Sewell Ford - "Torchy, Private Sec."

Various - "Chronicle Of The Cid"

Hamlin Garland - "The Spirit of Sweetwater"

Ferdinand Raimund - "Die gefesselte Phantasie"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Cambridge Sketches

F >> Frank Preston Stearns >> Cambridge Sketches




"I have worked every day, Sunday included, for more than two months
and from fourteen to sixteen hours a day; I have filled the West with
my agents; I have compelled the railroads to accept lower terms of
transportation than the Government rates; I have filled a letter-book
of five hundred pages, most of it closely written."

This letter is now in the archives of the State
House at Boston, and on the back of it Governor
Andrew has written:

"This letter is respy. referred to Surgeon-General Dole with the
request that he would confer with Surgeon Stone and Lieutenant-Colonel
Hallowell. It is surprising, and not fair nor fit, that a man trying
as Mr. Stearns is, to serve the country at a risk, should suffer thus
by such disagreement of opinion.

"JOHN A. ANDREW."

Shortly after this Mr. Stearns returned to Boston for a brief visit, and
was met in the street by a philanthropic lady, Mrs. E. D. Cheney, who
asked: "Where have you been all this time, Mr. Stearns? I supposed you
were going to help us organize the colored regiment? You will be glad to
know that it is doing well. We have nearly a thousand men." Mr. Stearns
made no reply, but bowed and passed on. This is the more surprising, as
Mrs. Cheney was president of a society of ladies who had presented the
Fifty-fourth Regiment with a flag; but the fault would seem to have been
more that of others than her own. At the celebration which took place on
the departure of the regiment for South Carolina, however, Wendell
Phillips said: "We owe it chiefly to a private citizen, to George L.
Stearns, of Medford, that these heroic men are mustered into the
service,"--a statement which astonished a good many. [Footnote: The
statement made by Governor Andrew's private secretary concerning the
colored regiments in his memoir of the Governor would seem to have been
intentionally misleading.]

The Governors of the Western States had never considered their colored
population as of any importance, but now, when it was being drained off
to fill up the quota of Massachusetts troops they began to think
differently. The Governor of Ohio advised Governor Andrew that no more
recruiting could be permitted in his State unless the recruits were
assigned to the Ohio quota. Andrew replied that the Governor of Ohio was
at liberty to recruit colored regiments of his own; but the Massachusetts
Fifty-fifth, having now a complement, it was decided not to continue the
business any further, and Mr. Stearns's labors at Buffalo were thus
brought to an end about the middle of June. He had recruited fully one-
half of the Fifty-fourth, and nearly the whole of the Fifty-fifth
regiments.

He now conceived the idea of making his recruiting bureau serviceable by
placing it in the hands of the Government. He therefore went to
Washington and meeting his friend, Mr. Fred Law Olmstead, at Willard's
Hotel, the latter offered to go with him to the War Department and
introduce him to Secretary Stanton. They found Stanton fully alive to the
occasion, and in reply to Mr. Stearns's offer he said:

"I have heard of your recruiting bureau, and I think you would be the
best man to run the machine you have constructed. I will make you an
Assistant Adjutant-General with the rank of Major, and I will give you
authority to recruit colored regiments all over the country."

Stearns thanked him, and replied that there was nothing which he had so
much at heart as enlisting the black men on a large scale; for no people
could be said to be secure in their freedom unless they were also
soldiers; but his wife was unwell, and had suffered much from his absence
already, and he did not feel that he ought to accept the offer without
her consent. In answer to the question how funds for recruiting were to
be obtained without any appropriation by Congress, Mr. Stanton said they
could be supplied from the Secret Service fund.

When Mr. Stearns and Mr. Olmstead were alone on the street again, the
latter said: "Mr. Stearns, go to your room and sleep if you can."

Having returned to Boston, to arrange his affairs for a prolonged
absence, and having obtained his wife's consent, Mr. Stearns ordered his
recruiting bureau to report at Philadelphia, where he soon after followed
it.

The battle of Gettysburg had stirred Philadelphia to its foundations, and
its citizens were prepared to welcome anything that promised a vigorous
prosecution of the war. Major Stearns was at once enrolled among the
members of the Union League Club, the parent of all the union leagues in
the country, and was invited to the meetings of various other clubs and
fashionable entertainments. A recruiting committee was formed from among
the most prominent men in the city. Camp William Penn, while the colored
regiment was being drilled, became a fashionable resort, and fine
equipages filled the road thither every after-noon. By the middle of July
the first regiment was nearly full.

Fine weather does not often last more than a few weeks at a time, and in
the midst of these festivities suddenly came Secretary Stanton's order
reducing the pay of colored soldiers from thirteen to eight dollars a
month. This was a breach of contract and the men had a right to their
discharge if they wished it; but that, of course, was not permitted them.
Such an action could only be excused on the ground of extreme necessity.
The Massachusetts Legislature promptly voted to pay the deficiency to the
Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth regiments; but the one at Philadelphia was
in organization, and Mr. Stearns found himself in the position of a man
who has made promises which he is unable to fulfil.

