Henry Villard

“ The track of slaughter formed awful proof of the blind heroism, born of fanatical devotion to their bad cause, with which the rebels faced—yea, courted—death. At three points I found, in spaces not over five hundred feet long and wide, successive swaths of from twenty to fifty bodies, cut down by our small arms and batteries, showing that the most murderous fire did not stop them. Altogether, the sights formed as horrifying a spectacle as those on the field of Shiloh.
I devoted the 10th to visits to General Rousseau and the headquarters of General Crittenden and his division commanders. ”

“ A brigade of General Ferry's division, it is understood, is engaged in working its way up Folly Island, with some siege batteries. That the army will remain passive witnesses of the attack by the ironclads is now certain. A spirit of indifferent merriment continues to prevail among my shipmates. On the gundeck and in the wardrooms, jovial groups while away the time with songs and jokes, as though they were not on the eve of a struggle to the fierceness of which human records will probably have no counterpart, but about joyously returning home from a long cruise. ”

“ Wikoff, whose name figured as much as any other in the press in those days, who made pretension to the rôle of a sort of cosmopolitan knight-errant, and had the entrée of society, but was, in fact, only a salaried social spy or informer of the New York Herald. Wikoff was of middle age, an accomplished man of the world, a fine linguist, with graceful presence, elegant manners, and a conscious, condescending way — altogether, just such a man as would be looked upon as a superior being by a woman accustomed only to Western society. ”

“ Thus the great battle of Stone's River, one of the bloodiest of the Civil War, came to be fought on the last day of the year 1862. Bragg, by a general wheel of his centre and left under Polk and Hardee, managed to work around our right, and to hurl upon this flank massive columns with such irresistible impetus that they swept before them, partly dispersed, and partly captured the first of our divisions encountered, and rolled back upon the centre the other two divisions. ”

“ He found himself in command of raw troops, not exceeding twenty thousand in number. He believed that they should be multiplied many times. He feared the rebel forces in the State largely outnumbered his own, and he could not rid himself of the apprehension that, if he should be attacked, he would have no chance of success. It was not really want of confidence in himself that brought him to this state of mind, but, as it seemed to me, his intense patriotism and despair of the preservation of the Union in view of the fanatical, blood thirsty hostility to it throughout the South. ”

“ Led by mounted officers, their broad columns came to the attack in quick movement and with death-defying steadiness, uttering wild yells, till, staggered by the sweeping cross-fire of our artillery and the volleys from Starkweather's regiments, they fell back to the shelter of corn-fields and breaks of the ground. But again and again, with revived pluck, they returned to the charge, to be again checked by our batteries and steadfast infantry. Gradually they gained ground, however, and the fire of their guns and musketry grew hotter and hotter. ”

“ There was a little frame church near where I had found Sherman, known as the Shiloh meeting-house (it gave its name to the battle) , whose interior presented the most woeful scene in all this sadness. The seats for the worshippers had been removed, and on the floor were extended, in two rows, on the bare planks and without any cover over them, twenty-seven dead and dying rebels, officers and men. Not a human being was about to offer them tender mercies. They had been left to their fate, all being obviously beyond relief. ”

“ Indeed, it seemed to me that I had never seen a woman more beautiful in every way. Her tall figure was perfectly proportioned, and her every movement and gesture most graceful. She presented a marked contrast, in her youthful, blooming freshness and vivacity, to her small, dark, sombre husband. She appeared to be devoted to him, and certainly helped him no little in his political aspirations.
The first joint debate (in the famous series of seven) between Douglas and Lincoln, which I attended, took place on the afternoon of August 21, 1858, at Ottawa, Illinois. ”

“ The combat for which we have been so long accumulating strength, is over. It was short and decisive. We have experienced a bitter repulse. The ironclads have come short of the expectations even of the most diffident, and we are now mourning over the apparent certainty of an abandonment of the enterprise of which the country, with more faith than reason, hoped such great results.
At sunrise a veil of mist hung over the horizon, but toward the middle of the forenoon it cleared rapidly away, and at ten o'clock the pilot announced that, at last, our work would commence. ”

“ We shuddered when we perceived ball after ball from rebel guns fall on the top of the very bluff under which the multitude of fugitives had sought shelter — unmistakable, distressing evidence of the nearness of the enemy. Our first impression could not be other than that the rebels had swept Grant's forces from the field, and that those who had not been killed, wounded, or captured were cowering before us, awaiting their inevitable fate. ”

“ Suddenly, cable news of a most alarming character from America plunged Mr. Villard into the gravest anxiety. He had taken the greatest pains to arrange his own private affairs as well as those of the Northern Pacific, North American, and Edison General Electric Companies so that he should not be disturbed by business cares while abroad, and he felt the more assured of unbroken peace of mind as he knew that the absorption of the Oregon & Transcontinental by the North American by the exchange of shares had succeeded with unparalleled rapidity. ”

“ He showed at once that his disagreements with the Washington authorities were the uppermost thoughts in his mind, and that it gratified him greatly to express his ill-humor towards them. Indeed, he criticised General Halleck and Secretary Stanton with such freedom — with such a total disregard of official propriety — not once, but repeatedly, that it really embarrassed me to listen to him, although, fortunately, he was content to do the talking without expecting sympathetic echoes from me. ”

“ I had visions not only of successful gold-hunting, but of fame and fortune as one of the founders of new towns and States. They were not to be realized in the immediate future, but I think I can truly say that to my apprenticeship as a pioneer in the Rocky Mountains I owed the insight into practical life and the enterprise and energy to which my successes later in my career were largely due. In one respect certainly my anticipations rested on reality, and that was in looking forward to extraordinary personal adventures in the pursuit of my mission. ”

