Continental Monthly Volume 1 Issue 3 by Various

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The army left Martinsburg for the south, as we have seen, on Monday,
July 15th. The whole division, with trifling exceptions, moved forward,
and advanced on that day as far as 'Bunker Hill,' ten miles from
Martinsburg. An insignificant rebel force fell back as Patterson
advanced, and at 'Bunker Hill' the army encamped around the smoking
brands of the rebel camp-fires, just deserted. Here was a small
post-town called Mill Creek; and near by, the high ridge called 'Bunker
Hill' formed another fine natural position for defence; but the rebels
were not disposed to defend it. Patterson lay here two days, within
twelve miles of the rebel strong-hold at Winchester, the pickets of the
two armies watching each other by night and day. On the 17th the Federal
army was astir before daylight, and an advance to the south was
commenced. But before the rear-guard filed down from 'Bunker Hill' to
the turnpike, a counter-march was ordered; and the whole division
proceeded twelve miles to the east, leaving Winchester on their flank,
and occupying Charlestown, in Jefferson County. What could have pleased
Johnston better? What wonder that he should take the opportunity, as
soon as satisfied that this flank movement was not intended to operate
against him, to leave his fortifications at Winchester in charge of a
small force, and rush to reinforce Beauregard? And is it not more than
remarkable that Patterson, after occupying Charlestown for four days,
should fall back to Harper's Ferry on the very day when his foe had
effected his _ruse de guerre_, and was actually turning the tide of
battle at Bull Run?

There is nothing in all this to change the opinion, previously formed,
that Patterson should have pushed on to Winchester early in July. The
whole of Johnston's manoeuvering seems to have been calculated merely to
deceive Patterson, and to gain time. And so clever was he in his
strategy, that, when his march to Manassas commenced, Patterson,
learning either of the main movement or of a feint towards himself,
aroused his army at midnight, and held them in readiness to fight, in
apprehension of instant attack. As early as the middle of June, when
Patterson threw a brigade over the Potomac at Williamsport, on a
reconnoitering expedition, Johnston heard of the movement, and advanced
a small force to engage and delay the Federals, which fell back as soon
as the latter retired, as has since been learned from escaped prisoners
and deserters. Indeed, the whole of Patterson's campaign shows far
superior generalship on the part of his adversary.

Scarcely had the cautious general occupied from necessity that point
whose strength and natural facilities he had previously despised, when
the term of his appointment as general of the division expired, and the
government allowed him to retire to private life. His successor's first
act was to retire across the Potomac and occupy the Maryland Heights,
opposite to Harper's Ferry, leaving not a foot of rebel soil to be held
by our army as an evidence of the 'something' which had been expected of
the venerable commander of the army of the Shenandoah. He had spent
three months of time, and ten millions of money, and had only emulated
the acts of that Gallic sovereign whose great deeds are immortalized in
the brief couplet,

'The king of France, with twice ten thousand men,
Marched up the hill, and then--marched down again.'

