Soldiers' record, 1869-01-16

              D e v o t e d t o t l i e I n t e i - c s t s o l t l i e S o l d i o i ' s t i n c l S t i i l o r s o l ' t l i e I t i t e A V a i *.
VOL 1. HARTFORD, COOT., JANUARY ,16 1869. NO. 28
THE NEWS OF A DAY.
"Great battle " Times extfii !" th6 newsboy cried,
Bat it scarcely' rippled-the living tidie
That ebbed and flowed in the. biisy street,
With its achiug hearts, and unresting feet.
Agaiu! through the lium of the city thcillpd,.
"Cfreat'battle ! TlrtieS extVa ! ten thidtidaiid killed !
Arid the little catriei' hurried a'Way,
"With the sorrowful news of that Winter day.
To a lonely room in an aitic hi^li.
Trembled the words of that small, sTlaVp cry;
And a lonely widow bow'd her head,
And murmured, '-Willie, my Willie is dead.
I knew it was not an idle dream.
That led me last night to that cold, dark stream,
Whore the ground was wet with a crimson rain,
And strewn all over with ghastly slain !
The stars were dim, for the night was wild,
But 1 threaded the gloom till I found my child."
The cold rain fell on his upturned face;
But the swift destroyer had left no trace
Of the sudden blow, and tlie quick, sharp pains.
But a little wound and a purple stain,
I tried to speak, but my voice was gone ;
And ray soul stood there in cold gray dawn;
Till they rifled his body, with ruthless hand,
And covered him o'er with the reeking sand.
"Willie 0, Willie ! it seems but a day,
Since thy baby head on my bosom lay-^
Since I heard thy prattle, so soft and sweet
And guided the steps of thy tottering feet.
Aud thou wert the fairest and last of three,
That the Father in Heaven had given to me ;
All the life of my heart, love, hope and joy.
Were treasured in tbee, my strong, brave boy.
And the last faint words thy father said,
Were, 'Willie will mind tliee when I am dead.
But they tore the flag from his death-eold hand
And covcred him o'er with the reeking sand."
She road the names ofthe missing and slain ;
But one she read over again and again, •
And the sad, low words that her pale lips said,
Were,.'-Company G, William Warren^dead."
The light of the morning, chased the gloom
rrum' the emberless heartii of that attic room,
The city's, pulses throbbed again ;
But the mother's heart had forgotten its pain,
She had gone through the gate to the better land,
With that terrible list in her pale, cold hand ;
With her white lips parted, as last she said,
"Company G, William Warren^dead."
a
AFTEB THE BATTLE.
The surgeon laid off the sasfe and the
tinseled coat, and rolled up his sleeves,
spread wide his cases filled up with the
terrible glitter of silver steel, and makes
ready for Avprk. They begin to come in,
slowly at first, one man nursing a shatter-ed
arm, another borne by comrades, three
in an ambulance, one on a stretcher—then
faster and faster, lying here, lying there,
each waiting his terrible turn. The sil-ver
steel grows cloudy and lurid; true
right arms are lopped like slips of golden
willow ; feet that never turned from the
foe, for ever more without an owner,
strew the ground. The knives are busy,
the saws play ; it is bloody work. Ah,
the surgeon with heart and head, with
hand and eye fit for such a place, is a prince
among men j cool and calm, quick and ten-der,
he feels among the arteries, and fin-gers
the tendons as if they were harp-strings.
But the cloud thunders and the
spiteful rain patters lo^^der and fiercer,
and the poor fellows come creeping up in
broken ranks, like corn beaten down with
the lliiils of tlie storm.
" My God I" cried the surgeon, as look-ing
lip an instant from his work, he saw
the mutilated crowds borne in : " my God!
are all my brave boys cut down!" And
yet it tliundered and rained. A poor fel-low
writhes, and a smothered moan es-capes
him
'' Be quiet. Jack," says the surgeon
cheerinUy ; " I'll make you all right in a
minute." It was a right arm to come off at
the elbow, aud "Jack" slipped off a ring
that clasped one ofthe poor, useless fin-gers
that were to blend with the earth of
Alabama, and put it in his pocket. He
was making ready for the " all right."
Does " Alabama" mean " here wo rest ?"
If 80, how sad yet glorious have our boys
made it, who sink to rest—
" With nil their country's wishes blest I"
Another sits up while the surgeon fol-lows
the bullet that had buried itself in
his side; it is the work of an instant; no
solemn council here—no lingering pause ;
the surgeon is bathed in patriot blood to
his elbows, and the work goes on. An
eye lies out upon a ghastly cheek, and si-lently
the sufferer bides his time.
" Well, Charley," saysthe doctor, dress-ing
his wound as he talks,'' what's the
matter ?" " Oh, not much, doctor; only
a hand off I". Not unlike was the answer
made to me by a poor fellow at Bridge-port,
shattered as it by lightning :—
" How are you, now ?" I said.
l y w a s the reply. You should have
heard that word as he said i t ; vulgar as
it used to seem, it grew manly and noble,
and I shall never hear it again without a
thought for the boy that uttered it, on the
dusty slope of the Tennessee ; the boy—
must I say it ?—that sleeps the soldier's
sleep within a hundred rods of the spot
where I found him.
