Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1886 — Page 6

THE TANSY'S MESSAGE. BY MAN DA Ik CBOCKEB. Heart of my heart, this blossom bring* A silent message, sweet, to thee, As in its purple beauty clings Love's mute appeal, ‘Please think of me.” All bloom hath language, oft so sweet That smiles and tears commingle there, As th’ leaflets cluster round your feet In sentiment of love’s fond prayer. They are God’s love to us, these blooms— How sweet that they our paths attend, Adorn the altar, wreathe the tomb, And carry friendship to a friend. So, while your bark beats on its way O’er life s dark, troubled, boist'rous sea, Clasp close these buds, aDd mind the day They breathed this message, “Think of me," And sometime, when tho weather's fair, And we have faithful proved, and true To keep our trust, wee’ll laugh at care, And sail o,ur ships on waters blue. Deep in my soul this song’s attuned, Though meager in its word and tone; This song and blossom have communed To make my heart’s best wishes known. So, friend of mine, may blessings fall And gem for you a summer sea. Here, take my hand. Ah! is that all? No; take my heart! “Please think of me.”

The Partisans of Virginia.

BY JAMES FRANKLIN FITTS.

We will take a long jump at the start, and come d6\vn to the middle of April, 1865. The weary, sanguinary war was practically over. Lee had surrendered; so had Johnston, or was just about to surrender; there were no more battles to be fought, aud it was plain enough that the immense Union armies would in a very brief time be required to doff their blue, and the soldiers tojake their chances in that great battle of life, which is always a very serious affair, although it has no “ guns, and drums, and wounds God save tlie mark!" The unmilitary reader might naturally say that nothing interesting could be expected to happen at such a time as that. So it would appear; yet it was at just that time that an incident occurred in the part of tho military situation where I served that, while not very important in itself, opened to me a whole field of the most interesting remiuiscences. The incident was the coming in of two of Mosby’s band to General Dwight’s headquarters near Winchester, Va., to surrender themselves and give their paroles not to take up arms against tho United States. They were the first of this noted band who had claimed this privilege, and the incident naturally excited some interest aud curiosity about headquarters. My narrative must not be unreasonably detained with the details of what is properly history, or by the wliys and wherefores of the case as it related to these men, and it will be sufficient under this head to say that, upon hearing of the surrender of Lee, Colonel Mosby assembled his command at one of their rendezvous between the Upper Blue Bidge nnd the Potomac, told them that the war was ended, that they had nothing now to do but to go home and peaceably submit to the authority of the United States, and that he should claim the national protection for them. Immediately upon disbanding his troop, he sent a message to General Hancock, who at this time commanded in the Shenandoah Valley, askiug if his men were to be accorded the Bam ■ terms that Grant had given to Lee. The character of Mqsby’s warfare in this section had been eu<ih that Hancock was in some doubt about the matter, and telegraphed direct to City Point for instructions.

The reply came promptly back, that these men were to have the same treatment as other Confederate soldiers. The dispatch was sent to Mosby, and his guerrillas hastened to give their paroles and receive their protection papers. The two who came to our headquarters were the “advance-guard” of this movement General Dwight at this time commanded a division of what had been the Army of the Shenandoah, and I was an officer on his staff. A soldier could not' possibly ■ have served through that tremendous and sanguinary valley campaign under Sheridan of the summer and fall of 1864, without hearing much—and perhaps seeing something—of Mosby’s guerrillas. I had often heard of them, and, as will appear later, had seen something of their work; and now that all the bloodshed was past, I had a great desire to see and talk with some of them about their novel experience, and their peculiar way of carrying on war. No better opportunity was likely to occur than this; so when our provost marshal had got through with these two disbanded warriors of the late Confederacy, and they were strolling about our headquarters, taking note of much that was new and strange to them, I took them under my protection long enough to have the long and interesting convers ition with them. My task was mainly with the younger of the two, a bright, brisk young Virginian, who had lived on a plantation in this valley before the war, and who had taken his horse and joined Mosi y upon the commencement of hostilities, just as thousands of young Virginians went to Stuart, Ashby, and Mosby, from love of excitement and adventure, and without very much thought or care as to which side was right or wrong. The conversation, as I remember it—whai I said to him, and what he said to me—will better illustrate the character and style of this partisan warfare in the Shenandoah Valley, which beset and hampered Sheridan from first to last, than any mere statement of facts could do. “lou Mosby men.” I remarked, “are treated as Confederate soldiers now, since Lee’s surrender; but our army in the valley here hasn’t been used to regard you so. Wo hav j always considered you a lot of partisans or guerrilla'! —irregulars, I believe, is the correct name.” “Well, sir, you’ve been mistaken. We re just as much Confederate soldiers as any in General Lee’s army. Every man is regularly mustered in, and our officers nil liave their commissions from Richmond.” “But you h ive not usually acted in a body, and not always even in a squad. Sometimes, to my knowledge, your men have prowled about our camps by twos and threes.” “O, yes,” ho said, “that’s our way of fighting. It’s not very often that as many **? a hundred of us have ridden together. Ever, man owns his horse; most of us have our homes within fifteen miles east or west of t:.e Blue Ridge. Mosby has always had certain established places of meeting, which are perfectly secure, and when the baud is dispersed and almost every man at bit own home, it would amaze you to see how quickly they can be all called in.

