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Title: Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century
Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World
Author: Various
Editor: John Clark Ridpath
Release Date: May 14, 2005 [eBook #15824]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTABLE EVENTS OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY***
E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Richard J. Shiffer, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
NOTABLE EVENTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World,
in a Series of Short Studies
Compiled and Edited by
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH
Published by
The Christian Herald,
Louis Klopsch, Proprietor,
Bible House, New York.
1896
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
This little volume constitutes one number of the Christian Herald
Library series for 1896-97. The title indicates the scope and purpose
of the work. Of heavy reading the reader of to-day no doubt has a
sufficiency. Of light reading, that straw-and-chaff literature that
fills the air until the senses are confused with the whirlwind and
dust of it, he has a sufficiency also. Of that intermediate kind of
reading which is neither so heavy with erudition as to weigh us down
nor so light with the flying folly of prejudice as to make us
distracted with its dust, there is perhaps too little. The thoughtful
and improving passage for the unoccupied half hour of him who hurries
through these closing years of the century does not abound, but is
rather wanting in the intellectual provision of the age.
Let this volume serve to supply, in part at least, the want for brief
readings on important subjects. Herein a number of topics have been
chosen from the progress of the century and made the subjects of as
many brief studies that may be realized in a few minutes' reading and
remembered for long. Certainly there is no attempt to make these short
stories exhaustive, but only to make them hintful of larger readings
and more thoughtful and patient inquiry.
The Editor is fully aware of the very large circulation and wide
reading to which this little volume will soon be subjected. For this
reason he has taken proper pains to make the work of such merit as may
justly recommend it to the thoughtful as well as the transient and
unthoughtful reader. It cannot, we think, prove to be a wholly
profitless task to offer these different studies, gathered from the
highways and byways of the great century, to the thousands of good and
busy people into whose hands the volume will fall. To all such the
Editor hopes that it may carry a measure of profit as well as a
message of peace.
J.C.R.
CONTENTS.
[All articles not otherwise designated are by the Editor.]
CRISES IN CIVIL SOCIETY.
PAGE.
Brumaire--The Overthrow Of The French Directory, 9
How the Son of Equality Became King of France, 14
The Coup d'Etat of 1851, 19
The Chartist Agitation in England, 23
The Abolition of Human Bondage, 27
The Peril of Our Centennial Year, 35
The Double Fête in France and Germany, 40
GREAT BATTLES.
Trafalgar, 44
Campaign of Austerlitz, 50
"Friedland--1807", 55
Under the Russian Snows, 59
Waterloo, 63
Sebastopol, 71
Sadowa, 77
Capture of Mexico, 84
Vicksburg, 89
Gettysburg, 95
Spottsylvania, 104
Appomattox, 112
Sedan, by Victor Hugo, 118
Bazaine and Metz, 129
ASTRONOMICAL VISTAS.
The Century of the Asteroids, 136
The Story of Neptune, 146
Evolution of the Telescope, 156
The New Astronomy, 165
What the Worlds Are Made Of, 175
PROGRESS IN DISCOVERY AND INVENTION.
The First Steamboat and its Maker, 184
Telegraphing before Morse, 196
The New Light of Men, 205
The Telephone, 216
The Machine That Talks Back, 225
Evolution of the Dynamo, by Professor Joseph
P. Naylor, 235
The Unknown Ray and Entography, 244
STAGES IN BIOLOGICAL INQUIRY.
The New Inoculation, 256
Koch's Battle with the Invisible Enemy, 266
Achievements in Surgery, 276
GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS.
BY B.J. FERNIE, PH.D.
Defence on New Lines, 284
Evangelical Activity, 289
Bible Revision, 291
Bibles by the Million, 293
A Great Missionary Era, 296
Preaching to Heathen at Home, 299
Churches Drawing Together, 304
Organized Activities, 308
Humanitarian Work, 314
The Sunday School, 316
Pulpit and Press, 318
Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century.
Crises in Civil Society.
BRUMAIRE.
THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH DIRECTORY.
The eighteenth century went out with the French Directory, and the
nineteenth came in with the Consulate. The coincidence of dates is not
exact by a year and a month and twenty-one days. But history does not
pay much attention to almanacs. In general our century arose with the
French Consulate. The Consulate was the most conspicuous political
fact of Europe in the year 1801; and the Consulate came in with
_Brumaire_.
"Brumaire" is one of the extraordinary names invented by the
French Revolutionists. The word, according to Carlyle, means
_Fogarious_--that is, Fog month. In the French Republican calendar,
devised by the astronomer Romme, in 1792, Brumaire began on the
twenty-second day of October and ended on the twentieth day of
November. It remained for Brumaire, and the eighteenth day of
Brumaire, of the year VIII, to extinguish the plural executive which
the French democrats had created under the name of a _Directory_, and
to substitute therefor the One Man that was coming.
The Directory was a Council of Five. It was a sort of five-headed
presidency; and each head was the head of a Jacobin. One of the heads
was called Barras. One was called Carnot. Another was called
Barthelemy. Another was Roger Ducos; another was the Abbé Sieyes. That
was the greatest head of them all. The heads were much mixed, though
the body was one. In such a body cross counsels were always uppermost,
and there was a want of decision and force in the government.
This condition of the Executive Department led to the deplorable
reverses which overtook the French armies during the absence of
General Bonaparte in Egypt. Thiers says that the Directorial Republic
exhibited at this time a scene of distressing confusion. He adds: "The
Directory gave up guillotining; it only transported. It ceased to
force people to take assignats upon pain of death; but it paid nobody.
Our soldiers, without arms and without bread, were beaten instead of
being victorious."
The ambition of Napoleon found in this situation a fitting
opportunity. The legislative branch of the government consisted of a
Senate, or Council of Ancients, and a Council of Five Hundred. The
latter constituted the popular branch. Of this body Lucien Bonaparte,
brother of the general, was president. Hardly had Napoleon arrived in
the capital on his return from Egypt when a conspiracy was formed by
him with Sieyes, Lucien and others of revolutionary disposition, to do
away by a _coup_ with the too democratic system, and to replace it
with a stronger and more centralized order. The Council of Ancients
was to be brought around by the influence of Sieyes. To Lucien
Bonaparte the more difficult task was assigned of controlling and
revolutionizing the Assembly. As for Napoleon, Sieyes procured for him
the command of the military forces of Paris; and by another decree the
sittings of the two legislative bodies were transferred to St. Cloud.
The eighteenth Brumaire of the Year VIII, corresponding to the ninth
of November, 1799, was fixed as the day for the revolution. By that
date soldiers to the number of 10,000 men had been collected in the
gardens of the Tuileries. There they were reviewed by General
Bonaparte and the leading officers of his command. He read to the
soldiers the decree which had just been issued under the authority of
the Council of the Ancients. This included the order for the removal
of the legislative body to St. Cloud, and for his own command. He was
entrusted with the execution of the order of the Council, and all of
the military forces in Paris were put at his disposal. In these hours
of the day there were all manner of preparation. That a conspiracy
existed was manifest to everybody. That General Bonaparte was reaching
for the supreme authority could hardly be doubted. His secretary thus
writes of him on the morning of the great day.
"I was with him a little before seven o'clock on the morning of the
eighteenth Brumaire, and, on my arrival, I found a great number of
generals and officers assembled. I entered Bonaparte's chamber, and
found him already up--a thing rather unusual with him. At this moment
he was as calm as on the approach of a battle. In a few moments Joseph
and Bernadotte arrived. I was surprised to see Bernadotte in plain
clothes, and I stepped up to him and said in a low voice: 'General,
everyone here except you and I is in uniform.' 'Why should I be in
uniform?' said he. Bonaparte, turning quickly to him, said: 'How is
this? You are not in uniform.' 'I never am on a morning when I am not
on duty,' replied Bernadotte. 'You will be on duty presently,' said
the general!"
To Napoleon the crisis was an epoch of fate. The first thing was to be
the resignation of Sieyes, Barras and Ducos, which--coming suddenly on
the appointed morning--broke up the Directory. Bonaparte then put out
his hand as commander of the troops. Too late the Republicans of the
Council of Five Hundred felt the earthquake swelling under their feet.
Napoleon appeared at the bar of the Assembly, and attempted a rambling
and incoherent justification for what was going on. A motion was made
to outlaw him; but the soldiers rushed in, and the refractory members
were seized and expelled. A few who were in the revolution remained,
and to the number of fifty voted a decree making Sieyes, Bonaparte and
Ducos provisional _Consuls_, thus conferring on them the supreme
executive power of the State. By nightfall the business was
accomplished, and the man of Ajaccio slept in the palace of the
Tuileries. He had said to his secretary, Bourriene, on that morning,
"We shall sleep to-night in the Tuileries--or in prison."
The new order was immediately made organic. There could be no question
when Three Consuls were appointed and Bonaparte one of the number,
which of the three would be _First_ Consul. He would be that himself;
the other two might be the ciphers which should make his unit 100. The
new system was defined as the "Provisionary Consulate;" but this form
was only transitional. The managers of the _coup_ went rapidly forward
to make it permanent. The Constitution of the Year III gave place
quickly to the Constitution of the Year VIII, which provided for an
executive government, under the name of the CONSULATE. Nominally the
Consulate was to be an executive committee of three, but really an
executive committee of _one_--with two associates. The three men
chosen were Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean Jacques Cambaceres and Charles
Francois Lebrun. On Christmas day, 1799, Napoleon was made FIRST
CONSUL; and that signified the beginning of a new order, destined to
endure for sixteen and a half years, and to end at Waterloo. The old
century was dying and the new was ready to arise out of its ashes.
HOW THE SON OF EQUALITY BECAME KING OF FRANCE.
The French Revolution spared not anything that stood in its way. The
royal houses were in its way, and they went down before the blast.
Thus did the House of Bourbon, and thus did also the House of Orleans.
The latter branch, however, sought by its living representatives to
compromise with the storm. The Orleans princes have always had a touch
of liberalism to which the members of the Bourbon branch were
strangers.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of
Orleans, fraternized with the popular party, threw away his princely
title and named himself Philippe Egalité; that is, as we should say,
Mr. _Equality_ Philip. In this character he participated in the
National Assembly until he fell under distrust, and in despite of his
defence and protestations--in spite of the fact that he had voted for
the death of his cousin the king--was seized, condemned and
guillotined.
This Equality Philip left as his representative in the world a son who
was twenty years old when his father was executed. The son was that
Louis Philippe who, under his surname of _Roi Citoyen_, or "Citizen
King," was destined after extraordinary vicissitudes to hold the
sceptre of France for eighteen years. Young Louis Philippe was a
soldier in the republican armies. That might well have saved him from
persecution; but his princely blood could not be excused. He was by
birth the Duke of Valois, and by succession the Duke of Chartres. As
a boy, eight years of age, he had received for his governess the
celebrated Madame de Genlis, who remained faithful to him in all his
misfortunes. At eighteen he became a dragoon in the Vendome Regiment,
and in 1792 he fought valiantly under Kellermann and Dumouriez at
Valmy and Jemappes. Then followed the treason, or defection, of
Dumouriez; but young Louis remained with the army for two years
longer, when, being proscribed, he went into exile, finding refuge
with other suspected officers and many refugees in Switzerland.
Thither Dumouriez himself had gone. Of the flight of young Louis,
Carlyle says: "Brave young Egalité reaches Switzerland and the Genlis
Cottage; with a strong crabstick in his hand, a strong heart in his
body: his Princedom is now reduced to _that_ Egalité the father sat
playing whist, in his Palais Egalité, at Paris, on the sixth day of
this same month of April, when a catchpole entered. Citoyen Egalité is
wanted at the Convention Committee!" What the committee wanted with
Equality Philip and what they did with him has been stated above.
Consider then that the Napoleonic era has at last set in blood.
Consider that the Restoration, with the reigns of Louis XVIII. and
Charles X., has gone by. Consider that the "Three Days of July,"
1830, have witnessed a bloodless revolution in Paris, in which the
House of Bourbon was finally overthrown and blown away. On the second
of August, Charles X. gave over the hopeless struggle and abdicated in
favor of his son. But the Chamber of Deputies and the people of France
had now wearied of Bourbonism in _all_ of its forms, and the nation
was determined to have a king of its own choosing.
The Chamber set about the work of selecting a new ruler for France. At
this juncture, Thiers and Mignet again asserted their strength and
influence by nominating for the throne Louis Philippe, Duke of
Orleans, representative of what is known as the Younger Branch of the
Bourbon dynasty. The prince himself was not loath to present himself
at the crisis, and to offer his services to the nation. In so doing,
he was favored greatly by his character and antecedents. At the first,
the Chamber voted to place him at the head of the kingdom with the
title of _Lieutenant-General_. The prince accepted his election, met
the Chamber of Deputies and members of the Provisional Government at
the Hotel de Ville, and there solemnly pledged himself to the most
liberal principles of administration. His accession to power in his
military relations was hailed with great delight by the Parisians, who
waved the tri-color flag before him as he came, and shouted to their
heart's content.
At this stage of the revolution the representatives of the overthrown
House and of the Old Royalty sought assiduously to obtain from Louis
Philippe a recognition of the young Count de Chambord, under the title
of Henry V. But the Duke of Orleans was too wily a politician to be
caught in such a snare. He at first suppressed that part of the letter
of abdication signed by Charles and Angoulême in which reference was
made to the succession of the Duke of Berry's son; but a knowledge of
that clause was presently disseminated in the city, and the tumult
broke out anew.
Then it was that a great mob, rolling out of Paris in the direction of
the Hotel Rambouillet, gave the signal of flight to Charles and those
who had adhered to the toppling fortunes of his house. The Chamber of
Deputies proceeded quickly to undo the despotic acts of the late king,
and then elected Louis Philippe king, not of _France_, but of the
_French_. The new sovereign received 219 out of 252 votes in the
Deputies. His elevation to power was one of the most striking examples
of personal vicissitudes which has ever been afforded by the princes
and rulers of modern times.
THE COUP D'ETAT OF 1851.
With the overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848, what is known as the
Second Republic, was established in France. On the tenth of December,
in that year, a president was elected in the American manner for a
term of four years. To the astonishment of the whole world, the man so
elected was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who had since the downfall of
Napoleon been prisoner, exile and adventurer by turns. In the course
of President Louis Napoleon's administration, matters came to such a
pass between him and the National Assembly that one or the other must
go to the wall.
In the early winter of 1851, a crisis came on which broke in a
marvelous manner in the event called the Coup d'Etat. The President
made up his mind to conquer the Assembly by force. He planned what is
known in modern history by pre-eminence the stroke. He, and those whom
he trusted, made their arrangements secretly, silently, that the
"stroke" should fall on the night of the second of December. On that
evening the President held a gay reception in the palace of the
Elysee, and after his guests had retired, the scheme was perfected for
immediate execution.
During the night seventy-eight of the leading members of the
Opposition were seized at their own houses and taken to prison. The
representatives of the people were hurried through the streets, and
suddenly immured where their voices could be no longer heard. At the
same time a strong force of soldiers was stationed near the Tuileries.
The offices of the liberal newspapers were seized and closed, and the
Government printing presses were employed all night in printing the
proclamation with which the walls of the city were covered before
morning. With the coming of daylight, Paris awoke and read:
1. The National Assembly is dissolved;
2. Universal suffrage is re-established;
3. The Elective Colleges are summoned to meet on December 21;
4. Paris is in a state of siege.
By the side of this proclamation was posted the President's address to
the people. He proposed the election of a president for ten years. He
referred the army to the neglect which it had received at the hands of
former governments, and promised that the soldiery of France should
rewin its ancient renown.
As soon as those members of the Assembly who had not been arrested
could realize the thing which was done, they ran together and
attempted to stay the tide of revolution by passing a vote deposing
the President from office. But the effort was futile. A republican
insurrection, under the leadership of Victor Hugo and a few other
distinguished Liberals, broke out in the city. But there was in the
nature of the case no concert of action, no resources behind the
insurrection, and no military leadership. General Canrobert,
Commandant of the Guards, soon put down the revolt in blood. Order was
speedily restored throughout Paris, and the victory of the President
was complete. It only remained to submit his usurpation to the
judgment of the people, and the decision in that case could, under
existing conditions, hardly be a matter of doubt.
In accordance with the President's proclamation, a popular election
was held throughout France, on the twentieth and twenty-first of
December, at which the Coup d'Etat was signally vindicated. Louis
Napoleon was triumphantly elected President, for a period of ten
years. Out of eight millions of votes, fewer than one million were
cast against him. He immediately entered upon office, backed by this
tremendous majority, and became Dictator of France. In January of
1852, sharp on the heels of the revolution which he had effected, he
promulgated a new constitution. The instrument was based upon that of
1789, and possessed but few clauses to which any right-minded lover
of free institutions could object. On the twenty-eighth of March,
Napoleon resigned the dictatorship, which he had held since the Coup
d'Etat, and resumed the office of President of the Republic.
It was not long, however, until the _After That_ began to appear.
Already in the summer and autumn of 1852 it became evident that the
_Empire_ was to be re-established. In the season of the vintage the
President made a tour of the country, and was received with cries of
_Vive L'Empereur_! In his addresses, particularly in that which he
delivered at Bordeaux, the sentiment of Empire was cautiously offered
to the people. The consummation was soon reached. On the seventh of
November, 1852, a vote was passed by the French Senate for the
re-establishment of the imperial order, and for the submission of the
proposed measure to a popular vote.
The event showed conclusively that the French nation, as then
constituted, was Bonapartist to the core. Louis Napoleon was almost
unanimously elected to the imperial dignity. Of the eight millions of
suffrages of France, only a few scattering thousands were recorded in
the negative. Thus, in a blaze of glory that might well have satisfied
the ambition of the First Bonaparte, did he, who, only twelve years
before at Boulogne, had tried most ridiculously to excite a paltry
rebellion by the display of a pet-eagle to his followers, mount the
Imperial throne of France with the title of Napoleon III.
THE CHARTIST AGITATION IN ENGLAND.
One of the most important political movements of the present century
was the Chartist agitation in Great Britain. This agitation began in
1838. It was an effort of the under man in England to gain his rights.
In the retrospect, it seems to us astonishing that such rights as
those that were then claimed by the common people of England should
ever have been denied to the citizens of any free country. The period
covered by the excitement was about ten years in duration, and during
that period great and salutary reforms were effected, but they were
not thorough, and to this day the under man in Great Britain is mocked
with the _semblance_ of political liberty, the _substance_ of which he
does not enjoy; the same is true in America.
The name _Chartist_ arose from an article called the "People's
Charter," which was prepared by the famous Daniel O'Connell. The
document contained six propositions, follows:
(1) We demand Universal Suffrage--by which was meant rather Manhood
Suffrage than what is now known as universal suffrage, meaning the
ballot in the hands of both sexes. This the Chartists did not demand.
(2) We demand an Annual Parliament--by which was meant the election of
a new House of Commons each year by the people.
(3) We demand the right to Vote by Ballot--by which was meant the
right of the people to employ a _secret_ ballot at the elections
instead of the method _viva voce_.
(4) We demand the abolition of the Property Qualification now
requisite as a condition of eligibility to Membership in the House of
Commons.
(5) We demand that the Members of Parliament shall be paid a salary
for their services.
(6) We demand the Division of the Country into Equal Electoral
Districts--by which was meant an equality of _population_, as against
mere territorial extent.
To the reader of to-day it must appear a matter of astonishment that
the representatives of the working classes of Great Britain should
have been called upon, at a time within the memory of men still
living, to advance and advocate political principles so self-evident
and common-sense as those declared in the Charter, and his wonder must
be raised to amazement when he is told that the whole governing power
of Great Britain, the King, the Ministry, the House of Lords, the
House of Commons, the Tories as a party, the Whigs as a party,
and--all party divisions aside--the great Middle Class of Englishmen
set themselves in horrified antagonism to the Charter and its
advocates, as though the former were the most incendiary document in
the world and the latter a rabble of radicals gathered from the
purlieus of the French Revolution.
The reason for the outbreak of the Chartist reform was the fact that
the Reform Bill of 1832 had proved a signal failure. For six years the
English Middle Classes had sought by the agency of that act to gain
their rights, but they had sought in vain. The people now began to
follow popular leaders, who always arise under such conditions. One of
these, by the name of Thorn, a bankrupt brewer and half madman, who
called himself Sir William Courtenay, appeared in Canterbury. He said
that he was a Knight of Malta and King of Jerusalem--this when he was
only a knight of malt and a king of shreds and patches. Delusion broke
out on every hand. One great leader was Feargus O'Connor. Another was
Thomas Cooper, a poet, and a third was the orator Henry Vincent,
afterward well known in America.
The agitation for reform spread far and wide. The people seemed to be
about to rise _en masse_. The powers of British society were shaken
and alarmed. The authorities put out their hands and the Chartist
meetings in many places were broken up. The leading spirits were
seized and thrown into prison for nothing. Three of the agitators were
sent to the penal colonies, for no other offence than the delivery of
democratic speeches. For several years the movement was in abeyance,
but in 1848, in the month of April, the agitation broke out afresh and
rose to a formidable climax. A great meeting was appointed for the
Kensington common, and there, on the tenth of the month just named, a
monster demonstration was held. A petition had meanwhile been drawn
up, praying for reform, and was _signed by nearly two million
Englishmen_!
After this the Chartist agitation ebbed away. The movement was said to
be a failure; but it failed, not because of the political principles
on which it was founded, but because those principles had in the
meantime been acknowledged and applied. At least three of the six
articles of the Chartist charter were soon adopted by Parliament. The
principle of Manhood Suffrage is virtually a part of the English
Constitution. The right of voting by Secret Ballot, deposited in a
ballot-box, has also been acknowledged as a part of the _modus
operandi_ of all British elections. In like manner the Property
Qualification formerly imposed on candidates for Parliament, against
which the Chartists so vehemently and justly declaimed, has long since
been abolished.
THE ABOLITION OF HUMAN BONDAGE.
Certainly no greater deed of philanthropy has been accomplished by
mankind than the extinction of human servitude. True, that horrible
relic of antiquity has not yet been wholly obliterated from the world,
but the nineteenth century has dealt upon it such staggering and fatal
blows as have driven it from all the high places of civilization and
made it crouch in obscure corners and unenlightened regions on the
outskirts of paganism. Slavery has not indeed been extinguished; but
it is scotched, and must expire. According to the tendency of things,
the sun in his course at the middle of the twentieth century will
hardly light the hovel of a single slave!
The opening of the modern era found slavery universally distributed.
There was perhaps at the middle of the eighteenth century not a
single non-slave-holding race or nation on the globe! All were alike
brutalized by the influences and traditions of the ancient system. All
were familiar with it--aye, they were nursed by it; for it has been
one of the strange aspects of human life that the children of the free
have been nursed by the mothers of the enslaved. All races, we repeat,
were alike poisoned with the venom of the serpent. Thus poisoned were
France and Germany. Thus poisoned was England; and thus also our
colonies. Time was, even down to the dawn of the Revolution, when
every American colony was slave-holding. Time was when the system was
taught in the schools and preached in the pulpits of all the civilized
world.
It was about the Revolutionary epoch, that is, the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, when the conscience of men began to be active on
the subject of human bondage. We think that the disposition to
recognize the wickedness and impolity of slavery was a part of the
general movement which came on in civilization, tending to
revolutionize not only the political but the social and ethical
condition of mankind. We know well that in our own country, when our
political institutions were in process of formation slavery was
courageously challenged. It was not challenged more audaciously in
the Northern than in the Southern colonies. Some of the latter, as,
for example, Georgia, had at the first excluded slavery as a thing
intolerable to freedom and righteousness. The leading men of the old
Southern States at the close of the last century nearly all repudiated
slavery in principle. They admitted it only in practice and because it
was a part of their inheritance. The patriots, both North and South,
were averse not only to the extension of the area of bondage, but to
the existence of it as a fact.
Washington was at heart an anti-slavery man. He wished in his heavy
but wholly patriotic way as heartily as Lincoln wished that all men
might enjoy the blessings of freedom. Jefferson was almost radical on
the question. Though he did not heartily believe in an overruling
Providence, he felt the need of one when he considered the afflictive
system of slavery with which his State and country were encumbered. He
said that considering it he trembled when he remembered that God is
just.
Meanwhile the unprofitableness of slavery in the Northern colonies had
co-operated with the conscience of Puritanism to engender a sentiment
against slavery in that part of the Union. So, although the
institution was tolerated in the Constitution and even had guarantees
thrown around it, it was, nevertheless, disfavored in our fundamental
law. One may readily see how the patriots labored with this portentous
question. Already in Great Britain an anti-slavery sentiment had
appeared. There were anti-slavery leaders, statesmen, philosophers and
philanthropists. By the terms of the Constitution the slave _trade_
should cease in the year 1808. Sad to reflect that the inventive
genius of man and the prodigality of nature in her gifts of cotton,
sugar and rice to the old South should have produced a reaction in
favor of slavery so great as to fasten it more strongly than ever upon
our country.
The fact is, that to all human seeming at the middle of our century
American slavery seemed to be more firmly established than ever
before. Neither the outcry of the Northern abolitionists nor the
appeals of Southern patriots such as Henry Clay, availed to check the
pro-slavery disposition in fully one-half the Union, or to abate the
covert favor with which the institution was regarded in nearly all the
other half.
Meanwhile, however, slavery was suffering and expiring in nearly all
parts of Europe. England began her battle against it even before the
beginning of the century. The work of the philanthropists, begun as
far back as 1786-87, when the Quakers, under the leadership of
Clarkson and Sharpe, began to cry out against the atrocity of human
bondage, now reached the public authorities, and ministers found it
necessary to take heed of what the people were saying and doing. Both
Pitt and Fox became abolitionists before the close of the eighteenth
century. The first attack was against the slave _trade_. Bills for the
abolition of this trade were passed in 1793-94 by the House of
Commons, but were rejected by the Peers. In 1804 another act was
passed; but this also was rejected by the Lords. So too, the bill of
1805! The agitation continued during 1806; and in 1807, just after the
death of Fox, the slave trade _was_ abolished in Great Britain.
The abolitionists went straight ahead, however, to attack slavery
itself. The Anti-slavery Society was founded. Clarkson and Wilberforce
and Buxton became the evangels of a new order that was seen far off.
It was not, however, until the great reform agitation of 1832 that the
government really took up the question of the abolition of slavery.
The bill for this purpose was introduced in the House of Commons on
the twenty-third of April, 1833. The process of abolition was to be
_gradual_. The masters were to be _compensated_. There were to be
periods of apprenticeship, after which freedom should supervene.
Twenty million pounds were to be appropriated from the national
treasury to pay the expenses of the abolition process.
It was on the seventh of August, 1833, that this bill was adopted by
the House of Commons. Two weeks afterward the House of Lords assented,
and on the twenty-eighth of August the royal assent was given. The
emancipation, however, was set for the first of August, 1834; and this
is the date from which the abolition of slavery in Great Britain and
her dependencies may be said to have occurred. In some parts, however,
the actual process of extinguishing slavery lagged. It was not until
1843 that the 12,000,000 of slaves under British control in the empire
were emancipated.
The virtual extinction of human slavery in the present century,
presents a peculiar ethnical study. Among the Latin races, the French
were the first to move for emancipation. It appears that the infusion
of Gallic blood, as well as the large influence of the Frankish
nations in the production of the modern French, has given to that
people a bias in favor of liberty. All the other Latin races have
lagged behind; but, France foreran even Great Britain in the work of
abolition. Scarcely had the great Revolution of 1789 got under way,
until an act of abolition conceding freedom to all men without regard
to race or color was adopted by the National Assembly.
It was on the fifteenth of May, 1791, that this great act was passed.
One of the darkest aspects of the character of Napoleon I. was the
favor which he showed to the project of restoring slavery in the
French colonies. But that project was in vain. The blow of freedom
once struck produced its everlasting results. Though slavery lingered
for nearly a half century in some of the French colonies, it survived
there only because of the revolutions in the home government which
prevented its final extinction. Acts were passed for the utter
extirpation of the system during the reign of Louis Philippe, and
again in the time of the Second Republic.
Meanwhile, the northern nations proceeded with the work of abolition.
In Sweden slavery ceased in 1847. In the following year Denmark passed
an Act of Emancipation. But the Netherlands did not follow in the good
work until the year 1860. The Spaniards and Portuguese have been among
the last to cling to the system of human servitude. In the outlying
possessions of Spain, in Spanish America and elsewhere, the
institution still maintains a precarious existence. In Brazil it was
not abolished until 1871. In the Mohammedan countries it still exists,
and may even be said to flourish. In Russia serfdom was abolished in
1863. He who at that date looked abroad over the world, might see the
pillars of human bondage shaken, and falling in every part of the
habitable globe which had been reclaimed by civilization.
In the meantime, Great Britain, in her usual aggressive way, had
established an anti-slavery propaganda, from which strong influences
extended in every direction. Her Anti-slavery Society re-established
itself in the United States. Abolition candidates for the presidency
began to be heard of and to be voted for at every quadrennial
election. Such was Birney in 1844. Such (strange to say) was Martin
Van Buren in 1848. Such four years afterward was John P. Hale, of New
Hampshire, and such in 1856, as the storm came on, was John C.
Fremont.
The political history of the United States shows at this epoch an
astounding growth of anti-slavery sentiment; and this expanding force
culminated in the election of Lincoln. Great, indeed, was the change
which had already swept over the landscape of American thought and
purpose since the despised Birney, in 1844, received only a few
thousand votes in the whole United States. Now the Rail-splitter had
come! The tocsin of war sounded. The Union was rent. War with its
flames of fire and streams of blood devastated the Republic. But the
bow of promise was set on the dark background of the receding storm.
American slavery was swept into oblivion, and the end of the third
quarter of the century saw such a condition established in both the
New World and the Old, as made the restoration of human bondage
forever impossible.
Not until the present order of civilization shall be destroyed will
man be permitted again to hold his fellow-man in servitude. The chain
that was said "to follow the mother," making all her offspring to be
slaves; the manacles and fetters with which the weak were bound and
committed to the mercies of heartless traders; all of the insignia and
apparatus of the old atrocious system of bondage, have been heaped
together and cast out with the rubbish and offal of the civilized life
into the valley of Gehenna. There the whole shall be burned with
unquenchable fire! Then the smoke, arising for a season, shall be
swept away, and nothing but a green earth and a blue sky shall remain
for the emancipated race of man.
THE PERIL OF OUR CENTENNIAL YEAR.
Americans are likely to dwell for a long time upon the glories of our
Centennial of Independence. The year 1876 came and went, and left its
impress on the world. Our great Exposition at Philadelphia was
happily devised. We celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of our
independence, and invited all nations, _including Great Britain_, to
join us in the festival. The Exposition was successful in a high
degree. The nation was at its best. The warrior President who had led
her armies to victory announced the opening and the close. Great
things were seen. One or two great orations were pronounced, and in
particular a great Centennial poem was contributed by that gifted son
of genius, Sidney Lanier, of Georgia. Nor do we refrain from
repeating, after twenty years, one of his poetic passages:
"Long as thine Art shall love true love;
Long as thy Science truth shall know;
Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove;
Long as thy Law by law shall grow;
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,
So long, dear Land of all my love,
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow!"
With the autumnal frost the great Exposition was concluded; and with
that autumnal frost came a peril the like of which our nation had not
hitherto encountered. The presidential election was held, and ended in
a disputed presidency. We had agreed since the beginning of the
century that ours should be a government by party. Against this
policy Washington had contended stoutly; but after the death of the
Father of his Country, the policy prevailed--as it has continued to
prevail more and more to the present day.
In 1876 a Democratic reaction came on against the long-dominant
Republican party, and Samuel J. Tilden, candidate of the Democracy,
secured a _popular_ majority. The _electoral_ majority remained in
dispute. Both parties claimed the victory. The election was so evenly
balanced in its results--there had been so much irregularity in the
voting and subsequent electoral proceedings in the States of Florida,
Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon, and the powers of Congress over
the votes of such States were so vaguely defined under existing
legislation--that no certain declaration of the result could be made.
The public mind was confounded with perplexity and excitement, and
there began to be heard the threatenings of civil war.
Perhaps the nation did not realize the danger; but the danger was
present, and threatened to be overwhelming. The Republican party in
possession of the Government was not willing to lose its advantage,
and the Democratic party, declaring its majority to be rightful, was
ready to rise in insurrection. As to the facts in the case, neither
Samuel J. Tilden nor General R.B. Hayes was clearly elected to the
presidency. The Democrats had carried two or three States by the
persuasion of shotguns, and the Republicans with the aid of electoral
commissions had counted in the electoral votes of a State or two which
they did not carry at all. The excitement increased with the approach
of winter, and it was proposed in a leading Democratic journal of the
West that a hundred thousand Democrats should rise and march unarmed
on Washington City, there to influence the decision of the disputed
question.
When Congress convened in December, the whole question of the disputed
presidency came at once before that body for settlement. The situation
was seriously complicated by the political complexion of the Senate
and the House of Representatives. In the former body the Republicans
had a majority sufficient to control its action, while in the House
the Democratic majority was still more decisive and equally willful.
At length the necessity of doing _something_ became imperative. The
great merchants and manufacturers of the country and the boards of
trade in the principal cities grew clamorous for a peaceable
adjustment of the difficulty. The spirit of compromise gained ground,
and it was agreed to refer the disputed election returns to a joint
high commission, to consist of five members chosen from the United
States Senate, five from the House of Representatives, and five from
the Supreme Court.
The judgment of this tribunal was to be final. The commission was
accordingly constituted. The disputed returns were sent, State by
State, to the High Court for decision. That body was itself divided
politically, and _every member decided each question according to his
politics_. The Republicans had seven votes in the court, the Democrats
seven votes, and one vote, that of Judge Joseph P. Bradley, was said
to be independent. But Judge Bradley was a Republican in his political
antecedents, and whenever a question came to a close issue, he decided
with his party.
On the second of March, only three days before the time for the
inauguration, a final decision was reached. The Republican candidates
were declared elected _by one electoral vote_ over Tilden and
Hendricks. Mr. Tilden had himself counseled peace and acquiescence.
The decision was sullenly accepted by the Democrats, and the most
dangerous political crisis in American history passed harmlessly by
without violence or bloodshed. No patriot will care to see such a
crisis come again.
THE DOUBLE FETE IN FRANCE AND GERMANY.
The Third Republic of France has passed its twenty-fifth anniversary,
and the German Empire has just celebrated its semi-jubilee. The French
held their fête in September of 1895, and on the eighteenth of the
following January all the Fatherland shouted greetings to the grandson
of old Wilhelm the Kaiser. The Gaul and the Teuton have thus agreed to
be happy coincidently; but for very different reasons! The Gaul has
his Republic and the Teuton his Empire. Side by side on the map lie
the two great powers, representing in their history and present aspect
one of the strongest contrasts to be found in human annals.
What the German Empire is we may permit the Emperor himself, in his
recent anniversary address, to explain. His speech shows that Germany,
of all civilized nations, has gone furthest in the direction of
unqualified imperialism. The utterances of Emperor William surpass the
speeches of the Czar himself, in avowing all the pretensions and
fictions of monarchy in the Middle Ages. The Hohenzollern potentate
openly makes the pretence of governing his subjects by rights and
prerogatives in nowise derived from the people, but wholly derived
from himself and his grandfather. Why should Germany be an Empire and
France a Republic? How could such an amazing historical result come
into the world? The French Republic and the new Empire of Germany were
not made by generals and kings and politicians in 1870-71. Indeed,
nothing is made by the strutters who are designated with such titles.
The two great powers having their centres at Berlin and Paris have
their roots as deep down as the subsoil of the ages. They grew out of
antecedents older than the Crusades, older than Charlemagne, older
than Augustus and the Christ. They came by law--even if the result
_has_ surprised the expectation of mankind.
When Cæsar made his conquest of Europe, he found the country north of
the Alps in the possession of two races--both Aryan. These two races
were as unlike then as they are now. The Gauls west of the Rhine were
proper material for the reception of Roman rule; but the Germans
beyond the Rhine were not receptive of any rule but their own. The
Gallic races became Romanized. Gaul was a part of the Roman Empire and
reasoning from the facts, we should have expected the Gaulish nations
to develop into the imperial form.
For like reason we should expect the Teutonic races to develop into
the greatest democracy of the modern world. Contrary to this double
expectation, we have a French Republic and a German Empire. In 1870
the Gallic race became suddenly democratic, and at the same time the
Germans became the greatest imperialists among civilized mankind! The
German Empire has arisen where we should have expected a democracy;
and the French Republic has arisen where we should have expected an
Empire.
The illogical Empire lies alongside of the illogical Republic. They
have a line of demarkation which, though drawn on the map, is not
drawn on the ground. The great antagonistic facts touch each other
through a long line of territorial extent, but the ethnic diversity
does not permit political union. The Teuton and the Gaul continue to
touch, but they are not one, and cannot be. Two neighbors living
between Verdun and Metz are only a quarter of a mile apart. They
cultivate their grounds in the same manner, raise the same fruits,
have vines growing on the two sides of the same trellis. They speak
the same language, exchange gossip and poultry; but their children do
not go to the same school! One of them is a French democrat; the
other, a German imperialist!
The reason for this reversal of expectation, by which the anticipated
institutions of France are found in Germany and those of Germany in
France, is this: It seems to be a law of human progress that mankind
moves forward by reactions against its own preceding conditions; that
is, Progress disappoints History _by doing the other thing_! The
French race has done the other thing; and so has the German race! They
who should have been logically the imperialists of Western Europe are
the republicans and democrats. They who should have been logically the
democrats and republicans of Europe--who should have converted
Germania into the greatest democracy of the world--have accepted
instead the most absolute empire. The phrase "German _Empire_" is, we
think, the greatest paradox of modern history; and the phrase "French
_Republic_" is another like it. But history has decreed it so; and the
reason is that human progress works out its highest results by doing
the other thing!
But this philosophical speculation or interpretation does not trouble
either the French or the Germans. They both seem to rejoice at what
has come to pass, and do not trouble themselves about the logistics of
history. They celebrate their quarter centennials, the one for the
Republic, and the other for the Empire, with profound enthusiasm,
shouting, _Vive_ for the one and _Hoch_ for the other with an
impulsive patriotism that has come down to them with the blood of
their respective races from before the Christian era!
Great Battles.
TRAFALGAR.
Lord Byron in his celebrated apostrophe to the ocean could hardly omit
a reference to the most destructive conflict of naval warfare within
the present century. In one of his supreme stanzas he reserves
Trafalgar for the climax:
"The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee and arbiter of war,--
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar."
The battle of Trafalgar, preceding by forty-two days the battle of
Austerlitz, holds the same relation to British ascendancy on the ocean
that Napoleon's victory over the Emperors Alexander and Francis held
to the French ascendancy on Continental Europe. Henceforth Great
Britain, according to her national hymn, "ruled the wave;" henceforth,
until after Waterloo, France ruled the land. Up to this date, namely,
1805, French ambition had reached as far as the dominion of the sea.
It appears that Napoleon himself had no genius for naval warfare, but
his ambition included the ocean; coincidently with his accession to
the Imperial throne a great fleet was prepared and placed under
command of Admiral Villeneuve for the recovery of the Mediterranean.
