[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, allother inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling hasbeen maintained. ]

[Illustration: C. Carleton Coffin. ]

 Charles Carleton Coffin

 _War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman_

 By

 William Elliot Griffis, D. D. 

 Author of "Matthew Calbraith Perry, " "Sir William Johnson, " and "Townsend Harris, First American Envoy to Japan. "

 Boston Estes and Lauriat 1898

 _Copyright, 1898_ By Sallie R. Coffin

 _Colonial Press. Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A. _

 Dedicated to The Generation of Young People whom Carleton Helped to Educate for American Citizenship. 

Preface

Among the million or more readers of "Carleton's" books, are some whowill enjoy knowing about him as boy and man. Between condensedautobiography and biography, we have here, let us hope, a binocular, which will yield to the eye a stereoscopic picture, having thesolidity and relief of ordinary vision. 

Two facts may make one preface. Mrs. Coffin requested me, in a letterdated May 10, 1896, to outline the life and work of her late husband. "Because, " said she, "you write in a condensed way that would pleaseMr. Coffin, and because you could see into Mr. Coffin's motives oflife. "

With such leisure and ability as one in the active pastorate, whopreaches steadily to "town and gown" in a university town, couldcommand, I have cut a cameo rather than chiselled a bust or statue. Many good friends, especially Dr. Edmund Carleton and Rev. H. A. Bridgman, have helped me. To them I herewith return warm thanks. 

 W. E. G. 

Ithaca, N. Y. , May 24, 1898. 

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER Page

 I. Introductory Chapter. 13 II. Of Revolutionary Sires. 19 III. The Days of Homespun. 30 IV. Politics, Travel, and Business. 41 V. Electricity and Journalism. 55 VI. The Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln. 66 VII. The War Correspondent. 79 VIII. With the Army of the Potomac. 95 IX. Ho, for the Gunboats, Ho! 107 X. At Antietam and Fredericksburg. 119 XI. The Ironclads off Charleston. 132 XII. Gettysburg: High Tide and Ebb. 141 XIII. The Battles in the Wilderness. 151 XIV. Camp Life and News-gathering. 162 XV. "The Old Flag Waves over Sumter". 175 XVI. With Lincoln in Richmond. 183 XVII. The Glories of Europe. 189 XVIII. Through Oriental Lands. 204 XIX. In China and Japan. 215 XX. The Great Northwest. 229 XXI. The Writer of History. 238 XXII. Music and Poetry. 256 XXIII. Shawmut Church. 268 XXIV. The Free Churchman. 284 XXV. Citizen, Statesman, and Reformer. 294 XXVI. A Saviour of Human Life. 308 XXVII. Life's Evening Glow. 321 XXVIII. The Home at Alwington. 333 XXIX. The Golden Wedding. 341

CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN

INTRODUCTION. 

Charles Carleton Coffin had a face that helped one to believe in God. His whole life was an evidence of Christianity. His was a genial, sunny soul that cheered you. He was an originator and an organizer ofhappiness. He had no ambition to be rich. His investments were ingiving others a start and helping them to win success and joy. He wasa soldier of the pen and a knight of truth. He began the good warfarein boyhood. He laid down armor and weapons only on the day that hechanged his world. His was a long and beautiful life, worth both theliving and the telling. He loved both fact and truth so well that oneneed write only realities about him. He cared little for flattery, sowe shall not flatter him. His own works praise him in the gates. 

He had blue eyes that often twinkled with fun, for Mr. Coffin loved ajoke. He was fond to his last day of wit, and could make quickrepartee. None enjoyed American humor more than he. He pitied theperson who could not see a joke until it was made into a diagram, withannotations. In spirit, he was a boy even after three score and ten. The young folks "lived in that mild and magnificent eye. " Out of itcame sympathy, kindness, helpfulness. We have seen those eyes flashwith indignation. Scorn of wrong snapped in them. Before hypocrisy oroppression his glances were as mimic lightning. 

We loved to hear that voice. If one that is low is "an excellent thingin woman, " one that is rich and deep is becoming to a man. Mr. Coffin's tones were sweet to the ear, persuasive, inspiring. His voicemoved men, his acts more. 

His was a manly form. Broad-footed and full-boned, he stood nearly sixfeet high. He was alert, dignified, easily accessible, and responsiveeven to children. With him, acquaintanceship was quickly made, andfriendship long preserved. Those who knew Charles Carleton Coffinrespected, honored, loved him. His memory, in the perspective of time, is as our remembrance of his native New Hampshire hills, rugged, sublime, tonic in atmosphere, seat of perpetual beauty. So was he, amoral invigorant, the stimulator to noble action, the centre ofspiritual charm. 

Who was he, and what did he do that he should have his life-storytold?

First of all, he was the noblest work of God, an honest man. Nothinghigher than this. The New Hampshire country boy rose to one of thehigh places in the fourth estate. He became editor of one of Boston'sleading daily newspapers. On the battle-field he saw the movements ofthe mightiest armies and navies ever gathered for combat. As a whitelily among war correspondents, he was ever trusted. He not onlyinformed, but he kept in cheer all New England during four years ofstrain. With his pen he made himself a master of English style. He wasa poet, a musician, a traveller, a statesman, and, best of all andalways, a Christian. He travelled around the globe, and then told theworld's story of liberty and of the war that crushed slavery and statesovereignty and consolidated the Union. With his books he has educateda generation of American boys and girls in patriotism. He died withoutentering into old age, for he was always ready to entertain a newidea. Let us glance at his name and inheritance. He was well named, and ever appreciated his heritage. In his Christian, middle, andfamily name, is a suggestion. In each lies a story. 

"Charles, " as we say, is the Norman form of the old Teutonic Carl, meaning strong, valiant, commanding. The Hungarians named a king Carl. 

"Carleton" is the ton or town of Carl or Charles. 

"Coffin" in old English meant a cask, chest, casket, box of any kind. 

The Latin Cophinum was usually a basket. When Wickliffe translated theGospel, he rendered the verse at Matt. Xiv. 20, "They took up of thatwhich remained over of the broken pieces, twelve coffins full. "

The name as a family name is still found in England, but all theCoffins in America are descended from Tristram Coffin, who sailedfrom Plymouth, England, in 1642, and in 1660 settled in Nantucket. Themost ancient seat of the name and family of the Coffins in England isPortledge, in the parish of Alwington. To his house, and last earthlyhome, in Brookline, Mass. , built under his own eye, and in whichCharles Carleton Coffin died, he gave the name of Alwington. 

"Carleton's" grandfather, Peter Coffin, married Rebecca Hazeltine, ofChester, N. H. , whose ancestors had come from England to Salem, Mass. , in 1637, and settled at Bradford. Carleton has told something of hisancestry and kin in his "History of Boscawen. " In his later years, inthe eighties of this century, at the repeated and urgent request ofhis wife, Carleton wrote out, or, rather, jotted down, some notes forthe story of the earlier portion of his life. He was to have written avolume--had his wife succeeded, after due perseverance, in overcominghis modesty--entitled "Recollections of Seventy Years. " To this, we, also, that is, the biographer and others, often urged him. It was notto be. 

Excepting, then, these hastily jotted notes, Mr. Coffin neverindicated, gave directions, or prepared materials for his biography. To the story of his life, as gathered from his own rough notes, intended for after-reference and elaboration, let us at once proceed, without further introduction. 

CHAPTER II. 

OF REVOLUTIONARY SIRES. 

The Coffins of America are descended from Tristram Coffin of Englandand Nantucket. Charles Carleton Coffin was born of Revolutionarysires. He first saw light in the southwest corner room of a housewhich stood on Water Street, in Boscawen, N. H. , which hisgrandfather, Captain Peter Coffin, had built in 1766. 

This ancestor, "an energetic, plucky, good-natured, genial man, "married Rebecca Hazeltine, of Chester, N. H. When the frame of thehouse was up and the corner room partitioned off, the bride and groombegan housekeeping. Her wedding outfit was a feather bed, afrying-pan, a dinner-pot, and some wooden and pewter plates. She wasjust the kind of a woman to be the mother of patriots and to make theRevolution a success. The couple had been married nine years, when thenews of the marching of the British upon Lexington reached Boscawen, on the afternoon of the 20th of April, 1775. Captain Coffin mountedhis horse and rode to Exeter, to take part in the Provincial Assembly, which gathered the next day. Two years later, he served in thecampaign against Burgoyne. When the militia was called to march toBennington, in July, 1777, one soldier could not go because he had noshirt. Mrs. Coffin had a web of tow cloth in the loom. She at once cutout the woven part, sat up all night, and made the required garment, so that he could take his place in the ranks the next morning. Onemonth after the making of this shirt, the father of Charles CarletonCoffin was born, July 15. 

When the news of Stark's victory at Bennington came, the call was forevery able-bodied man to turn out, in order to defeat Burgoyne. Everywell man went, including Carleton's two grandfathers, Captain PeterCoffin, who had been out in June, though not in Stark's command, andEliphalet Kilborn. The women and children were left to gather in thecrops. The wheat was ripe for the sickle, but there was not a man orboy to cut it. With her baby, one month old, in her arms, Mrs. PeterCoffin mounted the horse, leaving her other children in care of theoldest, who was but seven years old. The heroine made her way sixmiles through the woods, fording Black Water River to the log cabin ofEnoch Little, on Little Hill, in the present town of Webster. Herewere several sons, but the two eldest had gone to Bennington. Enoch, Jr. , fourteen years old, could be spared to reap the ripened grain, but he was without shoes, coat, or hat, and his trousers of tow clothwere out at the knee. 

"Enoch can go and help you, but he has no coat, " said Mrs. Little. 

"I can make him a coat, " said Mrs. Coffin. 

The boy sprang on the horse behind the heroic woman, who, between thebaby and the boy, rode upon the horse back to the farm. Enoch took thesickle and went to the wheat field, while Mrs. Coffin made him a coat. She had no cloth, but taking a meal-bag, she cut a hole in the bottomfor his head, and two other holes for his arms. Then cutting off thelegs of a pair of her stockings, she sewed them on for sleeves, thuscompleting the garment. Going into the wheat field, she laid herbaby, the father of Charles Carleton Coffin, in the shade of a tree, and bound up the cut grain into sheaves. 

In 1789, when the youngest child of this Revolutionary heroine wasfour months old, she was left a widow, with five children. Three weredaughters, the eldest being sixteen; and two were sons, the elderbeing twelve. With rigid economy, thrift, and hard work, she rearedher family. In working out the road tax she was allowed four pencehalfpenny for every cart-load of stones dumped into miry places on thehighway. She helped the boys fill the cart with stones. While the boywho became Carleton's father managed the steers, hauled and dumped theload, she went on with her knitting. 

Of such a daughter of the Revolution and of a Revolutionary sire wasCarleton's father born. When he grew to manhood he was "tall instature, kind-hearted, genial, public-spirited, benevolent, ever readyto relieve suffering and to help on every good cause. He was anintense lover of liberty and was always true to his convictions. " Hefell in love with Hannah, the daughter of Deacon Eliphalet Kilborn, of Boscawen, and the couple lived in the old house built by hisfather. There, after other children had been born, Charles CarletonCoffin, her youngest child, entered this world at 9 A. M. , July 26, 1823. From this time forward, the mother never had a well day. Afterten years of ill health and suffering, she died from too much calomeland from slow starvation, being able to take but little food onaccount of canker in her mouth and throat. Carleton, her pet, was verymuch with her during his child-life, so that his recollections of hismother were ever very clear, very tender, and profoundly influentialfor good. 

The first event whose isolation grew defined in the mind of "the babynew to earth and sky, " was an incident of 1825, when he wastwenty-three months old. His maternal grandfather had shot a hawk, breaking its wing, and bringing it to the house alive. The boy babystanding in the doorway, all the family being in the yard, alwaysremembered looking at what he called "a hen with a crooked bill. "Carleton's recollection of the freshet of August, 1826, when the greatslide occurred at the White Mountains, causing the death of theWilley family, was more detailed. This event has been thrillinglydescribed by Thomas Starr King. The irrepressible small boy wanted to"go to meeting" on Sunday. Being told that he could not, he criedhimself to sleep. When he awoke he mounted his "horse, "--abroomstick, --and cantered up the road for a half mile. Captured by alady, he resisted vigorously, while she pointed to the waters runningin white streams down the hills through the flooded meadows andtelling him he would be drowned. 

Meanwhile the hired man at home was poling the well under the sweepand "the old oaken bucket, " thinking the little fellow might haveleaned over the curb and tumbled in. Shortly afterwards he came neardisappearing altogether from this world by tumbling into thewater-trough, being fished out by his sister Mary. 

In the old kitchen, a pair of deer's horns fastened into the wall heldthe long-barrelled musket which his grandfather had carried in thecampaign of 1777. A round beaver hat, bullet, button, and spoonmoulds, and home-made pewter spoons and buttons, were among otherthings which impressed themselves upon the sensitive films of thechild's memory. 

Following out the usual small boy's instinct of destruction, he oncesallied out down to the "karsey" (causeway) to spear frogs with aweapon made by his brother. It was a sharpened nail in the end of abroomstick. Stepping on a log and making a stab at a "pull paddock, "he slipped and fell head foremost into the mud and slime. Scramblingout, he hied homeward, and entering the parlor, filled with company, he was greeted with shouts of laughter. Even worse was it to be dubbedby his brother and the hired man a "mud lark. "

Carleton's first and greatest teachers were his mother and father. After these, came formal instruction by means of letters and books, classes and schools. Carleton's religious and dogmatic education beganwith the New England Primer, and progressed with the hymns of thatfamous Congregationalist, Doctor Watts. When five years old, at thefoot of a long line of boys and girls, he toed the mark, --a crack inthe kitchen floor, --and recited verses from the Bible. Sunday-schoolinstruction was then in its beginning at Boscawen. The first hymn helearned was:

 "Life is the time to serve the Lord. "

After mastering

 "In Adam's fall We sinned all, "

the infantile ganglions got tangled up between the "sleigh" in thecarriage-house, and the act of pussy in mauling the poor little mouse, unmentioned, but of importance, in the couplet:

 "The cat doth play, And after slay. "

Having heard of and seen the sleigh before learning the synonym for"kill, " the little New Hampshire boy was as much bothered as a Chinesechild who first hears one sound which has many meanings, and onlygradually clears up the mystery as the ideographs are mastered. 

From the very first, the boy had an ear sensitive to music. Theplaying of Enoch Little, his first school-teacher, and afterwards hisbrother-in-law, upon the bass viol, was very sweet. Napoleon wasnever prouder of his victories at Austerlitz than was little Carletonof his first reward of merit. This was a bit of white paper two inchessquare, bordered with yellow from the paint-box of a beautiful younglady who had written in the middle, "To a good little boy. "

The first social event of importance was the marriage of his sisterApphia to Enoch Little, Nov. 29, 1829, when a room-full of cousins, uncles, and aunts gathered together. After a chapter read from theBible, and a long address by the clergyman, the marital ceremony wasperformed, followed by a hymn read and sung, and a prayer. Althoughthis healthy small boy, Carleton, had been given a big slice ofwedding cake with white frosting on the top, he felt himself injured, and was hotly jealous of his brother Enoch, who had secured a slicewith a big red sugar strawberry on the frosting. After eatingvoraciously, he hid the remainder of his cake in the mortise of a beambeside the back chamber stairs. On visiting it next morning for secretindulgence, he found that the rats had enjoyed the wedding feast, too. Nothing was left. His first toy watch was to him an event of vastsignificance, and he slept with it under his pillow. When also he haddonned his first pair of trousers, he strutted like a turkey cock andsaid, "I look just like a grand sir. " Children in those days oftenspoke of men advanced in years as "grand sirs. "

The boy was ten years old when President Andrew Jackson visitedConcord. Everybody went to see "Old Hickory. " In the yellow-bottomedchaise, paterfamilias Coffin took his boy Carleton and his daughterElvira, the former having four pence ha'penny to spend. Federalcurrency was not plentiful in those days, and the people still usedthe old nomenclature, of pounds, shillings, and pence, which wasTeutonic even before it was English or American. Rejoicing in hisorange, his stick of candy, and his supply of seed cakes, youngCarleton, from the window of the old North Meeting House, saw themilitary parade and the hero of New Orleans. With thin features andwhite hair, Jackson sat superbly on a white horse, bowing right andleft to the multitude. Martin Van Buren was one of the party. 

Another event, long to be remembered by a child who had never beforebeen out late at night, was when, with a party of boys seven or eightin number, he went a-spearing on Great Pond. In the calm darkness theywalked around the pond down the brook to the falls. With a brightjack-light, made of pitch-pine-knots, everything seemed strange andexciting to the boy who was making his first acquaintance of thewilderness world by night. His brother Enoch speared an eel thatweighed four pounds, and a pickerel of the same weight. The party didnot get home till 2 A. M. , but the expedition was a glorious one andlong talked over. The only sad feature in this rich experience was inhis mother's worrying while her youngest child was away. 

This was in April. On the 20th of August, just after sunset, in thecalm summer night, little Carleton looked into his mother's eyes forthe last time, and saw the heaving breast gradually become still. Itwas the first great sorrow of his life. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE DAYS OF HOMESPUN. 

Carleton's memories of school-days have little perhaps that isuncommon. He remembers the typical struggle between the teacher andthe big boy who, despite resistance, was soundly thrashed. Those werethe days of physical rather than moral argument, of punishment beforejudicial inquiry. Once young Carleton had marked his face with apencil, making the scholars laugh. Called up by the man behind thedesk, and asked whether he had done it purposely, the frightened boy, not knowing what to say, answered first yes, and then no. "Don't tella lie, sir, " roared the master, and down came the blows upon the boy'shands, while up came the sense of injustice and the longing forrevenge. The boy took his seat with tingling palms and a heart hotwith the sense of wrong, but no tears fell. 

It was his father's rule that if the children were punished at school, they should have the punishment repeated at home. This was thesentiment of the time and the method of discipline believed to be bestfor moulding boys and girls into law-abiding citizens. In the evening, tender-hearted and with pain in his soul, but fearing to relax and letdown the bars to admit a herd of evils, the father doomed his son tostay at home, ordering as a punishment the reading of the narrative ofAnanias and Sapphira. 

From that hour throughout his life Carleton hated this particularscripture. He had told no lie, he did not know what he had said, yethe was old enough to feel the injustice of the punishment. It rankledin memory for years. Temporarily he hated the teacher and the Bible, and the episode diminished for awhile his respect for law and order. 

The next ten years of Carleton's life may be told in his own words, asfollows:

"The year of 1830 may be taken as a general date for a new order ofsocial life. The years prior to that date were the days of homespun. Iremember the loom in the garret, the great and small spinning-wheels, the warping bars, quill wheel, reels, swifts, and other rudemechanisms for spinning and weaving. My eldest sister learned to spinand weave. My second sister Mary and sister Elvira both could spin onthe large wheel, but did not learn to weave. I myself learned to twistyarn on the large wheel, and was set to winding it into balls. 

"The linen and the tow cloths were bleached on the grass in theorchard, and it was my business to keep it sprinkled during the hotdays, to take it in at night and on rainy days, to prevent mildew. Inthose days a girl began to prepare for marriage as soon as she coulduse a needle, stitching bits of calico together for quilts. She mustspin and weave her own sheets and pillow-cases and blankets. 

"All of my clothes, up to the age of fourteen, were homespun. My first'boughten' jacket was an olive green broadcloth, --a remnant which wasbought cheap because it was a remnant. I wore it at an evening partygiven by my schoolmate. We were twenty or more boys and girls, and Iwas regarded by my mates with jealousy. I was an aristocrat, allbecause I wore broadcloth. 

"It was the period of open fireplaces. Stoves were just beingintroduced. We could play blind man's buff in the old kitchen withgreat zest without running over stoves. 

"It was the period of brown bread, apple and milk, boiled dinners, pumpkin pies. We had very little cake. Pork and beans and Indianpudding were standard dishes, only the pudding was eaten first. Myfather had always been accustomed to that order. His second marriagewas in 1835, and my stepmother, or rather my sister Mary, who wasteaching school in Concord and had learned the new way, brought aboutthe change in the order of serving the food. 

"Prior to 1830 there was no stove in the meeting-house, and theintroduction of the first stove brought about a deal of trouble. Oneman objected, the air stifled him. It was therefore voted that on oneSunday in each month there should be no fire. 

"It was a bitter experience, --riding two and one-half miles tomeeting, sitting through the long service with the mercury at zero. Only we did not know how cold it was, not having a thermometer. Myfather purchased one about 1838. I think there was one earlier in thetown. 

"The Sunday noons were spent around the fireplaces. The old men smokedtheir pipes. 

"In 1835, religious meetings were held in all the school districts, usually in the kitchens of the farmhouses. There was a deep religiousinterest. Protracted meetings, held three days in succession, werefrequently attended by all the ministers of surrounding towns. Ibecame impressed with a sense of my condition as a sinner, andresolved to become a Christian. I united with the church the firstSunday in May, 1835, in my twelfth year. I knew very little about thespiritual life, but I have no doubt that I have been saved from manytemptations by the course then pursued. The thought that I was amember of the church was ever a restraint in temptation. "

The anti-slavery agitation reached Boscawen in 1835, and Carleton'sfather became an ardent friend of the slaves. In the Webstermeeting-house the boy attended a gathering at which a theologicalstudent gave an address, using an illustration in the peroration whichmade a lasting impression upon the youthful mind. At a countrybarn-raising, the frame was partly up, but the strength of the raiserswas gone. "It won't go, it won't go, " was the cry. An old man who wasmaking pins threw down his axe, and shouted, "It will go, " and put hisshoulder to a post, and it did go. So would it be with anti-slavery. 

The boy Carleton became an ardent abolitionist from this time forth. He read the _Liberator_, _Herald of Freedom_, _Emancipator_, and allthe anti-slavery tracts and pamphlets which he could get hold of. Inhis bedroom, he had hanging on the wall the picture of a negro inchains. The last thing he saw at night, and the first that met hiseyes in the morning, was this picture, with the words, "Am I not a manand a brother?"

With their usual conservatism, the churches generally were hostile tothe movement and methods of the anti-slavery agitation. There was anintense prejudice against the blacks. The only negro in town was aservant girl, who used to sit solitary and alone in the coloredpeople's pew in the gallery. When three families of black folks movedinto a deserted house in Boscawen, near Beaver Dam Brook, and theirchildren made their appearance in Corser Hill school, a greatcommotion at once ensued in the town. After the Sunday eveningprayer-meeting, which was for "the conversion of the world, " it wasagreed by the legal voters that "if the niggers persisted in attendingschool, " it should be discontinued. Accordingly the children left theCorser Hill school, and went into what was, "religiously speaking, " aheathen district, where, however, the prejudice against black peoplewas not so strong, and there were received into the school. 

Thereupon, out of pure devotion to principle, Carleton's fatherprotested against the action of the Corser Hill people, and, to showhis sympathy, gave employment to the negroes even when he did not needtheir services. Society was against the Africans, and they neededhelp. They were not particularly nice in their ways, nor were theylikely to improve while all the world was against them. Mr. Coffin'sidea was to improve them. 

About this time Whittier's poems, especially those depicting slavelife, had a great influence upon young Carleton. Learning the poems, he declaimed them in schools and lyceums. The first week in June, which was not only election time, but also anniversary week inConcord, with no end of meetings, was mightily enjoyed by the futurewar correspondent. He attended them, and listened to Garrison, Thompson, Weld, Stanton, Abby K. Foster, and other agitators. Thedisruption of the anti-slavery societies, and the violence of thechurches, were matters of great grief to Carleton's father, who beganearly to vote for James G. Birney. He would not vote for Henry Clay. When Carleton's uncle, B. T. Kimball, and his three sons undertook tosustain the anti-slavery agitator, and also interrupter of churchservices, in the meeting-house on Corser Hill, on Sunday afternoon, the obnoxious orator was removed by force at the order of the justiceof the peace. In the disciplinary measures inaugurated by the church, Mr. Kimball and his three sons and daughters were excommunicated. Thisproved an unhappy affair, resulting in great bitterness anddissension. 

Carleton thus tells his own story of amateur soldiering:

"Those were the days of military trainings. In September, 1836, camethe mustering of the 21st Regiment, New Hampshire militia. My brotherFrederic was captain of the light infantry. I played first thetriangle and then the drum in his company. I knew all the evolutionslaid down in the book. The boys of Boscawen formed a company andelected me captain. I was thirteen years old, full of military ardor. I drilled them in a few evolutions till they could execute them aswell as the best soldiers of the adult companies. We wore white frockstrimmed with red braid and three-cornered pasteboard caps with abronzed eagle on the front. Muster was on Corser Hill. One of the boyscould squeak out a tune on the fife. One boy played the bass drum, andanother the small drum. 

"We had a great surprise. The Bellows Falls Band, from Walpole, NewHampshire, was travelling to play at musters, and as none of the adultcompanies hired them, they offered their services to us free. 

"My company paraded in rear of the meeting-house. My brother, with thelight infantry, was the first company at drill. He had two fifes anddrums. Nearly all the companies were parading, but the regimental linehad not been formed when we made our appearance. What a commotion! Itwas a splendid band of about fifteen members, --two trombones, cornets, bugles, clarionets, fife. No other company had more than fifes orclarionets. It was a grand crash which the band gave. The next momentthe people were astonished to see a company of boys marching proudlyupon the green, --up and down, --changing front, marching by files, inechelon, by platoons. 

"We took our place in line on the field, were inspected, reviewed, andcomplimented by Maj. -Gen. Anthony Colby, afterwards governor of theState. 

"When I gave the salute, the crowd applauded. It was the great day ofall others in my boyhood. Several of the farmers gave us a granddinner. In the afternoon we took part in the sham fight with ourlittle cannon, and covered ourselves with glory--against the bigartillery. 

"I think that I manifested good common sense when, at the close ofthe day, I complimented the soldiers on their behavior, and resignedmy commission. I knew that we could never attain equal glory again, and that it was better to resign when at the zenith of fame than to goout as a fading star. "

CHAPTER IV. 

POLITICS, TRAVEL, AND BUSINESS. 

Let us quote again from Mr. Coffin's autobiographical notes:

"In 1836 my father, catching the speculation fever of the period, accompanied by my uncle and brother-in-law, went to Illinois, and leftquite an amount of money for the purchase of government land. Myfather owned several shares in the Concord Bank. The speculative feverpervaded the entire community, --speculation in lands in Maine and inIllinois. The result was a great inflation of prices, --the issuing ofa great amount of promises to pay, with a grand collapse which broughtruin and poverty to many households. The year of 1838 was one of greatdistress. The wheat and corn crop was scant. Flour was worth $16 abarrel. I remember going often to mill with a grist of oats, which wasbolted into flour for want of wheat. The Concord Bank failed, --theWestern lands were worthless. Wool could not be sold, and the shearingfor that year was taken to the town of Nelson, in Cheshire County, andmanufactured into satinets and cassimeres, on shares. One of thepieces of cassimere was dyed with a claret tinge, from which I had myfirst Sunday suit. 

"Up to this period, nearly all my clothing was manufactured in thefamily loom and cleaned at the clothing and fulling mill. In veryearly boyhood, my Sunday suit was a swallow-tailed coat, and hat ofthe stove-pipe pattern. 

"The year 1840 was one of great political excitement, --known tohistory as the Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign. General Harrison, the Whig candidate, was popularly supposed to live in a log cabin anddrink hard cider. On June 17th, there was an immense gathering ofWhigs at Concord. It was one of the greatest days of my life. Sixweeks prior to that date, I thought of nothing but the coming event. Iwas seventeen years old, with a clear and flexible voice, and Iquickly learned the Harrison songs. I went to the convention with mybrothers and cousins, in a four-wheeled lumber wagon, drawn by fourhorses, with a white banner, having the words 'Boscawen WhigDelegation. ' We had flags, and the horses' heads labelled 'Harrisonand Tyler. ' We had a roasted pig, mince pies, cakes, doughnuts andcheese, and a keg of cider. Before reaching Concord we were joined bythe log cabin from Franklin, with coon skins, bear traps, etc. , dangling from its sides. Boscawen sent nearly every Whig voter to themeeting. I hurrahed and sung, and was wild with excitement. I rememberthree of the speakers, --George Wilson, of Keene, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York _Tribune_, a young man, and Henry Wilson, alsoa young man, both of them natives of New Hampshire. Wilson hadattended school with my brother at the academy in Concord, in 1837, then having the high-sounding name of Concord Literary Institute. Wilson was a shoemaker, then residing in Natick, Mass. , and was knownas the 'Natick Cobbler. ' The songs have nearly all faded from memory. I recall one line of our description of the prospective departure ofVan Buren's cabinet from the White House:

 "'Let each as we go take a fork and a spoon. '

"There was one entitled 'Up Salt River, '--descriptive of theapproaching fate of the Democratic party. Another ran:

 "'Oh, what has caused this great commotion the country through? It is the ball, a rolling on For Tippecanoe and Tyler too. '

"Then came the chorus:

 "'Van, Van, is a used-up man. '

"In 1839, I had a fancy that I should like to be a merchant, and wastaken to Newburyport and placed with a firm of wholesale and retailgrocers. I was obliged to be up at 4. 30, open the store, care for thehorse, curry him, swallow my breakfast in a hurry, also my dinner andsupper, and close the store at nine. It was only an experiment on mypart, and after five weeks of such life, finding that I was compelledto do dishonest work, I concluded that I never would attempt to be aprincely merchant, and took the stage for home. It was a delightfulride home on the top of the rocking coach, with the driver lashinghis whip and his horses doing their best. 

"I think it was in 1841 that Daniel Webster attended the MerrimacCounty Agricultural Fair at Fisherville, now Penacook. I was therewith a fine yoke of oxen which won his admiration. He asked me as totheir age and weight, and to whom they belonged. He recognized nearlyall of his old acquaintances. I saw him many times during thefollowing year. He was in the prime of life, --in personal appearance aremarkable man. "

Thus far it will be seen that there was little in Mr. Coffin's lifeand surroundings that could not be easily told of the average NewEngland youth. Besides summer work on the farm, and "chores" about thehouse, he had taken several terms at the academy in Boscawen. Duringthe winter of 1841-42, while unable to do any outdoor work, on accountof sickness, he bought a text-book on land-surveying and learnedsomething of the science and art, yet more for pastime than from anyexpectation of making it useful. 

Nevertheless, that book had a powerful influence upon his life. Itgave him an idea, through the application of measurement to theearth's surface, of that order and beauty of those mathematicalprinciples after which the Creator built the universe. It opened hiseyes to the vast modification of the landscape, and the earth itself, by man's work upon its crust. It gave him the engineer's eye. Henceforth he became interested in the capacity of every portion ofthe country, which came under his notice, for the roads, fields, gardens, and parks of peace, and for the making of forts, militaryroads, and the strategy of battle. In a word, the book and its studygave him an enrichment of life which fitted him to enjoy the world bytravel, and to understand the arena of war, --theatres of usefulness towhich Providence was to call him in after-life. 

In August, 1843, in his twenty-first year, he became a student atPembroke Academy. The term of ten weeks seemed ever afterwards in hismemory one of the golden periods of his life. The teacher, Charles G. M. Burnham, was enthusiastic and magnetic, having few rules, andplacing his pupils upon their honor. It was not so much what Carletonlearned from books, as association with the one hundred and sixtyyoung men and women of his own age, which here so stimulated him. 

From the academy he advanced to be teacher of the district school onCorser Hill, in West Boscawen, but after three weeks of pedagogy wasobliged to leave on account of sickness. He passed the remainder ofthe winter in lumbering, rising at 4 A. M. To feed his team of horses. While breakfast was preparing he studied books, ate the meal bycandle-light, and then was off with his lunch of cold meat, bread, andapple pie. From the woods to the bank of the Merrimac the distance wasthree miles, and three or four trips were made daily in drawing thelong and heavy logs to the water. Returning home after dark, he atesupper by candle-light, fed his horses, and gave an hour to studybefore bedtime. 

The summer of 1844 was one of hard toil on the farm. In July he becameof age, and during the autumn worked on his brother-in-law's farm, rising at five and frequently finishing about 9 P. M. It is no wonderthat all through his life Mr. Coffin showed a deep sympathy, born ofpersonal experience, with men who are bound down to physical toil. Nevertheless, the fine arts were not neglected. He had alreadylearned to play the "seraphine, " the instrument which has beendeveloped into the reed organ. He started the project, in 1842, ofgetting one for the church. By great efforts sixty dollars were raisedand an instrument purchased in Concord. Mr. Coffin became the"organist, " and also taught singing in the schoolhouse. Three of hisnieces, excellent singers, assisted him. 

The time had now come for the young man to strike out in the world forhimself. Like most New England youth, his eyes were on Boston. With arecommendation from his friend, the minister, he took the stage toConcord. The next day he was in Boston, then a city of 75, 000 people, with the water dashing against the embankment of Charles Street, opposite the Common, and with only one road leading out to Roxbury. Sloops and schooners, loaded with coal and timber, sailed over thespot where afterwards stood his house, at No. 81 Dartmouth Street. Ina word, the "Back Bay" and "South End" were then unknown. Boston city, shaped like a pond lily laid flat, had its long stem reaching to thesolid land southward on the Dorchester and Roxbury hills. 

Young Carleton went to Mount Vernon Church on Ashburton Place, thepastor, Dr. E. N. Kirk, being in the prime of his power, and thechurch crowded. The country boy from New Hampshire became a member ofthe choir and enjoyed the Friday night rehearsals. He found employmentat one dollar a day in a commission store, 84 Utica Street, with thefirm of Lowell & Hinckley. The former, a brother of James RussellLowell, had a son, a bright little boy, who afterwards became thesuperb cavalry commander at the battle of Cedar Creek in 1864. Carleton boarded on Beacon Street, next door to the present AthenæumBuilding. The firm dissolved by Mr. Lowell's entering the Athenæum. Carleton returned to his native town to vote. He became a farm laborerwith his brother-in-law, passing a summer of laborious toil, frequently fourteen and sixteen hours, with but little rest. 

It was time now for the old Granite State to be opened by the railway. The Northern Railroad had been chartered, and preliminary surveyswere to be made. Young Carleton, seizing the opportunity, went toFranklin, saw the president, and told him who he was. He was at onceoffered a position as chainman, and told to report two weeks later. The other chainman gave Carleton the leading end, intending that theBoscawen boy, and not himself, should drag it and drive the stake. Carleton did not object, for he was looking beyond the chain. 

The compass-man was an old gentleman dim of eyesight and slow ofaction. Young Carleton drove his first stake, at a point one hundredfeet north of the Concord railway depot, which was opened in the monthof August, 1845. The old compass-man then set his compass for a secondsight, but before he could get out his spectacles and put them on, young Carleton read the point to him. When, through his glasses, theold gentleman had verified the reading, he was delighted. Promotionfor Carleton was now sure. Before night he was not only dragging thechain, but was sighting the instrument. The result, two days later, was promotion to the charge of the party. What he had learned of landsurveying was producing its fruit. In the autumn he was employed asthe head of a party to make the preliminary survey of the Concord andPortsmouth road. 

Unfortunately, during this surveying campaign, he received a woundwhich caused slight permanent lameness and disqualified him formilitary service. It came about in this way. He was engaged in somework while an axe-man behind him was chopping away some bushes andundergrowth. The latter gave a swing of the axe which came out too farand cut through the boot and large tendon of Carleton's left ankle. With skilled medical attention, rest, and care, the wound would havesoon healed up, but owing to lack of skill, and to carelessness andexposure, the wound gave him considerable trouble, and once reopened. In after-life, when overwearied, this part of the limb was verytroublesome. 

It was not all toil for Carleton. The time of love had already come, and the days of marriage were not far off. The object of his devotionwas Miss Sally Russell Farmer, the daughter of Colonel John Farmer, ofBoscawen. On February 18, 1846, amid the winter winds, the fire of aholy union for life was kindled, and its glow was unflickering duringmore than fifty years. In ancestry and relationship, the Farmers ofBoscawen were allied with the Russells of England, --Sir William, ofbygone centuries, and Lord John, of our own memory. Carleton found atrue "help-meet" in Sally Coffin. Though no children ever came tobless their union, it was as perfect, though even more hallowed andbeautified, on the day it was severed, as when first begun. 

The following summer was one full of days of toil in the engineeringdepartment of the Northern railway, Carleton being engaged upon thefirst section to be opened from Concord to Franklin. The engineeringwas difficult, and the work heavy. Breakfast was eaten at six in themorning, and dinner wherever it could be found along the road. Seldomcould the young engineer rise from his arithmetical calculations untilmidnight. 

Weary with such exacting mental and physical labor, he resigned hisposition, and became a contractor. First he supplied the Concordrailroad with 200, 000 feet of lumber, which he purchased at thevarious mills. This venture being profitable, he engaged in the lumbertrade, furnishing beams for a large factory, timber for a new railwaystation at Concord, and for a ship at Medford. It was whiletransacting some business in Lowell, that he saw President Polk, JamesBuchanan, Levi Woodbury, and other political magnates of the period, who, however, were rather coldly received on account of the annexationof Texas, and war with Mexico. 

Wishing for a home of his own, Carleton now bought a farm in WestBoscawen, and began housekeeping in the following November. He carriedon extensive lumber operations, hiring a large number of men andteams. He rose between four and five in the morning, and was in thewoods, four miles away, at sunrise, working through the day, andreaching home after dark to care for the cattle and horses and milkthe cows. None of his men worked harder than he. 