He had done more. He had committed another grave error, which has
received but little public attention, but which told with disastrous
effect upon the Union cause in Northern Virginia. That section of the
State, as is well known, contained many true Union men. Previous to
Patterson's entry into Virginia, they had been proscribed and severely
treated by the secessionists. Many had been impressed by the rebel
troops; the 'Berkeley Border Guard' had dragged many a peaceable
Unionist from his bed at night to serve in the ranks of Johnston's army.
But many others had been able to keep their true sentiments wholly to
themselves, and had feigned sympathy with secession; while many more had
fled from their homes across the Potomac, and sought refuge in loyal
Maryland, where they hung around the Federal camps, vainly urging an
early advance, that they might go home and take care of their families
and their crops. Thus was Berkeley County completely shackled, and a
reign of terror fully established. And on that bright morning of the 2d
of July, as the Federal army marched over the 'sacred soil,' the cleanly
cut grain fields, with their deserted houses, told plainly of
secessionist owners, who could stay at home and cut their grain while
the rebels were in force, but who fled before the advance of Union
troops, and deserted their homes; while the fields of standing grain,
with the golden kernels ripe and almost rotting on the stalks, and the
cheerless-looking houses, tenanted only by women and children, told as
plainly of the poor Unionists, driven from home and family by the
'Border Guard' who so bravely 'defended the sacred soil.' With the
advance of the Union army came back hundreds of Union refugees from
Maryland; poor, half-starved men crept out to the roadside from their
hiding-places, and told the Union troops that they now first saw
daylight for several weeks; and the lonely yet brave women displayed
from their hovels the Union flags, the true 'Red, White, and Blue,'
which their loyalty had kept for months concealed. And as the army
tarried at Martinsburg, and reinforcements came in, the secret Unionists
avowed their real sentiments; the Union flag was displayed from many a
dwelling; and the fair hands of Martinsburg women stitched beautiful
banners, which, with words of eloquent loyalty, were presented to the
favorite Union regiments, and even now are cherished in Northern homes,
or in Union encampments, as mementos of the gratitude of Berkeley County
for its deliverance from the reign of terror. Yet how was the confidence
repaid which these loyal people thus reposed in Gen. Patterson? In less
than three weeks, not a Union soldier was left in Martinsburg, and
before the first of August they were withdrawn wholly from Berkeley and
Jefferson Counties. And the poor refugees who had returned to their
homes in good faith, and the loyalists who in equal good faith had
spoken out their true patriotism and their love of the Union, were left
to the tender mercies of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and such braves as
the Texan Rangers, the Mississippi Bowie-knives, and the Louisiana Tiger
Zouaves. Gray-headed men like Pendleton and Strother were dragged from
their homes to languish for weeks in Richmond jails, and the old reign
of terror was reestablished with renewed virulence. Shall we ask these
poor, deceived Unionists of Northern Virginia what they think of Gen.
Patterson, and of the success of his campaign? How can we estimate the
injury to the cause of the Union inflicted in this way alone by a
grossly inefficient Federal general?

There were other reasons than those already enumerated why Patterson
should have occupied Harper's Ferry at an early day, and these were
reasons of economy, which commended themselves to the judgment of almost
every one except the commanding general. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
is the natural and only good thoroughfare along the valley of the upper
Potomac. Harper's Ferry, confessedly the strongest and best military
point in Northern Virginia, and the one best fitted for a base of
offensive operations, is on this railroad, and, of course, of easy
access from Baltimore and Washington. In June last the road was open
from Baltimore to the Point of Rocks, between which last place and the
Ferry were some rebel obstructions easy to be removed. Had Gen.
Patterson occupied Harper's Ferry in June, and opened the railroad to
that point, and from thence carried on the campaign like a brave
general, worthy to command the brave men who filled the ranks of his
army, the government might by this time have made the whole line of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad of use, as a means of transporting troops
and munitions between Cincinnati and Baltimore,--a desideratum then, as
now, very strongly urged, as the shortest route between those points is
the circuitous one _via_ Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. It could have been
of great use, too, to Patterson's division of the army, in transporting
supplies from Baltimore, by the most natural and expeditious route. But
it was his plan to enter Virginia at Williamsport, so that all supplies
for his division must go from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Harrisburg,
and thence by rail to Hagerstown, where they were loaded upon army
wagons, and transported thus to and across the Potomac, and for fifteen
or twenty miles into Virginia, to the Federal camps, at very great
outlay and expense. So earnest did Gen. Patterson seem to be, either in
doing nothing, or else in causing all the expenditure possible.

These are the arguments which address themselves to our reason, as
bearing on the question of Patterson's success or failure, and as
explanatory of the latter. As before stated, they are urged, not to show
that Patterson should have possessed prophetic knowledge or any
extraordinary powers, but to illustrate his failure to understand what
was transpiring before his face and eyes. He is culpable, not because he
did not achieve impossibilities, but because he did not do what plain
common-sense seemed to require. The writer heard, among the Federal
camps, but one reason suggested for Patterson's neglect to occupy
Harper's Ferry in June, which was, that probably the rebels had
concealed sundry infernal machines in its vicinity, which would destroy
thousands of the Union soldiers at the proper time. This was building a
great military policy on a very small basis. If there was running
through Gen. Patterson's policy any such plan of military strategy, or,
in fact, any plan whatever, we have the curious spectacle presented of a
general of an army ignoring common-sense, and building up a plan of a
great campaign solely upon improbabilities. And it strikes us that this
may be the key to the general's system of warfare, and a very plain and
lucid explanation of his failure.

