We Are Not Losing the War

The Southern Literary Messenger, the brightest literary light of the South, continued publishing nearly to the end of the Civil War. Here in the February 1864 issue we find the editor ruminating on the pessimism of Confederate citizens and the many reasons to be cheerful about the prospects of the war. You may take it as a sign that your war is going badly for you if you find it necessary to enumerate all the reasons why you still might not lose. Perhaps it is also a bad sign that you have no one left who can tell you how to spell “panacea” or “mobilized,” or even “Southerner.”

Whatever may be the cause, the fact is sufficiently patent to be undeniable, that the popular mind, for months past, has laboured under a burden of sore depression. The assertion of a correspondent of an English paper, that the resolution of the South, so energetic in success, and indomitable in actual contest, staggers under the weight of misfortune and reverse, has in the lapse of the past six months received a substantial verification, which their unflinching fortitude and heroic constancy in previous stages of the war, equally attended by calamity and disappointment, had little prepared us to expect.

The leading causes of popular anxiety and apprehension, besides a countless variety of causes of minor weight, mutually co-operative, and perhaps all depending for their remedy upon the happy and successful solution of the more important problems, are the depreciation of the currency, the scarcity of supplies, and the absence of military success. As to the extent to which the first difficulty has been aggravated by the last, and the second by the concomitant action of both the others, it is needless to conjecture.

The great heart of the nation throbs with impatient solicitude as it awaits the application of the wished-for relief, and calculates the probabilities of its restoration to that elastic energy and buoyant hopefulness which, to the Southernor, is everything for contentment in quiet, and enthusiastic exertion in time of trial. With reference to the question of the currency, we will express no opinion, though the apprehension is well-founded, that if astute financial abilities in Congress be necessary, we have more to hope from future military success in the improvement of our finances, than from the fortunate consummation of any expedients of legislation. It is an exceedingly difficult matter for a politician to become so thoroughly imbued with the inspiration of patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice, as to forget entirely the consideration of his chances of re-election.

The question of supplies we believe to be greatly dependent upon the achievement of that military success, which after all, in time of war, is the great nepenthe, the panecea for national affliction, and which in the happy prosecution of the spring campaign will restore to us the country upon which we have been mainly dependent for supplies, and such additional territory as with a proper employment of the opportunity, will definitely put at rest the question of subsistence.

Many persons find it difficult to comprehend the possibility of such military results as are essential to our salvation, in the face of the disasters of last summer. That is as an exceedingly superficial and unintelligent view of the situation, which regards those events as having exercised any seriously adverse influence upon the fortunes of the Confederacy. The taking of a city, the gaining of a battle, the capture of an army, or even the subjection of a province, is but a small advance over the obstacles besetting the path which leads to the attainment of the object of an invasion which contemplates the conquest of half a continent. Napoleon won the battle of Borodino, in the attainment of those ends which are usually regarded as the elements of success in battle, viz: the discomfiture and. retreat of the enemy. He advanced to the heart of the most extensive empire of modern Europe, but in a few weeks retreated with an army almost annihilated and without another general engagement. Grant, who is for the nonce the military idol of Yankeedom, and who is to be the Agamemnon of the next crusade against us, has himself illustrated even in his brief career of martial glory, the impracticability of successful penetration of hostile territory in his memorable retreat from upper Mississippi, when Van Dorn captured his supplies at Holly Springs.

But what is there in the military situation which forbids the confident anticipation of the expulsion of the enemy, in the spring and summer, from the more vital sections of our territory? What have they now that they either did not have or could not have obtained twelve months since? The Mississippi river, and the country about Chattanooga. This answer comprehends the entire result of Yankee labour in the last twelve months. They claim to hold Tennessee. Yet only a few days since we are informed of the exploits of the indomitable Forrest in the very midst of the Federal garrisons, and with a force mainly recruited and organized within three months. Johnston is with the main army of Tennessee, imparting the inspiration and energy of his martial genius—and most bravely the work of re-organization and improvement progresses. Longstreet, with his invincible corps of trained veterans, from the unequalled cohorts of Northern Virginia, holds with an unrelaxed grasp the mountain passes of East Tennessee, ready, with the swoop of an eagle, to dash into Kentucky upon the unprotected flank of Grant, or to fall upon the more exposed situations of Federal power in Tennessee. Lee’s unconquered battalions, often victors than the Old Guard of Austerlitz, or the Tenth Legion of Caesar, are still intact, and present the old front of proud defiance to their ancient foe, whom to meet, with them, has been to conquer.