This fleet was destined in the first place for a possible invasion of
England, but fate and Providence had reserved for the armament another
service. At the same time the British fleet, to the number of
twenty-seven ships of the line and four frigates, was brought to a
high stage of proficiency and discipline, and placed under command of
Lord Horatio Nelson. His second in command was Admiral Collingwood,
who succeeded him after his death. The French fleet was increased to
thirty-three ships of the line and five frigates, the addition being
the Spanish contingent under Admirals Gravina and Alava. The Spanish
vessels joined Villeneuve from Cadiz about the middle of May. The plan
of the French commander was to rally a great squadron, cross the
Atlantic to the West Indies, return as if bearing down on Europe, and
raise the blockades at Ferrol, Rochefort and Brest.
As soon as it was known, however, that Nelson was abroad, his
antagonist became wary and all of his movements were marked with
caution. Meanwhile Lord Nelson sought for the allied-fleet on the
Mediterranean, but found it not. He then passed through the Straits of
Gibraltar and sailed for the coast of South America; but before
reaching his destination he learned that the Spanish fleet had sailed
for Europe again. Nelson followed, but did not fall in with the enemy.
Villeneuve, gaining knowledge of the movements of the English admiral,
and disregarding the instructions of Napoleon, withdrew from Ferrol to
the south and put in at Cadiz. It was here that Nelson, so to speak,
brought the allied fleet to bay.
On the southern coast of Spain, between Cadiz and Gibraltar, the Cape
of Trafalgar projects into the Atlantic. In the autumn Nelson's fleet
beat southward into this part of the seas, and it was here that the
battle was fought. The rival commanders were eager for a meeting, and
each foresaw that the contest was likely to be decisive. Each admiral
had behind him a long list of naval achievements, and each to his own
nation was greatly endeared.
Nelson had, on the first of August, 1798, destroyed the French fleet
in the bay of Aboukir. In 1800 he had been raised to the peerage. In
1801 he had bombarded Copenhagen; and for that doubtful achievement
had been made a viscount. One of his arms was gone, and he was
covered with the scars of battle. Villeneuve had also a well-earned
reputation. Could he but add to his previous services the defeat of
Nelson, his fame would be established for all time.
It was on the twenty-first of October, 1805, that the combined
squadrons of France and Spain on the one side, and the fleet of Great
Britain on the other, came face to face off the Cape of Trafalgar. The
rocks of Gibraltar might be seen in the distance. The sea was calm and
the sky clear. The combatants discerned in advance the greatness of
the event that was at hand.
The conflict that ensued ranks among the great naval battles of the
world. Lord Nelson, with all his heroism, was a vain man, capable of
spectacular display. He clad himself in the insignia of the many
orders to which he belonged, and might be conspicuously seen from the
decks of the French ships. In fact, he seemed to court death almost as
much as he strove for victory. In the beginning of the engagement he
displayed from his pennon, where it might be read by the whole fleet,
this signal: "England expects every man to do his duty."
On the display of this signal the British fleet rang with cheers. The
shouting was heard as far as the opposing Armada. The tradition goes
that Villeneuve said on hearing the shouts of the British marines:
"The battle it lost already." The admirals of the allied fleet
arranged their vessels in parallel lines, so that each ship of the
rear line should break the space between two of the advanced line.
This arrangement enabled all the ships to fire at once, and it was the
purpose of Villeneuve to hold his vessels in this form so that the
British squadron might gain no advantage from manoeuvring.
Nelson's arrangement, however, was quite different. His plan was to
attack at two points and break through the Armada, throwing the ships
into confusion right and left. This brought his own vessels into the
arrangement of two harrows, each pointing the apex against the
designated vessels of the opposing squadron. One of the harrows was to
be led by Collingwood in his ship called the "Royal Sovereign." Nelson
led his column in his flagship the "Victory." The preliminaries of the
battle extended to noon, and then the British attack was begun by
Collingwood, who bore down on the two opposing vessels, the "Santa
Anna" and the "Fougeux." Nelson also sailed to the attack in the
"Victory" and broke through the enemy's line between the "Redoubtable"
and the "Santissima Trinidad." The "Victory" in passing poured
terrible broad-sides into both vessels.
It seems that both the British admirals in going into battle outsailed
somewhat their supporting ships; but these soon came into action and
the battle line of the allied fleet was fatally broken at both points.
All the vessels were soon engaged, and the rear line of Villeneuve
gave way as well as the first. Nevertheless, the battle continued
furiously for about two hours. The "Santissima Trinidad" was at that
time the largest warship and the most formidable that had ever been
built. The "Redoubtable" was only second in strength and equipment.
Five or six others were men-of-war of the heaviest draught and metal.
The French and Spanish soldiers fought bravely, going into the battle
with flying streamers and answering shouts.
Nelson, utterly fearless, seems to have had a premonition of his fate.
He had made a hasty codicil to his will, and entered the struggle to
conquer or die. Both fates were reserved for him. From the beginning
of the battle the French and Spanish ships suffered terribly from the
British fire; but they also inflicted heavy losses on their
assailants. Here and there a French vessel was shattered and fell out
of the fight. Nelson was struck with a ball, but refused to go below.
Again he was hit in the shoulder by a musketeer from the masts of the
"Redoubtable" and fell to the deck. "They have done for me at last,
Hardy," said he to Sir Thomas Hardy, captain of the ship. He was
carried below by the officers, and as he lay bleeding the news was
brought to him that already _fifteen_ of the enemy's ships had
surrendered. "That is well," said the dying hero; "but I had bargained
for twenty." Then his thoughts turned to Lady Hamilton, to whom he was
devoted. "Take care of Lady Hamilton, Hardy; take care of poor Lady
Hamilton," said he, as the death dew dampened his brow. He then
embraced the captain and expired.
The victory of the British fleet was complete. The allies lost
nineteen ships. Admiral Gravina was killed, and Villeneuve was taken
prisoner. He never reacted from the mortification of his defeat, but
lingered until the following year, when he despaired of life and hope
and committed suicide. Nelson, in the midst of a pageant hitherto
unsurpassed, was buried in St. Paul's. The battle of Trafalgar passed
into history as the first and greatest naval conflict of the century.
CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ.
The first four years of the present century were a lull before a
tempest. These years covered on our side of the sea the administration
of the elder Adams. In Europe they corresponded to the period of the
transformation of the Consulate into the French Umpire. This change
was rapidly and easily effected. The star of Napoleon emerged from the
chaos and the cloud and rose rapidly to the zenith. But the mood of
the age was war, war. Could Europe in these first years have foreseen
the awful struggles that were just before, then Europe might well have
shuddered.
Now it was that the ascendancy of the Corsican brought in a reign of
violence and blood. Napoleon became the trampler of vineyards. His
armies made Europe into mire. England--agreeing at Amiens not to
fight--fought. Pitt, now in the last year of his life, used all of his
resources to bring about a league against France. He persuaded
Alexander of Russia, Francis of Austria, and Gustavus of Sweden--all
easy dupes of a greater than themselves--to make a new coalition. He
tried to induce Frederick William of Prussia to join his fortunes with
the rest; but the last-named monarch was for the time restrained by
the weakness of prudence. The agents of Napoleon held out to the king
suggestions of the restoration of Hanover to Prussia. But Austria and
Russia and Sweden pressed forward confidently to overthrow the new
French Empire. That Empire, they said, should not see the end of the
first year of its creation!
The Austrians were first in the field. The Russians, under Kutusoff,
came on into Pomerania from the east. Out of Sweden, with a large
army, came down Gustavus, the Don Quixote of the north, to crush
Bernadotte, who held Hanover. Napoleon for his part sprang forth for
the campaign of Austerlitz, perhaps the most brilliant military
episode in the history of mankind. With incredible facility he threw
forward to the Rhine an army of 180,000 men. His policy was--as
always--to overcome the allies in detail.
On the twenty-fourth of September, the Emperor left Paris. The Empress
and Talleyrand went with him as far as Strasburg. On the second of
October, hostilities began at Guntzburg. Four days afterward the
French army crossed the Danube. On the eighth of the month, Murat won
the battle of Wertingen, capturing Count Auffenberg, with 2000
prisoners. On the tenth the French had Augsburg, and on the twelfth,
Munich. On the fourteenth Soult triumphed at Memingen, capturing a
corps of 6000 Austrians; and on the same day Ney literally overran the
territory which was soon to become his Duchy of Elchingen. Napoleon
out-generaled the main division of the enemy at Ulm. The Austrians,
under General Mack, 33,000 strong, were cooped up in the town and, on
the seventeenth of October, forced to capitulate. Eight
field-marshals and generals, including the Prince Lichtenstein and
Generals Klenau and Fresnel, were made prisoners. "Soldiers of the
Grand Army," said Napoleon, "we have finished the campaign in a
fortnight!"
On the day of the capitulation of Ulm, Massena in Italy drove back the
army of the Archduke Charles. The Austrians to this date, in a period
of twenty days, had lost by battle and capture fully fifty thousand
men! On the twenty-seventh of October, the French army crossed the
Inn. Saltzburg and Braunau were taken. In Italy, Massena, on the
thirtieth, won the battle of Caldiero, and took 5000 prisoners. The
French closed toward the Austrian capital. On the thirteenth of
November, Napoleon, having obtained possession of the bridges of the
Danube, entered Vienna. He established himself in the imperial palace
of Schonbrunn. The Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire--which
was its shadowy penumbra--seemed to vanish like ghosts before him.
Out of Pomerania into Moravia, to the plain of Olmutz, the great
Russian army under the Czar and Kutusoff, came roaring. There they
were united with a heavy division of the Austrians, under the Emperor
Francis. The latter had fled from his capital, and staked his last
fortunes on a battle in the field. The allied army was 80,000 strong.
Napoleon, with 60,000 men, commanded by Soult, Lannes, Murat and
Bernadotte, advanced rapidly from the direction of Vienna, as far as
Brunn, and there awaited the onset.
Just beyond this town, at Austerlitz, the French were arranged in a
semicircle, with the convex front toward the allies, who occupied the
outer arc on a range of heights. Such was the situation on the night
of December 1, 1805. The morrow will be the first anniversary of our
coronation in Notre Dame--a glorious day for battle!
With the morning of the second, Napoleon could scarcely restrain his
ardor. The enthusiasm of the army knew no bounds. On the night before,
the Emperor, in his gray coat, had gone the circle of the camps, and
the soldiers, extemporizing straw torches to light the way, ran before
him. Looking eagerly through the gray dawn, he saw the enemy badly
arranged, or moving dangerously in broken masses under the cover of a
Moravian fog. Presently the fog lifted, and the sun burst out in
splendor. The onset of the French was irresistible. The allied centre
was pierced. The Austrian and Russian emperors with their armies were
sent flying in utter rout and panic from the field. Thirty thousand
Russians and Austrians were killed, wounded and taken. Alexander
barely escaped capture. Before sunset the Third Coalition was broken
into fragments and blown away. At the conference between Napoleon and
Francis, two days afterward, at the Mill of Sar-Uschitz, some of the
French officers overheard the father of Maria Louisa lie to her future
husband, thus: "I promise not to fight you any more."
"FRIEDLAND--1807."
Whoever visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park, New
York, is likely to pause before a great historical painting by Jean
Louis Ernest Meissonier. The picture is entitled "Friedland--1807."
There goes a critical opinion that, though common fame would have
Austerlitz to be the greatest battle of the Napoleonic wars, the palm
ought really to be given to Friedland. At any rate, the martial
splendor of that day has been caught by the vision and brush of
Meissonier, and delivered, in what is probably the most splendid
painting in America, to the immortality of art.
Let us note the great movements that preceded the climax of Friedland.
In the summer of 1806, the historical conditions in Europe favored a
general peace. Pitt was dead, and Fox agreed with Napoleon that a
peace might now be secured by the restoration of Hanover to England.
Suddenly, however, on the thirteenth of September, 1806, Fox died, and
by the incoming of Lauderdale the whole complexion was changed.
Toryism again ran rampant. The Anglo-Russo-Prussian intrigue was
renewed, and the rash Frederick William sent a peremptory challenge to
Napoleon to get himself out of Germany.
The Emperor had in truth agreed to withdraw his forces, but the Czar
Alexander had also agreed to relinquish certain vantage grounds which
he held--and had not done it. Therefore Napoleon's army corps would
remain in Germany. Frederick William suddenly declared war, and in a
month after the death of Fox, Napoleon concentrated in Saxe-Weimar an
army of a hundred thousand men. Then, on the fourteenth of October,
1806, was fought the dreadful battle of Jena, in which the Prussians
lost 12,000 in killed and wounded, and 15,000 prisoners. On the same
day, Davout fell upon a division of 50,000 under the Duke of Brunswick
and Frederick William in person, and won another signal victory which
cost the Germans about ten thousand men.
Prussia was utterly overwhelmed by the disaster. Her fortresses were
surrendered without resistance, and Napoleon, in less than a
fortnight, occupied Berlin. On the twenty-first of November, he issued
from that city his celebrated Berlin decree, declaring the British
Islands in a state of blockade, and interdicting all correspondence
and trade with England! The property of British subjects, under a wide
schedule of liabilities, was declared contraband of war.
Meanwhile the aid promised to Prussia by the Czar had been too slow
for the lightning that struck at Jena. The oncoming Russians reached
the Vistula, but were forced back by the victorious French, who took
possession of Warsaw. There the Emperor established his winter
quarters, and remained for nearly three months, engaged in the
preparation of new plans of conquest and new schemes for the
pacification of Europe.
After Jena, Prussia, though crushed, remained belligerent. Her
shattered forces drew off to the borders, and were joined by the
Russians in East Prussia. The campaign of 1807 opened here. On the
eighth of February, the French army, about 70,000 strong, advanced
against the allies, commanded by Benningsen and Lestocq. At the town
of Eylau, about twenty miles from Königsberg, a great but indecisive
battle was fought, in which each army suffered a loss of nearly
eighteen thousand men. The Russians and Prussians fell back about four
miles to Friedland, and both armies were reinforced, the French to
about eighty thousand, and the allies to approximately the same
number.
Here for a season the two great camps were pitched against each other.
The shock of Eylau and the inclemency of the spring, no less than the
political complications that thickened on every horizon, held back the
military movements until the beginning of summer. But at length the
crisis came. On the fourteenth of June was fought the great battle of
Friedland and the allied army was virtually destroyed. The loss of the
Russians and Prussians was more than twenty-five thousand men, while
the French loss was not quite eight thousand. Napoleon commanded in
person, and his triumph was prodigious.
Let not the visitor to the Metropolitan Museum fail to look long and
attentively on the picture of the scene which represents the beginning
of the battle on the side of the French. There on a slight elevation,
in the wheatfield of June, sitting on his white horse, with his
triangular hat lifted in silent salutation, surrounded by the princes
and marshals of his Empire, sits the sardonic somnambulist, while
before him on the left the Cuirassiers of the Guard, on their
tremendous horses gathered out of Normandy, plunging at full gallop,
bearing down through the broken wheat, with buglers in the van and
sabers flashing high and bearded mouths wide open with yellings that
resound through the world till now, charge wildly, irresistibly onward
against the unseen enemy, reckless alike of life and death, but
choosing rather death if only the marble face but smile!
UNDER THE RUSSIAN SNOWS.
The first empire of France was buried between the Niemen and Moscow.
The funeral was attended by vultures and Cossacks.
It was on the twenty-fourth of June, 1812, that Napoleon began the
invasion of Russia. The dividing line was the River Niemen. The
inhabitants fell back before him. He had not advanced far when he
encountered a new commander, with whom he was unfamiliar. It was
Field-Marshal Nature. Marshal Nature had an army that the Old Guard
had never confronted. His herald was Frost, and his aid-de-camp was
Zero. One of his army corps was Snow. His bellowing artillery was
charged with Lithuanian tempests. Hail was his grape and shrapnel. The
Emperor of the French had never studied Marshal Nature's tactics--not
even in the Alps.
The Russian summer was as midwinter to the soldiers of France and
Spain and Italy. Some of the invading divisions could hardly advance
at all. The howling storms made impassable the ungraded roads; the
1200 guns of the Grand Army sank into the mire. Horse-life and
man-life fell and perished in the sleet of the mock-summer that raged
along the watershed between the Dwina and the Dnieper.
The Russians under Kutusoff fell back to Smolensko. There on the
sixteenth of August they fought and were defeated with a loss of
nearly twelve thousand men. The way was thus opened as far as the
Moskwa. At that place on the seventh of September Kutusoff a second
time gave battle, at the village of Borodino. This was one of the most
murderous conflicts of modern times. A thousand cannon vomited death
all day. Under the smoke a quarter of a million of men struggled like
tigers. At nightfall the French had the field. The defeated Russians
hung sullenly around the arena where they had left more than 40,000 of
their dead and wounded. The Frence losses were almost equally
appalling. "Sire," said Marshal Ney, "we would better withdraw and
reform." "_Thou_ advise a retreat, Michel?" said the marble head, as
it turned to the Bulldog of Battles.
Kutusoff abandoned Moscow. The inhabitants receded with him to the
great plains eastward. On the fifteenth of September, Napoleon entered
the ancient capital. The streets were as a necropolis. All was
silence. The conqueror took up his residence in the old palace of the
Czars. Here he would spend the winter in luxurious quarters. Here he
would extemporize theatres, and here he would issue edicts as from
Berlin and Milan. Lo, out of the Bazaar, near the Kremlin, bursts a
volume of flame! The surrounding region is lighted with the glare.
Moscow is on fire in a thousand places. The equinoctial gales fan the
flame. For five days there is the roar of universal combustion. Then
it subsides. But Moscow is a blackened ruin. Napoleon tries in vain to
open negotiations with the Czar; but Alexander and Kutusoff will not
hear. The French are left to enjoy the ashes of a burnt-up Russian
city.
Already winter was at hand. The snow was falling. The soldier of
fortune had at last found his destiny. On the nineteenth of October,
he left Moscow, and the retreat of the Grand Army began toward the
Niemen. Had the retreat been unimpeded, that army might have made its
way back to France with comparatively trifling losses. Indeed the fame
of having burnt the old capital of the Czars might have satisfied the
conqueror with his expedition. But no sooner did he recede than the
Cossacks arose on every hand, and assailed the fugitives. The soldiers
of the West and South dropped and perished by thousands along the
frozen roads. The ice-darts in their sides were sharper than Russian
bayonets. A hundred and twenty thousand men rolled back horridly
across the hostile world. The bridges of the Beresina break down under
the retreating army, and in the following spring, when the ice-gorges
go down the river, 12,000 dead Frenchmen shall be washed up from the
floods!
There is constant battle on flank and rear. All stragglers perish. The
army dwindles away. It is almost destroyed. Ney brings up the rear
guard, wasted to a handful. At the passage of the Niemen, soiled with
dirt, blackened with smoke, without insignia, with only drawn sword,
and facing backward toward the hated region, the "Bravest of the
Brave" crosses the bridge. He is the last man to save himself from the
indescribable horrors of the Campaign of Russia.
The remnants of the Grand Army dragged themselves along until they
found refuge in Königsberg. Napoleon had gone ahead toward France.
After Moscow he took a sledge, and sped away across the snow-covered
wastes of Poland, on his solitary journey to Paris. There is a
painting of this scene by the Slavic artist Kowalski, which
represents the three black horses abreast, galloping with all speed
with the Emperor's sledge across the cheerless world which he
traversed. He came to his own capital unannounced. None knew of his
arrival until the next day. At four o'clock in the morning of that
day, some one entered his office at the Tuileries, and found him with
his war-map of Europe spread out on the floor before him. He was
planning another campaign! In doing so, he could hardly forget that
the Grand Army of his glory was under the Russian snows!
WATERLOO.
One battle in this century rises in fame above all other conflicts of
the ages. It is Waterloo.
It was on the night of the seventeenth of June, 1815, that the British
and French armies, drawing near each other on the borders of Belgium,
encamped, the one near the little village of Waterloo and the other at
La Belle Alliance. They were close together. A modern fieldpiece could
easily throw a shell from Napoleon's headquarters over La Haie Sainte
to Mont St. Jean, and far beyond into the forest. During the afternoon
of the seventeenth, and the greater part of the night, there was a
heavy fall of rain. On the following morning the ground was muddy.
The Emperor, viewing the situation, was unwilling to precipitate the
battle until his artillery might deploy over a dry field.
As to the temper of the Emperor, that was good. Hugo says of him:
"From the morning his impenetrability had been smiling, and on June
18, 1815, this profound soul, coated with granite, was radiant. The
man who had been sombre at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The
greatest predestined men offer these contradictions; for our joys are
a shadow and the supreme smile belongs to God.
"'Cæsar laughs, Pompey will weep,' the legionaries of the Fulminatrix
legion used to say. On this occasion Pompey was not destined to weep,
but it is certain that Cæsar laughed.
"At one o'clock in the morning, amid the rain and storm, he had
explored with Bertrand the hills near Rossomme, and was pleased to see
the long lines of English fires illumining the horizon from
Frischemont to Braine l'Alleud. It seemed to him as if destiny had
made an appointment with him on a fixed day and was punctual. He
stopped his horse and remained for some time motionless, looking at
the lightning and listening to the thunder. The fatalist was heard to
cast into the night the mysterious words, '_We are agreed_.' Napoleon
was mistaken; they no longer agreed."
The arena of Waterloo is an undulating plain. Strategically it has the
shape of an immense harrow. The clevis is on the height called Mont
St. Jean, where Wellington was posted with the British army. Behind
that is the village of Waterloo. The right leg of the harrow
terminates at the hamlet of La Belle Alliance. The left leg is the
road from Brussels to Nivelles. The cross-bar intersects the right leg
at La Haie Sainte. The right leg is the highway from Brussels to
Charleroi. The intersection of the bar with the left leg is near the
old stone chateau of Hougomont. The battle was fought on the line of
the cross-bar and in the triangle between it and the clevis.
The conflict began just before noon. The armies engaged were of equal
strength, numbering about 80,000 men on each side. Napoleon was
superior in artillery, but Wellington's soldiers had seen longer
service in the field. They were his veterans from the Peninsular War,
perhaps the stubbornest fighters in Europe. Napoleon's first plan was
to double back the allied left on the centre. This involved the
capture of La Haie Sainte, and, as a strategic corollary, the taking
of Hougomont. The latter place was first attacked. The field and wood
were carried, but the chateau was held in the midst of horrid carnage
by the British.
Early in the afternoon a Prussian division under Billow, about 10,000
strong, came on the field, and Napoleon had to withdraw a division
from his centre to repel the oncoming Germans. For two or three hours,
in the area between La Haie Sainte and Hougomont, the battle raged,
the lines swaying with uncertain fortune back and forth. La Haie
Sainte was taken and held by Ney. On the whole, the British lines
receded. Wellington's attempt to retake La Haie Sainte ended in a
repulse. Ney, on the counter charge, called on Napoleon for
reinforcements, and the latter at that moment, changing his plan of
battle, determined to make the principal charge on the British centre,
saying, however, "It is an hour too soon." The support which he sent
to Ney was not as heavy as it should have been, but the Marshal
concluded that the crisis was at hand, and Napoleon sought to support
him with Milhaud's cuirassiers and a division of the Middle Guard.
Under this counter charge the British lines reeled and staggered, but
still clung desperately to their position. They gave a little, and
then hung fast and could be moved no farther. In another part of the
field Durutte carried the allied position of Papelotte, and Lobau
routed Bülow from Planchenois. At half-past four everything seemed to
portend disaster to the allies and victory to the French.
If the tragedy of Waterloo had been left at that hour to work out its
own results as between France and England it would appear that the
latter must have gone to the wall; but destiny had prepared another
end for the conflict. Waterloo was a point of concentration. Several
tides had set thither, and some of them had already arrived and broken
on the rocks. Other tides were rolling in. The British wave had been
first, and this had now been rolled back by the tide of France. A
German wave was coming, however, and another French billow, either or
both of which might break at any moment.
On the morning of June 18, at the little town of Wavre, fifteen miles
southeast of Brussels and about eight or ten miles from Waterloo, a
battle had been fought between the French contingent under Marshal
Grouchy and the Prussian division under Thielmann, who commanded the
left wing of Marshal Blücher's army. That commander had a force of
fully forty thousand men under him, and was on his way to join his
forces with those of Wellington on the plateau of Mont St. Jean.
Grouchy had at this time between thirty and forty thousand men, and
was under orders from Napoleon to keep in touch with his right wing,
watching the Prussians and joining himself to the main army according
to the emergency.
These two divisions--Blücher's and Grouchy's--were _sliding along_
toward Waterloo, and on the afternoon of the eighteenth it became one
of the great questions in the history of this century which would
first arrive on the field. Napoleon believed that Grouchy was at hand.
Wellington in his desperation breathed out the wish that either night
or Blücher would come. The ambiguous result of the principal conflict
made it more than ever desirable to both of the commanders to gain
their reinforcements, each before the other. The event showed that the
arrival of Bülow's contingent was really the signal for the oncoming
of the whole Prussian army. The French Emperor, however, remained
confident, and at half-after four he felt warranted in sending a
preliminary despatch of victory to Paris.
Just at this juncture, however, an uproar was witnessed far to the
right. The woods seemed to open, and the banners of Blücher shot up in
the horizon. Grouchy was _not_ on his rear or flank! Napoleon saw at a
glance that it was then or never. His sun of Austerlitz hung low in
the west. The British centre must be broken, or the empire which he
had builded with his genius must pass away like a phantom. He called
out four battalions of the Middle and six of the Old Guard. In the
last fifteen years that Guard had been thrown a hundred times on the
enemies of France, and never yet repulsed. It deemed itself
invincible.
At seven o'clock, just as the June sun was sinking to the horizon, the
bugles sounded and the finest body of horsemen in Europe started to
its doom on the squares of Wellington. The grim horsemen rode to their
fate like heroes. The charge rolled on like an avalanche. It plunged
into the sunken road of O'Hain. It seemed to roll over. It rose from
the low grounds and broke on the British squares. They reeled under
the shock, then reformed and stood fast. Around and around those
immovable lines the soldiers of the Empire beat and beat in vain. It
was the war of races at its climax. It was the final death-grip of the
Gaul and the Teuton. The Old Guard recoiled. The wild cry of "_La
Garde recule_" was heard above the roar of battle. The crisis of the
Modern Era broke in blood and smoke, and the past was suddenly
victorious. The Guard was broken into flying squadrons. Ruin came with
the counter charge of the British. Ney, glorious in his despair,
sought to stay the tide. For an hour longer he was a spectacle to gods
and men. Five horses had been killed under him. He was on foot. He was
hatless. He clutched the hilt of a broken sword. He was covered with
dust and blood. But his grim face was set against the victorious
enemy in the hopeless and heroic struggle to rally his shattered
columns.
Meanwhile the Prussians rushed in from the right. Wellington's Guards
rose and charged. Havoc came down with the darkness. A single regiment
of the Old Guard was formed by Napoleon into a last square around
which to rally the fugitives. The Emperor stood in the midst and
declared his purpose to die with them. Marshal Soult forced him out of
the melee, and the famous square, commanded by Cambronne--flinging his
profane objurgation into the teeth of the English--perished with the
wild cry of "_Vive l'Empereur!_"
Hugo says that the panic of the French admits of an explanation; that
the disappearance of the great man was necessary for the advent of a
great age; that in the battle of Waterloo there was more than a storm,
that is, the bursting of a meteor. "At nightfall," he continues,
"Bernard and Bertrand seized by the skirt of his coat in a field near
Genappe a haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man, who, carried so far by the
current of the rout, had just dismounted, passed the bridle over his
arm, and was now with wandering eye returning alone to Waterloo. It
was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of a shattered dream!"
On the spot where French patriotism afterward planted the bronze lion
to commemorate forever the extinction of the Old Guard of the French
Empire, and of Napoleon the Great, the traveler from strange lands
pauses, at the distance of eighty years from the horrible cataclysm,
and reflects with wonder how within the memory of living men human
nature could have been raised by the passion of battle to such sublime
heroism as that displayed in these wheatfields and orchards where the
Old Guard of France sank into oblivion, but rose to immortal fame.
SEBASTOPOL.
In the fall of 1852 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince President of the
French Republic, about to become the French Empire, was invited to a
banquet by the Chamber of Commerce in Bordeaux. He was on his
triumphal tour through the South of France. At the banquet he spoke,
saying: "I accept with eagerness the opportunity afforded me by the
Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce for thanking your great city for its
cordial reception.... At present the nation surrounds me with its
sympathies.... To promote the welfare of the country, it is not
necessary to apply new systems, but the chief point above all is to
produce confidence in the present and security for the future. For
these reasons it seems France desires a return to the Empire. There is
one objection to which I must reply. Certain minds seem to entertain a
dread of war; certain persons say the Empire is only war. But I say
_the Empire is peace_."
The last four words of this extract became the motto of the Second
Empire. Everywhere the Prince President's saying was blown to the
world. "The Empire is peace" was published in the newspapers, echoed
on the stage, and preached from the pulpits.
But the Empire was _not_ peace. Just at this time Tennyson wrote his
poem against France, as follows:
"There is a sound of thunder afar,
Storm in the South that darkens the day--
Storm of battle and thunder of war;
Well if it do not roll our way!
Form, form; riflemen, form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!"
In less than a year the storm broke. It broke in Eastern Europe. Of
the personal forces that brought the breaking, the two principal were
the Czar Nicholas and the Emperor Louis Napoleon. In 1853 the Czar
demanded of the Sultan certain guarantees of the rights of the Greek
Christians in the Turkish provinces. This was refused, and the
Crimean War broke out on the Danube. The first power in Western Europe
to support the Sultan was France, while England and Sardinia came hard
after. There was an alliance of England and France in support of the
Turkish cause. In the bottom of the difficulty lay this question:
Whether Russia might now move forward, gain control of the Black Sea,
overawe the Porte, force her way through the Sea of Marmora into the
Mediterranean, and thus rectify the mistake of Peter the Great in
building his capital on the Gulf of Finland. All this and much more
was called _The Eastern Question_.
The coast of the Black Sea became the seat of the war that ensued. The
Russians posted themselves strongly in the Crimea. That peninsula was
commanded by the famous fortress of Sebastopol, situated at the
southwestern extremity. On the twenty-fifth of September, 1854, the
heights of Balaklava, lying south of the fortress, were seized by a
British division under command of Lord Raglan. In this way the
Russians were besieged; for the allied fleets had made their way into
the Black Sea, and the land side of Sebastopol was commanded by
Balaklava.
The siege that ensued lasted for nearly eleven months, and was one of
the most memorable of modern times. On two occasions the Russians
sallied forth and gave battle. The first conflict of this kind was on
the night of the twenty-fifth of October, 1854, at Balaklava. The
Russian attack on the English and Turks was at first successful, and
four redoubts were carried by the assailants. At the crisis of the
battle, however, the British Highlanders came into action, and the
Russians were repulsed. The latter did not attempt to renew the
attack, but fell back into their intrenchments. It was at this
juncture that the famous incident occurred of the Charge of the Light
Brigade, which was immortalized by Tennyson in his poem.
A few days after the battle of Balaklava occurred another hard
conflict at the village of Inkerman, at the head of the harbor of
Sebastopol. On the fifth of November, 1854, a strong force of Russians
descended from the heights, and were met by the allies on the slope
opposite the ruins of an ancient town, which occupied the site in the
times of Strabo. A severe battle ensued, in which the English and
French were victorious. Many other sorties were made from the
fortress, but were designed rather to delay the siege than with any
serious hope of breaking the investment. Sometimes the conflicts,
though desultory, were severe, taking the proportions of regular
battles. But nothing decisive was effected, until winter closed on
the scene, and brought upon both the besiegers and the besieged the
greatest hardships.
The sufferings of the allies, so far away from the source of supplies,
were at times beyond description. It is doubtful whether any other
siege of modern times has entailed such cruel privations upon a
civilized soldiery. At times the combined havoc of hunger, disease and
cold was seen in its worst work in the allied camps. The genius of
Elizabeth Butler has seized upon the morning "Roll Call," in the
Crimean snows of 1855, as the subject of a great painting in which to
depict the excess of human suffering and devotion--the acme of English
heroism in a foreign land.
Meanwhile, the allied lines around Sebastopol were considerably
contracted, and several serious assaults were made on the Russian
works. On the twenty-third of February the French in front of the
bastion, called the Malakhoff, assaulted that stronghold with great
valor, but were unsuccessful. On the eighteenth of the following June
an attempt was made to carry the Redan, a strong redoubt at the other
extreme of the Russian defences, but the assailants were again
repulsed. Then, on the sixteenth of August, followed the bloody battle
of Tehernaya, in which the Russians made a final effort to raise the
siege. With a force of 50,000 infantry and 6000 cavalry they threw
themselves on the allied position, but were beaten back with great
slaughter.
In the meantime, the trenches of the allies had been drawn so near the
Russian works that there was a fair prospect of carrying the bastions
by another assault. A terrible bombardment was begun on the fifth, and
continued to the eighth of September, when both the Redan and the
Malakhoff were taken by storm. But the struggle was desperate, and the
losses on both sides immense. The Russians blew up their
fortifications on the south side of the harbor, and retreated across
the bay. Nor did they afterward make any serious attempt to regain the
stronghold which the allies had wrested from them. The victors for
their part proceeded to destroy the docks, arsenals and shipyards of
Sebastopol, and, as far as possible, to prevent the future occupancy
of the place by the Russians as a seat of commerce and war.
The siege and capture of Sebastopol virtually ended the contest,
though the war lagged during the greater part of the ensuing year. On
the second of March, 1855, the Czar Nicholas died, and Alexander II.
came to the throne, predisposed to peace. It was not, however, until
the thirtieth of March, 1856, that the Treaty of Paris was concluded,
in which Russia was obliged to yield to the allied powers, among which
France held the first place.
The story of the Crimean War, and of the siege of Sebastopol in
particular, has passed into history as one of the great events, of the
century. The struggles at Balaklava, on the river Alma, at Inkerman,
and the storming of the Redan and the Malakhoff became the subjects of
great historical paintings, of poems and of songs, the echoes of which
are heard to the present day.
SADOWA.
From a military point of view, nothing in this century has been more
brilliantly successful than the campaign of Prussia into Bohemia
against the Austrians, culminating on the sixth of July, 1866, in the
great conflict called the battle of Sadowa or Königgrätz--the one or
the other from the two towns near which it was fought. The historical
painter, Wilhelm Camphausen, of the School of Düsseldorf, has left
among the art trophies of the world a painting of this battle which is
as true to the field and the combatants as anything which we recall
from the sublime leaves of historical art.
The scene represented is the triumphant conclusion of the battle. The
field is wide and stormy. In the centre, riding at full gallop with
his staff, is King William. Already he is receiving the cheers and
salutations of victory. By his side are seen the stalwart figures of
Bismarck, Von Roon, Von Moltke, the Crown Prince, Prince Frederick
Charles, and many others destined in the ensuing ten years to rise to
the heights of military fame. To the right of the group of commanders
charges the column of the Uhlans. The Austrians before are broken, and
falling into rout. Far to the left and in the distance may be seen the
half-obscured wrecks of battle.
This conflict proved to be the Waterloo of Austria. It was the climax
of the Seven Weeks' War. Already the Germans, under the leadership of
Prussia, were making haste toward empire. The activity and energy
displayed by the Prussian Government at this juncture were prodigious.
It was like the days of Frederick the Great come again. The trouble
with Austria had arisen about the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg
to the government of Holstein. Bismarck desired that that duchy should
be disposed of in one manner, while Austria was determined on another.
The German States were drawn into this controversy, and the support of
Italy was sought by each of the contestants. Prussia held out to
Italy the temptation of recovering Venice, as the reward of her
entrance into a Prusso-Italian alliance. This bait was sufficient. The
smaller German powers, with the exception of Oldenburg, Mecklenburg,
the Saxon States, and three Free Cities, took their stand with
Austria, and the German Diet approved of the Austrian demand. It
looked for the time as though Prussia, with the exception of the aid
of Italy, was to be left naked to all the winds of hostility. The
event showed, however, that that great power was now in her element.
She declared the action of the German Diet to be not only a menace,
but an act of overt hostilities. This was followed by an immediate
declaration of war against a foe that had nearly three times her
numerical strength.
On the fifteenth of June, 1866, King William called upon Saxony,
Hanover, Hesse-Cassel and Nassau to remain neutral in the impending
conflict, and gave them _twelve hours_ in which to decide! Receiving
no answer, he ordered the Prussians out of Holstein to seize Hanover.
This work was accomplished in two days. In another two days
Hesse-Cassel was occupied by an army from the Rhine, while at the same
time a third division of the Prussian forces was thrown into Dresden
and Leipsic. On the twenty-seventh of the month, a battle was fought
with the Hanoverians, in which the latter were at first successful,
but were soon overpowered and compelled to surrender. George V., King
of Hanover, fled for refuge to Vienna.
Within two weeks the field in the South was cleared, and the Prussian
army was turned upon Austria. King William's forces numbered 260,000
men. They were commanded by the Crown Prince, Prince Frederick
Charles, Von Moltke, Von Roon and General Bittenfeld. The King in
person and Bismarck were present with the advance. The impact was more
than Austria could stand. On the twenty-seventh and twenty-ninth of
June, Frederick Charles defeated the Austrian advance in four
indecisive engagements. Count Clam-Gallas, the Austrian general, was
obliged to fall back on the main body for support.
In these same days the Crown Prince gained several preliminary
successes over the principal Austrian army under Benedek. Then, on the
river Bistritz, on the sixth of July, came the great battle of Sadowa.
The opposing commanders in the beginning of the engagement were
Frederick Charles and Benedek. The battle began at eight in the
morning, and raged with the utmost fury until two in the afternoon.
Thus far the Prussians had gained but little advantage; but at that
hour the powerful division of the Crown Prince, which, like that of
Blücher at Waterloo, had been delayed by recent rains, appeared on the
Austrian right. The wing of Benedek's army was soon turned. Bittenfeld
then broke the left, and under a general advance of the Prussian lines
the Austrian centre gave way in confusion. The field was quickly
swept. The overthrow of the Austrian army became a ruinous rout, and
the out-flashing sun of evening looked upon a demoralized and flying
host, scattering in all directions before the victorious charges of
the Prussian cavalry.
The overwhelming victory of the Prussians was not without its rational
causes. Indeed the antecedents of victory may always be found if all
the facts of battle are known and analyzed. It remained for the battle
of Sadowa to demonstrate practically the superiority of the
needle-gun. This arm had been adopted by the Prussian government and
was now for the first time on a great scale brought to the crucial
test. Hitherto the old plan of muzzle-loading had been followed by all
the nations of Europe and America. In our country the Civil War had
come almost to its climax before breech-loading was generally
introduced. Austria had continued to use the old muzzle-loading
muskets. It seems surprising that nations, of whom intelligence and
self-interest may well be predicated, should continue in such a matter
as war to employ inefficient weaponry long after a superior arm has
been invented.
