. I spoke some twenty-five minutes after an earnest debate had already been going forward for a long time. No one in the Senate was
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listened to with better attention; and when I closed, the Senators, particularly the old ones, pressed about my seat to shake hands with me. My little speech could not, considering the subject, be especially important, but it contained thoughts which were still new to the debate and it scourged in a few striking sentences the sycophants who now beleaguer the White House and try to seize possession from Grant. My success was perfect and my marquis, who of course looked on from the gallery, was wholly satisfied with me. I am sending you, by this same mail, the number of the
Not much can be said as yet about Grant's administration. He has so far gained but little credit through his appointments, for he shows a disposition to give offices to all his relatives and to a great number of old personal friends, and in these instances to consult the members of Congress very little. That makes bad blood here and there. As regards the greater political questions, he shows a tendency to hold with great loyalty to the program of the Republican party, and that of course is the main thing. Everything indicates a determination at all costs to avoid a conflict with Congress, and so we shall doubtless get along well with him. Following my speech yesterday I was made a member of the joint committee on retrenchment, to which will fall the duty of dealing with the principal questions of reform. That is exactly what I wanted, and I shall make civil service reform, one of the weightiest questions coming before us, my specialty. It was unpleasant for me not to get on the committee of foreign relations, on which no vacancy occured. It was generally recognized that I belonged
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on that committee, and there is no doubt that as soon as a place is open I shall be given it.
At last there is a little respite. The first session of the Forty-first Congress closed last Saturday, but the Senate was immediately called into executive session for the purpose of confirming appointments, and so we shall be here another week or two. But at least we have no law-making to do. Before the adjournment we had a night session which lasted till four-fifteen in the morning. We are still frightfully overrun, although the number of office seekers in the city has lessened. But those who remained here have become all the more nervous and give us no peace. Never have I been more strongly convinced that an end must be put to the present system of appointments. I am very glad to have been made a member of the committee on retrenchment, which will have the civil service question in hand. I have several good ideas which I shall incorporate in one or more bills and get them adopted in the next session of Congress. Here is a great field and I hope to become the leader of reform in the Senate. The sort of talent I have is as if ready-made for this problem. Civil service reform will be one of the most hotly contested of the coming discussions, and I have some eight months
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before me to prepare for it. The success of this movement will be a greater blessing for the country than the discovery of the richest gold mines. It is “worth the sweat of the noble.” On that subject I shall probably deliver two long speeches which I hope to make among the best achievements of my whole life, and I shall have you and the children in the gallery to listen to me. In that I rejoice most heartily....
... The draft of my civil service reform bill is almost finished, and also the rough sketch of a portion of the main speech on this business. I expect to find sufficient leisure to work the thing through properly. Then, I am studying several questions of international law in order to prepare myself for the discussion of our relations with England, which undoubtedly we shall have next winter. But the civil service reform is closest to my heart. The main point I want to establish by my bill is to avoid the quadrennial scandal of universal office hunting, to deal out the offices according to ability and deserts instead of political and personal favoritism, and thus provide for the republic an honest and economical administration and cleanse our political life of the corrupting element of office seeking. The method through which I wish to obtain this object consists in this: that every candidate for an office, before he shall be appointed, must submit to a test before an examining commission, and that during the term of office (which is to be lengthened) no officers are to be removed except for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or violation of law. The means which I have formulated in my bill will, as I believe,
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fully suffice to root out the scandal and make the official business of the republic respectable once more. If I succeed in getting this bill through, I shall have performed an important service to the country....
Moreover, I have entered upon this career under particularly favorable circumstances. My newspaper business has answered all my expectations. In two years' time I have paid off all of my original investment and have a surplus for wiping out old debts. My senatorial duties do not affect my business, and so I find myself in possession of a very honorable and influential position and at the same time for my needs an abundant
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income from which, beginning next winter, with appropriate living I can lay by a nice sum yearly. This summer our newspaper is indeed somewhat affected by the universal dull times, but only to the extent that our annual return will still show more than fifty per cent of our capital as profit—and these dull times are only temporary. I certainly have cause to be satisfied with my fate.
Of course, my new position lays upon me new duties. I am obliged to work pretty hard, not only to be prepared for the problems of the day but also to bridge over old gaps. If I had a son I could give him very proper preachments about the value of youth time for learning. My active life has often prevented me from making fundamental studies and, to use a university expression, I have to cram to make up and, in fact, cram with the examination constantly on my neck. I have accomplished a good deal already this spring and summer, but the deeper I go the more clearly I see the extent of the gaps. The enclosed sheets contain lists of books which for the most part are no longer to be had in regular books stores and which I have taken from the catalogues of antiquarians. When you look them up you will doubtless wonder about the subjects. Aside from general historical works they are mostly works with a national economic and diplomatic content, and books about East India, china, and Japan. Questions of political science will now play a particularly important rôle in our politics. Our diplomatic affairs, with which the Senate has much to do, naturally belong to my special field, and since through the rapid development of our Pacific coast we shall soon have very definite and important diplomatic and trade relations
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with Asia, I want to make particularly intensive studies of those countries, for which I shall require all the material I may be able to collect. I will, therefore, ask you to place the enclosed slips in the hands of Henning, who is a great book lover and has had much to do with such things....