To offset all these cheering features of the situation, we are told of Yankee perseverance, of Yankee enthusiasm for the prosecution of the war, and of resolutions in the Yankee Congress pledging all their power and resources for its prosecution, and even of Yankee intention to raise a million of men to release their prisoners. As to the latter proposition, we wonder that while in their facetious mood, they did not think of a crusade of old women and bedlamites to march to the moon. The mob of crazy fanatics and conscience-stricken fools, who followed Peter the Hermit to the Holy Land, were nothing compared to such a spectacle as this army of Yankee Humanitarians. We can imagine the derision with which such a scheme will be received in Lee’s army after its experience with Pennsylvania militia last summer. Yankee perseverance we are already familiar with, having pitted Southern endurance and fortitude against it, and successfully withstood its most malignant exertions for nearly three years. To talk of Yankee enthusiasm in favour of the war, is absurd, when we remember the results of the last draft, that bounties, of $1,800 are now vainly offered in New York, and that the commutation feature of the conscription act has been repealed in consequence of the indisposition to enter the service of everybody who could purchase an exemption.

Panic or alarm are equally out of place in either people or legislators. We need not fear Yankee perseverance, or Yankee numbers. Better far than all these are a compact military organization, so disciplined and mobolized as to be thrown upon the enemy at any available point, prudent generalship, wise statesmanship, official integrity, and an inexorable devotion to our national independence.

——From the Southern Literary Messenger, February, 1864.

Vampires, Wild and Domestic

Here is a good overview of the state of vampires in legend and literature before Bram Stoker, which then veers into a discussion of the utopian possibilities if mesmeric theory were to prove true (which the author does not appear to expect). In the Eclectic Magazine the article was all one paragraph; we have taken the liberty of making natural paragraph divisions.

VAMPIRES.—Among weird and unnatural horrors of romance and legend the vampire has always held the foremost place. The casual wraith, the family ghost, the spectre in clanking chains, and even the witch’s “familiar,” are nowhere in comparison with this graveyard ghoul, said to sustain its loathsome existence by sucking the blood of living persons. The victim, attacked in the dead of night, would sicken mysteriously and die of emaciation, and then would in its turn prey upon other unfortunates; for superstition says that he who dies by a vampire shall likewise become a vampire, and know no peace in the tomb. Tradition goes on to tell how a visit to the grave of a vampire would show the corpse warm, flexible, and apparently nourished, though it might have lain dead several years, and how, when pierced, it would emit streams of blood, utter groans, and exhibit other signs of vitality. It must then be dealt with after the official process—have a stake run through its heart, and be beheaded; after which the plague would cease so far as that particular vampire was concerned.

English ghost annals are not rich in vampires. Our soil and climate, and perhaps the Anglo-Saxon temperament, are not favorable to the development of this uncanny monster, which appears to flourish best among Slavonian nations, and figures prominently in the morbid domestic records of Greeks, Wallachians, and Servians. According to popular superstition, and, in some cases, officially attested reports, the vampire was not so long ago a frequent visitor in certain districts of Poland, Hungary, and Bavaria. If we are to accept a paragraph which recently appeared in various newspapers, relating the decapitation after death of a person suspected of vampirish tendencies, the scourge of the vourdalak, as the Slavs call it, is to this day dreaded and guarded against.

Vampire lore has been a fertile source of inspiration to the writer of weird fiction. When the famous trio, Byron, Lewis, and Mary Shelley, rain-bound in a Swiss villa, planned their mystical romances, of which “Frankenstein” is the only one that has not sunk into oblivion, Lord Byron chose a Greek vampire, whom he made to reappear later in the London drawing-rooms, as the subject of his prose effort. One of Sheridan le Fanu’s most powerful stories deals with a beautiful and fascinating female vampire, for whom it is impossible not to feel a qualm of regret when she vanishes from the scene, having been staked and beheaded in the orthodox fashion. Many will remember, also, Dion Boucicault’s blood curdling play of “The Vampire,” which during its short run proved too exciting for the nerves of even a London audience.