Although railroad building stimulated prices and gave activity tobusiness men, the flush times were followed by depression. To securethe construction of a railway to the mast yard, Carleton subscribedto the stock, and, under the individual liability law of that period, was compelled to take as much more to relieve the company from debt. Soon he found, however, in spite of hard work for both himself and hiswife, that farming and lumbering together rendered no adequatereturns. Relief to mind and body was found in the weekly arrival of_Littell's Living Age_ and two or three weekly papers, in agriculturalmeetings at Concord and Manchester, and in the formation of the StateAgricultural Society, of which Carleton was one of the founders. 

CHAPTER V. 

ELECTRICITY AND JOURNALISM. 

The modern age of electricity was ushered in during Mr. Coffin's earlymanhood. The telegraph, which has given the world a new nervoussystem, being less an invention than an evolution, had from the laborsof Prof. Joseph Henry, in Albany, and of Wheatstone, of England, become, by Morse's invention of the dot-and-line alphabet, a far-offwriter by which men could annihilate time and distance. One of thefirst to experiment with the new power--old as eternity, but onlyslowly revealed to man--was Carleton's brother-in-law, Prof. Moses G. Farmer, whose services to science have never yet been adequately setforth. 

This inventor in 1851 invited Mr. Coffin to leave the farmtemporarily, to construct a line of wire connecting the telegraphs ofBoston with the Cambridge observatory, for the purpose of givinguniform time to the railroads. In this Carleton was so successfulthat, in the winter and spring of 1852, he was employed by Mr. MosesFarmer to construct the telegraph fire alarm, which had been inventedby his brother-in-law. The work was completed in the month of May, andCharles Carleton Coffin gave the first alarm of fire ever transmittedby the electric apparatus. The system was a great curiosity, and manydistinguished men of this country, and from Europe, especially fromRussia and France, came to inspect its working. 

Commodore Charles Wilkes, of the United States Navy, who had returnedfrom his brilliant expedition in Antarctic regions, but who had notyet made himself notorious by a capture of the Confederatecommissioners, proposed to use this electric system in ascertainingthe velocity of sound. Cannon were stationed at various points, theNavy Yard, Fort Constitution, South Boston, and at the Observatory, infront of which was an apparatus and telegraph connecting with thecentral office. Each cannon, when fired, heated the circuit. Eachlistener at the various points was to snap a circuit key the momentthe sound reached him. In the central office was a chronograph whichregistered each discharge in succession. The distances from eachcannon muzzle had been obtained by triangulation. In the calm, stillnight, Commodore Wilkes and Professor Farmer stood in the cupola ofthe State House with the chronograph, holding their watches, andnoting the successive flashes. 

The experiments were not very satisfactory. Mr. Coffin, perhaps, possibly, because he was not a skilled artillerist, had the mortifyingexperience of seeing the apparatus in front of his cannon blown intofragments, but he made notes of the other reports. After a series oftrials, the approximate result was obtained, that in a moderatelyhumid atmosphere the velocity of sound was a little under nine hundredfeet per second. 

The exactions of the fire alarm service, owing to its crudeconstruction, which compelled the attendants to be ever on the alert, told severely on Carleton's' nervous system. He therefore resigned inOctober, and went to Cincinnati to get the system introduced there. Herds of hogs then roamed the streets, picking up their living aroundthe grain houses, and in the gutters. After three weeks of exhibitionand canvassing, he found that Cincinnati was not yet ready for such anovelty, and so he returned to Boston. 

The following winter was passed in Boscawen without financiallyremunerative employment, but in earnest study, though in the spring asupply of money came pleasantly and unexpectedly. He undertook tonegotiate a patent for an invention of Professor Farmer's, and afterconsiderable time disposed of it to a New York gentleman. Carleton'snet profits were $1, 850. 

This was an immense sum to him, and he once more resolved to tryBoston, and did so. He made his home, however, in Malden, renting halfof a small house on Washington Street. Having inked his pen onagricultural subjects, descriptive pieces, and even on a few poems, hetook up newspaper work. Entering the office of the Boston _Journal_ heworked without pay, giving the _Journal_ three months' service inwriting editorials, and reporting meetings. This was simply to educatehimself as a journalist. At that time very few reporters were employedon the daily papers. What he says of this work had better be told inhis own words:

"It was three months of hard study and work. I saw that what thepublic wanted was news in condensed form; that the day for statelyeditorials was passing away; that short statements and arguments, which went like an arrow straight to the mark, were what the publicwould be likely to read. I formed my style of writing with that inview. I avoided long sentences. I thought that I went too far in theother direction and clipped my sentences too short, and did not givesufficient ornamentation, but I determined to use words of Saxonrather than of Latin or Norman origin, to use 'begin, ' instead of'commence, ' as stronger and more forcible. 

"I selected the speeches of Webster, Lord Erskine, Burke, and otherEnglish writers, for careful analysis, but soon discarded Brougham andBurke. I derived great benefit from Erskine and Webster, for incisiveand strong statement, --also Shakespeare and Milton. At that time Iread again and again the rhapsodies of Christopher North, ProfessorWilson, and the 'Noctes Ambrosianæ, ' and found great delight, also, in reading Bryant's poems. 

"It was the period of white heat in the anti-slavery struggle, whenthe public heard the keenest debates, the sharpest invective. At ananti-slavery meeting the red-hot lava was always on the flow. Theanti-slavery men were like anthracite in the furnace, --red hot, --whitehot, --clear through. I have little doubt that the sharpness andruggedness of my writing is due, in some degree, to the curt, sharpstatements of that period. When men were feeling so intensely, andspeaking with a force and earnestness unknown in these later years, areporter would insensibly take on something of the spirit of the hour, otherwise his reports would be limp and lifeless. I was induced tostudy stenography, but the system then in use was complex andinadequate, --hard to learn. I was informed by several stenographersthat if I wanted a condensed report it would be far better to give thespirit, rather than attempt the letter. "

During the summer of 1854, Mrs. Coffin being in poor health, theyvisited Saratoga together, passed several weeks at the Springs, andvisited the battle-field where his grandfather, Eliphalet Kilborn, had fought. Carleton picked up a bullet just uncovered by the plow, and in that bright and beautiful summer's day the whole scene of 1777came back before him. From the author's map in "Burgoyne's Defence, "giving a meagre sketch of the battle, he was able to retrace thegeneral lines of the American breastworks. This was the first ofscores of careful study on the spot and reproduction in imagination offamous battles, which Carleton made and enjoyed during his life. 

He was also present at the International Exhibition in New York, seeing, on the opening day, President Franklin Pierce and his Cabinet. The popular idol of the hour was General Winfield Scott, of animposing personal appearance which was set off by a showy uniform. Hewas the hero of the two wars, and expected to be President. Inpersonal vanity, in bravery, and in military science, Scott waswithout a superior, one of the ablest officers whose names adorn thelong and brilliant roll of the United States regular army. 

Carleton wrote of General Scott: "A man of great egotism, an ablegeneral, but who never had any chance of an election. He was the lastcandidate of a dying political party which never was aggressive andwhich was going down under the slave power, to which it had allieditself. "

Mr. Coffin writes further: "The passage of the Compromise Measures of1850 gave great offence to the radical wing of the anti-slavery party. The members of that wing were very bitter towards Daniel Webster forhis part in its passage. I was heart and soul in sympathy with thegrand idea of anti-slavery, but did not believe in fierce denunciationas the best argument. I did not like the compromise, and hated theodious fugitive slave law, but I nevertheless believed that Mr. Webster was sincere in his desire to avert impending trouble. Ilearned from Hon. G. W. Nesmith, of Franklin, president of theNorthern railroad, that Mr. Webster felt very keenly the assaults uponhim, and the manifest alienation of his old friends. Mr. Nesmithsuggested that his old-time neighbors in Boscawen and Salisbury shouldsend him a letter expressive of their appreciation of his efforts toharmonize the country, and that the proper person to write theletter was the Rev. Mr. Price, ex-pastor of the Congregational churchin West Boscawen, in whom the county had great confidence. A few dayslater, at the invitation of Mr. Price, I went over the rough draftwith him in his study. The letter was circulated for signatures byWorcester Webster, of Boscawen, distantly related to Daniel. It is inthe published works of the great statesman, edited by Mr. Everett, together with his reply. "

In May, 1854, Carleton saw the Potomac and the Capitol at Washingtonfor the first time. The enlargement of the house of the NationalLegislature had not yet begun. He studied the paintings in therotunda, which were to him a revelation of artistic power. He spent along time before Prof. Robert W. Weir's picture of the departure ofthe Pilgrims for Delfshaven. 

Here are some of his impressions of the overgrown village and of thecharacters he met:

"Washington was a straggling city, thoroughly Southern. There was nota decent hotel. The National was regarded as the best. Nearly all thepublic men were in boarding-houses. I stopped at the Kirkwood, thenregarded as very good. The furniture was old; there was scarcely awhole chair in the parlor or dining-room. It was the period of theKansas struggle. The passions of men were at a white heat. The typicalSouthern man wore a broad-brimmed felt hat. Many had long hair andloose flowing neckties. There was insolence and swagger in theirdeportment towards Northern men. 

"I spent much time in the gallery of the Senate. Thomas Benton, ofMissouri, was perhaps the most notable man in the Senate. Slidell, ofLouisiana, whom I had seen in New Hampshire the winter before, speaking for the Democracy, and Toombs, of Georgia, were stronglymarked characters. Toombs made a speech doubling up his fists as ifabout to knock some one down. "

From Washington, Carleton went to Harrisburg, noticing, as he passedover the railway, the difference between free and slave territory. "Ahalf dozen miles from the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvaniawas sufficient to change the characteristics of the country. " ThePennsylvania railway had just been opened, and Altoona was juststarting. Carleton visited the iron and other industries at Pittsburg, and described his journey and impressions in a series of letters tothe Boston _Journal_. Having inherited from his father eighty acres ofland in Central Illinois, near the town of Lincoln, he went out tovisit it. At Chicago, a bustling place of 25, 000 inhabitants, he foundthe mud knee-deep. Great crowds of emigrants were arriving anddeparting. Going south to La Salle he took steamer on the IllinoisRiver to Peoria, reaching there Saturday night. Not willing to travelon Sunday, he went ashore. After attending service at church, he askedthe privilege of playing on the organ. A few minutes later, he found alarge audience listening with apparent pleasure. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The time had now come for the formation of a new political party, andin this Carleton had a hand, being at the first meeting and making theacquaintance of the leading men, Henry Wilson, Anson Burlingame, George S. Boutwell, N. P. Banks, Charles Sumner, and others. Hisconnection with the press brought him into personal contact with menof all parties. He found Edward Everett more sensitive to criticismthan any other public man. 

In 1856 Carleton was offered a position on the _Atlas_, which had beenthe leading Whig paper in Massachusetts. He attended the first greatRepublican gathering ever held in Maine, at Portland, at whichHannibal Hamlin, Benjamin Wade, and N. P. Banks were speakers. On thenight of the Maine election, which was held in August, as the returns, which gave the first great victory of the Republican party in theFremont campaign, thrilled the young editor, he wrote a head-linewhich was copied all over the country, --"Behold How Brightly Breaksthe Morning. "

In Malden, where he was then residing, a Fremont Club was formed. Carleton wrote a song, to the melody "Suoni La Tromba, " from one ofthe operas then much admired, which was sung by the glee men in theclub. Political enthusiasm rose to fever heat. In the columns of the_Atlas_ are many editorials which came seething hot from Carleton'sbrain, during the campaign which elevated Mr. James Buchanan to thepresidency. 

When the storm of politics had subsided, Carleton wrote a series ofarticles for an educational periodical, _The Student and Schoolmate_. Inspired by his attendance on the meetings of the American Associationfor the Advancement of Science, he penned a series of astronomicalarticles for _The Congregationalist_. He also attended the opening ofthe Grand Trunk railroad from Montreal to Toronto, celebrated by agrand jubilee at Montreal. During the winter, when Elihu Burritt, thelearned blacksmith, failed to appear on the lecture platform, Carleton was called upon at short notice to give his lecture entitled"The Savage and the Citizen. "

He was welcomed with applause, which he half suspected was inderision. At the end, he received ten dollars and a vote of thanks. The lecture system was then just beginning, and its bright stars, Phillips, Holmes, Whipple, Beecher, Gough, and Curtis were thenmounting the zenith. 

Carleton made another trip West in 1857, seeing the Mississippi, whenthe railway was completed from Cincinnati to St. Louis. When the crowdwas near degenerating into a drunken mob, --the native wine of Missouribeing served free to everybody, --the committee in charge cut off thesupply of drink, and thus saved a riot. From St. Louis he went toLiverpool, on the Illinois River, to see about his land affairs. Heenjoyed hugely the strange frontier scenes, meals in log cabins, andthe trial of a case in court, which was in a schoolroom lighted by twotallow candles. 

The Boston _Atlas_, unable to hold up the world, had summoned the_Bee_ to its aid, yet did not even then stand on a paying basis. Finally it became absorbed in the Boston _Traveller_. Carleton againentered the service of the Boston _Journal_ as reporter. Yet life wasa hard struggle. Through the years 1857, 1858, 1859, Carleton wasfloating around among the newspapers getting a precariousliving, --hardly a living. He wrote a few stories for _Putnam'sMagazine_, for one of which he was paid ten dollars. One of the brightspots in this period of uncertainty was his attendance, at Springfieldand Newport, upon the meetings of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science. He also became more or less acquainted withmen who were afterwards governors of Massachusetts, or United Statessenators, with John Brown and Stephen A. Douglas. 

The political campaign which resulted in the election of AbrahamLincoln to the presidency is described in Mr. Coffin's own words:

"During the winter of 1859, George W. Gage, proprietor of the TremontHouse at Chicago, visited Boston. I had known him many years. Beingfrom the West, I asked him who he thought would be acceptable to theRepublicans of the West as candidate for the presidency. The namesprominently before the country were those of W. H. Seward, S. P. Chase, Edward Bates, and J. C. Fremont. 

"'We shall elect whomsoever we nominate, ' said Mr. Gage. 'TheDemocratic party is going to split. The Northern and Western Democratswill go for Douglas. The slaveholders never will accept him. The Whigparty is but a fragment. There will certainly be three, if not fourcandidates, and the Republican party can win. We think a good deal ofold Abe Lincoln. He would make a strong candidate. '

"It was the first time I had heard the name of Lincoln in connectionwith the presidency. I knew there was such a man. Being a journalist, I had some knowledge of his debate with Douglas on the great questionsof the day, but he had been defeated in his canvass for the Senate, and had dropped out of sight. It was about this time that he gave hislecture at Cooper Institute, New Haven, and Norwich. I did not meethim in Boston. His coming created no excitement. The aristocracy ofBoston, including Robert C. Winthrop, Edward Everett, George S. Hilliard, and that class, were Whigs, who did not see the trend ofevents. Lincoln came and went, having little recognition. Thesentiment of Massachusetts Republicans was all in favor of thenomination of Seward. 

"The remark of Mr. Gage in regard to Lincoln set me to thinking uponthe probable outcome of the presidential contest. The enthusiasm ofthe Republican party was at fever heat. The party had nearly succeededin 1856, under Fremont, and the evidences of success in 1860multiplied, as the days for nominating a candidate approached. Thedisruption of the Democratic party at Charleston made the election ofthe Republican candidate certain. 

"I determined to attend the Convention to be held at Chicago, and alsothat of the Whig party, to be held earlier at Baltimore. 

"I visited Washington and made the acquaintance of many of the leadingRepublican members of Congress. Senator Wilson gave me a seat on oneof the sofas in the south chamber. He was sitting by my side whenSeward appeared. He stopped a moment in the passage, and leanedagainst the wall. 

"'There is our next President, ' said Wilson. 'He feels that he is tobe nominated and elected. He shows it. '

"It was evident that Mr. Seward was conscious of the expected honor. It did not display itself in haughty actions, but in a fitting air ofdignity. He knew the galleries were looking down upon him, men werepointing him out, nodding their heads. He was the coming man. "

The Whig Convention in Baltimore, which Carleton attended, "was heldin an old church from which the worshippers had departed, --a fittingplace to hold it. The people had left the Whig party, which haddeparted from its principles and was ready to compromise still furtherin slavery. "

On leaving Baltimore for Chicago, and conversing with peopleeverywhere, Carleton discovered in Pennsylvania a hostility to Sewardwhich he had not found elsewhere. It was geographical antagonism, NewYork glorying in being the Empire State, and Pennsylvania in being theKeystone of the arch. "Pennsylvania could not endure the thought ofhaving New York lead the procession. " Arriving in Chicago severaldays before the Convention opened, Carleton noticed a growingdisposition to take a Western man. The contest was to be betweenSeward and Lincoln. On the second day the New York crowd tried to makea tremendous impression with bands and banners. Entering the building, they found it packed with the friends of Lincoln. Carleton sat at atable next to Thurlow Weed. "When the drawn ballot was taken, Weed, pale and excited, thrust his thumbs into his eyes to keep back thetears. "

Mr. Coffin must tell the rest of the story:

"I accompanied the committee to Springfield to notify Lincoln of hisnomination. Ashman, the president of the committee, W. D. Kelly, ofPennsylvania, Amos Jack, of New Hampshire, Sweet, of Chicago, andothers made up the party. We went down the Illinois Central. It was ahot, dusty ride. Reached Springfield early in the evening. Had supperat the hotel and then called on Lincoln. His two youngest boys were onthe fence in front of the house, chaffing some Democratic urchins inthe street. A Douglas meeting was going on in the State House, addressed, as I learned, by A. McClernand, --afterwards major-general. Lincoln stood in the parlor, dressed in black frock coat. Ashman madethe formal announcement. Lincoln's reply was brief. He was muchconstrained, but as soon as the last word was spoken he turned toKelly and said:

"'Judge, you are a pretty tall man. How tall are you?'

"'Six feet two. '

"'I beat you. I'm six feet three without my high-heeled boots on. '

"'Pennsylvania bows to Illinois, where we have been told there wereonly Little Giants, ' said Kelly, gracefully alluding to Douglas, whowas called the Little Giant. 

"One by one we were introduced by Mr. Ashman. After the hand-shakingwas over, Mr. Lincoln said:

"'Mrs. Lincoln will be pleased to see you gentlemen in the adjoiningroom, where you will find some refreshments. '

"We passed into the room and were presented to Mrs. Lincoln. Herpersonal appearance was not remarkably prepossessing. The prevailingfashion of the times was a gown of voluminous proportions, over anenormous hoop. The corsage was cut somewhat low, revealing plumpshoulders and bust. She wore golden bracelets. Her hair was combed lowabout the ears. She evidently was much gratified over the nomination, but was perfectly ladylike in her deportment. 

"The only sign of refreshments visible was a white earthen pitcherfilled with ice-water. Probably it was Mr. Lincoln's little joke, forthe next morning I learned that his Republican neighbors had offeredto furnish wines and liquor, but he would not allow them in the house;that his Democratic friends also sent round baskets of champagne, which he would not accept. 

"I met him the next morning in his law office, also his secretary, J. G. Nicolay. It was a large, square room, with a plain pine table, splint-bottomed chairs, law books in a case, and several bushels ofnewspapers and pamphlets dumped in one corner. It had a general air ofuntidiness. 

"During the campaign I reported many meetings for the Boston_Journal_, and was made night editor soon after Mr. Lincoln'selection. The position was very laborious and exacting. It was theperiod of secession. Through the live-long night, till nearly 3 A. M. , I sat at my desk editing the exciting news. The reporters usually leftthe room about eleven, and from that time to the hour of going topress, I was alone, --save the company of two mice that became sofriendly that they would sit on my desk, and make a supper of crackersand cheese, which I doled out to them. I remember them with muchpleasure. 

"The exacting labors and sleepless nights told upon my health. Thedisturbed state of the country made everybody in business verycautious, so much so that the proprietor of the _Journal_, Charles A. Rogers, began to discharge his employees, and I was informed that myservices were no longer needed. I had been receiving the magnificentsum of ten dollars per week, and this princely revenue ceased. "

After President Lincoln had been inaugurated, Mr. Coffin went toWashington, during the last week in March. His experiences there mustbe told by himself:

"I took lodgings at a private boardinghouse on Pennsylvania Avenue, where there was a poverty-stricken Virginian, of the old Whig school, after an office. He did 'not think his State would secede. ' I saw muchof the Republican members of Congress, who said if I wanted a positionthey would do what they could for me. Senator Sumner suggested that Iwould make a good secretary of one of the Western territories. 

"I called upon my old schoolmate Sargeant who had been for many yearsin the Treasury. Having constructed the telegraph fire-alarm, and donesomething in engineering, I thought I was competent to become anexaminer in the patent office. I made out an application, which wassigned by the entire Massachusetts delegation, recommending me. Idropped it into the post-office, and that was the last I saw or eventhought of it, for the great crisis in the history of the country wasso rapidly approaching, and so evident, that, --newspaper man as Iwas, --accustomed to forecast coming events, I could see what manyothers could not see. 

"I was walking with Senator Wilson up E Street, on a bright moonlightnight. The moon's rays, falling upon the unfinished dome of theCapitol, brought the building out in bold relief. "

"'Will it ever be finished?' I asked. The senator stopped, and gazedupon it a moment in silence. 

"'We are going to have a war, but the people of this country will notgive up the Union, I think. Yet, to-day, that building, prospectively, is a pile of worthless marble. '"

[Illustration: Yours truly Charles Carleton Coffin]

CHAPTER VII. 

THE WAR CORRESPONDENT. 

When the long gathering clouds broke in the storm at Sumter, and warwas precipitated in a rain of blood, Charles Carleton Coffin's firstquestion was as to his duty. He was thirty-seven years old, healthyand hearty, though not what men would usually call robust. To him whohad long learned to look into the causes of things, who knew well hiscountry's history, and who had been educated to thinking and feelingby the long debate on slavery, the Secession movement was nothing moreor less than a slaveholders' conspiracy. His conviction in 1861 wasthe same as that held by him, when more than thirty years ofreflection had passed by, that the inaugurators of the Civil War of1861-65 were guilty of a gigantic crime. 

In 1861, with his manhood and his talent, the question was not onwhich side duty lay, or whether his relation to the question shouldbe active or passive, but just how he could most and best give himselfto the service of his country. Whether with rifle or pen, he would donothing less than his best. He inquired first at the recruiting officeof the army. He was promptly informed that on no account could he beaccepted as an active soldier, whether private or officer, on accountof his lame heel. Rejected here, he thought that some other departmentof public service might be open to him in which he could be more orless directly in touch with the soldiers. While uncertain as to hisfuture course, he was, happily for his country, led to consult his oldfriend, Senator Henry Wilson, who immediately and strenuously advisedhim to give up all idea of either the army, the hospital, theclerical, or any other government service, but to enter at onceactively upon the work of a war correspondent. 

"Your talent, " said Wilson, "is with the pen, and you can do the bestservice by seeing what is going on and reporting it. "

The author of the "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America"intimated that truth, accurately told and published throughout theNorth, was not only extremely valuable, but absolutely necessary. Itwould not take long for a thoroughly truthful reporter to make himselfa national authority. The sympathizers with disunion would be only tooactive in spreading rumors to dishearten the upholders of the Union, and there would be need for every honest pen and voice. 

After this conversation, Carleton was at peace. He would find his workand ask no other blessedness. But how to find it, and to win his placeas a recognized writer on the field was a question. Within ourgeneration, the world has learned the value of the war correspondent. He has won the spurs of the knighthood of civilization. He wears inlife the laurel wreath of fame. He is respected in his calling. Hegoes forth as an apostle of the printed truth. The resources ofwealthy corporations are behind him. His salary is not princely, butit is ample. Though he may lose limb or life, he is honored like thesoldier, and after his death, the monument rises to his memory. In thegreat struggle between France and Germany, between Russia andTurkey, between Japan and China, and in the minor wars of EuropeanPowers against inferior civilizations, in Asia and Africa, the "warcorrespondent" has been a striking figure. He is not the creation ofour age; but our half of this century, having greater need of him, hasequipped him the most liberally. He has his permanent place of honor. If the newspaper is the Woden of our century and civilization, the warcorrespondent and the printer are the twin Ravens that sit upon hisshoulder. The one flies afar to gather the news, the other sits athome to scatter the tidings. 

In 1861 it was very different. The idea of spending large sums ofmoney, and maintaining a staff-corps of correspondents who on land andsea should follow our armies and fleets, and utilize horse, rail car, and telegraph, boat, yacht, and steamer, without regard to expense, had not seized upon newspaper publishers in the Eastern States. Almostfrom the first, the great New York journals organized bureaus for thecollection of news. With relays of stenographers, telegraphers, andextra printers, they were ready for all emergencies in the homeoffice, besides liberally endowing their agencies at Washington andcities near the front, and equipping their correspondent, in camp andon deck. In this, the New England publishers were far behind those onManhattan Island. Carleton, when in Washington, wrote his firstletters to the Boston _Journal_ and took the risk of their beingaccepted for publication. He visited the camps, forts, and places ofstorage of government material. He described the preparations for warand life in Washington with such spirit and graphic power, that fromJune 15 to July 17, 1861, no fewer than twenty-one of his letters werepublished in the _Journal_. 

The great battle of Bull Run gave him his opportunity. As aneye-witness, his opportunity was one to be coveted. He wrote out sofull, so clear, and so interesting an account, that the proprietors ofthe _Journal_ engaged him as their regular correspondent at a salaryof twenty-five dollars a week, with extra allowance fortransportation. His instructions were to "keep the _Journal_ at thefront. Use all means for obtaining and transmitting importantinformation, regardless of expense. " This, however, was not to beinterpreted to mean that he should have assistants or be the head ofa bureau or relay of men, as in the case of the chief correspondent ofat least three of the New York newspapers. It meant that he was togather and transmit the news and be the whole bureau and staff inhimself. Nevertheless, during most of the war, the Boston _Journal_was the only New England paper that kept a regular correspondentpermanently not only in Washington, but at the seat of war. Carletonin several signal instances sent news of most important movements andvictories ahead of any other Northern correspondent. He achieved asuccession of what newspaper men call "beats. " In those days, onaccount of the great expense, the telegraph was used only forsummaries of news, and rarely, if ever, for long despatches orletters. The ideas and practice of newspaper managers have greatlyenlarged since 1865. Entering upon his work at the very beginning ofthe war, he was, we believe, almost the only field correspondent whocontinued steadily to the end, coming out of it with unbroken healthof body and mind. 

How he managed to preserve his strength and enthusiasm, and to excelwhere so many others did well and nobly, is an open secret. In thefirst place, he was a man of profoundest religious faith in theHeavenly Father. Prayer was his refreshment. He renewed his strengthby waiting upon God. His spirit never grew weary. In the darkest dayshe was able to cheer and encourage the desponding. He spokecontinually, through the _Journal_, to hundreds of thousands ofreaders, in tones of cheer. Like a great lighthouse, with its mightylamps ever burning and its reflectors and lenses kept clean and clear, Carleton, never discouraged, terrified, or tired out, sent across thetroubled sea and through the deepest darkness the inspiriting flash ofthe light of truth and the steady beam of faith in the Right and itsultimate triumph. He was a missionary of cheer among the soldiers incamp and at the front. His reports of battles, and his message ofcomfort in times of inaction, wilted the hopes of the traitors, copperheads, cowards, and "nightshades" at home, while they put newblood in the veins of the hopeful. 

Carleton was always welcome among the commanders and at headquarters. This was because of his frankness as well as his ability and hisgenial bonhomie and social qualities. He did not consider himself acritic of generals. He simply described. He took care to tell what hesaw, or knew on good authority to be true. He did probe rumors. Fromthe very first he became a higher critic of assertions and even ofdocuments. He quickly learned the value of camp reports and items ofnews. By and by his skill became the envy of many of less experiencedreaders of human nature, and judges of talk and despatches. Whileshirking no hard work in the saddle, on foot, on the rail, or in theboat, he found by experience that by keeping near headquarters he wasthe better enabled to know the motions of the army as a whole, todivine the plans of the commanding general, and thus test the value offlying rumors. He had a genius for interpreting signs of movement, whether in the loading of a barge, the riding of an orderly, or thenod of a general's head. His previous training as an engineer andsurveyor enabled him to foresee the strategic value of a position andto know the general course of a campaign in a particular district ofcountry. With this power of practical foresight, he was often betterable even than some of the generals to foresee and appraise results. This topographical knowledge also gave him that power of wonderfulclearness in description which is the first and best quality necessaryto the narrator of a series of complex movements. A battle fought inthe open, like that at Gettysburg, or one of those which took placeduring the previous campaigns, on a plain, along the river, and in thePeninsula, is comparatively easy to describe, especially when viewedfrom an eminence. These battles were like those in ordinary Europeanhistory; but after Grant took command of the Army of the Potomac, areversion to something like the American colonial methods in theforest took place. The heaviest fighting was in the woods, behindentrenchments, or in regions where but little of the general scheme, and few of the operations, could be seen at once. In either case, however, as will be seen by reading over the thousand or so letters inCarleton's correspondence, his power of making a modern battle easilyunderstood is, if not unique, at least very remarkable. With hisletters often went diagrams which greatly aided his readers. 

Carleton's personal courage was always equal to that of the bravest. Too sincerely appreciative of the gift of life from his Creator, henever needlessly, especially after his first eagerness for experiencehad been satiated, exposed himself, as the Dutch used to say, with"full-hardiness, " or as we, corrupting the word, say, with"foolhardiness. " He got out of the line of shells and bullets wherethere was no call for his presence, and when the only justificationfor remaining would be to gratify idle curiosity. Yet, when dutycalled, when there was need to know both the facts, and the truth tobe deduced from the facts, whistling bullets or screeching shellsnever sufficed to drive him away. His coolness with pen and pencil, amid the dropping fire of the enemy, made heroes of many a soldierwhose nerves were not as strong as was the instinct of his legs torun. The lady librarian of Dover, N. H. , thus writes:

"An old soldier whom I was once showing through the library stoppedshort in front of Coffin's books and looked at them with muchinterest. He said that at his first battle, --I think it wasFredericksburg, but of this I am not sure, --he was scared almost todeath. He was a mere boy, and when his regiment was ordered to thefront and the shot was lively around him, he would have run away if hehad dared. But a little distance off, he saw a man standing under thelee of a tree and writing away as coolly as if he were standing at adesk. The soldier asked who he was, and was told it was Carleton, ofthe _Journal_. 'There he stood, ' said the man, 'perfectly unconcerned, and I felt easier every time I looked at him. Finally he finished andwent off to another place. But that was his reputation among the menall through the war, --perfectly cool, and always at the front. '"

Carleton was able to withstand four years of mental strain andphysical exposure because he knew and put in practice the right lawsof life. His temperance in eating and drinking was habitual. Oftendependent with the private soldier, while on the march and in camp, onraw pork and hardtack; helped out in emergencies with food andvictuals, by the quartermaster or his assistants; not infrequentlyreaching the verge of starvation, he did not, when reaching city orhome, play the gourmand. He drank no intoxicating liquor, alwayspolitely waving aside the social glass. He was true to his principlesof total abstinence which had been formed in boyhood. It would havebeen easy for him to become intemperate, since in early boyhood heacquired a fondness for liquors, through being allowed to drink whatmight remain in the glass after his sick mother had partaken of hertonic. He demonstrated that man has no necessity for alcoholic drinks, however much he may enjoy them. 

Only on one occasion was he known to taste strong liquor. In theWilderness, when in a company of officers on horseback, thebloodcurdling Confederate yells were heard but a short distance off, and it seemed as though our line had been broken and the day was lostfor the Union army. At that dark moment, one of the officers onGeneral Meade's staff produced a flask of brandy, and remarking--withinherited English prejudice--that he would fortify his nerves with"Dutch courage, " to tide over the emergency, he quaffed, and thenhanded the refreshment to his companion. In the momentary andinfectious need for stimulant of some sort, Mr. Coffin took a sip andhanded it on. Though himself having no need of and very rarely makinguse of spirits, even medicinally, he was yet kindly charitable towardshis weaker brethren. It is too sadly true that many of the militaryofficers, who yielded to the temptation of temporarily bracing theirnerves at critical moments, became slaves to the bottle, andafterwards confirmed drunkards. Carleton made no use of tobacco in anyform. 

Carleton's wonderful prescience of coming events, and his decisionsrightly made as to his own whereabouts in crises, enabled him toconcentrate without wasting his powers. He then gave himself to hiswork with all ardor, and without sparing brain or muscle, risking limband life at Bull Run, on the Mississippi, at Fort Donelson, atAntietam and Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, at Savannah, and inRichmond. His powers in toil were prodigious. He could turn off animmense amount of work, and keep it up. When the lull followed theagony, he went home to rest and recruit, spending the time with hiswife and friends, everywhere diffusing the sunshine of hope andfaith. When rested and refreshed, he hied again to the front and theconflict. The careers of most army correspondents in the field wereshort. Carleton's race was long. His was the promise of the prophet'sglorious burden in Isaiah xl. 28-31. 

It was between his thirty-eighth and forty-second year, when in thehigh tide of his manly strength, that Carleton pursued the professionof letters amid the din of arms. His pictures show him a handsome man, with broad, open forehead and sunny complexion, standing nearly sixfeet high, his feet cased in the broad and comfortable boots which healways wore. Over his ordinary suit of clothing was a long andcomfortable overcoat with a cape, around which was a belt, to whichhung a spy-glass. Later in the war he bought a fine binocular marineglass. He gave the old "historic spy-glass" to his nephew Edmund, fromunder whose head it was stolen by some camp thief. In his numerous andcapacious pockets, besides a watch and a pocket compass, was a storeof note-books, in which he was accustomed to jot his rapid, lightning-like notes, which meant "reading without tears" for him, butwoe and sorrow to those who had to knit their brows in trying todecipher his "crow-tracks. " During the first part of the war he boughthorses as often as he needed them, and these were not always of thefirst quality as to flesh or character. He usually found it difficultto recover his beast after having been away home. In the latercampaigns he possessed finer animals for longer spaces of time, takingmore pains, and spending more money to recover them on his return fromabsences North. 

Nevertheless, in order to beat other correspondents, to be at thefront, in the right moment, in order to satisfy the need for news, hecounted neither the life nor the ownership of his horse as worth amoment's consideration. In comparison with the idea of stilling thepublic anxiety, and giving the news of victory, he acted upon theprinciple of his Master, --"Ye are of more value than many sparrows. "One man, using plain English, says, "Uncle Carleton got the news, goodness knows how, but he got it always and truly. He was thecheekiest man on earth for the sake of the _Journal_, and the peopleof New England. He used to ask for and give news even to thecommander-in-chief. Often the staff officers would be amazed at thecheek of Carleton in suggesting what should be done. His bump oflocality and topography was well developed, and he read the face ofthe country as by intuition. He would talk to the commander as nocivilian could or would, but Meade usually took it pleasantly, andGrant always welcomed it, and seemed glad to get it. I have seen him(Grant) in long conversations with Mr. Coffin, when no others werenear. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

Carleton's account of the battle of Bull Run, where the Union forcesfirst won the day, and then lost it through a panic, was so graphic, accurate, and comprehensive, that the readers of the Boston _Journal_at once poured in their requests that the same writer should continuehis work and reports. 

From his position with the Union batteries he had a fine view of thewhole engagement. Many of the statements which he made were, as totheir accuracy, perfect. For example, when the Confederates firedcontinuous volleys, making one long roll of musketry, mingled withscreams, yells, and cheers, while their batteries sent a rain of shelland round shot, grape and canister, upon a body of three companies ofMassachusetts men, Carleton stood with his watch in his hand to seehow long these raw troops could stand such a fire. It is wonderful toread to-day his volume of "Army Correspondence, " and find so little tocorrect. 

Besides letters written on the field during the first of four battles, he wrote from Washington in review of the whole movement. He was notat all discouraged by what had happened, believing that the bitterexperience, though valuable, was worth its cost. He does not seem tohave been among the number of those who expected that the greatinsurrection would be put down in a few months. Like every one else, he was at first smitten with that glamour which the Western soldiers, led by Grant, soon learned to call "McClellanism. " It was with genuineadmiration that he noticed the untiring industry and superb organizingpowers of "Little Mac;" who, whatever his later faults may have been, was the man who transformed a mob of militia into that splendidmachine animated by an unquailing soul, "The Army of the Potomac. " Yetin the cool light of history, we must rate Gen. George B. McClellan asthe military Erasmus of this war of national reformation, while Grantwas its Luther. 

Late in August, after ten days' rest at home to recruit exhaustedenergies, Carleton was once more at his post in the "City ofMagnificent Distances--and big lies, " attempting to draw out the truthfrom whole maelstroms of falsehood. He writes: "Truly this is a citygiven to lying. " He had a habit of hunting down falsehoods, of tracingrumors to their holes. Many an hour in the blazing sun, consuming hisstrength, did this hater of lies spend in chasing empty breaths. Oncehe rode forty miles on horseback, simply to confirm or reject anassertion. Very early, however, he learned to put every report uponthe touchstone, and under the nitric acid of criticism. He quicklygained experience, and saved much vexation to himself and his readers. In this way his letters became what they are, like coins put in thepyx, and mintage that survives the best of the goldsmiths. When readthirty-five years after the first drying of the ink, we have astandard of truth, needing correction, for the most part, only hereand there, in such details as men clearly discern only in theperspective of time. 

