The noblest work by woman done

Former Massachusetts governor and member of the House of Representatives William Claflin invited people to a garden party at his home in Newtonville, Massachusetts to celebrate the 70th birthday of Harriet Beecher Stowe. For that special occasion, held June 14, 1882, fellow anti-slavery writer John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem, "A Greeting":

Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
And golden-fruited orange bowers
To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
To her who, in our evil time,
Dragged into light the nation's crime
With strength beyond the strength of men,
And, mightier than their swords, her pen!
To her who world-wide entrance gave
To the log-cabin of the slave;
Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
And all earth's languages his own, —
North, South, and East and West, made all
The common air electrical,
Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
Blazed down, and every chain was riven!

Like Stowe, Whittier had also used his pen in the war against slavery, composing several poems for the cause and also editing an abolitionist newspaper. Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin had become the highest selling novel of the generation and was cited as a major factor in unifying northerners against slavery. But Whittier's poem also praises her other works; he mentioned several of her "fireside stories, grave or gay," including Oldtown Folks. He continues:

To her at threescore years and ten
Be tributes of the tongue and pen;
Be honor, praise, and heart-thanks given,
The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!

Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs
The air to-day, our love is hers!
She needs no guaranty of fame
Whose own is linked with Freedom's name.
Long ages after ours shall keep
Her memory living while we sleep;
The waves that wash our gray coast lines,
The winds that rock the Southern pines,
Shall sing of her; the unending years
Shall tell her tale in unborn ears.
And when, with sins and follies past,
Are numbered color-hate and caste,
White, black, and red shall own as one
The noblest work by woman done.

Cable: Do everything cheerfully

Cable in 1915

Novelist George Washington Cable was with the Union Club in Boston when he wrote home to his oldest son in New Orleans on June 10, 1881, offering his insight on good living (and a few specific commands for his daughters):

I must send you a line for your own dear self. I am anxious to hear from you as well as from sweet mother, and I hope I may get a word or two from your own hand.

I could not in a whole hour tell you all the things I have seen since we parted. But I can say that all the time I saw the beauties of land or sea or hill or valley, whether nature's work or man's, I was still thinking of my beloved ones far away on the mountains.

Yet I did not fret, for I know that the Good Shepherd keeps my little flock, and my prayer is that their souls may be precious in His sight. I pray that they may be sweet, gentle, obedient children, trying to do their parents' will before the parents have to express it.

Be careful to help each other. Be amiable each to each. Remember in everything you do you are serving God. Do everything cheerfully—gladly.

Tell Mary not to tease and to keep her face at least half clean.

Tell Lucy I wish I had her here now with a little salt and pepper and mustard. I would eat her for dinner.

Tell Margaret not to forget her breakfast in the morning, her dinner afterwards, nor her supper in the evening. Tell her not to be cross to Lucy and to mind mother as well as sister Louise.

Now, form in procession and each kiss mother as you pass by.

Here are four kisses for four sweet girls and four for their dear mother.

Cable began to feel uncomfortable in his native South as he wrote a series of controversial essays on Civil Rights. He eventually moved with his family to Northampton, Massachusetts, only a few years after this letter was written.

Bierce: Storm of bullets and grape

Ambrose Bierce's short story "Killed at Resaca" was first published on June 5, 1887 in the San Francisco Examiner. The narrator describes a lieutenant character named Herman Brayle, "the best soldier of our staff." A tall man whose eyes displayed "a high order of courage," Brayle is admired and respected as a having "gentleman's manners, a scholar's head, and a lion's heart."

His courage, however, is also a concern for Brayle's fellow soldiers. Brayle was so brave that he did not take cover in battle. Whether mounted on his horse or on foot, he exposed himself openly to the "storm of bullets and grape." This was unusual, Bierce described, as most soldiers crawled low to the ground as they approached (they "hug the earth as closely as if they loved it"). Brayle did not always go without injury in this practice but it was hard not to respect his actions as heroic, as he was "always returning to duty about as good as new."

Brayle's luck, however, would not last forever. Sent to deliver a message, he casually galloped his steed onto the field of battle at Resaca, Georgia. "Stop that damned fool!" shouted the general. One stepped forward to do exactly that but he and his horse were shot dead instantly. Brayle continued on:

My attention had been for a moment drawn to the general combat, but now, glancing down the unobscured avenue between these two thunderclouds, I saw Brayle, the cause of the carnage. Invisible now from either side, and equally doomed by friend and foe, he stood in the shot-swept space, motionless, his face toward the enemy. At some little distance lay his horse. I instantly saw what had stopped him.