Most of the people, of course, were friendly to us; they would carry messages to and for us, and help and hide us when we were pressed. And then how could you folks ever know who we were? We did not usually wear any uniform—except your uniform, which we would sometimes put on. You couldn’t tell that the innocent-looking citizen standing ih front of his house by the side of the road as your army marched by was one of the Mosby troops, and that before night Mosby would know all that he had discovered about you. But that happened often.” “Yes; and I remember about General Custer hanging 6ome of your men as spies.” “And didn’t you hear of Mosby retaliating, and leaving half a dozen of your soldiers he had taken swinging to the trees, with a placard ou the breast of each? I have heard him say more than once that he’d Lang one of Sheridan’s soldiers for every one of his that Mas executed; nnd I think ho did. ” ” “What made you fellows throw trains off the track on the'Baltimore and Ohio liailroad, between Martinsburg and Harper’s Ferry?” “Oh!—that was for the greenbacks. Sometimes up in the mountains I’ve known Mosby to call a lot of us together and talk about like this: ‘Now, men, about five o’clock this afternoon there’s a train due at Harper’s Ferry from Baltimore. After a short stop it goes on to Martinsburg. There’ll be a Yankee paymaster aboard, with a chest full of greenbacks, to pay the troops at Martinsburg. I want those greenbacks! You know how to get them.’ And we did not often fail to do it.” “I hope you don’t call it civilized warfare to throw railroad trains off the track, with women and children aboard?” . “I don’t call it anything,” he replied with a laugh. “Mosby wuuted the money, and ordered us to get it; and we took the only way wo could. One of those groen dollars was worth Iwo in Confederate money an where in the valley.” Strange as this last statement may appear. I know it to be true from personal observation. “But,” I said, “what I particularly want to know, is whether Mosby’s men did really, as I have heard, put on blue overcoats and ride along with our columns at night on the march?” “Indeed we did! Do you happen to remember a time in August when your army fell back from near StrasburgtoHalltown?” I had good reason to remember that march. It was a disagreeable night’s tramp, in the rain, on which I marched with my company. “And perhaps you were along on a certain retreat from Snicker’s Ferry through the gap to Washington, the month before'?” Ah, was I not! That was the weary march, when soldiers already overtasked in the torrid July weather stumbled along, asleep—when I slept as I walked. “Well, sir, on both those times I rode along with your columns, riding sometimes with some General's escort, aud picking up all the information I could. I felt perfectly safe —I was perfectly safe. Those were dark nights, as you know, and nobody could detect me; my blue overcoat was a perfect protection. Just out of Snicker’s Gap. as daylight was coming on, and I was about ready to leave, one of your infantry soldiers straggled off a few rods for something or other. I rode up to him, showed him my pistol, told him who I was, and that I would shoot him if he did not go quietly along before my horse. He was too much astonished to disobey, and I took him right away as a prisoner. It was no uncommon thing for us to do this.” “Were your horses all good?” “As a rule, yes. It was rare that one of us did not own his animal, so wo had many real Virginia thoroughbreds among us. Witn such horses we could do almost anything. Shall I tell you my closest shave on an escape? It Mas over near Upperville, one night when I was stopping at a friends house. My horse was in the barn, unsaddled and unbridled, with nothing but a rope halter round his neck; I was up-stairs, abed and asleep, We never slept Mith both ears; anyway, the tramp of cavalry roused me, and I heard my friend’s whistle below. I knew it was neck or nothing, and it would have been prudent to surrender; but prudence Mas the last thing v/e fellows thought of. I jumped up, put on trousers and shoes, and, waiting for nothing else, raised the window and dropped out to the ground while the soldiers were coming up stairs. They had surrounded the house, of course, an 11 expected to be seen and halted as I darted for the barn; but I paid no attention to that, and a carbine-ball whistled over my head as I ran. I cut the rope, jumped on, and rode out right through half a dozen of the cavalrymen. I knew how to make my mate go from the start—and go she did, taking the fence at a leap, and flyiug up the road with a shoM-er of balls after us. Neither of *us was hit. But it was a great risk —too big a risk for any one to take. I mightn't have got off tM'ice out of a hundred times such as that.” “You people made yourselves very useful to the Confederacy seizing our M-agon-trains, last fall,” I remarked. “Yes. that was ahvays one of the Colonel’s strong points. He had a sys em about it, too. He usually chose the time Mhen the train Mas drawing out of park, in the morning, and there was more or less confusion among the mu’es and teamsters. Twenty horsemen dashing in at that time, with a yell, Mould put the teamsters to flight, and leave the train to us. The infantry guard was generally small, and Mould surrender at ouce.” “I can tell you of cue train that you fellows didn’t dare attack,” I observed. “Near the last of September the One Hundred and Fourteenth New York M-as sent by Sber- ! idan from Hairisonburg back to MartinsI burg, au hundred miles or more, to guard a long, empty train and one hundred prisoners, aud then to return witii tho wagons loaded Mith commissary stores and forage. We made the Mhole distance, and were j back to the army in time to lose half our ) men in the battle of Cedar Creek; M r e dej livered every prisoner to the provost mari shal at Martinsburg, aud lost not. a man ; nor a Magon. But Me were vigilant ! The | soldiers rode in the Magons, keeping their 1 muskets iu their bauds ; the officers were ou horseback, nding along witu the traiu ; we always had flankers out, and many times they reported hoi semen prowling about. Wi.en we camped at night the rgiment was formed in a square around the wagons aud prisoneis. “One incident of this march I shall never forget. A little north of Mount Crawford, as tlie train passed along, we saM’ a dead body lying by tlie side of the road. It Mas ; that of a soldier, dressed in a bright, new j oavalrv uniform, and the figures and letters on his hat showed that he belonged to a