Under McClellan's strict orders, Washington became less of a nationalbar-room. The camps were made models of cleanliness, hygiene, andcomfort, and schools of strict preparation for the stern work ahead. Carleton often rode through them, and out on the picket-line. Amonghis other studies, being a musician, he soon learned the various notesand tones of round and conical bullet, of globular and case shot, ofshell and rocket, as an Indian learns the various sounds and calls ofbirds and beasts. Never wearing eye-glasses, until very late in life, and then only for reading, he was able, when standing behind ordirectly before a cannon, to see the missile moving as a black spot onthe invisible air, and from a side view to perceive the short plug ofcondensed air in front of a ball, which is now clearly revealed byinstantaneous photography. He soon noted how the variation in thecharge of powder, and the curve of the rifle, changed the pitch of theball, and how and why certain shells with ragged edges of lead screamlike demons, and work upon the nerves by their sound and fury ratherthan their total of results. He soon discovered that in a battle theartillery, except at short ranges, and in the open, bears nocomparison in its killing power to the rifles of the infantry. Like anold soldier, he soon came to look with something like contempt uponthe ponderous cannon and mortars, and to admire the low firing of theold veteran musket-men. 

During those humiliating days, when the stars and bars waved uponMunson's Hill within sight of the Capitol, Carleton saw much of theConfederates through his glass. Picket-firing, though irregular and, probably, from a European point of view, unmilitary, trained thetroops to steadiness of nerve. Many things in the first part of thewar were done which were probably not afterwards often repeated; forexample, the meeting of officers on the picket-lines, who hadcommunications with each other, because they were freemasons. InSeptember, the Confederates fell back from Munson's Hill, and onOctober 21st the battle at Poolsville, or Ball's Bluff, took place, inwhich, out of 1, 800 Federals engaged, over one-third were killed, wounded or missing. The Fifteenth Massachusetts regiment sufferedheavily. Colonel Devens, afterwards major-general and attorney-general, covered himself with glory, but the brave Colonel Baker lost his life. 

Edward Dickinson Baker, born in England, had come to the United Statesin his youth. Between his thirtieth and fortieth year he had served inCongress as representative from Illinois. Then removing to California, he became a popular orator of the Republican party. In 1860 he waselected United States Senator from Oregon. I remember reading with athrill his speech in the Senate, and his rebuke of Breckinridge. A fewdays later he was in Philadelphia holding a commission as colonel. Hevisited in their different halls the volunteer fire companies of ourQuaker City. In torrents of overwhelming eloquence, he called on themto enlist in his famous "California Regiment, " which was quicklyclothed, equipped, and given the first rudiments of militaryinstruction. I remember his superb, manly figure, in the very prime oflife, his rosy English face set in a glory of hair just turning tosilver. With hat off, he rode up and down the line, as the regimentstood in "company front" on Federal Street, between the old CooperShop (which was destined later to be the great Volunteers'Refreshment Saloon) and the Baltimore Depot, where they were to takecars for the seat of war. Like the "ten thousand" with Klearchos, foreigner, but also friend and commander, of whom Xenophon in the"Anabasis" speaks, it was already uncertain whether the Philadelphiamen most feared or loved their lion-hearted leader. A few weeks wentby, the tragedy of Ball's Bluff took place, and in Independence Hall Isaw the brave Colonel Baker's body lying in state. In that hall ofheroes, it seemed to my imagination as though the painted eyes of theRevolutionary heroes looked down in sympathy and approval. There, ifnot already among them, soon hung also the picture of Lieutenant HenryGreble, friend and neighbor, killed at Big Bethel, and the firstofficer in the regular army slain during the war. Colonel, afterwardsGeneral, Charles Devens, Jr. , whose acquaintance Mr. Coffin made aboutthis time, distinguished himself from this early engagement at Ball'sBluff throughout the war, and until the closing scene at AppomattoxCourt House, rising to the rank of brevet major-general. Longafterwards, in Boston, having been attorney-general of the UnitedStates, I knew him as the judge of the Supreme Court ofMassachusetts, meeting him socially more than once, and noticing thewarm friendship between the famous war correspondent and thisdignified interpreter of law. 

After the battle of Ball's Bluff, seeing in detail the other and thehideous side of war in the mutilation of the human frame, and theawful horror of wounds, Carleton took a long ride through EasternMaryland to look at the rebel batteries along the lower Potomac and tostudy the roads, the food products, and the black and white humanityof the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac regions, besides informing himselfas to the Union flotilla. In the absence of active militaryoperations, he wrote of the religious life of the soldiers. He wasappalled at the awful profanity around him, and his constant prayer toGod was for strength to resist the demoralizing influences around him, which seemed to him a hell on earth. His wife's words followed him"like a strain of music, " and "the infinite purity of Jesus" was hisinspiring influence. 

He made himself thoroughly acquainted with the New England regiments, and studied the details in the "mosaic of the army. " He became soexpert in studying the general composition of the regiments, theirphysical appearance, and ways of life, peculiarities of thought, speech, and action, that usually within five minutes he could tellfrom what State, and usually from what locality a regiment had come. He writes:

"A regiment from Vermont is as unlike a regiment from Pennsylvaniaalmost as a pea from a pumpkin. Both are excellent. Both are brave. Both will fight well; but in the habits of life, in modes of doing athing, they are widely different. "

"Just look at the division that crosses the Potomac, and see themosaic of McClellan's army. Commencing on the right there is McCall'sdivision, one grand lump of Pennsylvania coal and iron. There isSmith's division, containing a block of Vermont marble; then Porter'stough conglomerate of Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island; then McDowell's, a splendid specimen of NewYork; then Blenker's, a magnificent contribution from Germany, withsuch names as Stahl, Wurnhe, Amsburg, Bushbeck, Bahler, Steinwick, Saest, Betje, Cultes D'Utassy, Von Gilsa, and Schimmelpfennig, whotalk the language of their Fatherland, sing the Rhine songs, and drinka deluge of lager beer, --slow, sure, reliable men, of the stock thatstood undismayed when all things were against them, in the times ofFrederick the Great, who lost everything except courage, and, thatbeing invincible, regained all they had lost. Then there are the Irishbrigades and regiments from a stock which needs no words of praise, for their deeds are written in history. Without enumerating all thedivisions, we see Yankees, Germans, Irish, Scotch, Italians, Frenchmen, Norwegians, and Dutchmen, --all in one army; and, grandestspectacle of all, moved by one common impulse to put down thisrebellion, and to save for all future time the principle upon whichthis government is founded. "

Weeks and months passed, and Carleton became acquainted with all theminutiæ of camp life. He studied the peculiarities of the sutler, thearmy mule, the government rations, and the pies concocted in New York. He enjoyed the grand reviews, noting with his quick eye thedifference, in the great host, between the volunteers and theregulars. Of the type of that noble band of officers and men, none theless patriotic because more thoroughly educated in drills than thevolunteers, he wrote: "His steps are regulated, --his motions, hismanners, --he is a _regular_ in all these. The volunteer stoops beneaththe load on his back. He is far more like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim'sProgress, ' with his burden of sin, than the regular. His steps areuneven, his legs are more unsteady. He carries his gun at a differentangle. He lacks the finish which is obtained only by hard drill, andexact discipline. " He closed this letter with a tribute of praise toTidball's superb battery of artillery. 

At this time the cavalry were not in good repute, General Scott notbeing in favor of any horsemen, except for scouting purposes. In thisarm of the service the Confederates were far ahead of the Unionsoldiers. Grant, Sheridan, and Ronald McKenzie had not yet transformedour Northern horsemen into whirlwinds of fire. After various otherexperiences, including a long ride through Western Maryland, Carleton, within a few days before Christmas, was called by his employers toleave the Army of the Potomac, to go west to the prospectivebattle-field, where the heavy blows were soon to be struck. He wassucceeded in Washington by Mr. Benjamin Perley Poore. A few noblewords of farewell in his 109th letter, dated Washington, December 21, 1861, closed Carleton's first campaign in the East, his acquaintancewith the Army of the Potomac having begun on the 12th of June. Havingwon the hearts of the soldiers in camp, and their friends at home, heleft for "the next great battle-field" in the West, where, as he said, "history will soon be written in blood. " He would see how the navy, aswell as the army, was to bring peace by its men of valor, and itsheavy guns, --"preachers against treason. " His experience was to be ofwar on the waters, as well as on land. 

CHAPTER IX. 

"HO, FOR THE GUNBOATS, HO!"

His first letter from the Army of the West, he dated, Cincinnati, December 28, 1861. Instead of a comparatively circumscribed Utica (onthe Potomac), to confine his powers, our modern Ulysses had a line athousand miles long, and a territory larger than several New Englandsto look over. His first work, therefore, was to invite his readers toa panorama of Kentucky and the Mississippi Valley. Thus far in the warthere had been no masterly moves, but, on the contrary, masterlyinactivity. With such splendid chances for heroes, who would improvethem? Neither Wolfe nor Washington had played Micawber, but hadcreated opportunities. Carleton wrote, "Now is the time for thehighest order of military genius. .. . We wait for him who shall improvethe propitious hours. " So in waiting went out the gloomy year of1861. At Louisville, Ky. , Carleton made the acquaintance in detail ofGeneral Buell's army. The commander, Don Carlos Buell, did not enjoythe presence of correspondents, and those from Cincinnati and New Yorkpapers had been expelled from the camp; nor was Carleton's letter fromthe Secretary of War, asking that "facilities consistent with publicinterests" be granted him, of any avail. He wrote on New Year's day, "No more troops are needed here, or on the Potomac at present; what iswanted is _activity_, --activity, --activity. "

Following Horace Greeley's advice, Carleton went West. On January 4th, having surveyed the land and people, he sent home two letters, thenmoved on to Rolla, in the heart of Missouri, and, having got out ofSt. Louis with his passes, he found himself, January 11th, at Cairo. There the New England men were warm in their welcome of the solerepresentative of the press of the Eastern States, though St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, and New York journals were also represented. Among these were A. D. Richardson, of the New York _Tribune_, andWhitelaw Reid, of the Cincinnati _Gazette_. Unlike General Don CarlosBuell, General U. S. Grant, in command at Cairo, had no horror ofnewspaper correspondents, and granted them all reasonable facilities. For the first time Carleton looked upon the gunboats, "three being ofthe coal-transport pattern, and five of the turtle style, " with sidessloping inward, both above and below the deck. A shot from the enemywould be likely either to fly up in the air or "go into the realms ofthe catfish. " As to the army, Carleton noticed that, as compared withthe Army of the Potomac, discipline was much more severe in the East, while real democracy was much more general in the West. Men seemedless proud of their shoulder-straps. The rules of military etiquettewere barely observed. 

"There is but very little of the soldier about these Western troops. They are armed citizens, brave, active, energetic, with a finephysique, acquainted with hardships, reared to rough life . .. But itis by no means certain that they will not be quite as effective in thefield. The troops here are a splendid set of men, all of themyoung. .. . There is more bone and muscle here, but less culture . .. Ihave heard far less profanity here than on the Potomac, among officersand men. " He believed there were fewer profane words used and lesswhiskey drunk than among the troops in the East. There was not as muchattention paid to neatness and camp hygiene. 

It was at Cairo that Carleton made the personal acquaintance, which heretained until their death, of General Ulysses S. Grant and CommodoreFoote. The latter had already made a superb reputation as a navalofficer in Africa and China. Before Foote was able to equip and starthis fleet, or Grant could move his army southward, on what proved tobe their resistless march, Carleton made journeys into Kentucky, wroteletters from Cincinnati and Chicago, and arrived back in time to joinGeneral Grant's column. He went down the river, seeing the victoriousbattle and siege operations. First from Cairo, and then from FortDonelson, he penned brilliant and accurate accounts of the capture ofFort Henry and Fort Donelson, which opened the Southern Confederacy tothe advance of the Union army. While Grant beat the rebels, Carletonbeat his fellow correspondents, even though he had first to spendmany hours among the wounded. The newspaper men from New York hadpoked not a little fun at the "Boston man, " chaffing him because theythought the New England newspapers "slow" and "out of date inmethods. " They fully expected that Carleton's despatches would be farbehind theirs in point of time as well as in general value. Theirboasting was sadly premature. Carleton beat them all, and theirhumiliation was great. 

The matter was in this wise. He had hoped by taking the first boatfrom Fort Donelson to Cairo to find time to write out an account ofthe siege and surrender of the great fortresses; but during his travelof one hundred and eighty miles on the river, the steamer had in itscabin and staterooms two hundred maimed soldiers and officers withtheir wounds undressed. Instead of occupation with ink-bottle, pen, and paper, Carleton found himself giving water to the wounded, andholding the light for surgeons and nurses. Then, knowing that no othercorrespondent had the exact and copious information possessed byhimself, he took the cars, writing his letters on the route fromCairo to Chicago, where he mailed them. 

No doubt at this time, while Carleton was writing so brilliantly to aquarter of a million readers, many of them envied him hisopportunities. Distance lent enchantment to the view. "But let mesay, " wrote Carleton, "if they were once brought into close contactwith all the dreadful realities of war, --if they were obliged to standthe chances of getting their heads knocked off, or blown to atoms byan unexpected shell, or bored through with a minie ball, --to standtheir chances of being captured by the enemy, --to live on bread andwater, and little of it, as all of the correspondents have beenobliged to do the past week, --to sleep on the ground, or on a sack ofcorn, or in a barn, with the wind blowing a gale, and the snowwhirling in drifts, and the thermometer shrunk to zero, --and then, after the battle is over and the field won, to walk among the dyingand the dead, to behold all the ghastly sights of trunkless heads andheadless trunks, --to see the human form mutilated, disfigured, torn, and mangled by shot and shell, --to step in pools of blood, --to hearall around sighs, groans, imprecations, and prayers from dyingmen, --they would be content to let others become historians of thewar. But this is not all; a correspondent must keep ever in view thethousands that are looking at the journal he represents, who expecthis account at the earliest possible moment. If he is behindhand, hisoccupation is gone. His account must be first, or among the first, orit is nothing. Day and night he must be on the alert, improving everyopportunity and turning it to account. If he loses a steamboat trip, or a train of cars, or a mail, it is all up with him. He might as wellput his pencil in his pocket and go home. "

Carleton had a hearty laugh over a letter from a friend who advisedhim "to take more time and rewrite his letters, " adding that it wouldbe for his benefit. To Carleton, who often wrote amid the smoke ofbattle or on deck amid bursting shells, or while flying over theprairies at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, in order, first ofall, to be ahead of his rivals, this seemed a joke. In after-years ofcalm and leisure, when writing his books, he painted word pictures andfinished his chapters, giving them a rhetorical gloss impossible whenwriting in haste against the pressure of rushing time. Although Bostonwas two hundred miles farther from Cairo than New York, yet all NewEngland had read Carleton's account in the _Journal_ before anycorrespondent's letters from Fort Donelson or Henry appeared in thenewspapers of Manhattan. 

After the fall of Columbus, the next point to which army and navy wereto give attention was the famous Island Number Ten. Here theConfederates were concentrating all that were available in men andcannon. Thousands of negroes were at work upon the trenches, and itwas believed that the fight would be most desperate. After longwaiting for his armament and the training of his men, Commodore Footewas ready. Carleton wrote at Cairo, March 10, 1862, in theexhilaration of high hopes:

"Like the waves of the Atlantic is the tide of events. How they sweep!Henry, Donelson, Bowling Green, Nashville, Roanoke, Columbus, HamptonRoads, Manassas, Cedar Creek, --wave upon wave, dashing at thefoundation of a house built upon the sand. 

. .. The gigantic structure is tottering. A few more days like that ofthe immediate past, and the Confederacy will have a name and a placeonly in history. And what a history it will be! A most stupendouscrime. A conspiracy unparalleled, crushed out by a free people, andthe best government of all times saved to the world! How it sendsone's blood through his veins to think of it! Who would not live insuch an age as this? Before this reaches you, the telegraph, I hope, will have informed you that the Mississippi is open to New Orleans. "

So thought Carleton then. Who at that time was wiser than he?

Island Number Ten, so named quite early in history, by the pilotsdescending the river, was a place but little known in the East. To thewriter it was one of interest, because here had lived for a year or soa beloved sister whose letters from the plantation and home at whichshe was a guest were not only frequent, but full of the fun and keeninterest about things as seen on a slave plantation by a bright younggirl of twenty from Philadelphia. Well do I remember the handsomeplanter of commanding form and winning manners who had made mysister's stay in the family of the Merriwethers so pleasant, and whoat our home in Philadelphia told of his life on the Mississippi. Thiswas but two or three years before the breaking out of the war. Thissame plantation on Island Number Ten was afterwards sown thickly withthe seed of war, shot, and shell. In front of it took place the greatnaval battle, which Carleton witnessed from the deck of the gunboat_Pittsburg_, which he has described not only in his letters but alsoin the books written later. After the destruction of the rebel fleetfollowed the heavy bombardment which, after many days of constant rainof iron, compelled the evacuation of the forts early in April. Evenafter these staggering blows at the Confederacy, Carleton expatiatedon the mighty work that yet remained to be done before Secessia shouldbecome one of the curiosities of history in the limbo of thingsexploded. 

A month of arduous toil and continuous activity on foot, on deck, andon horseback followed. On the river and in Tennessee and inMississippi the tireless news-gatherer plied his tasks. Then cametidings of the capture of New Orleans, the evacuation of Fort Pillow, in or near which Carleton wrote two of his best letters; the retreatof the Confederates from Memphis, and the annihilation of the rebelfleet in a great water battle, during which Carleton had the very bestposition for observation, only two other journalists being present towitness it with him. Owing to a week's sickness, he did not see thebattle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing, but he arrived on the groundvery soon after, and went over the whole field with participants inthe struggle and while the débris was still fresh. He made so thorougha study of this decisive field of valor, that he was able to writewith notable power and clearness both in his letters at the time andlater in his books. 

We find him in Chicago, June 17th, in Boston, June 21st, where, in oneof his letters, numbering probably about the two hundredth, hewelcomes the sweet breezes of New England, her mountains, thedeep-toned diapason of the ever-sounding sea, the green fields, thetroops of smiling children, the toll of church bells, and the warmgrasp of hands from a host of kind-hearted friends; and, best of all, the pure patriotism, the true, holy devotion of a people whose mightyhearts beat now and ever "for union and liberty, one andinseparable. "

CHAPTER X. 

AT ANTIETAM AND FREDERICKSBURG. 

The opening of the battle-summer of 1862 found the seat of war in theEast, in the tidewater region of Virginia. These were the days when"strategy" was the word. General George B. McClellan's leading ideawas to capture Richmond rather than destroy the Confederate army. Hisown forces lay on both sides of the Chickahominy, in the peninsulabelow Richmond. The series of five battles had already begun whenCarleton arrived in Baltimore, July 2d. A peremptory order fromWashington having stopped every one from reaching Fortress Monroe, hehad therefore to do the next best thing as collector and reviser ofnews. After studying the whole situation, he wrote a long and detailedletter from Baltimore. 

Spending most of the summer at home, he was able to rejoin the armyearly in September, when Lee began his daring invasion of theNorth, --a political even more than a military move. Then Confederateaudacity was fully matched by Pennsylvania's patriotism. Although theState had already one hundred and fifty regiments in service, GovernorAndrew D. Curtin called for fifty thousand more men. Within ten daysthat number of militia were armed and equipped, and in the field. Millionaires and wage-earners, professors and students, ministers andtheir congregations were in line guarding the Cumberland Valley. Neither disasters nor the incapacity of generals chilled the fierceresolve of Pennsylvania's sons, who were determined to show that theNorth could not be successfully invaded, even by veterans led by thebravest and most competent generals of the age. 

Carleton was in the saddle as soon as he learned that Lee had moved. From Parkton to Hanover Junction, to Westminster, to Harrisburg, toGreen Castle, to Hagerstown, to Keitisville he rode, and at theseplaces he wrote, hoping to be in at the mightiest battle which, untilthis time, had ever been fought on American soil. For many days it wasa mystery to the Washington authorities, and to the Army of thePotomac, where Lee and his divisions were; but, with his usual goodfortune, Carleton was but nine miles distant, at Hagerstown, when thebooming of the cannon at Antietam roused him from his sleep. It wasnot many minutes before he was in saddle and away. Instead of the ridedown the Sharpsburg pike that would have brought him in rear of theenemy, he rode down the Boonsboro road, reaching the right wing of theUnion army just as Hooker was pushing his columns into position. Striking off from the main road, through fields and farms, he came toAntietam creek. He found a ford, and reached a pathway where a line ofwagons loaded with the wounded was winding down the slope. On thefields above was a squadron of cavalry to hold back stragglers. In thefirst ambulance he descried a silver star, and saw the face of thebrave General Richardson, dead, with a bullet through his breast. Atthe farmhouses, rows of men were already lying in the straw, waitingtheir turn at the surgeon's hands, while long lines of men werebringing the fallen on stretchers. With hatred of war in his heart, but with faith in its stern necessity, Carleton rode on to see thefight which raged in front of Sumner, noticing that the cannon ofHooker and Mansfield were silent, cooling their lips after themorning's fever. Of the superb Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, which hehad seen a year ago at review, there was now but a remnant. Heascended the ridge, where thirty pieces of cannon were every momentemptying their black mouths of fire and iron. 

All day long Carleton was witness of the battle, and then sent homefrom Sharpsburg, September 19th, in addition to his preliminaryletter, a long and comprehensive account in five columns of print. Itwas so animated in style, so exact in particulars, and so skilful andclear in its general grouping, that its writer was overwhelmed withcongratulations by the best of all critics, his fellow correspondents. In two other letters from Sharpsburg, he reviewed the whole subjectjudicially, and then returned home for a few days' recuperation. 

From Philadelphia we find two of his letters, one describing thetransport of troops and the monitors then on the stocks, or in theDelaware, and another reviewing the account of Antietam which he hadread in the Charleston _Courier_. Indeed, all through the war, Mr. Coffin took pains to inform himself as to Southern opinion, and themethods of its manufacture and influence by the press. He was thusable to correct and purify his own judgments. He preserved his copiesof the Southern papers, and gradually accumulated, during and afterthe war, a unique collection of the newspapers of the South. His firstopinion about the battle of Antietam, written October 8, 1862, is thesame as that which he held thirty years later:

"In reviewing the contest, aided by the Southern account, it seemsthat all through the day, complete, decisive, annihilating victory laywithin our grasp, and yet we did not take it. "

Let us read further from the closing paragraph of that letter, whichhe wrote in Philadelphia, before moving West to the army in Kentucky:

"In saying this, I raise no criticism, make no question or blame, butprefer to look upon it as a controlling of that Providence whichnotices the fall of every sparrow. The time had not come for completevictory, --for annihilation of the rebel army. We are not yet over theRed Sea. The baptism of blood is not yet complete. The cause of thewar is not yet removed, --retribution for crime is not yet finished. Wemust suffer again. With firmer faith than ever in the ultimate triumphof right, truth, and justice, let us accept the fiery ordeal. "

Like the pendulum of an observatory clock, the bob-point of whichtouches at each vibration the mercury which transmits intelligence ofits movements to distant points, Carleton now swung himself toCincinnati. In Louisville he gave an account, from reports, of thebattle of Perryville. It was written in the utmost haste, with one eyeupon the hands of his watch moving on to the minute of the closing ofthe mail. In such a case, according to his custom, he wrote a secondletter, when possessed with fuller data from eye-witnesses. In theheart of Kentucky he was able to see the effects of the President'sEmancipation Proclamation, which had been issued but three weeksbefore. He described the coming of the Confederate army into Kentuckyas "the Flatterer, dressed in a white garment, who with many fairspeeches would have turned Christian and Faithful from the glitteringgates of the Golden City, shining serene and fair over the land ofBeulah. " The robe having dropped from Flatterer's limbs, theKentuckian saw that the reality was hideous, and that to follow himwas to go back again to the City of Destruction. The Confederatesmoved southward, laden with plunder, while General Buell, with hisarmy of one hundred and forty thousand men, after having mildlypursued them for twenty-one days, returned to Louisville. Carleton'scomment upon these movements is, "Such is strategy. "

Finding himself again in the trough of inactivity, and ever ready tomount on the wave of opportunity, Carleton moved again to the East, writing in the cars while whirling to Virginia. His first letters fromthe East were penned at Harper's Ferry. Then began his zigzagmovements, like a planet. We find his pen active at Berlin, Md. , Purcellville, Va. , Upperville, Va. , where, beside the cavalry battlesbetween Pleasanton and Stewart, he saw that seven corps were inmotion. From Gainesville, Warrenton Junction, Orleans, Warrenton, Catlett's Station, and again and often from Washington, and fromFalmouth, he sent his letters, which, if not always full of battle, kept the heart of New England patient and courageous. 

McClellan had been removed, and Burnside, taking command, led his armyto the riverside before Fredericksburg. Carleton was witness of thebombardment of the city by the Federal artillery. From his coign ofvantage at General Sumner's headquarters, on the piazza of an elegantmansion, one hundred feet above the Rappahannock, and aboutthree-quarters of a mile from it, he could see, as though it were agreat cartoon and he a weaver of the Gobelins tapestry of history, theawful pattern of war. Beyond the sixteen rifled Rodman guns of largecalibre and long range, mounted on the river bluff and thrust outthrough sand-bags, behind the masses of infantry, the pontoon andartillery trains, Carleton stood and saw the making of a bridge infifteen minutes, in the face of a terrific musketry fire from theopposite shore. Then followed views of the street fight in the doomedcity, the shattered houses, the cloudless sky, the setting sun, thegorgeous sunset dyes, the deepening shadows, the masses of men uponthe opposite hills, the screaming shells, the puffs of white smoke, the bursting storms of iron, the blood-red flames illuminating theruin of dwellings, the battle smoke settling in the valley, so denselyas to obscure or hide the flashes. All this was before Carleton onthat afternoon and evening of that winter's day, December 11th. Thenhe spread his blanket for a little sleep, expecting to awake to beholdone of the greatest battles of modern times; but the sun set withoutthe two great armies coming to close quarters. 

The next day was a hard one, for Carleton was in the field untilnight, now watching a bombardment, now a charge, and again a long andstubborn, persistent musketry fire. The shells sang near him, and atone time he was evidently the target for a whole Confederate battery;for, within a few seconds, a round shot struck a few rods in front ofhim, a second fell to the right, a third went over his head, a fourthskimmed along the surface of the ground, just over the backs of aregiment, lying flat on their faces. As he moved to the shelter of theriver bank, a shot dropped obligingly in the water before him. All daylong the lines of batteries on the hills smoked like Etna andVesuvius. Sometimes, between ordnance and musketry, there were twentythousand flashes a minute. Carleton thus far had seen no battles wherethe fire equalled that which was poured upon Sumner's command duringthe last grand, but hopeless, charge at sunset. At nightfall, when thewearied soldiers could lie down for rest, Carleton began the work ofwriting his letter. Among other things he said:

"With the deference to military strategics, my own common sensedeprecated attempting the movements which were made, as unnecessaryand unwise, --which must be accomplished with fearful slaughter, andwhich I believed would be unsuccessful. .. . 

"It is a plain of Balaklava, where the Light Brigade, renowned insong, made their fearful charge. "

Then follows a simple but sufficient diagram of the Confederateimpregnable position, where, with only common printer's type, and the"daggers" of punctuation standing for Blakesley and Armstrong guns, printer's ink told the story. Though nearly exhausted by his manifoldlabors of brain and muscle, Carleton, on the 15th, visited thebattle-field, which did not exceed one hundred acres, and the city inwhich the troops were quietly quartered, but in which a Confederateshell was falling every ten minutes. After surveying the near anddistant scenes from the cupola of an already well-riddled house, Carleton followed the army when it withdrew to Falmouth, seeingthrough his glass the Confederates leaping upon the desertedentrenchments and staring at the empty town. 

Returning to Washington, he reviewed as usual the battle, and thenreturned homeward, according to his wont, for three weeks of rest andrefreshment. His last letter, before leaving the front, was a nobleand inspiriting plea for patience and continuance. He wrote: "The armyis ready to fight, but the people are despondent. The army has notlost its nerve, its self-possession, its balance; it is more powerfulto-day than it has ever been. It has no thought of giving up thecontest. The cause is holy. It is not for power or dominion, but forthe rich inheritance decreed by our fathers. "

The same bugle call of inspiration sounded from his lips and pen, whenhe rejoined the army on the Rappahannock, and Hooker was in command. He wrote: "The army needs several things; first, to be supported bythe people at home. There is nothing which will so quickly take thestrength out of the soldier as a blue letter from home, and on theother hand there is nothing which would give him so much life as acheerful, hopeful letter from his friends. Let every one look beyondthe immediate present into the years to come, and think of theinheritance he is to bequeath to his children. Let him see the comingmillions of our people on this continent; let him lay his ear to theground, and hear the tread of that mighty host which is to people theMississippi Valley; which will climb the mountains of the West, tocoin the hidden riches into gold; let him see the great citiesspringing up on the Pacific Coast; let him understand that this nationis yet in its youth; that this continent is to be the highway betweenChina and Europe; let him behold this contest in its vast proportion, reaching through all coming time, and affecting the entire human raceforever; let him resolve that, come weal or come woe, come life orcome death, that it shall be sustained, and it will be. "

Another letter deals in rather severe sarcasm with a friend whobelonged to "the Nightshade family, " one of those individuals whothrive on darkness. He wrote: "People of New England, are you notashamed of yourselves? Away with your old womanish fears, yourshivering, your timidity, your garrulousness. .. . Sustain your sons bybold, inspiring, patriotic words and acts; act like men. .. . This army, this government must be sustained. It will be. "

CHAPTER XI. 

THE IRONCLADS OFF CHARLESTON. 

After five letters from Washington, in the first of which he hadpredicted that in a few days, for the first time in war, there wouldbe the great contest between ironclads and forts, and the stroke offifteen-inch shot against masonry, Carleton set off for salt water, determining to see the tug-of-war on the Atlantic coast. It was onSaturday afternoon, February 7th, that he stood on deck of the steamer_Augusta Dinsmore_ as she moved through the floating masses of icedown the Hudson River to the sea. This new ship was owned by Adams'sExpress Company, and with her consort, _Mary Sandford_, was employedin carrying barrels of apples, boxes of clothing, messages of love, and tokens of affection between the Union soldiers along the coast andtheir friends at home. Heavily loaded with express packages, withfifty or sixty thousand letters, and with several hundredfifteen-inch solid shot, packed ready for delivery by Admiral Du Pontat or into Fort Sumter, the trim craft passed over a sea like glass, except that now and then was a dying groan or heave of the storm of aweek before. A pleasant Sunday at sea was spent with worship, sermon, and song. After sixty hours on salt water, Carleton's ear caught theboom of the surf on the beach. The sea-gulls flitted around, and afterthe sun had rent the pall of fog, the town of Beaufort appeared inview. 

The harbor was full of schooners which had come from up North, bringing potatoes, onions, apples, and Yankee notions for the greatblue-coated community at Newburgh. Carleton moved up thepoverty-stricken country through marsh, sea-sand, pitch-pine, swamp, and plain. Here and there were the shanties of sand-hillers, negrohuts, and scores of long, lank, scrimped-up, razor-backed pigs of theCongo breed, as to color; but in speed, racers, outstripping thefleetest horses. Making his headquarters at Hilton Head, Carleton madea thorough study of the military and naval situation. He visited theNew England regiments. He saw the enlistment of negro troops, anddevoted one letter to Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson's first SouthCarolina regiment of volunteers. 

With his usual luck, that is, the result of intelligence and energywhich left nothing to mere luck, Carleton stood on the steamer_Nantasket_, off Charleston, April 7, 1863. Both admiral and generalhad recognized the war correspondents as the historians of the hour. At half past one, the signal for sailing was displayed from theflag-ship. Then the ugly black floating fortresses moved off in aline, each a third or a half a mile apart, against the masses ofgranite at Sumter and Moultrie, and the earthen batteries on threesides. "There are no clouds of canvas, no beautiful models of marinearchitecture, none of the stateliness and majesty which have markedhundreds of great naval engagements. There is but little to the sightcalculated to excite enthusiasm. There are eight black specks, and oneoblong block, like so many bugs. There are no human beings insight, --no propelling power visible. "

A few minutes later, "the ocean boils. " Columns of spray are tossedhigh in air, as if a hundred submarine mines were let instantly off, or a school of whales were trying which could spout highest. There isa screaming in the air, a buzzing and humming never before so loud. 

"You must think the earth's crust is ruptured, and the volcanic fires, long pent, have suddenly found vent. "

"There she is, the _Weehawken_, the target of probably two hundred andfifty or three hundred guns, at close range, of the heaviest calibrerifled cannon, throwing forged bolts and steel-pointed shot turned andpolished to a hair in the lathes of English workshops, advancingstill, undergoing her first ordeal, a trial unparalleled in history. For fifteen minutes she meets the ordeal alone. "

Soon the other four monitors follow. Seventy guns a minute arecounted, followed by moments of calm, and scattering shots, but onlyto break out again in a prolonged roar of thunder. In the lulls of thestrife, Carleton steadied his glass, and when the southwest breezeswept away the smoke, he could see "increasing pock-marks anddiscolorations upon the walls of the fort, as if there had been asudden breaking out of cutaneous disease. "

We now know, from the Confederate officers then in Fort Sumter, thatthe best artillery made in England, and the strongest powdermanufactured in the Confederacy, were used during this two and a halfhours of mutual hammering, until then unparalleled in the history ofthe world. Near sunset, at 5. 20 P. M. , signals from the flag-ship wereread; the order was, "Retire. "

The red sun sank behind the sand hills, and the silence was welcomed. During the heavy cannonade, --like the Union soldiers who, obedient tothe hunter's instinct, stopped in the midst of a Wilderness battle toshoot rabbits, --a Confederate gunner had trained his rifled cannonupon the three non-combatant vessels, the _Bibb_, the _Ben Deford_, and the _Nantasket_, which lay in the North Channel at a respectfuldistance, but quite within easy range of Sullivan's Island. Havingfired a half a dozen shot which had fallen unnoticed, the gunnerdemoralized the little squadron, and sent hundreds of interestedspectators running, jumping, and rolling below deck, by sending ashot transversely across the _Nantasket_. It dropped in the sea abouta hundred yards from the bow of the _Ben Deford_. Another shot inadmirable line fell short. Shells from Cummings Point had also beentried on the ships laden with civilians, but had failed to reach them. However, the correspondents claim to have silenced the batteries, --bygetting out of the way; for in a few minutes the cables had beenhauled in, paddle-wheels set in motion, and distance increased fromthe muzzles of the battery. 

When the fleet returned, Carleton leaped on board of the slush deck ofthe monitor _Catskill_, receiving hearty response from Captain GeorgeRodgers, who reported "All right, nobody hurt, ready for them again. "I afterwards saw all these monitors covered with indentations likespinning-top moulds or saucers. They were gouged, dented, and bruisedby case-shot that had struck and glanced sidewise. Here and there, itlooked as though an adamantine serpent had grooved its way over theconvex iron surface, as a worm leaves the mark of its crawling in thesoft earth under the stone. The _Catskill_ had received thirty shots, the _Keokuk_ a hundred. Inside of the _Nahant_, Carleton found elevenofficers and men badly contused by the flying of bolt-heads in theturret; but, except from a temporary jam, her armor was intact. On the_Patapsco_ a ball had ripped up the plating and pierced the workbeneath. This was the only shot that had penetrated any of themonitors. The _Weehawken_ had in one place the pittings of three shotswhich, had they immediately followed each other, might, like thearrows of the Earl of Douglas in Scott's "Lady of the Lake, " spliteach other in twain. Except leaving war's honorable scar, these threebolts hurt not the _Weehawken_. Out of probably three thousandprojectiles shot from behind walls, about three hundred and fifty tookeffect, that is, one shot out of six. Three tons of iron were hurledat Fort Sumter, and probably six tons at the fleet. Fighting inside ofiron towers, the Union men had no one killed, and but one mortallywounded. The _Keokuk_, the most vulnerable of all the ships engaged, sank under the northwest wind in the heavy sea of the next day. 

It was long after midnight when Carleton finished the closing lines ofhis letter, and then stepped out upon the steamer's guard for alittle fresh air. Over on Sumter's walls the signal-light was beingwaved. The black monitors lay at their anchorage. Ocean, air, andmoonbeams were calm and peaceful. From the flag-ship, which thedespatch steamer visited, the report was, "The engagement is to berenewed to-morrow afternoon. " Nevertheless, the next day, Admiral DuPont, dissenting from the opinions of his engineers and inspectors, asto a renewal of the attack, moreover finding his own officersdiffering in their opinions as to the ability of the fleet to reduceFort Sumter, ordered no advance. The enterprise was, for the present, at least, given up. So Carleton, after another letter on white andblack humanity in South Carolina, which showed convincingly theresults of slavery, sailed from Hilton Head. 

Like the war-horse of Hebrew poetry, he smelt the battle afar off, andlooked to Virginia. He reached home just in time to hear of the greatconflict at Chancellorsville. Rushing to Washington, and gathering upfrom all sources news of the disaster, he presented to the readers ofthe _Journal_ a clear and connected story of the battle. During thelatter part of May and until the middle of June, the previous weekshaving been times of inaction in the military world, Carletonrecruited his strength at home. Like a falcon on its perch, he awaitedthe opportunity to swoop on the quarry. 

CHAPTER XII. 

GETTYSBURG: HIGH TIDE AND EBB. 

When Lee and his army, leaving the front of the Union army andbecoming invisible, when President and people, general and chief andprivates, Cabinet officers and correspondents, were wondering what hadbecome of the rebel hosts, and when the one question in the North was, "Where is General Lee?" Carleton, divining the state of affairs, tookthe railway to Harrisburg. Once more he was an observer in the field. His first letter is dated June 16th, and illuminates the darkness likean electric search-light. 

General Lee, showing statesmanship as well as military ability, hadchosen a good time. The Federal army was losing its two years' andnine months' men. Vicksburg was about to fall. Something must be doneto counterbalance this certain loss to the Confederates. Paper moneyin the South was worth but ten per cent. Of its face value. Recognition from Europe must be won soon, or the high tide ofopportunity would ebb, nevermore to return. Like a great wave comingto its flood, the armed host of the Confederacy was moving to break atGettysburg and recede. 