If one might have looked into the gunshop of M. Pauli at Paris in the
year 1814, he might have seen a gunsmith, twenty-seven years of age,
plying his trade under the patronage of Napoleon the Great. That
gunsmith was Johann Nicholas Von. Dreyse, of Sömmerda, who presently
became an inventor as well as a smith, and in 1824, having returned to
his own country, he took a patent for a new percussion method in
musketry. Three years afterward he invented a needle-gun, retaining
the muzzle-loading method. He continued his experimentation until
1836, when he made and patented the first breech-loading needle-gun
complete. This was done under the patronage of the Prussian
government. It was not until 1841, however, that this arm began to be
supplied for Prussian troops, and it was twenty-five years after that
date before the general adoption of this arm contributed to the rout
of the Austrians at Sadowa.
The Prussians being armed with needle-guns, were enabled to get the
double advantage of rapid firing by loading in a chamber at the
breech of the piece, and the equally great advantage of a long range
and most deadly missile; for in the cartridge of this gun the needle
runs through the charge, firing it first at the front of the chamber,
thus securing the whole force of the explosive, which burns backward
in the enclosed space and expends itself entirely on the projectile.
Those breech-loading pieces which fire the cartridge by percussion
against its back end have the disadvantage of the charge burning
forward, and thus wasting itself partly in the air after the bullet
has left the muzzle. This difficulty, however, has been overcome in
recent gunnery, and the needle-gun such as it was in the hands of King
William's soldiers at Sadowa, must now be regarded as a clumsy and
obsolete weapon.
The battle of Sadowa was to Francis Joseph the handwriting on the
wall; but he made vain exertions to save his tottering fabric. Now it
was that the shadow of a great hand was seen behind the conflict. It
was the hand of Bismarck. His scheme was the unification of Germany.
The NORTH GERMAN UNION was formed on the basis of Protestantism and
the unity of the German race. Already the Empire might be seen in the
distance.
CAPTURE OF MEXICO.
Whatever may be said of the justice of our war with Mexico, no
criticism can be offered as to the brilliancy of the result. The
campaign of General Scott against the ancient capital of the Aztecs,
was almost spectacular; certainly it was heroic.
On the ninth of March, 1847, the General, then nearly sixty-one years
of age, arrived at Vera Cruz, with an army of 12,000 men. That city
was taken in about a week, and the way was opened from the coast to
the capital. The advance began on the eighth of April, and ten days
afterward the rocky pass of Cerro Gordo was carried by assault. Santa
Anna barely escaped with his life, leaving behind 3000 prisoners, his
chest of private papers, and his _wooden leg!_
On the twenty-second of the same month, the strong castle of Perote,
crowning a peak of the Cordilleras, was taken without resistance. Then
the sacred city of Puebla was captured. On the seventh of August,
Scott, with his reduced forces, began his march over the crest of the
mountains against the city of Mexico. The American army, sweeping over
the heights, looked down on the valley. Never before had a soldiery in
a foreign land beheld a grander scene Clear to the horizon stretched
a living landscape of green fields, villages, and lakes--a picture too
beautiful to be marred with the dreadful enginery of war.
The American army advanced by the way of Ayotla. The route was the
great national road from Vera Cruz to Mexico. The last fifteen miles
of the way was occupied with fortifications, both natural and
artificial, and it seemed impossible to advance directly to the gates
of the city. The army was accordingly brought around Lake Chalco, and
thence westward to San Augustine. This place is ten miles from the
capital. The approach now lay along causeways, across marshes and the
beds of bygone lakes. At the further end of each causeway, the
Mexicans had built massive gates. There were almost inaccessible
positions at Contreras, San Antonio and Molino del Rey. Further on
toward the city lay the powerful bulwarks of Churubusco and
Chapultepec. The latter was of great strength, and seemed impregnable.
These various outposts were held by Santa Anna with a force of fully
thirty thousand Mexicans.
The first assaults of the Americans were made on the nineteenth of
August, by Generals Pillow and Twiggs. The line of communications
between Contreras and Santa Anna's army was cut, and in the darkness
of the following night an assault was made by General Persifer F.
Smith, who about sunrise carried the place and drove the garrison
pell-mell. This was the _first_ victory of the memorable twentieth of
August.
A few hours later, General Worth compelled the evacuation of San
Antonio. This was the _second_ victory. About the same time, General
Pillow advanced on Churubusco, and carried one of the heights. The
position was taken by storm, and the enemy scattered like chaff. This
was the _third_ triumph. The division of General Twiggs added a
_fourth_ victory by storming and holding another height of Churubusco,
while the _fifth_ and last was achieved by General Shields and Pierce,
who drove back an army of reinforcements under Santa Anna. The
Mexicans were thus forced back into the fortifications of Chapultepec.
On the following morning, the alarm and treachery of the Mexican
authorities were both strongly exhibited. A deputation came out to
negotiate; but the intent was merely to gain time for strengthening
the defences. The terms proposed by the Mexicans were preposterous
when viewed in the light of the situation. General Scott, who did not
consider his army vanquished, rejected the proposals with scorn. He,
however, rested his men until the seventh of September before
renewing hostilities. On the morning of the eighth, General Worth was
thrown forward to take Molino del Rey and Casa de Mata, which were the
western defences of Chapultepec. These places were defended by about
fourteen thousand Mexicans; but the Americans, after losing a fourth
of their number in the desperate onset, were again victorious. The
batteries were now turned on Chapultepec itself, and on the thirteenth
of September that frowning citadel was carried by storm. This exploit
opened an avenue into the city. Through the San Cosine and Belen gates
the conquering army swept resistlessly, and at nightfall the soldiers
of the Union were in the suburbs of Mexico.
During the night, Santa Anna and the officers of the Government fled
from the city, but not until they had turned loose from the prisons
2000 convicts, to fire upon the American army. On the following
morning, before day-dawn, a deputation came forth from the city to beg
for mercy. This time the messengers were in earnest; but General
Scott, wearied with trifling, turned them away with disgust.
"_Forward!_" was the order that rang along the American lines at
sunrise. The war-worn regiments swept into the beautiful streets of
the famous city, and at seven o'clock the flag of the United States
floated over the halls of the Montezumas. It was the triumphant
ending of one of the most brilliant and striking campaigns of modern
history.
The American army, as compared with the hosts of Mexico, had been but
a handful. The small force which had left Vera Cruz on the march to
the capital had lost considerably by battle and disease. Many
detachments had been posted _en route_ to hold the line of
communications, and for garrison duty in places taken from the enemy.
The army had thus dwindled until, after the battles of Churubusco and
Chapultepec, _fewer than six thousand men_ were left to enter and hold
the capital.
The invasion had been remarkable in all its particulars. The obstacles
which had to be overcome seemed insurmountable. There were walled
cities to be taken, fortified mountain passes to be carried by storm,
and frowning castles with cannon on the battlements to be assaulted by
regiments whose valor and impetuosity were their only protection and
warrant of victory. Yet the campaign was never seriously impeded. No
foot of ground once taken from the Mexicans was yielded by false
tactics or lost by battle.
The army which accomplished this marvel, penetrating a far-distant and
densely peopled country, held by a proud race, claiming to be the
descendants of Cortes and the Spanish heroes of the sixteenth
century, and denouncing at the outset the American soldiers as
"barbarians of the North," was, in large part, an army of
volunteers--a citizen soldiery--which had risen from the States of the
Union and marched to the Mexican border under the Union flag.
VICKSBURG.
The story goes that on a certain occasion some friends of General
Grant, anxious to make him talk about himself--something he would
hardly ever do--said: "General, at what time in your military career
did you perceive that you were the coming man--that you were to have
the responsibility and fame of the command-in-chief and end the war?"
For little while the General smoked on, and then said, "_After
Vicksburg!_"
Certain it is that the star of Grant, long obscured and struggling
through storm and darkness, never emerged into clear light, rising in
the ascendant, until after the capture of the stronghold of the
Confederates on the Mississippi. After that it rose, and rose to the
zenith.
The position of Vicksburg is hard to understand. The river at this
place makes a bend to the north and then turns south again, leaving a
delta, or peninsula, on the Louisiana side. Vicksburg occupies a kind
of shoulder on the Mississippi side. The site is commanding. The river
flows by the bluffs, as if to acknowledge its subjection to them. From
the beginning of the war the Confederate authorities recognized the
vast importance of holding this key to the great inland artery, and
the Federal Government saw the necessity of clutching it from the
enemy.
The mouth of the Mississippi was soon regained by the Government, so
that there was no serious obstruction as far north as where the
northern border of Louisiana crosses the river. From the north the
Federal fleets and land forces made their way along the Tennessee
border, and then the Arkansas border; but in the middle, between the
twenty-second and thirty-third parallels, the Confederates got a
strong grip on the Father of Waters, and would not relinquish their
hold. Jackson, the capital of the State, was in their power also, and
from Jackson eastward the great thoroughfare extended into Alabama,
and thence expanded in its connections into all the Confederacy. From
Jackson to Vicksburg reached the same line of communications, so that
here, at Vicksburg, the Confederate power, having its seat in Richmond
and its energy in the field, reached directly to the Mississippi
river, and laid upon that stream a band of iron which the Union must
break in order to pass.
Such was the situation at the beginning of 1863. General Grant, who
had been under a cloud since Shiloh, had gradually regained his
command, and to him fell the task of breaking the Confederate hold on
the great river. He has himself in his _Memoirs_ told the story of the
Vicksburg campaign. He managed, by herculean exertions, to get his
forces below Vicksburg, and then began his campaign from Grand Gulf
inland toward the line of communication between Jackson and Vicksburg.
It was some time before the Confederates took the alarm. When they did
become alarmed about Grant's movements, General J.E. Johnston, who
commanded at Jackson, and General J.C. Pemberton, who was in command
at Vicksburg; made the most unwearied efforts to keep open the line of
communications upon which the safety of Jackson and the success of
Pemberton depended.
But Grant pressed on in a northwesterly direction until he came upon
Pemberton in a position which he had chosen at Champion's Hill. Here,
without doubt, was fought one of the critical battles of the Union
war. If General Pemberton had been successful, that success would seem
to have portended the end of Grant's military career. But a different
fate was reserved for the combatants. Grant's army was strong, and had
become seasoned by hardship into the veteran condition. His under
officers--Logan, McPherson, Hovey, McClernand and A.J. Smith--were in
full spirit of battle. The engagement was severely contested. The
Union army, actually engaged, numbered 15,000, and Pemberton's forces
were about equal in number; but the latter were disastrously defeated.
The losses were excessive in proportion to the numbers engaged.
The Confederates now fell back to Big Black river. Their line of
communication with Jackson was cut. A second battle was fought at Big
Black River, and then, on the eighteenth of May, the victorious Union
army surrounded Vicksburg, and the siege was begun. The siege lasted
forty-seven days, and was marked by heroic resistance on the one side
and heroic pertinacity on the other, to the degree of making it one of
the memorable events in the military annals of the world. Gradually
the Union lines were narrowed around the doomed town. Ever nearer and
nearer the lines of riflepits were drawn. Day by day the resources of
the Confederates were reduced. But their defences were strong, and
their courage for a long time unabated.
General Pemberton hoped and expected that an attack on Grant's rear
would be made in such force as to loosen his grip, and to enable
the besieged to rise against the besiegers and break through. The
Confederates, however, had not sufficient forces for such an
enterprise. General Lee, in the East, had now undertaken the
campaign of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy was already strained
in every nerve. General Grant had the way open for supplies and
re-enforcements. The siege was pressed with the utmost vigor, and
Pemberton was left to his fate.
Meanwhile, however, two unsuccessful assaults were made on the
Confederate works. The first of these occurred on the day after the
investment was completed. It was unsuccessful. The Union army was
flung back from the impregnable defences in the rear of Vicksburg, and
great losses were inflicted on them. Grant, however, was undismayed,
and, still believing that the enemy's line might be broken by assault,
renewed the attempt in a gallant attack on the twenty-second of May. A
furious cannonade was kept up for several hours, and then the
divisions of Sherman, McPherson and McClernand were thrown forward
upon the earthworks of the enemy.
It was here that General McClernand reported to the commander that he
had gained the Confederate intrenchments. General Grant says: "I
occupied a position from which I thought I could see as well as he
what took place in his front; and I did not see the success he
reported. But his request for reinforcements being repeated, I could
not ignore it, and sent him Quinby's division. Sherman and McPherson
were both ordered to renew their assaults in favor of McClernand. This
last attack only served to increase our casualties, without giving any
benefit whatever." In these attacks large numbers of the Federal
soldiers had got into the low ground intervening, under the enemy's
fire, and had to remain in that position until darkness enabled them
to retire. The Union losses were very heavy, and General Grant, years
afterward, in composing his _Memoirs_, referred to this assault and to
that at Cold Harbor as the two conspicuous mistakes of his military
career.
Now it was that the regular siege of Vicksburg was undertaken. Toward
the latter part of June, the Confederates, both soldiers and citizens,
began to suffer. Houses became untenable. The people sought what
refuge they might find. Some actually burrowed in the earth. The
garrison was placed on short rations, and then a condition of
starvation ensued. Pemberton held out with a resolution worthy of a
better fate. But at length human endurance could go no further. On
the fourth of July the white flag was hoisted from the Confederate
works, announcing the end. Generals Grant and Pemberton, with three or
four attendants each, met between the lines, and the terms of
capitulation were quickly named and accepted. Vicksburg was
surrendered. General Pemberton and all his forces, 30,000 strong,
became prisoners of war.
This was the greatest force ever surrendered in America, though it was
only about one-sixth of that of Marshal Bazaine and his army at Metz
seven years afterward. Thousands of small arms, hundreds of cannon,
and all the remaining ammunition and stores of the Confederates were
the other fruits of this great Union victory, by which the prospect of
ultimate success to the Confederacy was either destroyed or long
postponed, and by which in particular the great central river of the
United States was permitted once more to flow unvexed from the
confluence of the Missouri to the Gulf.
GETTYSBURG.
The battle of Gettysburg is properly included among the great battles
of the world. It was the greatest conflict that has thus far occurred
in America. The losses relative to the numbers engaged were not as
great as those at Antietam, Spottsylvania, and a few other bloody
struggles of our war; but in the aggregate the losses were greatest.
Gettysburg was in truth the high tide of the American Civil War. Never
before and never afterward was there a crisis such as that which broke
in the dreadful struggle for the mastery of Cemetery Ridge.
The invasion of the Northern States by General Lee had been undertaken
at the close of the previous summer. That invasion had ended
disastrously at the battle of Antietam. Once more the Confederate
commander would make the trial. So well had he been able to beat back
every invasion of Virginia by the Union forces that he now thought to
end the war by turning its tide of devastation into Pennsylvania.
Doubtless Lee realized that he was placing everything upon the cast of
a die. He undertook the campaign with a measure of confidence. He,
almost as much as Grant, was a taciturn man, not much given to
revelations of his purposes and hopes. No doubt he was somewhat
surprised at the successful rising of the Union forces against him.
Besides the Army of the Potomac, Pennsylvania seemed to rise for the
emergency.
It has not generally been observed that before the great battle
General Meade was in a position seriously to threaten the Confederate
rear. Armies in the field rarely meet each other at the place and time
expected. There is always something obscure and uncertain in the
oncoming of the actual conflict. The fact is that General Lee was
receding somewhat at the time of the crisis. Then it was that he
determined to fight a great battle, and if successful then march on
Washington. Should he not be successful, he would keep a way open by
direct route for retreat into Virginia.
By the first of July, 1863, a situation had been prepared which
signified a decisive battle with far-reaching consequences to the one
side or the other, accordingly as victory should incline to this or to
that. By this date General Reynolds, who commanded the advance line of
the Union army, met the corresponding line of the Confederates at the
village of Gettysburg, and the rest followed as if by logical
necessity.
On July 1 and 2, the great body of the Union and Confederate armies
came up to the position where battle had already begun between the
advance divisions and the pressure of the one side upon the other
became greater and greater with each hour. At the first the
Confederate impact was strongest. General Reynolds was killed.
Reinforcements were hurried up on both sides. General Howard, who
succeeded Reynolds, selected Cemetery Hill, south of the town of
Gettysburg, and there established the Union line.
General Meade arrived on the field on the afternoon of the first, and
the two armies were thrown rapidly into position. That of the Federals
extended in the form of a fishhook from Little Round Top by way of
Round Top and along Cemetery Ridge through the cemetery itself, by the
way of the gate, and then bending to the right, formed the bowl of the
hook, which extended around as far as Culp's Hill and Wolf Creek. The
ground was elevated and the convexity was toward the enemy.
By nightfall of the first, both armies were in state of readiness for
the conflict. The Union army was on the defensive. It was sufficient
that it should hold its ground and repel all assault. The Confederates
must advance and carry the Federal position in order to succeed. How
this should be done was not agreed on by the Confederate commanders.
General Lee formed a plan of direct assault; but General Longstreet
was of opinion that a movement of the army to the Union left flank
would be preferable, and that by that method the flank might be turned
and the position of Meade carried with less loss and much less hazard.
Longstreet, however, did not oppose the views of his commander to the
extent of thwarting his purpose or weakening the plan adopted. On the
second of July the battle began in earnest about noon. The
Confederates advanced against the Union centre and left, and at a
later hour a strenuous and partly successful attack was made on the
Federal right. But complete success was not attained by Lee in any
part of the field. About sundown the Confederates gained considerable
advantage against Slocum, who held the line along Wolf Hill and Rock
Creek; and on the Union left a terrible struggle occurred for the
possession of Great and Little Round Top. In this part of the field
the fighting continued until six o'clock in the evening; but the
critical positions still remained in the hands of the Federals.
In the centre the contest was waged for the mastery of Cemetery Hill,
which was the key to the Union position. Here were planted batteries
with an aggregate of eighty guns, and here, though the assaults of the
Confederates were desperate and long continued, the integrity of the
Federal line was preserved till nightfall. The fighting along a front
of nearly five miles in extent continued in a desultory manner until
about ten o'clock on the July night, when the firing for the most part
ceased, leaving the two armies in virtually the same position which
they had occupied the day before.
This signified, however, that thus far the advantage was on the Union
side; for on that side the battle was defensive. The Confederate army
had come to a wall, and must break through or suffer defeat. The
burden of attack rested on the Confederate side; but General Lee did
not flinch from the necessity. In the darkness of night both he and
the Union commanders made strenuous preparations for the renewal of
the struggle on the morrow.
On the morning of the third both armies seemed loath to begin the
conflict. This phenomenon is nearly always witnessed in the case of
really critical battles. It was so at Waterloo, and so at Gettysburg.
It seems that in such crises the commanders, well aware of what is to
come, wait awhile, as though each would permit the other to strike
first. As a matter of fact, the topmost crest of the Civil War had now
been reached; and from this hour the one cause or the other must
decline to the end.
The whole forenoon of the third of July was spent in preparations.
There was but little fighting, and that little was desultory. At
midday there seemed to be a lull along the whole line. Just afterward,
however, General Lee opened from Seminary Ridge with about one hundred
guns, directing his fire against the Union centre on Cemetery Hill.
There the counter position was occupied by the American artillery of
about equal strength, under command of General Hunt. The cannonade
burst out at one o'clock with terrific roar. Nothing like it had ever
before been seen or heard in the New World. Nothing like it, we
believe, had ever up to that time been witnessed in Europe. Certainly
there was no such cannonade at Waterloo. For about an hour and a half
this tremendous vomit of shot and shell continued. It was the hope of
General Lee to pound the Union batteries to pieces, and then, while
horror and death were still supreme in the Union centre, to thrust
forward an overwhelming mass of his best infantry into the gap, cut
Meade's army in two, plant the Confederate banner on the crest of the
Union battle line, and virtually then and there achieve the
independence of the Confederate States.
It seems that an action of General Hunt, about half-past two,
flattered Lee with the belief that he had succeeded. Hunt adopted the
plan of drawing back his batteries over the crest of the hill, for the
double purpose of cooling his guns that were becoming overheated and
of saving his supply of ammunition, that was running low. The Union
fire accordingly slackened and almost ceased for a while. Nor was Lee
able to discover from his position but what his batteries under
General Alexander had prevailed. It looked for the moment as though
the battle were lost to Meade, and that victory was in the clutch of
his antagonist.
Already a Confederate charge of infantry had been prepared. About
18,000 men, in three divisions, under Armistead, Garnett and
Pettigrew, and led by General George E. Pickett, of Virginia, had been
got into readiness for the crisis which had now arrived. Longstreet
was the corps commander, and through him the order for the charge
should be given. General Lee had himself made the order, but
Longstreet seeing, as he believed the inevitable, hesitated and turned
aside. It was not a refusal to send an army to destruction, but the
natural hesitation of a really great commander to do what he believed
was fatal to the Confederate cause. Pickett, however, gave his
salutation to Longstreet, and presently said: "Sir, I am going to move
forward!"
Then began the most memorable charge ever witnessed in America. The
Confederate column was three-fourths of a mile in length. It was
directed against the Union centre, where it was supposed the
Confederate fire had done its work. What ensued was the finest
military spectacle that had been seen in the world since the charge of
the Old Guard at Waterloo; and the results were alike! The brave men
who made the onset were mowed down as they crossed rapidly the
intervening space. Hunt's batteries were quickly run back to their
position, and began to discharge their deadly contents against the
head of the oncoming column. That column veered somewhat to the right
as it came. The line staggered, but pressed on. It came within the
range of the Union musketry. Gaps opened here and there. Armistead,
who led the advance, saw his forces sink to the earth; but he did not
waver. Nearer and nearer the column came to the Union line. It
_struck_ the Union line. There was a momentary melee among the guns,
and then all was over. Hancock's infantry rose with flash on flash
from among the rocks by which they were partially protected. The
Confederates were scattered in broken groups. Retreat was well-nigh
impossible. The impact of the charge was utterly broken, and the
Confederate line was blown into rout and ruin. Victory hovered over
the National army. The Confederate forces staggered away under the
blow of defeat. Night came down on a broken and virtually hopeless
cause. The field was covered with the dead and dying. Two thousand
eight hundred and thirty-four Union soldiers had been killed outright;
13,709 were wounded, and 6643 were missing, making a total of 23,186
men. The Confederate loss was never definitely ascertained, but was
greatly in excess of that of the Federals. The best estimate has been
fixed at 31,621. The grand total of losses in those fatal three days
thus reached the enormous aggregate of 54,807!
SPOTTSYLVANIA.
A losing cause never showed a braver front than the Confederacy put on
in the Wilderness. It was a front of iron. A man weaker than Grant
would have quailed before it. It was virtually the same old rim of
fire and death that had confronted McClellan, that had consumed Pope,
that almost destroyed both Hooker and Burnside. Either the Union army
must go through this barrier of flame and destruction and scatter it
like brands of fire to right and left, or else the Union could never
be rebuilded on the foundation of victory.
There was much discussion--and some doubt--in the spring of 1864
whether the Silent Man of Galena, now made Commander-in-chief of the
Union armies, could pursue his military destiny to a great fame with
Robert E. Lee for his antagonist. This talk was bruited abroad; Grant
himself heard it, and had to consider what not a few people were
saying, namely, that he had had before him in the West as leaders of
the enemy only such men as Buckner and Beauregard and Pemberton; now
he must stand up face to face with "Old Bobby Lee" and take the blows
of the great Virginian against whom neither strategy nor force had
hitherto prevailed.
The Man of Galena did not quail. Neither did he doubt. His pictures of
this epoch show him with mouth more close shut than ever; but
otherwise there was no sign. Lee for his part knew that another foeman
was now come, and if we mistake not he divined that the end of the
Confederacy, involving the end of his own military career, was not far
ahead. It is to the credit of his genius that he did not weaken under
such a situation and despair ere the ordeal came upon him; but on the
contrary, he planted himself in the Wilderness and awaited the coming
of the storm.
Let the world know that Grant in entering upon his great campaign, in
the first days of May, 1864, had to do so against the greatest
disadvantages. The country south of the Rappahannock was against him.
The fact of Lee's acting ever on the defensive was against him. The
woods and the rivers were against him. All Virginia, from the Rapidan
to Richmond, was a rifle-pit and an earthwork. The Confederates knew
every hill and ravine as though they were the orchard and the fishing
creek of their own homes. The battlefield was theirs, to begin with;
it must be taken from them or remain theirs forever. To take a
battlefield of their own from Virginians has never been a pleasing
task to those who did it--or more frequently tried to do it and did
not!
It remained for Grant and his tremendous Union army to undertake this
herculean task. He moved into the Wilderness and fought a two-days'
battle of the greatest severity. The contest of the fifth and sixth of
May were murderous in character. The National losses in these two days
in killed, wounded and missing were not less than 14,000; those of the
Confederates were almost as great. In this struggle General Alexander
Hays was killed; Generals Getty, Baxter and McAlister were wounded,
and scores of under-officers, with thousands of brave men, lost their
lives or limbs. Now it was that Lee is reported to have said to his
officers, with a serious look on his iron face: "Gentlemen, at last
the Army of the Potomac has a head."
On the seventh of May there was not much fighting. It is said that in
the lull Grant's leading commanders thought he would recede, as his
predecessors had done, and that not a few of them gave it as their
opinion that he should do so. It is said that when coming to the
Chancellorsville House, he gave the command, "Forward, by the left
flank," thus demonstrating his purpose, as he said four days afterward
in his despatch to the government, "to fight it out on that line if
it took all summer," the soldiers gave a sigh of relief, and many
began to sing at the prospect of no more retreating. General Sherman
has recorded his belief that at this juncture Grant best displayed his
greatness.
With the movement which we have just mentioned, the next stage in the
campaign would bring both the Union and the Confederate armies to
Spottsylvania Courthouse. The distance that each had to march to that
point was about the same. It was at this juncture that the woods in
which the two armies were moving, Grant to the left and Lee to the
right, took fire and were burned. When the Union advance came in sight
of Spottsylvania, Warren, who commanded, found that the place had been
already occupied by the vigilant enemy. Hancock did not arrive in time
to make an immediate attack, and Longstreet's corps was able to get
into position before the pressure of the Union advance could be felt.
At this juncture Sheridan, in command of the Federal cavalry, was cut
loose from the Union army and sent whirling with irresistible speed
and momentum entirely around the rear of the Confederate army,
destroying railroads, cutting communication, burning trains and
liberating prisoners, as far as the very suburbs of Richmond.
The main divisions of the Union army came into position before
Spottsylvania. Hancock had the right wing, and upon his left rested
Warren. Sedgwick's corps was next in order, while Burnside held the
left. Just as the commanders were forming their lines and some men at
a Union battery seemed to shrink from the Confederate sharpshooters,
Sedgwick went forward to encourage them, saying, "Men, they couldn't
hit an elephant at that distance." But the next instant he himself
fell dead! His command of the Sixth Corps was transferred to General
Wright.
It now remained for Hancock on the extreme right to attack the
Confederate left. This was done by Barlow's division, but without
success. This attack and repulse was the real beginning of the battle
of Spottsylvania. The Confederates in front were strongly intrenched,
but near the northernmost point of their works what was thought to be
a weak point in the line was discovered. This point was what is known
as a _salient_. The position, however, was in the thick woods, or was
at any rate concealed by the woods and ravines in front.
As soon as the position was discovered and its nature known, a large
part of Wright's corps was sent against it. The attack was successful.
The line was carried, and about a thousand men captured in the
assault. But the reinforcements were not up promptly, and the
assailants were driven back. A second assault ended in the same way.
This fighting was on the evening of the tenth of May. The battle
continued into the night, and the event hung dubious.
On the eleventh there was a heavy rain, but during that day General
Grant, who placed great confidence in General Hancock and his corps,
moved that brilliant officer to the point of attack before the
_salient_. With the early light on the morning of the twelfth, Hancock
sprang forward to the assault. So sudden and powerful was the charge
that one-half of the distance had been traversed before the enemy knew
what was coming. Then the storm burst wildly. The yell arose from one
side, and the cheer from the other. Hancock's men in great force and
with invincible courage sprang upon the breast-works, clubbed their
guns, or went over bayonet foremost. They were met on the other side
in like manner. The melee that ensued was perhaps the most dreadful
hand-to-hand conflict of the war. The impetus of the Union attack was
irresistible. Great numbers were killed on both sides, and the
Confederates were overpowered.
General Edward Johnson and his division of about four thousand men
were captured in the angle. General Stuart was also taken. He and
Hancock had been friends in their student days at West Point. The
story goes that Hancock, recognizing his prisoner, said, "How are
you, Stuart?" and offered his hand. The hot Confederate answered, "I
am _General_ Stuart of the Confederate army, and under the
circumstances I decline to take your hand." Hancock answered, "Under
any other circumstances I should not have offered it!"
But there was no time for bantering. The very earth round about was in
the chaos of roaring battle. Hancock had taken twenty guns with their
horses, and about thirty battle flags. It was a tremendous capture, if
he could hold his ground. No officer of the Union army ever showed to
better advantage. The world may well forgive the touch of vanity and
bluster in the undaunted Hancock, as he sent this despatch to Grant:
"I have used up Johnson and am going into Hill." He found, however,
that he should have terrible work even to keep the gain that he had
made.
Lee no sooner perceived what was done than he threw heavy masses upon
the position to retake it from the captors. Hancock was now on the
wrong side of the angle! The Confederates came on during the day in
five successive charges, the like of which for valor was hardly ever
witnessed. The contested ground was literally piled with dead. There
was hand-to-hand fighting. Men bayoneted each other through the
crevices of the logs that had been piled up for defences. The storm
of battle swept back and forth until the salient gained that name of
"Death Angle" by which it will ever be known. The place became then
and there the bloodiest spot that ever was washed with human life in
America. The bushes and trees round about were literally shot away. At
one point an oak tree, more than eighteen inches in diameter, was
completely eaten off at the man-level by the bullet storm that beat
against it. That tree in its fall crushed several men of a South
Carolina regiment who still stood and fought in the death harvest that
was going on.
The counter assaults of the Confederates, however, were in vain. They
inflicted terrible losses, and were themselves mowed down by
thousands; but they could not and did not retake the angle. Hancock
and his heroes could not be dislodged. The battle of Spottsylvania
died away with the night into sullen and awful silence, which was
broken only by the groans of thousands of wounded men who could not be
recovered from the bloody earth on which they had fallen. The
antagonists lay crouching like lions, only a lion's spring apart, and
neither would suffer the other, even for the sake of their common
American humanity, to recover his dead.
In the retrospect it seems marvelous that within the memories of men
now living and not yet old, so awful a struggle as that of the Death
Angle in the Wilderness could have taken place between men of the same
race and language, born under the flag of the same Republic, and
cherishing the same sentiments and traditions and hopes.
APPOMATTOX.
Appomattox was not a battle, but the end of battles. Fondly do we hope
that never again shall Americans lift against Americans the avenging
hand in such a strife! Here at a little court-house, twenty-five miles
east of Lynchburg, on the ninth of April, 1865, the great tragedy of
our civil war was brought to a happy end. Here General Robert E. Lee,
with the broken fragments of his Army of Northern Virginia, was
brought by the inexorable logic of war to the end of that career which
he had so bravely followed through four years of battle, much of which
had shown him to be one of the great commanders of the century.
The story of the downfall of the Confederacy has been many times
repeated. It has entered into our literature, and is known by heart
wherever the history of the war is read. Generally, however, this
story has been told as if the narrator approached the event from the
Union side. We have the pursuit of General Lee from Petersburg
westward, almost to the spurs of the Alleghanies. We follow in the
wake. We see the unwearied efforts of the victorious host to close
around the retreating army which has so long been the bulwark of the
Confederacy. We hear the summons to surrender, and the answer of "_Not
yet_;" but within a day that answer is reversed, and the stern wills
of Lee and his fellow-commanders yield to the inexorable law of the
strongest.
Only recently, however, the story has been told with great spirit from
the Confederate side, by General John B. Gordon, who was at that time
at the right hand of his commander-in-chief, and who stood by him to
the last hour. General Gordon's account of the final struggle of the
Confederate army and of the surrender is so graphic, so full of
spirit, so warmed with the animation and devotion of a great soldier,
that we here repeat his account of
THE DEATH STRUGGLE.
We always retreated in good order, though always under fire. As we
retreated we would wheel and fire, or repel a rush, and then stagger
on to the next hilltop, or vantage ground, where a new fight would be
made. And so on through the entire day. At night my men had no rest.
We marched through the night in order to get a little respite from
fighting. All night long I would see my poor fellows hobbling along,
prying wagons or artillery out of the mud, and supplementing the work
of our broken-down horses. At dawn, though, they would be in line
ready for battle, and they would fight with the steadiness and valor
of the Old Guard.
This lasted until the night of the seventh of April. The retreat of
Lee's army was lit up with the fire and flash of battle, in which my
brave men moved about like demigods for five days and nights. Then we
were sent to the front for a rest, and Longstreet was ordered to cover
the retreating army. On the evening of the eighth, when I had reached
the front, my scout George brought me two men in Confederate uniform,
who, he said, he believed to be the enemy, as he had seen them
counting our men as they filed past. I had the men brought to my
campfire, and examined them. They made a plausible defence, but George
was positive they were spies, and I ordered them searched. He failed
to find anything, when I ordered him to examine their boots. In the
bottom of one of the boots I found an order from General Grant to
General Ord, telling him to move by forced marches toward Lynchburg
and cut off General Lee's retreat. The men then confessed that they
were spies, and belonged to General Sheridan. They stated that they
knew that the penalty of their course was death, but asked that I
should not kill them, as the war could only last a few days longer,
anyhow. I kept them prisoners, and turned them over to General
Sheridan after the surrender. I at once sent the information to
General Lee, and a short time afterward received orders to go to his
headquarters. That night was held Lee's last council of war. There
were present General Lee, General Fitzhugh Lee, as head of the
cavalry, and Pendleton, as chief of the artillery, and myself. General
Longstreet was, I think, too busily engaged to attend.
General Lee then exhibited to us the correspondence he had had with
General Grant that day, and asked our opinion of the situation. It
seemed that surrender was inevitable. The only chance of escape was
that I could cut a way for the army through the lines in front of me.
General Lee asked me if I could do this. I replied that I did not know
what forces were in front of me; that if General Ord had not
arrived--as we thought then he had not--with his heavy masses of
infantry, I could cut through. I guaranteed that my men would cut a
way through all the cavalry that could be massed in front of them.
The council finally dissolved with the understanding that the army
should be surrendered if I discovered the next morning, after feeling
the enemy's line, that the infantry had arrived in such force that I
could not cut my way through.
My men were drawn up in the little town of Appomattox that night. I
still had about four thousand men under me, as the army had been
divided into two commands and given to General Longstreet and myself.
Early on the morning of the ninth I prepared for the assault upon the
enemy's line, and began the last fighting done in Virginia. My men
rushed forward gamely and broke the line of the enemy and captured two
pieces of artillery. I was still unable to tell what I was fighting; I
did not know whether I was striking infantry or dismounted cavalry. I
only know that my men were driving them back, and were getting further
and further through. Just then I had a message from General Lee,
telling me a flag of truce was in existence, leaving it to my
discretion as to what course to pursue. My men were still pushing
their way on. I sent at once to hear from General Longstreet, feeling
that, if he was marching toward me, we might still cut through and
carry the army forward. I learned that he was about two miles off,
with his face just opposite from mine, fighting for his life. I thus
saw that the case was hopeless. The further each of us drove the enemy
the further we drifted apart, and the more exposed we left our wagon
trains and artillery, which were parked between us. Every line either
of us broke only opened the gap the wider. I saw plainly that the
Federals would soon rush in between us, and then there would have been
no army. I, therefore, determined to send a flag of truce. I called
Colonel Peyton of my staff to me, and told him that I wanted him to
carry a flag of truce forward. He replied:
"General, I have no flag of truce."
I told him to get one. He replied:
"General, we have no flag of truce in our command."
Then said I, "Get your handkerchief, put it on a stick, and go
forward."
"I have no handkerchief, General,"
"Then borrow one and go forward with it."
He tried, and reported to me that there was no handkerchief in my
staff.
"Then, Colonel, use your shirt."
"You see, General, that we all have on flannel shirts."
At last, I believe, we found a man who had a white shirt. He gave it
to us, and I tore off the back and tail, and, tying this to a stick,
Colonel Peyton went out toward the enemy's lines. I instructed him
simply to say to General Sheridan that General Lee had written to me
that a flag of truce had been sent from his and Grant's headquarters,
and that he could act as he thought best on this information. In a few
moments he came back with some one representing General Sheridan. This
officer said:
"General Sheridan requested me to present his compliments to you, and
to demand the unconditional surrender of your army."
"Major, you will please return my compliments to General Sheridan, and
say that I will not surrender."
"But, General, he will annihilate you."
"I am perfectly well aware of my situation. I simply gave General
Sheridan some information on which he may or may not desire to act."
He went back to his lines, and in a short time General Sheridan came
forward on an immense horse, and attended by a very large staff. Just
here an incident occurred that came near having a serious ending. As
General Sheridan was approaching I noticed one of my sharpshooters
drawing his rifle down upon him. I at once called to him: "Put down
your gun, sir; this is a flag of truce." But he simply settled it to
his shoulder and was drawing a bead on Sheridan, when I leaned forward
and jerked his gun. He struggled with me, but I finally raised it. I
then loosed it, and he started to aim again. I caught it again, when
he turned his stern, white face, all broken with grief and streaming
with tears, up to me, and said: "Well, General, then let him keep on
his own side."
The fighting had continued up to this point. Indeed, after the flag of
truce, a regiment of my men, who had been fighting their way through
toward where we were, and who did not know of a flag of truce, fired
into some of Sheridan's cavalry. This was speedily stopped, however. I
showed General Sheridan General Lee's note, and he determined to await
events. He dismounted, and I did the same. Then, for the first time,
the men seemed to understand what it all meant, and then the poor
fellows broke down. The men cried like children. Worn, starved and
bleeding as they were, they would rather have died than have
surrendered. At one word from me they would have hurled themselves on
the enemy, and have cut their way through or have fallen to a man with
their guns in their hands. But I could not permit it. The great drama
had been played to its end. But men are seldom permitted to look upon
such a scene as the one presented here. That these men should have
wept at surrendering so unequal a fight, at being taken out of this
constant carnage and storm, at being sent back to their families; that
they should have wept at having their starved and wasted forms lifted
out of the jaws of death and placed once more before their
hearthstones, was an exhibition of fortitude and patriotism that might
set an example for all time.
SEDAN.
BY VICTOR HUGO.
The Second Empire of the French was pounded to powder in a bowl. This
is literal, not figurative. To attempt to describe Sedan after Victor
Hugo has described it for all mankind were a work futile and foolish.
To Hugo we concede the palm among all writers, ancient and modern, as
a delineator of battle. His description of the battle of Waterloo will
outlast the tumulus and the lion which French patriotism has reared on
the square where the last of the Old Guard perished. His description,
though not elaborate, is equally graphic and final. He was returning,
in September, 1871, from his fourth exile. He had been in Belgium in
banishment for about eighteen years. It is in the "History of a Crime"
that he tells the story. He says that he was re-entering France by the
Luxembourg frontier, and had fallen asleep in the coach. Suddenly the
jolt of the train coming to a standstill awoke him. One of the
passengers said: "What place is this?" Another answered "Sedan." With
a shudder, Hugo looked around. He says that to his mind and vision, as
he gazed out, the paradise was a tomb. Before substituting his words
for our own, we note only that nearly thirteen months had elapsed
since Louis Napoleon and his 90,000 men had here been brayed in a
mortar. Hugo's description of the scene and the event continues as
follows:
The valley was circular and hollow, like the bottom of a crater; the
winding river resembled a serpent; the hills high, ranged one behind
the other, surrounded this mysterious spot like a triple line of
inexorable walls; once there, there is no means of exit. It reminded
me of the amphitheatres. An indescribable, disquieting vegetation,
which seemed to be an extension of the Black Forest, overran all the
heights, and lost itself in the horizon like a huge impenetrable
snare; the sun shone, the birds sang, carters passed by whistling;
sheep, lambs and pigeons were scattered about; leaves quivered and
rustled; the grass, a densely thick grass, was full of flowers. It was
appalling.