Pennsylvania *egiment. Eight in the middle of his forehead was the round hole made by the bullet that had killed him. “This poor fellow was evidently some straggler, who had been ‘bushwhacked.’ Of course, 1 cannot say whether Mosby’s men or some others shot him down from behind the wall; but it was murder, whoever did it.” I then told an incident which occurred the previous summer, at which the whole Nineteenth Corps had laughed, and which illustrated not only the audacity of the guerrillas, but tbe nonchalance of General Emery, who commanded the corps. Jnst at nightfall, and the close of one of our long and M’eary marches, M'hen the headquarters tents had been pitched, a squad of horsemen came riding along at full gallop, close to the tents, crossed the turnpike, ! and disappeared. The whole thing was , over, and the interlopers had come and gono before it crept through the hair of the j astonished officer commanding the infantry i company M'hich acted as headquarters | guard that they were some of Mosby’s I guerrillas, and that he might have given them a volley and ■ illed every one of them —if he had been ready. It was to this officer that the irate General afterward said: “Such carelessness, 6ir—such shameful negligence! Why, those fellows might have stolen my boots !" My interview with the paroled guerrilla closed by my relating a most interesting incident, Mhich occurred early in the winter, which had been the ta’k of our little army of occupation, and of which this man had also heard, as will appear. The outpost at Summit Point, some miles easterly of Winchester, Mas held by the Thirtieth Massachusetts—an excellent regiment. One of its Lieutenants (his name I have forgotten, and it M’ould hardly be fair to give it if I knew it) had, during the campaign, made the acquaintance of a Virginia girl who lived about three miles from the camp. It was not a very prudent thing for the Lieutenant to ride over aud visit her, considering huw the guerrillas swarmed about this section; but, then, he M’as not the first man who got into trouble by running after a pretty face—aud he probably M ill not be the last. One afternoon he sat with the lady at her home, probably conversing about things that were remote from Mar aud slaughter, when he happened to look out of the M’indoM r . Two men had just ridden into the yard. They were both young; both were dressed in Virginia homespun; both rode powerful black horses. The Lieutenant's horse M’as in the bam, feeding ou Virginia corn. The Lieutenant looked down the road. A dozen more horseijien were coming. A very bad scrape it seemed to be; but the Lieutenant had pluck, coolness, and determination, and these high qualities saved him. He did not M’ait to find his hat—nor to say good-by to the lady- He bolted for the door—it was locked! He raised the sash and jumped out. The foremost of the two, however, was iu the act of throwing himself from his horse, when a bullet from the Lieutenant’s thirty-eight-caliber revolver sprawled him dead on the ground. The other rider had not time to draw a pistol when another ball went through his shoulder. The Lieutenant did not wait for any more enemies. He jumped on the dead man’s horse, gave him the spur, cleared the ft nee with a flying leap, and thundered down the road toM’ard the camp, M’ith the guerrillas yelling and firing in hot pursuit. But he had the leader’s horse, the best of the lot; he escaped the bullets and reached camp in safety. A detachment M r as immediately sent over to the scene of this remarkable escape. Save the Lieutenant's hat, and some blood on the ground before the door, no discoveries Mere made. The girl was crying bitterly. She insisted that she knew nothing about the guerrillas, but our Lieutenant never doubted that this modem Delilah was the betrothed of the guerrilla leader, and that he had himself narrowly escaped a clever plot for his capture. “Did you,” I asked of the paroled man, “know anything about this?” He smiled at first, and then looked grave. “I should think I ought to, sir; I was one of the squad that chased the officer to camp. We came back and found the Captain stone dead on the ground, and our Lieutenant with a wound that he hasn’t got over yet. The Captain mas one of Mosbv’s best officers. The Colonel felt dreadfully when he learned what had happened. But that Lieutenant of yours was a splendid fellow—just the kind of man Mosby likes for his officers.”