Romance invests the vampire with sickeningly human attributes, which place it far above the category of stock supernatural horrors. It is described as showing marked partiality in its choice of a victim, being attracted to some one person in especial, lavishing upon him or her unwholesome endearments, delaying with an epicure’s instinct the gratification of its abominable propensity, and gloating over the unconscious doomed one with something of a lover’s ecstasy.

There is fascination mingled with disgust in the mere thought of this loathly creature of legend—a creature which, however, has been believed in as an actual fact, not only by ignorant peasants, but by professors of occult science in general, among whose number might be reckoned learned doctors and philosophers, and wise and benevolent dignitaries of the Church. To venture on examining the foundations of such belief would be as idle as to propound the query —“Are there ghosts?” If there are ghosts—and many sensible people maintain that there are—it is not stretching credulity too far to assume that an earth-bound spirit may, by reason of its material affinities, become a vampire.

Apart, however, from supra-mundane speculations, it is certain that vampires do exist under the conditions of every-day social intercourse. There are vampires who suck the brains of their fellow-men and women. There are vampires who, if they do not actually suck the life blood, drain away by slow degrees the nerve force of their victims. Who cannot in the circle of his friends and relations point to such an one? There is the ordinary social bore, whose mere presence inflicts a profound and unaccountable sense of exhaustion. There is the domestic vampire who seems to derive sustenance from the emotional expenditure of those sensitive beings unfortunate enough to have come directly under the baleful influence. There are husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters, who feed upon each other’s very hearts, recruiting their own emotional vigor at the expense of another’s suffering, with a horrible egotism which is nothing short of vampirism. It is a fact admitted by physicians that young children are injured in health by sleeping with older persons, the aged and feeble adding to their reserve of vital force by contact with the young and vigorous. Once open the door to this suggestion, and many a death from slow decline might be traced by the fanciful to some living vourdalak seated at the family hearth, and none the less pestilential because innocent of evil intent.

Mesmeric adepts have a theory that every human body gives out magnetic emanations which change according to the conditions of the body, and are subject to the laws which govern physical electricity, two positives or two negatives repelling each other, and vice versa. Sympathies and antipathies might thus be readily accounted for, and it is, perhaps, as satisfactory an explanation as any other of “I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.” But according to these philosophers, human magnetism has certain subtle, absorbent, psychic properties, which, if understood and duly directed, would render it the most potent of forces.

Such a theory, if admitted, would revolutionize the whole social system. When a young couple showed symptoms of attachment, the first consideration which would suggest itself would be whether their magnetic emanations were mutually beneficial or the reverse. Marriages would be regulated on strictly psychological principles, and it is possible that there might be less work in the Divorce Court in consequence. So with all other relations of life. Servants would be magnetically tested before they were engaged. Schools, looked upon under the new lights as hot-beds of Vampirism, would cease to exist. Psychic professors would act as stewards in ball-rooms, and only permit those to dance together whose magnetism harmonized. Guests at dinner parties would be selected in reference to the healthy blending of magnetic currents. Quarrelling would become an impossibility. Nervous exhaustion would be an unknown malady; the petty jars and wear and tear of life would be done away with; and, in short, the new discovery would herald a millennial age.—Globe.

——From The Eclectic Magazine, July 1877.

Celebration at Baldinsville in Honor of the Atlantic Cable

Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne) was probably the greatest American humorist before Mark Twain. The character of Artemus Ward was a traveling showman who kept wax figures and a menagerie, among other curiosities, for the enlightenment of the paying public. His trademark poor spelling was necessary to convey the exact sound of the now-extinct rural American dialect; once your eyes have adapted to the spelling, you can hear Artemus Ward’s voice clearly across a century and a half. Here we have an account of the celebration at Ward’s native Baldinsville in honor of the telegraph cable that linked England with the United States, and for the first time allowed news to cross the Atlantic instantaneously. Of course the scenes are satirically exaggerated, but the humor would not have worked if this had not been at the bottom a very good description of the way small towns across America celebrated this momentous event. For added historical interest, we may note the hints of looming catastrophe: this was written only about two and a half years before the outbreak of the Civil War, and even in tiny Baldinsville the signs were easy to read.