I seemed to see waving over this valley the flashing of the avenging
angel's sword.
This word "Sedan" had been like a veil abruptly torn aside. The
landscape had become suddenly filled with tragedy. Those shapeless
eyes which the bark of trees delineates on the trunks were gazing--at
what? At something terrible and lost to view.
In truth, that was the place! And at the moment when I was passing by,
thirteen months all but a few days had elapsed. That was the place
where the monstrous enterprise of the second of December had burst
asunder. A fearful shipwreck!
The gloomy pathways of Fate cannot be studied without profound anguish
of heart.
On the thirty-first of August, 1870, an army was reassembled, and was,
as it were, massed together under the walls of Sedan, in a place
called the Givonne Valley. This army was a French army--twenty-nine
brigades, fifteen divisions, four army corps--90,000 men. This army
was in this place without anyone being able to divine the reason;
without order, without an object, scattered about--a species of heap
of men thrown down there as though with the view of being seized by
some huge hand.
This army either did not entertain, or appeared not to entertain, for
the moment any immediate uneasiness. They knew, or at least they
thought they knew, that the enemy was a long way off. On calculating
the stages at four leagues daily, it was three days' march distant.
Nevertheless, toward evening the leaders took some wise strategic
precautions; they protected the army, which rested in the rear on
Sedan and the Meuse, by two battle fronts, one composed of the Seventh
Corps, and extending from Floing to Givonne, the other composed of the
Twelfth Corps, extending from Givonne to Bazeilles; a triangle of
which the Meuse formed the hypothenuse. The Twelfth Corps, formed of
the three divisions of Lacretelle, Lartigue and Wolff, ranged on the
right, with the artillery between the brigades, formed a veritable
barrier, having Bazeilles and Givonne at each end, and Digny in its
centre; the two divisions of Petit and Lheritier massed in the rear
upon two lines supported this barrier. General Lebrun commanded the
Twelfth Corps. The Seventh Corps, commanded by General Douay, only
possessed two divisions--Dumont's division and Gilbert's division--and
formed the other battle front, covering the army of Givonne to Floing
on the side of Illy; this battle front was comparatively weak, too
open on the side of Givonne, and only protected on the side of the
Meuse by two cavalry divisions of Margueritte and Bonnemains, and by
Guyomar's brigade, resting in squares on Floing. Within this triangle
were encamped the Fifth Corps, commanded by General Wimpfen, and the
First Corps, commanded by General Ducrot. Michel's cavalry division
covered the First Corps on the side of Digny; the Fifth supported
itself upon Sedan. Four divisions, each disposed upon two lines--the
divisions of Lheritier, Grandchamp, Goze and Conseil-Dumenil--formed a
sort of horseshoe, turned toward Sedan, and uniting the first battle
front with the second. The cavalry division of Ameil and the brigade
of Fontanges served as a reserve for these four divisions. The whole
of the artillery was upon the two battle fronts. Two portions of the
army were in confusion, one to the right of Sedan beyond Balan, the
other to the left of Sedan, on this side of Iges. Beyond Balan were
the division of Vassoigne and the brigade of Reboul, on this side of
Iges were the two cavalry divisions of Margueritte and Bonnemains.
These arrangements indicated a profound feeling of security. In the
first place, the Emperor Napoleon III. would not have come there if he
had not been perfectly tranquil. This Givonne Valley is what Napoleon
I. called a "wash-hand basin." There could not have been a more
complete enclosure. An army is so much at home there that it is too
much so; it runs the risk of no longer being able to get out. This
disquieted some brave and prudent leaders, such as Wimpfen, but they
were not listened to. If absolutely necessary, said the people of the
imperial circle, they could always be sure of being able to reach
Mezieres, and at the worst the Belgian frontier. Was it, however,
needful to provide for such extreme eventualities? In certain cases
foresight is almost an offence. They were all of one mind, therefore,
to be at their ease.
If they had been uneasy they would have cut the bridges of the Meuse,
but they did not even think of it. To what purpose? The enemy was a
long way off. The Emperor, who evidently was well informed, affirmed
it.
The army bivouacked somewhat in confusion, as we have said, and slept
peaceably throughout this night of August 31, having, whatever might
happen, or believing that they had, the retreat upon Mezieres open
behind it. They disdained to take the most ordinary precautions, they
made no cavalry reconnoissances, they did not even place outposts. A
German military writer has stated this. Fourteen leagues at least
separated them from the German army, three days' march; they did not
exactly know where it was; they believed it scattered, possessing
little unity, badly informed, led somewhat at random upon several
points at once, incapable of a movement converging upon one single
point, like Sedan; they believed that the Crown Prince of Saxony was
marching on Chalons, and that the Crown Prince of Prussia was marching
on Metz; they were ignorant of everything appertaining to this army,
its leaders, its plan, its armament, its effective force. Was it still
following the strategy of Gustavus Adolphus? Was it still following
the tactics of Frederick II.? No one knew. They felt sure of being at
Berlin in a few weeks. What nonsense! The Prussian army! They talked
of this war as of a dream, and of this army as of a phantom....
The masterful description of the great novelist and poet then
continues in a narrative of the attack and catastrophe:
Bazeilles takes fire, Givonne takes fire, Floing takes fire; the
battle begins with a furnace. The whole horizon is aflame. The French
camp is in this crater, stupefied, affrighted, starting up from
sleeping--a funereal swarming. A circle of thunder surrounds the army.
They are encircled by annihilation. This mighty slaughter is carried
on on all sides simultaneously. The French resist and they are
terrible, having nothing left but despair. Our cannon, almost all
old-fashioned and of short range, are at once dismounted by the
fearful and exact aim of the Prussians. The density of the rain of
shells upon the valley is so great that "the earth is completely
furrowed," says an eye-witness, "as though by a rake." How many
cannon? Eleven hundred at least. Twelve German batteries upon La
Moncelle alone; the Third and Fourth _Abtheilung_, an awe-striking
artillery, upon the crests of Givonne, with the Second Horse Battery
in reserve; opposite Digny ten Saxon and two Wurtemburg batteries; the
curtain of trees of the wood to the north of Villers-Cernay masks the
mounted _Abtheilung_, which is there with the third Heavy Artillery in
reserve, and from the gloomy copse issues a formidable fire; the
twenty-four pieces of the First Heavy Artillery are ranged in the
glade skirting the road from La Moncelle to La Chapelle; the battery
of the Royal Guard sets fire to the Garenne Wood; the shells and the
balls riddle Suchy, Francheval, Fouro-Saint-Remy, and the valley
between Heibes and Givonne; and the third and fourth rank of cannon
extend without break of continuity as far as the Calvary of Illy, the
extreme point of the horizon. The German soldiers, seated or lying
before the batteries, watch the artillery at work. The French soldiers
fall and die. Amongst the bodies which cover the plain there is one,
the body of an officer, on which they will find, after the battle, a
sealed note containing this order, signed Napoleon: "To-day, September
1, rest for the whole army."
The gallant Thirty-fifth of the Line almost entirely disappears under
the overwhelming shower of shells; the brave Marine Infantry holds at
bay for a moment the Saxons, joined by the Bavarians, but outflanked
on every side draws back; all the admirable cavalry of the
Margueritte division hurled against the German infantry halts and
sinks down midway, "annihilated," says the Prussian report, "by
well-aimed and cool firing." This field of carnage has three outlets,
all three barred: the Bouillon road by the Prussian Guard, the
Carignan road by the Bavarians, the Mezieres road by the
Wurtemburgers. The French have not thought of barricading the railway
viaduct; three German battalions have occupied it during the night.
Two isolated houses on the Balan road could be made the pivot of a
long resistance, but the Germans are there. The wood from Monvilliers
to Bazeilles, but the French have been forestalled; they find the
Bavarians cutting the underwood with their billhooks. The German army
moves in one piece, in one absolute unity; the Crown Prince of Saxony
is on the height of Mairy, whence he surveys the whole action; the
command oscillates in the French army; at the beginning of the battle,
at a quarter to six, MacMahon is wounded by the bursting of a shell;
at seven o'clock Ducrot replaces him; at ten o'clock Wimpfen replaces
Ducrot. Every instant the wall of fire is drawing closer in, the roll
of the thunder is continuous, a dismal pulverization of 90,000 men!
Never before has anything equal to this been seen; never before has an
army been overwhelmed beneath such a downpour of lead and iron! At
one o'clock all is lost! The regiments fly helter-skelter into Sedan!
But Sedan begins to burn, Dijonval burns, the ambulances burn, there
is nothing now possible but to cut their way out. Wimpfen, brave and
resolute, proposes this to the Emperor. The Third Zouaves, desperate,
have set the example. Cut off from the rest of the army, they have
forced a passage and have reached Belgium. A flight of lions!
Suddenly, above the disaster, above the huge pile of dead and dying,
above all this unfortunate heroism, appears disgrace. The white flag
is hoisted.
BAZAINE AND METZ.
A letter of Count Von Moltke has recently been published, showing that
the question of the conquest of France was under consideration by the
Count and Bismarck as early as August of 1866. It is demonstrated that
these two powerful spirits were already preparing, aye, had already
prepared, to trip the Emperor Louis Napoleon, throwing him and his
Empire into a common ruin. The letter also proves that the plan of the
North-German Confederation, under the leadership of Prussia, with
German unity and a German Empire just beyond, was already clearly in
mind by the far-sighted leaders who surrounded King William in 1866.
Count Von Moltke shows that it was possible and practicable _at that
date_, and within a period of two or three weeks, to throw upon the
French border so tremendous an army that resistance would be
impossible. The antecedents of the Franco-Prussian War had been
clearly thought out by the German masters at a time when Louis
Napoleon was still tinkering with his quixotical Empire in Mexico.
When the war between France and Germany actually broke out, four years
later. Germany was prepared, and France was unprepared for the
conflict. Louis Napoleon did not know that Germany was prepared. He
actually thought that he could break into the German borders, fight
his way victoriously to the capital, make his headquarters in Berlin,
and dictate a peace in the manner of his uncle. It was the most
fallacious dream that a really astute man ever indulged in. From the
first day of actual contact with the Germans, the dream of the Emperor
began to be dissipated. Within five days (August 14-18, 1870,) three
murderous battles were fought on French soil, the first at Courcelles,
the next at Vionville, and the third at Gravelotte. In all of these
the French fought bravely, and in all were defeated disastrously,
with tremendous losses.
By these great victories, the Germans were able to separate the two
divisions of the French army. The northern division, under command of
the Emperor and MacMahon, began to recede toward Sedan, while the more
powerful army, under Marshal Bazaine, numbering 173,000 men, was
forced somewhat to the south, and pressed by the division of Prince
Frederick Charles, until the French, in an evil day, entered the
fortified town of Metz, and suffered themselves to be helplessly
cooped up. There was perhaps never another great army so safely and
hopelessly disposed of!
Metz, after Antwerp, is the strongest fortress in Europe. It is
situated at the junction of the rivers Seille and Moselle. It is the
capital of the province of Lorraine, destined to be lost by France and
gained by Germany in the struggle that was now on. The place was of
great historical importance. Here the Roman invaders had established
themselves in the time of the conquest of Gaul. It was called by the
conquerors, first Mediomatrica, and afterward Divodurum. Its
importance, on the very crest of the watershed between the Teutonic
and Gallic races, was noted in the early years of our era, and to the
present day that importance continues for the same reason as of old.
Metz is on the line of a conflict of races which has not yet, after so
many centuries, been finally decided.
The position is one of great strategic importance. But such were the
military conditions at the end of August, 1870, that to occupy Metz
with one of the greatest armies of modern times was the most serious
disaster that could befall the French cause. Bazaine's army was
needed, not in a fortified town, but _in the field_. It was a
tremendous force. The army that Prince Frederick Charles locked up in
Metz could have marched from Parthia to Spain against the resistance
of the whole Roman Empire, at the high noon of that imperial power! It
could have marched from end to end of the Southern Confederacy in the
palmiest day of that Confederacy, and could not have been seriously
impeded! And yet this tremendous force was pent up and shut in, as if
under seal, while King William and the Crown Prince and Bismarck and
Von Moltke hunted down the French Emperor and his remaining forces,
brought them to bay, and compelled a surrender.
This was accomplished by the first of September. The Empire of
Napoleon went to pieces. The Third Republic was instituted. The
Empress fled with the Prince Imperial to England, while her humbled
lord was established by his captors at the castle of Wilhelmshohe.
Republican France found herself in possession of a political chaos
which could hardly be stilled. She also found herself in possession of
a splendid army of more than one hundred and seventy thousand men shut
up helplessly in Metz. The situation was highly dramatic. The Republic
said that Bazaine should break out, but the Marshal said that he could
not. What he said was true. The Germans held him fast. But the
Republic believed, as it still believes, that Bazaine, loyal to the
fallen Emperor rather than to his country, wished to handle his army
in such a manner as should compel the restoration of the Empire, under
the auspices of the German conquerors.
This idea was hateful above all things to the French Republicans.
September wore away, and more than half of October; but still the
siege of Metz was not concluded. Vainly did the new Republic of France
strive to extricate herself. Vainly did she raise new armies. Vainly
did she look for the escape of Bazaine. Finally, on the twenty-seventh
of October, that commander surrendered Metz and his army to the
Germans. It was the most tremendous capitulation known in history.
Never before was so powerful an army surrendered to an enemy. The
actual number of French soldiers covered by the capitulation was
fully one hundred and seventy thousand! The prostration of France was
complete, and her humiliation extreme.
Bazaine became the Black Beast of the public imagination. A tribunal
was organized at Paris, under the presidency of the Duc d'Aumale, son
of Louis Philippe--the same who with the Prince de Joinville had been
on McClellan's staff during the peninsular campaign in our Civil War.
Before this court Bazaine was haled as a traitor to his country. He
was tried, convicted and condemned to degradation and death. It was
only by the most strenuous efforts in his behalf that a commutation of
the sentence to imprisonment for twenty years was obtained.
The Marshal was accordingly incarcerated in a prison at Cannes,
whither he was sent in December of 1873, and from which he effected
his escape in the following August. He succeeded in making his way to
Madrid, and took up his residence there. He sought assiduously by
writings and argument and appeal to reverse the judgment of his
countrymen and of the world with regard to the justice of his
sentence; but he could not succeed. It is probably true that the
greatest surrender of military forces known in the history of the
world was brought about by the preference of the commanding general of
the conquered army for an Emperor who was already dethroned, as
against a true devotion to his country. There was also in the case a
measure of incapacity. Bazaine was no match as a military commander
for the powerful genius of Von Moltke and the persistency of Frederick
Charles and the more than two hundred thousand resolute Germans who
surrounded him, and brought him and his army to irretrievable ruin.
Astronomical Vistas.
THE CENTURY OF ASTEROIDS.
The nineteenth century may be called the Age of the Asteroids. It was
on _the first night_ of this century that the first asteroid was
discovered! Through all the former ages, no man on the earth had had
definite knowledge of the existence of such a body. It was reserved
for Guiseppe Piazzi, an Italian astronomer at Palermo, to make known
by actual observation the first member of the planetoid group. If
human history had the slightest regard for the calendars of
mankind--if the eternal verities depended in any measure on the
almanac or the division of time into this age or that--we might look
with wonder on the remarkable coincidence which made the discovery of
the first asteroid to happen in the first evening twilight of the
first day of the nineteenth century!
At the close of the eighteenth century, mankind were acquainted with
all the major planets except Neptune. Uranus, the last of the group,
was discovered by the Elder Herschel, on the night of the thirteenth
of March, 1781. True, this planet had been seen on twenty different
occasions, by other observers; but its character had not been
revealed. Sir William called his new world Georgium Sidus, that is,
the George Star, in honor of the King of England. The world, however,
had too much intelligence to allow the transfer of the name of George
III. from earth to heaven. Such nomenclature would have been unpopular
in America! The name of the king was happily destined to remain a part
of terrestrial history!
For a while it was insisted by astronomers and the world at large that
the new globe, then supposed to bound the solar system on its outer
circumference, should be called Herschel, in honor of its discoverer.
But the old system of naming the planets after the deities of
classical and pagan mythology prevailed; and to the names of Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, was now added the name Uranus, that is,
in the language of the Greeks, _Heaven_.
Piazzi, scanning the zodiac from his observatory in Palermo, in the
early hours of that first night of the century, noticed a hitherto
unobserved star, which under higher power proved to be a planet. It
presented a small irregular disc, and a few additional observations
showed that it was progressing in the usual manner from west to east.
For some time such a revelation had been expected; but the result did
not answer to expectation in one particular; for the new body seemed
to be too insignificant to be called a world. It appeared rather to be
a great planetary boulder, as if our Mount Shasta had been wrenched
from the earth and flung into space. Investigation showed that the new
body was more than a hundred miles in diameter; but this, according to
planetary estimation, is only the measurement of a clod.
There had been, as we say, expectation of a discovery in the region
where the first asteroid was found. Kepler had declared his belief
that in this region of space a new world might be discovered.
Following this suggestion, the German astronomer Olbers, of Bremen,
had formed an association of twenty-four observers in different parts
of Europe, who should divide among themselves the zodiacal band, and
begin a system of independent scrutiny, either to verify or disprove
Kepler's hypothesis.
There was another reason also of no small influence tending to the
same end. Johann Elert Bode, another German astronomer, born in 1747
and living to 1826, had propounded a mathematical formula known as
Bode's Law, which led those who accepted it to the belief that a
planet would be found in what is now known as the asteroidal space.
Bode's Law, so-called, seems to be no real law of planetary
distribution; and yet the coincidences which are found under the
application of the law are such as to arouse our interest if not to
produce a conviction of the truth of the principle involved. Here,
then, is the mathematical formula, which is known as Bode's Law:
Write from left to right a row of 4's and under these, beginning with
the second 4, place a geometrical series beginning with 3 and
increasing by the ratio of 2; add the two columns together, and we
have a series running 4, 7, 10, etc.; and this row of results has an
astonishing coincidence, or approximate coincidence with the relative
distances of the planets from the sun--thus:
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
3 6 12 24 48 96 192 384
-- -- -- -- -- -- --- --- ---
4 7 10 16 28 52 100 196 388
The near agreement of this row of results with the row containing the
_actual_ relative distances of the planets from the sun may well
astonish, not only the astronomer, but the common reader. Those
distances--making 10 to represent the distance of the earth--are as
follows:
Mercury, 3.9; Venus, 7.2; Earth, 10; Mars, 15.2; Asteroids, 27.4;
Jupiter, 52; Saturn, 95.4; Uranus, 192; Neptune, 300.
In addition to Kepler's prediction and the indications of Bode's Law,
there was a _general_ reason for thinking that a planetary body of
some kind should occupy the space between the orbits of Mars and
Jupiter. The mean distance of Mars from the sun is about 141,500,000
miles; that of Jupiter, is about 483,000,000 miles. The distance from
one orbit to the other is therefore about 341,500,000 miles. Conceive
of an infinite sheet of tin. Mark thereon a centre for the sun.
Measure out a hundred and forty millions of miles, and with that
radius strike a circle. From the same centre measure out four hundred
and eighty-three millions of miles, and with that radius strike a
circle. Cut out the sheet between the two circles, and the vast space
left void will indicate the vacant area in the mighty disc of our
solar system. That this space should be occupied with _something_
accords with the plan of nature and the skill of the Builder.
So Olbers and his twenty-three associates began, in the last decade of
the eighteenth century, to search diligently for the verification of
Kepler's prediction and the fulfillment of Bode's Law. Oddly enough,
Piazzi was not one of the twenty-four astronomers who had agreed to
find the new world. He was exploring the heavens on his own account,
and in doing so, he found what the others had failed to find, that is,
the first asteroid.
The body discovered answered so little to the hopes of the
astronomical fraternity that they immediately said within themselves:
"This is not he; we seek another." So they continued the search, and
in a little more than a year Olbers himself was rewarded with the
discovery of the second of the planetoid group. On the twenty-eighth
of March, 1802, he made his discovery from an upper chamber of his
dwelling in Bremen, where he had his telescope. On the night in
question he was scanning the northern part of the constellation of
Virgo, when the sought-for object was found. This body, like the first
of its kind, was very small, and was found to be moving from west to
east in nearly the same orbit as its predecessor.
Here then was something wonderful. Olbers at once advanced the
hypothesis that probably the two bodies thus discovered were fragments
of what had been a large planet moving in its orbit through this part
of the heavens. If so there might be--and probably were--others of
like kind. The search was at once renewed, and on the night of the
first of September, 1804, the third of the asteroid group was found by
the astronomer Hardy, of Bremen. The belief that a large planet had
been disrupted in this region was strengthened, and astronomers
continued their exploration; but two years and a half elapsed before
another asteroid was found. On the evening of March 29, 1807, the
diligence of Olbers was rewarded with the discovery of the fourth of
the group, which like its predecessors, was so small and irregular in
character as still further to favor the fragmentary theory.
How shall we name the asteroids? Piazzi fell back upon pagan mythology
for the name of his little world, and called it Ceres, from the Roman
goddess of corn. Olbers named the second asteroid Pallas; the third
was called Juno--whose rank in the Greek and Roman pantheon might have
suggested one of the major planets as her representative in the skies;
and the fourth was called Vesta, from the Roman divinity of the
hearthstone.
Here then there was a pause. Though the zodiac continued to be swept
by many observers, a period of more than thirty-eight years went by
before the fifth asteroid was found. The cycle of these discoveries
strikingly illustrates the general movement of scientific progress.
First there is a new departure; then a lull, and then a resumption of
exploration and a finding more fertile than ever. It was on the night
of the eighth of December, 1845, that the German astronomer Hencke
discovered the fifth asteroid and named it Astræa. After a year and a
half, namely, on the night of the first of July, 1847, the same
observer discovered the sixth member of the group, and to this was
given the name Hebe. On the thirteenth of August in the same year the
astronomer Hind found the seventh asteroid, and named it Iris. On the
eighteenth of October following he found the eighth, and this was
called Flora. Then on the twenty-fifth of April, 1848, came the
discovery of Metis, by Graham. Nearly a year later the Italian De
Gasparis found the tenth member of the system, that is, Hygeia. De
Gasparis soon discovered the eleventh body, which was called
Parthenope. This was on the eleventh of May, 1850.
Two other asteroids were found in this year; and two in 1851. In the
following year _nine_ were discovered; and so on from year to year
down to the present date. Some years have been fruitful in such finds,
while others have been comparatively barren. In a number of the years,
only a single asteroid has been added to the list; but in others whole
groups have been found. Thus in 1861 twelve were discovered; in 1868,
twelve; in 1875, _seventeen_; in 1890, fourteen. Not a single year
since 1846 has passed without the addition of at least one known
asteroid to the list.
But while the number has thus increased to an aggregate at the close
of 1890 of three hundred and one, many of the tiny wanderers have
escaped. Some have been rediscovered; and it is possible that some
have been twice or even three times found and named. The whole family
perhaps numbers not only hundreds, but thousands; and it can hardly be
doubted that only the more conspicuous members of the group have ever
yet been seen by mortal eye.
A considerable space about the centre of the planetary zone between
Mars and Jupiter is occupied with these multitudinous pigmy worlds
that follow the one the other in endless flight around the sun. It is
a sort of planetary shower; and it can hardly be doubted that the
bodies constituting the flight are graded down in size from larger to
smaller and still smaller until the fragments are mere blocks and bits
of world-dust floating in space. Possibly there may be enough of such
matter to constitute a sort of planetary band that may illumine a
little (as seen from a distance) the zone where it circulates.
As to the origin of this seemingly fragmentary matter, we know
nothing, and conjectures are of little use in scientific exposition.
It may be true that a large planet once occupied the asteroidal space,
and that the same has been rent by some violence into thousands of
fragments. It may be observed that the period of rotation of the
inferior planets corresponds in general with that of our earth, while
the corresponding period of the superior or outside planets is less
than one-half as great. The forces which produced this difference in
the period of rotation may have contended for the mastery in that part
of our solar system where the asteroids are found; and the disruption
may have resulted from such conflict of forces.
Or again, it may be that a large planet is now in process of formation
in the asteroidal space. Possibly one of the greater fragments may
gain in mass by attracting to itself the nearer fragments, and thus
continue to wax until it shall have swept clean the whole pathway of
the planetary matter, except such small fragments as may after æons of
time continue to fall upon the master body, as our meteorites now at
intervals rush into our atmosphere and sometimes reach the earth.
Some astronomers have given and are still giving their almost
undivided attention to asteroidal investigation. The discoveries have
been mostly made by a few principal explorers. The astronomer, Palisa,
from the observatory of Pola and that of Vienna, has found no fewer
than seventy-five of the whole group. The observer, Peters, at
Clinton, New York, has found forty-eight asteroids; Luther, of
Düsseldorf, twenty-four; Watson, of Ann Arbor, twenty-two; Borrelly,
of Marseilles, fifteen; Goldschmidt, of Paris, fourteen, and Charlois,
of Nice, fourteen. The English astronomers have found only a few.
Among such, Hind of London, who has-discovered ten asteroids, is the
leader.
The Italian, German and American astronomers are first in the interest
and success which they have shown in this branch of sky-lore. Their
investigations have made us acquainted with the dim group of little
worlds performing their unknown part in the vast space between the
Warrior planet and Jove.
THE STORY OF NEPTUNE.
The discovery of the planet Neptune by Dr. Galle on the twenty-third
of September, 1846, was one of the most important events in the
intellectual history of this century. Certainly it was no small thing
to find a new world. Discoverers on the surface of our globe are
immortalized by finding new lands in unknown regions. What, therefore,
should be the fame of him who finds a new world in the depths of
space? Perhaps the discoverer of an asteroid or planetary moon may
not claim, in the present advanced stage of human knowledge, to rank
among the flying evangels of history; but he who found the great
planet third in rank among the worlds of the solar system, a world
having a mass nearly seventeen times as great as that of our own, may
well be regarded as one of the immortals.
We have referred the discovery of Neptune to Dr. Johann Gottfried
Galle, the German astronomer and Professor of Natural Sciences at
Berlin. But this Dr. Galle was only the _eye_ with which the discovery
was made. He was a good eye; but the eye, however clear, is only an
organ of something greater than the eye, and that something in this
case consisted of two parts. The first part was Urbain Jean Joseph
Leverrier, the French astronomer, of the Paris Observatory. The other
part was Professor John Couch Adams, the astronomer of the University
at Cambridge, England. These two were the thinkers; that is, they
were, as it were, jointly the great mind of the age, of which Galle
was the eye.
In getting a clear notion of the discovery of Neptune, several other
personages are to be considered. One of these is the astronomer Alexis
Bouvart, of France, who was born in Haute Savoie, in 1767, and died
in June of 1843, three years before Neptune was found. Another
personage was his nephew, the astronomer E. Bouvart, and a third was
the noted Prussian, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, Director of the
Observatory at Königsberg, who was born in 1784, and died on the
seventeenth of March, 1846, only six months before the discovery of
our outer planet.
Still another character to be commemorated is the English astronomer
Professor James Challis, Plumian Professor and Director of the
Observatory at Cambridge, England. This contributor to the great event
was born in 1803, and died at Cambridge on the third of December,
1882. Still another, not to be disregarded, is Dr. T.J. Hussey, of
Hayes, England, whose mind seems to have been one of the first to
anticipate the existence of an ultra-Uranian planet. And still again,
the English astronomer royal, Sir G.B. Airy must be mentioned as a
contributor to the final result; but he is to be regarded rather as a
contributor by negation. The great actors in the thing done were
Leverrier, Adams and Galle. English authors contend strongly for
placing the names in this order: Adams, Leverrier and Galle.
Suffice it to say that when Uranus was discovered by the elder
Herschel in 1781, that world was supposed to be the outside planet of
our system. Hitherto the splendid Saturn had marked the uttermost
excursion of astronomical knowledge as it respected our solar group.
For about a quarter of a century after Herschel's discovery the world
rested upon it as a finality. The orbit of Uranus was thought to
circumscribe the whole. But in the meantime, observations of this
orbit led to the knowledge that it did not conform in all respects to
astronomical and mathematical conditions. The orbit showed
irregularities, disturbances, perturbations, that could not be
accounted for when all of the known mathematical calculations were
applied thereto. Uranus was seen to get out of his path. At times he
would lag a little, and then at other times appear to be accelerated.
Each year, when the earth would swing around on the Uranian side of
the sun, the observations were renewed, but always with the result
that the planet did not seem to conform perfectly to the conditions of
his orbit. What could be the cause of this seeming disregard of
mathematical laws?
Astronomers could not accept the supposition that there was any actual
violation of the known conditions of gravitation. Certainly Uranus was
following his orbit under the centripetal and centrifugal laws in the
same manner as the other planets. There must, therefore, be some
undiscovered disturbing cause. It had already been noted that in the
case of the infra-Uranian planets they were swayed somewhat from their
paths by the mutual influence of one upon the other. This was
noticeable in particular in the movements of Jupiter, Saturn and
Uranus. When Saturn, for instance, would be on the same side of the
sun with Jupiter, it might be noted that the latter was drawn outward
and the former inward from their prescribed curves. The perturbation
was greatest when the planets were nearest, together. In like manner
Uranus did obeisance to both his huge neighbors on the sun's side of
his orbit. He, too, veered toward them as he passed, and they in turn
recognized the courtesy by going out of their orbits as they passed.
What, therefore, should be said of the outswinging movement of Uranus
from his orbit in that part of his course where no disturbing
influence was known to exist? Certainly _something_ must be in that
quarter of space to occasion the perturbation. What was it?
It would appear that the elder Bouvart, the French astronomer referred
to above, was the first to suggest that the disturbances in the orbit
of Uranus, throwing that planet from his pathway outward, might be and
probably were to be explained by the presence in outer space of an
unknown ultra-Uranian planet. Bouvart prepared tables to show the
perturbations in question, and declared his opinion that they were
caused by an unknown planet beyond. No observer, however, undertook to
verify this suggestion or to disprove it. Nor did Bouvart go so far as
to indicate the particular part of the heavens which should be
explored in order to find the undiscovered world. His tables, however,
do show from the perturbations of the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn and
Uranus that the same are caused by the mutual influence of the planets
upon one another.
It seems to have remained for Dr. T.J. Hussey, of Hayes, England, to
suggest the actual discovery of the unknown planet by following the
clew of the disturbance produced by its presence in a certain field of
space. Dr. Hussey, in 1834, wrote to Sir George Biddell Airy,
astronomer royal at Greenwich, suggesting that the perturbation of the
orbit of Uranus might be used as the clew for the discovery of the
planet beyond. But Sir George was one of those safe, conservative
scholars who scorn to follow the suggestions of genius, preferring
rather to explore only what is known already. He said in answer that
he doubted if the irregularity in the Uranian orbit was in such a
state of demonstration as to give any hope of the discovery of the
disturbing cause. He doubted even that there was such irregularity in
the Uranian orbit. He was of opinion that the observers had been
mistaken in the alleged detection of perturbations. So the Greenwich
observatory was not used on the line of exploration suggested by
Hussey.
Three years afterward, and again in 1842, Sir George received letters
from the younger Bouvart, again suggesting the possibility and
probability of discovering the ultra-Uranian planet. These hints were
strengthened by a letter from Bessel, of Königsberg. But Sir George B.
Airy refused to be led in the direction of so great a possibility.
It was in 1844 that Professor James Challis, of the Cambridge
observatory, appealed to Sir George for the privilege of using or
examining the recorded observations made at Greenwich of the movements
of Uranus, saying that he wished these tables for a young friend of
his, Mr. John C. Adams, of Cambridge, who had but recently taken his
degree in mathematics. Adams was at that date only twenty-five years
of age. The royal astronomer granted the request, and for about a year
Adams was engaged in making his calculations. These were completed,
and in September of 1845, Challis informed Sir George Airy that
according to the calculations of Adams the perturbations of Uranus
were due to the influence of an unknown planet beyond.
The young mathematician indicated in his conclusions at what point in
the heavens the ultra-Uranian world was then traveling, and where it
might be found. But even these mathematical demonstrations did not
suffice to influence Sir George in his opinions. He was an Englishman!
He refused or neglected to take the necessary steps either to verify
or to disprove the conclusions of Adams. He held in hand the
mathematical computations of that genius from October of 1845 to June
of the following year, when the astronomer Leverrier, of Paris,
published to the world his own tables of computation, proving that the
disturbances in the orbit of Uranus were due to the influence of a
planet beyond, and indicating the place where it might be found. There
was a close agreement between the point indicated by him and that
already designated by Adams.
It seems that this French publication at last aroused Sir George Airy,
who now admitted that the calculations of Adams might be correct in
form and deduction. He accordingly sent word to Professor Challis to
begin a search for the unknown orb. The latter did begin the work of
exploration, and presently saw the planet. But he failed to recognize
it! There it was; but the observer passed it over as a fixed star. As
for Leverrier, he sent his calculations to Dr. Galle, of Berlin; and
that great observer began his search. On the night of the twenty-third
of September, 1846, he not only _saw_ but _caught_ the far-off world.
There it was, disc and all; and a few additional observations
confirmed the discovery.
Hereupon Sir George Airy broke out with a claim that the discovery
belonged to Adams. He was able to show that Adams had anticipated
Leverrier by a few months in his calculations; but the French scholars
were able to carry the day by showing that Adams' work had been void
of results. The world went with the French claim. Adams was left to
enjoy the fame of merit among the learned classes, but the great
public fixed upon Leverrier as the genius who did the work, and Dr.
Galle as his eye.
Several remarkable things followed in the train. It was soon
discovered that both Leverrier and Adams had been favored by chance in
indicating the field of space where Uranus was found. They had both
proceeded upon the principle expressed in Bode's Law. This law
indicated the place of Neptune as 38.8 times the distance of the earth
from the sun. A verification of the result showed that the new-found
planet was actually only thirty times as far as the earth from the
sun. In the case of all the other planets, their distances had been
remarkably co-incident with the results reached by Bode's Law; but
Uranus seemed to break that law, or at least to bend it to the point
of breaking--a result which has never to this day been explained.
It chanced, however, that at the time when the predictions of
Leverrier and Adams were sent, the one sent to Galle and the other to
Challis, Uranus and the earth and the sun were in such relations that
the departure of the orbit of Uranus from the place indicated by
Bode's Law did not seriously displace the planet from the position
which it should theoretically occupy. Thus, after a little searching,
Challis found the new world, and knew it not; Galle found it and knew
it, and tethered it to the planetary system, making it fast in the
recorded knowledge of mankind.
While Daniel O'Connell, the greatest Irishman of the present century,
despairing of the cause of his country, lay dying in Genoa, and while
Zachary Taylor, at the head of a handful of American soldiers was
cooping up the Mexican army in the old town of Monterey, a new world,
37,000 miles in diameter and seventeen times as great in mass as the
little world on which we dwell, was found slowly and sublimely making
its way around the well nigh inconceivable periphery of the solar
system!
EVOLUTION OF THE TELESCOPE.
The development of telescopic power within the present century is one
of the most striking examples of intellectual progress and mastery in
the history of mankind. The first day of the century found us, not,
indeed, where we were left by Galileo and Copernicus in the knowledge
of the skies and in our ability to penetrate their depths, but it did
find us advanced by only moderate stages from the sky-lore of the
past.
The after half of the eighteenth century presents a history of
astronomical investigation and deduction which confirmed and amplified
the preceding knowledge; but that period did not greatly widen the
field of observation. If the sphere of space which had been explored
on the first day of January, 1801, could be compared with that which
is now known and explored by our astronomers, the one sphere would be
to the other even as an apple to the earth.
It is difficult to apprehend the tremendous strides which we have made
in the production of telescopes and the consequent increase in our
sweep of the heavens. It was only in 1774 that the elder Herschel
began his work in the construction of reflecting telescopes. These he
gradually increased in size, until near the close of the century, when
he produced an instrument which magnified two hundred and twenty-seven
diameters. In the course of his career he built two hundred
telescopes, having a seven-foot focus; 150 of ten feet and about
eighty of twenty feet each.
With these instruments the astronomical work in the last quarter of
the eighteenth century was mostly performed. The study of the heavens
at this epoch began to reach out from the planetary system to the
fixed stars. In this work Herschel led the way. The planet Uranus at
first bore the name of Herschel, from its discoverer. Sir John
Herschel, son of Sir William, was born in 1792. All of his
astronomical work was accomplished in our century. Following the line
of his father, he used the reflecting telescope, and it was an
instrument of this kind that he took to his observatory at the Cape of
Good Hope. Lord Rosse was born in the year 1800. Under his auspices
the reflecting telescope reached its maximum of power and usefulness.
His great reflector, built in his own grounds at Birr Castle, Ireland,
was finished in 1844. This instrument was the marvel of that epoch. It
had a focal distance of fifty-three feet, and an aperture of six feet.
With this great telescope its master reached out into the region of
the nebulæ, and began the real work of exploring the sidereal heavens.
In the reflecting telescope, however, there are necessary limitations.
Before the middle of this century, it was known that the future of
astronomy depended upon the refracting lens, and not on the speculum.
The latter, in the hands of the two Herschels and Rosse, had reached
its utmost limits--as is shown by the fact that to this day the Rosse
telescope is the largest of its kind in the world.
Meanwhile the production of refracting telescopes made but slow
progress. As late as 1836 the largest instrument of this kind in the
world was the eleven-inch telescope of the observatory at Munich. The
next in importance was a nine and a half-inch instrument at Dorpat, in
Russia. This was the telescope through which the astronomer Struve
made his earlier studies and discoveries. His field of observation was
for the most part the fixed and double stars. At this time the largest
instrument in the United States was the five-inch refractor of Yale
College. Soon afterward, namely, in 1840, the observatory at
Philadelphia was supplied with a six-inch refracting telescope from
Munich.
German makers were now in the lead, and it was not long until a Munich
instrument having a lens of eleven inches diameter was imported for
the Mitchell Observatory on Mount Adams, overlooking Cincinnati. About
the same time a similar instrument of nine and a half inches aperture
was imported for the National Observatory at Washington. To this
period also belongs the construction of the Cambridge Observatory,
with its fifteen-inch refracting telescope. Another of the same size
was produced for the Royal Observatory at Pulkova, Russia. This was in
1839; and that instrument and the telescope at Cambridge were then the
largest of their kind in the world.
The history of the telescope-making in America properly begins with
Alvan Clark, Sr., of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. It was in 1846 that
he produced his first telescope. Of this he made the lens, and such
was the excellence of his work that he soon became famous, to the
degree that the importation of foreign telescopes virtually ceased in
the United States. Nor was it long until foreign orders began to
arrive for the refracting lenses of Alvan Clark & Sons. The fame of
this firm went out through all the world, and by the beginning of the
last quarter of the century the Clark instruments were regarded as the
finest ever produced.