Kindness to Children.

A writer in speaking of the need of making home attractive to children says: The time comes fast enough when there will be no little careless hand to make a “muss” on the clean table cloth, no tiny fingers to scatter things round, no darter of childish feet on the stairway. Fresh paper may cover all the marks on the liard-finisli; paint conceal the ambitious handwriting on the woodwork; and those traces of b yish pranks that still remain, the mother s eye and heart may cherish as sacred to the memory of the absent. In a genial, wholesome, tolerant atmosphei e, the hoy and the girl will go through the various stages of growth from childhood to adult life, dropping whatever is in its nature juvenile, little by little, as natura’ly as the bean-vine drops its seminal leaves; but tlie forbearance and loving patience of the wise father and judicious mother who refrained from “nagging,” will not be forgotten.

Anarchism Is Insanity.

A learned physician in Paris takes the position that anarchism and communism are a species of ins nity. The leaders of extreme social revolutions, he says, have been affected largely by insanity often taking a homicidal form". This was well shown in the case of the Paris commune of 1871. Among the communists no less than 1,700 persons M r ere found to be insane and had to be sent to the hospital for over a year. And among the leaders in that outburst, four were discovered upon examination to be hereditary lunatics, and four others had p eviously been under treatment for insanity.— Texas Sifdngs.

