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uprising became hourly more and more apparent.
The whole country seemed to have responded to the call:--
Lay down the ax, fling by the spade;
Leave in its track the toiling plow:
The rifle and the bayonet-blade
For arms like yours were fitter now;
And let the hands that ply the pen
Quit the light task, and learn to wield
The horseman's crooked brand, and rein
The charger on the battle-field.
1
In the evening we saw groups drilling in military maneuvers in the dim moonlight, with sticks and every kind of substitute for a musket.
Men were crowding the railway cars and other vehicles, as they pressed toward designated places of rendezvous; and at every station, tearful women and children were showering kisses, and farewells, and blessings upon their loved ones, who cheered them with assurances of speedy return.
Pittsburg, with its smoke and forges, was bright with banners, and more noisy with the drum than with the tilt-hammer.
All the way over the great
Alleghany range, and down through the beautiful valleys of the
Juniata and
Susquehanna, we observed the people moving to “the music of the
Union.”
Philadelphia — staid and peaceful
Philadelphia — the
Quaker City — was gay and brilliant with the ensigns of war. Her streets were filled with resident and passing soldiery, and her great warm heart was throbbing audibly with patriotic emotions, such as stirred her more than fourscore years before, when the
Declaration of Independence went out from her venerated State House.
Her
Mayor (
Henry) had just said:--“By the grace of Almighty God, treason shall never rear its head or have a foothold in
Philadelphia.
I call upon you as American citizens to stand by your flag, and protect it at all hazards.”
2 The people said Amen!
and no city in the
Union has a brighter record of patriotism and benevolence than
Philadelphia.
New Jersey was also aroused.
Burlington,
Trenton,
Princeton,
Brunswick,
Rahway,
Elizabethtown,
Newark, and
Jersey City, through which we passed, were alive with enthusiasm.
And when we had crossed the
Hudson River, and entered the great
city of New York,
with its almost a million of inhabitants, it seemed as if we were in a vast military camp.
The streets were swarming with soldiers.
Among the stately trees at the
Battery, at its lower extremity, white tents were standing.
Before its iron gates sentinels were passing.
Rude barracks, filled with men, were covering portions of the City Hall
Park; and heavy cannon were arranged in line near the fountain, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, many of them in the gay costume of the
Zouave.
Already thousands of volunteers had gone out from among the citizens, or had passed through the town from other parts of the
State, and from
New England; and already the commercial metropolis of the
Republic, whose disloyal
Mayor, less than four months before, had argued officially in favor of its raising the standard of secession and
