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Lt.-Colonel Arthur J. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, June, 1863. (search)
deserters were not worthy to have either horses or money, and sent the owner thereof off where he would not be heard of again. The result of the affair was, that Colonel Gren-fell, whether guilty or not guilty, delivered up the negro, horses, and money to the civil authorities. If the charges against him are proven true, then there is no doubt that the course of General Bragg will be to dismiss him from his Staff; but if, on the con-trary, malicious slanders are defaming this ally, he is Hercules enough and brave enough to punish them. His bravery and gallantry were conspicuous throughout the Kentucky campaign, and it is hoped that this late tarnish on his fame will be removed; or if it be not, that he will. In the evening, after dark, General Polk drew my attention to the manner in which the signal beacons were worked. One light was stationary on the ground, whilst another was moved backwards and forwards over it. They gave us intelligence that General Hardee had pushed the
Parthenia Antoinette Hague, A blockaded family: Life in southern Alabama during the war, Chapter 6: (search)
ough twist to answer for warp, so that it had to be used for woof. Mrs. G--, dear motherly woman that she ever was, knowing how assiduously we had applied ourselves to the card and wheels, and wishing to give encouragement to our undertaking, gave to each of us unfortunates eight cuts of warp so that we also closed that Saturday night rejoicing with the other two spinners, who had made just their number of cuts. But as I lay down to sleep, it was with the thought that the twelve labors of Hercules were as nothing compared to the eighteen yards of warpthread which I had given my pledge to card and spin. As the novelty of carding and spinning wore off, we often grew weary in our strife, and it is not to be denied that all four of us became heartily sick of our agreement by the time we had carded and spun two weeks at night and two Saturdays, and never another Saturday dawned that found us so eager to spin as did the first one. Each of the four felt inclined to withdraw from the c
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, chapter 2 (search)
mpany I ever saw, white or black; they range admirably in size, have remarkable erectness and ease of carriage, and really march splendidly. Not a visitor but notices them; yet they have been under drill only a fortnight, and a part only two days. They have all been slaves, and very few are even mulattoes. December 4, 1862. Dwelling in tents, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This condition is certainly mine,--and with a multitude of patriarchs beside, not to mention Caesar and Pompey, Hercules and Bacchus. A moving life, tented at night, this experience has been mine in civil society, if society be civil before the luxurious forest fires of Maine and the Adirondack, or upon the lonely prairies of Kansas. But a stationary tent life, deliberately going to housekeeping under canvas, I have never had before, though in our barrack life at Camp Wool I often wished for it. The accommodations here are about as liberal as my quarters there, two wall-tents being placed end to end,
William H. Herndon, Jesse William Weik, Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Etiam in minimis major, The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln by William H. Herndon, for twenty years his friend and Jesse William Weik, chapter 21 (search)
n public life. The adulation by base multitudes of a living, and the pageantry surrounding a dead, President do not shake my well-settled convictions of the man's mental calibre. Physiologically and phrenologically the man was a sort of monstrosity. His frame was large, long, bony, and muscular; his head, small and disproportionately shaped. He had large, square jaws: large, heavy nose; small, lascivious mouth; and soft, tender, bluish eyes. I would say he was a cross between Venus and Hercules. I believe it to be inconsistent with the laws of human organization for any such creature to possess a mind capable of anything called great. The man's mind partook of the incongruities of his body. He had no mind not possessed by the most ordinary of men. It was simply the peculiarity of his mental and the oddity of his physical structure, as well as the qualities of his heart that singled him out from the mass of men. His native love of justice, truth, and humanity led his mind a grea
Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 2, Chapter 10: engagement at Bull Run, and battle of Manassas. (search)
soon became numerous, and warnings as to the fate which awaited us if we advanced were not only frequent, but evidently sincere. There were, however, many who turned back, and the wounded generally cheered upon meeting us. I well remember one, a mere stripling, who, supported on the shoulders of a man, who was bearing him to the rear, took off his cap and waved it with a cheer, that showed within that slender form beat the heart of a hero-breathed a spirit that would dare the labors of Hercules. As we advanced, the storm of the battle was rolling westward, and its fury became faint. When I met General Johnston, who was upon a hill which commanded a general view of the field of the afternoon's operations, and inquired of him as to the state of affairs, he replied that we had won the battle. I left him there and rode still farther to the west. Several of the volunteers on General Beauregard's staff joined me, and a command of cavalry, the gallant leader of which, Captain John
Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 2, Chapter 45: exchange of prisoners and Andersonville. (search)
for his kindness, say that he was well aware that the prisoners did not have enough to eat, but that he was under strict orders not to give them any more. Delicacies were sent him by New York and Louisville ladies, but were intercepted by the guards or other persons and never reached him. Moreover, in that bitterly cold climate, he was not allowed a blanket to cover himself at nzght until after Christmas. I am well acquainted with a Confederate captain now living in Richmond, a perfect Hercules in physique, who (if I remember rightly) weighed fifty pounds less upon leaving Johnson's Island than when he entered its prison walls. And now let me quote from Leute in den Vereinigten Staaten (Leipzig, 1886), a work by Ernst Hohenwart (possibly a pseudonym), a German who spent nearly thirty years in the United States, and who fought as an officer in the Northern army. I shall italicize certain important phrases. Much has been said of the cruel treatment of Northern soldiers in
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 3. (ed. Frank Moore), chapter 208 (search)
good faith, or, to use his own term, that he has backed out; so he made me promise, before I returned, that I would explain it to you. This, then, is to certify, gentlemen, that the young Darling aforesaid has not abated his desire in the least degree to serve his country under your especial guidance, although he has consented to devote himself in the more humble capacity of staying at home and minding his mother. Having reached the advanced age of sixteen, he possesses the strength of Hercules, and sagacity of Tacinaque, Agulier's bravery, and the patriotism of Washington, whom you have probably heard mentioned before. Would that he could add to these a few of Methuselah's superfluous years, for youth, though no crime, is very inconvenient in his case. Of course, the advancement of the Black Horse Cavalry is materially retarded, and its glory dimmed for a season; but wherever you are at the end of two years, he is determined to join you. If thou wouldst take me in his place, I
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 5. (ed. Frank Moore), chapter 78 (search)
th want pressing them, with fatigue crushing them, and at every summons to the field, they followed the old flag with cheers like the songs of gods. There was a moral heroism displayed by those worn men that will make our history's pages shine with splendid lustre. But the record. With such feeble power as I can exert, after nights of sleeplessness and days of fasting and hardships — no more comparable though with our weary soldiers' troubles than the labor of a pigmy with the works of Hercules — I shall attempt the task. It will be necessary, however, to carry you over the field and present the salient points in advance. You remember that the army was pressing hard upon Richmond. Every communication to the press assured you that it was not strong enough to execute the task. For weeks the symptoms of insufficiency of power manifestly increased. But the army pressed so closely upon Richmond, it could not be withdrawn without great peril. Gen. McClellan was committed to do a
Henry Morton Stanley, Dorothy Stanley, The Autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley, part 2.13, chapter 2.20 (search)
I now debark my seventy Zanzibaris and Somalis for the purpose of beginning to civilise the Congo Basin. With a force recruited up to two hundred and ten negroes, and fourteen Europeans, and with four tiny steamers, he set out for the mastery of the river. A few miles' steaming away from the trading establishments at the mouth, up to the head of navigation, and the first station, Vivi, is planted; wooden huts brought from England are set up, and wagon-roads are made. Then, a Labour of Hercules, transport must be found for steamers and goods through a long stretch of rugged hills. After exploration, the route must be chosen; then the stubborn, dogged labour of road-building, over mountains and along precipices; the Chief, hammer and drill in hand, showing his men how to use their tools; endless marching and hauling; and, at last, a whole year's work (1880) is done; forward and backward, they had travelled two thousand five hundred and thirty-two miles, and, as a result, they had
The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 8: Soldier Life and Secret Service. (ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller), Military information and supply (search)
nd thus around to Gordonsville and the Confederate army. The Northern newspapers, under the inspiration of professional rivalry, kept the Southern cabinet remarkably well informed of everything going on within the Union lines, and not infrequently prepared the Confederate generals for the next move of the Union army. It was this that finally led the vehement Sherman to seek to eliminate the newspaper men from his military bailiwick, about as hopeless a task as the very worst assigned to Hercules. Grant, with his accustomed stoicism, accepted their presence in his army as something inseparable from American methods of warfare, adding to the problems and perplexities of the generals commanding, Map photographing for the army in the field the process that took Gardner into the Secret service Alexander Gardner's usefulness to the Secret Service lay in the copying of maps by the methods shown above—and keeping quiet about it. A great admirer of Gardner's was young William A. Pink
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