Baldinsville, Injianny, Sep the onct, 18&58. — I was summund home from Cinsinnaty quite suddin by a lettur from the Supervizers of Baldinsville, sayin as how grate things was on the Tappis in that air town in refferunse to sellebratin the compleshun of the Sub-Mershine Tellergraph & axkin me to be Pressunt. Lockin up my Kangeroo and wax wurks in a sekure stile I took my departer for Baldinsville—“my own, my nativ lan,” which I gut intwo at early kandle litin on the follerin night & just as the sellerbrashun and illumernashun ware commensin.

Baldinsville was trooly in a blaze of glory. Near can I forgit the surblime speckticul which met my gase as I alited from the Staige with my umbreller and verlise. The Tarvern was lit up with taller kandles all over & a grate bon fire was burnin in frunt thareof. A Transpirancy was tied onto the sine post with the follerin wurds—“Giv us Liberty or Deth.” Old Tompkinsis grosery was illumernated with 5 tin lantuns and the follerin Transpirancy was in the winder—“The Sub-Mershine Tellergraph & the Baldinsville and Stonefield Plank Road—the 2 grate eventz of the 19th centerry—may intestines strife never mar their grandjure.” Simpkinsis shoe shop was all ablase with kandles and lantuns. A American Eagle was painted onto a flag in a winder—also these wurds, viz—“The Constitooshun must be Presarved.” The Skool house was lited up in grate stile and the winders was filld with mottoes amung which I notised the follerin—“Trooth smashed to erth shall rize agin—you can’t stop her.” “The Boy stood on the Burnin Deck whense awl but him had Fled.” “Prokrastinashun is the theaf of Time.” “Be virtoous & you will be Happy.” “Intemperunse has cawsed a heap of trubble—shun the Bole,” an the follerin sentimunt written by the skool master, who graduated at Hudson Kollige. “Baldinsville sends greetin to Her Magisty the Queen, & hopes all hard feelins which has heretofore previs bin felt between the Supervizers of Baldinsville and the British Parlimunt, if such there has been, may now be forever wiped frum our Escutchuns. Baldinsville this night rejoises over the gerlorious event which sementz 2 grate nashuns onto one anuther by means of a elecktric wire under the roarin billers of the Nasty Deep. Quosque tantrum, a butter, Caterliny, patent nostrum!” Squire Smith’s house was lited up regardlis of expense. His little sun William Henry stood upon the roof firin orf crackers. The old ’Squire hisself was dressed up in soljer clothes and stood on his door-step, pintin his sword sollumly to a American flag which was suspendid on top of a pole in frunt of his house. Frequiently he wood take orf his cocked hat & wave it round in a impressive stile. His oldest darter Mis Isabeller Smith, who has just cum home from the Perkinsville Female Instertoot, appeared at the frunt winder in the West room as the goddis of liberty, & sung “I see them on their windin way.” Booteus 1, sed I to myself, you air a angil & nothin shorter. N. Boneparte Smith, the ’Squire’s oldest sun, drest hisself up as Venus the God of Wars and red the Decleration of Inderpendunse from the left chambir winder. The ’Squire’s wife didn’t jine in the festiverties. She sed it was the tarnulest nonsense she ever seed. Sez she to the ’Squire, “Cum into the house and go to bed you old fool, you. Tomorrer you’ll be goin round half-ded with the rumertism & won’t gin us a minit’s peace till you get well.” Sez the ’Squire, “Betsy, you little appresiate the importance of the event which I this night commemerate.” Sez she, “Commemerate a cat’s tail—cum into the house this instant, you pesky old critter.” “Betsy,” sez the ’Squire, wavin his sword, “retire.” This made her just as mad as she could stick. She retired, but cum out agin putty quick with a panfull of Bilin hot water which she throwed all over the ’Squire, & Surs, you wood have split your sides larfin to see the old man jump up and holler & run into the house. Except this unpropishus circumstance all went as merry as a carriage bell, as Lord Byrun sez. Doctor Hutchinsis offiss was likewise lited up and a Transpirancy on which was painted the Queen in the act of drinkin sum of “Hutchinsis invigorater,” was stuck into one of the winders. The Baldinsville Bugle of Liberty noospaper offiss was also illumernated, & the follerin mottoes stuck out—“The Press is the Arkermejian leaver which moves the world.” “Vote Early.” “Buckle on your Armer.” “Now is the time to Subscribe.” “Franklin, Morse & Field.” “Terms $1,50 a year—liberal reducshuns to clubs.” In short the villige of Baldinsville was in a perfect fewroar. I never seed so many peple thar befour in my born days. Ile not attemp to describe the seens of that grate night. Wurds wood fale me ef I shood try to do it. I shall stop here a few periods and enjoy my “Oatem cum dig the tates,” as our skool master obsarves, in the buzzum of my famerly, & shall then resume the show bisnis, which Ive bin into twenty-two (22) yeres and six (6) months.