We cannot here refer to more than a few of the principal products of
Clark & Sons. Gradually they extended the width of their lenses,
gaining with each increase of diameter a rapidly increasing power of
penetration. At last they produced for the Royal Observatory of
Pulkova a twenty-seven-inch objective, which was, down to the early
eighties, the master work of its kind in the world. It was in the
grinding and polishing of their lenses that the Clarks surpassed all
men. In the production of the glass castings for the lenses, the
French have remained the masters. At the glass foundry of Mantois, of
Paris, the finest and largest discs ever produced in the world are
cast. But after the castings are made they are sent to America, to be
made into those wonderful objectives which constitute the glory of the
apparatus upon which the New Astronomy relies for its achievements.
It was in the year 1887 that the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton,
of the Coast Range in Southern California, was completed. The lens of
this instrument is thirty-six inches in diameter. Nor will the reader
without reflection readily realize the enormous stride which was made
in telescopy when the makers advanced from the twenty-seven-inch to
the thirty-six-inch objective. Lenses are to each other in their power
of collecting light and penetrating apace as the squares of their
diameters, and in the extent of space explored as the cubes of their
diameters.
The objective of the Pulkova instrument is to that of the Lick
Observatory as 3 is to 4. The squares are as 9 is to 16, and the cubes
are as 27 is to 64. This signifies that the depth of space penetrated
by the Lick instrument is to that of its predecessor as 16 is to 9,
and that the astronomical sphere resolved by the former is to the
sphere resolved by the latter as 64 is to 27--that is, the Lick
instrument at one bound revealed a universe _more than twice as great_
as all that was known before! The human mind at this one bound found
opportunity to explore and to know a sidereal sphere more than twice
as extensive as had ever been previously penetrated by the gaze of
man.
Nor is this all. The ambition of American astronomers and American
philanthropists has not been content with even the prodigious
achievement of the Lick telescope. In recent years an observatory has
been projected in connection with the University of Chicago, which has
come almost to completion, and which will bear by far the largest
telescopic instrument in the world. The site selected for the
observatory is seventy-five miles from the city, on the northern shore
of Lake Geneva. There is a high ground here, rising sufficiently into
a clear atmosphere, nearly two hundred feet above the level of the
lake.
The observatory and the great telescope which constitutes its central
fact are to bear the name of the donor, Mr. Yerkes, of Chicago, who
has contributed the means for rearing this magnificent adjunct of the
University. The enterprise contemplated from the first the
construction of the most powerful telescope ever known. The
manufacture of the objective, upon which everything depends, was
assigned to Mr. Alvan G. Clark, of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, who
is the only living representative of the old firm of Alvan Clark &
Sons.
Alvan G. Clark has inherited much of the genius of his father, though
it is said that in making the lens of the Lick Observatory the father
had to be called from his retirement to superintend personally some of
the more delicate parts of the finishing before which task his sons
had quailed. But the younger Clark readily agreed to make the Geneva
lens, under the order of Yerkes, and to produce a perfect objective
_forty inches in diameter_! This important work, so critical--almost
impossible--has been successfully accomplished.
The making and the mounting of the Yerkes telescope have been assigned
to Warner & Swasey, of Cleveland, Ohio, who are recognized as the best
telescope builders in America. The great observatory is approaching
completion. The instrument itself has been finished, examined,
accepted by a committee of experts, and declared to fulfill all of the
conditions of the agreement between the founder and the makers. Thus,
just north of the boundary line between Illinois and Wisconsin, the
greatest telescope of the world has been lifted to its dome and
pointed to the heavens.
The formal opening of the observatory is promised for the summer
months of 1896. The human mind by this agency has made another stride
into the depths of infinite space. Another universe is presently to be
penetrated and revealed. A hollow sphere of space outside of the
sphere already known is to be added to the already unthinkable
universe which we inhabit. Every part of the immense observatory and
of the telescope is of American production, with the single important
exception of the cast glass disc from which the two principal lenses,
the one double convex and the other plano-concave, are produced. These
were cast by Mantois, of Paris, whose superiority to the American
manufacturers of optical glass is recognized.
It is estimated that the Yerkes telescope will gather three times as
much light as the twenty-three-inch instrument of the Princeton
Observatory. It surpasses in the same respect the twenty-six-inch
telescope at the National Observatory in the ratio of two and
three-eighths to one. It is in the same particular one and four-fifth
times as powerful as the instrument of the Royal Russian Observatory
at Pulkova; and it surpasses the great Lick instrument by twenty-three
per cent.
What the practical results of the study of the skies through this
monster instrument will be none may predict. Theoretically it is
capable of bringing the moon to an apparent distance of sixty miles.
Under favorable circumstances the observer will be able to note the
characteristics of the lunar landscape with more distinctness than a
good natural eye can discern the outlines and character of the summit
of Pike's Peak from Denver. The instrument has sufficient power to
reveal on the lunar disc any object five hundred feet square. Such a
thing as a village or even a great single building would be plainly
discernible.
Professor C.A. Young has recently pointed out the fact that the Yerkes
telescope, if it meets expectation, will show on the moon's surface
with much distinctness any such object as the Capitol at Washington.
It is complained that in America wealth is selfish and self-centred;
that the millionaire cares only for himself and the increase of his
already exorbitant estate. The ambition of such men as Lick of San
Jose and Yerkes of Chicago, seems to ameliorate the severe judgment of
mankind respecting the holders of the wealth of the world, and even to
transform them from their popular character of enemies and misers into
philanthropists and benefactors.
THE NEW ASTRONOMY.
This century has been conspicuous above all centuries for new things.
Man has grown into new relations with both nature and thought. He has
interpreted nearly everything into new phraseology and new forms of
belief. The scientific world has been revolutionized. Nothing remains
in its old expression. Chemistry has been phrased anew. The laws of
heat, light and electricity have been either revised or discovered
wholly out of the unknown. The concept of universal nature has been so
translated and reborn that a philosopher coming again out of the
eighteenth century would fail to understand the thought and speech of
even the common man.
In no other particular has the change been more marked than with
respect to the general theory of the planetary and stellar worlds. A
New Astronomy has come and taken the place of the old. The very
rudiments of the science have to be learned as it were in a new
language, and under the laws and theories of a new philosophy. Nature
is considered from other points of view, and the general course of
nature is conceived in a manner wholly different from the beliefs of
the past.
In a preceding study we have explained the general notion of planetary
formation according to the views of the last century. The New
Astronomy presents another theory. Beginning with virtually the same
notion of the original condition of our world and sun cluster, the new
view departs widely as to the processes by which the planets were
formed, and extends much further with respect to the first condition
and ultimate destiny of our earth. The New Astronomy, like the old,
begins with a nebular hypothesis. It imagines the matter now composing
the solar group to have been originally dispersed through the space
occupied by our system, and to have been in a state of attenuation
under the influence of high heat. Out of this condition of diffusion
the solar system has been evolved. The idea is a creation by the
process of evolution; it is evolution applied to the planets. More
particularly, the hypothesis is that the worlds of our planetary
system grew into their present state through a series of stages and
slow developments extending over æons of time.
This is the notion of world-growth substituted for that of
world-production en masse by the action of centrifugal force and
discharge from the solar equator. The New Astronomy proposes in this
respect two points of remarkable difference from the view formerly
entertained. The first relates to the fixing of the planetary orbits,
and the other to the process by which the planets have reached their
present mass and character. The old theory would place a given world
in its pathway around the sun by a spiral flinging off from the
central body, and would allow that the aggregate mass of the globe so
produced was fixed once for all at the beginning. The new theory
supposes that a given planetary orbit, as for instance that of the
earth, was marked in the nebula of our system before the system
existed--that is, that our orbit had its place in the beginning just
as it has now; that the orbit was not determined by solar revolution
and centrifugal action, but that it was mathematically existent in the
nebular sheet out of which the solar system was produced.
Other lines existed in the same sheet of matter. One of these lines or
pathways was destined for the orbit of Mercury; another for the orbit
of Venus. One was for the pathway of Mars; another for the belt of
the asteroids; another for Jupiter; another for Saturn, and still two
others, far off on the rim, for Uranus and Neptune. The theory
continues that such are the laws of matter that these orbital lines
_must_ exist in a disc of fire mist such as that out of which our
solar universe has been produced. The New Astronomy holds firmly to
the notion that the orbits of the planets are as much a part of the
system as the planets themselves, and that both orbit and planet exist
in virtue of the deep-down mathematical formulæ on which the whole
material universe is constructed.
Secondly, the New Astronomy differs from the old by a whole horizon in
the notion of world-production. About the middle of the century the
theory began to be advanced that the worlds _grew_ by accretion of
matter; that they grew in the very paths which they now occupy; that
they began to be with a small aggregation of matter rushing together
in the line or orbit which the coming planet was to pursue. The
planetary matter was already revolving in this orbit and in the
surrounding spaces. It was already floating along in a nebulous
superheated form capable of condensation by the loss of heat, but in
particular capable of growth and development by the fall of
surrounding matter upon the forming globe. We must remember that in
the primordial state the elements of a planet, as for instance our
earth, were mixed together and held in a state of tenuity ranging all
the way from solid to highly vaporized forms, and that these elements
subsequently and by slow adjustment got themselves into something
approximating their present state.
The New Astronomy contemplates a period when each of the planets was a
germinal nucleus of matter around which other matter was precipitated,
thus producing a kind of world-growth or accretion. Thus, for
instance, our earth may be considered at a time when its entire mass
would not, according to our measurement, have weighed a hundred
pounds! It consisted of a nucleus around which extended, through a
great space, a mass of attenuated planetary matter. The nucleus once
formed the matter adjacent would precipitate itself by gravitation
upon the surface of the incipient world. The precipitation would
proceed as heat was given off into space. It was virtually a process
of condensation; but the result appeared like growth.
To the senses a planet would seem to be forming itself by accretion;
and so, indeed, in one sense it was; for the mass constantly
increased. As the nucleus sped on in the prescribed pathway, it drew
to itself the surrounding matter, leaving behind it an open channel.
The orbit was thus cleared of the matter, which was at first merely
nebular, and afterward both nebular and fragmentary. The growth at the
first was rapid. With each revolution a larger band of space was swept
clear of its material. With each passage of the forming globe the
matter from the adjacent spaces would rush down upon its surface, and
as the mass of the planet increased the process would be stimulated;
for gravitation is proportional to the mass. At length a great tubular
space would be formed, having the orbit of the earth for its centre,
and in this space the matter was all swept up. The tube enlarged with
each revolution, until an open way was cut through the nebular disc,
and then from the one side toward Venus and from the other side toward
Mars the space widened and widened, until the globe took approximately
by growth its present mass of matter. The nebulous material was drawn
out of the inter-planetary space where it was floating, and the shower
of star dust on the surface of the earth became thinner and less
frequent. In some parts of the orbit bands or patches of this material
existed, and the earth in passing through such hands drew down upon
itself the flying fragments of such matter as it continues to do to
the present day. What are meteoric displays but the residue of the
primordial showers by which the world was formed?
All this work, according to the New Astronomy, took place while our
globe was still in a superheated condition. The mass of it had not yet
settled into permanent form. The water had not yet become water; it
was steam. The metals had not yet become metals; they were rather the
vapor of metals. At length they were the liquids of metals, and at
last the solids. So, also, the rocks were transformed from the
vaporous through the liquid into the solid form--all this while the
globe was in process of condensation. It grew smaller in mathematical
measurements at the same time that it grew heavier by the accretion of
matter. At last the surface was formed, and in time that surface was
sufficiently cooled to allow the vapors around it to condense into
seas and oceans and rivers. There were ages of superficial
softness--vast epochs of mud--in which the living beings that had now
appeared wallowed and sprawled.
We cannot trace the world-growth through all its stages but can only
indicate them as it were in a sketch. The more important thing to be
noted is the relation of our planet in process of formation to the
great fact called life. Here the New Astronomy comes in again to
indicate, theoretically at least, the philosophy of planetary
evolution. Each planet seems to pass through a vast almost
inconceivable period in which its condition renders life on its
surface or in its structure impossible. Heat is at once the favoring
and the prohibitory condition of life. Without heat life cannot exist;
with too great heat life cannot exist. With an intermediate and
moderate degree of heat many forms of animate and inanimate existence
may be promoted.
These facts tend to show that every world has in its career an
intermediate period which may be called the epoch of life. Before the
epoch of life begins there is in the given world no such form of
existence. There is matter only. Then at a certain stage the epoch of
life begins. The epoch of life continues for a vast indeterminate
period. No doubt in some of the worlds an epoch of life has been
provided ten times as great, possibly a thousand times as great, as in
other planets. After the epoch of life begins only certain forms of
existence are for a while possible. Then other and higher forms
succeed them, and then still higher. Thus the process continues until
the highest--that is, the conscious and moral form of existence
becomes possible, and that highest, that conscious, that moral form of
being is ourselves.
This is not all. The epoch of life seems to be terminable at the
further extreme by a planetary condition in which life is no longer
possible. The New Astronomy indicates the coming of a condition in all
the worlds when life must disappear therefrom and be succeeded by a
lifeless state of worldhood. This may be called the epoch of
death--that is, of world-death. It seems to be almost established by
investigation and right reason that worlds die. They reach a stage in
which they are lifeless. They cool down until the waters and gases
that are on the surface and above the surface recede more and more
into the surface and then into the interior, until they wholly
disappear. Cold takes the throne of nature. Universal aridity
supervenes, and all forms of vegetable and animate existence go away
to return no more. They dwindle and expire. The conditions that have
come are virtually conditions of death.
Whether the universe contains within itself, under the Almighty
supervision, certain arrangements and laws by which the dead world can
be again cast into the crucible and regenerated by liberation through
the action of heat into its primordial state once more and go the same
tremendous round of planet life, we know not. The conception of such a
process, even the dream or vague possibility of it, is sufficiently
sublime and fills the mind with a great delight in contemplating the
possible cycles through which the material universe is passing.
At any rate, we may contemplate the three great stages of world-life
with which we are already acquainted--that is, the birth stage, the
epoch of life and the epoch of death. There is a birth, as also a life
and a death of planets. Richard A. Proctor, of great fame, on one of
his last tours of instructive lecturing among our people, had for his
subject the "Birth and Death of Worlds." The theme was not dissimilar
to that which has been here presented in outline. The birth, the life
and the death of worlds! Such is a summary of that almost infinite
history through which our earth is passing--the history which the
globe is _making_ on its way from its nebulous to its final state.
Such, if we mistake not, is the story epitomized--the life history in
brief--of all the worlds of space. They have each in its order and
kind, an epoch of the beginning, then an epoch of growth and
evolution, then an epoch of life--toward which all the preceding
planet history seems to tend--and finally an epoch of death which
must, in the course of infinite time, swallow from sight each planet
in its turn, or at least reduce each from that condition in which it
is an arena of animated existence into that state where it is a
frozen and desert clod, still following its wonted path through space,
still shining with a cold but cheerful face, _like our moon_, upon the
silent abysses of the universe.
WHAT THE WORLDS ARE MADE OF.
The present century was already well advanced before there was any
solid ground for the belief that the worlds of space are made of
analogous or identical materials. It was only with the invention of
the spectroscope and the analysis of light that the material identity
of universal nature was proved by methods which could not be doubted.
The proof came by the spectroscope.
This little instrument, though not famed as is its lordly kinsman the
telescope, or even regarded with the popular favor of the microscope,
has nevertheless carried us as far, and, we were about to say, taught
us as much, as either of the others. It is one thing to see the worlds
afar, to note them visibly, to describe their outlines, to measure
their mass and determine their motions. It is another thing to know
their constitution, the substances of which they are composed, the
material condition in which they exist and the state of their progress
in worldhood. The latter work is the task of the spectroscope; and
right well has it accomplished its mission.
The solar spectrum has been known from the earliest ages. When the
sun-bow was set on the background of cloud over the diluvial floods,
the living beings of that age saw a spectrum--the glorious spectrum of
rain and shine. Wherever the rays of light have been diffracted under
given conditions by the agency of water drops, prism of glass or other
such transparent medium, and the ray has fallen on a suitable screen,
lo! there has been the beautiful spectrum of light.
The artificial, intentional production of this phenomenon of light has
long been known, and both novice and scientist have tested and
improved the methods of getting given results. The child's soap-bubble
shows it in miniature splendor. The pressure of one wet pane of glass
against another reveals it. The breakage of nearly all crystalline
substances brings something of the colored effects of light; but the
triangular prism of glass, suitably prepared, best of all displays the
analysis of the sun-beam into the colors of which it is composed.
The spectroscope is the improved instrument by which the diffracting
prism is best employed in producing the spectrum. The reader no doubt
has seen a spectroscope, and has observed its beautiful work. In this
place we pass, however, from the instrument of production to the
spectrum, or analyzed result, as the same is shown on a screen. There
the pencil of white light falling from the sun is spread out in the
manner of a fan, presenting on the screen the following arrangement of
colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
This order of colors, beginning with red, starts from that side of the
spectrum which is least bent from the right line in which the white
ray was traveling. The violet rays are most bent. The red rays are
thus said to be at the _lower_ edge of the prism, and the violet rays
at the _upper_ edge. Below the red rays there are now known to be
certain invisible rays, as of heat and electricity. Above the violet
rays are other invisible rays, such as the actinic influence. In fact,
the spectrum, beginning invisibly, passes by way of the visible rays
to the invisible again. Nor can any scientist in the world say at the
present time _how much_ is really included in the spread-out fan of
analyzed sunlight.
Thus much scientists have known for some time. Certain other facts,
however, in connection with the solar spectrum are of greater
importance than are its more sensible phenomena. It was in the year
1802 that the English physicist, William Hyde Wollaston, discovered
that the solar spectrum is crossed with a large number of _dark
lines_. He it was who first mapped these lines and showed their
relative position. He it was also who discovered the existence of
invisible rays above the violet. Twelve years afterward Joseph von
Fraunhofer, of Munich, a German optician of remarkable talents, took
up the examination of the Wollaston lines, and by his success in the
investigation succeeded in attracting the attention of the world.
This second stage in scientific discovery is generally that which
receives the plaudits of mankind. It was so in the case of Fraunhofer.
His name was given to the dark lines in the solar spectrum, and the
nomenclature is retained to the present time. They are called the
"Fraunhofer lines." It was soon discovered that the lines in question
as produced in the spectrum are due to the presence of gases in the
producing flame or source of light. It was also discovered that each
substance in, the process of combustion yields its own line or set of
lines. These appear at regular intervals in the spectrum. When several
substances are consumed at the same time; the lines of each appear in
the spectrum. The result is a _system_ of lines, becoming more and
more complex as the number of elements in the consuming materials is
increased.
The lines in a narrow spectrum fall so closely together that they
cannot be critically examined; but when more than one prism is used
and the spectrum by this means spread out widely, the dark lines are
made to stand apart. They are then found to number many thousands. We
speak now of the analysis of sunlight. Experimentation was naturally
turned, however, to terrestrial gases and solids on fire, and it was
found that these also produce like series of dark lines in the
spectrum. Or when the substances are consumed _as solids_, then the
spectral effects are reversed, and the lines that would be dark lines
in the luminous colored spectrum become themselves luminous lines on
the screen; but these lines hold the same relation in mathematical
measurement, etc., as do the _dark_ lines in the colored spectrum.
Skillful spectroscopists succeeded in detecting and delineating the
lines that were peculiar to each substance. By burning such substances
in flame, they were able to produce the lines, and thus verify
results. By such experimentation the various lines present in the
solar spectrum were separated from the complex result, and the
conclusion was reached that in the burning surface of the sun certain
substances _well known on earth are present_; for the lines of those
substances are shown in the spectrum.
No other known substances would produce the given lines. The
conclusion is overwhelming that the substances in question are present
in a gaseous condition in the burning flames of the sun. Down to the
present time the examination of the sun's atmosphere has shown the
existence therein of thirty-six known elements. These include sodium,
potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, cobalt, silver, lead,
tin, zinc, titanium, aluminium, chromium, silicon, carbon, hydrogen
and several others.
It was thus established that in the constitution of the sun many of
the well-known elements of the earth are present. There could be no
mistake about it. An identity of lines in such a case proved beyond
dispute the identity of the substance from which such lines are
derived. The existence of common materials in the central sphere of
our system and in _one_ of his attendant orbs--our own--could not be
doubted. The discovery of such a fact led by immediate inference to
the expectation and belief that the _other_ planets were of like
constitution, or in a word, that the whole solar system was
essentially composed of identical materials.
As the inquiry proceeded, it was found, however, that the agreement
in the lines of different spectra was not perfect. Lines would be
found in the spectrum derived from one source that were not present in
a spectrum derived from another source. Materials were therefore
suggested as present in one body that were not present in another.
Still further inquiry confirmed the belief that while there is a
general uniformity in the materials of our solar system, the identity
is not complete in all. An element is found in one part that may not
be found in another. Hydrogen shows its line in the spectrum derived
from every heavenly body that has been investigated; but not so
aluminium or cobalt. Sodium, that is, the salt-producing base, is
discovered everywhere, but not nickel or arsenium. The result, in a
word, shows a certain variability in the distribution of solar and
planetary matter, but a general identity of most.
The question next presented itself as to the character of the luminous
bodies _beyond_ the solar system. Of what kind of matter are the
comets? Of what kind are the fixed stars? Of what kind are the nebulæ?
Could the spectroscope be used in determining also the character of
the materials in those orbs that we see shining in the depths of
space? The instrument was turned in answer to these questions to the
sidereal heavens. No other branch of science has been prosecuted in
the after half of this century with more zeal and success than has the
spectroscopic analysis of the fixed stars. These are known by the
telescope to have the character of suns. The most general fact of the
visible heavens is the plentiful distribution of suns. They sparkle
everywhere as the so-called fixed stars. To them the telescope has
been virtually turned in vain. We say in vain because no single fixed
star has, we believe, ever been made by aid of the telescope to show a
disc.
On turning the telescope to a fixed star, its brightness, its
brilliancy, increases according to the power of the instrument. Coming
into the field of one of these great suns of space, the telescope
shows a miraculous dawn spreading and blazing into a glorious sunrise,
and a sun itself flaming like infinite majesty on the sight; but there
is no disc--nothing but a blaze of glory. Thus in a sense the
telescope has worked in vain on the visible heavens. But not so the
spectroscope. The latter has done its glorious work. Turning to a
given fixed star, it shows that the tremendous combustion going on
therein is virtually the same as that in our own sun. There, too, is
flaming hydrogen, and there is carbon and oxygen and iron and sodium
and potassium and many other of the leading elements of what we thus
know to be universal nature. The suns are all akin; they are
cousins-german. They are of the same family--they and their progeny.
They were born of the same universal fact. They are of the same
Father! They are builded on the same plan, and they have a common
destiny. Aye, more, the nebulæ that float far off, swanlike, in the
infinitudes, are of the same family. The nebulæ may be regarded as the
mothers of universes. It is out of their bosoms that the life and
substance of all suns and worlds are drawn! And these, too, are
composed of the common matter of universal nature. It is the same
matter that we eat and drink. It is the same that we breathe. It is
the same that we see aflame in our lamps and grates. It is the same
that is borne to us in the fragrance of flowers planted on the graves
of our dead. It is the common hydrogen and carbon and oxygen and
nitrogen of our earth and its envelope. It is the soda of our bread;
the potassa of our ashes; the phosphorus of our bones and brain!
Indeed, the universe throughout is of one form and one substance, and
there is one Father over all. Sooner or later the concepts of science
and of religion will come together; and the small agitations and
conflicts of human thought and hope will pass away in a sublime unity
of human faith.
Progress in Discovery and Invention.
THE FIRST STEAMBOAT AND ITS MAKER.
On the night of the second of July, 1798, a man at a little old tavern
in Bardstown, Kentucky, committed suicide. If ever there was a
justifiable case of self-destruction, it was this. No human being is
permitted to take his own life, but there are instances in which the
burden of existence becomes well-nigh intolerable. In the case just
mentioned, the man went to his room and took poison. He was a little
more than fifty-five years of age, but was prematurely old from the
hardships to which he had been subjected. He had not a penny. His
clothes were worn out. A dirty shirt, made of coarse materials, was
seen through the rags of his coat. His face was haggard, wrinkled,
written all over with despair, the lines of which not even the
goodness of death was able to dispel.
The man had seen the Old World and the New, but had never seen
happiness. He had followed his forlorn destiny from his native town
of South Windsor, Connecticut, where he was born on the twenty-first
of January, 1743. His body was buried in the graveyard of Bardstown,
then a frontier village. No one contributed a stone to mark the
grave. Nor has that duty ever been performed. The spot became
undistinguishable as time went by, and we believe that there is not a
man in the world who can point out the place where the body of John
Fitch was buried. The grave of the inventor of the steamboat, hidden
away, more obscurely than that of Jean Valjean in the cemetery of
Père-Lachaise, will keep the heroic bones to the last day, when all
sepulchres of earth shall set free their occupants and the great sea's
wash cast up its dead!
The life of John Fitch is, we are confident, the saddest chapter in
human biography. The soul of the man seems from the first to have gone
forth darkly voyaging, like Poe's raven,
--"Whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his song one burden bore,
Till the dirges of his hope the melancholy burden bore,--
Of 'Nevermore--nevermore!'"
Certainly it was nevermore with him. His early years were made
miserable by ill-treatment and abuse. His father, a close-fisted
farmer and an elder brother of the same character, converted the
boyhood life of John Fitch into a long day of grief and humiliation
and a long night of gloomy dreams. Then at length came an ill-advised
and ill-starred marriage, which broke under him and left him to wander
forth in desolation.
He went first from Connecticut to Trenton, N.J., and there in his
twenty-sixth year began to ply the humble trade of watch-maker. Then
he became a gunsmith, making arms for the patriots of Seventy-six,
until what time the British destroyed his shop. Then he was a soldier.
He suffered the horrors of Valley Forge; and before the conclusion of
the peace he went abroad in the country as a tinker of clocks and
watches. His peculiarity of manner and his mendicant character made
him the butt of neighborhoods. In 1780 he was sent as a
deputy-surveyor from Virginia into Kentucky, and after nearly two
years spent in the country between the Kentucky and Green rivers, he
went back to Philadelphia. On a second journey to the West his party
was assailed by the Indians at the mouth of the Muskingum, and most
were killed. But he was taken captive, and remained with the red men
for nearly a year. But he escaped at last, and got back to a
Pennsylvania settlement.
Fitch next lived for a year or two in and did approve of the
invention, he withheld any public endorsement of it.
Month after month went by, and no helping hand was extended. Fitch got
the reputation of being a crazy man. To save himself from starvation,
he made a map of the territory Northwest of the river Ohio, doing the
work of the engraving with his own hand, and printing the impressions
on a cider-press! Early in 1787 he succeeded in the formation of a
small company; and this company supplied, or agreed to supply, the
means requisite for the building of a steamboat sixty tons' burden.
The inventor also secured patents from New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia, granting to him the exclusive
right to use the waters of those States for fourteen years for
purposes of steam navigation.
Hereupon a boat was built and launched in the Delaware. It was
forty-five feet in length and twelve feet beam. There were six oars,
or paddles on each side. The engine had a twelve-inch cylinder, and
the route of service contemplated was between Philadelphia and
Burlington. The inventor agreed that his boat should make a rate of
eight miles an hour, and the charge for passage should be a shilling.
He who might have been in Philadelphia on the twenty-second of August,
1787, and did approve of the invention, he withheld any public
endorsement of it.
Month after month went by, and no helping hand was extended. Fitch got
the reputation of being a crazy man. To save himself from starvation,
he made a map of the territory Northwest of the river Ohio, doing the
work of the engraving with his own hand, and printing the impressions
on a cider-press! Early in 1787 he succeeded in the formation of a
small company; and this company supplied, or agreed to supply, the
means requisite for the building of a steamboat sixty tons' burden.
The inventor also secured patents from New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia, granting to him the exclusive
right to use the waters of those States for fourteen years for
purposes of steam navigation.
Hereupon a boat was built and launched in the Delaware. It was
forty-five feet in length and twelve feet beam. There were six oars,
or paddles on each side. The engine had a twelve-inch cylinder, and
the route of service contemplated was between Philadelphia and
Burlington. The inventor agreed that his boat should make a rate of
eight miles an hour, and the charge for passage should be a shilling.
He who might have been in Philadelphia on the twenty-second of August,
1787, would have witnessed a memorable thing. The Convention for the
framing of a Constitution for the United States of America was in
session. For some time the body had been wearing itself into
exhaustion over this question and that question which seemed
impossible of solution. On the day referred to, the convention, on
invitation, adjourned, and the members, including the Father of his
country, who was President, went down to the water's edge to see a
sight. There Fitch's steamboat was to make its trial trip, and there
the trial trip was made, with entire success.
They who were building the ship of state could but applaud the
performance of the little steamer that sped away toward Burlington.
But the applause was of that kind which the wise and conservative folk
always give to the astonishing thing done by genius. The wise and
conservative folk look on and smile and praise, but do not commit
themselves. Most dangerous it is for a politician to commit himself to
a beneficial enterprise; for the people might oppose it!
The facts here referred to are fully attested in indisputable records.
There are files of Philadelphia newspapers which contain accounts of
Fitch's boat. A line of travel and traffic was established between
Philadelphia and Burlington. There was also a steam ferryboat on the
Delaware. A second boat, called the "Perseverance," was designed for
the waters of the Mississippi; but this craft was wrecked by a storm,
and then the patent under which the Ohio river and its confluent
waters were granted, expired, and the enterprise had to be abandoned.
On the fourth of September, 1790, the following advertisement of the
"Pennsylvania Packet" appeared in a Philadelphia paper:
"The Steamboat will set out this morning, at eleven o'clock, for
Messrs. Gray's Garden, at a quarter of a dollar for each passenger
thither. It will afterwards ply between Gray's and middle ferry, at
11d each passenger. To-morrow morning, Sunday, it will set off for
Burlington at eight o'clock, to return in the afternoon."
This Pennsylvania Packet continued to ply the Delaware for about three
years. The mechanical construction of the boat was not perfect; and
shortly after the date to which the above advertisement refers the
little steamer was ruined by an accident. The story is told by Thomas
P. Cope, in the seventh volume of Hazard's _Register_. He says: "I
often witnessed the performance of the boat in 1788-89-90. It was
propelled by paddles in the stern, and was constantly getting out of
order. I saw it when it was returning from a trip to Burlington, from
whence it was said to have arrived in little more than two hours.
When coming to off Kensington, some part of the machinery broke, and I
never saw it in motion afterward. I believe it was his [Fitch's] last
effort. He had, up to that period, been patronized by a few
stout-hearted individuals, who had subscribed a small capital, in
shares, I think, of six pounds Pennsylvania currency; but this last
disaster so staggered their faith and unstrung their nerves, that they
never again had the hardihood to make other contributions. Indeed,
they already rendered themselves the subjects of ridicule and derision
for their temerity and presumption in giving countenance to this wild
projector and visionary madman. The company thereupon gave up the
ghost, the boat went to pieces, and Fitch became bankrupt and
brokenhearted. Often have I seen him stalking about like a troubled
spectre, with downcast eye and lowering countenance, his coarse,
soiled linen peeping through the elbows of a tattered garment."
With the breakdown of his enterprise, John Fitch went forth penniless
into the world. The patent which he received from the United States in
1791, was of small use. How little can a pauper avail himself of a
privilege! Presently his patent was burned up, and a year afterward,
namely in 1793, he went to France. There he would--according to his
dream--find patronage and fame; but on his arrival in the French
capital he found the Reign of Terror just beginning its work. It was
not likely that the Revolutionary Tribunal would give heed to an
American dreamer and his proposition to propel by steam a boat on the
Seine. However, Fitch went to L'Orient and deposited the plans and
specifications of his invention with the American consul. Then he
departed for London.
In the following year a man by the name of Robert Fulton took up his
residence with the family of Joel Barlow, in Paris. There he devoted
himself to his art, which was that of a painter. Whoever had passed by
the corner of Second and Walnut streets, in Philadelphia while Fitch
was constructing his first steamboat, might have seen a little sign
carrying these words: "Robert Fulton, Miniature Painter." But now,
after nearly ten years, he was painting a panorama in France. While
thus engaged, the American consul at L'Orient showed to Fulton Fitch's
drawings and specifications for a steamboat. More than this, _he
loaned them to him, and he kept them for several months_.
A thrifty man was Robert Fulton; discerning, prudent and capable!
Meanwhile, poor Fitch, in 1794, returned to America. On the ship he
worked his way as one of the hands. Getting again to New York he
determined to make his way into that region of country where he had
been a surveyor in 1780. He accordingly set out from New York for
Kentucky, but not till he had invented, or rather constructed, a
steamboat, which was driven by _a screw propeller_! This, in 1796, he
launched on the Collect Pond, in what is now Lower New York. The boat
was successful as an experiment; but the people who saw it looked upon
its operation and upon the thing itself as the product of a crazy
man's brain.
He who now passes along the streets of the metropolis will come upon a
vendor of toys, who will drop upon the pavement an artificial
miniature tortoise, rabbit, rat, or what not, well wound up; and the
creature will begin to crawl, or dance, or jump, or run, according to
its nature. The busy, conservative man smiles a superior smile, and
passes on. It was in such mood that the old New Yorker of 1796
witnessed the going of Fitch's little screw propeller on the Pond. It
was a toy of the water.
After this the poor spectre left for the West. The spring of 1798
found him at Bardstown, with the model of a little three-foot
steamboat, which he launched on a neighboring stream. There he still
told his neighbors that the time would come when all rivers and seas
would be thus navigated. But they heeded not. The spectre became more
spectral. At last, about the beginning of July, in the year just
named, he gave up the battle, crept into his room at the little old
tavern, took his poison, and fell into the final sleep.
We shall conclude this sketch of him and his work with one of his own
sorrowful prophecies: "The day will come," said he in a letter, "when
some more powerful man will get fame and riches from _my_ invention;
but nobody will believe that poor John Fitch can do anything worthy of
attention." Than this there is, we think, hardly a more pathetic
passage in the history of the sons of men!
TELEGRAPHING BEFORE MORSE.
There is a great fallacy in the judgment of mankind about the method
of the coming of new things. People imagine that new things come all
at once, but they do not. Nothing comes all at once; that is, no
thing. In the facts of the natural world, that is, among visible
phenomena of the landscape, the judgment of people is soon corrected.
There it is seen that everything grows. The growth is sometimes slow
and sometimes rapid; but everything comes gradually out of its
antecedents. No tree or shrub or flower ever came immediately. No
living creature on the face of the earth begins by instantaneous
apparition. The chick gets out of its shell presently, but even that
takes time. Every living thing comes on by degrees from a germ, and
the germ is generally microscopic! Nature is, indeed, a marvel!
The facts of human life, whether tangible or intangible, have this
same method. For example, there has not been an invention known to
mankind that has not come on in the manner of growth. The antecedents
of it work on and on in a tentative way, producing first this trial
result and then that, always approaching the true thing; and even the
true thing when it comes is not perfect. It is made perfect afterward.
There was never an instantaneous invention, and there was never a
complete one! It is doubtful whether there is at the present time a
single complete, that is perfect or perfected, invention in the world.
They are all of partial development. They show in their history their
origin, their growth, their gradual approximation to the perfect form.
All of the marvelous contrivances which, fill the arena of our
civilization, making it first vital and then vocal, have come by the
evolutionary process. Every one of them has a history which is more
and more obscure as we follow it backward to its source. In every
case, however, there comes a time when a given discovery, manifesting
itself in a given invention, takes a sort of spectacular character,
and it is then rather suddenly revealed to the consciousness of
mankind.
Of this general law the telegraph affords a conspicuous example. The
whole world knows the story of the telegraph of Morse. It was in 1844
that the work of this great inventor was publicly demonstrated to the
world. Then it was that the electro-magnetic telegraph in its first
rude estate began to be used in the transmission of messages and other
written information.
It has come to pass that "telegraph" means virtually _electric_
telegraph. The people of to-day seem to have forgotten that the
telegraph is not necessarily dependent on the electrical current. They
have forgotten that back of the Morse invention other means had been
employed of transmitting information at a distance. They have
forgotten that it was by the most gradual and tedious process that the
old telegraphic methods were evolved into the new. Note with wonder
how this great invention began, and through what stages it passed to
completion.
There is a natural telegraphy. Whoever stands in an open place and
calls aloud to his fellow mortal at a distance _telegraphs_ to him. At
least he telephones to him; that is, _sounds_ to him at a distance.
The air is the medium, the vocal cords in vibration the source of the
utterance, and the ear of the one at a distance the audiphonic
receiver. This sort of telegraphy is original and natural with human
beings, and it is common to them and the lower animals. All the
creatures that have vocality use this method. It were hard to say how
humble is the creeping thing that does not rasp out some kind of a
message to its fellow insect. Some, like the fireflies, do their
telegraphing with a lantern which they carry. The very crickets are
expert in telegraphy, or telephony, which is ultimately the same
thing.
After transmitted sound the next thing is the visible signal, and this
has been employed by human beings from the earliest ages in
transmitting information to a distance. It is a method which will
perhaps never be wholly abandoned. Observe the surveyors running a
trial line. Far off is the chain bearer and here is the theodolite.
The man with the standard watches for the signal of the man with the
instrument. The language is _seen_ and the message understood, though
no word is spoken. Here the sunlight is the wire, and the visible
motion of the hands and arms the letters and words of the message.
The ancients were great users of this method. They employed it in both
peace and war. They occupied heights and showed signals at great
distances. The better vision of those days made it possible to catch a
signal, though far off, and to transmit it to some other station,
likewise far away. In this manner bright objects were waved by day and
torches by night. In times of invasion such a method of spreading
information has been used down to the present age. Nor may we fail to
note the improved apparatus for this kind of signaling now employed in
military operations. The soldiers on our frontiers in Arizona, New
Mexico, and through the mountainous regions further north, are able to
signal with a true telegraphic language to stations nearly a hundred
miles away.
Considerable progress was made in telegraphy in the after part of the
eighteenth century. This progress related to the transmission of
visible messages through the air. In the time of the French Revolution
such contrivance occupied the attention of military commanders and of
governing powers. A certain noted engineer named Chappe invented at
this epoch a telegraph that might be properly called successful.
Chappe was the son of the distinguished French astronomer, Jean Chappe
d'Auteroche, who died at San Lucar, California, in 1769. This elder
Chappe had previously made a journey into Siberia, and had seen from
that station the transit of Venus in 1761. Hoping to observe the
recurring transit, eight years afterward, he went to the coast of our
then almost unknown California, but died there as stated above.