So it is everywhere ; not a whimper
nor complaint. Once only did I hear eith-er.
An Illinois lieutenant, as brave a fel-low
as ever drewu sword, had been shot
through and through the thighs, fairly
impaled by the bullet—the ugliest wound
lever saw. Eight days before he weigh-ed
one hundred and sixty. Th.Mi lie could
not have swung one hundred aud twenty
clear on the floor, lie h;id just been
brought over the mountains ; his wounds
were angry with fever ; every uiulion was
torture ; they were lifting him as tenderly
as they could ; they let him slip, aud hu
fell, perhaps six inches. But it was like
a dash from a precipice to him, and he
wailed out like a young child, tears wet
his thin, pale cheeks ; but he only said :
" My poor child ! how can they tell her Y"
It was but for an instant; his spirit and
his frame stiffened up together, and, with
a half-smile, he said,''don't tell anybody,
boys, lhat I made a fool of myself?' The
lieutenant sleeps well, and, alas ! for the
" poor child''—how did they tell jier ?
A soldier fairly riddled with bullets,
like one of those battle-fiags of Illinois,
lay on a blanket gasping for breath.
"Jemmy," said a comrade, and a friend
before this cruel war began, with oiie arm
swung up in a sling, and who was going
home on furlough," Jemmy, what sliiill i
tell them at home for you " Tell
them," said he, " that there isn't hardly
enough of me to say ' I,' but, hold down
here a minute ; say to Kate that there is
enough of me left to love her till I die."
Jemmy got his furlough that night, And
left the ranks forever.
positc extremities a plaster crucifix and
a bust of Louis Napoleon. The front row
of benches was occupied by a score of
boys, who were all that had come to
school, though the commune includes six
villages. Some looked intelligent, but
the majority lumpish. There were a
couple who were evidently gentl&mon's
cliildrenj the rest, wore the blue smock
donned always in the country by workmen
and small farmers. Behind these; were
upward of one hundred and fifty adults,
arwd a stream of country people pressed
about the door.
The phenomenon had been seated on a
platform behind the schoolmaster's desk,
and made himself quite at home. He au-thoritatively
ordered the four windows to
be thrown open, and whistled at and
scolded the rustics who showed any in
clination to stop near him for the purpose-of
staring. '-Be off to your seats; be olf,
go quickly and don't be vexing me with
your stupid looks. I say, you people at
the door, stay in or stay out; if you do
come in, you must hold your tongues.
Now boys, no whispering, and cast your
eyes down till the summing begins." On
not allow him to bo sent to school. But
the child learned to read and write in se-cret,
arid at the .^ge of four displayed aa
extl'adMiiiary b^'^i^icity for arithrnetiic.
At a trial of his skill befoi^ the Hmpei^or
and the eoui't of CaMpiegfte, several mem-bei'^
of the 'Uiiir\^6']!'H{ty invited to be pres-ent
a'dtnitted ,'that Grandm^nge solved al-lidbst
ihst'ay6Ih'e6a% problems tv-hicli
\Vould have taken them a couple of hours,
feefo re dis'persiii'g", a few ladies were fa-vored
Svitji 'M. Griiidinan^e's autograph,
Wi'ittert in.thfeir presence in bold fiowin^g
chai-acters, with his stump, aided by his
mouth."
c h r S T ^ N D E L .
A German correspondentt writes :
" Why is it that your native-born Amer-icans
spell this word ina way to make it
not only lose its lovely sense, but even to
make it entirely senseless ? ^ Kriss-Krin-
,^/e,' you spell it, and if nobody checks you
in this obnoxious orthography, a stupid,
senseless word will receive the privilege
of augmenting the English vocabulary,
when, by a very little care, it could be en-riched
with a beautiful, friendly, and sen-siiyingthis
to the astonished children, he sible expression.
A STEANGE PHBNOMEHOM.
The Paris correspondent ofthe London
Times thus describes a sti-ange and inter-esting
human phenomenon, whom we met
recently in the Valley of (>heveruse :
" When passing by a village school, a
carriage of peculiar construction drove
up to the door, where an expectai\t crowd
had gathered. A strong built woman,
fashionably dressed alighted, and without
further parley lifted out her companion,
who at the first glance hud struck mo as
5U1 able-bodied man in the prime of life.
But I presently observed that he had
neither legs nor arms, and the skirts of his
frock coat lapped over the arms of a lady
who carried him, like a baby's mantlfi
over a nurse's. Happening to know the
school-master, I asked him who this phe-nomenon
was. He replied a professor of
mathematics and arithmetic from Orleans,
who had been authorized by the Council
of public Instruction to give lectures in
the primary schools, during the summer
months. The schoolmaster also informed
me that the lectures were gratuitous, but
that the hearers would be expected to buy
some arithmetical works at a franc each,
written by the "professor."