As topographical engineer I had, early in the day, made a hasty examination of the ground, and now remembered that at that point was a deep and sinuous gully, crossing half the field from the enemy's line, its general course at right angles to it. From where we now were it was invisible, and Brayle had evidently not known about it. Clearly, it was impassable. Its salient angles would have afforded him absolute security if he had chosen to be satisfied with the miracle already wrought in his favor and leapt into it. He could not go forward, he would not turn back; he stood awaiting death. It did not keep him long waiting.

Later examining Brayle's body, the narrator discovers the motivation behind the man's blind heroism: a love letter from a woman, warning him not to be a coward. He takes it upon himself to meet the woman in person and let her know of Brayle's death. When she asks how he died, however, he offers a very different answer from the truth...

Wilde: All I have seen, and all I see

Though born in Ireland, Richard Henry Wilde embraced his adoptive country of the United States. He served a handful of terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, though he lost a re-election campaign in 1835. Three months later, he was on board a ship traveling to Europe, hoping to alleviate an illness and recover from his arduous public service. The trip would mark the beginning of a transition from politician to literary man; it was at sea on June 1, 1835, that he wrote "A Farewell to America," a poem praising the country he was temporarily leaving:

Farewell! my more than fatherland!
   Home of my heart and friends, adieu!
Lingering beside some foreign strand,
   How oft shall I remember you!
How often, o'er the waters blue,
   Send back a sigh to those I leave,
The loving and beloved few,
   Who grieve for me,—for whom I grieve!

We part!—no matter how we part,
   There are some thoughts we utter not,
Deep treasured in our inmost heart,
   Never reveal'd, and ne'er forgot!
Why murmur at the common lot?
   We part!—I speak not of the pain,—
But when shall I each lovely spot
   And each loved face behold again?

It must be months,—it may be years,—
   It may—but no!—I will not fill
Fond hearts with gloom,—fond eyes with tears,
   "Curious to shape uncertain ill."
Though humble,—few and far,—yet, still
   Those hearts and eyes are ever dear;
Theirs is the love no time can chill,
   The truth no chance or change can sear!

All I have seen, and all I see,
   Only endears them more and more;
Friends cool, hopes fade, and hours flee,
   Affection lives when all is o'er!
Farewell, my more than native shore!
   I do not seek or hope to find,
Roam where I will, what I deplore
   To leave with them and thee behind!

Timrod: with meeker grace

The Southern Illustrated News published Henry Timrod's poem "The Two Armies" on May 30, 1863. The South Carolina poet did not explicitly say which army he was emphasizing in the poem but, as he often did, it's likely his more sympathetic perspective was meant to represent the Confederate Army. In "The Two Armies," he particularly emphasized the humanity and family life of the soldiers but also offers an ending looking forward to peace:

Two armies stand enrolled beneath
The banner with the starry wreath;
One, facing battle, blight and blast,
Through twice a hundred fields has passed;
Its deeds against a ruffian foe,
Steam, valley, hill, and mountain know,
Till every wind that sweeps the land
Goes, glory laden, from the strand.

The other, with a narrower scope,
Yet led by not less grand a hope,
Hath won, perhaps, as proud a place,
And wears its fame with meeker grace.
Wives march beneath its glittering sign,
Fond mothers swell the lovely line,
And many a sweetheart hides her blush
In the young patriot's generous flush.

No breeze of battle ever fanned
The colors of that tender band;
Its office is beside the bed,
Where throbs some sick or wounded head.
It does not court the soldier's tomb,
But plies the needle and the loom;
And, by a thousand peaceful deeds,
Supplies a struggling nation's needs.

Nor is that army's gentle might
Unfelt amid the deadly fight;
It nerves the son's, the husband's hand,
It points the lover's fearless brand;
It thrills the languid, warms the cold,
Gives even new courage to the bold;
And sometimes lifts the veriest clod
To its own lofty trust in God.

When Heaven shall blow the trump of peace,
And bid this weary warfare cease,
Their several missions nobly done,
The triumph grasped, and freedom won,
Both armies, from their toils at rest,
Alike may claim the victor's crest,
But each shall see its dearest prize
Gleam softly from the other's eyes.

O, what a shout there went

The North authorized its first black regiment during the Civil War in March 1863. For the recruiting effort, poet/soldier George Henry Boker wrote a poem, "The Black Regiment," which was published on May 27, 1863 for the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Port Hudson, Louisiana — which was then under siege by the Union Army. The 2nd Louisiana Infantry, a "colored regiment," was instrumental in the siege. In his poem, Boker sees the approaching black regiment as a well-organized storm about to charge through the calm sky:

Dark as the clouds of even,
Ranked in the western heaven,
Waiting the breath that lifts
All the dread mass, and drifts
Tempest and falling brand
Over a ruined land;—
So still and orderly,
Arm to arm, knee to knee,
Waiting the great event,
Stands the black regiment.