It is not deemed desirable here to treat of Patterson's other faults,
such as his indulgent treatment of rebel spies, his failure to
confiscate rebel property, and his distinguishing between the property
of rebels and loyalists, by placing strong guards over the former, and
neglecting to take equal care of the latter. Such acts only prove him to
be either more nice than wise, or less nice than foolish; unless we
argue him to be, as many do, a secret secessionist. But we leave it to
others to draw inferences as to his loyalty or disloyalty. Our task is
accomplished if we have shown that whether loyal or false, whether a
patriot or a traitor, his three months' campaign in Virginia proves him
unfit to be a commander, by revealing three great faults, each injuring
the cause he professed to aid, all combining to render his campaign a
failure, and two of the three assisting directly in our disaster at Bull
Run, and deepening that dark stain upon our national escutcheon. His
neglect to occupy Harper's Ferry in June, his failure to push on against
Johnston when there was an opportunity to injure him, and his cool
betrayal of the Unionists of Northern Virginia into the clutches of the
rebel Thugs, will place the name of Patterson by the side of the names
of Lee, Hull, Winder, and Buchanan, who, though not the open enemies of
their country, were its false and inefficient friends.

* * * * *

THE GAME OF FATE.

Ever above this earthly ball,
There sit two forms, unseen by all,
Playing, with fearful earnestness,
Through life and death, a game of chess.

Feather of pride and wolfish eye,
Judas-bearded, glancing sly;
Many a pawn you have gathered in,
Through circling ages of shame and sin!

Fair as an angel, tender and true,
Is he who measures his might with you;
Oft he has lost, in times long gone,
But ever the terrible game goes on.

But where are the chessmen to be found?--
Where the picket paces his dangerous round;
Where the general sits, with chart and map;
Where the scout is scrawling his hurried scrap.

Where the Cabinet weigh the chances dread;
Where the soldier sleeps with the stars o'erhead;
Where rifles are ringing the peal of death,
And the dying hero yields his breath.

Where the mother and sister in silence sit,
And far into midnight sew and knit,
And pray for the soldier-brother or son,--
God's blessing on all that the four have done!

Where the traitors plot, in foul debate,
To war with God and strive with fate;
Digging pitfalls to catch them slaves,--
Pitfalls, to serve for their own deep graves.

Where the Bishop-General proves that the rod
Which lashes women is blest of God.
There's a rod to come, ere the red leaves fall,
Which will swallow your rattlesnake, scales and all.

Where the wretched Northern renegade
On a Southern journal plies his trade,
Swearing and writing, with scowl or smile,
That all that is Yankee is low and vile.

Where the cowardly dough-face talks of war
But fears we are going a little too far;--
Hoping the North may win the fight,
But thinking the South is 'partially right.'

Where the trembling, panting contraband
Makes tracks in haste from the happy land;
And where the officer-gentlemen
Catch him and order him home again!

Where the sutler acts like an arrant scamp,
And aids the contractor to rob the camp;
Both of them serving the South in its sin,
And all of them helping the devil to win.

So the game goes on from day to day,
But there's ONE behind all who watches the play;
Well he knows who at last must beat,
And well he will reckon up every cheat.

Wolfish dark player, do your best!
There's a reckoning for you as well as the rest;
Eastward or westward your glance may wend,
But the devil always trips up in the end.

* * * * *

JONATHAN EDWARDS AND THE OLD CLERGY.

Of late years the attention of many thinking men has been much turned to
the early clergy of America. One reads of St. Peter's Church that,
notwithstanding its immense size above ground, it has an equal amount of
masonry under ground. Of the iceberg even more can be said, since its
submerged proportions are of vastly greater extent than its visible
surface. One may well inquire how much of American greatness is hidden
in its foundation. How massive indeed must be the hidden corner-stone on
which rests the structure of national character. New England is now
turning its attention to the histories of ancient families; genealogy is
no small feature in modern literature, and thus the age seems to confess
that such research is a token of advance.

I believe that the strength of our ancestors was owing to their pure and
simple piety; indeed, one can not go back even for a century without
meeting this element in clear developement. The old New England
preachers were of a character peculiarly adapted to the severe
exigencies of their day. They stood as iron men in an iron age. However
rude in other social features, the early settlers, as they worked their
way to the frontier, demanded the soothing influences of pastoral care,
and the first institution reared in the forest was the pulpit, the next
the school-house. The pastors were settled for life, and minister and
people abode in communion, with little change but that of age. In
seeking a field, the youth just launched into his profession
'candidated' among vacant churches, and was heard with solemn attention
by the selectmen and bench of deacons. Notes were taken by the more
fastidious for subsequent criticism, and the matter was discussed with
all the importance of a national treaty. When the call had been
accepted, the stipend was generally fixed at one hundred pounds, and a
rude parsonage opened its doors of welcome. To this was almost
invariably attached a farm, whose native sterility called for such
expenditure of toil that it might truly have been said,

'The furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke.'