Yet, at that time, who had ever thought of, or who, except the farmersand townsmen and students in the vicinity, had ever seen Gettysburg?At first Carleton supposed that Harper's Ferry might be the scene ofthe coming battle. Again he imagined it possible for Lee to move downthe Kanawha, and fall upon defenceless Ohio. He wrote from Harrisburg, from Washington, from Baltimore, from Washington again, from Baltimoreonce more, from Frederick, where he learned that Hooker had beensuperseded, and Meade, the Pennsylvanian, put in command. On June30th, writing from Westminster, Md. , he described the rapid marchingof the footsore and hungry Confederates, and the equally rapidpedestrianism of the Federals. He revels in the splendors of nature inSouthern Pennsylvania, which the Germans once hailed as a holy land ofcomfort and liberty, and which, by their industry, they had made"fair as the garden of the Lord. " As Carleton rode with the secondcorps from Frederick to Union Town, and thence to Westminster, hepenned prose poems in description of the glorious sight, so differentfrom his native and stony New Hampshire. 

"The march yesterday was almost like passing through paradise. Suchbroad acres of grain rustling in the breeze; the hills and valleys, bathed in alternate sunlight and shade; the trees so green; the air soscented with clover-blossoms and new-made hay; the cherry-trees rubywith ripened fruit, lining the roadway; the hospitality of the people, made it pleasant marching. "

Thus like the great forces of the universe, which make the ocean'sbreast heave to and fro, and send the tides in ebb and flood, were thegreat energies which were now to bring two hundred thousand men inarms, on the field of Gettysburg, in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Fortyyears before, as it is said, a British officer surveying the greatplain with the ranges of hills confronting each other from oppositesides, with many highroads converging at this point, declared withadmiration that this would be a superb site for a great battle. Nowthe vision of possibility was to become reality, and Carleton was tobe witness of it all. Since mid-June he had been on the rail or in thesaddle. He was now to spend sleepless nights and laborious days thatwere to tax his physical resources to their utmost. 

With his engineer's eye, and from the heights overlooking the mainfield, he took in the whole situation. From various points he saw theawful battles of July 2d and 3d, which he described in two letters, written each time after merciful night came down upon the field ofslaughter. He saw the charges and defeats, the counter-charges and thecontinued carnage, and the final cavalry onset made by the rebels. Hewas often under fire. An impression that lasted all his life, and towhich he often referred, was the result of that great movement ofPickett's division across the field, after the long bombardment of theFederal forces by the Confederate artillery. Retiring before the heavycannonade, Carleton had remained in the rear, until, hearing thecheers of the Union soldiers, he reached the slope in time to see thegray and brown masses in the distance. 

As the great wave of human life receded, that for a moment had piercedthe centre of the Union forces, only to be hurled back and broken, Carleton rode out down the hill and on the plain into the wheat field. Then and there, seeing the awful débris, came the conviction that therebellion had seen its highest tide, and that henceforth it would beonly ebb. 

When is a battle over, and how can one know it? That night, Friday, and the next day, Saturday, Carleton felt satisfied that Lee was infull retreat, though General Meade did not seem to think so. Carleton's face was now set Bostonwards. Not being able to use thearmy telegraph, he gave his first thought to reaching the railroad. The nearest point was at Westminster, twenty-eight miles distant, fromwhich a freight-train was to leave at 4 P. M. 

Rain was falling heavily, but with Whitelaw Reid as companion, Carleton rode the twenty-eight miles in two hours and a half. Coveredwith mud from head to foot, and soused to the skin, the two ridersreached Westminster at 3. 55 P. M. As the train did not immediatelystart, Carleton arranged for the care of his beast, and laying hisblanket on the engine's boiler, dried it. He then made his bed on thefloor of the bumping car, getting some sleep of an uncertain qualitybefore the train rolled into Baltimore. 

At the hotel on Sunday morning he was seized by his friend, E. B. Washburn, Grant's indefatigable supporter and afterwards Minister toFrance, who asked for news. Carleton told him of victory and theretreat of Lee. "You lie, " was the impulsive answer. Washburn's nerveshad for days been under a strain. Then, after telling more, Carletontelegraphed a half-column of news to the _Journal_ in Boston. Thismessage, sent thence to Washington, was the first news which PresidentLincoln and the Cabinet had of Gettysburg. After a bath and hoped-forrest, Carleton was not allowed to keep silence. All day, and until thetrain was entered at night for New York, he was kept busy in tellingthe good news. 

The rest of the story of this famous "beat, " as newspaper men call it, is given in Carleton's own words to a Boston reporter, a day or twobefore the celebration of his golden wedding in February, 1896:

"Monday I travelled by train to Boston, writing some of my story as Irode along, and wiring ahead to the paper what they might expect fromme. When I reached the office I found Newspaper Row packed withpeople, just as you will see it now on election night, and every onemore than anxious for details. 

"It was too late, however, for anything but the morning edition ofTuesday, but the paper wired all over New England the story it wouldhave, and the edition finally run off was a large one. 

"I locked myself in a room and wrote steadily until the paper went topress, seeing no one but the men handling the copy, and, when the lastsheet was done, threw myself on a pile of papers, thoroughlyexhausted, and got a few hours' sleep. I went to my home in thesuburbs, the next day, but my townspeople wouldn't let me rest. Theycame after me with a band and wagon, and I had to get out and tell thestory in public again. 

"The next day I left for the front again, riding forward fromWestminster, where I had left my horse, and thus covering about 100miles on horseback, and 800 miles by rail, from the time I left thearmy until I got back again. 

"Coffee was all that kept me up during that time, but my nerves didnot recover from it for a long time. In fact, I don't think I couldhave gone through the war as I did, had I not made it a practice totake as long a rest as possible after a big battle or engagement. "

In his letter written after the decisive event of 1863, Carleton paysa strong tribute of praise to the orderly retreat which Lee made fromPennsylvania. He was bitterly disappointed that the defeated armyshould have been allowed to escape. With the soldiers, he lookedforward with dread to another Virginia campaign. Nevertheless, he wasall ready for duty. Having found his horse and resumed his saddle, hespent a day revisiting the Antietam battle-field. It was still strewnwith the débris of the fight: old boots, shoes, knapsacks, belts, clothes all mouldy in the dampness of the woods. He found flattenedbullets among the leaves, fragments of shells, and, sickening to thesight, here and there a skull protruding from the ground, thebleaching bones of horses and men. The Dunkers' church and the houseswere rent, shattered, pierced, and pitted with the marks of war. 

Even until July 15th, when he sent despatches from Sharpsburg, henourished the hope that Lee's army could still be destroyed beforereaching Richmond. This was not to be. Like salt on a sore, and rubbedin hard, Carleton's sensibilities were cut to the quick, when, onagain coming home, he found the people in Boston and vicinity debatingthe question whether the battle of Gettysburg had been a victory forthe Union army or not. Some were even inclined to consider it adefeat. Carleton's letter of July 24th, written in Boston, fairlyfumes with indignation at the blind critics and in defence of the hardwork of the ever faithful old Army of the Potomac, "which has had hardfighting, --terrible fighting, and little praise. " He lost patiencewith those staying at home depreciating the army and finding faultwith General Meade. He wrote: "Frankly and bluntly, I cannotappreciate such stupidity. Why not as well ask if the sun rose thismorning? That battle was the greatest of the war. It was a repulsewhich became a disastrous defeat to General Lee. " He sarcasticallyinvited critics, "instead of staying at home to weaken the army byfinding fault, to step into the ranks and help do the 'bagging, ' the'cutting up, ' and the 'routing' which they thought ought to have beendone. "

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE BATTLES IN THE WILDERNESS. 

After the exhausting Gettysburg campaign, Carleton was obliged to restsome weeks. So far as his letter-book shows, he did not engage in warcorrespondence again until the opening of the next year, when heentered upon his fourth hundred of letters, and began a tour ofobservation through the border States. Traversing those between theOhio River and the Lakes, besides Missouri and Kansas, he kept the_Journal_ readers well informed of the state of sentiment, and showedthe preparations made to pursue the war. At the last of April, we findhim in Washington preparing his readers for the great events of theWilderness, in letters which clearly describe the prospective "valleyof decision. " The grandest sight, that week, in the city, was themarching of Burnside's veteran corps, in which were not only thebronzed white heroes, following their own torn and piercedbattle-flags, but also regiments of black patriots, slaves but a fewmonths before, but now no longer sons of the Dark Continent, but ofthe Land of Hope and Opportunity. From slavery they had been redeemedin the Free Republic. Unpaid sons of toil once, but free men now, theywere marching with steady step to certain victory or to certain death, for at that moment came the sickening details of the massacre of FortPillow. On the balcony of the hotel, standing beside the handsomeBurnside, was the tall and pale man who, having given them freedom, now recognized them as soldiers. As they halted by the roadside andread the accounts of massacre, their white teeth clenched, and oaths, not altogether profane, were sworn for vengeance. 

Out from the broad avenues of the nation's capital, and away from thesight of the marble dome, the great army and its faithful historiansmoved from sight, to the bloodiest contests of war. No more splendidpageants in the fields, but close, hard, unromantic destruction in thewoods and among trenches and craters! One mind now directed all themovements of the many armies of the Union, making all the forces atthe control of the nation into one mighty trip-hammer, for thecrushing of Slavery's conspiracy against Liberty. 

General Grant recognized in Carleton his old friend whom he first metin Cairo, and whom he had invited to take a nail-keg for a seat. Having established his reputation for absolute truthfulness, Carletonwon not only Grant's personal friendship, but obtained a pass signed"U. S. Grant, " which was good in all the military departments of thecountry, with transportation on all government trains and steamers. Inhours of relaxation, Carleton was probably as familiar with Grant aswas any officer on the general's own staff. Carleton profoundlyhonored and believed in Grant as a trained, regular army officer whocould cut loose from European traditions and methods, and fight in theway required in Virginia in 1864 and 1865. Further, Grant wanted theArmy of the Potomac to destroy Lee's army without the aid of, orreinforcement from, Western troops. 

Carleton comprehended the magnitude of the coming campaign, in whichwere centred the hopes of eighteen millions of Americans. In hiseyes it was the most stupendous campaign of modern times. "It is notthe movement of one army merely, but of three great armies, to crushout treason, to preserve the institutions of freedom, and consolidateourselves into a nation. " Butler and Smith were to advance from theChesapeake, the armies of the South and West were in time to marchnorthward in Lee's rear, while from the West and North were to comefresh hosts to consummate the grand combination. 

Carleton's foresight had shown him that, in this campaign, anassistant for himself would be absolutely necessary; for, in onerespect, Grant's advance was unique. Instead of, as heretofore, theUnion army's having its rear in close contact with the North, and allthe lines and methods of communication being open, the soldiers andthe correspondents were to advance into the Wilderness, and cutthemselves off from the railway, the telegraph, and even the ordinarymeans of communication by horse, wheel, and boat. Carleton, at shortnotice to the young man, chose for his assistant his nephew, EdmundCarleton, now a veteran surgeon and physician in New York, but then inthe freshness and fullness of youth, health, and strength. Alert andvigorous, fertile in resource, courageous and persevering, youngCarleton became the fleet messenger of the great war correspondent. Heassisted to gather news, and soon learned the art of winning thesoldier's heart, and of extracting, from officers and privates, scrapsand items of intelligence. Even as the hunter becomes expert in notingand interpreting signs in air and on earth which yield him spoil, soyoung Carleton, trained by his uncle, quickly learned how to securenews, and to make a "beat. " He kept himself well supplied to theextent of his ability with tobacco, --always welcome to the veterans, for which some "would almost sell their souls;" and with newspapers, for which officers would often give what was worth more thangold, --items of information, from which letters could be distilled, and on which prophecies could be based. Very appropriately, Carletondedicates his fourth book on the war, "Freedom Triumphant, " to hisfleet messenger. 

Carleton's first letter in the last long campaign is dated May 4, 1864, from Brandy Station. There four corps were assembled: theSecond, Hancock's; the Fifth, Warren's; the Sixth, Sedgwick's; theNinth, Burnside's. With Sheridan's riders, these made a great city oftents. The cavalry was not the cavalry of Scott's day, but was in itspotency a new arm of the service. From this time forth, theConfederate authorities, by neglecting this arm of their service, furnished one chief cause of final failure, while those in Washingtonsteadily increased in generous recognition of the power of union ofman and horse. In equal ability of brute and rider to endure fatigue, the Union cavalryman under Sheridan was a veritable centaur. 

While the great army lay waiting and expectant at Brandy Station, itwas significant to Carleton when the swift-riding orderlies suddenlyleft headquarters carrying sealed packages to the corps commanders. First began the tramping of the cavalry. Next followed the movement oftwo divisions of the Fifth Corps. All night long was heard the rumbleof artillery. Carleton wrote: "Peering from my window upon the shadowylandscape at midnight, I saw the glimmering of thousands ofcamp-fires, over all the plain. Hillside, valley, nook, and dell, threw up its flickering light. Long trains of white canvas wagonsdisappeared in the distant gloom. 

"At three A. M. , the reveille, the roll of innumerable drums, and theblow of bugles sounded, and as morning brightened, dark masses ofarmed men stood in long line. With the first beams of the sun peeringover the landscape, they moved from the hills. Disjointed parts werewelded together, regiments became brigades, brigades grew intodivisions, and divisions became corps. The sunlight flashed from ahundred thousand bayonets and sabres. " Thus in a few hours a greatcity of male inhabitants, numbering over the tenth of a million, disappeared. By night-time, in a rapid march, Grant was inheadquarters in a deserted house near the Germania Ford. ThereCarleton noticed the general's simple style of living. Unostentatiousin all his habits, he smoked constantly, often whittling a stick whilethinking, and wasting no words. Grant had stolen a march upon Lee, andwas as near Richmond as were the Confederates, who must attack him inflank and retard him if possible. Knowing every road and bridle-pathin the Wilderness, Lee, having drawn all the resources of theConfederacy east of Georgia into his lines, had gathered an army thelargest and the most complete he had yet commanded. He must now cut upGrant's host; or, if unable to do so, even without defeat, must begina march which meant some American Saint Helena as its end. 

The campaign which followed in that densely wooded part of Virginia, afew miles west of the former battle-field of Chancellorsville, had notbeen paralleled for hardship during the whole war. In the ten dayssucceeding May 4th, when the army broke camp at Culpeper and BrandyStation, there had been a march of eighteen miles, the crossing of theRapidan with hard fighting on May 5th, and on the 6th, the greatbattle in the Wilderness, among the trees from which the foe couldhardly be distinguished. On the 7th, there was fighting all along theline, with the night march after Spottsylvania, and on Sunday, the8th, under the burning sun, a sharp fight by the Fifth Corps. On the9th, another terrific battle followed, in which three corps wereengaged, one of them, the Sixth, losing its noble commander, Sedgwick, with a score or two of able officers. On the 10th, in theafternoon, a pitched battle was fought all along the line, lastinguntil midnight, in which all the corps were engaged. On Wednesday, the11th, skirmishing and picket firing formed the order of the day alongthe whole front. On Thursday, the 12th, at daybreak, the Second Corpsbegan its attack, capturing twenty-three guns and several thousandprisoners. Sunday, the 13th, was a time of rain, hard work, hunger, and fatigue. In a word, within twelve days there had been four greatpitched battles, with heavy fighting, mainly in the woods, and hardpounding on both sides, with many thousands of dead and wounded. 

During the war Carleton had seen no such fighting, suffering, patience, determination. General Grant freely admitted that thefighting had been without a parallel during the war. There was littlework done by the artillery. Swords and bayonets were but ornaments oremblems. Only lead had the potency of death in it. Even the cavalrydismounted, sought cover, shooting each other out of position withtheir carbines. Bullets, which do the killing, were the fixed forces. In war it is musketry that kills, and it was a question which sidecould stand murder the longest. 

At the end of the Wilderness episodes, Carleton, after first answeringthose critics far in the rear, who, to all the noble tenacity of Grantand his army, queried "_Cui bono_" wrote: "I confidently expect thathe [Grant] will accomplish what he has undertaken, because he isdetermined, has tenacity of purpose, measures his adversary at histrue value, expects hard fighting, and prepares for it. " It was tryingalmost to discouragement, to this brave, honest, patient seeker aftertruth, to find with what chaff and husk of imaginary news, manufactured in Washington and elsewhere, the editors of newspapershad to satisfy the hungry souls of the waiting ones at home. 

In one of the engagements, when our right wing had been forced by theConfederates; when the loud rebel yells were heard so near that theteamsters of the Sixth Corps were frightened into a panic, and, cutting the traces, ran so far and wide that it was two days beforethey were got together again; when, to many army officers, it seemedthe day had been lost, --as lost it had been, save for the stubbornvalor of the Sixth Corps; when many a face blanched, Carleton lookedat Grant. There was the modern Silent One, tranquil amid the waves ofbattle. Sitting quietly, with perfect poise, eyes on the ground, andsteadily smoking, he whittled a stick, neither flesh nor spiritquailing. "He himself knew what he would do. " And he did wait, and, inwaiting, won. Carleton's faith in Grant, strong from the first, wasnow as a mountain, unshakable. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

CAMP LIFE AND NEWS-GATHERING. 

The story of the Wilderness campaign, during which were fought thegreatest musketry battles in the history of the world, with theirawful slaughter, has been told by hundreds of witnesses, and byCarleton himself in his books; but the life of the camp and how thegreat army was handled, how the news was forwarded, and how Carletonbeat the government couriers and all his fellow historians of thehour, getting the true report of the awful struggle before thecountry, has not been told, or at least, only in part. Let us try torecall some of the incidents. 

In the first place, this was the time of the year when the flies andmanifold sort of vermin, flying, crawling, hopping, hungry, and everbiting, were in the full rampancy of their young vigor. It was notonly spiteful enemies in human form, that sent crashing shells andpiercing bullets, but every kind of nipping, boring, sucking, andstinging creatures in the air and on the earth, that our bravesoldiers, and especially our wounded, had to face. Even to theswallowing of a mouthful of coffee, or the biting of a piece of hardtack, it was a battle. Flies, above, around, and everywhere, made itdifficult to eat without taking in vermin also. Even upon the mostcareful man, the growth of parasites in the clothing or upon theperson was a certainty. Within twenty-four hours the carcass of ahorse, left on the field of battle, seemed to move with new andmultitudinous life suddenly generated. The stench of the greatbattle-fields was unspeakable, and the sudden creation of incalculablehosts of insects to do nature's scavenger work was a phenomenonnecessary, but to human nerves horrible. The turkey-buzzards gatheredin clouds for their hideous banquet. 

All this made the work of the surgeons greater, and the sufferings ofthe wounded more intense; yet, redeeming the awful sight of torn andmangled humanity, was the splendid discipline and order of the medicalstaff. Upon the first indications of a battle, the regimental wagonsof each corps would be driven up to some real or supposed safe place. It was the work of but a few moments for the tables to be spread withall their terrible array of steel instruments, while close at handwould be the stores of lint, bandages, towels, basins, and all theparaphernalia which science and long experience had devised. Thesediminished, in some measure, the horrors of the battle for at leastthe wounded. It was a sublime and beautiful sight, as compared withthe wars of even a century ago, when the surgeon had scarcely arecognized position in the army. In the very midst of the hell of fireand flame and noise, the relief parties, with their stretchers, wouldgo out and return with their burdens. Soon the neighborhood of thesurgeon's wagon looked like a harvest-field with the windrows of cutgrain upon it. Strange as it may seem, there was often more realdanger in this going and coming from rear to front, and from front torear, than on the very battle line itself. Many a man preferred tostand in the fighting files with the excitement and glory, than to getout into the uncertain regions of wandering balls and bursting shells. The Carletons, both uncle and nephew, had often, while outcollecting news, to scud from cover to cover, and amid the "zip, zip"of bullets. Dangerous as the service was, there was little reward tothe eyesight, for the Confederate army, like the Japanese dragon ofart, was to be seen only in bits, here and there. 

How easy for us now, in the leisure of abundant time and with all thefresh light that science has shed upon surgery, and focussed upon thesubject of gunshot wounds, to criticise the surgeons of that day, who, with hundreds of men each awaiting in agony his turn, were obliged todecide within minutes, yea, even seconds, upon a serious operation, without previous preparation or reinforcement of the patient. Theamputation, the incision, the probing had to be done then and there, on the instant. It is even wonderful that the surgeons did as well asthey did. Often it was a matter of quick decision as to whetheranything should be attempted. One look at many a case was enough todecide that death was too near. Often the man died in the stretcher;sometimes, when marked for the operating-table, he was asleep in hislast sleep before his turn came. Surgeons, hospital stewards, nurses, detailed men, had to concentrate into moments what in ordinaryhospital routine may require hours. 

Human nature was reduced to its lowest terms when hunger made thepossessors of a stomach forget whether they were men or wolves. Theheat was so intense, the marching so severe, that many of the menwould throw away blankets, rations, and equipments, and then make upin camp by stealing. Severe punishment was meted out when ammunitionwas thrown away. The débris on the line of march, and the waste, wastremendous. Only strict military discipline made property respected. Even then, the new conscript had to look out for his bright andserviceable musket when the old veteran's arms were lost or out oforder. The newspaper correspondent owning a good horse had to keepwatch and ward, while so many dismounted cavalrymen whose horses hadbeen shot were as restless as fish out of water. It was hard enougheven for the soldiers to get rations during the Wilderness campaign, harder often for the men of letters. Had it not been for kindquartermasters, and the ability of the correspondents to find thesoft side of their hearts, they must have starved. Yet the rapiditywith which soldiers on their forced marches could turn fences intofires and coffee into a blood-warmer was amazing. The whole processfrom cold rails to hot coffee inside the stomach often occupied lessthan twenty minutes. In these "ramrod days, " "pork roasts"--slices ofbacon warmed in the flame or toasted over the red coals--made, withhard tack, a delicious breakfast. 

Once when the Second Corps had captured several thousand Confederateprisoners, who were corralled in an open field in order to be safelyguarded, and their commander brought into the presence of GeneralGrant, the former remarked that his men had had nothing to eat for thepast twenty-four hours. Instantly Grant gave the order for severalwagon-loads of crackers to be brought up and distributed to thehungry. Thereupon appeared a spectacle that powerfully impressed youngCarleton. The six-muled teams appeared in a few moments and werewhipped up alongside of the Virginia rail fence. Then the stalwartteamsters, aided by some of the boys in blue, stood beside the wagonsto distribute boxes. Two men, taking each the end of a box in hand, after two or three preparatory swings, heaved the box full of biscuitup in the air and off into the field. Within the observation of youngCarleton, no box, while full, ever reached the ground, but was seizedwhile yet in the air, gripped and ripped open by the men that waitedlike hungry wolves. They tore open the packed rows of crackers andfairly jammed them down their famished mouths, breaking up the hardpieces in their hands while waiting for their teeth to do its hastywork. Humanity at its noblest, in Grant's instantly ordering food, andin its most animal phase of necessity, in the hungry rebels devouringsustenance, were illustrated on that day. 

After work with the pen concerning the great battles in theWilderness, Carleton's great question was how to get his letters toBoston. The first bundle was carried by Mr. Wing, of the New York_Tribune_, the second by Mr. Coffin's nephew, Edmund Carleton. Thenearest point occupied by the Union army, which had communication withthe North by either boat, mail or telegraph, was Fredericksburg, morethan forty miles to the eastward. To reach this place one must ridethrough a region liable at any moment to be crossed by regularConfederate cavalry, Mosby's troops, or rebel partisans. There werehere and there outposts of the Union cavalry, but the danger, to asmall armed party, and much more to a single civilian rider, was verygreat. Nevertheless, young Carleton was given his uncle's letters, with the injunction to ride his horse so as not to kill it beforereaching Fredericksburg. "The horse's life is of no importance, compared with the relief of our friends' anxiety; and, if necessary tosecure your purpose of prompt delivery, let the horse die, butpreserve its life if you can. "

To make success as near to certainty as possible, young Carleton tookcounsel with the oldest and wisest cavalrymen. He then concluded totake the advice of one, who told him to give his horse a pint of cornfor breakfast and allow the animal plenty of time to eat and chew thefodder well. Then, during the day, let the beast have all the water hewanted, but no food till he reached his destination. Fortunately, hishorse, being "lean, " was the one foreordained in the proverb for the"long race. " The young messenger lay down at night with his despatcheswithin his bosom, his saddle under his head, and his horse near him. The bridle was fastened around his person, and all his property sosecured that the only thing that could be stolen from him without hisbeing awakened was his hat and haversack, --though this last was underhis saddle-pillow. Nothing else was loose. 

The young man rose early. Alas! he had been bereaved indeed. Not onlyhis hat, but his haversack, with all toilet articles, his uncle'shistoric spy-glass, and his personal notes of the campaign, were gone. While his horse chewed its corn he found a soldier's cap, vastly toosmall, but by ripping up the back seam he was able to keep it on hishead and save himself from sunstroke. Mounting his horse, he set outeastward at sunrise. When some miles beyond the Federal lines, he waschallenged by horsemen whom he found to be of the 13th Pennsylvaniacavalry on outpost duty and just in from a foraging trip. Theyhesitated to release him even after examining his passes, but "thatfrom Butler fetched them. " Even then, they did not like him toproceed, assuring him that it was too dangerous for anybody to crosssuch unprotected territory. He would be "a dead man inside of anhour. " However, they examined his horse's shoes, and gave him a stripof raw pork, the first food he had tasted for many an hour. Finallythey bade him good-by, promising him that he was going "immediately tothe devil. " Some miles further on, he saw near him two riders. Mutually suspicious of each other, the distance was shortened betweenthe two parties until the character of each was made known. Then itwas discovered that all three were on the same errand, the solitaryhorseman for Boston private enterprise, and the two cavalrymen in bluefor General Grant to the Government, were conveying news. 

They rode pleasantly together for a few minutes, but when Carletonnoticed that their horses were fat and too well-fed to go very fast, he bade his companions good-by. He put spurs to his horse. Though itwas the hottest day of the year, he reached Fredericksburg about themiddle of the forenoon, thirsty and hungry, having eaten only thegenerous cavalryman's slice of raw pork on the way. He found there atrain loading with the wounded of several days' battle. He at oncebegan helping to carry the men on the cars. Volunteering as a nurse, where nurses were most needed, though at first refused by thesurgeons, he got on board the train. From the Sanitary Commissionofficers, he received the first "square meal" eaten for many days. AtAcquia Creek, he took the steamboat, and after helping to transfer thewounded from cars to boat, he remained on board, sleeping on a railingseat. Next morning he was in Washington, before the newspaper bureauswere open. 

He sent by wire a brief account of the Wilderness battles. At firstthe operator was very reluctant to transmit the message, since he wassure that none had been received by the Government, and he fearedreprimand or discharge for sending false reports. Indeed, thisinformation sent by Carleton was the first news which either PresidentLincoln or Secretary Stanton had of Grant's latest movements. 

From the telegraph office, young Carleton went to the Boston_Journal_ Bureau, on 14th Street. There he had to wait some time, since Mr. Coffin's successor in Washington, not expecting any tidings, was leisurely in appearing. By the first mail going out, however, a"great wad of manuscript, " put in envelopes as letters, was posted. Again the _Journal_ beat even the official messengers and the othernewspapers in giving the truthful reports of an eye-witness. Thus, Charles Carleton Coffin scored another triumph. 

How to get back to the army was now a question for young Carleton. Theorders of the Secretary of War were peremptory that no one shouldleave Washington for the front. The correspondents who were theremight stay, but no fresh accessions could be made to the ranks of thenews-gatherers. How, then, could young Carleton pierce through thehedge of authority?

But the man diligent in business shall stand before kings. YoungCarleton, securing a commission as nurse from Surgeon-General Hammond, went down to the riverside, and, going on board a steamer arrivingwith wounded, he helped to unload its human freight. When the lastman had been carried over the gunwales, young Carleton stayed onboard. When far down the river, on the returning boat, he ceased beingsomething like a stowaway, and became visible. No one challenged ordisturbed him. At Acquia Creek, he found that General Augur, havingsent all his wounded North, was just abandoning the communication. Young Carleton then went to Belle Plain, and thence marched three dayswith three companies of the Veteran Invalid Corps, and rejoined thearmy on its forced march, when Grant moved by the left flank downtowards Petersburg. 

Meanwhile, the pride of Mr. Coffin, the journalist, and theconscience of Mr. Coffin, the man, the uncle, and the Christian, hadbeen at civil war. He was berating himself for having let his nephewgo on so dangerous an errand. When the news flew round the camp that"young Carleton's back, " Mr. Coffin rushed up to his nephew, wrung hishand, and cried out, with beaming face, "Ed, you're a brick. "

CHAPTER XV. 

"THE OLD FLAG WAVES OVER SUMTER. "

By this time, Mr. Coffin was himself nearly exhausted, having beenworn down by constant service, day and night, in one of the mostexhausting campaigns on record. Knowing that both armies would have tothrow up entrenchments and recuperate, he came home, according tocustom, to rest and freshen for renewed exertion. Leaving immediatelyafter the battle of Cold Harbor, that is, on June 7th, he was backagain in Washington on June 22d, and in Petersburg, June 26th. Thelines of offence and defence were now twenty miles long, and the greatbattle of Petersburg, which was to last many months, the war of shoveland spade, had begun. Mr. Coffin remained with the army, often ridingto City Point and along the whole front of the Union lines, readingthe news of the sinking of the _Alabama_ by the _Kearsarge_, and thecall of the President for a half million of men, seeing many of theminor contests, the picket firing, the artillery duels, and learningof the splendid valor of the black troops. 

He came to Washington and Baltimore, when the news of Early's raid upthe Shenandoah Valley was magnified into an invasion of Maryland byGeneral Lee, with sixty thousand men behind them. Carleton, however, was not one to catch the disease of fear through infectiousexcitement. Finding Grant, the commander-in-chief of all the armies inthe field walking alone, quietly and unostentatiously, with his thumbsin the armholes of his vest, and smoking a cigar, neither excited nordisturbed, Carleton felt sure that the raid had been anticipated andwas well provided for. Both then, as well as on July 18th, when he hadto argue with friends who wore metaphorically blue glasses, he wrotecheerfully and convincingly of his calm, deliberate judgment, that theprospects of crushing the rebellion were never so bright as at thatmoment. He concluded his letter thus, "Give Grant the troops he needsnow, and this gigantic struggle will speedily come to an end. "

While Lee, disappointed in the results of Early's menace ofWashington, was summoning all his resources to resist the long siege, and while Grant was awaiting his reinforcements and preparing thecordon, which, like a perfect machine, should at the right moment beset in motion to grind in pieces the armies of rebellion, Carleton waschosen by the people of Boston to accompany their gift of food whichthey wished to send to Savannah, to relieve the needy. Between Tuesdayand Thursday of one week, thirty thousand dollars were contributed. The steamer _Greyhound_ a captured blockade-runner, was chartered. Taking in her hold one-half of the provisions, she left Boston Harborat 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, January 23, 1865. With thecommittee of relief, Carleton arrived in Savannah in time to ride outand meet the army of Sherman. After attending meetings of thecitizens, seeing to the distribution of supplies, and writing a numberof letters, he now scanned all horizons, feeling rather than seeingthe signs of supreme activity. Whither should he go?

Sherman's army was about to move north to crush Johnston, and thenjoin Grant in demolishing Lee's host. Mr. Coffin could easily haveaccompanied this marvellous modern Anabasis, which, however, insteadof retreat meant victory. He had an especially warm invitation fromMajor-General A. S. Williams, commander of the 20th Corps, to be aguest at his headquarters. There were many arguments to tempt him toproceed with Sherman's army. Nevertheless, from the warcorrespondent's point of view, it seemed wiser not to go overland, butto choose the more unstable element, water. For nearly a month, perhaps more, the army would have no communication with any telegraphoffice, and for long intervals none with the seacoast. 

Carleton knew that after Gilmore's "swamp angel" and investing forceshad done their work, Charleston must soon be empty. He longed to seethe old flag wave once more over Sumter. So, bidding farewell toSherman's army, he took the steamer _Fulton_ at Port Royal, which wasto stop on her way to New York at the blockading fleet off Charleston. Happy choice! He arrived in the nick of time, just as the stars andstripes were being hoisted over Sumter. It was on February 18th, at2 P. M. , that the _Arago_ steamed into Charleston Bay, where he hadbefore seen the heaviest artillery duel then known in the history ofthe world, and the abandonment of the attack by the floatingfortresses. Now a new glory rose above the fort, while in the distancerolled black clouds of smoke, from the conflagration of the city. Hepenned this telegram to the Boston _Journal_:

"The old flag waves over Sumter, Moultrie, and the city of Charleston. 

"I can see its crimson stripes and fadeless stars waving in the warmsunlight of this glorious day. 

"Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory. "

Carleton had but a few minutes to write out his story, for the steamer_Fulton_ was all ready to move North. How to get the glorious newshome, and be first torch-bearer in the race that would flash joy overall the North, was now Carleton's strenuous thought. As matter offact, this time again, as on several occasions before, he beat theGovernment and its official despatch-bearers, and all his fellowcorrespondents. 

How did he do it?

While other knights of the pen confided their missives to the purserof the despatch steamer, _Arago_, Carleton put his in the hands of apassing stranger, who was going North. Explaining to him the supremeimportance of rapidity in delivery of such important news, heinstructed him as follows:

"When your steamer comes close to the wharf in New York, it will veryprobably touch and then rebound before she is fast to her moorings. Doyou stand ready on the gunwale, and when the sides of the vessel firsttouch the dock, do not wait for the rebound; but jump ashore, and runas for your life to the telegraph office, send the telegram, and thendrop this letter in the post-office. "

Carleton's friend did as he was told. He watched his opportunity. Inspite of efforts to hold him back, he was on terra firma many minutesbefore even the Government messenger left the boat; while, unfortunately for the New York newspapers, the purser kept the variouscorrespondents' despatches in his pocket until his own affairs hadbeen attended to. It was about 8 o'clock in the morning whenCarleton's messenger faced the telegraph operators. Then, as Carletontold the story in 1896, "they at first refused to take the story, asthey did not believe its truth, and said it would affect the price ofgold. In those days, there was a censorship of the telegraph, andnothing was allowed to be sent which might affect the price of gold. 

"But finally they sent the story, and it was bulletined in Boston andcreated a great sensation. It was wired back to New York andpronounced a canard by the papers there, since the steamer fromCharleston was in and they had no news from her. 

"They were set right, though, when about noon the purser, havingfinished his own work, delivered the stories entrusted to him. "

The despatch, which was received in the _Journal_ office soon after 9o'clock A. M. , was issued as an extra, containing about sixty-fivelines, giving the outline of the great series of events. This telegramwas the first intimation that President Lincoln and the Cabinet atWashington received of the glorious news. Being signed "Carleton, " itstruth was assured. 

The next day, in the city "where Secession had its birth, " Carletonwalked amid the burning houses and the streets deserted of itscitizens, saw the entrance of the black troops, and went into theempty slave-market, securing its dingy flag--the advertisement of saleof human bodies--as a relic. During several days he wrote letters, inwhich the notes of gratitude and exultation, mingled with pity andsympathy with the suffering, and full of scarcely restrainable joy inview of the speedy termination of the war, are discernible. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

WITH LINCOLN IN RICHMOND. 

Whither now should Carleton go? There were but few fields to conquer, for the slaveholders' rebellion was swiftly nearing its end, andCarleton felt his work with armies and amid war would soon and happilybe over. He knew it was now time for Grant to deliver his blows, andmake the anvil at Petersburg ring. Eager to be in at the death oftreason, he hastened home, shortened his stay with wife and friends, and hurried on to City Point. As usual, he was present in the nick oftime. He was able to write his first letter from the Army of thePotomac, descriptive of the attack on Fort Steadman, March 25th. Onthe 26th he saw again the sparkling-eyed Sheridan. Once more he beganto use his whip of scorpions upon the editors and people who werebestowing all praises upon the Army of the West, with only criticismor niggardly commendation for the Armies of the Potomac and the James, with many a sneer and odious comparison. He witnessed the tremendousattack of the rebel host upon the Ninth Corps, hearing first thesignal gun, next the rebel yell, then the rattling fire of musketrydeepening into volleys, and finally the roar of the cannonade. Carleton, within three minutes after the firing of the first gun, tookposition with his glass and note-book, upon a hill. One hundred gunsand mortars were in full play, surpassing in beauty and grandeur allother night scenes ever witnessed by him. In some moments he couldcount thirty shells at once in the air, which was filled with fieryarcs crossing each other at all angles. Between the flaming bases, atthe muzzle and the explosion, making two ends of an arch, there werethousands of muskets flashing over the entrenchments. Yet, despite theawful noise and the spectacle so magnificent to the eye, there werefew men hurt within the Union lines. 