——From Artemus Ward, His Book. New-York: Carleton, 1862.

Why I Pirated This Book, by a Famous English Publisher

In 1850, there was no reciprocal copyright agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom. American publishers vigorously opposed any such agreement as long as English literature was dominated by English writers, since they could print popular books without paying their authors a cent. But serious agitation for an agreement began when American writers started gaining worldwide reputations. Here the London publisher Henry G. Bohn expresses his frustration at a state of things that led him to print a pirated edition of Washington Irving’s Mahomet and His Successors. Washington Irving, amusingly enough, was the leading proponent of international copyright in the United States; as the United States’ leading literary figure at the time, he had much to gain.

The publisher has not willingly thrust himself forward as a crusader in the cause of international copyright, but has been goaded by circumstances into some such position. Not only have the most popular of his own volumes from time to time been pirated* in America, immediately upon their publication here, but on the other hand, when he has endeavoured by arrangement with the American copyright-holder to obtain an exclusive market for England, his preferential claims have been set at nought by competitors. Under these circumstances it has become necessary, in self-defence, to adopt measures of reprisal; and although such a course may sometimes interfere, in a manner to be regretted, with the investments of friends on both sides the Atlantic, no other alternative seems to remain. In reprinting the present volume the publisher is less sensitive than he should have been under other circumstances, being aware that at this very moment there are several rival editions at press. This volume, too, being of a popular character, and the newest production of one of the most esteemed and influential of American authors, is especially suited to the object of this series. As it was published at New York in December last, imported and sold here in January, more than a fortnight before any English edition appeared, no one can reasonably complain of a competition, for which in the present condition of things he could hardly have been unprepared, and which is really enforced by scarcely less than national claims.

H. G. B.

York Street, Feb. 21, 1850.

* As this is done legally, perhaps we ought to add “by letter of marque.”

——Life of Mahomet. By Washington Irving. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850.

G. K. Chesterton on America’s Entering the First World War

From “Our Note Book,” Illustrated London News, April 14, 1917.

The American declaration of war was practically the verdict of history. It is no flattery to say that this great and democratic yet distant population stands somewhat in the position of posterity. It is only upon the largest and plainest matters that it is even a compliment. Posterity may make mistakes; and probably will make many mistakes in matters of detail. We had better be Chinamen and worship our ancestors than be like some modern evolutionists and worship our descendants. Our descendants (if they preserve the family likeness) will muddle a great many things and misunderstand us in a great many ways, but they will see certain historic facts simply as facts, as we see the Norman Conquest or the discovery of America. One of the broad facts they will thus see in bulk is the fact that the Prussian appeared in history as an enemy, exactly as we see that the Hun appeared in history as an enemy. We know very little about the followers of Attila; and that little, like so much that modern learning has deduced from the Dark Ages, is very probably wrong. But that the glory of Attila was a calamity to society, that the power of Attila was the impotence of society, is the verdict; and it will not be reversed.