These men indeed united mental and physical labor in a remarkable
degree. The long winters were devoted to study, to sermons, or to
meetings,--the summer to the plow and the harvest. One instance is on
record in which the entire stock of a year's sermons were written
between December and April. But, notwithstanding the inevitable drudgery
of such a life, the ministry was, upon the whole, noted for study. The
course held at Harvard required close application, and even at the
chapel exercises the Scriptures were daily read in the original
languages. These labors and studies are recorded in that quaintest of
all American books, Mather's Magnalia. Whatever be the pedantry and
vanity of its author, he is undeniably worthy of rank among the men whom
he chronicled. Indeed, the Mathers, father and son, illustrated a race
of rare moral and intellectual power. The first of these, who enjoyed
the profitable name of 'Increase,' was equally popular and successful as
president of Harvard or pastor of the church of Cambridge, and the son
takes little pains to conceal his filial pride as he blazons the virtues
of 'Crescentius Madderus.' He is particular in recording him as the
first American divine who received the honorary title D.D. As one looks
back upon the primitive days of the nascent university, he is struck by
the contrast between the present numerous and stately array of halls,
the magnificent library, and all the pomp of a modern commencement, and
the slender procession of rudely clad youth led by Increase Mather. As
they marched out of the old shaky college and filed into the antique
meeting-house, what would they have said to a glimpse of Gore Hall and
its surroundings? But those were the beginnings of greatness, simple as
they were.

The pages of the Magnalia are filled with portraits hit off in a
masterly style. Mather was a true 'Porte Crayon,' and knew how to bring
out salient points with a few happy touches. His picture-gallery is like
an ancient Valhalla, full of demigods. Among their characteristics are
strong contrasts. Here are piety and poverty and learning, hand in hand.
These men, as we have stated, could swing the axe, or chop logic, at a
moment's notice; could pull vegetables, or dig out Hebrew roots, with
alternate ease. Notwithstanding their long days of labor, their minds
kept their edge, being freshly set by incessant doctrinal disputations.
Such, indeed, was the public appetite for controversy that polemic
warfare never slumbered. Our view of their character is assisted by a
contrast with the English clergy of the same day, and which reveals
shameful deformities on the part of the latter--avarice, indolence, and
gluttony. Of such, Milton spake in Lycidas, with withering contempt, as
those who

'for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold.'

If the Puritan poet be charged with prejudice, we have only to turn to
the pages of Macaulay for confirmation. Where, indeed, if this be true,
did Fielding obtain the originals for the ordinary at Newgate, or
'parson Trulliber' in Joseph Andrews?

Sad and strange was that disappointment which awaited the first
emigrants to Massachusetts Bay. But there was a divine mercy in it; they
came to seek peace, but a sword awaited them. I refer to the famous Anne
Wheelright controversy, which rent the infant settlement of Boston for
more than ten years. The excitement extended through the entire colony,
affording many a bitter and vindictive argument. The pulpit belabored it
in sermons of two hours' length, after which the deacons in their
official seats occasionally expatiated to audiences whose patience on
this theme was inexhaustible. As the controversy waxed hot, it got into
the hands of the civil authorities, and some of its disputants were
thrust into jail as heretical. Anna Wheelright was a woman of great
mental vigor, and could hold her own in a debate with her reverend
disputants. Unfortunate as this controversy may appear, it proved a
benefit, by sharpening the public mind to a prodigious degree. Indeed,
the very children of Boston could define the terms of the covenant of
grace. Weary of a controversy bordering on persecution, Anne Wheelright
sought a new home in the wilderness, and was subsequently murdered by
the Indians. But the force of mental exercise which she had put in
motion still continued. It is worthy of remark that almost the only
intellectual peculiarity to which Franklin refers, in speaking of his
father, is 'a turn for polemics.' The great features of New England
character were, at that day, opinion and faith. It was these, as boldly
and defiantly expressed, which excited the fears and jealousy of Charles
the Second, and instigated the deprival of the colonial charters.