After forty hours of rain, the wind blew from the northwest, and themud rapidly disappeared. Then Carleton began to look out for thegreat event, in which such giants as Lee and Johnston on one hand, andGrant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Hancock on the other, were tofinish the game of military mathematics which had been progressingduring four years. Carleton wrote, March 31, 1865, "How inspiring towatch the close of such a game. " He expected a great battle. "The lastflicker of a candle is sometimes its brightest flame. "

He was not disappointed. On mid-afternoon of April 1st, Carleton wasat Sheridan's headquarters witnessing the battle of Five Forks, andthe awful bombardment of Saturday night. Then went out Grant's orderto "attack along the whole line. " Now began the bayonet war. At 4o'clock on that eventful Sunday, like a great tidal wave, the UnionArmy rolled over the rebel entrenchments. This is the way Carletondescribes it in _Putnam's Magazine_:

"Lee attempted to retrieve the disaster on Saturday by depleting hisleft and centre, to reinforce his right. Then came the order fromGrant, 'Attack vigorously all along the line. ' How splendidly it wasexecuted! The Ninth, the Sixth, the Second, the Twenty-fourth Corps, all went tumbling in upon the enemy's works, like breakers upon thebeach, tearing away chevaux-de-frise, rushing into the ditches, sweeping over the embankments, and dashing through the embrasures ofthe forts. In an hour the C. S. A. , --the Confederate _SlaveArgosy_, --the Ship of State launched but four years ago, which wentproudly sailing, with the death's-head and cross-bones at her truck, on a cruise against Civilization and Christianity, hailed as arightful belligerent, furnished with guns, ammunition, provisions, andall needful supplies, by England and France, was thrown a helplesswreck upon the shores of time. "

On April 2d, he wrote from Petersburg Heights telling of the movementsof Sheridan's cavalry and the Ninth, Second, and Twenty-fourth Corps. 

On the 3d, he was in Richmond, writing, "There is no longer aConfederacy. "

He had been awakened by the roar of the Confederate blowing up ofironclads in the James River. A few minutes later he was in thePetersburg entrenchments. He rode solitary and lone from City Pointto Richmond, entering the city by the Newmarket road, and overtaking adivision of the Twenty-fifth Corps. Dismounting at the SpottswoodHouse, he registered his name on the hotel book, so thickly writtenwith the names of Confederate generals, as the first guest from a"foreign country, " the United States. The clerk bade him choose anyroom, and even the whole house, adding that he would probably beburned out in a few minutes. Parts of the city had already become asea of flame, but Richmond was saved, and the fire put out by Uniontroops. Military order soon reigned, and plundering was stopped. Hemet President Lincoln, and helped to escort him through the streetslined with the black people whom he had set free. Later, Carleton sawand talked with Generals Weitzel and Devens in the capitol, shakinghands also with Admiral Farragut. From the top of the capitolbuilding, he reflected on the fall of Secession. He saw Libby Prisoninside and out, as well as the old slave-mart, holding the key of theslave-pen in his hand. He has told the story of his Richmondexperiences in lectures, magazine articles, and in his book, "FreedomTriumphant. " His verbal descriptions enabled Thomas Nast to paint hisfamous picture of Lincoln in Richmond. 

Carleton's last letter, completing his war correspondence, is datedApril 12th, 1865. It depicts the scene of the surrender, thuscompleting a series of about four hundred epistles, not counting theten or a dozen lost in transmission. In these he not only wrotehistory and furnished material for it, but he kept in cheer the heartof the nation. 

Finally the great rebellion was crushed by the navy and army. Foote, Farragut, Dupont, and Porter, with their men on blockade andbattle-deck duty, made possible the victories of Grant, Thomas, Sheridan, and Sherman. Carleton as witness and historian on the ships, in water fresh and salt, as well as in the camps and field, appreciated both arms of the service. His letters were read bythousands far beyond the Eastern States, and often his telegrams werethe only voice crying out of the wilderness of suspense, and firstheard at Washington and throughout the country, proclaiming victory. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE GLORIES OF EUROPE. 

After four years of strenuous activity of body and brain, it was noteasy for Carleton to settle down at once to commonplace routine. Having exerted every nerve and feeling in so glorious a cause as ournation's salvation, every other cause and question seemed trivial incomparison. Succeeding such a series of excitements, it was difficultto lessen the momentum of mind and nerve in order to live, just likeother plain people, quietly at home. One could not be drinking strongcoffee all the time, nor could battle shocks come any longer every fewweeks. The sudden collapse of the Confederacy, and the ending of thewar, was like clapping the air-brakes instantaneously upon the EmpireState Express while at full speed. While the air pressure might stopthe wheels, there was danger of throwing the cars off their trucks. 

It took Carleton many months, and then only after strong exertion ofthe will, careful study of his diet and physical habits, to get downto the ordinary jog-trot of life and enjoy the commonplace. Heoccupied himself during the latter part of 1865 in completing hisfirst book, which he entitled "My Days and Nights upon the BattleField. " This was meant to be one in a series of three volumes. He hadwritten most of this, his first book, in camp and on the field. Inform, it was an illustrated duodecimo of 312 pages, and was publishedby Ticknor and Fields, and later republished by Estes and Lauriat. 

It carries the story of the war, and of Carleton's personalparticipation in it in the Potomac and Mississippi River regions, downto the fall of Memphis in the summer of 1862. 

After this, followed another volume, entitled "Four Years ofFighting, " full of personal observation in the army and navy, from thefirst battle of Bull Run to the fall of Richmond. This was a moreambitious work, of five hundred and fifty-eight, with an introductionof fifteen, pages. It contained a portrait and figure of the warcorrespondent, with pencil and note-book in hand. Published byTicknor and Fields, it was reissued in 1882, by Estes and Lauriat, under the title of "Boys of '61. " Carleton completed a carefulrevision of this work about a fortnight before his golden wedding, foranother edition which appeared posthumously in October, 1896. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Coffin had reentered the work of journalism in Boston. This, with his books and public engagements, as a lecturer andplatform speaker, occupied him fully. In the summer of 1866 theshadows of coming events in Europe began to loom above the horizon ofthe future. The great Reform movement in England was in progress. Thetriumph of the American war for internal freedom, the vindication ofUnion against the pretensions of State sovereignty, the release offour million slaves, the implied honor put upon work, as against thosewho despised workmen as "mudsills, " had had a powerful reaction uponthe people of Great Britain. These now clamored for the rights of man, as against privileged men. British liberty was once more "to broadendown from precedent to precedent. " In France, the World's Expositionwas being held. Prussia and Austria had rushed to arms. 

The evolution of a modern German empire had begun. Austria and Hungarywere being drawn together. Should Prussia humble her Austrian foe, then Italy would throw off the yoke, and the Italians, once moreunited as a nation, would see the temporal power of the Pope vanish. Victor Emmanuel's troops would enter Venice and perhaps even theEternal City. 

To tell the story of storm and calm, of war and peace, Carleton wasagain summoned by the proprietors of the Boston _Journal_, and at asalary double that received during the war. This time his wifeaccompanied him, to aid him in his work and to share his pleasure. Onone of the hottest days of the summer, they sailed on the Cunardsteamer _Persia_, from New York. This was to be Carleton's firstintroduction to a foreign land. The chief topic of conversation duringthe voyage was the Austro-Prussian War, which, it was generallybelieved, would involve all Europe. The storm-cloud seemed to be vastand appalling. 

They arrived in Liverpool, the cloud had burst and disappeared, andthe sky was blue again. The battle of Sadowa had been fought. Prussianvalor and discipline in handling the needle-gun had won on the field. Bismarck and diplomacy were soon to settle terms of peace, and changethe map of Europe. 

Carleton hastened on to London to hear the debate in Parliament on theextension of the suffrage, to see the uprising of the people, and tonotice how profoundly the great struggle in America and its resultshad affected the English people. Great Britain's millions weredemanding cheaper government, without so many costly figureheads, bothtemporal and spiritual, and manhood suffrage. The long period ofnearly constant war from 1688 to 1830 had passed. In area of peace, men were thinking of, and discussing openly, the relation of themiddle classes and the laboring men to the nobility and landedestates. Agitated crowds thronged the streets, singing "John Brown'sSoul is Marching on. "

Mr. Gladstone's bill was defeated. Earl Russell was swept out ofoffice, and Disraeli was made chancellor. It was a field-day in theHouse of Commons when Carleton heard Gladstone, Bright, Lowe, and theConservative and Liberal leaders. These were the days when such men asGovernor Eyre, after incarnating the most brutish principle of thatworse England, which every American and friend of humanity hates, could be defended, lauded, and glorified. Indeed, Eyre's bloody policyin Jamaica was approved of by such men as John Ruskin, CharlesKingsley, and other literary men, to the surprise and pain ofAmericans who had read their books. On the other hand, the men ofscience and thinking people in the middle and laboring classescondemned the red-handed apostle of British brutishness. All throughthis, his first journey in Great Britain, as in other countries yearsafterward, Carleton clearly distinguished between the Great Britainwhich we love, and the Great Britain which we do not love, --the onestanding for righteousness, freedom, and progress; the other alliedwith cruelty, injustice, and bigotry. 

After studying British finance, political corruption, the army, andthe system of purchasing commissions then in vogue, and visiting thehomes of the Pilgrims in Lincolnshire, and the county fairs, the landof Burns, and the manufactures of Scotland, Carleton turned his facetowards Paris. Before leaving the home land of his fathers, he dinedand spent an afternoon with the great commoner, John Bright. Mrs. Coffin accompanied him and enjoyed Mrs. Bright, who was as modest, unassuming, kind, and genial as her husband. John Bright listened withintense interest and profound emotion to Carleton's personalreminiscences of Mr. Lincoln, and of his entrance into Richmond. Before leaving for France, on the 5th of September, Carleton wrote:

"The thunder of Gettysburg is shaking the thrones of Europe. Englishworkmen give cheers for the United States. The people of Germanydemand unity. Louis Napoleon, to whom Maximilian had said, 'Mexico andthe Confederacy are two cherries on one stalk, ' was already sendingsteamers to Vera Cruz, to bring back his homesick soldiers. Monarchywill then be at an end in North America. " Maximilian's wife was inFrance, expecting soon to see her husband. In a few weeks, the corpseof the bandit-emperor, sustained by French bayonets and shot byMexican republicans, and an insane widow startled Carleton, as itstartled the world. 

The _Journal_ correspondent passed over to Napoleon's realm, spendinga few weeks in Paris, Dijon, and other French cities. In Switzerlandhe enjoyed mightily the home of Calvin and its eloquent memories, MontBlanc and its associated splendors, the mountains, the glaciers, thepasses, and valleys, and, above all, his study of the politics of "Thefreest people of Europe. " How truly prophetic was Carleton, when hewrote, "This republic, instead of being wiped off from the map, . .. Will more likely become a teacher to Europe, "--a truth never so largeas now. He rode over the Splügen pass, and saw Milan and Verona. Fromthe city of Romeo and Juliet, he took a carriage in order to visit andstudy, with the eye of an experienced engineer and veteran, thedetails of the battle of Custozza, where, on June 24th, 1866, theArchduke Albert gained the victory over the Italian La Marmora. 

He reached Venice October 13th. In the old city proudly called theQueen of the Adriatic, and for centuries a republic, until groundunder the heel of Austrian despotism, Carleton arrived in time to seethe people almost insane with joy. The Austrian garrison was marchingout and the Italian troops were moving in. The red caps and shirts ofthe Garibaldians brightened the throng in the streets, and the oldstones of Venice, bathed in salt water at their bases, were delugedwith bunting, flags, and rainbow colors. When King Victor Emmanuelentered, the scenes of joy and gladness, the sounds of music, thegliding gondolas, the illuminated marble palaces and humble homes, theworshipping hosts of people in the churches, and the singing bands inthe streets, taxed to the utmost even Carleton's descriptive powers. The burden of joy everywhere was "Italy is one from the Alps to theAdriatic, and Venice is free. "

Turning his attention to Rome, where French bayonets were stillsupporting the Pope's temporal throne, Carleton discussed a questionof world-wide interest, --the impending loss of papal power and itsprobable results. Within a fortnight after his letter on this subject, the last echoes of the French drum-beat and bugle-blast had died away. The red trousers of the Emperor's servants were numbered among Rome'smighty list of things vanished. In the Eternal City itself, Carletonattended mass at St. Peter's, and then re-read and retold the story ofboth the Roman and the Holy Roman Empire. Some of his happiest dayswere passed in the studios of American artists and sculptors. There hesaw, in their beginning of outlines and color, on canvas or in clay, some of the triumphs of art which now adorn American homes and cities. Fascinated as he was in Pompeii and in Rome with the relics andrevelations of ancient life, he was even more thrilled by the rapidstrokes of destiny in the modern world. The separation of church andstate was being accomplished while Italy was waking to new life. TheAnabaptists were avenged and justified. 

About the middle of February, Carleton was again in Paris, seeing theExposition and the Emperor of the French and his family. Then crossingto England, he heard a great debate over the Reform measures, in whichDisraeli, Lowe, Bright, and Gladstone spoke. The results were thehumiliation of Disraeli, and the break-up of the British ministry. Re-crossing the channel to Paris, he spent eight weeks studying theExposition and the country, writing many letters to the _Journal_. After examination of the great fortresses in the Duchy of Luxembourg, he went into Germany, tarrying at Heidelberg, Nuremberg, Munich, andVienna. He then passed down "the beautiful blue Danube" to Buda-Pesth, where, having been given letters and commendations from J. L. Motley, the historian of the Netherlands and our minister at Vienna, he sawthe glittering pageant which united the crowns of Austria and Hungary. This was performed in the parish church in Buda, an edifice built oversix hundred years ago. It had been captured by the Turks and made intoa mosque, where the muezzin supplanted the priest in calls of prayer. After the great victory won by John Sobieski, cross and altar wererestored. Here, amid all the glittering and bewildering splendor oftapestry, banners, dynastic colors, national flags, jewels, andinnumerable heraldic devices, "the iron crown of Charlemagne, " grantedby Pope Sylvester II. In the year 1000, and called "the holy andapostolic crown, " was placed by Count Andrassy upon the head of theEmperor Francis Joseph. The ruler of Austria practically acknowledgedthe righteousness of the revolution of 1849, and his own mistake, whenhe accepted the crown from the once rebel militia-leader and thenexiled Andrassy, having already given to the Hungarians the popularrights which they clamored for. Most gracious act of all, FrancisJoseph contributed, with the Empress (whom Mrs. Coffin thought thehandsomest woman in Europe), 100, 000 ducats ($200, 000) to the widowsand children of those who were killed in 1849, while fighting againstthe empire. At this writing, December, 1896, we read of the unveiling, at Kormorn, of a monument to Klapka, the insurgent general of 1849. 

In Berlin, Carleton saw a magnificent spectacle, --the review of thePrussian army in welcome to the Czar. He studied the battle-fields ofLeipsig and Lutzen, and the ever continuing gamblers' war atWeisbaden. Then sailing down the Rhine, he revisited Paris to see thedistribution of prizes at the Exposition, the array of Mohammedan andChristian princes, and the grand review of the French troops in honorof the Sultan. In England once more, he looked upon the great navalreview of the British fleets of iron and wood. He studied theritualistic movement. He attended the meeting of anti-ritualists atSalisbury, where, midway between matchless spire and preancientCromlech, one can meditate on the evolution of religion. He was at theMethodist Conference of Great Britain in the city of Bristol, whencesailed the Cabots for the discovery of America, now four centuriesago. He read the modern lamentations of Thomas Carlyle, who, in hisarticle, "Shooting the Niagara and After, " foretold the death of goodgovernment and religion in the triumph of democracy. 

At the British Scientific Association's gathering in Dundee, he heardMurchison, Baker, Lyell, Thomson, Tyndall, Lubbock, Rankine, Fairbairn, and young Professor Herschell. He was at the Social ScienceCongress held in Belfast, meeting Lord Dufferin, Dr. James McCosh, Goldwin Smith, and others. Two months more were given to study andobservation in the countries Ireland, England and Scotland, Hollandand Belgium. Of his frequent letters to the _Journal_ a score or sowere written especially to and for young people, though all of theminterested every class of readers. He kept a keen watch upon movementsin Italy and in Spain, where the Carlists' uprising had begun. 

In this manner, nearly sixteen months slipped away in parts of Europe, and amid scenes so remote as to require hasty journeys and muchtravelling. Carleton received further directions to continue hisjourney around the world. He was to visit the Holy Land, Egypt, India, China, and Japan, to cross the Pacific, and to traverse the UnitedStates as far as possible on the Pacific railway, then in course ofconstruction. This was indeed "A New Voyage Around the World, " notexactly in the sense of Defoe; but was, as Carleton called it in thebook describing it, which he afterwards wrote, "Our New Way Around theWorld. " No one before his time, so far as known, had gone around theglobe, starting eastward from America, crossing continents, and usingsteam as the motor of transportation on land and water all the way. 

Making choice of three routes to the Orient, Carleton left ParisDecember 9th, 1867, for Marseilles. He found much of the countrythitherward nearly as forbidding as the hardest regions of NewHampshire. The climate was indeed easier than in the Granite State, but from November to March the people suffered more from cold than theYankees. They lived in stone houses and fuel was dear. At Marseillesthe vessels were packed so closely in docks, that the masts and sparsreminded him of the slopes of the White Mountains after fire had sweptthe foliage away. Although innumerable tons of grain were importedhere, he saw no elevators or labor saving appliances like those atBuffalo, which can load or empty ships' holds in a few half hours. Many of the imports were labelled "Service Militaire, " and were forthe support of that army of eight hundred thousand men, which theimpoverished French people, even with a decreasing population, were soheavily taxed to support. Carleton noticed that merchants of Francewere planning to lay their hands on the East and win its trade. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THROUGH ORIENTAL LANDS. 

It was "blowing great guns, " and the sea was white with foam, when onthe ninety-eighth anniversary of Washington's birthday into anotherworld, December 14th, 1867, the steamer _Euphrates_, of the M. I. Company, left Marseilles. The iron ship was staunch, though notoverclean. On the deck were boxed up eight carriages for Turks who hadbeen visiting Paris. The captain amused himself, in hours which oughtnot to have been those of leisure, with embroidery. After a runthrough the Sardinian straits, they had clear sea room to Sicily. Stromboli was quiet, but Vesuvius was lively. At Messina they took oncoal, oranges, five Americans, and one Englishman. On learningCarleton's plan to travel eastward to San Francisco, the Queen'ssubject remarked, with surprise:

"There was a time when we Englishmen had the routes of travel prettymuch all to ourselves, but I'll be hanged if you Americans haven'tcrowded us completely off the sidewalk. We can't tie yourshoe-strings. "

Greece was sighted at sunrise. With Carleton's mental picture of thegreat naval victory of Navarino, by which the murderous Turk wasdriven off the sea, rose boyhood's remembrances of the fashionable"Navarino bonnets, " with their colossal flaring fronts, with beds ofartificial flowers set between brims and cheeks, making rivalry ofcolor amid vast ostentation of bows and ribbon. With his glass, hecould discern, at one point upon the hillside, the hut of a hermit, who had discovered that man cannot live upon history alone, but thatbeans and potatoes are desirable. The practical hermit cultivated agarden. 

Arrival at Piræus was at 2 A. M. The party of passengers descended theladder into a boat, and there sat shivering in their shawls, wherethey were likely to be left to historic meditation until thecustom-house opened, except for the well-known fact that silver oftenconquers steel. One franc, held up before the gaze of a highlyimportant personage possessed of a sword and much atmosphere ofauthority, secured smiles and welcome to the sacred soil of Greece, immunity from search, and direction to a café where all was warm andcomfortable, and from which, in due time, hotel accommodations weresecured. 

In the city of Pericles, they saw the play of "Antigone" in thetheatre of Herod Atticus. On visiting the Parthenon, with itsmarvellous sculpture, which Turkish soldiers had so often used as atarget, they found that the chief inhabitants of the ruin were crows. They met the missionaries who were influential in the making of thenew Grecian nation. From Athens they went to Constantinople, where Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, in Robert College, was lighting the beacon of hope forthe Christians in the Turkish empire. 

Leaving Europe at that end of it on which the Turks have encampedduring four centuries, and where they are still blasting anddevouring, Carleton visited Africa, the old house of bondage. AtAlexandria his first greeting was a cry for bakshish. Within half anhour after landing, most of his childhood's illusions were dispelled. A drenching rain fell. The delta of the Nile had been turned into onevast cotton field which looked like a mass of snow. The clover was inbloom along the railway to Cairo. In this land of the donkey and ofthe Arabian Nights Entertainments, he received several practicallessons in the art of comparative swindling, soon learning that inroguery both Christians and the followers of the prophet are one. 

In studying his Bible amid the lands which are its best commentary, Carleton concluded that the crossing of the Red Sea by the fugitiveslaves from Egypt, over an "underground railway made by the order ofGod himself, " "instead of being in the domain of the miraculous, isunder natural law. " At Suez, one of the half-way houses of the world, he was amused at the jollity of the Mohammedans, who had just brokentheir long lenten fast from tobacco and smoke, and who were very happyin their own way. 

In thirty hours after leaving Alexandria, the party, now joined byRev. E. B. Webb, had its first view of Palestine, --a sandy shore, low, level as a Western prairie, tufted with palms, green with olives, golden with orange orchards, and away in the distance an outline ofgray mountains. Soon, in Jerusalem, he was among the donkeys, dogs, pilgrims, and muleteers. Out on the Mount of Olives and in starlitBethlehem, by ancient Hebron, and then down to low-lying Jericho andat the Dead Sea, he was refreshing memory and imagination, sheddingold fancies and traditions, discriminating as never before betweenfigures of rhetoric and figures of rock and reality, while feeding hisfaith and cheering his spirit. Then from Jerusalem, after a twentydays' stay, the party rode northward to Shechem, the home of theSamaritan, and over the plain of Esdraelon. There Carleton's militaryeye revelled in the scene, and he made mind-pictures of the battlesfought there during all the centuries. Then, after tarrying atNazareth and Beyrout, we find him, April 11th, at Suez, on board asteamer for the East. 

At Paris he had seen De Lesseps, amid tumultuous applause, receivefrom Napoleon III. A gold medal. 

Now Carleton was on the steamship _Baroda_, moving down the Red Sea, once thought to be an arm of the Indian Ocean, but which we now knowto be only a portion of "the great rift valley, "--the longest anddeepest and widest trough on the earth's surface, which extends fromthe base of Mount Lebanon and the Sea of Galilee, through the JordanValley, the Dead Sea, the dried up wadies, the Red Sea, and the chainof lakes and Nyanzas discovered in recent years in the heart ofAfrica, and extending nearly to Zanzibar. Passing by Great Britain'sgarrisons, lighthouses, and coaling stations, which guard her pathwayto India, Bombay was reached April 27th. 

In the interior, in the distressing hot weather of India, Carletonfound this the land of punkas, tatties, and odors both sweet andotherwise. He was impressed with the amount of jewelry seen, not inthe bazaars, but on the persons of the women. "Through all ages Indiahas swallowed up silver, and the absorption is as great as everto-day. " He was amused at the little men's big heads, covered with ahundred and fifty feet, or more, of turban material, which made somany of them look like exaggerated tulips. He noticed the phenomena ofreligion, the trees smeared with paint, the Buddhist caves, theParsee Towers of Silence, the phallic emblems of nature-worship. Evidently he was not converted to cremation, for he wrote, "The earthis our mother, and it is sweeter to lie on her bosom amid bloomingflowers or beneath bending elms and sighing pines in God's Acre. " Henoticed how rapidly the railways were breaking down caste. "Thelocomotive, like a ploughshare turning the sward of the prairies, iscutting up a faith whose roots run down deep into bygone ages. .. . Theengine does not turn out for obstructions, such as in former daysimpeded the car of progress. "

Though caste was stronger than the instincts of humanity, this relicof the brutishness of conquest was not allowed to have sway in railwaycarriages. 

Carleton sums up his impressions of the religions of India in thissentence: "The world by wisdom knew not God. " He found hispreconceived ideas of central India all wrong. Instead of jungles, were plateaus, forest-covered mountains, groves, and bamboo. With thethermometer at 105° in the shade, the woodwork shrunk so that thedrivers of the dak or ox-cart wound the spokes of the wheels withstraw and kept them wet, so that Carleton noticed them "watering theircarriage as well as horses. " Whether it was his head that swelled orhis hat which shrunk, he found the latter two sizes too small atnight. In India, between June and October, little business is done. The demand for cotton, caused by the American war, had set Indiafarmers to growing the bolls over vast areas, but the cost of carriageto the seaboard was so great that new roads had to be built. 

"Sahib Coffin" at the garrison towns was amused at both the youngBritish officers, with their airs, and at the old veterans, who wereas dignified as mastiffs. Living in the central land of the world'sfairy tales, he enjoyed these legends which "give perfume toliterature, science, and art. " At Allahabad, in the middle of thefort, he saw a pillar forty-two feet high, erected by King Asoka, 250B. C. , bearing an inscription commanding kindness to animals. In onepart of India, at the golden pagoda of Benares, he found the monkeysworshipped as gods, or at least honored as divine servants, while inthe North they were pests and thieves, the enemy of the farmer. 

Among other hospitalities enjoyed, was a dinner with an American, Mr. C. L. Brown, who represented the Tudor Ice Company, of Boston, and whosold solidified water from Wenham Lake. The piece that clinked in theglass of Carleton, "sparkling and bright in its liquid light, " hadbeen harvested in 1865, three years before. He described it as a"piece of imprisoned cold, fragment of a bygone winter, " which calledup "bright pictures of boys and girls with their rosy cheeks andflashing skates, --a breeze of old associations. " At Benares, variousroot ideas of Hindoo holiness were illustrated, including the lingaworship and the passion for motherhood in that strange phallic cultwhich, from India to Japan, has survived all later forms of religion. In Calcutta, Old India had already been forgotten in the newer andmore Christian India. He visited especially the American Union MissionHome, where Miss Louise Hook and Miss Britton were training the girlsof India to nobler ideals and possibilities of life. After seeing theschool, Carleton wrote: "Theirs is a great work. Educate the women ofIndia, and we withdraw two hundred millions from gross idolatry. Thismighty moral leverage obtained, the whole substratum of society willbe raised to a higher level. The mothers of America fought the latewar through to its glorious end. They sustained the army by theirlabor, their sympathy, their heroic devotion. The mothers of India arekeeping the idols on their pedestals. "

Personal accidents in India were minor and amusing, mostly. Crossingthe Bay of Bengal on the _Clan Alpine_, one of England's opiumsteamers bound to China, a boiler blew up. The "priming" of the iron, the life of the metal, having been burned out in passing from fresh tosalt water, was the cause of the trouble. Nineteen persons, eighteennatives and a Scotsman, were killed or badly scalded. Carleton rushedout from his stateroom, amid clouds of steam that made his path nearlyinvisible, and was happy in finding his wife safe on deck at thestern. At sunset the Christian was given the rites of burial. The deadHindoos, not being used to religious attentions paid to corpses, wereheaved into the sea, and the voyage continued. This was not the firstor the last time that Carleton experienced the sensation of beingblown up while on a steamboat. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

IN CHINA AND JAPAN. 

At Penang, in the Spice Islands, the verge of the Flowery Kingdomseemed to have been reached. "We might say that that land had bloomedover its own borders, and its blossoms had fallen here. .. . Nearly theentire population of this island, 125, 000 in all, are Chinese. " AtSingapore, the town of lions, he met an American hunter named Carroll, who lived with the natives and had won fame as a dead shot. Fortunately for humanity, that contests with the aboriginal beasts apossession of this part of the earth, the leonine fathers frequentlydevour their cubs, else the earth would be overrun with the lions. 

Seventeen days on the _Clan Alpine_ passed by, and then, on the 10thof June, the captain pointed out the "Asses' Ears, " two black speckson the distant horizon, which gave them their first glimpse of China. On Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Coffin had the pleasure of being told, bythe healthy-looking captain of the sampan or boat by which they wereto get ashore, that she was "a red-faced foreign devil. " This was aChinese woman, of thirty-five or forty, who commanded the craft. Thenext day, Sunday, they went to church in sedan-chairs, and sat underthe punkas or swinging-fans, which cooled the air. On Monday, whilegoing around with, or calling upon, the missionaries Preston, Kerr, and Parker, the Americans who had a sense of the value of minutesfound that the "Chinese are an old people. Their empire is finished, their civilization complete, and time is a drug. " The walls of thegreat Roman Catholic Cathedral, costing over four million dollars, were then but half-way up. 

Being a true Christian, without cant or guile, Carleton, as a matterof course, was a warm friend of the missionaries, and always soughtthem out to visit and cheer them. He rarely became their guest, oraccepted hospitality under the roofs either of American consuls ormissionaries, lest critics might say his views were colored by theglasses of others. He would have his own mind and opinions judicial. Nevertheless, he knew that those who knew the language of the peoplewere good guides and helpers to intelligent impressions. In Shanghaihe met Messrs. Yates, Wilson, and Thomson, and, in the Sailors'Chapel, Rev. E. W. Syle, afterwards president of the Asiatic Societyof Japan. Carleton noticed that when the collection was taken up amongthe tars present, the plate, when returned, showed several silverdollars. The travellers went up the Yangtse in a New York built HudsonRiver steamer, commanded by a Yankee captain from Cape Ann. At Wuchanghe called on Bishop Williams, whom he had met in London at thePan-Anglican council, and who afterwards made so noble record of workin the Mikado's empire. 

So far from being appalled at what he saw of the Chinese and theircivilization, Carleton noted many things to admire, --their democraticspirit, their competitive civil service examinations, and theirreverence for age and parental authority. At the dinners occasionallyeaten in a Chinese restaurant, he asked no questions as to whether theanimal that furnished the meat barked, mewed, bellowed, or whinnied, but took the mess in all good conscience. 

From the middle of the Sunrise Kingdom, the passage was made on theAmerican Pacific mail-steamer _Costa Rica_, through a great storm. Inthose days before lighthouses, the harbor of Nagasaki was reachedthrough a narrow inlet, which captains of ships were sometimes puzzledto find. They steamed under and within easy range of the fifty or morebronze cannon, mounted on platforms under sheds along the cliffs. Except at Shimonoséki, in 1863 and 1864, when floating and fastfortresses, steamers and land-batteries exchanged their shots, to theworsting of the Choshiu clansmen, the military powers of the Japanesehad not yet been tested. Accepting the local traditions about thePapists' Hill, or Papenberg, from which, in 1637, the insurgentChristians are said to have been hurled into the sea, Carleton wrote, "The gray cliff, wearing its emerald crown, is an everlasting memorialto the martyr dead. "

It was in this harbor that the American commander, James Glynn, in1849, in the little fourteen-gun brig _Preble_, gave the imperiousand cruel Japanese of Tycoon times a taste of the lesson they were tolearn from McDougall and Pearson. Soon they reached Déshima, thelittle island which, in Japan's modern history, might well be calledits leaven; for here, for over two centuries, the Dutch dispensedthose ideas, as well as their books and merchandise, which helped tomake the Japan of our day. Carleton's impressions of the Japanese werethat they had a more manly physique, and were less mildly tempered, but that they were lower in morals, than the Chinese. The women wereespecially eager to know the mysteries of crinoline, and anxiouslyinspected the dress of their foreign sisters. 

Japan, in 1868, was in the throes of civil war. The lamp of history atthat time was set in a dark lantern, and very few of the foreigners, diplomatic, missionary, or mercantile, then in the islands, had anyclear idea of what was going on, or why things were moving as theywere. It may be safely said that only a handful of students, who hadmade themselves familiar with the ancient native records, and withthat remarkable body of native literature produced in the first halfof this century, could see clearly through the maze, and explain theorigin and meaning of the movement of the great, southern clans anddaimios against the Tycoon. It was in reality the assertion of theMikado's imperial and historic claims to complete supremacy againstthe Shogun's or lieutenant's long usurpation. It was an expression ofnationality against sections. The civil war meant "unite or die. "Carleton naturally shared in the general wrong impressions anddarkness that prevailed, and neither his letters nor his writing givemuch light upon the political problem, though his descriptions of thescenery and of the people and their ways make pleasing reading. Inreality, even as the first gun against Sumter and the resulting civilwar were the results of the clash of antagonistic principles which hadbeen working for centuries, so the uprising and war in Japan in1868-70, which resulted in national unity, one government, one ruler, one flag, the overthrow of feudalism, the abolition of ancient abuses, and the making of new Japan, resulted from agencies set in motion overa century before. Foreign intercourse and the presence of aliens onthe soil gave the occasion, but not the cause, of the nation'sre-birth. 

The new government already in power at Kioto, under pressure ofbigoted Shintoists, revamped the ancient cult of Shinto, making it apolitical engine. Persecution of the native Christians, who had lived, with their faith uneradicated, on the old soil crimsoned by the bloodof their martyr ancestors, had already begun. Carleton found on thesteamer going North to Nagasaki one of the French missionaries inJapan, who informed him that at least twenty thousand nativeChristians were in communication with their spiritual advisers. At seathey met the Japanese steamer named after Sir Harry Parkes, the ableand energetic British minister, who was one of the first to understandthe situation and to recognize the Mikado. This steamer had leftNagasaki three weeks previously, with four hundred native Christians. These had been tied, bundled, and numbered like so many sticks offirewood, and carried northward to the mountain-crater prisons ofKaga. 

Many of these prisoners I afterwards saw. When in Boston I used totalk with Mr. Coffin about Japanese history and politics, and of thehonored Guido F. Verbeck, one of the finest of scholars, noblest ofmissionaries, and best friends of Japan. No one was more amused thanCarleton over that mistake, in his letter and book, from hearsay, about "Mr. Verbeck, a Dutchman who is trading there" (Nagasaki). 

They passed safely through the straits of Shimonoséki, admiring thecaves, the surf, the multitudes of sea-fowl, the silver streamsfalling down from the heights of Kokura, on the opposite side ofChoshiu, and from mountains four thousand feet high, and madebeautiful with terraces and shrubbery. Through the narrow strait wherethe water ran like a mill-race, the steamer ploughed her way. Theypassed heights not then, as a few years before, dotted numerously withthe black muzzles of protruding cannon, nor fortified as they are nowwith steel domes, heavy masonry, and modern artillery. Here in thisstrait, in 1863, the gallant David McDougall, in the U. S. Corvette_Wyoming_, performed what was perhaps the most gallant act everwrought by a single commander in a single ship, in the annals of ournavy. Here, in 1864, the United States, in alliance with threeEuropean Powers, went to war with one Parrott gun under LieutenantPierson on the _Ta-Kiang_. 

Like nearly all other first gazers upon the splendid panorama of theInland Sea, Carleton was enthralled with the ever changing beauty, while interested in the busy marine life. At one time he counted fivehundred white wings of the Old Japan's bird of commerce, the junk. Atthe new city of Hiogo, with the pretty little settlement of Kobé yetin embryo, they spent a happy day, having Dr. W. A. P. Martin to readfor them the inscriptions in the Chinese characters on the Shintotemple stones and tablets. 

The ship then moved northward, through that wonder river in the ocean, the Kuro-Shiwo, or Black Current, the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, first discovered and described by the American captain, Silas Bent. The great landmarks were clearly visible, --Idzu, with its mountainsand port of Shimoda, where Townsend Harris had won the diplomaticvictory which opened Japan to foreign residence and commerce;white-hooded Fuji San, looking as chaste and pure as a nun, with herfirst dress of summer snow; Vries Island, with its column of graysmoke. Further to the east were the Bonin Islands, first visited byCaptain Reuben Coffin, of Nantucket, in the ship _Transit_, in 1824. When past Saratoga Spit, Webster Isle, and Mississippi Bay, the partystepped ashore at Yokohama, where on the hill was a British regimentin camp. The redcoats had been ordered from India during the dangersconsequent upon civil strife, and belonged to the historic TenthRegiment, which Carleton's grandfather and his fellow patriots had meton Bunker Hill. 

It was a keen disappointment to Carleton not to be able to see Tokio, then forbidden to the tourist, because of war's commotion. A heavybattle had been fought July 4, 1868, at Uyéno, of old the place oftemples, and now of parks and exhibitions, in the northern part of thecity. The Mikado's forces then moved on the strongholds of the rebelsat Aidzu, but foreigners knew very little of what was then going on. After a visit to the mediæval capital of the Shoguns, at Kamakura, hetook the steamer southward to Nagasaki, and again set his faceeastward. He was again a traveller to the Orient, that is, to America. On the homeward steamer, the _Colorado_, were forty-one first-classpassengers, of whom sixteen were going to Europe, taking this new, asit was the nearest and cheapest, way home. Below deck were onethousand Chinese. Before the steamer got out of the harbor it stopped, at the request of Admiral Rowan, and four unhappy deserters were takenoff. 

The Pacific Ocean was crossed in calm. It seemed but a very few daysof pleasant sailing on the great peaceful ocean, --with the days'gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, which hollowed out of the sky cavernsupon caverns of light full of color more wonderful than Ali Baba'streasure-chamber, and nights spiritually lovely with the silvery lightof moon and stars. On August 15th, 1868, they passed through theGolden Gate, and "Aladdin's palace of the West, " the cosmopolitan cityof San Francisco, was before their eyes. 

Not more wonderful than the things ephemeral and the strange changesgoing on in the city, wherein were very few old men, but only theyoung and strong of many nations, were the stabilities of life. Carleton found time to examine and write about education, thelibraries, churches, asylums, charities, and the beginnings ofliterature, science, and art. In one of the schools he found themdebating "whether Congress was right in ordering Major Andre to beexecuted. " Lest some might think Carleton lacking in love to "Our OldHome, " we quote, "It is neither politic, wise, nor honest to instillinto the youthful mind animosity towards England or any other nation, especially for acts committed nearly a century ago. "

In his youth he had played the battles of Bunker Hill and Bennington, in which his living ancestors had fought, and of which they had toldhim, --using the roadside weeds as British soldiers, and sticks, stones, and a cornstalk knife for weapons. In after-life, he oftenexpressed the emphatic opinion that our school histories wereviciously planned and written, preserving a spirit that boded no goodfor the future of our country and the world. In the nineties, he wasasked by the Harpers to write a history of the United States for youngpeople. This he hoped to do, correcting prejudices, and emphasizingthe moral union between the two nations using English speech; but alltoo soon the night came when he could not do the work proposed. 