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Civil War, Schurz in, 272-338; Grant, 314, 316, 319-321, 325-326; battle at Chancellorsville, 296; Gettysburg, 296; Manassas, 265-266, 270, 296; Eastern campaign, 272-279; Army of the Cumberland,
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287, 296-297; Sherman's campaign, 320-321, 343; Western army reorganized, 309, 321; in Missouri, 387, 402, 435; North Carolina, 327-334; Tennessee, 289, 291-300; Veteran Corps, 315-316, 318, 320, 324-325; Confederate army, 321-322, 327; Sigel's headquarters, 276-277; draft, 282; finances, 823-824; ended, 327, 839-340; soldiers' reunion, 456-457.
Germany, schools, 6, 20-32; student associations, 26-27, 29-36, 89-41, 44-48; riots, 22-24; revolution of 1848-1849, 49-50, 60-67, 76, 100,
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108, 120; national loss, 165, 118-119, 142; Franco-Prussian
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Schurz, Carl, mother, 1, 278, 453; early education, 1-7; at Cologne, 3, 6-7, 22-24, 108; early literary interests, 4-6, 8, 9-11, 13-16, 32, 37-38; at University of Bonn, 20-22, 25-26, 108; religious ideas, 17-19; aids Kinkel in newspaper work, 52-55; volunteers for military service, 55-58; in Palatine revolution, 64-66; at Rastatt, 58-67; escape, 67; refugee in Switzerland, 67, 86, 108; desires amnesty, 76-80; at University of Zürich, 81; plans rescue of Kinkel, 80-81, 84, 86, 140-142; succeeds, 90, 92-94; in Berlin, 87-90; Edinburgh, 96; Paris, 96-104, 108; London, 106, 108, 116, 283; affianced, 107; decides to emigrate to America, 108-112; married, 113; illness, 115-116; reaches America, 118; early impressions of American politics, 119-120; trip to the West in 1854, 121-140; visits Hecker, 127, 132, 135-137; impressions of Milwaukee, 139, 148; visits relatives at Watertown, 139-140, 142-147, 413; settles at Watertown, 147-149, 151-158, 413; impressions of Germans, 150; sails for Europe, 159, 417; at Montreux, Switzerland, 159-169; returns to Watertown, 169-171; new home, 171-172, 174-176; early political activities in America, 173-174, 184-186; notary public, 172; alderman, 179; defeated for lieutenant governorship, 179-183; law partner, 187; Eastern lecture tours, 190-192, 204-205, 233-235, 238-239, 355, 360; “True Americanism,” 187, 191; Douglas speeches, 204, 220-222; “American Civilization,” 233; 1859 political speeches in Minnesota, 192-202; Wisconsin, 202-204; loses nomination for governor,194; challenges Rothe, 202; criticizes Randall, 205-206; University regent, 187, 206, 207; 1860 political speeches in East, 211-213, 221-227; in West, 213-219, 227-231; 1861 speeches, 247-249; at Milwaukee.
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232; relations with Lincoln, 237, 240, 241, 248, 247, 269-270, 308-309, 326, 340; Seward, 242, 250, 252, 253, 254; Chase, 243; attitude toward peace conference, 244-247, 249; minister to Spain, 252-267; leave of absence, 269, 285; returns to America, 267; in Civil War, 272-338; visited by Mrs. Schurz, 274-277; major-general, 280, 285; on furlough, 231-232, 300; observations on Army, 287-288, 291-292, 294-295; with Eleventh Corps, 296; Army of the Cumberland, 296-297; Army of Georgia, 327-333, 337; relations with Hooker, 299-300, 301; supports McClellan, 306-307; aids in recruiting Veteran Corps, 315-316, 318-319, 320, 324-325; meets Mrs. Lincoln, 326-327; resigns commission, 335, 338; relations with Johnson, 335-337; 340, 391-393; at impeachment trial, 432, 434-435; studies post-war South, 341-354; report, 354, 356-359; with Detroit
Sherman, Gen. William T., in Civil War, 309, 320-322; methods, 330-331
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343, 346; at Atlanta, 346; reviews troops; 333; at soldier's reunion, 457.
Wide-Awakes, in 1860 campaign, 213-214, 218; at Milwaukee, 227;
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Wilkinson, Morton S., 199-200.