I at once entered the class rotnn—a low
wide chamber of irregular form, with
joisted ceiling, whitewashed, blackened
with smoke and fly stains, and at the op-seized
a white pocket handkerchief in his
t .ieth, dropped it on the back rail of his
oliair, twisted round his body and rubbed
Ihs face against it violently, to wipe otl
the perspiration which followed on his
outbi eak of ill-humor.
Ho WHS dres-sod in black, with a white
cravat and had filteen gold and silver
medals attached to his breast- His brain
is of extraordinary height and breadth at:
the base' but the diamater at the top . re-markably
narrow. The face is weli-shlt.p-ed,
but was spoiled on this occasion by a
wrathful expression. Jhe development
of the cheek and jaw muscles, arising
from t!ie necessity of making the mouth
supplement a handle as stump amounts
aliuo.st to a deformity. The stump, not
more than four inches long, grows at a
curious angle out of the left shoulder,
and is furnished witii a natural crook at
the end, like a dwarfed first finger.
The eye seemed to do the office of a
tongue. I never saw one more expressive
of a rapidly working brain, especially
when the tests of arithmetical capacity
were being applied by the mayor and
schoolmaster, and a member of the Insti-tutb
who happened to ue staying e/i vilta-giature
in the hamlet. M. Grandmange
—that is the phenomenon's name—sat
with his back to the blackboard on which
some ofthe before mentioned persons had
stated the most difficult sums they could
think of in comuiou arithmetic o algebra,
and propounded problems i)i trigonometry.
The answers wore given in an amazingly
short time, without any apparent aid.
lie niuLiplied by 18 and to shorten
his operations. As he did the additions,
multiplications, &c, aloud, they wore rap-idly
noted down on the black board.
The exhibition over, a lecture was giv-en
in arithmetic. The manner was admi-rable
and the matter excellent, but the de-livery
clear, forcible and even graceful,
was marred from time to time by a shrill
whistle like that of a steam engine, inten-ded
to impose silence upon whispering
rustics, and occasionally addressing his
wife who persisted in blocking up the
door-step by sitting on it. At the end we
were told that while endowed himself
with a special capacity for figures, the
lecturer had a method, to be found in
a little volume for one franc. The villa-gers
who might not have so much money
in their pockets were offered credit on
the fiecurity ofthe schoolmaster. Nobody
however, bought on this condition, but
francs in ready money poured in with a
rapidity creditable to the thirat for knowl-edge
ofthe audience.
"1 gather from the
that Charles Grandmange was born at
Ei)inal, without legs or arms, in 1834
His faHier was a poor man, and intending
to exhibit kim as a phenomenon, would
Christ-Kindel means, The little
child Christ; Jesus, the little child ; Ii'
Enfant Jesus, as the French say. The
evening before Christmas the legend lets
the child J e s u s visit the houses where
there are some good-natured fellow-chil-d
en.
" InPrance they ha ve no Christmas-tree,
but nevertheless the children know that
' li Enfant Jesus' is coming, and they put
their shoes outside of their house doors,
or in the ashes, pf the chimney, being cer-tain
to find on t|ie next morping a copper •
or even a silver or gold piece in them.
' L' Enfant Jesus.'' they know, rewards in
this way their good behavior during the
y e a r .
"In Germany there is no house without
a Christmas-tree. On the night before
Ohrikmas Christ-Kindel comes in the best
iVom.in, the house, iUuminates the tree,
and puts on it and under it whatever all
good children during the wiiole year hope
to get.
"Tlie most lovely and innocent feast, in
fact the feast of children—this essentially
German feast—having finally made the
' tour <ia moiul,' is it not proper, while you
Americans have accepted the theory, to
accept also the name, and not spoil it by
an atrocious orthography ? Is it not a
great deal better to spell Christ-Kindel
than to strangulate it into the nonsensical
expression of Kriss Krrnale
Orders have been received at the Uni
tod States Armory in Springfield, Mass.,
to pay the workmen four-fifths of the usu-al
rate per day for all work done since Au-gust
80, when the eight-hour law went in-to
operation. Work will will be resum-ed
next month upon the ten-hour system.
The longest artillery range on record
in England, viz., 10,300 yards was tit-tained
in Shoeburyness last moiith, by
Whitworth's i.) inch muzzle-loader gun
of fourteen tOiis, firing a shot of 250 lbs.,
with a charge of 50 lbs. It was claimed
by Northern artillery officers in Charles-town
that the "Swamp Angel" threw
shots from below Fort Sumpter into the
upper part ofthe city, a distauce of seven
miles.
Gen Edward H Stoughton, eldest son
ofH. E. Stoughton of Bellows Falls Vt.
died of consumption at Boston on Friday,
He was educated at West Point and serv-ed
as lieutenant of infantry for two years
before the war. In 18() 1 lie was appointed
colonel ofthe Fourth Vermont regiment,
and in 1862 made a bj-igadier general.
The next year he was captured by the
prefatory memoir, guerilla Mosby and taken to Richmond,
but was soon after released. Since the
war he has studied and practiced law in
New York, and had won a high place in
Ilia p ro fessiou.