Remaining in California over two months, Carleton started eastward inthe late autumn over the Central Pacific railway, writing from SaltLake City what he saw and knew about Mormonism and the polygamy andconcubinage there shamefully prevalent. From the town of Argenti, leaving the iron rails, they enjoyed and suffered seven days andnights of staging until smooth iron was entered upon once more. Theypassed several specimens of what Carleton called "pandemonium onwheels, "--those temporary settlements swarming with gamblers and theworst sort of human beings, male and female. They abode some time inthe city of Latter Day Saints. They saw Chicago. "Home Again" was sungbefore Christmas day. Once more he breathed the salt air of Boston. Carleton wrote a series of letters on "The Science of Travel, " showingwhere, when, and for how much, one could enjoy himself in the variouscountries and climates in going around the world. 

Carleton summed up his impressions after completing the circuit of theglobe in declaring that three aggressive nations, England, Russia, andthe United States, were the chief makers of modern history, --Americabeing the greatest teacher of them all, and "our flag the symbol ofthe world's best hope. "

CHAPTER XX. 

THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 

It was one of the great disappointments of Carleton's life that, onreturning from his journey around the world, he was not made, as hehad with good reason fully expected to be made, chief editor of the_Boston Journal_. We need not go into details of the matter, butsuffice it to say, that Carleton was not one to waste time in idleregrets. Indeed, his was a character that could be tested bydisappointments, which, in his life, were not a few. Instead ofbitterness, came the ripened fruit of patience and mellowness ofcharacter. 

His renewed acquaintance with the region west of the Mississippi, which he had made during his recent trip across the continent, onlywhetted his appetite for more seeing and knowing of the future seat ofAmerica empire. He accepted with pleasure a commission to explore thepromising regions of Minnesota and Dakota, and to give an accountespecially of the Red River Valley. 

Already, in 1858, he had written and published, at his own expense, apamphlet of twenty-three pages, entitled "The Great Commercial Prize, "Boston, A. Williams & Co. It cost him fifty dollars, then a large sumfor him, from which the advantage accrued to the nation at large. Itwas addressed to every American who values the prosperity of hiscountry. It was "An inquiry into the present and prospectivecommercial position of the United States, and a plea for the immediateconstruction of a railroad from Missouri River to Puget Sound. " Itopens with a review of the great events in the world which have had adirect and all-important bearing upon the United States. Hitherto, since the modern mastery of the ocean through the mariner's compassand the science of navigation, the Atlantic had been the domain of seapower. The Pacific was in future to be the scene of greateropportunities and grander commercial developments. With China andJapan entering the brotherhood of nations, and Russia extending itspower towards the Pacific, "five hundred millions of human beings werehenceforth to be reached by the hand of civilization. " The countriesand continents bordering the greatest of oceans were animated with newideas of progress. On our own western shores, California, Oregon, andWashington were awaiting the touch of industry to yield their riches. 

As a reader of the signs of the times, Carleton pointed out the greatchanges which were to take place in the thoroughfares of trade andtravel. Instead of civilization depending for its communication withIndia, China, and Japan, by passages around the southern capes of thetwo continents, the paths of water and land traffic were to bedirectly from China, Russia, and Japan to northern America. Noticingthat England had made herself the world's banking-house, he saw thatthe time had come when the United States (which he believed to bepotentially, at least, a larger and a nobler England) must stretch outher left hand, as well as her right, for the grasping of the world'sprizes. He pointed out the wonderful openings along the shore, providing harbors at the mouths of the two great river systems on thePacific Coast, those of the Sacramento and the Columbia. 

Carleton urged that "A railroad to Puget Sound, constructedimmediately, alone will take the key of the Northwest from the handsof the nations which stand with us in the front rank of power. "Important as the railway to San Francisco was, it would not yield theprize. To his vision it was even then perfectly clear, as to all theworld it has been since the Chino-Japanese war of 1894-95, that thechief American staple which China and Japan needs is cotton, thoughmachinery, petroleum, and flour are in demand. After giving facts, statistics, and well-wrought arguments, he wrote: "Again we say it iseasy for America to lay its hand upon the greatest prize of all times, to make herself the world's workshop, --the world's banker. ShallEngland or the United States control the northwestern section of thecontinent and the trade of the Pacific?"

Over a decade later on, in 1869, Carleton revelled in the opportunityof being once more the herald and informer concerning regions ready towelcome the plough, the machine-shop, the home, the church, theschool, and the glories of civilization. He spent several monthsmostly in the open air and chiefly on horseback, though often on footand in vehicles of various descriptions, camping out under the stars, or accepting such rough accommodation as was then afforded in regionswhere palace cars, elegant hotels, and comfortable homes are nowcommonplaces. His letters to the _Journal_ were breezy and sparkling. They diffused the aroma of the Western forests and prairies, whilemarked with that same wealth of graphic detail, spice of anecdote, lambent humor, and garnish of a conversation which delighted thereaders of his correspondence from the army and from the older seatsof empire in Asia and in Europe. Carleton's literary photographs werethe means of moving many a young and adventurous couple from theirhomes in the East to the frontier, and of firing the ambition of manya lad and lass to seek their fortune west of the Mississippi. SinceCalifornia was settled and the Pacific Coast occupied even atscattered points, our frontiers, strange as it may seem, have not beenat the eastern or western ends, but on the middle of the country. 

After this campaign of correspondence, Carleton returned home andwrote that little book which has been so widely read, both in the Eastand in the West, entitled "The Seat of Empire. " It was published in1870 by Fields & Co. , of Boston. It had eight pages of introduction, with a map of the territory yet to be settled. It was a volume of 232pages, 16mo, and was illustrated. For many years afterwards, amid thehundreds of letters received from grateful readers of his books, noneseemed to give Carleton more pleasure than those from readers who hadbecome settlers. This little book had indeed come to many as arevelation of the promised land. The contagion reached even to Mrs. Coffin's brothers, one of whom, with a nephew of Carleton, became apioneer farmer in the Red River Valley in Dakota. 

Another pathfinder, a literary as well as military pioneer in openingthis noble region to civilization, was the warm friend of Carleton andof the writer, General Henry B. Carrington, of the United Statesregular army, and author of that standard authority, "Battles of theAmerican Revolution. " During the Civil War, General Carrington hadbeen stationed in Indiana, where he was the potent agent in spoilingthe treasonable schemes of the Knights of the Golden Circle, and innobly seconding Governor Morton in holding the State true to theUnion. The war over, he served on the Western plains until 1868, andthen wrote "Absaraka, the Home of the Crows, " which was a score ofyears afterwards republished under the title of "Absaraka, the Land ofMassacre. " General Carrington was afterwards one of the active membersof Shawmut Church. With his fine scholarly and literary tastes, hemade a delightful companion. 

Any well-told narrative of the exploration, conquest, and civilizationof a country, with a history which has helped to make the pageant andprocession of human achievement so rich, is, when fully known, ofthrilling interest. How grand is the story of the Aryans in India, ofthe first historic invaders of Japan, of the Roman advance intonorthern Europe, of the making of Africa and of western America in ourown times! Even the culture-epoch of the North American Indians, aswritten by Longfellow, in his "Song of Hiawatha, " is as fascinatingas a fairy tale. 

Carleton, believing himself and his country to be "in the foremostfiles of time" and "the heirs of all the ages, " came, saw, and wroteof our empire in the Northwest, with an intoxication of delight. Furthermore, he believed that those who came after him would seevastly more of this part of the earth replenished and subdued. Yet theconquest for which he longed was not to be with blood. His hope andhis purpose were intensely ethical and spiritual. His vision was ofthe triumph of peace, law, order, religion. He urged emigrants lookingbeyond the Mississippi, or the Rockies, to go in groups, and take withthem "the moral atmosphere of their old homes. " He advocated theopening of a school the first week and a Sunday school the firstSunday following the arrival of such a colony at its destination. Evena bare, new home, cramped and poor, he suggested, might be to them thetype of a better one in more prosperous years, and of the Home beyond, so that, from the beginning, "on Sabbath morning, swelling upward onthe air, sweeter than the lay of the lark among the flowers, willascend the songs of the Sunday school established in their new home. Looking forward with ardent hope of the earthly prosperous years, theywould look still beyond to the heavenly, and sing:

 'My heavenly home is bright and fair; Nor pain nor death can enter there. '"

In Japan's long and brilliant roll of benefactors and civilizers, nonames shine more gloriously than those of the Openers of Mountainpaths, --of men, priests or laymen, who, by showing the way, surmounting the dangers and difficulties, revealed and made accessiblegreat spaces of land for home and harvest field. The Hebrew prophetspeaks eloquently of those who "raise up the foundation of manygenerations, " and of those called "the restorer of the paths to dwellin. " In this glorious company of the world's benefactors, Carleton'sname is written indelibly. Even "far-sighted" men deemed the projectof a railway to Puget Sound "visionary, " when Carleton's pamphlet waspublished. He lived to see it a reality. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE WRITER OF HISTORY. 

Steeped in the ancestral lore of New England, a student of the originsof this country, a reader of, and thinker upon, the records of thepast, having seen history in its making, and, as it were, in the veryfurnace and crucibles of war, having traversed the globe along theline of its highest civilizations, having watched at the cradle of ourown nobler empire in the great West, Carleton determined to write forthe young people of this nation the story of liberty, and of liberty'shighest expression, "The American People and Their Government. "

It was not a sudden impulse that came to him, it was no accident, butthe result of a deliberate purpose. Opportunity and leisure now madethe way perfectly clear. He had long been of the opinion that theevents of history might be presented vividly to the youthful mind ina series of pictures. He would portray the experiences of individualswhom the reader has been led to regard as persons, and not merelyparts of an army, a church, and a government. He believed this was abetter method, with young readers at least, than that usually followedby the majority of writers of history. To form his style, he read andre-read the very best English authors. He studied Burke especially, and ascribed to him the strongest single literary influence he hadknown. Years afterwards, when (like the swords of the Japanesesteel-smiths, Muramasa and Sanémori, which never would rest quietly intheir scabbards, but always kept flying out) Carleton's books werenearly always usefully absent from the shelves, the librarian atDover, New Hampshire, in surprise made criticism to his face ofCarleton's own statement about Burke. She remarked to him that she hadnot thought of Burke as a model for a person intending to writefiction, --referring, doubtless, to "Winning His Way, " and "CalebKrinkle. "

Carleton replied that the strong, fine style of the British authorgave him the best possible lesson in presenting a subject. "Whetherwriting fiction or fact, if the author wished to make and retain animpression on the mind of his reader, let him study Burke. " At aparticular time, as the chief librarian of a large public library toldhim, Carleton's books were more largely read than those of any livingwriter in the world. 

"Caleb Krinkle" is a story of American life in which the characters, the habits of thought, and the rich details of daily routine are givenwith minuteness, accuracy of observation, and genuine sympathy. Thelandscape is that of New Hampshire, but the outlook is far beyond, forthe author's purpose is to sow broadcast the seeds of true dignity, manliness, and republicanism. The hero is a good one, but of nouncommon type. 

The young Yankee finds the battle of life hard, but also fights itbravely, and, in good time, conquers. The secondary actor, DanDishaway, is a wholly original character, a tin peddler with littleeducation and unpolished manners, but with a loyal heart, and asimple, unconscious character that impressed and influenced the wholevillage. The teacher of teachers, to him, was his mother. The veryfoundation of the story is the value of human character, apart fromthe accidents of birth or position. The plot develops rapidly, and isillustrated by exciting incidents of river freshets, shipwreck on oneof the great lakes, and a prairie fire. Love is shown to be norespecter of persons, but is found faithful, pure, and delicate, inpeople who never heard of cosmic philosophy, or the term "altruism, "who knew not the classics, who went sadly astray in grammar. Withoutdirect preaching, the story shows that the way of the transgressor ishard, and that the hardness is not lessened by worldly prosperity. 

The critic quickly notices, however, that Carleton is not sosuccessful in his pictures of city life as those of the country. Nevertheless, in modern days, when the population of Boston consistsnot of people born there, but chiefly of newcomers from the country, from Canada, or from Europe, Carleton was all the more a helper. AnAmerican who has mastered French, even though not perfect inpronunciation, may be a better teacher of it than a native. 

Bertha Wayland's success in society, and her Boston life, made a veryattractive portion of the book to a large number of readers at ruralfiresides. For who in New England, and still young, does not hope someday to live in sight of the golden dome? In later years, "CalebKrinkle" was republished, with some revision and in much handsomerform, as "Dan of Millbrook, " by Estes and Lauriat, of Boston. 

His next work, which still remains the most popular of all, the oneleast likely to suffer by the lapse of time, and the last probably toreach oblivion, because it appeals to young Americans in the wholenation, is his "Boys of '76. " The first lore to which Carletonlistened after his infant lips had learned prayer, and "line uponline, and precept upon precept, " from the Bible, was from his soldiergrandfathers. These around the open fireplace told the story ofRevolutionary marches, and camps, and battles. Nothing could be morereal to the open-eyed little boy than the narratives related by theactors themselves, especially when he could ask questions, and getfull light and explanation. 

For an author who would write on the beginnings of the Revolution, nopart of our country is so rich in historic sites, and so superblyequipped with libraries, museums, relics, and memorials, as the valleyof the Charles River, in Massachusetts. In this region lies Boston, where not the first, though nearly the first, blood of the Revolutionwas shed; where were hung for Paul Revere the lantern-beacons; whichwas first the base of operations against Bunker Hill; and whichafterward suffered siege, and served as the outlet for the Tories toCanada, when Howe and his fleet sailed away. Across the river is thebattle-road to Lexington, now nobly marked with monumental stones andtablets, and, further on, Lexington itself, with its blood-consecratedgreen and inscribed boulder, its museum, and its well-marked historicspots. Beyond is Concord, with its bridge, well-site, and bronzeminuteman. From the crest of the green mound on Bunker Hill, atCharlestown, rises the granite monument seen from all the countryround. Near to Boston, is Cambridge with its university, Washington'selm, and manifold Revolutionary memories; while on the southeast, onthe rising ground close at hand, and now part of the municipalityitself, are Dorchester Heights, once fortified and bristling withcannon. Within easy reach by rail, water, or wheel, are places alreadymagnetic to the tourist and traveller, because their reputations havebeen richly enlarged by poet, artist, romancer, and historian. Alongthe coast, or slightly inland, stood the humble homes of the ancestorsof Grant and Lincoln, and but a little further to the southeast is the"holy ground" of Plymouth. 

Even more important to the historiographer are the amazing treasuresof books and records gathered in the twin cities on the Charles, making a wealth of material for American history, unique in the UnitedStates. What wonder, then, that the overwhelming majority of Americanwriters of history have wrought here? Nor need we be surprised that, both in their general tone and in the bulk of their writing, they haveportrayed less the real history of the United States than the historyof New England, --with a glance at parts adjacent and an occasionaldistant view of regions beyond. 

Graphic, powerful, and popular as are Carleton's books, he does notwholly escape the limitations of his heredity and environment. Generous as he is, and means to be, to other States, nationalities, and sections in the United States, beyond those in the six EasternStates, the student more familiar with the great constructive forcesof the Middle, the Southern, and the Western States, who knows thepower of Princeton as well as of Harvard, of Dutch as well as ofYankee, without necessarily contesting Carleton's statements of fact, is inclined to discern larger streams of influence, and to givegreater credit to sources and developments of power, and to men andinstitutions west and south of the Hudson River, than does Carleton inhis books. 

Yet to the millions of his readers, history seemed to be written in anew way. It was different from anything to which they had beenaccustomed. Peter Parley had, indeed, in his time, created a freshstyle of historical narration, which captivated unnumbered readers byits simple and direct method of presenting subjects known in theirgeneral outline, but not made of sufficient human or present interest. These works had suited exactly the stage of culture which the majorityof young people in our country had reached when the Parley books werewritten. It is doubtful, however, whether those same works would haveachieved a like success in the last three decades of this century. Education had been so much improved, schools were so much moregeneral, the development of the press and cheap reading matter was sogreat, that in the enlargement of view consequent upon the successfulissue of the great civil war, a higher order of historical narrationwas a necessity. He who would win the new generation needed to beneither a professional scholar, a man of research, nor a genius, buthe must know human nature well, and be familiar with great nationalmovements, the causes and the channels of power. This equipment, together with a style fashioned, indeed, in the newspaper office, butdeepened and enriched by the study of language, of rhetoric, and ofmasterly literary methods, as seen in the best English prose, madeCarleton the elect historian for the new generation, and the educatorof the youth of our own and the coming century. 

Carleton is a maker of pictures. He turns types into prismatics, andparagraphs into paintings. He lifts the past into the present. Theevent is seen as though it happened yesterday, and the persons, bethey kings or plough-boys, appear as if living to-day. Their hearts, affections, motives, thoughts, are just like those of men and women inour time. Their clothing and way of living may be different, but theyare the sort of human beings with which we are acquainted. Better yet, it is not only the men with crowns on their heads, or the women whowear jewelled and embroidered robes, or riders locked up in steel, ormen under tonsure or tiara, that did great things and made the worldmove. Carleton shows how the milk-maid, the wagoner, the blacksmith, the spinster with the distaff, the rower of the boat, the commonsoldier on foot, the student in his cell, and the peddler with hispack, all had a part in working out the wonderful story. 

Had a part, did I say? No, in Carleton's story he _has_ a part. Nowriter more frequently and with keener effect uses the historicalpresent. Compare Carleton's straightforward narration and marchingchapters with the average British writer of history, and at once wesee the difference between chroniclers, --who give such enormous spaceto kings, queens and ecclesiastical and military figureheads, almostto the extent (in the eye of the philosophic student, at least) ofcaricature, --and this modern scribe, to whom every true man is asovereign, while a king is no more than a man. While well able tomeasure personalities and forces, to divine causes, and to discern andemphasize in the foreground of his pictures, even as an artist does, the important figure, yet Carleton is never at a loss to do thisbecause the real hero may be of humble birth or in modest apparel. 

In travelling, the little child from the car window will notice manythings in the landscape and about the houses passed, belonging to hislowly world of experience, no higher than the top of a yardstick, towhich the average adult is blind. Carleton looked with the child's eyeover history's field. He brings before the front lights of his stagewhat will at once catch the attention of the young people, to whom thedeeper things of life may be invisible mystery. Yet, Carleton's booksare always enjoyable to the mature man, for he discerns beneath thevivid picturing and simple rhetoric, so pleasing to the child, apractical knowledge and a philosophic depth which shows that thewriter is a master of the art of reading men and events as well as ofinterpreting history. 

Mr. Coffin's more serious productions are his arguments beforeCongressional and State legislative committees; his pamphlets on thelabor question, railways, and patents; his addresses before generalaudiences and gatherings of scientific, commercial, and religiouslyinterested men; his life of Garfield, as well as that of Lincoln; andthose voluminous contributions made to the daily or weekly press, andto magazines, and to reviews. Editors often turned to him for thatkind of light and knowledge that the public needed when grave issueswere before the church, the city, the commonwealth, the nation. Inspeaking or writing thus, he used a less ornate style, less fervidrhetoric, and spoke or wrote with direct, business-like precision. Ina word, he suited his style to the work in hand. But, because heattracted and delighted, while teaching, his young readers, thatcritic must be blind or unappreciative who cannot see also thepurpose of a master mind. The mature intellect of Carleton whichanimates and informs the pretty stones, educated also up and on to thenobler heights of historical reading. 

Strictly speaking, in the light of the more rigid canons of historicalknowledge and the research demanded in our days, and when tested bystern criticism, Mr. Coffin was not a historical scholar of the firstorder. Nor did he make any such pretension. No one, certainly nothimself, would dream of ranging his name in the same line with thoseof the great masters, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, or Parkman, --men ofwealth and leisure, as well as of ability. He painted his pictureswithout going into the chemistry of colors, or searching into themysteries of botany, to be absolutely sure as to the classification ofthe fibres which made his canvas. His first purpose was to make animpression, and his second, to fix that impression inerasably on themind. For this, he trusted largely the work of those who had livedbefore him, and he made diligent and liberal use of materials alreadyaccumulated. He would paint his own picture after making the drawingsand arranging his tints, perspective, lights, and shadows. 

Nevertheless, Mr. Coffin was not a man accustomed to take truth atsecond hand. His own judgment was singularly sane, and he was notaccustomed to receive statements and to devour them unflavored by thesalt of criticism. Four years of the pursuit of letters amid arms, while passion was hottest, and men were too excited to care for theexact truth, had trained this cool-headed scribe to critical treatmentof rumors and reports. Furthermore, he knew the value of firstauthorities and of contemporary writers and eye-witnesses. Hediscounted much of the writing done after the war in controversy, forpolitical ends, for personal vanity, or to cover up damagedreputations. He knew both the heating and the cooling processes oftime. I remember when, about 1890, after he had finished making a setof scrap-books of soldiers' letters, reminiscences and newspaperreports of the battles of the war, how heartily he laughed when, withtwinkling eyes, he remarked on the tendency of some old soldiers "toremember a good deal that never happened. " As his experience withthe pen deepened, he became more rigid in his requirements as to thequality of the information which his books gave. Those who have readespecially his four later volumes on the war, will note that at theend of each chapter he gives the sources of authority for hisstatements and judgments. In a word, Carleton was a man who, havingmapped the irrigated country and the stream's mouth, resolutely sethis face towards the fountains to find them. There is an increasingexactness and care in finish, as his works progressed. 

The decade from 1870 to 1880 was a busy one for this author, not onlyin his home study, in the Boston libraries, but also with the pen andwith voice. The formation of the Grand Army of the Republic, and theestablishments of Posts all over the country, and especially in theNorthern States, created a demand for lectures on the war. Thesoldiers themselves wished to study the great subject as a whole, while their wives and children and friends were only too glad tosupport the movement for the gathering of Post libraries, or thecollection in the town public libraries of books relating to the war. The younger generation needed instruction as to causes, as well as toresults. Carleton was everywhere a favorite, because of hispersonality, as well as of his wide and profound acquaintance, fromactual observation, of the great movements which consolidated nations. 

Years before becoming a war correspondent, Carleton had longed to bean orator who could sway thousands by the magic of his eloquence. Morethan once, after hearing Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, WendellPhillips, and such masters of audiences, he would be unable to sleep, so excited was he by what he had heard, and still more by the powerevinced in a single mind moving the wills of thousands. In such hourshe longed to be a great orator, and thought no sacrifice too great tomake in order to achieve success. As his own opportunities for publicspeaking multiplied, he became a fluent and convincing speaker, withclear ideas, picturesque language, and the power of dramaticantithesis. He had that gift of making pictures to the mind by which aspeaker can turn the ears of his auditors into eyes. His tall form, luminous face, impressive sincerity, and contagious earnestness madedelighted hearers, especially among the soldiers, who everywherehailed him as their defender, their faithful historian, and theirsteadfast friend. To take the hand of Carleton, after his address orlecture, was a privilege for which men and women strove as a highhonor, and which children, now grown men and women, remember for alifetime. 

Nevertheless, in the sound judgment of the critic, Carleton would notbe reckoned, as he himself knew well, in the front rank of orators. Neither in overmastering grace of person, in power of unction, inmagnetic conquest of the mind and will, was he preëminent. When, leaving the flowery meadows of description or rising from thetable-land of noble sentiment and inspiring precepts, he attempted torise in soaring eloquence, his oratorical abilities did not match thegrandeur of his thought or the splendor of his diction. 

In the course of his career as a speaker, he delivered at least twothousand lectures and addresses on formal occasions, besidesunnumbered off hand speeches. Being one of those full men, it was ofhim that it could be said, _Semper paratus_. On whatever subject hespoke, he was sure to make it interesting. Besides reports of hisaddresses and orations in the newspapers, several of the mostimportant have been published in pamphlet form. At the centennialcelebration at Boscawen, N. H. , on the 4th of July, and at the 45thanniversary of the settlement of Rev. Edward Buxton, at the 50thanniversary of the Historical-Genealogical Society of Boston, and atNantucket, before the Bostonian Society and at the CongregationalClubs, before Press Associations, Legislative and CongressionalCommittees, on Social and Labor questions, and at the Congress held inChicago for the promotion of international commerce between thecountries of North and South America, Carleton reached first anaudience, and then, through the types, wider circles of readers. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

MUSIC AND POETRY. 

Besides other means of recreation, Carleton was happy in having beenfrom childhood a lover of music. In earlier life he sang in the churchchoir, under the training of masters of increasing grades of skill, inhis native village, at Malden, and in Boston. He early learned to playupon keyed instruments, the melodion, the piano, and the organ, thelatter being his favorite. From this great encyclopædia of tones, heloved to bring out grand harmonies. He used this instrument of manypotencies, for enjoyment, as a means of culture, for the soothing ofhis spirits, and the resting of his brain. When wearied with themonotony of work with his pen, he would leave his study, as Iremember, when living in Boston, and, having a private key to ShawmutChurch, and dependent on no assistance except that of the water-motor, he would, for a half hour or more, and sometimes for hours, delightand refresh himself with this organ, --grandest of all but one, inBoston, the city of good organs and organ-makers. Many timesthroughout the war, in churches deserted or occupied, alone or in thepublic service, in the soldier's camp-church or meeting in the openair, wherever there was an instrument with keys, Carleton was a valuedparticipant and aid in worship. 

Religious music was his favorite, but he delighted in all sweetmelodies. He loved the Boston Symphony concerts and the grand opera. Among his best pieces of writing were the accounts of Wagner'sParsifal at Bayreuth, and the great Peace Jubilee after our civil war. At most of the great musical events in Boston, he was present. 

Shawmut Church had for many years one of the very best quartettechoirs in the city, supported at the instrument by such organists asDudley Buck, George Harris, Samuel Carr, H. E. Parkhurst, and Henry M. Dunham. In Carleton, both voice and instrument found so appreciative ahearer, and one who so often personally commended or appraised theirrenderings of a great composer's thought, or a heart-touching song, that "as well the singers as the players on instruments" were alwaysglad to know how he received their art and work. In Europe, this loverof sweet sound enjoyed hearing the greatest vocalists, and thosemightiest of the masses of harmony known on earth, and possible onlyin European capitals. Before going to some noble feast for ear andsoul, as, for example, Wagner's rendition of his operas at Bayreuth, Carleton would study carefully the literary history, the ideas soughtto be expressed in sound, and the score of the composer. In his granddescription and interpretation of Parsifal, he likened it among operasto the Jungfrau amid the Bernese Alps. "In its sweep of vision, beauty, greatness, whiteness, glory, and grandeur, it stands alone . .. To show the greatness, the ideal of Wagner, including the conflict ofall time, --the upbuilding of individual character, --and reaching on toeternity. "

Carleton, being a real Christian, necessarily believed in, andheartily supported, foreign missionary work. He saw in his Master, Christ, the greatest of all missionaries, and in the twelvemissionaries, whom he chose to carry on his work, the true order andline of the kingdom. "Apostolical" succession is, literally, and inChrist's intent, missionary succession. He read in Paul's account ofthe organization of the Christian Church, that, among its orders anddignities, its officers and personnel, were "first missionaries. " Tohim the only "orders" and "succession" were those which propagated theGospel. He had seen the work of the modern apostles, sent forth byAmerican Christians, west of the Alleghanies first, west of theMississippi. He had later beheld the true apostles at work, in India, China, and Japan. It was on account of his seeing that he became astill more enthusiastic upholder of missionary, or apostolic, work. Hegave many addresses and lectures in New England, in loyalty to themind of the Master. As he had been a friend of the black man, slave orfree, so also was he ever a faithful defender of the Asiatic strangerwithin our gates. Against the bill which practically excluded theChinamen from the United States, in defiance of the spirit and letterof the Burlingame treaty, Carleton spoke vigorously, at the meetingheld in Tremont Temple, in Boston, to protest against the infamousExclusion bill, which committed the nation to perjury. Carleton couldnever see the justice of stealing black men from Africa to enslavethem, of murdering red men in order to steal their hunting-grounds, orof inviting yellow men across the sea to do our work, and then kickingthem out when they were no longer needed. 

Carleton was instrumental in giving impetus to the movement to foundthat mission in Japan which has since borne fruit in the creation ofthe largest and most influential body of Christian churches, and thegreat Doshisha University, in Kioto. These churches are calledKumi-ai, or associated independent churches, and out of them havecome, in remarkable numbers, preachers, pastors, editors, authors, political leaders, and influential men in every department of the newmodern life in Japan. It was at the meeting of the American Board, held in Pittsburg, in the Third Presbyterian Church edifice, October7-8, 1869, that the mission to Japan was proposed. A paper bySecretary Treat was read, and reported on favorably, and Rev. DavidGreene, who had volunteered to be the apostle to the Sunrise Empire, made an address. The speech of Carleton, who had just returned fromDai Nippon, capped the climax of enthusiasm, and the meeting closed bysinging the hymn, "Nearer, my God, to Thee. "

At one of the later meetings of the Board, at Rutland, Vermont, theJapanese student Neesima pleaded effectually that a university befounded, the history of which, under the name of the One Endeavor, orDoshisha, is well known. In the same year that Neesima was graduatedfrom Amherst College, Carleton received from this institution thehonorary degree of Master of Arts. 

Carleton could turn his nimble pen to rhyme, when his friends requiredverses, and best when his own emotions struggled for utterance inpoetry. Several very creditable hymns were composed for anniversaryoccasions and for the Easter Festivals of Shawmut Church. 

Indeed, the first money ever paid him by a publisher was for apoem, --"The Old Man's Meditations, " which was copied into "Littell'sLiving Age. " The pre-natal life, birth, and growth of this first-bornchild of Carleton's brain and heart, which inherited a "doubleportion, " in both fame and pelf, is worth noting. In 1852, an ageduncle of Mrs. Coffin, who dwelt in thoughts that had not yet becomethe commonplace property of our day, being at home in the immensitiesof geology and the infinities of astronomy, made a visit to the homein Boscawen, spending some days. Carleton was richly fed in spirit, and, conceiving the idea of the poem, on going out to plough, putpaper and pencil in his pocket. As he thought out line upon line, orstanza by stanza, he penned each in open air. At the end of thefurrow, or even in the middle of it, he would stop his team, lay thepaper on the back of the oxen, and write down the thought or line. Finished at home in the evenings, the poem was read to a friend, whopersuaded the author to test its editorial and mercantile value. 

"I shall never forget, " wrote Mrs. Coffin, October 13, 1896, "withwhat joy he came to me and showed me the poetry in the magazine, and acheck for $5. 00. "

The last three stanzas are:

 "He sails once more the sea of years So wide and vast and deep! He lives anew old hopes and fears-- Sweet tales of love again he hears, While flow afresh the scalding tears, For one long since asleep. 

 "He sees the wrecks upon the shore, And everything is drear; The rolling waves around him roar, The angry clouds their torrents pour, His friends are gone forevermore, And he alone is here. 

 "Yet through the gloom of gathering night, A glory from afar Streams ever on his fading sight, With Orient beams that grow more bright, The dawn of heaven's supernal light From Bethlehem's radiant star. "

During the evenings of 1892, Carleton guided a Reading Club of youngladies who met at his house. I remember, one evening, with what effecthe read Lowell's "Biglow Papers, " his eyes twinkling with the funwhich none enjoyed more than he. On another evening, after readingfrom Longfellow's "The Poet's Tale, " "Lady Wentworth, " and otherpoems, Carleton, before retiring, wrote a "Sequel to Lady Wentworth. "It is full of drollery, suggesting also what might possibly haveensued if "the judge" had married "Maud Müller. " Carleton's poem tellsof the risks and dangers to marital happiness which the old magistrateruns who weds a gay young girl. 

Carleton was ever a lover and student of poetry, and among poets, Whittier was from the first his favorite. As a boy he committed tomemory many of the Quaker poet's trumpet-like calls to duty. As a manhe always turned for inspiration to this sweet singer of freedom. Whatattracted Carleton was not only the intense moral earnestness of theFriend, his beautiful images and grand simplicity, but the seer'sperfect familiarity with the New Hampshire landscape, its mountains, its watercourses, the ways and customs of the people, the locallegends and poetical associations, the sympathy with the Indian, andthe seraphic delight which he took in the play of light upon the NewHampshire hills. Not more did Daniel Webster study with eager eyes theglowing and the paling of the light on the hilltops, no morerapturously did Rembrandt unweave the mazes of darkness, conjure theshadows, and win by study the mysteries of light and shade, than didWhittier. To Carleton, a true son of New Hampshire, who had himself sooften in boyhood watched and discriminated the mystery-play of lightin its variant forms at dawn, midday, and sunset, by moon and star andzodiac, at the equinoxes and solstices, the imagery of his favoritepoet was a perennial delight. 

As he ripened in years, Carleton loved poetry more and more. Hedelighted in Lowell, and enjoyed the mysticism of Emerson. He had readTennyson earlier in life without much pleasure, but in ripened years, and with refined tastes, his soul of music responded to the Englishbard's marvellous numbers. He became unspeakably happy over the tendermelody of Tennyson's smaller pieces, and the grand harmony of "InMemoriam, " which he thought the greatest poem ever written, and thehigh-water mark of intellect in the nineteenth century. Carleton wasnot only a lover of music, but a composer. When some especially tendersentiment in a hymn impressed him, or the re-reading of an old sacredsong kindled his imagination by its thought, or moved hissensibilities by its smooth rhythm, then Carleton was not likely torest until he had made a tune of his own with which to express hisfeelings. Of the scores which he composed and sang at home, or hadsung in the churches, a number were printed, and have had happy use. 

To the end of his life, he seemed to present, in his carriage andperson, some of that New Hampshire ruggedness, and even rusticsimplicity, that attracted and lured, while it foiled and disgustedthose hunters of human prey who, in every large city, wait to take inthe wayfaring man, whether he be fool or wise. Because he worecomfortable shoes, and cared next to nothing about conformity to thelast new freak of fashion, the bunco man was very apt to make a foolof himself, and find that he, and not the stranger, was the victim. InBoston, which of late years has been so far captured by the Irishmanthat even St. Patrick's is celebrated under the guise of "EvacuationDay, " matters were not very different from those in New York. Carleton, while often conducting parties of young friends aroundCopp's Hill, and the more interesting historical, but now uncannyhouses of the North End, was often remarked. Occasionally he wasrecognized by the policeman, who would inform suspicious or inquiringfellow foreigners or adopted sons of the Commonwealth, that "the oldfellow was only a countryman in town, and wouldn't do any harm. "

Lest some might get a false idea, I need only state that Mr. Coffinwas a man of dignified dress, and scrupulously neat. He was agentleman whose engaging presence might suggest the older and morealtruistic, rather than the newer and perhaps brusquer style ofmanners. His was a "mild and magnificent" blue eye in which so many, who loved him so, liked to dwell, and he had no need to wear glasses. The only sign of ornament about him was his gold watch-chain andcross-bar in his black vest buttonhole. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

SHAWMUT CHURCH. 

Shawmut Church, in Boston, stands at the corner of Tremont andBrookline Streets. Its history is one of unique interest. Its veryname connects the old and new world together. A Saxon monk, namedBotolph, after completing his Christian studies in Germany, founded, A. D. 654, a monastery in Lincolnshire, on the Witham, near the sea, and made it a centre of holy light and knowledge. He was the friend ofsailors and boat-folk. The houses which grew up around the monasterybecame Botolph's Town, or Boston. "Botolph" is itself but another formof boat-help, and the famous tower of this English parish church, finer than many cathedrals, is crowned by an octagon lantern, nearlythree hundred feet above the ground. It serves as a beacon-light, being visible forty miles distant, and, as of old, is the boat-help ofSaint Botolph's Town. This ecclesiastical lighthouse is familiarlycalled "Boston Stump, " and overlooks Lincolnshire, the cradle ofMassachusetts history. At Scrooby, a few miles to the west, lived andworshipped the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers. From this shire, also, came the English people who settled at Shawmut on the 17th ofSeptember, 1630. 

The Indian name, Shawmut, was that of the "place near the neck, "[1]probably the present Haymarket Square. The three-hilled peninsulacalled Tremont, or Boston, by the white settlers, was connected withthe main land at Roxbury by a long, narrow neck or causeway. Thefuture "South End" was then under the waves. After about two centuriesof use as a wagon road, this narrow strip between Boston andRoxbury--so narrow that, at high tide, boys were able to leap from thefoam of the South Bay to the spray of the waters of the CharlesRiver--was widened. Suffolk Street, which was one of the firsthighways west of Washington Street to be made into hard ground, wasnamed Shawmut Avenue. About the middle of the nineteenth century, much land was reclaimed from the salt mud and marshes and made readyfor the pile-driver, mason, and builder. Two splendid districts, thefirst called the "South End, " and the second the "Back Bay, " werecreated. Where, in the Revolutionary War, British frigates lay atanchor, are now Beacon Street and Commonwealth and MassachusettsAvenues. Where the redcoats stepped into their boats fordisembarkation at the foot of Bunker Hill, stretch the lovely PublicGardens. The streets running east and west in the new districts, beginning with Dover and ending with Lenox, are named after towns inthe Bay State. About midway among these, as to order and distance, areBrookline and Canton Streets. 

