Morning journal and courier., 1884-04-03
Our OhivGlric War.
Professor GoIdxvin Smiths Observation
In the Camps of the Union Armies.
Letter in tho Toronto Week.


In the Camps of the Union Armies.
letter in the Toronto Week.
The discussion raised by Colonel Denison's
vigorous crisiqus on Gsnsral Grant carries
back my rnind to the days which. as visitor
to the United States, I spent in General
Grants camp, almost within sight of Rich
mond, towards the clsse of his last campaign.
General Butler was nay host. He was then
busy in digging his canal at Dutch Gap. 1
have not followed with nnvarying sympathy
the generals subsequent career ss a peliti-
clan, but have q very pleasant recollection
of him as kind and jovial host, lively tel
ler Of good stories, and chief whose rough
ness of manner evidently did not prevent
him from being extremely popular with his
aides and all about him. His character had
suffered nueh from an erroneous version of
his New Orleans proclamation His style on
that, as on other occasions, had lacked re-
fiuement but his action was in substance
right and probably averted bloodshed. 1
ana, of course, not going TO Offer an opinion
On military operations or to debate the ques-
tion whether Grant might not have got to
the point at which 1 found him and Lee in
trenched in face of each other, and apps-
rently at a deadlock, without a series of muir
dsrOus battles. But wrote to my friends in
EnRlsnd at tae time that all the stories cur
rent as to the competition of the Federal
array, which represented 1t as a mercensry
rabble OF foreigners. vagabonds and Indians
picked up food for powder, might be at
once dismissed as fables that, so far as
civilians eye could judge, the material of the
army Was very good that there was every
appearance Of strict discipline. and the field
works, which were immense in extent,
seemed By their finish to bsspesk care and
zeal in their construction. One man of In
dian blood saw, but he was an officer in
uniform and with the usual side-arms. No
doubt there we're mGny substitutes. But
what regular army was sver composed of dis
interested volunteers? General Grant was
not with the army at the time. He had gone
to Washington to confer with the President,
probably about Sherman's decisive move
But visited his tent and after yards saw the
gensral himself, and can corroborate what
Colonel De1ison has said to the simplicity
of his habits and his freedom from military
ostsntalian. 1t Was also universally felt that
he was thoroughly true to his colleagues and
loyal to the common cause.
had come to America to see the character
of great nation undergoing the test of civil
war, which take, with the possible excep-
ton of plague, to be the ssveress test to
which national character can be subjected.
Everybody knows what civil war was in
France in the time of the Armagnacs and
Burgundians, in that of the League and
again in that of the Revolution. In the
present CASE so far as I could see, the test
was well borne. There was a remarkable
absence, for the most part, OF bloodthIrsty
and truculsnt language, even on the part of
those who had lost sons and relatives In the
war; no thirst for vengeance was sxpressed5
the general sentiment seemed to be deter-
minRtion to maintain the Union and make
the southerners submit to the law; If they
~, In.- hot k6o
door of reconciliation was open. About
slavery less was said, in the West at all
events than about the Union and the law.
The West, however, heartily went with the
East in it's determination to restore the I'm
ion the loss of which meant, among other
things, the loss of control over the Missis-
eippi In England the belief propagated by
was being reluctantly dragged on by the
East. reported at once to my friends in
England that the reverse of this was the fact,
and that as the combined resources of East
and West were overwhelmingly superior to
those of the South, the result of the strug
gle was sure. large number of farmers
must certainly have gone as volunteers to the
war from Illinois, where ronsn and boys
were doing the work of men with the aid of
improved machinery, the invention of which
was stimulated by the scarcity of hands.
The treatment OF prisoners by the North,
80 IaE uau Ills VI OO5SHFAAS
it. vas in keeping with the general tone
Through the kindness of DR.. Duggan, tho
Catholic Bishop of Chicago, whose acquaint-
ancs had made aud whose hospitality 1 had
tasted, I was enabled to go over the large
prison camp at Chicago. The prisoners of
course looked listless and unhappy, as Gagged
eagles always do but they seemed to me to
be suffering no other hardship, and the food
was certainly good Presenting myself at
tbs prison hospital for coRValesosnts at Bal |
timore, I was refused admittance on the
ground of recent attempts at escape But it |
to be Thanksgiving day, and as |
stood in the entrance hall l could look into |
the dining-room, where / saw the table |
spread with roast turkey and all the good |
things of the ssasen. Afterwards 1 called |
on the commandant, General Warren, who |
was SO good as to take me down at once to |
the hospital and to permit me to look over it. |
I looked over it, I believe, thoroughly, and |
came away convinced that its inmates we're |
being treated with all possible humanity and |
kindness 1t was said in England that Con- |
federate prisoners were dying in heaps, of |
N In the northern prisons 1 |
can oppose to such statements the evidence |
Of my own senses with regard to the two |
prisons which I saw.
The military hospitals of the northerners
seemed to me admirably arranged, and
ssinced in every detail the tenderest care for
he wounded But their contents after the |
oattles On the Rappahannock were a sight
which would have cured Jingo of his love
IF war. I had ne love of war to be cured of,
but came away hating it more than ever. |
Yet it is at its best when men are fighting in
such cause.
Nowhere were party passions more iercely /
sxcited than at Baltimore. in which freedom
and slavery confronted each other, and |
which had been threatened by Lee, whose
supper had actually once bsen prepared for
aim by his partisans in the city and had suf-
tered from the incursions of his raiders
While was there lady who, being passion
stely devoted to the southern cause, had re-
oeatedly held correspondence with the enc
ny, was brought before a council of war and
to a term of imprisonment. This
tate she had evidently oourted. Yet the
strongest sympathy was evinced for her by
Baltimoreans of the opposite party, inclu'
ling Mr. Kennedy, of literary fame, and his
wife, whose happy guest I was; and
earned afterwards that by their intercession
It Washington her release had been obtained
This incident and the elopement of another
edy of strong southern sentiments with the I
rumpeter of Yankee regiment convinced
ne that the breach between North and |
south, though wide, was not irreparable, and
hat the Union might be perfectly restored.
That conviction was also produced by see- |
ns the manner In which the armies observed |