“ Having been a journalist, he knew well the power of the press for good or evil, and that led him to the idealistic conception that he could render no better public service than by founding, or getting control of, a newspaper of absolute independence and outspokenness on public matters, one devoted to the discovery and advocacy of truth, regardless of party and of all other considerations, and with such recognized ability in editorial management as would secure for it not only a local but a national influence. ”

“ Cameron was the typical American politician, with a well-defined purpose in all he said and did. He also held himself a little too freely at the disposal of newspaper men, to whom he was by far the most cordial and talkative of all the secretaries. He made them feel at once as though they had met an old acquaintance and friend. He was certainly the cleverest political manager in the Cabinet, and, though unquestionably as ambitious as any member of it, he never was guilty of the indiscretions which the political records of Seward and Chase reveal. ”

“ Three-fourths were quickly reduced to the condition of a motley, panic-stricken mob. Not that resolute efforts were not made by the General-in-chief and some of the commanders under him to insure an orderly retreat. They were all in vain. The morale of the army was entirely gone, and the instinct of self-preservation alone animated the flying mass.
When I rode away from Keyes's brigade towards the stone bridge, this rearward movement had not yet reached its full dimensions, but the Warrenton turnpike was already swarming with fugitives from the battle-field, going towards Centreville. ”

“ To express my convictions in a few words, our chief has done but one thing that he ought to have done since I joined his army. That was to order the attack upon the 20th. All other things that he has done he ought not to have done. I am convinced that nothing but the hand of God can save us or help us as long as we have our present commander. Now, to our wants. Can't you send us General Lee? . . . We need some such great mind. . . . You will be surprised to learn that this army has neither organization nor mobility, and I have doubts if its commander can give it them. ”

“ If there be a man in the public service who should be held to a more rigid accountability for failures, and upon the largest scale, than another, that man is General Bragg, and I shall be happy to go before a court of inquiry on charges preferred against me by General Bragg, that I may have the opportunity not only of vindicating my own conduct, but of establishing the truth and justice of what I have written of his lack of capacity as a commanding general. ”

“ At the upper end of the street stood the Hotel Shakspere, then kept by one Fickler, a fat, jovial Boniface, who had, however, followed at home the more honorable profession of barrister and politician. He had taken a leading part in the Baden revolt, as a member of the revolutionary executive committee. His hostelry was much larger than ours, and was also a popular rendezvous for South Germans, who crowded it on Sundays to overflowing. But the character of the house was low, and it harbored adventurers of both sexes and of all nationalities. ”

“ Very strong opinions have been expressed by competent critics, during and since the war, that it was a grave mistake of our military leaders to make for the point chosen by the enemy instead of drawing him away from it by strategic moves and compelling him to meet them upon a field chosen by themselves. It is not for me, however, to discuss the merits or demerits of what was to be known as the Shiloh campaign, but simply to record the fact that Generals Halleck and Buell reached an understanding that the latter's army should join that of General Grant at Savannah on the Tennessee River. ”

“ Starting again, filled with greater fears than before for the fate of the army, I rode all the way amid runaways, soldiers and officers of all ranks — I noticed among them fellows with the straps of majors and lieutenant-colonels — and a mixture of civilians, to Centreville, where I arrived shortly before six o'clock, travel-stained, dust-covered, and about as tired, hungry, thirsty, and disgusted with all the world as a human being could well be. ”

“ Mr. Villard went to Chicago to see the World's Fair. He was filled with the greatest admiration for this marvellous achievement of American genius, which had never been equalled before and, in his opinion, never would be thereafter. For weeks he spent every day and many evenings in the Exposition grounds, without being satiated by their great attractions; but his stay was terminated by an urgent summons to New York, in the middle of June, from the Northern Pacific's president, to which he responded at once. ”

“ It was Stewart's division which, in advancing, had come upon and passed over the breastworks abandoned by Reynolds and then chased Palmer and made captures from him. His men joined the divisions of the Confederate right in making hill and dale ring with the frantic yells of joy over the apparent ease with which they had now carried the position against which they had vainly butted with heavy loss in the morning. The rebels did not discover, indeed, that Thomas was in retreat, but all thought that they had driven him off to another position. ”

“ When the fire of the rebel forts and batteries he was to attack and destroy, in the short time of three-quarters of an hour, disabled five and weakened all of the ironclads, how could he feel justified in continuing a work requiring in all probability a trial of days of the powers of offense and defense that had failed in less than an hour?
It is evidence of true courage of the highest order on his part to listen to the dictates of reason rather than follow the impulses of rash daring. ”

“ It is not too much to say that the town was in possession of a cowed mob, thousands and thousands of officers and men of probably all the regiments that had been engaged filling from roof to cellar every building not used for headquarters and hospital purposes — just the worn-out crowd in the midst of which a stampede was as likely to break out at any moment as in a frightened flock of sheep. ”

“ For what I then observed, on the one hand, of the natural eagerness of volunteer officers of all grades (of whom so many were aspiring politicians at home) to get themselves favorably noticed in the press, even at the cost of indiscretions, and, on the other hand, of the indifference of press-men to military interests in publishing army news, must lead any unprejudiced mind to the conclusion that the harm certain to be done by war correspondents far outweighs any good they can possibly do. If I were a commanding general I would not tolerate any of the tribe within my army lines. ”