 [Footnote 1: Other good authorities interpret Shawmut as meaning "living waters. "]

On a chance space of hard soil around Canton and Dedham Streets, inthis marshy region, a suburban village of frame houses had gathered, and here a Sunday school was started as early as 1836. In January, 1842, a weekly prayer-meeting began at the house of Mr. Samuel C. Wilkins. On November 20, 1845, a church was formed, with fiftymembers. In the newly filled up land, the pile-driver was alreadybusy in planting forests of full-grown trees head downward. All aroundwere rising blocks of elegant houses, with promise of imposing civicand ecclesiastical edifices of various kinds. In the wider streetswere gardens, parks, or ample strips of flower-beds. This was the landof promise, and into it pressed married couples by the hundreds, creating lovely homes, rearing families, and making this the choicestpart of the young city. For, though "Boston town" is as old as MotherGoose's rhymes, the municipality of Boston was, in 1852, but thirtyyears old. The congregation of Christian people which, on April 14, 1849, took the name, as parish, of The Shawmut Congregational Society, and, as a church, one month later, the name of the ShawmutCongregational Church, occupied as a meeting-house first a hall, thena frame building, and finally a handsome edifice of brick, which wasdedicated on the 18th of November, 1852. This building is now occupiedby the Every Day Church, of the Universalist denomination. The tide ofprosperity kept steadily rising. The throng of worshippers increased, until, in the very midst of the great Civil War, it was necessary tohave more room. The present grand edifice on Tremont Street waserected and dedicated February 11, 1864; the Rev. Edwin BonaparteWebb, who had been called from Augusta, Maine, being the popular andsuccessful pastor. 

Boston was not then noted, as she certainly is now, for grandeur orloveliness in church edifices. Neither excellence nor taste inecclesiastical architecture was, before the war, a striking trait ofthe city or the people. To-day her church spires and towers are notonly numerous, but are famed for their variety and beauty. 

Fortunately for the future of Boston, the people of Shawmut Churchfound a good architect, who led the van of improvement in churcharchitecture. The new edifice was the first one in the city on theearly Lombardy style of architecture, and did much to educate thetaste of the people of the newer and the older town, and especiallythose in the fraternity of churches called Congregational. 

Both its architecture and decoration have been imitated and improvedupon in the city wherein it was a pioneer of beauty and the herald ofa new order of church architecture. It is a noble vehicle of thefaith and feelings of devout worshippers. 

The equipment of Shawmut Church edifice made it a very homelike placeof worship, and here, for a generation or more of Carleton's life, anoble company of Christians worshipped. The Shawmut people were notedfor their enterprise, sociability, generosity, and unity of purpose. In this "South End" of Boston was reared a large proportion of thegeneration which to-day furnishes the brain and social and religiousforce of the city and suburbs. In Shawmut Church, gathered, week byweek, hundreds of those who, in the glow of prosperity, held commonambitions, interests, and hopes. They were proud of their city, theirneighborhood, and their church, yet were ever ready to extend theirwell-laden hands in gifts to the needy at home, and to send to thosefar off, within our own borders, and in lands beyond sea. 

The great fire in Boston, of which Carleton wrote so brilliant adescription, which, beginning November 9, 1872, within a few hoursburned over sixty-five acres and reduced seventy-five millions ofproperty to smoke and ashes, gave the first great blow to thematerial prosperity of Shawmut Church. Later came the filling up, thereclamation, and building of the Back Bay district. About 1878, thetide of movement set to the westward, progressing so rapidly andsteadily as to almost entirely change, within a decade, the characterof the South End, from a region of homes to one largely of businessand boarding houses. Still later, about 1890, with the marvellousdevelopment of the electric motor and trolley cars, making horsetraction by rail obsolete, the suburbs of Boston became one greatgarden and a semicircle of homes. Then Brookline, Newton, andDorchester churches flourished at the expense of the citycongregations. Shawmut Church, having graduated hundreds of families, had, in 1893, to be reorganized. 

Of this church Charles Carleton Coffin, though not one of thefounders, was certainly one of the makers. As a member, a hearer, aworshipper, a teacher, an officer, a counsellor, a giver of money, power, and influence, his name is inseparably associated with the lifeof Shawmut Church. 

When Carleton's seat was vacant, the chief servant of the church knewthat his faithful ally was serving his Master elsewhere. After one ofhis trips to Europe, out West, or down South over the oldbattle-fields, to refresh his memory, or to make notes and photographsfor his books, the welcome given to him, on his return, was alwayswarm and lively. 

First of all, Mr. Coffin was a good listener. This man, so fluent inspeech, so ready with his pen, so richly furnished by long and widereading, and by habitual meditation and deep thinking, by uniqueexperience of times that tried men's souls, knew also the moments whensilence, that is golden, was better than speech, even though silvern. These were not as the "brilliant flashes of silence, " such as SidneySmith noted as delightful improvements in his friend "Tom" Macaulay;for Carleton was never a monopolist in conversation. Rather, with theprompting of a generous nature, and as studied courtesy made into fineart, he could listen even to a child. If Carleton was present, thepreacher had an audience. His face, while beaming with encouragement, was one of singular responsiveness. His patience, the patience of oneto whom concealment of feeling was as difficult as for a crystal toshut out light, rarely failed. 

In Japan there are temples, built _in memoriam_ to heroes fallen inwar. These are named Shrines for the Welcome of Spirits. They arelighted at sunset. Like one of these that I remember, called theSoul-beckoning Rest, was this listener, Carleton, who begat eloquenceby his kindly gaze. Nor was this power to lift up and cheer--thiswinged help of a great soul, like that of a mother bird under herfledgling making first trial of the air--given only to theprofessional speaker in the pulpit. This ten-talent layman was everkindly helpful, with ear and tongue, to his fellow holder-in-trust ofthe one, or of the five, talents; yes, even to the little children inChrist's kingdom. 

The young people loved Carleton because he heard and loved them. Tohave his great, kindly eyes fixed on some poor soldier, or neighbor indistress, was in itself a lightening of the load of trouble. Unlikethose professional or volunteer comforters, who overwhelm by dumping awhole cart-load of condolence upon the sufferer, who is unable toresist or reply, Carleton was often great in his power of encouragingsilence, and of gentle sympathy. 

Bacon, as no other Englishman, has compressed in very few words arecipe for making a "full, " a "ready, " and an "exact" man. Carletonwas all these in one. He was ever full. In the Shawmut prayer-meeting, his deep, rich voice was the admirable vehicle of his strong andhelpful thoughts. Being a man of intense conviction, there wasearnestness in every tone. A stalwart in faith, he was necessarilyoptimistic. A prophet, he was always sure that out of present darknesswas to break forth grander light than former days knew. This world isgoverned by our Father, and God makes no mistakes. 

That rhetorical instrument, the historical present, which makes thepages of his books tell such vivid stories, he often used withadmirable effect in the prayer-room, impressing and thrilling allhearts. No little one ever believed more confidently the promises ofits parent than did this little child in humility who was yet a man inunderstanding. Yet his was not blind credulity. He always faced thefacts. He was willing to get to the bottom of reality, even though itmight cause much drilling of the strata, with revelation of things atfirst unpleasant to know. I never knew a man whose piety rested lesson traditions, institutions, persons, things, or reputations taken forgranted. To keen intuitions, he was able to add the riches ofexperience, and his experience ever wrought hope. Hence the tonic ofhis thought and words. He dwelt on the mountain-top of vision, and yethe had that combination, so rare, yet so indispensable in theprophet, --vision and patience, even the patience of service. 

Naturally his themes and his illustrations, so pertinent andilluminating, were taken largely from history. It is because he saw sofar and so clearly down the perspective of the past, that he read thefuture so surely. "That which hath been, is that which shall be, "--butmore. "God fulfils himself in many ways. " To our friend, history, ofwhich the cross of Christ was the centre, was the Heavenly Father'sfullest revelation. Many are the ways of theophany, --"at sundry times, and in divers manners, "--to one the burning bush, to another the Urimand Thummin, to another the dew on the fleece, to one this, to anotherthat. To our man of the Spirit, as to the sage of Patmos, humanhistory, because moved from above, was the visible presence of God. 

The war, which dissolved the old world of slavery, sectional bigotry, and narrow ideals, and out of the mother liquid of a new chaos shotforth fresh axes of moral reconstruction, furnished this soldier ofrighteousness with endless themes, incidents, illustrations, andsuggestions. Yet the emphasis, both as to light and shading, was putupon things Christian and Godlike, the phenomena of spiritual courageand enterprise, rather than upon details of blood or slaughter. Neither years nor distance seemed to dim our fellow patriot'sgratitude to the brave men who sacrificed limb and life for theircountry. The soldierly virtues, so vital to the Christian, werebrought home to heart and conscience. He showed the incarnation oftruth and life to be possible even in the camp and field. 

Having been a skilled traveller in the Holy Land, Carleton frequentlyopened this "Fifth Gospel" to delighted listeners. There hung on thewall of the "vestry, " or social prayer-room, above the leader's chair, a steel-plate picture of modern Jerusalem, showing especially thewalls, gates, and roadways leading out from the city. Carleton oftendeclared that this print was "an inspiration" to him. It recalled notonly personal experiences of his own journeys, but also the stirringincidents in Scripture, especially of the life of Christ. Havingstudied on the soil of Syria, the background of the parables, andpossessing a genius for topography, he was able to unshackle our mindsfrom too close bondage to the English phrase or letter, fromchildhood's imperfect imaginations, and from our crude Occidentalfancies. Many a passage of Scripture, long held in our minds as thehand holds an unlighted lantern, was often turned into an immediatelyhelpful lamp to our path by one touch of his light-giving torch. 

For many years, Carleton was a Bible-class teacher, excelling inunderstanding, insight, explanation, and application of the divineWord. Many to-day remember his teaching powers and their enjoyment atMalden; but it was in Boston, at Shawmut Church, that Mr. Coffin gaveto this work the fullness of his strength and the ripeness of hispowers. 

Counting it one of the noblest ambitions of a man's life to be a goodteacher, I used to admire Carleton's way of getting at the heart ofthe lesson. His talent lay in first drawing out the various views ofthe readers, and then of harmonizing them, --even as the lens draws allrays to a burning-point, making fire where before was only scatteredheat. Carleton was one of those superb teachers who believe thateducation is not only putting in, but also drawing out. In his classwere lawyers, physicians, doctors of divinity, principals of schools, heads of families, besides various specimens of average humanity. Somehow, he contrived, within the scant hour afforded him, oftenwithin a half hour, to bestow not only his own thought, but, bypowerful spiritual induction, to kindle in others a transformingforce. After the teaching had well begun, there set in an alternatingcurrent of intensity that wrought mightily for the destruction of deadprejudices, and the building up of character. 

In his use of helps and commentaries he had a profound contempt ofthose peddlers of pedantry who try to make the words of eternal truthbecome merely the lingo of things local and temporary. He was fond ofutilizing all that the spade has cast up and out from the earth, aswell as of consulting what the pen of genius has made so plain. Hebelieved heartily in that interpretive, or higher criticism, which hasdone so much in our days to open the riches of holy Scripture. Fromthe very first, instead of fearing that truth might be injured by anexamination of the dress in which it was clothed, or the packages inwhich it was wrapped, Carleton was in hearty sympathy with thosescholars and investigators who, by the application of literary canonsto the Hebrew and Greek writings, have put illuminating differencebetween traditions and the original message. He believed that, in thepopular understanding of many portions of the Bible, there was muchconfusion, owing to the webs which have been spun over the text by menwho lived centuries and ages after the original writers of theinspired word. Though he never called himself a scholar, he knew onlytoo well that Flavius Josephus and John Milton were the makers of muchpopular tradition which ascribed to the Bible a good deal which itdoes not contain, and that there was often difficulty among the plainpeople in distinguishing between the ancient treasure and thewrapping and strings within which it is now enclosed. Hence hisdiligent use of some of the strong books in his pastor's and otherlibraries. 

Above all, however, was his own clear, penetrating, spiritual insight, which, joined with his rich experience, his literary instincts, andhis own gift of expression, made him such a master in the art ofcommunication. While his first use of the Bible was for spiritualbenefit to himself and others, he held that its study as literaturewould scatter to the wind the serious objections of sceptics andunbelievers. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE FREE CHURCHMAN. 

Carleton was a typical free churchman. He was not only so byinheritance and environment, but because he was master of the NewTestament. His penetrating acumen and power to read rightly historicaldocuments enabled him to see what kind of churches they were which theapostles founded. With the open New Testament before him, he did notworry himself about the validity of the ordination of those who shouldpreach to him or administer the sacraments, though there was no moreloyal churchman and Christian. He believed in the kind of churcheswhich were first formed at Jerusalem and in the Roman cities by thetwelve whom Jesus chose, over which not even the apostles themselvesventured to exercise authority; but rather, on the other hand, submitted to the congregation, that is, the assembled believers. Inthe New Testament, Carleton read that the members of the churcheswere on the same level, all being equal before their great Head andrisen Lord, no member having the smallest claim to any kind ofauthority over or among his fellow members. In such churches, organized to-day as closely as possible after the New Testament model, he believed, and to such churches he gave his heartiest support, whileever deeply sympathetic with his fellow Christians who associatedthemselves under other methods of government. 

His strong faith in the essential right and truth held by independentchurches in fraternity, never wavered; and this faith received evenincreasing strength because of his trust in human nature when movedfrom above. He believed in the constant presence of the Holy Spirit, as leading Christians unto the way of all truth. He thought thecenturies to come would see a shedding off of many things dogmatictheologians consider to be vital to Christianity, and the closerapprehension by society of the meaning of Christ's life and words. Hebelieved not only that God was, but that he is. Though reared in NewEngland, he had little of that provincial narrowness which so oftenmars and cramps the minds of those who otherwise are the mostagreeable of all Americans, --the cultivated New Englanders. No sermonso moved Carleton, and so kindled responsive radiance in his face, asthose which showed that God is to-day leading and guiding humanity andindividuals as surely as in the age of the burning bush or the smokingaltar. He believed that neither the ancient Jews nor the earlyChristians had any advantages over us for spiritual culture, or forthe foundation and increase of their faith in God, but rather less. Heheartily approved of whatever pierced sectarian shams and traditionalhypocrisies and revealed reality. 

Hence his coolness and impartiality in controversy, whatever might behis own strong personal liking. His profound knowledge of human naturein all its forms, not excepting the clerical, professional, andtheological sort, --especially when in the fighting mood, --enabled himto measure accurately the personal equation in every problem, evenwhen masked to the point of self-deception. His judicial balance andhis power to see the real point in a controversy made him anadmirable guide, philosopher, and friend. His vital rather thantraditional view and use of the truth, and his sunny calm and poise, were especially manifested during that famous period of trouble whichbroke out in that noble but close corporation, the American Board ofCommissioners for Foreign Missions. 

Through all the subsidiary skirmishes connected with the prosecutionof the Andover professors, and the great debates in the publicmeetings of the American Board, Carleton was in hearty sympathy withthose opinions and convictions which have since prevailed. He was infavor of sending men and women into missionary fields who showed, bytheir physical, intellectual, and spiritual make-up, that they werefitted for their noble work, whether or not their theology stood thetest of certain arbitrary standards in vogue with a faction in a closecorporation. 

Carleton was never averse to truth being tried on a fair field, whether of discussion, of controversy before courts, or, if necessary, at the rifle's muzzle. He was not one of those feeble souls whoretreat from all agitation. He had once fronted "a lie in arms" andwas accustomed to probe even an angel's professions. He knew that inthe history of man there must often be a storm before truth isrevealed in clearness. No one realized more fully than he that, amongthe evangelical churches holding the historic form of Christianity, the part ever played and perhaps yet to be played by Congregationalists, is that of pioneers. He knew that out of the bosom of this body ofChristians had come very many of the great leaders of thought who haveso profoundly modified Christian theology in America and Europe, andthat by Congregationalists are written most of the books shaping thevanguard of thought in America, and he rejoiced in the fact. 

In brief, Charles Carleton Coffin was neither a "mean Yankee, " nor, inhis general spirit, a narrow New Englander. He was not a local, but agenuinely national American and free churchman. He believed that theidea of the people ruling in the Church as well as in the State had ahistorical, but not absolutely necessary, connection with New England. In his view, the Congregational form of a church government was asappropriate to the Middle and Western States of our country, as to thesix Eastern States. Ever ready to receive new light and to ponder anew proposition, he grew and developed, as the years went on, in hisconception of the origin of Congregational Christianity in apostolictimes, and of its re-birth after the release of the Bible from itscoffin of dead Latin and Greek into the living tongues of Europe, among the so-called Anabaptists. Through his researches he had longsuspected that those Christians, whom prelates and political churchmenhad, besides murdering and attempting to exterminate, so vilified andmisrepresented, were our spiritual ancestors and the true authors inmodern time of church government through the congregation, and offreedom of the conscience in religion. He often spoke of that line ofsuccession of thought and faith which he saw so clearly traced throughthe Lollards and the weavers of eastern England, the DutchAnabaptists, the Brownists, and the Pilgrims. He gave his heartyadherence to what he believed to be the demonstration of the truth asset forth in an article in _The New World_, by the writer, in thefollowing letter, written February 27, 1896, only four days beforehis sudden death and among the very last fruits of his pen. Like theeditor who prints "letters from correspondents, " the biographer is"not responsible for the opinions expressed. "

 Alwington, 9 Shailer Street, Brookline, Mass. 

 Dear Dr. Griffis:--I have read your Anabaptist article, --once for my own meditation, and once for Mrs. Coffin's benefit. I am glad you have shown up Motley, and that toleration did not begin with Roger Williams. Your article historically will dethrone two saints, --Williams and Lord Baltimore. You have rendered an invaluable service to history. Our Baptist and Catholic brethren will not thank you, but the rest of the world will. It is becoming clearer every day that the motive force which was behind the foundations of this Republic came from the "Lollards" and the "Beggars. " I hope you will give us more such articles. 

Having been for many years an active member of the CongregationalClub, of Boston, Carleton was in 1890 elected president, and servedduring one year. This parent of the fifty or more Congregational Clubsscattered throughout the country was organized in 1869, and has had aneventful history of power and influence. Some of the topics discussedduring his administration were "Relations of the Church to Politics, ""Congregationalism in Boston, " "Bible Class Study, " and "How shall theChurch adapt itself to modern needs?" It was under his presidency, also, that the Boston Congregational Club voted unanimously, February24, 1890, to appoint a committee to obtain the necessary funds anderect a memorial at Delfshaven in honor of the Dutch Republicans andthe Pilgrim Fathers, --both hosts and guests. When the suggestion toraise some such memorial, made by the Hon. S. R. Thayer, AmericanMinister at the Hague, was first read in the meeting of the Club inOctober, 1889, and a motion made to refer it to the ExecutiveCommittee, Carleton seconded and supported the motion with a speech inwarm commendation. He was among the very first to make and pay asubscription in money. The enterprise still awaits the happy day ofcompletion, and the responsibility of the enterprise lies, by its ownvote, upon the Boston Congregational Club. The Forefathers' Daycelebration of the Club was of uncommon interest during the year ofMr. Coffin's presidency. A leading feature was the display on ascreen of views of Pilgrim shrines in England which Mr. Coffin hadobtained on a visit two years before. 

Except his membership in the various historical and learned societiesand in religious organizations, Mr. Coffin was not connected withsecret, benevolent, social, or mysterious brotherhoods. He did notbelieve in secret fraternities, but rather considered that these hadmuch to do with weakening the Church of Christ, and with making mensatisfied with a lower standard of ethics and human sociability thanthat taught by Jesus. He held that the brotherhood instituted ofChrist, in an open chapter of twelve, and without secrets of any kind, was sufficient for him and for all men. More than once, when goingabroad, or travelling in the various parts of his own country, whichis nearly as large as all Europe, he was advised to join a lodge andunite himself with one or more of the best secret fraternities, forassistance and recognition while travelling. All these kindinvitations he steadily declined. He was not even a member of theGrand Army of the Republic, though often invited to join a Post. Henever became a member, for he did not see the necessity of secrecy, even for this organization, though he was very often an honored guestat their public meetings. The Church of Christ was to Carleton anall-sufficient society and power. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

CITIZEN, STATESMAN, AND REFORMER. 

One can hardly imagine a better school for the training of a goodAmerican citizen than that which Carleton enjoyed. By inheritance andbirth in a New Hampshire village, he knew "the springs of empire. " Byactual experience of farming and surveying in a transition era betweenthe old ages of manual labor and the new æon of inventions, he learnedtoil, its necessity, and how to abridge and guide it by mind. In theacquaintance, while upon a Boston newspaper, with public men, and allkinds of people, in the unique experiences as war correspondent, inwide travel and observation around the whole world, in detailedstudies of new lands and life in the Northwest, in reading andresearch in great libraries, and in the constant discipline of hismind through reflection, his knowledge of man and nature, of societyand history, was at first hand. 

Intensely interested in politics from boyhood, Carleton sought nopublic office. 

When, in his early manhood, he revolved in his mind the question ofattempting this or that career, he may have thought of entering thealluring but thorny path of office-seeking and "practical" politics. It cannot be said that his desire for public emolument lasted verylong. He deliberately decided against a political career. Even if theexigencies of the moment had not tended to forbid the flight of hisambition in this direction, there were other reasons against it. 

He was a school commissioner in Malden, faithfully attending to thedetails of his duty during two years. The report of his work was givenin a pamphlet. As we have seen, before the breaking out of the war, when in Washington, he sought for a little while government employmentin one of the departments, but gave up the quest when the larger fieldof war correspondent invited him. He never sought an elective office, but when his fellow citizens in Boston found out how valuable a memberof the Commonwealth he was, so rich in public spirit and so wellequipped to be a legislator, he was made first, for several terms, aRepresentative, and afterwards, for one term, a Senator, in theLegislature of Massachusetts. Carleton sat under the golden codfish asRepresentative during the years 1884 and 1885, and under the gildeddome as Senator, in 1890. 

Faithful to his calling as a maker of law, Carleton was abundant inlabors during his three terms, interested in all that meant weal orwoe to the Commonwealth; yet we have only room to speak of the two orthree particular reforms which he inaugurated. 

Until the year 1884, Boston was behind some of the other cities of theUnion, notably Philadelphia, in requiring the children in the publicschools to provide their own text-books. This caused the burden oftaxation for education, which is "the chief defence of nations, " tofall upon the men and women who reared families, instead of beinglevied with equal justice upon all citizens. Carleton prepared a billfor furnishing free text-books to the public schools of Boston, suchas had been done in Philadelphia since 1819. Despite considerableopposition, some of it on the part of teachers who had severenotions, --bred chiefly by local Boston precedent, which had almostthe force of religion, --Carleton had the happiness of seeing the billpassed. 

The administration of municipal affairs in the "Hub of the Universe, "during the seventies and early eighties of this proud century, was onenot at all creditable to any party nor to the city that prides itselfon being distinctive and foremost in fame. The development ofpolitical life in New England had been after the model of the town. Municipal organization was not looked upon with much favor until wellinto this century. While the population of the Middle States wasadvancing in the line of progress in government of cities, the peoplein the Eastern States still clung to the model of the town meeting asthe perfection of political wisdom and practice. This was done in thecase of Boston, even when several tens of thousands of citizens, dwelling as one political union, made the old system antiquated. 

Before the opening of the 19th century, all the municipallyincorporated cities of the Northern United States, excepting Albany, lay along a line between the boundaries of Manhattan Island andPhiladelphia. It was not until 1830 that "Boston town" became a city. For fifty years afterwards, the development of municipal enterprisewas in the direction of superficial area, rather than according toforesight or genius. It is very certain that the fathers of that epochdid not have a very clear idea of, certainly did not plan veryintelligently for, the vast growth of our half of the century. Addedto this ultra conservatism, came the infusion, with attendantconfusion, of Ireland's sons and daughters by myriads, a flood ofScotch-Irish and other nationalities from Canada, and the flocking oflarge numbers of native Americans from the rural districts of NewEngland. Nearly all of the newcomers usually arrived poor and withintent to become rich as quickly as honesty would allow, while not afew were without limit of time or scruple of conscience to hindertheir plans. The Americans of "culture and character" were usually toobusy in making money and getting clothes, houses, and horses, toattend to "politics, " while Patrick was only too glad and ready todevelop his political abilities. So it came to pass that a ring ofpowerful political "bosses"--if we may degrade so good and honest aDutch word--was formed. Saloons, gambling-houses and dance-hallsmultiplied, while an oligarchy, ever grasping for more power, nullified the laws and trampled the statutes under its feet. The sinsof drunkenness and bribery among policemen, who were simply thecreatures for the most part of corrupt politicians, were too frequentto attract much notice. That conscientious wearer of the blue and thestar who enforced the laws was either discharged or sent on someunimportant suburban beat. The relations between city saloons andpolitics were as close as hand and glove, palm and coin. The gambler, the saloon-keeper, the masters of houses of ill-fame, were all infavor of the kind of municipal government which Boston had had for ageneration or more. 

An American back is like the camel's, --able to bear mighty loads, butinsurgent at the last feather. So, in Boston, the long-outraged moralsense of the people suddenly revolted. A Citizens' Law and OrderLeague was formed, and Charles Carleton Coffin, elected to the Houseof Representatives for the session of 1885, was asked to be theirbanner bearer in reform. With the idea of destroying partisanship andmaking the execution of the laws non-partisan, Carleton prepared abill, which was intended to take the control of the police out of thehands of the Mayor and Common Council of the city, and to put it intothe hands of the Governor of the Commonwealth. 

When Mr. Coffin began this work, Boston had a population of 412, 000souls. From the "Boston bedrooms, " that is, the suburban towns in fivecounties, one hundred thousand or more were emptied every day, makingover half a million people. In this city there was an array of forcesall massed against any legislation restricting their power, whileeager and organized to extend it. These included 2, 850 licensed liquorsellers, and 1, 300 unlicensed places, besides 222 druggists; all ofwhich, and whom, helped to make men drunk. To supply the thirsty therewere within the city limits three distilleries and seventeenbreweries. To show the nature of the oligarchy, we have only to statethat there were twenty-five men who had their names as bondsmen on nofewer than 1, 030 licenses, and that eight men signed the bonds of 610licenses. These "bondsmen" of one sort controlled the votes of from15, 000 to 20, 000 bondsmen of a lower sort. The liquor business wasthen, as it is now, the great incentive to lawlessness, helping tomake Boston a place of shame. Ten thousand persons and $75, 000, 000capital were employed in work mostly useless and wicked. 

"Boston's devil-fish was dragging her down. " The Sunday laws were setat defiance. The clinking of glasses could not only be distinctlyheard as one went by, but the streams of young men openly filed in. The laws, requiring a certain distance between the schoolhouse and thesaloon, were persistently violated. Of two hundred saloons visited byCarleton, one hundred and twenty-eight had set the law at defiance. While six policemen were needed in one Salvation Army room, to keepthe saints and sinners quiet, often there would be not one star orclub in the saloons. 

Carleton began by arming himself with the facts. He visited hundredsof the tapster's quarters in various parts of the city. In some caseshe actually measured, with his own hands and a surveyor's chain, thedistance between the schoolhouse and the home-destroyer. He talkedwith scores of policemen. He then prepared his bill and reported itin the Judiciary Committee, the members of which, about that time, received a petition in favor of a non-partisan metropolitan board ofpolice commissioners, in order to secure a much better enforcement oflaw. On this petition were scores of names, which the world will notwillingly let die. Yet, after reading the petition, seven of theeleven members of the Committee were opposed to the bill, and sodeclared themselves. Carleton was therefore obliged to transfer thefield of battle to the open House. When he counted noses in theLegislature, he found that in the double body there were but four menwho were heartily in favor of the apparently unpopular reform. Thebill lay dormant for many weeks. Almost as a matter of course, theSunday newspapers were bitterly hostile to it. They informed theirreaders, more than once, that the reform was dead. By hostilepoliticians the bill was denounced as "infamous. "

Nevertheless, the minority of four nailed their colors to the mast, "determined, if need be, to sink, but not to surrender. " Behind themwere the State constitution, the statutes of the General Court, andthe whole history of Massachusetts, whose moral tonic has so ofteninspired the beginners of better times in American history. When theday came for discussion of the bill, in public, Mr. Coffin made amagnificent speech in its favor, March 17, 1885. Despite fierceopposition, the bill finally became law, creating a new era of hopeand reform in the City on the Bay. 

In a banquet given by the Citizens' Law and Order League, at the HotelVendome, to talk over the victory of law, about two hundred ladies andgentlemen were present. Among them were President Capen, of TuftsCollege, president of the League, and such grand citizens as RufusFrost, Jonathan A. Lane, and Dr. Henry Martin Dexter; the HonorableFrank M. Ames, Senator, and Charles Carleton Coffin, Representative, being guests of honor. Carleton, being called upon for an address, said, among other things:

"There are no compensations in life more delightful andsoul-satisfying than those which come from service and sacrifice forthe welfare of our fellow men. .. . It has never troubled me to be inthe minority. If you want real genuine pleasure in a battle, go inwith the minority on some great principle affecting the welfare ofsociety. "

In his speech he had said: "The moral sense of this community is agrowing quantity, and no political party that ignores or runs counterto the lofty ideal can long stand before us. "

The Honorable Alanson M. Beard had already paid a merited tribute whenhe said that Carleton had "lifted up this question above the domain ofparty politics into the higher realm of morals, where it belonged. "

No one who knew Carleton need be told that, during all these weeks ofuncertainty of issue, he was in constant prayer to God for light, guidance, and success. From all over the Commonwealth came letters ofcheer and sympathy, especially from the mothers whose sons in Bostonwere tempted beyond measure because of the non-enforcement of law. Tothese, and to the law-loving editors of the newspaper press, thestatesman afterwards returned his hearty thanks. 

Carleton was a man ever open to conviction. To him, truth had nostereotyped forms. His mind never became a petrifaction, but was evergrowing and vital. At first he was opposed to civil service reform;but after a study of the subject, he was convinced of itsreasonableness and practicality, and became ever afterwards a heartyupholder of this method of selecting the servants of government, inthe nation, the State, and the city. 

He was a friend of woman suffrage. On the occasion of a presentationof a petition from twenty thousand Massachusetts women, though fourthousand of them had petitioned against the proposed measure, he madea strong and earnest plea for granting the ballot to women. Amongother things he said: "No fire ever yet was lighted that could reduceto ashes an eternal truth. " He believed that women, as well as men, form society, and "the people, who were the true source, under God, ofall authority on earth, " were not made up wholly of one sex. He quotedfrom that pamphlet, "De Jure Regni, " published by George Buchanan in1556, which was burned by the hangman in St. Paul's churchyard, --whereso many Bibles and other good books have been burned, --which declaredthat "the will of the people is the only legitimate source of power. "He declared that the "lofty ideal of republicanism is the Sermon onthe Mount. " Of women, he said, "Wherever they have walked, there hasbeen less of hell and more of heaven. "

After an ex-mayor, in his speech, had referred to Carleton's bill, which changed the appointing power of the police from the Mayor andCommon Council, and, by putting it in the hands of the Governor andExecutive Council, placed it on the same foundation as the judiciary, as "that infamous police law, " Carleton said: "Make a note of it, statesmen of the future. Write it down in your memoranda, politicianswho indulge the expectation that you can ride into power on the vicesof society, --that moral forces are marshalling as never before in thehistory of the human race, and that the women of this country arebeginning to wield them to shape legislation on all great moralquestions. Refreshing as perfume-laden breezes from the celestialplains were the words of encouragement and sympathy that came to mefrom mothers in Berkshire, from the Cape, from all over theCommonwealth. "

In 1890, in the Massachusetts Senate, there was an attempt made todivide the town of Beverly. Into this, as into so many of thepleasant towns, villages, and rural districts around Boston, wealthyBostonians had come and built luxurious houses upon the land whichthey had bought. Not content with being citizens in the place wherethey were newcomers, --thus securing release from heavier taxes inBoston, where they lived in winter, --they wished to separatethemselves, in a most un-American and un-democratic manner, from theolder inhabitants and "common" people, and to make a new settlementwith a separate local government for those who formed a particularclass living in luxury. Carleton, hostile to the sordid and unsocialspirit lurking in the bill, vigorously opposed the attemptedmutilation of an old historic town, and the isolation of "BeverlyFarms. " He opposed it, because it would be a bad precedent, and one infavor of class separation and class distinction. His speech embodies amasterly historical sketch of the town form of government. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

A SAVIOUR OF HUMAN LIFE. 

While Carleton enjoyed that kind of work, ethical, literary, benevolent, and political, which appealed to sentiment and arousedsympathy to the burning point, he was an equally faithful coworkerwith God and man in enterprises wholly unsentimental. He who waitsthrough eternity for his creatures to understand his own creation, knows how faithfully good men can coöperate with him in plans whichonly unborn and succeeding generations can appreciate. 

Out of a thousand illustrations we may note, along the lines ofelectric science, the names of Professor Kinnersly, who probably firstled Franklin into that line of research which enabled him to "snatchthe sceptre from tyrants and the lightning from heaven, " and ProfessorMoses Gerrish Farmer, who broke new paths into the once unknown. Asearly as 1859, Mr. Farmer lighted his whole house with electriclights, and blew up a little ship by a tiny submarine torpedo in 1847, and in the same year propelled by electricity a car carryingpassengers. Yet neither of these names is found in the majority ofordinary cyclopedias or books of reference. 

Familiar with such facts, both by a general observation of life, andby a special and critical study of the literature of patents andinventions, Carleton felt perfectly willing to devote himself to awork that he knew would yield but little popular applause, even whenvictory should be won, --the abolition of railway level or "grade"crossings. 

During a brief morning call on Carleton, shortly after he had beenelected Senator in the Massachusetts Legislature for the session of1890, I asked him what he proposed especially to do. "Well, " said he, "I think that if I can get all grade crossings abolished from therailroads of the whole Commonwealth, it will be a good winter's work. "

Forthwith he set himself to study the problem, to master resources andstatistics, to learn the relation between capital invested and profitsmade by the railway corporation, and especially to measure the forcesin favor of and in opposition to the proposed reform. 

About this time, the chief servant of Shawmut Church was studying anallied question. While the "grade crossing" slew its thousands ofnon-travelling citizens, the freight-car, with its link-and-pincoupling, its block-bumpers, its hand-brakes, its slippery roofs, itsmanifold shiftings over frogs and switches, slew its tens of thousandsof railway operatives. On the grade crossings, the victims werechiefly old, deaf, or blind men and women, cripples, children, drunkards, and miscellaneous people. On the other hand, thefreight-cars killed almost exclusively the flower of the country'smanhood. The tens of thousands of hands crushed between bumpers, ofarms and legs cut off, of bodies broken and mangled, were, in themajority of cases, those of healthy, intelligent men, between the agesof eighteen and fifty, and usually breadwinners for whole families. The slaughter every year was equal to that of a battle at Waterloo orGettysburg. Fairy tales about monsters devouring human beings, legendsof colossal dragons swallowing annually their quota of fair virgins, were insignificant expressions of damage done to the human racecompared to that annual tribute poured into the insatiable maw of therailway Moloch. Every great line of traffic, like the Pennsylvania orNew York Central Railway, ate up a man a day. Sometimes, betweensunrise and sunset, a single road made four or five widows, with aprofusion of orphans. 

Yet two men, each of the name of Coffin, and each of that superbNantucket stock which has enriched our nation and carried the Americanflag to every sea, were working in the West and the East, for theabolition of legalized slaughter. Lorenzo Coffin, of Iowa, a distantcousin of Carleton's, whom so many railway men always salute as"father, " had been for years trying to throttle the two twin enemiesof the railway man, alcohol, and the freight-car equipment oflink-and-pin coupler and hand-brake. It was he who agitatedunceasingly for national protection to railway men, and to thebrakeman especially. He and his fellow reformers asked for a lawcompelling the use of a brake which would relieve the crew from suchawful exposure and foolhardy risk of life on the icy roofs of thecars in winter, and for couplers which, by abolishing the iron linkand pin, would save the constant and almost certain crushing of thehands which the shifting of the cars compelled when coupled in the oldway. 

For a long time Lorenzo Coffin's efforts seemed utterly useless. Thiswas simply because human life was cheaper than machinery, and becausepublic opinion on this particular subject had not yet becomeChristian. It was Jesus Christ who raised the value of both the humanbody and the human soul, abolished gladiatorial shows, raised uphospitals, created cemeteries, even for the poorest, made lifeinsurance companies possible, and put even such value on human life ascould be recovered in action by law from corporations which murder menthrough sordid economy or criminal carelessness. Lorenzo Coffinwrought for the application of Christianity to railway men. Whenfinally the law was passed, compelling safety-couplers and air-brakes, and when, in the constitution of New York State, the limit of fivethousand dollars replevin for a human life destroyed by a corporationwas abolished, and no limit set, there were two new triumphs ofChristianity. In these phenomena, we see only further illustrations ofthat Kingdom of Heaven proclaimed by Christ, and illustrated both inthe hidden leaven and the phenomenal mustard-seed. 

A sermon by the pastor of Shawmut Church, on "Lions that devour, "depicted the great American slaughter-field. It set forth the array offigures as given him in the reports of the Inter-State CommerceCommission, sent by his friend, the Hon. Augustus Schoonmaker, ofKingston, New York, and then in Washington, one of the Commissioners. There was considerable surprise and criticism from among his auditors, and the facts as set forth were doubted. There were present, as usualon Sunday mornings in Shawmut Church, men of public affairs, presidents of banks, the collector of the port of Boston, a general inthe regular army, a veteran colonel of volunteers, several officers ofrailway companies, and, most of all, Mr. Charles Carleton Coffin. Heand they thought the statements given of the slaughter of young men onrailroads in the United States must be incredible. Even Carleton hadnot then informed himself concerning that great field of bloodextending from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, which every year was strewn with the corpses or mangled limbs oftwenty-five thousand people. He thought his friend in the pulpit mustbe mistaken, and frankly told him so. 

On the following Sunday, having received the figures for the currentyear, from the best authority in Washington, the preacher was able tosay that his statements of last Sunday had been below reality, andthat, instead of exaggerating, he had underestimated the facts. Thisgave Mr. Coffin, as he afterwards confessed, fresh impetus in hisdetermination to get grade crossings abolished in Massachusetts. 