The younger Chappe, being anxious to serve the Revolution, invented
his telegraph; but in doing so he subjected himself to the suspicions
of the more ignorant, and on one notable occasion was brought into a
strait place--both he and his invention. The story of this affair is
given by Carlyle in the second volume of his "French Revolution." One
knows not whether to smile or weep over the graphic account which the
crabbed philosopher gives of Chappe and his work in the following
extract:
"What, for example," says he, "is this that Engineer Chappe is doing
in the Park of Vincennes? In the Park of Vincennes; and onward, they
say, in the Park of Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, the assassinated
deputy; and still onward to the Heights of Ecouen and farther, he has
scaffolding set up, has posts driven in; wooden arms with elbow-joints
are jerking and fugling in the air, in the most rapid mysterious
manner! Citoyens ran up, suspicious. Yes, O Citoyens, we are
signaling; it is a device, this, worthy of the Republic; a thing for
what we will call far-writing without the aid of postbags; in Greek it
shall be named Telegraph. '_Telégraphê sacre_,' answers Citoyenism.
For writing to Traitors, to Austria?--and tears it down, Chappe had to
escape and get a new legislative Decree. Nevertheless he has
accomplished it, the indefatigable Chappe; this his Far-writer, with
its wooden arms and elbow-joints, can intelligibly signal; and lines
of them are set up, to the North Frontiers and elsewhither. On an
Autumn evening of the Year Two, Far-writer having just written that
Condè Town has surrendered to us, we send from the Tuileries
Convention-Hall this response in the shape of a Decree: 'The name of
Condè is changed to _Nord-Libre_ (North Free). The Army of the North
ceases not to merit well of the country.' To the admiration of men!
For lo! in some half-hour, while the Convention yet debates, there
arrives this new answer: 'I inform thee (_Je t'annonce_), Citizen
President, that the Decree of Convention, ordering change of the name
Condè into North Free; and the other, declaring that the Army of the
North ceases not to merit well of the country, are transmitted and
acknowledged by Telegraph. I have instructed my Officer at Lille to
forward them to North Free by express.' Signed, Chappe."
This successful telegraph of Engineer Chappe was not an electric
telegraph, but a sunlight telegraph. Is it in reality any more
wonderful to use the electrical wave in the transmission of
intelligible symbols than to use a wave of light? Such seems to have
been the opinion of mankind; and the coming of the electric telegraph
was long postponed. The invention was made by slow approaches. In our
country the notion has prevailed that Morse did all--that others did
nothing; but this notion is very erroneous.
We are not to suppose that the Chappe method of telegraphing became
extinct after its first successful work. Other references to what we
_suppose_ to be the same instrument are found in the literature of the
age. The wonder is that more was not written and more accomplished by
the agency of Chappe's invention. In the fall of the year 1800,
General Bonaparte, who had been in Egypt and the East, returned to
Europe and landed at Frejus on his way to Paris, with the dream of
universal dominion in his head. In the first volume of the _Memoirs of
Napoleon Bonaparte_, his secretary M. de Bourrienne, writing of the
return to France says:
"We arrived in Paris on the 24th Vendemiaire (the sixteenth of
October). As yet he (Napoleon) knew nothing of what was going on; for
he had seen neither his wife nor his brothers, who were looking for
him on the Burgundy Road. The news of our landing at Frejus had
reached Paris _by a_ _telegraphic despatch_. Madame Bonaparte, who
was dining with M. Gohier when that despatch was communicated to him,
as President of the Directory, immediately set off to meet her
husband," etc. We should be glad to know in what particular form that
"telegraphic despatch" was delivered! But such are Bourrienne's words!
To the American reader the name of Karl Friedrich Gauss may have an
unfamiliar sound. Gauss was already a youth of fourteen when Morse was
born, though the latter outlived the German mathematician by seventeen
years. Gauss was a professor of Mathematics at Göttingen, where he
passed nearly the whole of his life. In the early part of the century
he distinguished himself in astronomy and in other branches of
physical science. He then became interested in magnetic and electrical
phenomena, and in 1833, with the assistance of Wilhelm Eduard Weber,
one of his fellow-professors, who died in 1891, he erected at
Göttingen a magnetic observatory. There he began to experiment with
the subtle agent which was soon to be placed at the service of
mankind.
The observatory was constructed without the use of iron, in order that
the magnetic phenomena might be studied under favorable conditions.
Humboldt and Arago had previously constructed laboratories without
using iron--for iron is the great disturber--and from them Gauss
obtained his hint. Weber was also expert in the management of
magneto-electrical currents. Gauss, with the aid of his co-worker,
constructed a line of telegraph, and sent signals by the agency of the
magnetic current to a neighboring town. This was nearly ten years
before Morse had fully succeeded in like experimentation.
It appears that the German scientists regarded their telegraph as
simply the tangible expression or apparatus to illustrate scientific
facts and principles. It was for this reason, we presume, that no
further headway was made at Göttingen in the development of
telegraphy. It was also for the additional reason that men rarely or
never accept what is really the first demonstration and
exemplification of a new departure in scientific knowledge. Such is
the timidity of the human mind--such its conservative attachment to
the known thing and to the old method as against the new--that it
prefers to stay in the tumble-down ruin of bygone opinions and
practices, rather than go up and inhabit the splendid but unfamiliar
temple of the future.
Gauss and Weber were left with their scientific discovery; and,
indeed, Morse in the New World of practicality and quick adaptations,
was about to be rejected and cast out. The sorrows through which he
passed need not here be recounted. They are sufficiently sad and
sufficiently humiliating. His unavailing appeals to the American
Congress are happily hidden in the rubbish of history, and are
somewhat dimmed by the intervention of more than half a century. But
his humiliation was extreme. Smart Congressmen, partisans, the
ignorant flotsam of conventions and intrigues, heard the philosopher
with contempt. A few heard him with sympathy; and the opinion in his
favor grew, as if by the pressure of shame, until he was finally
supported, and in a midnight hour of an expiring session of Congress,
or rather in the early morning of the fourth of March, 1843, the
munificent appropriation of $30,000 was placed at his disposal for the
construction of an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore.
The one thing was done. A new era of instantaneous communication
between men and communities at a distance the one from the other was
opened--an era which has proved to be an era of light and knowledge.
Nor may we conclude this sketch without noting the fact that, not a
few of the members of the House of Representatives who voted the
pittance for the construction of the first line of actual working
telegraph in the world, went home to their constituents and were
ignominiously beaten for re-election--this this for the slight
service which they had rendered to their country and the human race!
When in New York City, turn thou to the west out of Fifth avenue into
Twenty-second street, to the distance of, perhaps, ten rods, and there
on a little marble slab set in the wall of a house on the north side
of the street, read this curious epitaph:
"In this house lived Professor S.F.B, Morse for thirty years and
died!"
THE NEW LIGHT OF MEN.
By the law of nature our existence is divided between daylight and
darkness. There is evermore the alternate baptism into dawn and night.
The division of life is not perfect between sunshine and shadow; for
the sunshine bends around the world on both horizons, and lengthens
the hemisphere of day by a considerable rim of twilight. To this
reduction of the darkness we must add moonshine and starlight. But we
must also subtract the influence of the clouds and other incidental
conditions of obscuration. After these corrections are made, there is
for mankind a great band of deep night, wherein no man can work.
Whoever goes forth at some noon of night, when the sky is wrapped with
clouds, must realize the utter dependence of our kind upon the light.
How great is the blessing of that sublime and beautiful fact which the
blind Milton apostrophizes in the beginning of the Third Book of
_Paradise Lost_:
"Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born!
Or of Eternal coëternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite."
How then shall man overcome the darkness? It is one of the problems of
his existence. He is obliged with each recurring sunset of his life to
enter the tunnel of inky darkness and make his way through as best he
may to the morning. What kind of lantern shall he carry as he gropes?
The evolution of artificial light and of the means of producing it
constitutes one of the most interesting chapters in the history of our
race. Primeval man knew fire. He learned in some way how to kindle
fire. The lowest barbarian may be defined as a fire-producing animal.
The cave men of ancient Europe kindled fires in their dark caverns.
The lake dwellers had fires, both on shore and in their huts over the
water. Wherever there was a fire there was artificial light. The
primitive barbarian walked around the embers of his fire and saw his
shadow stretching out into the gloom of the surrounding night.
With the slow oncoming of a better estate, the early philosophers of
mankind invented lamps. Very rude indeed were the first products in
this kind of art. Note the character of the lamps that have survived
to us from the age of stone. Still they are capable of holding oil and
retaining a wick. Further on we have lamps from the age of bronze, and
at last from the age of iron. Polite antiquity had its silver lamps,
its copper lamps, and in a few instances its lamps of gold. The
palaces of kings were sometimes lighted from golden reservoirs of oil.
Such may be seen among the relics preserved to us from the
civilizations of Western Asia. The palace of Priam, if we mistake not,
had lamps of gold.
The Great Greeks were the makers of beautiful lamps. In the age of the
Grecian ascendancy the streets of Athens and of some other Hellenic
cities were lighted by night. The material of such illumination was
oil derived either from animals or from vegetable products, such as
the olive. In the forms of Greek lamps we have an example of artistic
beauty not surpassed or equaled in modern time; but the mechanical
contrivance for producing the light was poor and clumsy.
Rome lighted herself artificially. She had her lamps and her torches
and her chandeliers, as we see in the relics of Herculaneum and
Pompeii. A Roman procession by night was not wanting in brilliancy and
picturesqueness. The quality of the light, however was poor, and there
was always a cloud of smoke as well as of dust hovering about Roman
processions and triumphs.
The earlier Middle Ages improved not at all; but with the Renaissance
there was an added elegance in the apparatus of illumination.
Chandeliers were made in Italy, notably in Venice, that might rival in
their elegance anything of the present age. The art of such products
was superior; but the old barbaric clumsiness was perpetuated in the
mechanical part. With the rise of scientific investigation under the
influence of inductive philosophy, all kinds of contrivances for the
production of artificial light were improved. The ingenuity of man was
now turned to the mechanical part, and one invention followed another
with a constant development in the power of illumination.
We can but remember, however, that until the present age many of the
old forms of illuminating apparatus have been retained. In the ruder
communities such things may still be seen. Civilization in its
progress from east to west across our continent followed a tallow
candle. The light of it was seen by night through the window of the
pioneer's cabin. The old forms of hanging lamps have hardly yet
disappeared from the advance posts of the marching column. But
meanwhile, other agencies have been discovered, and other forms of
apparatus invented, until the branch of knowledge relating to
illumination has become both a science and an art.
Within the memories of men still living, a great transformation has
occurred. Animal oils have virtually ceased to be employed as the
sources of light. The vegetable world is hardly any longer drawn upon
for its products. Already before the discovery of petroleum and its
multifarious uses the invention by chemical methods of illuminating
materials had begun. Many kinds of burning fluid had been introduced.
The reign of these was short-lived; coal oil came in at the door and
they flew out at the window. Great was the advantage which seemed to
come to mankind from the use of kerosene lamps. Those very forms of
illumination which are now regarded as crude in character and odious
in use were only a generation ago hailed with delight because of their
superiority to the former agents of illumination. Thus much may
suffice for all that precedes the coming of the New Light of men. The
new light flashes from the electrical glow. The application of
electricity to purposes of illumination marks an era in human
progress. The electrical light is, we think, high up among the most
valuable and striking stages of civilized life in the nineteenth
century. It is best calculated to affect favorably the welfare of the
people, especially in great cities. The illumination of a city by
night, making its streets to be lighted as if by day, is a more
interesting and important fact in human history than any political
conflict or mere change of rulers.
About the beginning of the eighth decade of this century the project
of introducing the electric light for general purposes of illumination
began to be agitated. It was at once perceived that the advantages of
such lighting were as many as they were obvious. The light is so
powerful as to render practicable the performance of many mechanical
operations as easily by night as by day. Again, the danger of fire
from illuminating sources is almost wholly obviated by the new system.
The ease and expedition of all kinds of night employment are greatly
enhanced. A given amount of illumination can be produced much more
cheaply by electricity than by any means of gas lighting or ordinary
combustion. Among the first to demonstrate the feasibility of
electric lighting was the philosopher Gramme, of Paris. In the early
part of 1875 he successfully lighted his laboratory by means of
electricity. Soon afterward the foundry of Ducommun & Co., of
Mulhouse, was similarly lighted. In the course of the following year
the apparatus for lighting, by means of carbon candles was introduced
into many of the principal factories of France and other leading
countries of Europe. It may prove of interest in this connection to
sketch briefly the principal features of the electric light system,
and to trace the development of that system in our own and other
countries.
Lighting by electricity is accomplished in several ways. In general,
however, the principle by which the result is accomplished is one, and
depends upon the resistance which the electrical current meets in its
transmission through various substances. There are no perfect
conductors of electricity. In proportion as the non-conductive quality
is prevalent in a substance, especially in a metal, the resistance to
the passage of electricity is pronounced, and the consequent
disturbance among the molecular particles of the substance is great.
Whenever such resistance is encounted in a circuit, the electricity is
converted into heat, and when the resistance is great, the heat is, in
turn, converted into light, or rather the heat becomes phenomenal in
light; that is, the substance which offers the resistance glows with
the transformed energy of the impeded current. Upon this simple
principle all the apparatus for the production of electric light is
produced.
Among the metallic substances, the one best adapted by its low
conductivity to such resistance and transformation of force, is
platinum. The high degree of heat necessary to fuse this metal adds to
its usefulness and availability for the purpose indicated. When an
electrical current is forced along a platinum wire too small to
transmit the entire volume, it becomes at once heated--first to a red,
and then to a white glow--and is thus made to send forth a radiance
like that of the sun. Of the non-metallic elements which offer similar
resistance, the best is carbon. The infusibility of this substance
renders it greatly superior to platinum for purposes of the electric
light.
Near the beginning of the present century it was discovered by Sir
Humphry Davy that carbon points may be rendered incandescent by means
of a powerful electrical current. The discovery was fully developed in
the year 1809, while the philosopher just referred to was
experimenting with the great battery of the Royal Institution of
London. He observed--rather by accident than by design or previous
anticipation--that a strong volume of electricity passing between two
bits of wood charcoal produces tremendous heat, and a light like that
of the sun. It appears, however, that Davy at first regarded the
phenomenon rather in the nature of an interesting display of force
than as a suggestion of the possibility of turning night into day.
For nearly three-quarters of a century the discovery made by Sir
Humphrey lay dormant among the great mass of scientific facts revealed
in the laboratory. In the course of time, however, the nature of the
new fact began to be apprehended. The electric lamp in many forms was
proposed and tried. The scientists, Niardet, Wilde, Brush, Fuller, and
many others of less note, busied themselves with the work of
invention. Especially did Gramme and Siemens devote their scientific
genius to the work of turning to good account the knowledge now fully
possessed of the transformability of the electric current into light.
The experiments of the last named two distinguished inventors brought
us to the dawn of the new era in artificial lighting. The Russian
philosopher, Jablokhkoff, carried the work still further by the
practical introduction of the carbon candle. Other scientists--Carre,
Foucault, Serrin, Rapieff, and Werdermann--had, at an earlier or later
day, thrown much additional information into the common stock of
knowledge relative to the illuminating possibilities of electricity.
Finally, the accumulated materials of science fell into the hands of
that untutored but remarkably radical inventor, Thomas A. Edison, who
gave himself with the utmost zeal to the work of removing the
remaining difficulties in the problem.
Edison began his investigations in this line of invention in September
of 1878, and in December of the following year gave to the public his
first formal statement of results. After many experiments with
platinum, he abandoned that material in favor of the carbon-arc _in
vacuo_. The latter is, indeed, the essential feature of the Edison
light. A small semicircle, or horseshoe, of some substance, such as a
filament of bamboo reduced to the form of pure carbon, the two ends
being attached to the poles of the generating-machine, or dynamo, as
the engine is popularly called, is enclosed in a glass bulb, from
which the air has been carefully drawn, and is rendered incandescent
by the passage of an electric current. The other important features of
Edison's discovery relate to the divisibility of the current, and its
control and regulation in volume by the operator. These matters were
fully mastered in the Edison invention, and the apparatus rendered as
completely subject to management as are the other varieties of
illuminating agencies.
It were vain to speculate upon the future of electric lighting. The
question of artificial illumination has had much to do with the
progress of the human race, particularly when aggregated into cities.
Doubtless the old systems of lighting are destined in time to give
place altogether to the splendors of the electric glow. The general
effect of the change upon society must be as marked as it is salutary.
Darkness, the enemy of good government and morality in great cities,
will, in great measure, be dispelled by the beneficent agent, over
which the genius of Davy, Gramme, Brush, Edison, and a host of other
explorers in the new continents of science has so completely
triumphed. The ease, happiness, comfort, and welfare of mankind must
be vastly multiplied, and the future must be reminded, in the glow
that dispels the night, of that splendid fact that the progress of
civilization depends, in a large measure, upon a knowledge of Nature's
laws, and the diffusion of that knowledge among the people.
THE TELEPHONE.
Perhaps no other great invention of man has been within so short a
period so widely distributed as the telephone. The use of the
instrument is already co-extensive with civilization. The cost at
which the instruments are furnished is still so considerable that the
poor of the world are not able to avail themselves of the invention;
but in the so-called upper circles of society the use of the telephone
is virtually universal. It has made its way from the city to the town,
from the town to the village, from the village to the hamlet, and even
to the country-side where the millions dwell.
The telephone came by a speedy revelation. It was born of that intense
scientific activity which is the peculiarity of our age. The
antecedent knowledge out of which it sprang had existed in various
forms for a long time. The laws of acoustics were among the first to
be investigated after a true physical science began to be taught. The
phenomena of sound are so universal and experimentation in sound
production so easy, that the governing laws were readily discovered.
Acoustics, we think, foreran somewhat the science of heat, as the
science of heat preceded that of light. Electricity came last. The
telephone is an instrument belonging not wholly, not chiefly, but only
in part, to acoustics. It owes its existence to magnetic induction and
electrical transmission as much as to the mere action of sound. One
foot of the instrument, so to speak, is acoustics, and the other foot
electricity. The telephone philosophically considered is an instrument
for the conversion of a sound-wave into electrical motion, and its
reconversion into sound at a distance. The sound is, as it were,
committed to the electrical current and is thus sent to the end of the
journey, and there discharged with its message. The possibility of
this result lies first of all in the fact of electrical transmission
by wire, and in the second place to the mounting of a sound-rider on
the electrical saddle for an instantaneous journey with important
despatches!
New results in scientific progress generally seem marvelous. The
unfamiliar and unexpected thing is always a marvel; but scientifically
considered, the telephone does not seem so surprising as at first
view. The atmosphere is a conductor of sound. It is the natural agent
of transmission, and so far as the natural man is concerned, it is his
only agent for the transmission of oral utterance. If the unlearned
man have his attention called to the surprising fact of hearing his
fellow-man call out to him across a field or from far off on the
prairie, he does not think it marvelous, but only natural. Yet how
strange it is that one human being can speak to another through the
intervening space!
It is strange that one should see another at a distance; but seeing
and hearing at distances are natural functions of living creatures.
The sunlight is for one sense and the sound-wave is for the other. The
sound-wave travels on the atmosphere, and preserves its integrity. A
given sound is produced, and the same sound is heard by some ear at a
distance. All the people of the world are telephoning to one another;
for oral speech leaping from the vocal organs of one human being to
the ear of another is always telephonic. It is only when this
phenomenon of speech at a distance is taken from the soft wings of the
air, confined to a wire, and made to fly along the slender thread and
deliver itself afar in a manner to which the world has hitherto been a
stranger that the thing done and the apparatus by which it is done
seem miraculous. Indeed it is a miracle; for _miraculum_ signifies
wonderful.
The history of the invention of the telephone is easily apprehended.
The scientific principles on which it depends may be understood
without difficulty. There is, however, about the instrument and its
action something that is well nigh unbelievable. It is essentially a
thing contrary to universal experience, if not positively
inconceivable, that the slight phenomenon of the human voice should
be, so to speak, _picked up_ by a physical contrivance, carried a
thousand miles through a thread of wire not a quarter of an inch in
diameter, and delivered in its integrity to the sense of another
waiting to receive it! At all events, the history of the telephone,
belonging so distinctly to our own age, will stand as a reminder to
after times of the great stride which the human race made in inventive
skill and scientific progress in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century.
The telephone, like many similar instruments, was the work of several
ingenious minds directed at nearly the same time to the same problem.
The solution, however, must be accredited first of all to Elisha P.
Gray, of Chicago, and Alexander Graham Bell, of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. It should be mentioned, however, that Amos E.
Dolbear, of Tufts College, Massachusetts, and Thomas A. Edison, of
Menlo Park, New Jersey, likewise succeeded in solving the difficulty
in the way of telephonic communication, and in answering practically
several of the minor questions that hindered at first the complete
success of the invention. The telephone is an instrument for the
reproduction of sounds, particularly the sounds of the human voice, by
the agency of electrical conduction at long distances from the origin
of the vocal disturbance. Or it may be defined as an instrument for
the _transmission_ of the sounds referred to by the agencies
described. Indeed it were hard to say whether in a telephonic message
we receive a _reproduced_ sound or a _transmitted_ sound. On the
whole, it is more proper to speak of a reproduction of the original
sound by transmission of the waves in which that sound is first
written.
It is now well known that the phenomenon called sound consists of a
wave agitation communicated through the particles of some medium to
the organ of hearing. Every particular sound has its own physical
equivalent in the system of waves in which it is written. The only
thing, therefore, that is necessary in order to carry a sound in its
integrity to any distance, is to transmit its physical equivalent, and
to redeliver that equivalent to some organ of hearing capable of
receiving it.
Upon these principles the telephone was produced--created. Every sound
which falls by impact upon the sheet-iron disk of the instrument
communicates thereto a sort of tremor. This tremor causes the disk to
approach and recede from the magnetic pole placed just behind the
diaphragm. A current of electricity is thus induced, pulsates along
the wire to the other end, and is delivered to the metallic disk of
the second instrument, many miles away, just as it was produced in the
first. The ear of the hearer receives from the second instrument the
exact physical equivalent of the sound, or sounds, which were
delivered against the disk of the first instrument, and thus the
utterance is received at a distance just as it was given forth.
As already said, the invention of the telephone stands chiefly to the
credit of Professors Gray and Bell. It should be recorded that as
early as 1837, the philosopher Page succeeded, by means of
electro-magnetism, in transmitting _musical_ tones to a distance. It
was not, however, until 1877 that Professer Bell, in a public lecture
given at Salem, Mass., astonished his audience, and the whole country
as well, by receiving and transmitting _vocal_ messages from Boston,
twenty miles away. Incredulity had no more a place as it respected the
feasibility of talking to persons at a distance. The experiments of
Gray at Chicago, a few days later in the same month, were equally
successful. Messages were distinctly delivered between that city and
Milwaukee, a distance of eighty-five miles, nor could it be longer
doubted that a new era in the means of communication had come.
The Bell telephone, with its many modifications and improvements, has
come into rapid use. Within reasonable limits of distance, the new
method of transmitting intelligence by direct vocal utterance, has
taken the place of all slower and less convenient means of
intercommunication. The appearance of the simple instrument has been
one of the many harbingers of the oncoming better time, when the
interchange of thought and sentiment between man and man, community
and community, nation and nation, and race and race shall be the
preliminary of universal peace in the world and of the good-fellowship
of mankind.
Every such fact as the invention of the telephone, produces a complex
and almost indescribable result in human society. This result has in
it, in the first place, a change in the manners and method of the
individual There is also a change in his sentiments. He whose work in
life, whatever it may be, is accomplished in touch with the telephone
will realize that he is in touch with the whole world. This intimacy
reaches, first, his neighbors and friends. He seems to live henceforth
in their presence, and in communication with them.
The isolation of the individual life is virtually obliterated by such
an agency. Solitude disappears before it; for he whose ear is within
hearing of his instrument, knows not at what moment any one of many
thousands of people may speak to him. He knows not at what moment
intelligence of an ever-varying kind may be spoken to him from his own
community or out of the depths of distance. The mind is thus
affiliated with an enlarged and ever-present society. These
considerations do not relate to mere matters of convenience and
quickness and advantage and safety, but to the larger question of the
aggregate effect upon the individual.
The effect on the community is of like kind. The community is no
longer so segregated as it was before. The community is in touch with
other communities of like character. The conflagration in one town is
felt in the neighboring towns, if it is not seen. The epidemic of the
one is the epidemic of many. The sensation of the one community
diffuses itself instantly into several. The effect is in the
intellectual life like that of a wave produced on the lake by the
casting in of a stone. The wave widens and recedes. It may be
obstructed or unobstructed in its progress. If obstructed, the
obstructions may be removed. Then the motion of the wave will become
free and regular. So also on the tide of public thought. The telephone
is an agency _for removing mental obstructions_, and for the regular
diffusion of a common thought.
All this, however, is attended with draw-backs. One of these is the
breaking in on the privacy and seclusion of the individual life.
Individuality suffers under scientific progress. Great thinking is
accomplished best in solitude. Emerson has forcibly pointed out the
advantages which arise in the intellectual life from its isolation and
seclusion--from its free and uninterrupted communion with itself.
The convenience--the physical convenience--of life is vastly augmented
by such a contrivance as the telephone. Time is saved and trouble
obviated. But at the same time the necessity for bodily exercise is
reduced, and the overgrowth of brain at the expense of body encouraged.
The fact is that the invention of the telephone and its general use,
while it has added very greatly to the comfort of life, while it has
promoted ease and diffused a social sense that needed stimulation and
development, has at the same time brought in conditions that are not
wholly favorable to human welfare. More largely still, the truth is
that the telephone, like every other symbol and agency of progress,
has brought _enlarged responsibilities._
No man, no community, no people or nation can gain an increase of
power without accepting the accompanying increase of responsibility.
The moral nature of man is thus involved. Every forward stride of
scientific invention places upon the life of man, including his bodily
activity, his mental moods and his spiritual and moral powers, an
added stress of duty, of energy, and of rectitude in conduct from
which he may not shrink if he would be the gainer rather than the
loser. Each discovery and each improved method of employing the
beneficent forces of the natural world, brings with it a strain upon
the moral nature of man which, if he stand it, well; but if he stand
it not, then it shall go ill with him.
THE MACHINE THAT "TALKS BACK."
The invention for making nature give an intelligent response may well
be regarded with wondering interest. The odd, we might say humorous,
feature of the invention is that nature, being as it were cornered and
compelled to respond, will answer nothing except _to repeat what is
said in her ear!_ The phonograph may be defined as a mechanical
parrot. Unlike the living bird, however, it never makes answers
malapropos. It never deviates from the original text. The distrust
which has been justly cherished against the talking bird on account of
his originality can never be reasonably directed against the
phonograph!
The possibility of writing sound has been recognized for a century
past. Since the discovery of the vibratory character of sound, the
physicist has seen the feasibility of recording the vibration. Nature
herself has given many hints along this line of experimentation. Long
ago it was seen that the writing sand sprinkled on the sounding board
of the piano would under the influence of a chord struck from the keys
arrange itself in geometrical figures. It was also seen that a discord
sounded from the key-board would break the figures into chaos and
confusion. Were not these phenomena sufficient to suggest that sound
might be written in intelligible characters?
The mind, however, moves slowly from the old to the new. The former
concept of physical facts and the laws which govern them is not
readily given up. A great discovery in physical science seems to
disturb the foundations of nature. It does not really do so; the
disturbance is not in nature, but in the mind. No endeavor of man, no
advance of his from some old bivouac to a new camping-ground, affects
in the least the order of the world. The change, we repeat, is in the
man, and in the race to which he belongs.
Long and tedious has been the process of getting thought into a
recorded form. The first method of expressing thought was oral. Long
before any other method of holding ideas and delivering them to others
was devised or imagined, speech came. Speech is oral. It is made of
sound. Oral utterance is no doubt as old as the race itself. It began
with the first coming of our kind into this sphere. Indeed we now know
that the rudiments of speech exist in the faculties of the lower
animals. The studies of Professor Garner have shown conclusively that
the humble simian folk of the African forest have a speech or
language. Of this the professor himself has become a student, and he
claims to have learned at least sixty words of the vocabulary!
Strange it is to note the course which linguistic development has
taken. At the first, there was a _spoken_ language only. The next
stage was to get this spoken language recorded, not in _audible_, but
in _visible_ symbols. Why should it have been so easy and apparently
natural for the old races to invent a visible form of speech-writing
rather than an audible form? Why should the ancients have fallen back
on the eye rather than the ear as the sense to be instructed? Why
should sight-writing have been invented thousands of years ago, and
sound-writing postponed until the present day?
In any event, such has been the history of recorded language. The
early races began as the mother begins with her children; that is,
with oral speech. But at a certain stage this method was abandoned,
and teachers came with pictorial symbols of words. They invented
visible characters to signify words, syllables, sounds. Thus came
alphabetical writing, syllabic writing, verbal writing, into the
world. Ever afterward the children of men learned speech first from
their parents, by oral utterance; but afterward by means of the
pictorial signs in which human language was recorded.
This method became habitual. The eye was made to be the servant of the
intellect in learning nearly all that was to be gained from the wisdom
of the past. It was by the tedious way of crooked marks signifying
words that ideas were henceforth gleaned out of human lore by all who
would learn aught from the recorded wisdom of mankind. And yet there
never was anything essentially absurd or insurmountable in the
invention of a method of recording speech in audible instead of
visible symbols.
The phonograph came swiftly after the telephone. The new instrument is
in a sense the complement of its predecessor. Both inventions are
based upon the same principle in science. The discovery that every
sound has its physical equivalent in a wave or agitation which affects
the particles of matter composing the material through which the sound
is transmitted led almost inevitably to the other discovery of
_catching_ and _retaining_ that physical equivalent or wave in the
surface of some body, and to the reproduction of the original sound
therefrom.
Such is the fundamental principle of the interesting but, thus far,
little useful instrument known as the phonograph. The same was
invented by Thomas A. Edison, of Menlo Park, in the year 1877. The
instrument differs considerably in structure and purpose from the
_Vibrograph_ and _Phonautograph_ which preceded it. The latter two
instruments were made simply to _write_ sound vibrations; the former,
to reproduce _audibly_ the sounds themselves.
The phonograph consists of three principal parts,--the sender or
funnel-shaped tube, with its open mouth-piece standing toward the
operator; the diaphragm and stylus connected therewith, which receives
the sound spoken into the tube; and thirdly, the revolving cylinder,
with its sheet-coating of tin-foil laid over the surface of a spiral
groove to receive the indentations of the point of the stylus. The
mode of operation is very simple. The cylinder is revolved; and the
point of the stylus, when there is no sound agitation in the funnel or
mouth-piece, makes a smooth, continuous depression in the tin-foil
over the spiral groove. But when any sound is thrown into the
mouth-piece the iron disk or diaphragm is agitated; this agitation is
carried through the stylus and written in irregular marks, dots, and
peculiar figures in the tin-foil over the groove.
When the utterance which is to be reproduced has been completed, the
instrument is stopped, the stylus thrown back from the groove, and the
cylinder revolved backward to the place of starting. The stylus is
then returned to its place in the groove, and the cylinder is revolved
forward at the same rate of rapidity as before. As the point of the
stylus plays up and down in the indentations and through the figures
in the tin-foil, produced by its own previous agitation, a quiver
exactly equivalent to that which was produced by the utterance in the
mouth-piece is thrown into the air. This agitation is of course the
exact physical equivalent of the original sound, or, more properly,
_is_ the sound itself. Thus it is that the phonograph is made to talk,
to sing, to cry; to utter, in short, any sound sufficiently powerful
to produce a perceptible tremor in the mouth-piece and diaphragm of
the instrument.
Much progress has been made toward the utilization of the phonograph
as a practical addition to the civilizing apparatus of our time. It
may be said, indeed, that all the difficulties in the way of such a
result have been removed. Mr. Edison has carried forward his work to
such a degree of perfection that the instrument may be practically
employed in correspondence and literary composition. The problem has
been to _stereotype_, so to speak, the tin-foil record of what has
been uttered in the mouth-piece, and thus to preserve in a permanent
form the potency of vanished sounds. Nor does it require a great
stretch of the imagination to see in the invention of the phonograph
one of the greatest achievements of the age--a discovery, indeed,
which may possibly revolutionize the whole method of learning.
It would seem clear that nature has intended the _ear_, rather than
the eye, to be the organ of education. It is manifestly against the
fitness of things that the eyes of all mankind should be strained,
weakened, permanently injured in childhood, with the unnatural tasks
which are imposed upon the delicate organ. It would seem to be more in
accordance with the nature and capacities of man, and the general
character of the external world, to reserve the eye for the
discernment and appreciation of beauty, and to impose upon the ear
the tedious and hard tasks of education.
The phonograph makes it possible to read by the ear instead of by the
eye, and it is not beyond the range of probability that the book of
the future, near or remote, will be written in phonographic plates and
made to reveal its story directly to the waiting ear, rather than
through the secondary medium of print to the enfeebled and tired eye
of the reader.
We hardly venture on prophecy; but we think that he who returns to
this scene of human activity at the close of the twentieth century
will find that sound has been substituted for sight in nearly
everything that relates to recorded information, to learning, and to
educational work. By that means the organ of hearing will be restored
to its rightful office. Enlightenment and instruction of all kinds
will be given by means of phonographic books. The sound-wave will, in
a word, be substituted for the light-wave as the vehicle of all our
best information and intercourse. The ear will have habitually taken
the place of the eye in the principal offices of interest and
information.
The unnatural method of the book--the visible book instead of the
audible book--will then be done away. Nature, who instructs the child
by sound, will continue to teach the man in the same manner. All
mothers, from the mother bird to the mother woman, begin the teaching
of their offspring by sound, by utterance. The mother bird continues
in this manner; but the mother woman is presently supplanted by a
teacher who comes in with a printed book filled with crooked marks,
and would have it that learning must be _thus_ acquired. Instead of
continuing the natural process of instruction to the complete
development and information of the mind, an abnormal method has been
adopted by mankind with many hurtful consequences.
The youth at a certain age is led into the world of science, and there
dismissed from the mother-method, to acquire, if he can, the painful
and tedious use of meaningless hieroglyphics. There he must study with
the eye, learning as best he may the significance of the crooked signs
which can at the most signify no more than words. How much of human
energy and life and thought have been thus wasted in the instruction
of the mind by characters and symbols. The eyes of mankind have, as we
said, been dimmed and shadowed, and at the same time the faculties
have been overheated and the equipose of perception and memory
seriously disturbed by this unnatural process of learning.
Human beings begin the acquirement of knowledge with words, and they
end with words; but an unnatural civilization has taught man to walk
the greater part of his intellectual journey by means of arbitrary
systems of writing and printing. When the next Columbian Year arrives
we shall see him untaught (a hard thing withal) and retaught on
nature's plan of learning. Nature teaches language by sound only.
Artificiality writes a scrawl. Nature's book is a book of words. Man's
book is as yet a book of signs and symbols. Nature's book utters
itself to the ear, and man's book blinds the eyes and overheats the
imagination. Nature's method is to teach by the ear, and to reserve
the sight for the discovery and enjoyment of beauty.
The sound-book in some form is coming; and with that the intellectual
repose of mankind will begin to be restored. The use of the eye for
the offices of education instead of the stronger ear, has, we think,
impaired, if it has not destroyed, the equilibrium of the human mind.
That equilibrium must be restored. The mental diseases and unrest of
our race are largely attributable to the over-excitement of the
faculties through ages of too much seeing.
The Age of Hearing is, we think, to be ushered in with the twentieth
century. The coming of that age will tend to restore the mental
balance of mankind. Memory, now almost obliterated, will come again.
The over-heated perceptions will cool. The imagination will become
calm, and the eye itself will recover, we hope, from the injuries, of
overstrain, and will regain its power and lustre. Man will see once
more as the eagle sees, and will learn Shakespeare by heart. He will
remember all knowledge, and will again be able to see, as of old, from
Sicily to Carthage!
THE EVOLUTION OF THE DYNAMO.
BY PROFESSOR JOSEPH P. NAYLOR, A.M.
It is difficult to estimate the influence in modifying and shaping the
nineteenth century civilization that has resulted from the discovery
of the dynamo and the production of heavy currents of electricity.
That it has had great influence is evident without question. The arc
light for out-of-doors lighting and the incandescent lamp for inside
has modified all our previous ideas of illumination. Effects in light
are now produced daily that were beyond imagination twenty years
since. The trolley and the electromoter have largely solved the
problem of rapid transit through our crowded cities. Thus larger
business facilities, suburban homes and cheaper living, cleanliness
and better sanitary conditions are electrical results.
The transmission of energy by the electric current from a central
plant makes possible many small industries that could not exist
without it, and gives employment and happiness to hundreds. The art of
Electro-metallurgy seems but the development of months: yet it already
employs millions of capital and is adding thousands daily to the
world's wealth. Steam and wind and tide contribute to the work. Even
Niagara is being touched by the spirit of the time and sends her
wasting energy thrilling through the electric wires to turn the wheels
of many busy factories. It is perhaps not the least remarkable fact in
connection with this work that it is largely the product of the last
thirty years, and that it had its very beginning less than seventy
years since. Edison and Thompson and Brush are honorable household
names; yet they are still living to produce even greater electric
marvels. In fact, so rapid and brilliant has been the development that
in the brilliancy some of the pioneers in the work have been almost
forgotten, except by the specialist and the student, and it is no
small part of this sketch to do them honor. The tiny spark of Faraday
may be lost in the brilliancy of the million-candle-power
search-light, yet the brilliancy of the search-light but enhances the
wonder of the discovery of the spark.
The discovery of electro-magnetic induction marked the beginning of a
new era; for in it lay all the possibilities of the future of
electrical science. Michael Faraday, the third son of a poor English
blacksmith, was born at Newington, Surrey, England, September 3, 1791.
His father's health was never the best, and due to the resulting
straitened circumstances his early education consisted of the merest
rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. His early life was, no
doubt, largely spent in the street; but at thirteen he became errand
boy to a book-seller of London. About a year later he was apprenticed
to a book binder, with whom he served seven years, learning the trade.
It was while an apprentice that Faraday began reading scientific
articles on chemistry and physics in the books he was set to bind. He
also tried to repeat the experiments of which he read. And more, he
pondered over them long and earnestly, until he saw clearly the
principles involved in them. It was in these early days of
experimenting and self-education that the desire to become a
philosopher was implanted in his mind. He embraced every chance for
scientific study and caught every opportunity for intellectual
self-improvement. In the last year of his apprenticeship he was
enabled through the kindness of a customer at his master's shop, to
attend a course of four lectures on chemistry, given by Sir Humphry
Davy at the Royal Institution. This marked the turning point in his
life. He made careful notes of the lecture, and afterward transcribed
them neatly into a book and illustrated them with drawings of the
apparatus used.
After completing his apprenticeship, Faraday began life as a
journeyman bookbinder. He had, however, as he says, "no taste for
trade." His love of science became a consuming desire that he sought
in every way to gratify. Inspired by his longing for scientific
pursuits, he sent his lecture notes to Sir Humphry Davy, with the
request that if opportunity offered he would give him employment at
the Royal Institution. Davy was favorably impressed with the lecture
report, and sent a kindly reply to the young philosopher. Shortly
after this a vacancy did happen to occur at the Institution, and upon
the recommendation of Davy, Faraday was elected to the place. Thus, in
1813, in the humble capacity of an assistant charged with the simple
duty of dusting and caring for the apparatus, Michael Faraday began
the life that was destined to make him the first scientist of the
world and to bring honor to the Institution which had given him his
opportunity.