A Plan to Escape the Tyranny of Fashionable Dress. So let ns welcome that step of progress which introduces among men the wearing of corsets. Let ns hope that in time the stuffed cushions and the steel hoops and the length and weight of cloth will be added, too. Then they will see the absurdity of it, and maybe the system will collapse. Even women who are independent in most things cannot rebel here. They are bound hand and foot, and are helpless. And so far from being a sign of freedom, the unendurable, tailor-made dress is only an additional link in the chain of bondage. Really and truly, if women are ever to use their brains and their bodies successfully they must be physically free. Blood can never rise to the brain through a tight-laced corset. Women are simply fools to expect it. While the sex dress as nine out of every ten upon the street do, there never will be a woman statesman, or scholar, or inventor. The handful of really great women the world has seen were untrammeled by conventionalities of dress as of other things. George Sand dressed like a man. Joan-of Ar was a stable maid, with broad shoulders, splendid strong arms, and shining hair that never knew a crimping pin. A corset would have been as much ut of place upon her as upon an angel. It is all very well to talk of higher education for women. But they will never gain it while the world stands. They will never gain any intellectual prize worth having as long as they continue to dress in the present absurd and painful fashion. Dr. Richardson, of London, says so. The subject of changing the whole style of women’s dress is one well worthy the attention of social reformers. I have a plan to escape the tyranny for myself. As I walk home in my day-dream, kicking my frightful tailormade dress about my feet at every step, I picture to myself a future. There is a little farm on the river, not far from Cincinnati. There is just the spot for a pretty house upon the hill overlooking the river.. We shall build the house, two or three of us, and go there and live. We shall raise roses, and chickens, and strawberries, and Alderney cream. It is my old dream, you perceive. But there is another condition now, added by the large experience of the years. Iu summer I shall wear a short calico dress, with just as little cloth in it as possible. In winter I shall wear a flannel dress of the same pattern, and shall never have any other kind. For me, then, cities may go hang. Fashion especially may do her worst, and I shall defy and scorn her. I shall have escaped to paradise. —Eliza Archard, in Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette.

To a Man Who Would Marry.

Select the girl. Agree with the girl’s father in politic and the mother in religion. If you have a rival keep an eye on him; if he is a widower keep two eyes on him. Don’t swear to the girl that you have no bad habits. It will be enough for you to say that you never heard yourself snore in your sleep. Don’t put much sweet stuff on paper. If you do you will hear it read in after years, when your wife has some especial purpose in inflicting upon you the severest punishment known to a married man. Go home at a reasonable hour in the evening. Don’t wait until the girl has to throw her whole soul into a yawn that she can’t cover with both hands. A little thing like that might cause a coolness at the very beginning of the game. If, on the occasion of your first call, the girl upon whom you have placed your young affections looks like an iceberg and acts Ike a cold wave, take your leave early and stay away. Woman in her hours of freeze is uncertain, coy, and hard to please. In cold weather finish saying goodnight in the house. Don’t stretch it alt the way to the gate and thus lay the foundation for fut re asthma, bronchitis, neuralgia, and chronic catarrh, to help you worry the girl to death after she has married you. Don’t lie about your financial condition. It is very annoying to a bride who has pictured for herself a life full of luxury in her ancestral halls to learn too late that you expect her to ask a bald-headed parent who has been uniformly kind to her to take you in out of the cold. If you sit down on some molasses candy that little Will e has left on the chair, while wearing your new summer trousers for the first time, smile sweetly and remark that you don’t mind sitting on molasses candy at all, and that “boys wll be boys." Reserve your true feelings for future reference. Don’t be too soft. Don’t say: “These little hands shall never do a stroke of work when they are mine,” and “You shall have nothing to do in our home but to sit all day long and chirp to the canaries,” as if any sensible woman could be happy fooling away time in that sort of style, and a girl has a fine, retentive memory for the soft things and silly promises of courtship, and occasionally, in after years, when she : s washing the dinner dishes or patching the west end of your trousers, she will remind you of them in a cold, sarcastic tone of vo ce. —New Yen k Mail aucl Expi ess. The Dryphore, a Noah’s ark kind of a looking vessel now moored off the Cours la Reine, Paris, lias for show a giant oak, weighing about fifty-five tons. This mammoth of a prehistoric forest was dug up from the bed of the Rhine, where it is supposed to have lain over 3,000 years.

HUMOR.