The studious and prayerful habits of the clergy continued from
generation to generation, and their piety was most tender and touching
in their ministrations. We might dwell, had we time, on the Cottons, the
Mitchells, and the Sheppards, but, revered above all others, comes
before us the venerable form of John Elliott, the missionary, clad in
homespun apparel, his face shining with inward peace, while his silver
locks overhang his shoulders. He was the Nestor of divines, and the
character of his labors might be judged from his motto--' Prayers and
pains with faith in Christ Jesus can accomplish anything.' His efforts
and successes amongst the Indians were remarkable, and it was commonly
reported that he possessed the gift of prophecy. But he was not the only
man of that day who dwelt so close to the confines of the spiritual
world as to be alternately visited by angels and devils. Indeed, what
tales of the supernatural Mather relates, what a juxtaposition of saints
and demons! Of course, there was a foundation to build upon,--had not
Mather himself in his family for more than a year a possessed girl,
whose familiar haunted the house and made it ring at times like a
bedlam? It was a peculiar characteristic in this chapter of _diablerie_,
that when the Scriptures were being read, or prayers attended, the
spasms became terrific; but when any ungodly book was substituted in
place of the Bible, there was an immediate relief.

The age was one of wonders, and Mather devotes an entire book to what he
calls Thaumaturgia. Many of its statements are bold impositions on the
reader's credulity; but there was much which, in those days of
ignorance, must have seemed to Mather to be undeniable phenomena of a
mysterious nature. After the colony had escaped many minor dangers, a
new ordeal of suffering awaited it in a faith in sorcery, resulting in
the horrible episode of Salem witchcraft, which may be considered the
darkest stain upon the age. The death-beds and parting scenes in such a
community were cherished features in domestic history, and almost every
cottage could boast its Euthanasy. Ministering angels not only hovered
over the couch, but touched their harps in melodies, whose music
sometimes reached the human ear. Youth tender and inexperienced claimed
a share in these triumphs, and Nathanael Mather, though but seventeen,
expires in all the maturity of a saintly old age.

Coming down to the survivors of the first emigration, we find them
lingering amid the respect and veneration of the community, and their
graves were deemed worthy of patriarchal honor. After their departure
the ministry seems to have lost tone and fervor. The union of church and
state swept them into secularities, and thus impaired their strength. So
great was the decline, that by the close of the first century, formality
chilled the churches, and the people bewailed their coldness, while the
aged wept at the remembrance of by-gone days. Cotton Mather had
prophesied of a coming time when churches would have to be gathered _out
of the churches_ in the colony. The cry of the saints was 'Return, how
long, O Lord, and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.' Some of
the more hopeful maintained that the midnight only heralded an
approaching dawn. Two ministers on Long Island, Barber and Davenport,
had received divine assurance of a return of power, and held themselves
in anxious waiting. At last, brilliant flashes began to play athwart the
sky, and instead of the meteoric glare which some feared, it indicated
the purer sunbeam, in whose genial power the church was to rejoice for
more than a third of a century. Whitefield's advent sent a thrill
through all New England. He sailed from Charleston to Newport, where
venerable parson Clapp, tottering with age, welcomed him as though he
had been an angel of God. Whitefield's power was comparable to the
supernatural, and it was in this view John Foster, at a later day, found
the only solution of his success. In the pulpit his appearance and
manners exceeded the dreams of apostolic grace--a youth of elegant form,
with voice of enchanting melody, clear blue eyes, an endurance which
knew no exhaustion--a fancy which ranged both worlds--were all fused by
a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. Such was Whitefield at
twenty-five, and as such he was worthy of that ovation which he received
at Boston, when governor and council went out in form to welcome him.
The evangelist bore his honors meekly, and hospitality did not weaken
the vials of wrath which he poured upon the unfaithful. He found, as he
said, in New England 'a darkness which might be felt.' At Cambridge, he
thundered at the deadness of Harvard and its faculty, and electrified
the land by striking at its glory. The hearers alternately wept and
shivered, and the professors, headed by old Dr. Holyoke (who afterwards
lived to celebrate his hundredth birthday), levelled a defensive and
aggressive pamphlet at their castigator; but Governor Belcher kissed the
dauntless preacher, and bade him 'cry aloud and spare not, but show the
people their sins.'

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