There is inspiration and encouragement to be found in reading the
story of Faraday's success. He has been called a genius; but his
genius seems to have largely consisted in persistent industry and the
habit acquired in those early days of thinking over his experiments
and reading until he had a clear perception of all there was in them.
He lived in his work, and loved it. In the fifty busy years that
followed his installment at the Royal Institution he digged deep into
nature's secrets, and gave the world many brilliant gems as evidence
of his industry. But of all his discoveries, _electro-magnetic
induction_ is the crowning masterpiece and that for which the world
stands most his debtor.
The principle of conservation of energy, now so well known and
universally accepted, was then but a vague guess in the minds of the
more advanced in science. Faraday was among the first to accept the
new doctrine, and many of his brilliant discoveries were made in his
effort to prove the truth of these important generalizations. He was
acquainted with Sturgeon's method of making magnets by sending a
current of electricity through a wire wound around a bar of iron; and
he reasoned, if electricity will make a magnet, a magnet ought to make
electricity. As early as 1821 his note book contains this suggestion:
"Convert magnetism into electricity." Again and again he attacked the
problem; but it was not until the autumn of 1831 that his efforts to
solve it were successful. Then in a series of experiments that have
scarcely ever been equaled in brilliancy and originality, he gave to
the world the principle on which is based the wonderful development of
modern electrical science.
The principle is briefly stated. The space, around a wire carrying an
electric current, or in the neighborhood of a magnet, has a directive
effect upon a magnetic needle, and is hence called a magnetic field.
Now if a conductor, or coil of wire, be placed in the field across the
direction of a magnetic needle, and the field be varied either by
varying the current or moving the magnet, a current will be developed
in the conductor. It is impossible at this distance to appreciate the
interest excited by the announcement of this principle, not only among
scientists, but also among inventors and those who saw practical
possibilities for the future; and probably no one more fully
appreciated its value than Faraday himself. Yet he made no effort to
develop it further, or even to protect his interest by a patent, as is
common in these days. He was eminently a scientist, and this was his
free gift to the world. He said: "I have rather been desirous of
discovering new facts and relations than of exalting those already
obtained, being assured the latter would find their full development
hereafter."
Among the first to attempt successfully to exalt the new discovery was
Pixii, an instrument maker of Paris, in 1832. He wound two coils of
very fine insulated wire upon the ends of a piece of soft iron, bent
in a horseshoe form. A permanent horseshoe magnet was then placed with
poles very close to the ends of the iron in the coils. The field so
produced was then rapidly varied by revolving the magnet on an axis
parallel to its length. The soft iron cores of the coils became
strongly magnetized as the poles of the revolving magnet came opposite
to them; and their polarity was reversed at each half-revolution of
the magnet. By this plan currents of considerable intensity and
alternating in direction at each revolution were induced in the coil.
The ends of the coil were next connected to the external circuit
through a "commutator." This is a device which is arranged to convert
the alternating current of the coils into a current of one direction
in the external circuit, and which in some form is found on all
direct-current dynamos. Joseph Saxton, an American, improved upon
Pixii's machine by rotating the coils, or armature as it is called,
and making the heavier magnet stationary. The essential points of
construction being worked out, improvements followed rapidly. Dr.
Werner Siemans, of Berlin, introduced an important modification by
making the revolving armature of a cylinder of soft iron, having a
groove cut throughout its length on opposite sides. In these grooves a
wire was wound and the armature was rotated on its axis between the
poles of several magnets.
In all the earlier machines permanent magnets of steel were used. The
next important step was to use electro-magnets of soft iron, excited
by a current flowing through many turns of wire wound around the legs
of the magnet. These could be made much more strongly magnetic than
the permanent magnets. The exciting current was at first obtained from
a small permanent magneto machine; but it was afterward found that the
machine could be made self-exciting. Soft-iron electro-magnets, after
being once magnetized, remain slightly magnetic. This will produce a
weak current in the revolving armature which is turned into the magnet
coils. The magnets are thus further magnetized, and again react upon
the armature with greater intensity. In this way a _strong_ current is
rapidly built up, and after wholly or in part passing around the
magnet coils to sustain its magnetism, can be carried out into the
circuit to serve the great variety of purposes to which it is now put.
The essential points in the evolution of the dynamo can here be
sketched only in broadest outline. Even to catalogue in detail, the
improvements of Edison and Brush, Gramme and Wheatstone, and a host of
others who have contributed to the work, would require a volume. One
fact, however, should ever be kept in mind: Whatever may be the extent
of the superstructure of electrical science, it is all built upon the
foundation of electro-magnetic induction laid by Michael Faraday. The
little "magnetic spark" he first produced, and the trembling of his
galvanometer-needle, were but signals of the birth of the giant of the
century.
These are the days of electricity and steel, and a fitting part of the
intense age in which they exist. That we have as yet seen but a
partial development of the possibilities of the electrical discovery,
no one can doubt. The rush of the trolley car, and the blinding flash
of the electric light, are but challenges thrown out to the future for
even greater achievements. That they will come no one will question;
but where is the daring prophet who will hazard a guess as to what
they will be?
THE UNKNOWN RAY AND ENTOGRAPHY.
It is difficult to name the unknown. In the ancient world all the
unknown was included in the idea of God. It remained for the
evangelist to declare that God is a _spirit_--thus separating the
natural forces of the material world from the Supreme Power who is
from eternity.
This century has been the epoch of investigation into the nature of
the imponderable forces. Sound and light and heat have been known as
the principal agents of sensation since the first ages of man-life on
the earth; but their nature has not been well understood until within
the memories of men still living. Electricity was also vaguely
known--but very indistinctly--from ancient times. It has remained for
the scientific investigators of our age to enter into the secret parts
of nature and lay bare to the understanding many of the hitherto
unknown facts relating to the imponderable agents.
The laws of heat, of acoustics, of light, have been clearly arranged
and taught; but they have not been placed beyond the reach of new
interpretation and possibly not beyond the reach of complete
revolution and reconstruction. That which has been accepted as
definitely known with regard to these agents has now to be reviewed,
and possibly to be learned over again from first principles.
As to electricity in its various forms and manifestations, that
sublime and powerful agent began to be better known just before the
middle of the century. Since that time there has been almost constant
progress in the science of this great force, until at the present time
it is handled, controlled and understood in its phenomena almost as
easily as water is poured into a vessel, air compressed under a
piston, or hydrogen made to inflate a balloon.
It has remained, however, for the last half decade of the great
century to come upon and investigate a hitherto unknown force in
nature. Certain it is that the new force exists, that it is
everywhere, that it is a part of the profound agency by which life is
administered, that its control is possible, and that its probable
applications are as wonderful--perhaps more wonderful--than anything
ever hitherto discovered by scientific investigation.
It is not unlikely that since the day, or evening, on which Galileo,
with his little extemporized telescope, out in the garden of the
Quirinal, at Rome, compelled bigotry to behold the shining horns of
the crescent Venus, thus opening as if by compulsion the sublime
vista of the heavens and bringing in a new concept of the planetary
and stellar worlds,--no such other discovery as that of the so-called
Röntgen rays has been made. The results which seem likely to flow from
this marvelous revelation surpass the human imagination. Let us try in
a few words to realize the discovery, and define what it is.
It was on the eighth of November, 1895, that Dr. William Konrad
Röntgen, of Würzburg, made the discovery which seems likely to
contribute so much to our knowledge of the mysterious processes of
nature. On that day Dr. Röntgen was working with a Crookes tube in his
laboratory. This piece of apparatus is well known to students and
partly known to general readers. It consists of a glass cylinder,
elongated into tubular form, and hermetically closed at the ends. When
the tube is made, the air is exhausted as nearly as possible from it,
and the ends are sealed over a vacuum as perfect as science is able to
produce. Through the two ends, bits of platinum wire are passed at the
time of sealing, so that they project a little within and without. The
interior of the tube is thus a vacuum into which at the two ends
platinum wires extend. Electrical communication with outside apparatus
is thus supplied.
It has long been known that on the discharge of an electrical current
into this kind of vacuum peculiar and interesting phenomena are
produced. The platinum wires at the two ends are connected with the
positive and negative wires or terminals of an induction coil. When
this is done, the electrical current discharged into the vacuum seems
to flash out around the inner surfaces of the tube, in the form of
light. There are brilliant coruscations from one end to the other of
the tube. The tips of the platinum wire constituting the inner poles
glow and seem to flame. That pole which is connected with the positive
side of the battery is called the _anode_, or _upper_ pole, and that
which is connected with the negative, or receptive, side of the
battery, is called the _cathode_, or lower pole. It was in his
experimentation with this apparatus, and in particular in noticing the
results at the cathode or lower end of the tube, that Professor
Röntgen made his famous discovery. It was for this reason that the
name of "cathode rays" has been given to the new radiant force; but
Dr. Röntgen himself called the phenomena the X, or unknown, rays.
In the experimentation referred to, Röntgen had covered the glass tube
at the end with a shield of black cardboard. This rendered the glow at
the cathode pole completely invisible. It chanced that a piece of
paper treated with platino-barium cyanide for photographic uses was on
a bench near by. Notwithstanding the fact that the tube was covered
with an opaque shield, so that no _light_ could be transmitted,
Professor Röntgen noticed that changes in the barium paper were taking
place, _as though_ it were exposed to the action of light! Black lines
appeared on the paper, showing that the surface was undergoing
chemical change from the action of some invisible and hitherto unknown
force!
This was the moment of discovery. The philosopher began experimenting.
He repeated what had been accidentally done and was immediately
convinced that a force, or, as it were, invisible rays were streaming
from the cathode pole of the tube through the glass, and through a
substance absolutely opaque, and that these rays were performing their
work at a distance on the surface of paper that was ordinarily
sensitive only to the action of light.
Certain it was that _something_ was doing this work. Certain it was
that it was _not light_. Highly probable it was that it was not any
form of _electricity_, for glass is impermeable to the electrical
current. Certain it was that it was _not sound_, for there was no
noise or atmospheric agitation to produce such a result. In a word, it
was demonstrated then and there that a hitherto unknown, subtle and
powerful agent had been discovered, the applications of which might be
of almost infinite range and interest.
Professor Röntgen soon announced his discovery to the Physico-Medical
Society of Würzburg. It was at the December meeting of this body that
the new stage in human progress was declared. The news was soon
flashed all over the world, and scientific men in every civilized
country began at once to experiment with the cathode light--if light
that might be called that lighted nothing.
In Röntgen's announcement he stated that there had been by the
scientists Hertz and Lenard, in 1894, certain antecedent discoveries
from which his own might in some sense be deduced. There was, however,
a great difference between the discovery made by Röntgen and anything
that had preceded it. His stage of progress in knowledge was this,
that during the discharge of _one_ kind of rays of force from the
cathode pole in a Crookes tube _another kind_ of rays are set free,
which differ totally in their nature and effects from anything
hitherto known. It is this fact which has indissolubly connected the
name of Konrad Röntgen with that great bound in scientific knowledge
which seems likely to modify nearly all the other scientific knowledge
of mankind.
Everywhere, in the first months of 1896, the experimenters went to
work to verify and apply the discovery of the German philosopher. It
was at once discerned that the new force, since it would freely
traverse opaque bodies and produce afterward chemical changes on
sensitized surfaces similar to those ordinarily produced _by_ light,
might be used for delineating (we can hardly say _photo_ graphing) the
interior outlines and structure of opaque bodies!
On this line of experimentation the work at once began, and with
remarkable success. Röntgen himself was the first man in the world to
obtain, as _if_ by photography, the invisible outline of objects
through opaque materials. He soon obtained a delineation of the bones
of a living hand through the flesh, which was only dimly traced in the
resulting picture. In like manner coins were delineated through the
leather of pocketbooks. Other objects were pictured through
intervening plates of metal or boards of wood. The possibility of
discovering the visible character of invisible things, and even _of
seeing directly through_ opaque materials into parts where neither
light nor electricity can penetrate, was fully shown.
The work of picture taking in the interior of bodies and through
opaque materials was quickly taken up by philosophers in England,
France and the United States. Almost everywhere the physical
laboratories witnessed daily this form of experimentation. Swinton, of
London; Robb, of Trinity College, Dublin; Morton, of New York; Wright,
of Yale University, and in particular Thomas A. Edison, of Menlo Park,
attacked the new problem with scientific zeal, and with startling
results. It remained for Edison to discover that the new force acted
in some respects in the manner of _sound_ rather than in the manner of
_light_. Thus, for example, he showed that the invisible rays not only
_pass through_ substances that are opaque to light and non-conductors
of electricity, but that the invisible rays _run around the edges and
sides_ of plates, then proceeding on their way somewhat in the manner
of sound. A sound made on one side of a metallic plate is heard on the
other side _partly_ by transmission through the plate, and _partly_ by
going around the edges, by atmospheric transmission. The new force
rays act in this manner, and Edison is said to have procured pictures
by means of the invisible agent while it was _going around the corner
_ of an opaque obstruction!
The pre-eminence of Thomas A. Edison as a scientific explorer and
inventor depends upon a quality of mind which enables him more easily
than others--more distinctly than any others--to see the touch of each
new discovery with existing conditions, and the application of it to
the problems of life. Edison catches the premonitory spark struck in
the darkness by some other master's hammer, and with that kindles a
conflagration. Though not the discoverer of the Röntgen ray, he was
able, as it would appear, to understand that discovery better even
than the discoverer. He almost immediately applied the new increment
of knowledge more successfully, we think, than any contemporary
scientist. His experimentation led him directly to the discovery of
the important fact that no photographic apparatus of any kind is
needed to enable an observer to use the X-rays in the delineation or
inspection of objects through opaque substances. He said within
himself: "Why not pass the X-rays through the object to be inspected
and then convert them into visibility, as if by fluorescence."
This scientific question Edison almost immediately solved.
Fluorescence is a property which some transparent bodies have of
producing, either on their surface or within their substance, light
different in color from that of its origin. This happens, for example,
when _green_ crystals of fluor spar afford _blue_ reflections of
light. Glass may be rendered fluorescent, as is seen in the Geisler
and Crookes tubes. Edison conceived the project of using this
phenomenon to get back the invisible rays into visibility.
The substance which he employed was the tungstate of calcium. Taking
crystals of this chemical compound, he spread the same over a cloth or
paper screen, and used that screen to catch and convert the invisible
images carried against it by the X-rays. To his surprise, his
experiment was completely successful. All that is needed in this case
is the cathode light, the object to be examined (as for instance the
hand), and the screen treated with tungstate of calcium. The observer
looks through the screen, or into it, and sees _with the unaided eye_
the invisible interior parts of the object examined, held between the
screen and the cathode light. The invisible rays take the image of the
interior parts of an opaque object, and carry that image to the
screen, where it is reconverted into visibility and delivered to the
eye of the observer, without the aid of any instrument at all! It is
on this simple principle that Edison has invented his surgical and
physiological lamp. The announcement is that with this lamp the
surgeon may look through the calcium tungstate screen and examine, for
example, the fractured bones of the hand, and set them perfectly by
actual inspection of the parts with his eye!
What then _is_ the cathode ray? At the present time its nature is not
understood. That it is a form or mode of motion goes with the
saying--unless it should be presently shown that all the imponderable
forces are really _material_ in their nature; that is, that they are
an inconceivably fine and attenuated form of matter in varying
manifestations.
The cathode rays are not light. They are not sound. They are not
electricity or magnetism. They are not heat. They are not any of the
known forms of force. They seem to be a new transformation of some one
or more of the known agents. It has long been observed that _motion_
is accompanied with _sound_, and that motion also, if increased,
becomes manifest in _heat_. It is known that heat is convertible into
light, and light into electricity.
It is possible that at the bottom of all these phenomena lies the
force of gravitation. This force is absolute and universal. All the
others are partial and limited. All the others, even the newly
discovered cathode rays, are subject to obstruction by certain forms
of matter; that is, to them certain forms of matter are opaque. But
gravitation knows no opacity in the universe. No atom of matter is
exempt from its sway. It streams through all obstructive media as
though such media did not exist. It would appear that heat, light,
electricity, sound, the cathode rays, and all other forms of force in
nature are probably variations, and as it were limited expressions and
manifestations, of _the one supreme force_ that supports the
constitution of the physical universe; and that one supreme force is
_gravitation_!
Stages in Biological Inquiry.
THE NEW INOCULATION.
Any account of the scientific progress of this century which omits the
name of Louis Pasteur would be lamentably incomplete. In that part of
science which relates strictly to human life and the means of
preserving it, the work of this great man must be placed in the first
rank. Indeed, we believe that no other stride in biological
investigation from the beginning of time has been so great in its
immediate and prospective results as has been the increment
contributed by Pasteur and his contemporary Koch. The success of these
two experimental philosophers grew out of the substitution of a new
theory for one that had hitherto prevailed respecting some of the
fundamental processes in living matter.
Up to about the close of the third quarter of this century, the belief
continued to prevail in the possibility of the propagation and
production of germ life without other germ life to precede it. It was
held that fermentation is not dependent upon living organisms, and
that fermentation may be excited in substances from which all living
germs have been excluded. This belief led to the theory of
_abiogenesis_ so-called--a term signifying the production of life
without life to begin with.
The question involved in this theory was hotly debated by philosophers
and scientists in the Sixties and Seventies. The first great work of
Pasteur in biological investigation was his successful demonstration
of the impossibility of spontaneous generation. About 1870, he became
a careful experimenter with the phenomena of fermentation. As his work
proceeded, he was more convinced that fermentation can never occur in
the absence and exclusion of living germs; and this view of the
deep-down processes in living matter has now been accepted as correct.
The next stage in the work of Pasteur was the discovery that certain
substances, such as glycerine, are products of fermentation. From this
foundation firmly established he passed on to consider the phenomena
of disease. He had been, in the first place, a teacher in a normal
school at Paris. In 1863, when he was thirty-nine years of age, he was
a professor of geology. Afterward he had a chair of chemistry at the
Sorbonne. In 1856 we find him experimenting with light, and after that
he turned to biological investigations. This led him to the results
mentioned above, and presently to the discovery that the contagious
and infectious diseases with which men and the lower animals are
affected are in general the results of processes in the system that
are nearly analagous to fermentation, and that such diseases are
therefore traceable ultimately to the existence of living germs.
This view of the case brought Pasteur to a large and general
investigation of bacteria. The bacterium may be defined as a
microscopic vegetable organism; or it may be called an _animal_
organism; for in the deep-down life of germs there is not much
difference between vegetable and animal--perhaps no difference at all.
The bacterium is generally a jointed rod-like filament of living
matter, and its native world seems to be any putrefying organic
substance.
Bacteria are the smallest of microscopic organisms. They are widely
diffused in the natural world, existing independently and also in a
parasitical way, in connection with larger forms of organic life. They
multiply with the greatest rapidity. On the whole, the bacterium
fulfills its vital offices in two ways, or with two results; first,
_fermentation_, and secondly, _disease_.
To this field of inquiry Pasteur devoted himself with the greatest
assiduity. He began to investigate the diseased tissue of animals, and
was rewarded with the discovery of the germs from which the disease
had come. It was found that the bacteria of one disease are different
from those of another disease, or in a word that the microscopic
organisms which produce morbid conditions in animals are
differentiated into genera and species and varieties, in the same
manner as are the animals, birds and fishes, of the world. A new realm
of life invisible save by the aid of the microscope, began to be
explored, and practical results began to follow.
Pasteur at length announced his ability to _produce_ infectious
diseases by inoculation; and of this his proofs and demonstrations,
were complete. In the next place he announced his ability to
_counteract_ the ravages, of certain classes of diseases (those called
zymotic) by inoculating the animal suffering therefrom with what he
called an "attenuated" or "domesticated" virus of the given disease.
The matter first came to a practical issue by the inoculation of well
animals with the attenuated virus. The animals so treated became
_immune_; that is, exempt from the infection of the given disease.
Pasteur gave public demonstrations in the fields near Paris, using the
disease called splenic fever, and sheep as the subjects of his
experimentation. The whole civilized world was astonished with the
results. The tests were conducted in such a way as to preclude the
possibility of error. It was shown, in a word, that by the simple
process of inoculating well animals with the modified poison the
infectious disease might be avoided.
It were long to tell the story of the experimentation and discovery
that now followed. The last quarter of the century has been fruitful
in the greatest results. The bacilli of one disease after another have
been discovered, and the means have been invented of defending the
larger animal life from the ravages of microscopic organisms.
But what is an "attenuated" virus? Pasteur and other scientists have
shown that by the inoculation of suitable material, such as a piece of
flesh, with the poison of a given disease, the bacteria on which that
disease depends rapidly multiply and diffuse themselves through the
substance. If poison be taken from the _first_ body of infected
material and carried to _another_, that other becomes infected; and
from that the third; from the third the fourth, and so on to the tenth
generation.
It was noticed, however, that with each transference of the virus to a
new organic body the bacilli were modified somewhat in form and
activity. They became, so to speak, less savage. The bacterium which
at the beginning had been for its savagery a wolf, became in the
second body a cur; then a hound; then a spaniel; and then a
diminutive lapdog! The bacteria were thus said to be "domesticated;"
for the process was similar to the domestication of wild animals into
tame. The virus was said to be "attenuated;" that is, made thin or
fine; that is, its poisonous and death-dealing quality, was so reduced
as to make it comparatively innocuous.
If after the process of attenuation was complete--if after the
bacteria were once thoroughly domesticated and the poison produced by
them be then introduced into a well subject, that subject would indeed
become diseased, but so mildly diseased as scarcely to be diseased at
all. In such a case the result was of a kind to be called in popular
language a mere "touch" of the disease. In such case the severe
ravages of the malady would be prevented; but the subject would be
rendered incapable of taking the disease a second time.
On this line of fact and theory Pasteur successfully pressed his work.
One disease after another was investigated. It was demonstrated in the
case of both the lower animals and men that a large number of maladies
and plagues might be completely disarmed of their terrors by the
process of inoculation. The name of Pasteur became more and more
famous. The celebrated Pasteur Institute was founded at Paris, under
the patronage of the French Government, and in some sense under the
patronage of the whole world. To this establishment diseased subjects
were taken for treatment, and here experimentation was carried on over
a wide range of facts.
The value of the results attained can hardly be overestimated. The
fear which mankind have long entertained on account of plagues and
epidemics, and the loss which the animal industries of the world have
sustained, were largely abated. As yet the use of the Pasteur methods
for the prevention and cure of disease is by no means universal; but
the knowledge which has come of his investigations and of the results
of them has diffused itself among all civilized nations, and the
hygienic condition of almost every community has been most favorably
affected by the new knowledge which we possess of bacteria and of the
means of destroying them.
Pasteur, whose recent death has been mourned by the best part of
mankind, was an explorer and forerunner. His industry in his chosen
field of investigation was prodigious. When he was already nearly
seventy years of age, he undertook the investigation of hydrophobia,
with the purpose of discovering, if he might, the germ of that dreaded
disease, thus preparing a method for inoculation against it.
Hydrophobia is one of the most subtle diseases ever known. So obscure
and uncertain are its phenomena that many able men have been led to
doubt the _existence_ of such a disease! The mythological origin of
the malady in the supposed influence of a dog-star seemed to
strengthen the view that hydrophobia, as a specific disease, does not
exist. It is undeniably true that the great majority of the cases of
so-called rabies are pure myths. Under investigation they melt away
into nothing but alarm and fiction. However, there appeared to be a
residue of actual hydrophobia, though the disease as tested by its
name exists in fancy rather than fact.
In any event, Pasteur began to investigate hydrophobia, and at length
discovered the bacilli which produce it. At least he found in animals
affected with rabies, notably in the spinal marrow of such animals,
minute living organisms, having the form of thread-like animalculæ,
with heads at one end. The microscope showed also among these
thread-like bodies other organisms that were like small circular black
specks, or disks.
The next step in the work was to test the result by inoculating a well
animal with these bodies. Pasteur selected rabbits for his
experimentation. When the experiment was made, the inoculated rabbit
was presently attacked with the disease, and soon died in spasms. The
repetition of the experiment was attended with like results.
The philosopher next tried his established method of domesticating, or
attenuating, the poison. The spinal cord of a rabid dog was obtained,
and with this the first rabbit was inoculated. In about two weeks it
took hydrophobia. Hereupon the spinal cord was extracted, and the
second rabbit was inoculated; then the third; then the fourth, and so
on. It was observed, however, that at each stage the intensity of the
disease was in this way strangely increased; but the period of
inoculation became shorter and shorter.
It was next found that by preserving the spinal cords of the animals
that had died of the disease--by preserving them in dry tubes--the
poison gradually lost its power. At last the virus seemed to die
altogether. Then the experiment of inoculating against the disease was
begun. A dog was first inoculated with dead virus. No result followed.
Then he was inoculated with stale virus, and then with other virus not
so stale. It was found that by continuing this process the animal
might be rendered wholly insusceptible to the disease.
The next step was the human stage of experimentation. It was in July
of 1885 that Pasteur first employed his method on a human subject. A
boy had been bitten and lacerated by a rabid dog. The inoculation was
thought to prove successful. Soon afterward some bitten children were
taken from the United States to Paris, and were treated against the
expected appearance of hydrophobia. Others came from different parts
of the continent. Within fourteen months more than two thousand five
hundred subjects were treated, and it is claimed that the mortality
from hydrophobia was reduced to a small per cent of what it had been
before.
It should be said, however, that neither have the results arrived at
by Pasteur respecting the character of rabies been so clear, nor have
his experiments on subjects supposed to be poisoned with the disease
been so successful as in the case of other maladies. It remains,
nevertheless, to award to Louis Pasteur _the first rank_ among the
bacteriologists of our day, as well as a first place among the
philanthropists of the century. Only Robert Koch, of Germany, is to be
classed in the same list with him.
KOCH'S BATTLE WITH THE INVISIBLE ENEMY.
There was a great _negative_ reason for the success of the World's
Columbian Exposition. The cholera did NOT come! It is quite
true that there is no _if_ in history; but IF the cholera had
come, IF the plague had broken out in our imperial Chicago,
what would have become of the Columbian Exposition? Certainly the Man
of Genoa would have had to seek elsewhere for a great international
gathering in his honor.
The cholera did not arrive, although it was expected. The antecedent
conditions of its coming were all present; but it came not. The
American millions discerned that the dreaded plague was at bay; a
feeling of security and confidence prevailed; the summer of 1893 went
by, and not a single case of Asiatic cholera appeared west of the
Alleghenies. We are not sure that a single case appeared on the
mainland of North America. And why not?
It was because the increasing knowledge of mankind, reinforced with
philanthropy and courage, had drawn a line north and south across
Western Europe, and had said, _Thus far and no farther_. Indeed, there
were several lines drawn. The movement of cholera westward from the
Orient began to be obstructed even before it reached Germany. It was
obstructed in Italy. It was obstructed seriously on the meridian of
the Rhine. It was obstructed almost finally at the meridian of London.
It was completely and gloriously obstructed at the harbor of New York.
Civilization has never appeared to a better advantage than in the
building of her defences against the westward invasion of cholera.
There have been times within two decades of the present when in the
countries east of the Red Sea 3000 people have died daily of the
Asiatic plague. Egypt has been ravaged. The ports of the Mediterranean
have been successfully invaded. Commerce, reckless of everything
except her own interests, has taken the infection on shipboard, and
sailed with it to foreign lands, as though it were a precious cargo!
Importers, anxious for merchandise, have stood ready to receive the
plague, and plant it without regard to consequences. But in the midst
of all this, a new power has arisen in the world, and standing with
face to the east, has drawn a sword, before the circle of which even
the spectral shadow of cholera has quailed and gone back! Humanity
might well break out in rhapsody and jubilee over this great victory.
Among the personal agencies by which cholera has been excluded from
Europe and America, first and greatest is Dr. Robert Koch, of Berlin.
He, more than any other one man, has contributed to the glorious
exemption. Dr. Koch, now by the favor of his Emperor, Baron Koch, is
one of those heroic spirits who go before the human race exploring the
route, casting up a highway and gathering out the stones. Thus shall
the feet of the oncoming millions be not bruised and their shouts of
joy be not turned to lamentation.
Robert Koch was born at Klausthal, in the Hartz mountains, on the
eleventh of December, 1843. He is a German of the Germans. In his
youth he was a student of medicine at Göttingen, where at the age of
twenty-three he took his first degree. He was by nature and from his
boyhood a devotee of science. For about ten years he practiced his
profession, but continued his studies with indefatigable zeal. The
investigations of Pasteur had already filled Europe with applause when
Koch, following on the same lines of scientific exploration, began to
enlarge the borders of knowledge. He became a bacteriologist of the
first rank. He began to investigate the causes and nature of
contagion; but as late as 1876 his name was still unknown in the
cyclopædias.
Koch was twenty-one years the junior of Pasteur; but his enthusiasm
and genius now bore him rapidly to a fame as great as that of his
predecessor. His first remarkable achievement was a demonstration of
the cause and cure of splenic fever in cattle. He showed, just as
Pasteur had done in similar cases, that the plague in question was due
to the specific poison of a bacterium, and that the disease might be
cured by inoculation against it. This he proceeded to do, and the
demonstration and good work brought him to the attention of the old
Emperor. Dr. Koch was made a member of the Imperial Board of Health in
Berlin.
A greater discovery was already at the door. Dr. Koch began a careful
investigation into the nature of consumption. His discovery of the
germ of splenic fever, and that of chicken cholera, as well as the
general results in this direction in other laboratories of Europe, led
him to the conjecture that consumption also is a zymotic or bacterial
disease. His inquiry into this subject began in 1879, and extended to
March of 1882. On that day, in a paper before the Physiological
Society of Berlin, he announced the discovery of the _tubercle
bacillus_. He was able to demonstrate the existence of the germ of
consumption, and to describe its methods of life, as well as the
character of his ravages.
Here then at last was laid bare the true origin of the most fatal
disease which has ever afflicted mankind. He who has not informed
himself with respect to the almost universal prevalence of consumption
among the nations of the earth, or taken note of the mortality from
that dreaded enemy, by which nearly one-sixth of the human race sooner
or later perishes, will not have realized the awful character of this
enemy. To attack such a foe, to force him into a corner, even as
Siegfried did the Grendel in his cavern, was an achievement of which
the greatest of mankind might well be proud.
The discovery of the bacillus of consumption by no means assured the
cure of the disease; but it foretokened the time when a cure would be
found. This prophecy, though it has not yet been clearly fulfilled,
is, in the closing years of the century, in process of fulfillment.
The enemy does not readily yield; but such has been the gain in the
contest that already within the last twenty years the mortality from
consumption of the lungs has fallen off more than forty per cent! Much
of this gain has been made by the reviving confidence of human beings
that sooner or later tuberculosis would be destroyed. Hygiene has done
its part; and other circumstances have conduced to the same result.
Though neither Dr. Koch nor any other man living has been able as yet
positively to meet and vanquish consumption in open battle, yet the
goblin has in a measure been robbed of his terrors. He is no longer
boastful and victorious over the human race.
After the discovery of the tubercle bacillus, the fame of Robert Koch
became world-wide. In the following year he was made a privy
councilor, and was placed in charge of an expedition organized by the
German government to go into Egypt and India for the investigation of
the causes of Asiatic cholera. The expedition was engaged in this work
for nearly a year. Koch pursued his usual careful method of scientific
experimentation. He exposed himself to the contagion of cholera, but
his science and fine constitution stood him well in hand, and he
returned unharmed.
It was in May of 1884 that he was able to announce the discovery of
the _coma bacillus_, that is, the bacterium of cholera. Here, again he
had the enemy at bay. For long ages the Asiatic plague had ravaged the
countries of the East with little hindrance to its spread or fatality.
The disease would appear as an epidemic at intervals and sweep all
before it. The wave of death would roll on westward from country to
country, until it would subside, as if by exhaustion, in the far west.
Two or three times within the century cholera had been fatally
scattered through American cities. It had spread westward along the
rivers of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and into country
districts, where villages and hamlets were decimated.
The discovery of Koch was a virtual proclamation that this ruin of
mankind from the Asiatic plague should cease. The knowledge that the
disease was due to a living bacterium, that without the germ and the
spread of the germ the plague could not exist, was a virtual
announcement that in the civilized countries it should _not_ any
longer exist.
The discoverer was now set high in the estimation of mankind. Imperial
Germany best of all countries rewards its benefactors. France is
fascinated with adventure; Great Britain with slaughter; America with
bare political battles; but Germany sees the true thing, and rewards
it. Koch was immediately placed beyond want by his government, and
titles and honors came without stint.
The Empire would fain have such a man at the seat of power. Dr. Koch
was, in 1885, made a professor in the University of Berlin. The new
chair of Hygiene was created for him, and he was made Director of the
Hygienic Institute. It was in this capacity that armed with influence
and authority and having the resources of the government virtually at
his disposal, he directed in the great scientific work by which a
bulwark against cholera was drawn almost literally across Europe, and
was defended as if with the mounted soldiery of science and humanity.
True enough, cholera managed to plant itself in Italy in 1886, and in
Hamburg in 1892, and the plague was scattered into several German
towns. But it came to Hamburg by water, not by land. It did there
during the summer a dreadful work, but the battle was the Waterloo of
the enemy. Not again while the present order continues will it be
possible for the dreaded epidemic to get the mastery of a great German
city.
It was to be anticipated that Dr. Koch's discovery of the tubercle
bacillus would lead him on to the discovery of a cure for
tuberculosis. Very naturally his thought on this subject was borne in
the direction of inoculation. That method had been used by Pasteur and
by himself in the case of other infectious diseases. Why should it not
be employed in consumption? If the "domestication," so-called, of the
virus of splenic fever and the use of the modified poison as an
antiseptic preventive of the disease was successful, as it had been
proved to be, why should this not be done with the attenuated virus of
consumption?
The last five years of the ninth decade were spent by Dr. Koch in
experimentation on this subject. He found that the tubercular poison
might be treated in the same manner as the poison of other infectious
diseases. He experimented with methods for domesticating the bacillus
of consumption, and reached successful results. On the fourteenth of
November, 1890, he published in a German medical magazine at Berlin a
communication on a possible remedy for tuberculosis. He had prepared a
sort of lymph suitable for hypodermic injection, and with this had
experimented on a form of _external_ tuberculosis called lupus. This
disease is a consumption of the skin and adjacent tissues. It is a
malady almost as dreadful as consumption of the lungs, but is by no
means frequent in its occurrence. It is found only at rare intervals
by the medical practitioner.
Dr. Koch had demonstrated that lupus is a true tuberculosis--that the
germ which produces it is the same bacillus which produces consumption
of the lungs. He accordingly directed his effort to cases of lupus,
treating the patients with hypodermic injections which he had prepared
from the modified form of the tubercular poison. He was successful in
the treatment, and was able to announce, to the joy of the world, that
he had discovered a cure for lupus; and the announcement went so far
as to express a belief in the salutary character of the remedy in the
treatment of consumption of the lungs.
Dr. Koch, however, with the usual caution of the true men of science,
did not announce his tuberculin, or lymph, as a cure for pulmonary
consumption. He did not even declare that it was positively a remedy
for the other forms of tuberculosis, but did announce his cure of
cases of lupus by the agent which he had prepared. The world, after
its manner, leaped at conclusions, and the newspapers of two
continents, in their usual office of disseminating ignorance,
trumpeted Koch's discovery as the end of tubercular consumption.
In January of 1891, Dr. Koch published to the world the composition of
his remedy. It consists of a glycerine extract prepared by the
cultivation of tubercle bacilli. The lymph contains, as it were, the
poisonous matter resulting from the life and activity of the tubercle
bacterium. The fluid is used by hypodermic injection, and when so
administered produces both a general and local reaction. The system is
powerfully affected. A sense of weariness comes on. The breathing is
labored. Nausea ensues; and a fever supervenes which lasts for twelve
or fifteen hours. It is now known that the action of the remedy is not
directly against the tubercle bacilli, but rather against the affected
tissue in which they exist. This tissue is destroyed and thrown off by
the agency of the lymph; being destroyed, it is eliminated and cast
out, carrying with it the bacteria on which the disease depends.
The results which have followed the administration of Koch's lymph for
consumption of the lungs have not met the expectation of the public;
but something has been accomplished. Ignorant enthusiasm has meanwhile
subsided, and scientific men in both Europe and America are pressing
the inquiry in a way which promises in due time the happiest results.
ACHIEVEMENTS IN SURGERY.
It will not do to disparage the work of the ancients. The old world,
long since fallen below the horizon of the past, had races of men and
individuals who might well be compared with the greatest of to-day. In
a general way, the ancients were great as thinkers and weak as
scientists. They were great in the fine arts and weak in the practical
arts. This is true of the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the
Romans, even of the Aztecs and the Peruvians.
The art work of these old peoples, whether in sculpture, painting or
poetry, surpassed, if it did not eclipse, corresponding periods of
modern times. In some of the practical arts the old races were
proficient. In architecture, which combines the æsthetic and
practical elements, the man of antiquity was at least the equal of the
man of the present. In one particular art--a sort of humanitarian
profession based on natural science and directed to the preservation
of life--the ancients had a measure of proficiency. This art was
surgery. The surgeon was even from the beginning, and he will no doubt
be even to the end.
The great advance which has been made in surgical science and practice
is shown in two ways: first, in a great increase of courage, by which
the surgeon has been led on to the performance of operations that were
hitherto considered rash, audacious or impossible; and secondly, by
the immunity which the surgeon has gained in the treatment of wounds
through the increased knowledge he possesses of putrefaction and the
means of preventing it. It were hard to say whether the surgeon's
increase of skill and courage in performing operations has equalled
his increased skill in the after treatment of wounds.
These improvements have all proceeded from scientific investigation.
They have come of the application of scientific methods to the
treatment of surgical diseases. With the investigations of Pasteur and
the development of the science of bacteriology, it was seen at a
glance how large an influence such investigation must have in the
work of the surgeon. The publication of Tyndall's "Essays on the
Floating Matter of the Air in Relation to Putrefaction and Infection,"
in 1881, gave a great impulse to the new practice; but that practice
had been already confirmed by the great and original work of Sir
Joseph Lister, an English surgeon who as early as 1860 had introduced
the antiseptic method of bandaging.
It is within the last forty years that the greatest marvels of modern
surgery have been performed. It would seem that no part of the human
body is now beyond the reach of surgical remedy. Almost every year has
witnessed some new and daring invasion of the fortress of life with a
view to saving it. Old opinions with respect to what parts of the
human economy are really vital have been abolished; and a new concept
of the relation of life to organism has prevailed.
Until recently it was supposed that the peritoneal cavity and the
organs contained therein, such as the stomach, the liver, the bowels,
etc., could not be entered by the surgeon without the certain result
of death. To do so at the present time is the daily experience in
almost every great hospital. The complexity of civilization has
inflicted all manner of hurts on the human body, and the malignity of
disease has spared no part. It was supposed that the cranial cavity
could not be entered or repaired without producing fatal results. It
was taken for granted that certain organs could not be touched, much
less treated capitally, without destroying the subject's life. But one
exploration has followed another and one successful adventure has been
succeeded by another still more successful until the surgeon's work is
at the present time performed within a sphere that was until recently
supposed to be entirely beyond his reach.