A fashion journal says “bows o* chairs have had their day.” Yes, but they still continue to make a night of it— Burlington Free Press. Young Wilkins intends to form a mutual defense and protective association composed of one member, as his father’s hands are too often on tb strike. A colored woman M-as heard this morning informing a neighbor that last night’s storm frightened her so that she “shook like an ashpan.”— Pi tsburgh Chronicle. “You’ve eaten next to nothing,” lisped Smithers, who was dining with his girl. “Oh, I always do that when i sit bv you,” responded the young lady pleasantly. “Look ’ere, al!” yelled a Texas woman to the oldest girl, “don’t bend over that well so fur. You’ll fall in some day, and then we’ll have to drink from the crick.” The private soldiers fought the bath ties .of tiie war, and they can afford to let the Generals have a little of the monthly magazine glory for the next fifty years.— New Orleans Picayune. Husband (handing his wife soaie money)—“There, dear, is SSO, and it has bothered me some to get it for you. I think I deserve a little praise.” Wise —“Prase? You deserve an encore, my dear.” Young Harley Quinn was complaining of his boarding-house fare. “Then you don’t fancy hash'?” asked his friend Tom. “It isn’t the hash I object to,” the other returned, mournfully, “it’s the rehash. Fond mother (to bachelor uncle) — “Why, John, don’t let the baby play with that gold toothpick. He’ll swallow it.” Bachelor uncle—“Oh, that won’t do any harm. I have a string tied to it so, so I can’t lose it. No man can realize what a low-lived, miserable, disgusting game base-ball is until he lias been a volunteer umpire, and has had his head split open for deciding right, when the hoodlum Side of the game happened to be wrong.— New Orleans Picayune. The evident agitation of the young man in the picture is not caused by his having experienced a change of heart; but by his having accidentally rung the new “chestnut gong” on his vest just as the minister made a strong point in his sermon. —Puck. Young wife—“ Dearest, isn’t this milk nice and rich?” Young husband —“Yes, much better than we have had. How did you manage?” Young wife, (enthusiastically)—“l engaged a new milkman who guarantees his milk, and I have bought enough to last a week.” A merchant called at the office of a Missouri weekly paper, with the copy of an advertisement, and asked the clerk to insert it. “Sorry, but I can’t do it; the paper’s full.” “Where’s the proprietor ? I think he would run it in.” “Impossible, sir; he’s full, too.” — St. Louis Whip. Mrs. Bullion to the principal of the school attended by her daughter—- “ Dear Madam: My daughter Clarice informs me that last year she was obliged to study vulgar fractions. Please do not let this happen again. If the dear child must study fractions let them be as refined as possible.”— Tlie Rambler. Captain Peckesec (to one of his sergeants)—“You were out drinking, yesterday, with a couple of privates.” fcergeant— “Captain, it was to prevent them getting drunk.” Captain —“What do you mean?” Sergeant—“ They had four 1 ters of wine between them. That was too much for two men. I restored the balance.”— Le Rappel. An old gentleman caller at the house of little Hattie’s father was possessed of one of those mortifying sort of noses on the end of which sometimes is a crvstal-like drop dangling and quivering. Hattie watched this obtrusive drop with absorbing interest. She saw it removed with the gentleman’s handkerch es two or three times, but \\ hen it appeared for the fourth time the gehtleman did not seem to notice it. After a few moments of anxiety Hattie gave utterance to this pleasing bit of information: “Say, man, it’s come again.”— Detroit Free Press. at the barber’s. The unsuspecting victim took the chair, And said, “Pray shave my chin and cut my hair ’’ The barber cough9d, his throat at once ho cleared. And, as the squirming victim’s locks he sheared, His throttle-valve of speech he opened wide, And from his lips poured forth a wordy tide. He talked on all the topics of the time : 1 eligion, pol tics, the woather, labor, crime. And praised—discussing topics such as those, His “hair restorer” in parentheses. Tho victim sighed at timos and then grew still. At length the barber asked if he was ill. He answered not. The barber in al jrm Passed round the chair and raised the victim’s arm, Then from the artist’s cheek the color fled; He saw at once his customer was dead. Yes, deal; tho man had yielded up his breath. The jury gavo the vovdict—“talkod to death.” —Boston Courier.

The Two Dogs.

Two dogs one day went lion limiting, one of them being a smart do ?, with a classical education and the other being very ignorant and unsophist cated. Pretty soon they struck the tra k of the lion, and the educated dog started oft’ in the direction of #he royal beast, wli.le his ignorant companion, mak ng an absurd mistake, took the back track and started olf in the opposite direction. In a few minutes the educated dog was servin as an inanimate free lunch for an enormous lion, while the ignorant dog escaped unhurt. Moral: Th s fable teaches that classical lore should be plentifully sprinkled with practical knowledge.