Down the long dusky line
Teeth gleam and eyeballs shine;
And the bright bayonet,
Bristling and firmly set,
Flashed with a purpose grand,
Long ere the sharp command
Of the fierce rolling drum
Told them their time had come,
Told them what work was sent
For the black regiment.

"Now," the flag-sergeant cried,
"Though death and hell betide,
Let the whole nation see
If we are fit to be
Free in this land ; or bound
Down, like the whining hound, —
Bound with red stripes of pain
In our old chains again!"
O, what a shout there went
From the black regiment!
"Charge!" Trump and drum Swoke,
Onward the bondmen broke;
Bayonet and sabre-stroke
Vainly opposed their rush.
Through the wild battle's crush,
With but one thought aflush,
Driving their lords like chaff,
In the guns' mouths they laugh;
Or at the slippery brands
Leaping with open hands,
Down they tear man and horse,
Down in their awful course;
Trampling with bloody heel
Over the crashing steel,
All their eyes forward bent,
Rushed the black regiment.

"Freedom!" their battle-cry,—
"Freedom! or leave to die!"
Ah I and they meant the word,
Not as with us 'tis heard,
Not a mere party shout:
They gave their spirits out;
Trusted the end to God,
And on the gory sod
Rolled in triumphant blood.
Glad to strike one free blow,
Whether for weal or woe;
Glad to breathe one free breath,
Though on the lips of death.
Praying — alas! in vain!—
That they might fall again,
So they could once more see
That burst to liberty!
This was what "freedom" lent
To the black regiment.

Hundreds on hundreds fell;
But they are resting well;
Scourges and shackles strong
Never shall do them wrong.
O, to the living few,
Soldiers, be just and true!
Hail them as comrades tried;
Fight with them side by side;
Never, in field or tent,
Scorn the black regiment!

Garland: I reckon I'll pay my way

"Paid His Way," a poem by Hamlin Garland, was published in the magazine America on May 19, 1888 (it was later included in his collection Prairie Songs in 1893). The poem is presented in the dialect voice of Amos, an older man in his final years who was born in Ohio and later moved to Iowa. In his old age, with his wife dead, Amos has moved in with his son Stephen, who has come to dislike the situation, as both Stephen and Stephen's wife seem unhappy having the old man in their home. In the poem, Amos admits his willingness to leave if that's what they decide but offers his argument why he should stay by promising that he will continue, as he always has, to earn his keep (or "pay his way"). The poem also serves as a more general celebration of a humble yet hard-working generation — pioneers to the developing western and midwestern states who lived through the Civil War and faced a myriad of other challenges:

No, Steve, I aint complainin' any,
I'll go—if y' think it's right;
I don't ask a single bite n'r a penny
More n'r less 'n jest what's white—
But son, bime by, when the old man's done for,
Jest remember my words to-day.
Y' don't like to have me round h'yere,
But I reckon I've paid m' way!

I was eighty-one last January—
Born in the Buckeye State,
I've opened two farms on the prairie,
An' worked on 'em early and late.
Come rain or come shine, a scrapin't' earn
Every mouthful we eat, an' want 'o say,
That I never rode in no free concern
That I didn't pay my way.

Y'r mother and me worked mighty hard,
How hard you'll never know,
In cold and heat a-standin' guard
To keep off the rain and snow.
The mortgige kep' eatin' in nearer to bone,
And the war it come along too,
But I went—left mother alone
With Sis in the cradle—and you.
Served my time; an' commenced agin
On an Ioway prairie quarter,
An' there I plowed an' sowed an' fenced,
And nigged as no human orter,
To raise you young ones and feed m' wife—
Y'r mother scrimped and scrubbed till her hair was gray,
And I reckon we paid our way.

No! y'r high-toned tavern aint good enough
F'r a man like me to die in,
The work that's made me crooked and rough
Should 'a'earned me a bed to lie in
Under the roof of my only son—
If his wife is proud 'an gay;
For I boosted y' into the place y've won—
O I reckon I've paid my way!

Y'r wife I know is turrible set-
She's mighty hansom to see
I'll admit, but it's a turrible fret
This havin' to eat with me.
She never speaks, and she never seems
To be listnin' to what I say—
But the childern do! they don't know yet,
Their grandad's in the way.
I'd know's you 're very much to blame
For wantin' to have me go,
But, Steve, I'm glad y'r mother's dead—
'Twould break her heart to know.
She'd say I orter live here,
What time I've got to stay,
For, Stephen, I've travelled for fifty years
An' I've always paid my way.

I ain't a-goin' to bother y' long,
I'll be a pioneerin' further West
Where mother is, and God 'll say
Take it easy, Amos, y've earned a rest—
So, Stevie, I want to stay with you—
I want 'o work while I stay,
Jes' give me a little sumpin' to do,
I reckon I'll pay my way.