Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1866-11-29
Democrat anS SntineI.
W. H. M'ENRUE. Editor & Publisher.
EBENSBURG. NOV. 29. :::::::::1s66.
About a Radical Orator.

readers may have heard OF Gen. Clinton
B. Fisk, or Fiske, rather, for that warrior
elongated his name with final about
the time of the late A. Lincoln, in the
fullness of his wisdom, added him to the
vast and glorious company of paper gen.
erals. Fiske pronounced Risky under
the new spelling and intended to hint
towards French extraction) by no means
won his military honors in the deadly
breach. He rose, like an eronaut, by the
lifting power of "gas." He shot up with
marvellous velocity from the useful but
somewhat humble position of weeder
and packer of onions on the outskirts of
Weathersfeld, Connecticut, to the elevated
rank of Major General, U. S. A, without
either fighting battle or seeing one, al
though his friends aver that he once heard
one. The fact is that Fisky (this Yankee
Franco congnomen is charmingl had nei-
ther appetite nor aptitude for fighting. He
"snuffed battles afar off," after the fashion
of the war horse, but, unlike that prudent
animal, his fancy was to get as far away
from their sulphurous and suggestive
fragrance as a stout and nimble pair of
legs would carry him.
But while Fisky's sword rusted, his
tongue and pen were never idle. He
wrote periodical letters to what are called
''religious newspapers" in the North,
recording ga wonderful work of grace" in
some benighted negro-quarter, which was
always sure to be progressing (by the
Lords help under the auspices of Fisky.
That was his tack. He became a dis
tributor oftracts He led prayer-meetirgs
at which the souls of multitudes of Afri-
cans were brought into hopeful condi-
tion Of orthodoxy, and these blessed
additions to the company of the faithful,
as registered by Fisky, and printed by
Abolition newspapers everywhere, wa
kened hallelujahs in all the Abolition
churches. HardihoOd of nose acquired
in the culture of the onion was of infinite
service to +. in his labors among the pious
and perspiring blacks. Soon the fervent
Fisky begun to reap his reward. He was
prayed for and puffed so persistently in
the shoddy meeting houses which dot the
plains and decorate the crags of New
England, that he would have been
downright ass to fight battles when fame,
rank, bars, and then stars, came to him
cheap, in plenty, and without particle
of personal peril. Why "seek the bubble
reputation 10 the cannon's mouth" when it
could be had just by, at freedman's
camp meeting or 'sColored Ladies Dor
cas- Society 7" So reasoned Fisky, and
soundly, too, as the event proved, for in
due time he found himself Major Gen
eral, and at the close of the war was
transferred to the Freedmen's Bureau,
and made Assistant Commissioner, and
Military Commander over kentucky,
Tennessee and portions of Georgia, Ala
bama, Mississippi and Arkansas.
Here Fisky found himself suited to his
mind-the fighting all over, SO that there
was no danger even of being accidentally
shot-plenty of niggers, plenty of plunder
and plenty of power. He carried things
for season with high hand-impover-
ished the helpless and enriched himself
lived luxuriously, attended by as many
blacks as an Eastern pacha. In short,
although his piety had always been prof.
table, never before had he such an occa-
sion as during this brief season of bliss to
clap his hands and cry out, "Godliness
is great gain !"
But suddenly, without inward monition
or visible warning of the dire calamity at
hand, there came an order from Andrew
johnson which stripped Fisky, in the
twinkling of an eye, of all his power and
turned him loose without pay, emolu-
msnts or shoulder straps, on the long path
which led back to his native Weathersfield.
He didn't take that path, however. Much
as the Yankees affect to love ''New Ing
gland" (heavy emphasis on 'tslanG' the
first effort of the infant born there, after a
preliminary whetting of his faculties and
features on his paternal rocks, is to get
a,oay; and the last thought that crosses
his brain when age approaches and he
has cheated some distant community out
II competence, is that OF returning to
Jay bis bone, at home. 4 thoughtful fear