As to the liver, that great organ is freely examined and is treated
surgically with considerable freedom. This is true also of the
stomach, which until recently was supposed to be entirely beyond the
surgeon's touch. Within the last two decades sections of the stomach
have been made and parts of the organ removed. Not a few cases are
recorded in which subjects have fully recovered after the removal of a
part of the stomach. Sections of the intestinal canal have also been
made with entire success. Several inches of that organ have in some
cases been entirely removed, with the result of recovery! The spleen
has been many times removed; but it has been recently noted that a
decline in health and probably death at a not distant date generally
follow this operation.
The disease called appendicitis has either in our times become
wonderfully frequent or else the improved methods of diagnosis have
made us acquainted with what has long been one of the principal
maladies of mankind. The _appendix vermiformis_ seems to be a useless
remnant of anatomical structure transmitted to us from a lower animal
condition. At least such is the interpretation which scientists
generally give to this hurtful and dangerous tube-like blind channel
in connection with the bowels. That it becomes easily inflamed and is
the occasion of great loss of life can not be doubted. Its removal by
surgical operation is now regarded as a simple process which even the
unlearned surgeon, if he be careful and talented, may safely perform.
The surgical treatment of appendicitis has become so common as to
attract little or no notice from the profession. Even the country
neighborhood no longer regards such a piece of surgery as sensational.
The use of surgical means in the cure, that is the removal, of tumors,
both external and internal, has been greatly extended and perfected.
The surgeon now carries a quick eye for the tumor and a quick remedy
for it. In nearly all cases in which it has not become constitutional
he effects a speedy cure with the knife. The cancerous part is cut
away. It has been observed that as the recent mortality from
consumption has decreased cancerous diseases have become more
frequently fatal. Whether or not there be anything vicarious in the
action of these two great maladies we know not; but statistics show
that since the beginning of Pasteur's discoveries the one disease has
diminished and the other increased in almost a corresponding ratio.
Meanwhile, however, surgery has opposed itself not only to cancers but
to all kinds of tumors, until danger from these sores has been greatly
lessened. The removal of internal tumors such as the ovarian, is no
longer, except in complicated and neglected cases, a matter of serious
import. Such work is performed in almost every country town, and the
amount of human life thus rescued from impending death is very great.
The work of lithotomy is not any longer regarded with the dread which
formerly attended it. In fact, every kind of disease and injury which
in its own nature is subject to surgical remedy has been disarmed of
its terror. The eye and the ear and all of the more delicate organs
have become subject to repair and amendment to a degree that may well
excite wonder and gratify philanthropy.
But it is not only in the actual processes of surgery that this great
improvement in human art may be noted. The treatment of wounds with
respect to their cure by preserving them from bacterial and other
poisons has been so greatly improved that it is now regarded almost as
a crime to permit suppuration and other horrible processes which were
formerly supposed to be the necessary concomitants of healing. The
hospital, whether military or civil, was formerly a scene that might
well horrify and make sick a visitant. It was putrefaction everywhere.
It was stench and poisonous effluvia. The conditions were such as to
make sick if not destroy even those who were well. How then could the
injured sufferers escape?
It is one of the crowning glories of our time that no such scene now
exists in any civilized country. No such will ever exist again, unless
science should lose its grip on the human mind and the civilized life
subside into barbarism. The surgeon would now be held in ill-repute
that should permit to any considerable degree the processes of
putrefaction to take place in a wound of which he has had the care.
The introduction of antiseptic and aseptic methods has made him a
master in this respect. The skillful surgeon bids defiance to the
microbes that hover in swarming millions ravenous for admission to
every hurt done to the human body. To them a wound is a festival. To
them a sore is a royal banquet to which through the invisible realm a
proclamation goes forth, "Come ye! Come to the banquet which death is
preparing out of life!" All this the modern surgeon disappoints with a
smile and a wave of his hand. The invisible swarms of invading
animalculæ are swept back. Not a single bacterium can any longer enter
the most inviting wound while the surgeon stands ready with drawn
sword to defend the portals of life.
Great Religious Movements.
DEFENCE ON NEW LINES.
In a period so intensely active and progressive as the nineteenth
century has been, in politics, science and literature, it would have
been surprising if the church had remained inert, wrapped like a mummy
in the cerements of the past. At the beginning of the century, there
were voices on all hands loudly proclaiming that it was dead; that it
was antiquated and obsolete; that it had lost touch with the life of
the time, that it was a relic of exploded superstition; and as a great
writer said, had fallen into a godless mechanical condition, standing
as the lifeless form of a church, a mere case of theories, like the
carcass of a once swift camel, left withering in the thirst of the
universal desert. That in certain circles there was ground for such
reproach is sufficiently proved. Materialism had crept into its
colleges, sapping away their spiritual life and driving young men
either into Atheism or into the Roman Catholic Communion. Such
activity as it had, was in the evangelical circles only The common
people still listened eagerly to Wesley's successors and were
intensely in earnest in the Christian life and work. It was at the top
that the tree was dying, where the currents of the philosophy of
Voltaire struck the branches, and where Hume's scorching radicalism
blighted its leaves. In the universities, and the clubs, not in the
workshops, was religion scorned and contemned.
There was soon, however, to be a quickening of the dry bones. The
spirit of the time--the zeit-geist--began to move in the Church. It
was the spirit of investigation, of scientific inquiry, of rigorous
test. The older preachers and religious authorities still droned about
the duty of defending the faith "once for all" delivered to the
saints. In spite of their protests, the younger men would go down into
the crypt of the Church, and examine the foundations of the building.
They could not be kept back by authoritative assurances that the
stones were sound, and were well and truly laid. The hysterical
protests against the irreverence of examination fell on deaf ears. The
answer was the simple insistance on investigation. The very reluctance
to permit it was an indication that it would not bear investigation.
At the opening of the century, this idea, expressed in varying forms,
was rapidly becoming prevalent. The citadel of the Church was
assaulted, by some with ferocity, and by others with scorn and
contempt. The defence was on the old lines of denunciation of the
wickedness of the assailants, of vituperative epithets, and of the
assumption of special and divine illumination. The issue of the
conflict would not have been doubtful, had it been continued with
these tactics. The Church would have been relegated to the limbo of
superstition and the hide-bound pedantry of ecclesiasticism, if new
defenders on new principles had not entered the lists. Reinforcement
came from a band of philosophic thinkers of whom Wordsworth and
Coleridge were the pioneers. The influence of both these men was
underestimated at the time. They appeared weak and ineffective, but
the ideas to which they gave expression, entered the minds of stronger
men, who applied them with more vigorous force. The Church, Coleridge
declared, as Carlyle interprets him, was not dead, but tragically,
asleep only. It might be aroused and might again become useful, if
only the right paths were opened. Coleridge could not open the paths,
he could but vaguely show the depth and volume of the forces pent up
in the Church; but he insisted that they were there, that eternal
truth was in Christianity, and that out of it must come the light and
life of the world. As his little band of hearers listened to him, they
saw the first faint gleams of the light which was to illumine the
world and make the darkness and degradation of the materialistic
philosophy an impossibility to the devout mind. Thus he stood at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, as Erasmus stood at the beginning
of the sixteenth, perceiving and proclaiming the existence of truths
which others were to apply to the needs of the time.
To ascertain precisely in what form the forces of Christianity existed
and how they might be applied to nineteenth century life, became early
in the nineteenth century the problem on which the best thought of the
time was concentrated. Coleridge's unshaken conviction that it was
solvable, inspired many with courage. Whately, Arnold, Schleiermacher,
Bunsen, Ewald, Newman, Hare, Milman, Thirlwall and many others,
approached it from different directions. The spirit of scientific
investigation that was in the air was applied with reverent hands, but
with unsparing resolve to ascertain the exact truth. The investigation
was no longer confined to dogma; a proof text from the Bible was no
longer sufficient to close a controversy. The Bible itself must be
subjected to investigation. This was indeed going to the foundations.
There was a wild outcry against rationalism and iconoclasm, but the
search for truth and fact went on. As in a siege, the garrison must
sometimes destroy with their own hands outworks which cannot be
successfully defended, and may be made a vantage ground for the enemy,
so the defenders of Christianity set themselves to the task of finding
out how much of the current theology was credible and tenable, and how
much might wisely be abandoned, to insure the safety of the remainder.
The discoveries of Geology, Astronomy and of Biology could not be
denied, yet their testimony was contrary to Christian doctrine. "The
world was made in six natural days," said the old Christian preacher.
"The world was thousands of years in the making," said the geologist.
The preacher appealed to his Bible, the geologist appealed to the
rocks. The issue was fairly joined, and in the early years of the
century it seemed as if there was no alternative but that of believing
the Bible and denying science, or believing science and giving up the
Bible; it seemed impossible to believe both. When the scientific
theologian ventured to suggest that the word "day," might mean age, or
period, there was another outcry that the Bible was being surrendered
to the enemy. But it was realized that the message of the Bible to the
world was not scientific, and that its usefulness was not impaired by
the suggested mode of understanding its record of creation; and
gradually the surrender was accepted. It is true that to this day
there are some who will not accept it, as there is at least one
preacher who insists, on the authority of the Bible, that "the sun do
move," but the number diminishes in every generation. A beginning was
made in attaining the true view of the Bible which led further and has
not yet reached its limits. Having admitted that the Bible was not
given to teach science the Church has to decide whether it can admit
the theory of evolution and whether its records of history are
authoritative. These questions are so fundamental that the strife of
Calvinism and Arminianism and the question of the double procession of
the Holy Spirit, which seemed vital to our fathers have faded into
relative insignificance.
EVANGELICAL ACTIVITY.
While these storms were agitating the upper air, and the thunderous
echoes reverberated through the mountains, the work on the plain went
rapidly forward. However the scholars and the theologians might decide
the questions at issue between them, the working forces were
profoundly convinced that the Gospel was the great need of the world,
and they put out new energy and applied all the powers of the mind to
devising new methods for its propagation. The increased facilities of
travel, the improved means of communication and, above all, the power
of the printing-press, were all seized and harnessed to service in the
dissemination of the Gospel. No characteristic of this century is so
prominent as this intense activity and aggressive energy. From every
secular movement, the church has taken suggestions for its own
advancement. Trade-unionism has suggested Christian Endeavor and the
Evangelical Alliance; the public school system has developed the
International Lesson system in the Sunday School; the political
convention has taught the advantages of great religious conferences;
the principles of military organization have been utilized in the
Salvation Army. If in some circles religion seems to have been a fight
over doctrines and theories, in others it has seemed a ceaseless,
untiring struggle for converts. In no century since the first century
of the Christian era has the zeal of propagation, with no element of
proselytism in it, taken so strong a hold of the followers of Christ.
To translate the Bible into every tongue, to carry the Gospel message
to every people, and to evangelize the masses at home, prodigious
efforts have been put forth, and enormous sums of money have been
expended. Mental activity, uncompromising veracity, indefatigable
energy, have characterized the Church through the century, and its
closing years show no abatement in any of these characteristics. A
brief sketch of some of the more prominent of these developments can
render the fact only more, obvious.
BIBLE REVISION.
One of the most important events of the century to the English
speaking world is the Revision of the Bible. Its full effect is not
yet felt, as the book which was the product of the Revisers' labors is
but slowly winning its way into use in the Church and the home. Like
its predecessor, the Authorized Version now in general use, it has to
encounter the prejudice which comes from long familiarity with the
book in use and from the veneration for the phraseology in which the
precious truths, are expressed. Yet from the beginning of the century
the need of an improved translation was felt and several persons,
undertook to supply it, but with very objectionable results. The
principal bases of the need were serious. One was that many words and
phrases have in the nineteenth century a meaning entirely different
from the one they had in the early part of the seventeenth century
when the Authorized Version was issued. One case in point is Mark vi.
22, in which Salome asks that the head of John the Baptist be given
her "by and by in a charger." In 1611 the expression by and by meant
immediately or forthwith, and was a correct translation, while with us
it means a somewhat indefinite future and is therefore an incorrect
translation. With the noun, too, the meaning has changed. Our idea of
a charger is of a war-horse, not of a dish, which the original
conveys. A second reason for the revision was that there were in the
libraries in this century several manuscripts of the original, much
older than those to which the translators of the Authorized Version
had access when they undertook their work. A third reason was that a
notable advance had been made in scholarship in the interval, and
learned men were much better acquainted with the Hebrew and Greek
idiom than were any of the scholars of the King James period. For
these three, among other reasons, a revision was necessary, that the
unlearned reader might have, as nearly as was possible, the exact
equivalent in English of the words of the Bible writers. The project,
after being widely discussed for several years, finally took shape in
England in 1870, when the Convocation of Canterbury appointed two
committees to undertake the work. The ablest scholars in Hebrew and
Greek literature in the country were assigned to the committees, of
which one was engaged on the Old, and the other on the New Testament.
They were empowered to call to their aid similar committees in
America, who might work simultaneously with them. Stringent
instructions were given to them to avoid making changes where they
were not clearly needed for the accuracy of translation, and to
preserve the idiom of the Authorized Version. Only with these
safeguards and with not a little reluctance, the commission was
issued. One hundred and one scholars on both sides of the Atlantic
took part in the work. The committees commenced their labors early in
1871. On May 17, 1881, the Revised New Testament was issued, and on
May 21, 1885, the Revised Old Testament was in the hands of the
public. All that scholarship, strenuous labor and exhaustive research
could do to give a faithful translation had been done within the
somewhat narrow and conservative limits under which the revisers were
commissioned.
BIBLES BY THE MILLION.
With this improvement, there was at the same time a marked impetus in
Bible circulation. The nineteenth century has been eminently a
Bible-reading and a Bible-studying period. In no previous century have
efforts on so gigantic a scale been made to put the Book in the hands
of every one who could read it. The price was brought so low by the
decrease in the cost of production, that the very poorest could
possess a copy. The British and Foreign Bible Society, founded in
1804, and the American Bible Society, founded in 1816, have largely
contributed to this result. Both societies were organized to issue the
Bible without note or comment, and both have faithfully labored to
promote its circulation. In spite of all that has been said against
the Book and in spite of the fact that so large a number of persons
must have been supplied, the circulation has increased from year to
year. In the year ending March, 1896, the American Society alone
issued 1,750,000 copies, and the British two and a half million.
During its existence the American Society has sent out over sixty-one
million copies and the British Society over one hundred and forty
millions. The work of translation has kept pace with the demand. At
the beginning of the century the Bible had been translated, in whole
or in part, into thirty-eight languages. It is now translated into
three hundred and eighty-one, and translators are engaged on nearly a
hundred others. Nor must it be supposed that the supply was in excess
of the demand. There is abundant evidence of the desire of the public
to possess the Word of God. One fact alone is a conspicuous proof of
this demand. In 1892 the proprietor of the _Christian Herald_ of New
York offered an Oxford Teacher's Bible as a premium with his journal.
The offer was accepted with such avidity that edition after edition
was exhausted, and it has been renewed every year since with increased
demand. Through this journal alone, by this means, over three hundred
and two thousand copies have been put into the hands of the people
during the past five years.
With the increase in the circulation of the Word of God there has been
a costly and thorough effort to gain new light on its pages. Never
before have labor and money been expended so lavishly in endeavors to
learn from exploration and research, historical facts which would
contribute to an intelligent understanding of its history and
literature. In 1865 a society called the Palestine Exploration Society
was organized for the special purpose of thoroughly examining the Holy
Land, investigating and identifying ancient sites and making exact
maps of the country. In twenty-seven years the society, though working
with the utmost economy, expended $425,000. The result of its labors
has been to let a flood of light on the ancient places and the ancient
customs of its people, explaining many allusions in the sacred
history, poetry and prophecy that were previously dark. The Egypt
Exploration Fund has also added materially to our knowledge of that
country which is associated with the early history of the Chosen
People. But the most valuable aid to Bible study came from the
discovery of the Assyrian Royal Library, a series of clay tablets and
cylinders covered with cuneiform inscriptions which were deciphered by
Mr. George Smith of the British Museum. From these and from the
records on the monuments of Egypt historical information has been
derived of inestimable value in the study of the Bible.
A GREAT MISSIONARY ERA.
One of the most prominent characteristics of the Church of Christ in
this century has been its phenomenal missionary activity. Its zeal in
this cause, the devotion and courage of its missionaries and the
amount of money expended have had no parallel in the previous history
of the Church. Already a beginning had been made when the century
dawned. In 1701 King William III. of England had granted a charter to
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In
1714 Frederick IV. of Denmark established a College of Missions and
two Danish missionaries were laboring in India. In 1721 the famous
Danish missionary, Hans Egede, began a work in Greenland. In 1732 the
Moravian missionaries, Dober and Nitschmann, went to St. Thomas, and
in the following year the Moravian Church sent missionaries to
Labrador, the West Indies, South America, South Africa and India. But
it was not until the last decade of the eighteenth century that the
spirit which was to distinguish the next century really manifested
itself. In 1792 the devotion and consecration of William Carey led to
the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society, and in the following
year he sailed for India as its first missionary.
In 1795 the London Missionary Society was organized, a missionary ship
was purchased and the first band of missionaries sailed for the South
Sea Islands. Two years later, another party sailed for South Africa,
among whom were the veterans, Vanderkemp and Kitchener. Two Scottish
societies were founded in 1796 and a Dutch Society in 1797. In the
closing year of the century the famous Church Missionary Society was
formed in the Church of England. Thus the nineteenth century opened
with organizations for work in existence and pioneers few in number,
but intensely in earnest in several fields of labor.
The first quarter of the century witnessed the advent of new agencies,
as well as a multiplication of forces. The American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions was organized in 1810, the English
Wesleyan Missionary Society in 1814, the American Baptist in 1814, the
American Methodist in 1819, the American Protestant Episcopal in 1820,
and the Berlin and Paris Missionary Societies in 1824. Thus, in the
comparatively short space of thirty-two years, thirteen societies had
been organized by the various denominations here and in Europe, each
of which was destined to grow to proportions little contemplated by
their founders. Since that time the great China Inland Mission and
other undenominational societies have been founded and are sending out
men and women in large numbers to the heathen world. Besides these,
there have been societies of special workers which have done valuable
service in aiding the missionary societies, such as the medical
missionaries, the Zenana Missionaries and the university and students'
volunteer movements. Statistics recently compiled show that the number
of central stations in heathen lands occupied by Protestant
missionaries in 1896 was 5055, with out-stations to the number of
17,813. There are now thirty-seven missionary societies in this
country alone which have sent out 3512 missionaries. A library of
volumes would be needed to give even a sketch of the results of the
labors of these devoted men and women. The Church holds their names in
holy reverence. Many of them have attained the crown of martyrdom, and
a still greater number have fallen victims to the severities of
uncongenial climates. Every heathen land has now associated with it
the name of valiant soldiers of the Cross, who have given their lives
to add it to their Master's, kingdom. In India among many others,
there have been Carey, Duff, Martyn, Marshman and Ward. In China,
Morrison, Milne, Taylor, John Talmage and Griffith John. In Africa,
Moffat, Livingstone, Hannington and Vanderkemp. In the South Seas,
Williams, Logan and Paton, while Judson of Burmah and a host of noble
men and women in every clime, have toiled and suffered, not counting
their lives dear unto them, that they might preach to the heathen the
unsearchable riches of Christ.
PREACHING TO HEATHEN AT HOME.
The zeal for the propagation of the Gospel among the heathen, has been
paralleled by the efforts put forth for the evangelization of the
people in nominally Christian lands. In this enterprise the front rank
on both sides of the Atlantic has been occupied by the Methodist
Church. Its system of itinerary, relieving its ministers in part from
exhausting study, and so giving them time and opportunity for pastoral
work and aggressive evangelistic effort, its welcome of lay assistance
in pulpit service and its system of drill and inspection in the
class-meeting, have all combined to develop its working resources and
increase its aggressive power. The fact that there are now in the
world over thirty million Methodists of various kinds, makes it
difficult to realize that when the century began, John Wesley had been
dead only nine years. This century consequently has witnessed the
growth and development of that mighty organization from the seed sown
by that one consecrated man and his helpers. It is doubtful whether in
politics or society there is any fact of the century so remarkable as
this. The Church Wesley founded has split into sections in this land
and in England, but the divisions are one at heart, and the name of
Methodist is the common precious possession of them all. A great
writer has contended with much force that the world at this day knows
no such unifier of nationalities and societies as the Methodist
Church. When the young man leaves the parental roof of a Methodist
family for some distant city, or some foreign land, the pangs of
anxiety are alleviated by the knowledge that wherever he may be, there
will be some Methodist Church where he will find friends, and some
Methodist class-leader who will look after his most important
interests. The magnificent Methodist organization, unequalled outside
the Roman Catholic Church, has developed within the century, and its
aggressive forces have been felt throughout Christendom. All the
denominations have received an impetus from its abundant energy and
each in its measure has caught the contagion of its activities. In
country districts, in the great cities and in foreign lands, its
representatives, loyal to their Church and the principles of its
founder, are pressing forward in self-denial and apostolic fervor
foremost everywhere in the van of the Christian army.
Kindred with the Methodist in its enthusiasm and still more highly
organized, is the youngest of all the religious organizations--the
Salvation Army. In its origin, a daughter of the Methodist Church,
with a strong resemblance in spirit and purpose and methods to its
mother, the Salvation Army has a mission peculiarly its own. It too
has grown with a rapidity unexampled in the religious history of other
centuries. More than one quarter of the century had passed when
William Booth first saw the light, more than half the century had
passed before he had begun to give his life to his Master's service.
From 1857 to 1859 he was simply a Methodist minister, at an
unimportant town, appointed by his conference, sparsely paid, and
certain to be removed to another sphere at the end of his term. In
1865, he and his devoted wife resigned home and income and dependence
on conference for support, and went to London. They settled in the
poorest and most degraded district of the city, and began to preach in
tents, in cellars, in deserted saloons, under railroad arches, in
factories and in any place which could be had for nothing, or at a low
rental. The people gathered in multitudes wherever Mr. Booth and his
wife preached, veritable heathen, many of them, who knew nothing of
the Bible and had never attended a religious service in their lives.
Converts were numerous and they were required to testify to the change
in their souls and their lives and to become missionaries in their
turn. In 1870 an old market was purchased in the densest centre of
poverty in London and was made the headquarters of the Mission. Bands
of men and women were sent out to hold meetings, sing hymns and "give
their testimony" in the open-air, in saloons, or any resort where an
audience could be gathered. These bands were busy every night in a
hundred wretched districts of the great city, and at every stand,
some poor forlorn creatures would be gathered in and encouraged to
begin a new life in faith in Christ. Some method of organization
became necessary, and was eventually devised. The perfect obedience
and confidence manifested everywhere to the man who directed the
movement, and the entire dependence of every worker on him for
guidance and support, may have suggested the military system. However
that may be, the military organization was adopted, and a perfect
system framed with the aid of Railton Smith, and a few other clever
organizers who were attracted to Mr. Booth's side by the novelty of
his methods, and his marvelous success. In the spring of 1878, the
plans were all matured and the new movement became a compact and
powerful religious force. Since that time it has spread throughout
England, into several European lands, to the United States, and
Canada, to India, Australia and South Africa. Its autocratic character
has been steadfastly maintained. General Booth has retained absolute
control of every officer in his service and has the management of the
enormous income of the army. Occasionally there has been mutiny which
has been overcome by tact or prompt discipline, and not until this
year (1896), when General Booth's son, Ballington, who was his
representative in the United States, resigned rather than be removed
from his command, has there been any formidable defiance of the
supreme and despotic government of the world-wide organization. The
methods of the Army are unconventional and are shocking to staid,
respectable members of churches, but criticism is out of place in any
method which will redeem the masses in the numbers won by the
Salvation Army.
CHURCHES DRAWING TOGETHER.
A notable characteristic of the religious life of the century,
especially in the latter half of it, has been a desire manifested in
various quarters, and in different ways, for union among the
denominations. That organic union could be attained, no practical man
could hope. Uniformity could not be expected, even if it could be
proved to be desirable, but friendly association was possible, and
there were many who contended that there ought to be a recognition of
brotherhood and comradeship, which might issue in some attempt at
co-operation. This was the conviction of many prominent preachers and
laymen on both sides of the Atlantic, early in the century. And truly
the condition of the world and of society was of a character to force
such a conviction on the minds of intelligent men. Infidelity was
rampant, and intemperance, gambling, unchastity, and other forms of
vice were practiced with unblushing effrontery. On the other side, the
churches, which should have been waging war on all ungodliness, were
fighting each other, contending about the questions on which they
differed, and exhausting their strength in internecine conflict. Was
it not time, men were asking, that the forces that were on the side of
godliness united in opposition to evil? After long discussion, and
some opposition, this feeling took practical shape in the Evangelical
Alliance. At a meeting held in London in 1846 eight hundred
representatives of fifty denominations were assembled. It was found
that however widely they differed on questions of doctrine and church
government, there was practical agreement on a large number of vital
subjects, such as the need of religious education, the observance of
the Lord's Day, and the evil influence of infidelity. An organization
was effected, on the principles of federation, to secure united action
on subjects on which all were agreed, and this organization has been
maintained to the present time. Branches have been formed in
twenty-seven different lands, each dealing with matters peculiarly
affecting the community in which it operates, and by correspondence,
and periodical international conferences, keeping in touch with each
other. Its usefulness has been proved in the success of its efforts to
secure tolerance in several lands, where men were being persecuted for
conscience' sake, though much still remains to be done on this line.
Perhaps the most conspicuous result of its work is the general
observance throughout Christendom of the first complete week of every
year as a week of prayer. The proposal for such an observance was made
in 1858. Since that time the Alliance has issued every year a list of
subjects which are common objects of desire to all Evangelical
Christians. On each day of the week, prayer is now offered in every
land for the special blessing which is suggested as the topic for the
day.
From the same spirit of Christian brotherhood which took shape in the
Evangelical Alliance, came at later dates other movements which are
yet in their infancy. One of these is the Reunion Conference which
meets annually at Grindelwald in Switzerland. Its object is to find a
basis for organic union of the Protestant Episcopal Church with
Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists and other evangelical
denominations. The meetings have been hitherto remarkably harmonious,
and suggestions of mutual concessions have been made which have been
favorably considered. A less ambitious, and therefore more hopeful
movement of like spirit, is that of the Municipal or Civic Church.
Its aim is the organization of a federative council of the churches of
a city, or of sections of a city, for united effort in social reform,
benevolent enterprise and Christian government. It proposes to
substitute local co-operation for the existing union on denominational
lines, or to add the one to the other. It would unite the Methodist,
Baptist, Congregational and other churches in a city, or district, in
a movement to restrict the increase of saloons, to insist on the
enforcement of laws against immorality and to promote the moral and
spiritual welfare of the community. The united voice of the Christians
of a city uttered by a council, in which all are represented, would
unquestionably exercise an influence more potent than is now exerted
by separate action. To these movements must be added another which has
been launched under the name of the Brotherhood of Christian Unity.
This is a fraternity of members of churches and members of no church,
who yet accept Christ as their leader and obey the two cardinal
precepts of Christianity--love to God and love to man. Its object is
to promote brotherly feeling among Christians and a sense of
comradeship among men of different creeds. All these movements are an
indication of the spirit of the time. As one of the leaders has said,
their aim is not so much to remove the fences which divide the
denominations, as to lower them sufficiently to enable those who are
within them to shake hands over them. In no previous century since the
disintegrating tendency began to manifest itself, has this spirit of
brotherly recognition of essential unity been so general, or has taken
a shape so hopeful of practical beneficence.
ORGANIZED ACTIVITIES.
Effective influence to the same end has been set in motion,
incidentally, by an organization which was originated for a different
purpose. This is the Christian Endeavor Society, which is one of the
latest of the important religious movements of the century. It was
primarily designed to promote spiritual development among young
people. It had its birth in 1881 in a Congregational Church at
Portland, Me. Dr. Francis E. Clark, the pastor of the church, had a
number of young people around him who had recently made public
profession of faith in Christ and pledged themselves to His service.
Precisely what that implied, may not have been definitely understood
by any of them. As every pastor is aware, the period immediately
following such a profession is a critical time in the life of every
young convert. In the college or the office, or the store, the youth
comes in contact with people who have made no profession of the kind,
and he is apt to ask himself, and to be asked, in what way he differs
from them. The early enthusiasm of his new relation to the Church is
liable to decline, and he may become doubtful whether any radical
change has taken place in him. He does not realize that he is at the
beginning of a period of growth, a gradual process, which is to be
lifelong. Taking his conception of personal religion from the sermons
he has heard and the appeals that have been made to him, he has a
tendency to regard conversion as an experience complete and final, an
occult mysterious transformation, effected in a moment and concluded.
Disappointment is inevitable, and when non-Christian influences are
Strong, there is a probability of his drifting into indifference. Dr.
Clark was aware of this fact, as other pastors were, by sad
experience, and he sought means to remedy it. Some plan was needed
which would help the young convert and teach him how to apply his
religion to his daily life, to make it an active influence, instead of
a past experience. The plan Dr. Clark adopted was of an association of
young people in his Church, who should meet weekly for prayer and
mutual encouragement and helpfulness, with so much of an aggressive
quality as to exert an influence over young people outside its
membership. The plan succeeded. The religious force in the soul, so
liable to become latent, became active, and the young converts made
rapid progress. Dr. Clark explained his experiment to other pastors,
who tried it with like results. The remedy for a widespread defect was
found. It was adopted on all hands and by all evangelical
denominations. It spread from church to church, from town to town and
into foreign lands. Annual conventions of these Christian Endeavor
Societies were held, at which forty or fifty thousand young people,
representing societies in all sections of the country with an
aggregate membership of about two million souls, were present to
recount their experience and pledge themselves anew to the service.
The basis of their association was made so broad that Christians of
every denomination could heartily unite in its profession of faith.
Thus, in addition to the primary design, a basis of Christian
inter-denominational union was incidentally discovered, and the
Methodist and the Presbyterian, the Congregationalist and Episcopalian
found themselves united in a common bond for a common purpose. The
movement in these present years shows no signs of decrease, but is
still growing in numbers, power and influence, and promises to be one
of the most potent factors of religious life which springing up in
this century will go on to influence the next.
The idea of association and combination in religious life, of which
Christian Endeavor is the most extensive illustration, has been
embodied during the century in other forms. Springing directly from
the Christian Endeavor Society, are the Epworth League in the
Methodist Church, and the Baptist Young People's Union in the Baptist
communion. The two organizations are practically identical in
principle and purpose with the Christian Endeavor Society and differ
from it only in the absence of the inter-denominational character. The
heads of the Methodist Church apprehended danger to their young people
in their being members of a society not under direct Methodist control
and feared that they might eventually be lost to Methodism. The
Baptists, on the other hand, were not concerned on the question of
control, but feared that the association of their young people with
the young people of other churches might lead them to think lightly of
the peculiar rite which separates them from other denominations, and
to diminish its importance in their esteem. Both denominations
therefore organized societies of the same kind, to keep their young
people within the denominational fold.
Another organization which has attained large membership and has
become international, is that of the King's Daughters. As its name
indicates, it was primarily intended for women, though as it extended,
it added as an adjunct a membership for men as King's Sons. It also
was inter-denominational in character, and its objects were more
directly identified with the philanthropic side of the religious life
than were those of the societies previously mentioned. It originated
in a meeting of ten ladies, held in New York, in 1886, at which plans
were discussed for aiding the poor, the unfortunate and the distressed
in mind, body or soul. They were all Christian ladies who recognized
the duty of ministering in Christ's name to those who were in need and
so fulfilling His injunction of kindly service. The plan finally
adopted was to organize circles of ten members each, who should be
pledged to use their opportunities, as far as they were able, for
Christian ministration. Each member agreed to wear, as a badge of the
Order, a small silver Maltese Cross, bearing the initials, I.H.N.,
representing the motto, "In His Name." Every circle was to be left
free to apply the principle of service as it saw fit, or as special
circumstances might suggest, and all the circles to be under the
direction and limited control of a central council. The plan,
subsequently modified as experience suggested, was widely adopted. The
circles have worked in a variety of ways, visiting hospitals and
prisons, making garments for the poor, raising funds for the needy,
aiding the churches and rendering service in various ways in which
kindly Christian women are so effective.
Still another form of combination in Christian work has distinguished
this century. In 1844 George Williams, a London dry goods merchant
employing a large number of young men, made an effort to provide them
with a species of Christian club. His own experience as a young man
fresh from a country home, suddenly inducted into the temptations of
city life, suggested to him the kind of help such young men needed. A
Christian friend in a great city to help a new-comer, to find him
wholesome amusement in the evenings, and to put him on his guard
against the pitfalls that were set for his unwary feet, might, Mr.
Williams was convinced, save many a young man from ruin. To provide
them with such friends and to furnish a place of meeting for reading,
converse and amusement, was the problem the kindly Christian man
attempted to solve. Out of his effort grew the institution we know as
the Young Men's Christian Association, which has its mission in
nearly every large town in this country and in England. The young man
of this century can go into no considerable town without finding a
commodious hall, with well-equipped library and reading-room,
generally with a gymnasium attached, and with a host of young men
ready to make his acquaintance and surround him with Christian
influences. In many towns, the institution has developed from the
purely religious enterprise into a many-sided effort to give practical
educational training and to attract young men to it by the help it
renders them in secular pursuits. The institution as it now exists,
must be counted as one of the most beneficent in its far-reaching
influence that the century has produced.
HUMANITARIAN WORK.
Kindred in spirit, but differing essentially in operation, is the
institution, peculiarly a product of nineteenth century religion,
which we know as the Social or College Settlement. Though it does not
claim a distinctively religious character, its principles are so
thoroughly identical with Christianity, that no survey of the
religious life of the century would be complete without a recognition
of it. It is the spirit that brought the Founder of Christianity to
the earth, to live a lowly life among men, which inspires the Social
Settlement. It is generally an unostentatious house in some crowded
neighborhood, where the people are poor and life is hard. In the house
are a number of college-bred men, or women, who come in relays and
live there for a week or a month or longer. They do no missionary
work, do not preach, or denounce, or instruct their neighbors, but
they live among them a cleanly, helpful, friendly life, welcoming them
cordially as visitors, advising them if advice is sought, rendering
help in difficulties and being neighborly in the best sense of the
word. There are concerts in the house, exhibitions of pictures,
children's parties and amusements of various kinds to which all the
neighbors are welcome. Charity is no part of the Settlement's
programme. It does not give, but it extends a brotherly hand, and in a
spirit of friendship and equality seeks to do a brother's part in
brightening lowly lives. Hundreds of such institutions are in
operation on both sides the Atlantic. To the credit of this century be
it said that it has seen in these institutions the Parable of the Good
Samaritan made a living fact in intelligent organization.
Tending directly toward the same object, is the religious enterprise
now commonly known as the Institutional Church. It is a distinct gain
to the church if the people in its vicinity discover that it is
anxious to help them to a better and happier life in this world, as
well as guiding them to happiness in the next. The Divine Founder of
Christianity never ignored the fact that men have bodies which need
saving, as well as souls, and some of His followers are following His
example. Their churches do not stand closed and silent from Sunday to
Sunday, but are open every day and evening, busy with some form of
practical helpfulness. Temperance societies, coal clubs, sewing
meetings, dime savings banks, gymnasiums, boys' clubs, and a host of
helpful associations tending to the betterment of life, find their
home under the roof of the church, and the pastor and his helpers are
finding out the social and economical needs of the people by actual
contact with them and devising means to supply them. The critics say
this is not the business of the church, but they are not found among
the people who derive benefit from this form of thoughtful interest in
their welfare.
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
Of all the products of this prolific nineteenth century, the one most
extensive and most profitable to the church still remains to be
mentioned. Though this century did not see the birth of the Sunday
School, it has witnessed its wonderful development. In June, 1784,
Robert Raikes published his famous letter outlining his plan for the
religious instruction of children on the Lord's Day, and before the
close of the year, John Wesley wrote that he found Sunday Schools
springing up wherever he went, and added with prophetic insight:
"Perhaps God may have a deeper end therein than men are aware of. Who
knows but some of these schools may become nurseries for Christians?"
Within five years, a quarter of a million children were gathered into
the Sunday Schools. So much had already been done before the beginning
of the century. But even then men did not realize whereunto the
movement was destined to grow. Probably no enterprise has really
exerted a deeper and stronger influence on the religious life of the
time. Children have entered the schools, passed through their grades,
have become teachers in their turn, and their descendants have
followed in their footsteps, until now we can scarcely bring ourselves
to believe that a little more than a hundred years ago the Sunday
School was unknown. The organization of Sunday School Unions, the
introduction of the International Lesson System, and the City, State
and National Conventions are all the developments of this century. The
thought that a million and a half of Sunday School teachers are now
engaged in every clime, Sunday by Sunday, in teaching the children and
young people the truths of Christianity is enough to fill the mind of
the Christian with thankfulness and hope.
PULPIT AND PRESS.
It would be beyond the scope of an article of this character to
attempt to recall the names of the eminent preachers of the century.
It has been singularly rich in men of eloquence, depth of thought and
high culture. A few, however, are distinguished among the noble army
by the phenomenal character of their work. Of these probably no name
is so widely known as that of Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D. One of the
most remarkable phenomena of the religious world in this century, is
the fact that every week one preacher should address an audience
numbered by millions. The fact is unprecedented. Of all classes of
readers, the number of those who read sermons is considered the
smallest, yet this century has produced a preacher whose sermons
command a public larger than that of a fascinating novelist. For
thirty years the newspapers have been publishing Dr. Talmage's sermons
in every city of his own land, in every English-speaking land and in
many foreign lands where they are translated for publication. It is a
significant fact, which should gratify every Christian, that the man
whose words reach regularly and surely the largest audience in the
world should be a preacher of the Gospel.
To no man in any walk of life, whether politician, editor or author,
has the opportunity of impressing his thoughts on his generation that
Dr. Talmage enjoys been given in such fulness. Next in extent of
influence, and with a like faculty of reaching immense and widely
scattered masses of people, was the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a
preacher of singularly homely power, Calvinistic in theology,
epigrammatic in style, and with an earnest evangelical spirit which
had a powerful influence on both hearers and readers. His sermons,
like those of Dr. Talmage, were read in every land and were
instrumental in conversions wherever they went. Strongly resembling
Mr. Spurgeon in his strong evangelicalism, as well as in homely
eloquence, is Mr. D.L. Moody. During this century probably no man has
addressed so large a number of people. In this country and in England
such audiences have thronged the buildings in which he preached as no
other orator has ever addressed on religious subjects, and the
influence of his words is demonstrated by the thousands who through
his appeals have been led to Christ.
We are nearing the end of the century. Looking back over the events in
the religious world which have marked its history, one characteristic
is prominent above all others. It is the operation of the force to
which an eminent writer has given the name of "spiritual dynamics."
The world does not need a dogma, or a creed, so much as it needs
power. It needs power to live right, to do right, to love God and man,
to pity the fallen, to relieve the needy, the power of being good, of
leading a spiritual life. This power it finds in Christ and the whole
tendency of the religious life of the century is to get back to him.
Conduct rather than creed, love rather than theology, have been the
watchwords of the church. The spirit of Christ, His teachings, His
character, His example, are the centre of attraction which holds His
church together and endues it with the power which shall yet subdue
the world.
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