Having first personally interviewed the presidents of several greatrailroads leading out from Boston, and finding one or two heartily infavor of the idea, two or three more not in opposition, and scarcely amajority opposed, he persevered. He pressed the matter, and the billwas carried and signed by the governor. It provided that within a termof years all grade crossings in Massachusetts should be abolished. This will require the expenditure of many millions of dollars, thesinking or elevating of tracks, and the making of tunnels and bridges. The work was nobly begun. At this moment, in May, 1898, the progressis steadily forward to the great consummation. 

Though his measure for the protection of human life received verylittle popular notice, Carleton counted it one of the best things thatGod had allowed him to do. And certainly, among the noble and trulyChristian measures for the good of society, in this last decade of thecentury, the work done by Lorenzo Coffin in Iowa, as well as in thecountry at large, and by Senator Charles Carleton Coffin inMassachusetts, --a State whose example will be followed byothers, --must ever be remembered by the grateful student of socialprogress. Surely, Carleton proved himself not merely a politician, buta statesman. 

The welfare of the city of Boston was ever dear to Carleton's heart. He gave a great deal of time and thought to thinking out problemsaffecting its welfare, and hence was often a welcome speaker at clubmeetings, which are so numerous, so delightful, and, certainly, intheir number, peculiar to Boston. He wrote for the press, giving hisviews freely, whenever any vital question was before the people. Thisoften entailed severe labor and the sacrifice of time to one who couldnever boast very much of this world's goods. 

When the writer first, in 1886, came to Boston to live, he found thehorse everywhere in the city; when he left it in 1893 there was onlythe trolley. The motor power was carried through the air from acentral source. It is even yet, however, a test of one's knowledge ofBoston--a city not laid out by William Penn, but by cows and admirersof crookedness--to understand the street-car system of the city. Mostof the street passenger lines fell gradually into the hands of onegreat corporation, which vastly improved the service, enlarging andmaking more comfortable, not to say luxurious, the accommodations, andby unification enabling one to ride astonishing distances for a nickelcoin. 

From the peculiar shape of the city and the converging of thethoroughfares on Tremont Street, fronting the Common and the oldburying grounds, the space between Boylston Street and Cornhill was, at certain hours of the day, in a painful state of congestion. Thenthe stoppage of the cars, the loss of time, and the waste of temperwas something which no nineteenth century man could stand withequanimity. How to relieve the congestion was the difficulty. Shouldthere be an elevated railway, or a new avenue opened through the midstof the city? This was the question. 

To this subject, Carleton gave his earnest attention. He rememberedthe day when the now elegant region of the Back Bay was marsh andwater, when schooners discharged coal and lumber in that PublicGarden, which in June looks like a day of heaven on earth, and whenTremont Street stopped at the crossing of the Boston and Albanyrailway. Even as late as 1850 the population included within theten-mile radius of the city hall was but 267, 861; in 1890, theincrease was to 841, 617; and the same ratio of increase will give, in1930, 2, 700, 000 souls. In 1871, seventeen million people were movedinto Boston by steam; in 1891, fifty-one millions. At the same ratioof increase, on the opening of the twentieth century, there will be100, 000, 000 persons riding in from the suburbs, and of travellers inthe street-cars, in A. D. 1910, nearly half a billion. 

Carleton, the engineer and statesman, believed that neither a subwaynor an elevated railway would solve the problem. He spoke, lectured, and wrote, in favor of a central city viaduct. For both surface andelevated railways, he proposed an avenue eighty feet wide, making aclear road from Tremont to Causeway Streets. 

Moreover, he believed that the city should own the roads that shouldtransport passengers within the city limits. He was not afraid of thatkind of socialism which provides for the absolute necessities ofmodern associated life. He expected great amelioration to come tosociety from the breaking up and passing away of the old relics offeudalism, as well as of the power of the privileged man as againstman, of wealth against commonwealth. He believed that transportationwithin city limits should be under public ownership and control. Hetherefore opposed the subway and the incorporation of the BostonElevated Railroad Company. 

One of his most vigorous letters, occupying a column and a half, inthe Boston _Herald_ of July 17, 1895, is a powerful plea for therejection by the people of an act which should give the traffic of thestreets of Boston and surrounding municipalities into the hands of acorporation for all time. He considered that the act, which had beenrushed through the legislature in one day at the close of the session, was a hasty piece of patchwork made by dovetailing two bills together, and was highly objectionable. He wrote:

"Why shall the people give away their own rights? Do they not own theground beneath the surface and the air above the surface?. .. What needis there of a corporation? Cannot the people in their sovereigncapacity do for themselves all that a corporation can do? Why giveaway their rights, and burden themselves with taxes for the benefit ofa corporation?

"Does some one say it is a nationalistic idea? Then it is nationalismfor Boston to own Quincy Market, the water supply, the system ofsewerage. Far different from governmental ownership of railroads, withthe complications of interstate commerce, is the proposition forpublic ownership of street railways. A street is a highway. Why shallnot the subway under the street, or the structure over it, be ahighway, built and owned by the people, and for their use and benefit, and not for the enrichment of a corporation?"

After forcibly presenting the reasonable objections to the bill, heclosed by pleading that it be rejected, and that the next legislaturebe asked to establish a metropolitan district and the appointment of acommission with full power to do everything that could be done underthe bill, "not for the greed of a corporation, but for the welfare ofthe people. "

CHAPTER XXVII. 

LIFE'S EVENING GLOW. 

Carleton's biographer having resigned the pastorate of Shawmut Churchat the end of 1892, the work was continued by the Rev. William E. Barton, who had been called from Wellington, Ohio. He began hisministrations March 1, 1893. As so very many families forming the oldchurch, and who had grown up in it from early manhood, youth, or evenchildhood, had removed from the neighborhood, it was necessary toreorganize to a certain extent. The great changes which had come overthe South End, and the drift of population to the more attractiveneighborhoods in the Back Bay, Brookline, Dorchester, Newton, Allston, and other beautiful suburbs of Boston, caused much derangement ofpreviously existing conditions. The tremendous development of themeans of transportation by the steam, horse or electric railways, tosay nothing of the bicycle, had caused a marvellous bloom of new lifeand flush of vigor among the suburban churches, while those in theolder parts of the city suffered corresponding decline. The ShawmutChurch, like the Mount Vernon, the Pine Street, and others, had topass through experiences which make a familiar story to those who knowPhiladelphia, New York, and London. The work of the old city churcheshad been to train up and graduate sons and daughters with nobleChristian principles and character, to build up the waste places andthe newer societies. Like bees, the new swarms out from the old hiveswere called to gather fresh honey. 

The exodus from rural New England and from Canada enlarged Boston, andcaused the building up and amazing development of Brookline. With suchpowerful magnets drawing away the old residents, together with themultiplication of a new and largely non-American and Roman Catholicpopulation into the district lying east of Washington Street, theolder congregations of the South End had, by 1890, been vastlychanged. Several had been so depleted in their old supporters, thatchurches moved in a body to new edifices on the streets and avenueslying westward. In others the burdens of support fell upon adecreasing number of faithful men and women. Where once were notenough church edifices to accommodate the people who would worship inthem, was now a redundancy. In the city where a Roman Catholic churchwas once a curiosity are now nearly fifty churches that acknowledgethe Pope's supremacy. 

These things are stated with some detail, in order to show thecharacter of Charles Carleton Coffin in its true light. After alaborious life, having borne the heat and burden of the day in thechurches where his lot was cast, withal, having passed his three scoreand ten years, one would naturally expect this veteran to seek repose. Not a few of his friends looked to see him set himself down in someone of the luxurious new church edifices, amid congenial socialsurroundings and material comforts. 

Carleton sought not his own comfort. When the new pastor and the oldguard, left in Shawmut Church to "hold the fort, " took counseltogether as to the future, they waited with some anxiety to hear whatchoice and decision Mr. Coffin would make. He had already selected theground and was making plans for building his new home, "Alwington, " atNo. 9 Shailer Street, Brookline, --several miles away from his oldresidence in Dartmouth Street. It was naturally thought that he wouldally himself with a wealthy old church elsewhere, and bid farewell, asso many had done, to their old church home, taking no new burdens, risks, or responsibilities. During the conference in the Shawmutprayer-room, Carleton rose and, with a smiling face and his usualimpressive manner, stated that he should give his hopes and prayers, his sympathy and work, his gifts and influence to Shawmut Church; and, for the present at least, without dictating the future, would cast inhis lot with the Shawmut people. A thrill of delight, unbidden tearsof joy, and a new warmth of heart came to those who heard. As timewent on he so adjusted himself to the change, and found Dr. Bartonsuch a stimulating preacher, that any thought of sacrifice entirelyvanished. 

When the first Congregational Church of Christ in Ithaca, N. Y. , --thecity named by Simeon DeWitt after his Ulysses-like wanderings wereover, --sent out its "letter missive" to the churches of the CentralAssociation of New York State, and to Shawmut Church in Boston, thelatter responded. It was voted to send, as their messengers, thepastor, Rev. Dr. Barton, and Mr. Coffin; Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Coffinaccompanied them. These four came on to the Forest City and itsuniversity "far above Cayuga's waters. " With the delight of a boyCarleton enjoyed the marvellously lovely scenery, the hills robed incolors as many as though they had borrowed Joseph's robe, and Cayuga, the queen of the waters in New York's beautiful lake region. Most ofall he visited with delight that typical American university which, Christian in spirit, neither propagates nor attacks the creed of anysect. 

With its stately edifices for culture, training, research, andreligion, it had risen like a new city on the farm of Ezra Cornell. This far-seeing man, like Mr. Coffin, had, when so many others wereblind, discerned in the new force, electricity, the vast futurebenefits to commerce, science, and civilization. Ezra Cornell hadhelped powerfully to develop its application by his thought, hismoney, and his personal influence. Ezra Cornell, in Irish phrase, "invented telegraph poles. " Moses Farmer, the electrician, inventedthe lineman's spurred irons by which to climb them. 

Besides attending the Church Council in the afternoon, Carleton madean address in the evening that was to one flattering and to manyinspiring. Later on, the same night, he attended the reception givento the Faculty and new students at the house of President J. G. Schurman. He was delighted in seeing the young president, with whosepower as a thinker and writer he had already acquainted himself. 

Carleton's last and chief literary work, done in his old home onDartmouth Street, was to link together in the form of story theRevolutionary lore which he had gathered up from talks withparticipators in "the time that tried men's souls. " From boyhood'smemories, from long and wide reading in original monographs, fromtopographical acquaintance, he planned to write a trio or quartet ofstories of American history. He wished to present the scenes of theRevolution as in the bright colors of reality, in the dark shadowswhich should recall sacrifice, and with that graphic detail and powerto turn the past into the present, of which he was a master. 

As he had repeatedly written the story of the great Civil War from thepoint of view of a war correspondent actually on the ground, so wouldhe tell the story of the Revolution as if he had been a living andbreathing witness of what went on from day to day, enjoying andsuffering those hopes and fears which delight and torment the soulwhen the veil of the future still hangs opaque before the mind. 

His first instalment, "The Daughters of the Revolution, " was publishedby Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , in a comely and well-illustratedvolume. It deals with that opening history of the eight years' warwith Great Britain which at the beginning had Boston for its centreand in which New England especially took part. 

In his other books, "Building the Nation, " "Boys of '76, " and "OldTimes in the Colonies, " Carleton had not ignored the work andinfluence of the "home guard" composed of mothers, daughters, aunts, cousins, and grandmothers; but in this story of the "Daughters" hegave special prominence to what our female ancestors did to make thecountry free, and to hand down in safeguarded forms that which hadbeen outraged by King and Parliament. 

How widely popular this volume may have been, the writer cannot say, but he knows that one little maiden whom he sees every day has re-readthe work several times. 

In a subsequent volume of the series, Carleton proposed to repicturethe splendid achievements of the colonial army in northeastern NewYork. Here, from Lake Champlain to Sandy Hook, is a "great riftvalley" which lies upon the earth's scarred and diversified surfacelike a mighty trough. It corresponds to that larger and grander riftvalley from Lebanon to Zanzibar, through Galilee and the Jordan, theRed Sea, and the great Nyanzas, or Lakes of Africa. As in the oldestgash on the earth's face lies the scene of a long procession ofevents, so, of all places on the American continent, probably, no lineof territory has witnessed such a succession of dramatic, brilliant, and decisive events, both in unrecorded time and in historic days, from Champlain and Henry Hudson to the era of Fulton, Morse, andEdison. 

In the Revolution, the Green Mountain boys, and the New York and NewEngland militia under Schuyler and Gates, had made this region thescene of one of the decisive campaigns of the world. Yet, in thebackground and at home, the heroines did their noble part in workingfor that consummation at Saratoga which won the recognition andmaterial aid of France for the United States of America. BesidesLafayette, came also the lilies of France, alongside the stars andstripes. The white uniforms were set in battle array with the buff andblue against the red coats, and herein Carleton saw visions anddreamed dreams, which his pen, like the camera which chains the light, was to photograph in words. He had made his preliminary studies, readings, personal interviews, and reëxamination of the region, andhad written four or five chapters, when the call of the Captain toanother detail of service came to him. 

Life is worth living as long as one is interested in other lives thanone's own. "_Dando conservat_" is the motto of a famousDutch-American family. So Carleton, by giving, preserved. In thesummer of 1895, after Japan had startled the world by her militaryprowess, Carleton went down to Nantucket Island, and there at a greatcelebration delivered a fine historical address, closing with thesewords:

"Thus it came to pass that he who guides the sparrow in its flight sawfit to use the sailors of Nantucket, by shipwreck and imprisonment, ashis agents to bring about the resurrection of the millions of Japanfrom the grave of a dead past to a new and vigorous life. Thus it isthat Nantucket occupies an exalted position in connection with thehistory of our country. "

Of this he wrote me in one of his last letters, February 27, 1896:

"I have read 'Townsend Harris' with unspeakable delight. I love tothink of the resurrection of Japan in connection with the Puritans ofMassachusetts, --the original movement culminating in Perry'sexpedition having its origin in the shipwrecking of Nantucket sailorson the shores of that empire. " Mr. Coffin brought out this idea inhis earlier and later address which he gave at Nantucket. 

Having lived over thirteen years, from 1877 to 1895, at No. 81Dartmouth Street, and feeling now the need for a little more quietfrom the rumble of the trolley-car, for more light and room, for housespace, for the accommodation of friends who loved to make their homewith a genial host and his loving companion, and to indulge in thathospitality which was a lifelong trait, Mr. And Mrs. Coffin beganlooking for a site whereon to build in Brookline. No yokefellows wereever more truly one in spirit than "Uncle Charles and Aunt Sally. "Providence having denied them the children for whom they had yearned, both delighted in a constant stream of young people and friends. Blessed by divine liberality in the form of nephews and nieces, richin the gifts of nature, culture, and grace, neither Carleton nor hiswife was often left lonely. 

The new house was built after his suggestions and under his ownpersonal oversight, the outdoor tasks and journeys thus necessitatedmaking a variety rather pleasant than otherwise. Here, in this newhome, his golden wedding was to be celebrated, February 18, 1896. Thehouse was in modern style, with all the comforts and convenienceswhich science and applied art could suggest. While comparativelymodest and simple in general plan and equipment, it had openfireplaces, electric lights, a spacious porch, roomy hallways, andplenty of windows. It was No. 9 Shailer Street, and named Alwington, after the ancestral home in Devonshire, England. 

Mr. Coffin's study room was upon the northeast, where, with plenty oflight and the morning sun, he could sit at his desk looking out uponHarvard Street, and over towards Beacon Street; the opposite side ofthe street, fortunately, not being occupied by buildings to obscurehis view. At first he was often allured from his work for manyminutes, and even for a half hour at a time, by a majestic elm-tree sorich in foliage and comely in form that he looked upon it withravished eyes. It was in this room that he wrote the chapters for hissecond book, which was to show especially the part which Americanwomen had played in the making of their country. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE HOME AT ALWINGTON. 

It was a remarkable coincidence that Mr. Coffin was to exchange worldsand transfer his work in the very year in which the issues of theCivil War were to be eliminated from national politics, when not oneof the several party platforms was to make any allusion to thestruggle of 1861-65, or to any of its numerous legacies. In this year, 1896, also, for the first time since 1860, Southern men, the one aConfederate general, and the other a Populist editor, were to benominated for possible chief magistracy. Mr. Coffin, with prescience, had already seen that the war issues, grand as they were, had meltedaway into even vaster national questions. He had turned his thoughtstowards the solution of problems which concerned the nation as a wholeand humanity as a race. His historical addresses and lectures wentback to older subjects, while his thoughts soared forward to thenewer conditions, theories, and problems which were looming in theslowly unveiling future. In literature he turned, and gladly, too, from the scenes of slavery and war between brothers. With his pen hesought to picture the ancient heroisms, in the story of which thepeople of the States of rice and cotton, as well as of granite, ice, and grain, were alike interested, as in a common heritage. InAlwington, surrounded by old and new friends, genial and cultured, hehoped, if it were God's will, to complete his work with a rotunda-likeseries of pen pictures of the Revolution. 

This was not to be, though he was to die "in harness, " like Nicanor ofold, without lingering illness or broken powers. While he was to seenot a few golden days of A. D. 1896, yet the proposed pictures were tobe left upon the easel, scarcely more than begun. The pen and ink onhis table were to remain, like brushes on the palette, with none tofinish as the master-workman had planned. 

Months before that date of February 18th, on which their goldenwedding was to be celebrated, Mr. And Mrs. Coffin had secured mypromise that I should be present. Coming on to Boston, I led themorning worship in the Eliot Church of Newton, which is named afterthe apostle of the Indians, the quarter-millennial anniversary of thebeginning of whose work at Nonantum has just been celebrated. In theafternoon, I had the pleasure of looking into the faces of three scoreor more of my former Shawmut parishioners in the Casino hall inBeaconsfield Terrace. 

Mr. Coffin had, from the first, fully agreed with the writer inbelieving that a Congregational church should be formed in theReservoir district, which had, he predicted, a brilliant andsubstantial future. He was among the very first to move for the saleof the old property on Tremont Street, and he personally prepared thepetition to the Legislature of Massachusetts for permission to selland move. Afterwards, when the new enterprise seemed to have beenabandoned, he listened to the call of duty and remained in ShawmutChurch. When he became a resident in Brookline, feeling it still hisduty to work and toil, to break new paths, to make the road straightfor his Master, rather than to sit down at ease in Zion, he cast hislot in with a little company of those who, though few and withoutwealth, bravely and hopefully resolved to form a church where it wasneeded. On November 3d, they first gathered for worship, and one yearlater, November 4, 1896, the church was formed, with Rev. Harris G. Hale as pastor, and taking the historic, appropriate, but uncommonname, Leyden. Their first collection of money, as a thank-offering toGod, was for Foreign Missions. 

On that afternoon of February 16th, Carleton was present, joiningheartily in the worship. As usual, he listened with that wonderfullyluminous face of his and that close attention to the discourse, which, like the cable-ships, ran out unseen telegraphy of sympathy. Theservice, and the usual warm grasping of hands and those pleasantsocial exchanges for which the Shawmut people were so noted, beingover, some fifteen or twenty gathered in the hospitable library of M. F. Dickinson, Jr. , whose home was but a few rods off, on the otherside of Beacon Street. After a half hour of sparkling reminiscences ofthe dear old days in Shawmut, all had gone except the host, Mr. Coffin, and the biographer, who then had not even a passing thoughtof the work he was soon to do. As Carleton sat there in an easy chairbefore the wood-fire on the open hearth, his feet stretched outcomfortably upon the tiles, and his two hands, with their finger andthumb tips together, as was his usual custom when good thinking andpleasant conversation went on together, he talked about the future ofBoston and of Congregational Christianity. 

Interested as I was, a sudden feeling of pain seized me as I noticedhow sunken were his eyes. I am not a physician, but I have seen manypeople die. I have looked upon many more as they approached theirmortal end, marked with signs which they saw not, nor often even theirfriends observed, but which were as plain and readable as thestencilled directions upon freight to be sent and delivered elsewhere. After a handshake and an invitation from him to dine the next night athis house, and to be at the golden wedding on Tuesday, we bade himgood afternoon. On returning with my host in front of the fire, Isaid, "I feel sad, for our friend Mr. Coffin is marked for earlydeath; he will certainly not outlive this year. "

Nevertheless, I could not but count Charles Carleton Coffin among thenumber of those whom God made rich in the threefold life of body, soul, and spirit. 

The old Greeks, whose wonderfully rich experience of life, penetratinginsight, powers of analysis, and gift of literary expression enabledthem to coin the words to fitly represent their thoughts, knew how todescribe both love and life better than we, having a mintage ofthought for each in its threefold form. As they discriminated _eros_, _philé_, and _agapé_ in love, so also they put difference between_psyché_, _bios_, and _zoé_ in life. 

What other ranges of existence and developments of being there may befor God's chosen ones in worlds to come, we dare not conjecture, butthis we know. Carleton had even then, as I saw him marked for an earlychange of worlds, entered into threefold life. 

1. The lusty boy and youth, the mature man with not a perfect, yet asound, physical organization, showed a good specimen of the humananimal, rich in the breath of life, --_psyché_. 

2. The long and varied career of farmer, surveyor, citizen, Christianinterested in his fellows and their welfare, with varied work, travel, and adventure, manifested the noble _bios_, --the career or course ofstrenuous endeavor. 

3. The spiritual attainments in character, the ever outflowingbenevolence, the kindly thought, the healing sunshine of his presence, the calm faith, the firm trust in God, gave assurance of the _zoé_. 

These three stages of existence revealed Carleton as one affluent withwhat men call life, and of which the young ever crave more, and alsoin that "life which is life indeed, " which survives death, which isthe extinction of the _psyché_ or animal breath, --the soul remainingas the abode of the spirit. In body, soul, and spirit, CharlesCarleton Coffin was a true man, who, even in the evening of life, wasrich in those three forms of life which God has revealed anddiscriminated through the illuminating Greek language of the NewTestament. 

True indeed it was that, while with multiplying years the animal lifelessened in quantity and intensity, the spiritual life was enrichedand deepened; or, to put it in Paul's language and in the historicalpresent so favored by Carleton, "While the outward man perisheth, theinward man is renewed day by day. "

CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 

Thus, amid happy surroundings, in the new home, in the last leap-yearof this wonderful century, came the time of the golden wedding. Godhad walked with these, his children, fifty years, while they hadwalked with one another. Providence seemed to whisper, "Come, for allthings are now ready. " The new home was finished and furnished, allbright and cheerful, and suffused with the atmosphere of genialcompanionship. The bride of a half century before, now with the rosesof health blooming under the trellis of her silvery hair, withsparkling eyes beaming fun and sympathy, welcome and gladness, byturns, was at this season in happy health. This was largely owing, asshe gladly acknowledged, to regular calisthenics, plenty of fresh air, and complete occupation of mind and body. The thousand invitations ingilt and white had, as with "the wings of a dove covered with silverand her feathers with yellow gold, " flown over the city, commonwealth, and nation. On February 18th, the house having been transformed byyoung friends into a maze of greenery and flowers, husband and wifestood together to receive congratulations. In the hall were ropes ofsturdy pine boughs and glistening laurel, with a huge wreath ofevergreen suspended from the ceiling, and bearing the anniversarydate, 1846 and 1896. In the reception-room one friend had hung theemblem of two hearts joined by a band of gold above the cornice. Dining-room and library were festooned with smilax. In the archwaysand windows were hanging baskets of jonquils and ferns. "An help meetfor him, " the bride of fifty years was arrayed in heliotrope satinwith trimmings of point lace, making, as we thought, with her delicatecomplexion and soft white hair, a sight as lovely as when, amid thesnow-storms of New Hampshire, a half century before, Charles CarletonCoffin first called Sallie Farmer his wife. 

Of Washington it has been said, "God made him childless that a nationmight call him father. " In the home on that day were scores of niecesand nephews, and children of several generations, from the babe inarms, and the child with pinafore, to the stately dames andlong-bearded men, who, one and all, called the bride and groom "uncleand aunt. " From a ladies' orchestra, on the top floor, music filledthe house, the melody falling like a lark's song in upper air. In thedining-room, turned for the nonce into a booth of evergreens, whereeverything was sparkle and joy, new and old friends met to discuss, over dainty cups and plates, both the happy moment and the delights oflong ago. 

It was not only a very bright, but a noteworthy company that gatheredon that February afternoon and evening. Massachusetts was about tolose by death her Governor, F. T. Greenhalge, as she had lost threeex-Governors, all friends of Carleton, within the previoustwelvemonth, but there was present the handsome acting-Governor of theCommonwealth, Roger Wolcott. Men eminent in political life, authors, editors, preachers, business men, troops of lifelong friends, men andwomen of eminence, honor, and usefulness, fellow Christians andworkers in wonderfully varied lines of activity, were present to sharein and add to the joy. Among the gifts, which seemed to come likeJupiter's shower of gold upon Danaë, were two that touched Carletonvery deeply. The Massachusetts Club, which has numbered in its bodymany Senators, Governors, generals, diplomatists, lawyers, authors, and merchants, whose names shine very high on the roll of nationalfame, sent their fellow member an appropriate present. Instead of theregular cup, vase, or urn, or anything that might suggest stress, strain, or even victory, or even minister to personal vanity, theClub, through its secretary, Mr. S. S. Blanchard, presented the masterof Alwington with a superb steel engraving, richly framed. Itrepresented the Master, sitting under the vine-roof trellis at thehome of Lazarus, in Bethlehem. "You knew just what I wanted, "whispered the happy receiver. 

During the evening, when the people of Shawmut Church were present, ahundred or more strong, their former and latter chief servant beingwith them, a silver casket, with twenty half eagles in it, waspresented by Dr. W. E. Barton, with choice and fitting words. Sodeeply affected was this man Carleton, so noted for his self-mastery, that, for a moment, those who knew him best were shot through as by ashaft of foreboding, lest, then and there, the horses and chariot offire might come for the prophet. A quarter of a minute's pause, understood by most present as nothing more than a natural intervalbetween presentation speech and reply, and then Carleton, as fully ashis emotion would admit, uttered fitting words of response. 

The "banquet hall deserted, " the photographic camera was brought intorequisition, and pleasant souvenirs of a grand occasion were made. Everything joyously planned had been happily carried out. This was theculminating event in the life of a good man, to the making of whom, race, ancestry, parentage, wife, home, friends, country, andopportunity had contributed, and to all of which and whom, under God, Carleton often made grateful acknowledgments. 

It was but a fortnight after this event, in which I participated withsuch unalloyed pleasure, that the telegraphic yellow paper, with itstype-script message, announced that the earthly house of thetabernacle of Carleton's spirit had been dissolved, and that hisbuilding of God, the "house not made with hands, " had been entered. 

The story of Carleton's last thirteen days on earth is soon told. Hehad written a little upon his new story. For the _Boston Journal_ hehad penned an article calling attention to the multiplying"sky-scraper" houses, and the need of better fire-apparatus. He had, with the physician's sanction, agreed to address on Monday evening, March 2d, the T. Starr King Unitarian Club of South Boston, on "SomeRecollections of a War Correspondent. "

Carleton's last Sunday on earth was as one of "the days of heaven uponearth. " It was rich to overflowing with joyous experiences. It is nowours to see that the shadows of his sunset of life were pointing tothe eternal morning. 

It was the opening day of spring. At Shawmut Church, in holycommunion, he, with others, celebrated the love of his Saviour andFriend. To Carleton, it was a true Eucharist. A new vision of thecross and its meaning seemed to dawn upon his soul. At thesupper-table, conversation turned upon Christ's obedience unto death, his great reconciliation of man to God, his power to move men, thecrucifixion, and its meaning. Carleton said, after expressing his deepsatisfaction with Doctor Barton's morning sermon, and hisinterpretation of the atonement, that he regarded Christ's life as thehighest exhibition of service. By his willing death on the cross, Jesus showed himself the greatest and best of all servants of man, while thus joyfully doing his Father's will. On that day of rest, Carleton seemed to dwell in an almost transfigurating atmosphere ofdelight in his Master. 

On Sunday night husband and wife enjoyed a quiet hour, hand in hand, before the wood fire. The sunlight and warmth of years gone by, coinedinto stick and fagots from the forest, were released again in glow andwarmth, making playful lights and warning shadows. The golden minutespassed by. The prattle of lovers and the sober wisdom of experienceblended. Then, night's oblivion. Again, the cheerful morning meal andthe merry company, the incense of worship, and the separation of eachand all to the day's toil. 

Carleton sat down in his study room to write. He soon called his wife, complaining of a distressing pain in his stomach. He was advised to goto bed, and did so. The physician, Dr. A. L. Kennedy, was sent for. "How is your head?" asked Doctor Kennedy. 

"If it were not for this pain, I should get up and write, " answeredCarleton. 

With the consent of the physician he rose from the couch and walkedthe room for awhile for relief. Then returning, as he was about to liedown again, he fell over. Quickly unconscious, he passed away. Sciencewould call the immediate cause of death apoplexy. 

Thus died at his post, as he would have wished, the great warcorrespondent, traveller, author, statesman, and friend of man andGod. He had lived nearly three years beyond the allotted period ofthree score and ten. 

Two days later, while the flag over the public schoolhouse inBrookline drooped at half-mast, and Carleton's picture was wreathedwith laurels, at the request of the scholars themselves, in theimpressive auditorium of Shawmut Church, Carleton's body lay amidpalms and lilies in the space fronting the pulpit. At his head and athis feet stood a veteran-sentinel from the John A. Andrew Post of theGrand Army of the Republic. These were relieved every quarter of anhour, during the exercises, by comrades who had been detailed for aservice which they were proud to render to one who had so well toldtheir story and honored them so highly. It was entirely a voluntaryoffering on the part of the veterans to pay this tribute of regard, which was as touching as it was unostentatious. 

Nowhere in the church edifice were there any of the usual insignia ofwoe. The dirge was at first played to express the universal grief inthe music of the organ, but it soon melted into In Memoriam and hymnsof triumph. The quartet sang "Jesus Reigns, " a favorite hymn ofCarleton's, to music which he had himself composed only two yearsbefore. 

It reminded me of the burst of melody which, from the belfry of thechurch in a Moravian town, announces the soul's farewell to earth andbirth into heaven. 

In the audience which filled the pews downstairs were men and womeneminent in every walk of life, representatives of clubs, societies, and organizations. Probably without a single exception, all weresincere mourners, while yet rejoicing in a life so nobly rounded out. In the pulpit sat two of the pastors of Shawmut Church, and Dr. ArthurLittle, friend of Carleton's boyhood, and a near relative. Theeulogies were discriminating. 

The addresses, with the prayers offered and the tributes made inscript or print, with some letters of condolence received by Mrs. Coffin, and a remarkable interesting biographical sketch from _TheCongregationalist_, by Rev. Howard A. Bridgman, have been gathered ina pamphlet published by George H. Wright, Harcourt Street, Boston. 

From this pamphlet we extract the following:

 After prayer and a brief silence, Dr. Little said:

 "There are few men, I think, engrossed in the affairs of life, for an entire generation, to whom the Word of God was so vital and so precious as to our friend, Mr. Coffin. Let us open this Word, and listen while God speaks to us, in Ps. 23; Ps. 39: 4, 13; Ps. 46: 1, 5, 7. 

 "I will read from Ezekiel 26: 1-5, which was a favorite word with Mr. Coffin, and the passage which he himself read, as he was journeying in the Eastern land, at the very spot concerning which the prophecy is uttered. Mr. Coffin was sitting there with his open Bible, and saw the literal fulfilment of this prophecy, --the fishermen spreading the nets in the very neighborhood where he was sitting. "

 The continued readings were from John 11: 21, 23; John 14: 19; 2 Cor. 5: 1, 8; Rev. 21: 1; Rev. 22: 5; 1 Cor. 15: 51, 57. The quartet sang "In My Father's Arms Enfolded. "

 Dr. Barton then read a letter from Rev. E. B. Webb, D. D. , who was unable to be present. The following are the closing paragraphs. They recall the Oriental travels enjoyed by pastor and parishioner in company. 

 "Together we visited the home of Mary and Martha, and the tomb from which the Life-Giver called forth Lazarus to a new and divine life. We stood in Gethsemane, by the old olive-trees, beneath the shadows of which the Saviour of men prayed, and sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. We climbed together to the top of the Mount of Olives, and looked up into the deep heavens to which he ascended, and abroad to the city over which he wept; and both our words and our silence told how real it all was, and how the significance of it entered into our lives. 

 "From the city we journeyed northward, --up past Bethel, where Jacob saw a new vision, and got a new heart, and on, past the blue waters of Galilee, and across the great plain, --battle-ground of the ancient nations, --and over the Lebanons to Damascus and Baalbec, and then to the sea, and homeward thence; and always and everywhere scrutinizing the present, or reaching back into the past; drinking from the sparkling waters of Abana and Pharpar, or searching for the wall over which Paul was let down in a basket; impressed by the ruins of half-buried temples and cities, or looking forward, with sublime faith in the prophecy and promise, to the time when all things shall be made new;--Carleton was always the same thoughtful, genial, courteous companion and sympathizing friend. 

 "I honored, loved, and esteemed the man. His life is a beautiful example of devout Christian steadfastness. The history of his small beginnings, gradual increase, and final success, is one to inspire noble endeavor, and ensure reward. He honored the church, and the church does well to honor him. 

 "Affectionately yours, "E. B. Webb. "

 The Rev. Dr. Little paid a warm tribute to the memory of his friend:

 "At eleven years of age he [Carleton] entered the church. Think of it! Sixty-three years devoted to the service of his Lord and Master! He seems to me to be an illustration of a man who, when he is equal to it, finds a hard physical environment united with a wholesome moral and spiritual environment of supreme advantage. To a weak nature it would very likely mean only failure, but to a man of the heroic mould of Mr. Coffin it meant opportunity, and it only nerved him to more strenuous effort; and it was everything to him that the atmosphere in the home, the community, and the church was what it was, --so warm, so Christian, so spiritual, so sympathetic, and so suited to furnish just the right conditions for the moulding of his very responsive and susceptible nature. 

 "And then he possessed what I think might very well be called the spirit of aggressiveness, or, possibly better, the spirit of sanctified self-assertion. He never thought of self-assertion for his own sake, or for the sake of honor or promotion, but he had in him a kind of push and an earnestness of purpose--you might almost say audacity--that somehow stirred him and prompted him always to be in the place of greatest advantage at a given time for the service of others. He seemed always to be just at the point of supreme advantage in a crisis, just where he could give the world, at the right time, and in the best way, the fullest report of a battle, or a conference, or any other matters of supreme moment. This was characteristic of him. It appeared all through his New Hampshire life, and was indeed in part a native endowment. "

 After an address by the author of this volume on "Charles Carleton Coffin as a Historian, " Dr. W. E. Barton, in felicitous diction, reviewed the earthly life of him with whose career many memories were then busy. 

 "Grief is no unusual thing. There is no heart here that has not known it. There is scarce a home where death has not entered. We weep the more sincerely with those that weep, because the intervals are not long between our own sorrows. The whole Commonwealth mourns to-day our chief magistrate. God comfort his family! God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts! God bless him in whose elevation to the Governor's chair Providence has anticipated the will of the people. 

 "A very tender sorrow brings us here to-day, and we turn for comfort to the Word of God. 

 "Text: With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. --Ps. 91: 16. 

 "It is not because of his unusual age that this text seems to me appropriate for the funeral of our friend. His years were but little more than threescore and ten, and his step was light, and his heart was young, and we hardly thought of him as an old man. Nor is it because his work seemed to us completed, that we think of the measure of his days as satisfied. His facile pen dropped upon a new page; and before him, as he ceased to labor, were tasks midway, and others just begun. It is because our first feeling is so unsatisfied, it is because there was so much more which he wished, and we wished him to do, and that we are constrained to measure the length of his life, and to find, if we may find, in spite of this sudden break in our hopes and his plans, a completion that can satisfy. Measured by its experiences and accomplishments, it may seem to us that this life, so abruptly terminated, was one whose length and symmetry well deserve to be considered a fulfilment of the promise of the text. "

 Following the prayer, Dr. Barton said:

 "It was the purpose of our organist, Mr. Dunham, a true and honored friend of Mr. Coffin, to play, as the postlude to this service, the stateliest of funeral marches, but I dissuaded him. This is a Christian funeral. Our music is not a dirge, but a jubilate. The hope of our friend in life is ours for him in death. Instead of even the noblest funeral march expressing our own grief, there will be played the most triumphant of anthems, expressing his own victory over death, --Handel's matchless 'Hallelujah Chorus. '"

 The organ then played the "Hallelujah Chorus, " and the benediction was pronounced by Dr. Barton. 

It had been intended to deposit the mortal relics of Carleton in theancestral cemetery at Webster, N. H. , the village next to Boscawen, but Providence interposed. After all preparations for travel andtransportation had been made, heavy rains fell, which washed awaybridges and so disturbed the ordinary condition of the roads in NewHampshire that the body had to be deposited in a vault at Brooklineuntil a more convenient season for interment. Meanwhile, the soldiersof the Grand Army, adult friends, and even children, united in thewish that the grave of their friend and helper might be within easyreach of Boston, so that on the National Memorial Day, and at othertimes of visitation, the grassy mound might be accessible for thetribute of flowers. And so it eventuated that what was once mortal ofCharles Carleton Coffin rests in Mount Auburn. 

The memorial in stone will be a boulder transported from more northernregions ages ago and left by ice on land which belonged to Mrs. Coffin's grandfather. On this rugged New Hampshire granite will beinscribed the name of Charles Carleton Coffin, with the dates of hisbirths into this world and the next. 

Both of the man and this, his last memorial, we may say _Deus fecit_. 

THE END.