The first fact which makes the American decision conclusive is plain enough. Yet it needs careful statement in order to avoid, as I have always tried to avoid, the tone of cheap superiority about the long neutrality of a vigorous and valiant nation. Anybody who ever supposed that Americans as such were “too proud to fight,” in the ironical sense of being too timid to fight, was a fool whose impudence was simply ignorance, and especially ignorance of history. Within living memory, America was full of fighting, in a literal sense even yet unknown to England, although England is full of fighters. It was even less likely that they had changed in military quality since Bull Run and Gettysburg than that we had changed in military quality since Plassy or Waterloo. Moreover, much that strikes an Englishman in America, like much that strikes him in Ireland, as being mere anarchy is only a different manifestation of mere courage. But when we have guarded against this irritating error, we can safely propound the purely intellectual truth. And the truth is that America had been largely converted, in the manner of a relatively mild religious conversion, to the modern ideal of peace, both in its sane and its insane formulae. The difference might be stated thus: Pacifism really was in America something which it never is anywhere else, though it always pretends to be. It was democratic. The people, or great tracts of the people, really wanted peace; and were not (as in Europe) merely told by horribly unpopular Socialists that they really wanted peace. It was the poor, plain man of the Middle West who could truly be described as disliking all war. It was not merely the International Proletarian, who can safely be described as disliking or liking anything, since he does not even exist to answer. The most startling proof of this is the fact that there could be in America such a thing as a pacifist popular song—a music-hall ditty that is not patriotic; and is almost anti-patriotic. Try to imagine that “Keep the Home Fires Burning” could be sung enthusiastically with the intention of keeping all males of military age at home by the fireside. Imagine a song about the British Conscientious Objectors in the style of the British Grenadiers. That will suggest the position in which it was possible for a very virile people to applaud the mother’s song which ran “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier.” That mother has already discovered that you always run the risk of doing so, if you raise him to be a man. Now, to have stung all this solid and sincere neutralism into war is a fact which history will count as final. No arguments about whether the pacifist had cause to be exasperated can count for an instant against the fact that he was a pacifist and that he was exasperated. If the Germans did something which made Mr. Bertrand Russell plunge into a suit of khaki and rush out of Cambridge breathing fire and slaughter, it would be quite useless to say that what they did was not provocative. If some German action awoke M. Romain Rolland in his Swiss mountains and made him rush down the slope and die in the carnage of Lorraine, it would be quite clear that his comment on the act was an answer to all possible defence of it. Americans had a right to be neutral, which in the case of Mr. Russell and M. Rolland is perhaps more difficult to expound; but they certainly desired to be neutral, and it is the final criticism on Germany that they could not be neutral, even when they desired it. The question is yet further clarified by the last provocation actually offered to America—the proposal to treat the self-defence of merchantmen as piracy. This theory is so plainly an insanity that it is not even a sophistry. It has nothing to do with any international understandings, but with the elementary ethics of cause and effect, of responsibility and reason. It is precisely as if a magistrate were to pay a band of official highwaymen to stab and rob all pedestrians, and then hang the pedestrians for rioting if they resisted. With this enormous idiocy modern Germany loses her last link not merely with civilisation, but with the human mind itself, and merely barricades herself in a mad-house. And the moment of that loss is the moment of the entry of America, which may truly be described as the entry of mankind. It is even, as I say, like the entry of unborn mankind. We have talked too much of America as “a daughter nation”; and have tried too often to patronise a daughter when we ought rather to have respected a very distant and very independent cousin. But in this sense there is truth in the tag—the Western democracy speaks for our daughters and our sons even more than for ourselves. The youth of the world has found Pacifism impossible because it has found Prussianism intolerable; it is the rising generation that is knocking at the door of Potsdam, and knocking with a battle-axe; it is the babe unborn that stirs and cries against the Herod who has slain so many babes.

President Wilson, in his great speech, was truly and worthily what somebody was once called fancifully—the orator of the human race. There was a powerful impersonality in his very eloquence which was all the more human because it was not individual, but rather like the mighty voice of a distant but approaching multitude. The simple words with which he ended were among the sort of historic sayings that can be graven on stone. There is a moment when man’s moral nature, apparently so wayward, finds its path with a fatality like that of doom. “God helping her, she can no other.” That is the answer of humanity to all possible preaching about the inhumanity of war, to libraries of loathsome realism, to furnaces of ghastly experience, to the worst that can be said, to the worst that can be endured. There comes a moment in which self-defence is so certainly the only course that it is almost superfluous to say it is the right one. There is nothing else, except to commit suicide; and even to commit suicide is to connive at murder. Unless a man becomes the enemy of such an evil, he will not even become its slave, but rather its champion, In such an extremity there enters at last an awful simplicity; and we share something of that profound spiritual peace which always possesses the armies fighting in the field. God helping us, we can no other; for God Himself will not help us to ignore evil, but only to defy and to defeat it.

——Included in The Miscellaneous Chesterton. Serif Press, 2019.