The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1865-04-08
A Tragical Delusion.

The tragical delusion of the madmen of
Charleston four years ago, that they could
overthrow great nation as easily as they
could fire upon provision ship or upon a
little isolated garrison, is vividly illustra-
ted by the two following extracts The
tirst is from the Charleston Mercury of the
10th of January, 1861 and the second from
letter to the Tribune, written in Charles
ton, on the goth of FEBRUARY 1866:
"The expulsion of the steamer Star of
the West from the Charleston harbor yes
terday morning was the opening of the
ball of the revolution. G. We would
not exchange or recall that blow for mil
lious. The naughty echo of her cannon
has ere this reverberated from Maine to
Texas, through every hamlet of the North,
and down along the great waters of the
Southwest And though greasy and treach-
erous ruffans may cry on the dogs Of war;
and traitorous politicians may lend their
aid in deceptions, South Carolina will stand
under her own palmetto-tree, unterriied by
the snarling growls Or the assaults of the
one, undeceived or deferred by the willy
Vaccinations of the other. And if that
red sea Of blood be still lacking to the
parchment of our liberties, and blood they
want, blood they shall have, and blood
enough to stamp it all in red. For, by the
God of our fathers, the soil of South Caro-
lima shall be free !"
| So wrote men who were ready and eager
to smother in blood Government which
they did not pretend had ever harmed them,
and which they had absolutely controll-
| ed -Four years pass. One by one their
hopes disappeared. And now, amidst the
desertion, according to Governor Vance,
of half their army, amidst the imprecations
and cries of the Richmond journals that
their leaders shall not flee by the mere
wind of Sherman's laundering march,
| Charleston falls without blow and the crazy
city that causelessly defed Government
as strong as it is benign, is thus described
"The wharves looked as if they had been
deserted for half century-broken down,
dilapidated, grass and moss peeping up be-
| tween the pavements, where once the busy
feet of commerce trod necessarily. The
warehouses near the river; the streets as
we enter them; the houses and the stores
and the public buildings-we look at them
and hold our breaths in utter amazement.
| Every step we take increases our astonish-
ment. No pen, no pencil, no tongue can do
Justice to the scene. No Imagination can
conceive of the utter wreck, the universal
ruin, the stupendous desolation.
in-ruin-ruin-ab and be-
low; on the right hand and the left; ruin
--ruin--ruin everywhere and always
starting at us from every paneless window;
| looking ont at US from every shell-torn
wall; glaring at us from every battered
door and pillar and veranda; crouching
beneath our feet on every sidewalk. Not
| Pompeii, nor Herculaneum, nor Thebes, nor
the Nile, have ruins so complete, so sadden-
ing, SO plaiAtively eloquent; for they speak
to us of an age not ours, and long ago dead,
with whose people aud life and ideas We
have no sympathy whatever. But here, on
these shattered wrecks of houses, built in
our own STYLE many of them doing credit
to the architecture Of our epoch, we read
names familiar to us all, telling US of trades
and professions and commercial institu-
tions, which every modern city reckons up
by the hundreds yet dead, dead, dead as
silent as the grave of the Pharohs; as de-
serted as the bazaars of the merchant prin-
ces Of Old Tyre. .''-Harper's Weekly.