The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-06-29
Tampering with History.


Popular taste would have military heroes |
imposing in presence as well as doughty in
deed-a relic of impression by inheritance
from what was anciently true, that prowess
in battle required men of Drawn rather than
of brain. After its long experience of the
outgoing of spears and breastplates and the
incoming of steam and gunpowder, the pop
ular mind still does not quite realize that
stalwart Marshal SAKE, who twists horse
shoe like wisp of straw in his fingers, is
less formidable than aged Moltke, and that
battles are planned in the closet and fought
by telegraph. The popular conception of
great general is illustrated in the colored
prints of the Bowery show windows. He
bestrides coal-black charger, from whose
glistening eyes and distended nostrils red
] flames are shooting he waves on high
sword fit for Goliath bombs burst idly in
thick profusion about the charmed hero,
though dead soldiers are piled three or
cur deep around his horses hoofs; steed
and cavalier are of Brobdignagian mould.
and the total is labelled "Major General
Sherman at Resaca," or SHERIDAN at Five
Forks" as the case may be. Yet we know
| that if Hancock, and Franklin, and Thomas
were mighty in stature and massive in thew
| and limb, the reverse is true of Sheridan,
| and Grant, and Mcclellan. The popular
| idea of an infantry charge appe ars, also, in
| the oldfashioned pictures, where a straight
line drawn from the bayonet tip on the ex-
treme right of the charging regiment to the
| tip Of the bayonet on the extreme left,
would just Craze every intermediate weap-
| on.
| The painter, whether with pen or brush,
has not always skill or candor enough to
present his hero in his faults of body and
soul besides, the hero himself has rarely
so little vanity as to expose his own defects
and deformities. If an occasional Cromwell
stoutly demands to be painted with his wart
ilustrious men are not equally eager to set
| forth their moral blemishes and mental
blunders, but suffer their reports and their
official chroniclers to excuse or deity dis
| guise them.
National pride and various kinds of par
tisanship also resent the rough handling of
historic heroes. The portrait of William
Penn which Macaulay drew reused the in
indignation of many Quakers, in whose
minds Penn had come to be figure quite
free from the human frailties which the his
torian ascribed to him. When Thackeray
in the "Virginians,' sketched Washington
as an ordinary mortal, falling in love and
quarrelling in very ordinary way, the pic
ture shocked many Americans, for Wash
ington is our patron saint. We had pre-
ferred to divest him of the frivolous gallan.
tries in which youth commonly indulged
and to think Of him as flowing but once,
when he led the widow Gusts to the altar
Bishop Meade, however, tells us, in his
"Old Churches and Families of Virginia,
that Miss Cary had previously captivated
the affections of young Washington, and re.
, jected the offer of his hand; and there are
rumors of other like experiences in Wash.
ington's life.
rare, perhaps solitary lapse into pro.
family, under sudden irritation, is hardly q
matter to be concealed in Washington
, life, since it really serves to bring into the
light of positive virtues his habitual self
restraint and decorum; yet some eulogists
would gloss even that speck on the sun
Such eulogists think it wise to figure oul
first President as a recognized demigot
among his contemporaries, ignoring tn,
q fact that hostile newspapers. called him
traitor, an ally of Britain, "a stupendou
monument of peridy, ingratitude, and de
: generacy," and that his impeachment wa
. called for. While the treaty with Englan,
| which he favored, was under discussion
'his merits" says Young "as a soldier an,
5 statesman, were disparaged. His privat
character did not escape detraction. IL
was accused of having overdrawn tn
t amount of his salary and appropriated tn
money to his private use." Washington
himself in regard to the attacks of tn
press upon him tor his treaty policy, wrot
that he could not have believed that ever
act of his administration would be tortured
and the grossest misrepresentation of ther
a made, "and that, too, in such exaggerate
and indecent terms as could scarcely be ar
;, piled to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, O
a even to common pickpocket. &c. /
3 Pond, in The GALAXY for July.