Hon. William D. Kelley and two other gentlemen of the committee went with
Major Stearns to Washington to see Stanton, and endeavored to persuade
him to revoke the order. Kelley was one of the most persistent debaters
who ever sat in Congress, and he argued the question with the Secretary
of War for more than an hour,--to the great disgust of the latter,--but
Stanton was as firm as Napoleon ever was. Major Stearns never had another
pleasant interview with him.

The Secretary's argument was that some white regiments had complained of
being placed on an equality with negroes, and that it interfered with
recruiting white soldiers. There was doubtless some reason in this; but
the same result might have been obtained by a smaller reduction.

The next morning some one remarked to Major Stearns that it was
exceedingly hot weather, even for Washington, and his reply was: "Yes,
but the fever within is worse than the heat without." He talked of
resigning; but finally said, decisively, "I will go and consult with
Olmstead."

He found Mr. Olmstead friendly and sympathetic. He spoke of Secretary
Stanton in no complimentary terms, but he advised Mr. Stearns to continue
with his work, and endure all that he could for the good of the cause,--
not to be worried by evils for which he was in no way responsible. Mr.
Stearns returned to Willard's with a more cheerful countenance.

In the afternoon Judge Kelley came in with the news of the repulse of the
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment at Fort Wagner and the death of
Colonel Shaw.

There was a colored regiment in process of formation at Baltimore, and
another was supposed to be organizing at Fortress Monroe.

Both were nominally under Mr. Stearns's supervision, and he inspected the
former on his return trip to Philadelphia, and sent his son to
investigate and report on the latter. Not the trace of a colored regiment
could be discovered at Fortress Monroe, but there were scores of Union
officers lounging and smoking on the piazza of the Hygeia Hotel. Mr.
Stearns thought that business economy had better begin by reducing the
number of officers rather than the pay of the soldiers. On July 28 Major
Stearns wrote from Baltimore:

"I am still perplexed as to the mode in which I can best carry out the
work intrusted to me. It is so difficult to adjust my mode of rapid
working to the slow routine of the Department that I sometimes almost
despair of the task and want to abandon it."

No private business could succeed if carried on after the manner of the
National Government at that time, and this was not the fault of Lincoln's
administration at all, but of the whole course of Jackson democracy from
1829 to 1861. The clerks in the various departments did not hold their
positions from the heads of those departments, but from outside
politicians who had no connection with the Government business, and as a
consequence they were saucy and insubordinate. They found it to their
interest to delay and obstruct the procedure of business in order to give
the impression that they were overworked, and in that way make their
positions more secure and if possible of greater importance.

Major Stearns had found himself continually embarrassed in his Government
service from lack of sufficient funds, and the continual delay in having
his accounts audited. The auditors of the War Department repeatedly took
exception to expenditures that were absolutely necessary, and he was
obliged to advance large sums from his own capital in order to provide
the current expenses of his agents. In this emergency he returned to
Boston and held a conference with Mr. John M. Forbes and other friends;
and they all agreed that he ought to be better supported in the work of
recruiting than he had been. A subscription was immediately set on foot,
and in a few days a recruiting fund of about thirty thousand dollars was
raised and placed in charge of Mr. R. P. Hallowell.

On September 1, Secretary Stanton transferred Major Stearns to Nashville,
where he could obtain recruits in large numbers, not only from Tennessee
but from the adjoining States. Fugitives flocked to his standard from
Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. For the succeeding five months he
organized colored regiments so rapidly that it was with difficulty the
General commanding at Nashville could supply the necessary quota of
officers for them. His letter-writing alone rarely came to less than
twenty pages a day, and besides this he was obliged to attend personally
to innumerable details which were constantly interfering with more
important affairs. Serious questions concerning the rights and legal
position of the freedmen were continually arising, and these required a
cool head and a clear understanding for their solution.

Edward J. Bartlett, of Concord, who was one of his staff in Nashville,
stated afterwards that he never saw a man who could despatch so much
business in a day as George L. Stearns. He says:

"I shall never forget the fine appearance of the first regiment we
sent off. They were all picked men, and felt a just pride in wearing
the blue. As fast as we obtained enough recruits they were formed
into regiments, officered and sent to the front. When men became
scarce in the city we made trips into the country, often going beyond
the Union picket line, and generally reaping a harvest of slaves.
These expeditions brought an element of danger into our lives, for
our forage parties were fired into by the enemy more than once, but we
always succeeded in bringing back our men with us. The black regiments
did valuable service for the Union, leaving their dead on many a
southern battle-field. Mr. Stearns was a noble man, courteous, with
great executive ability, and grandly fitted for the work he was
engaged in."

At this time Major Stearns's friend, General Wilde, was recruiting a
colored brigade in North Carolina, and General Ullman was organizing
colored regiments in Louisiana.

Major Stearns's labors were brought to a close in February, 1864, by the
eccentric conduct of Secretary Stanton,--the reason for which has never
been explained. He obtained leave of absence to return to Boston at
Christmas time, and after a brief visit to his family went to Washington
and called upon the Secretary of War, who declined to see him three days
in succession. On the evening of the fourth day he met Mr. Stanton at an
evening party and Stanton said to him in his roughest manner: "Major
Stearns, why are you not in Tennessee?" This was a breach of official
etiquette on the part of the Secretary of War and Major Stearns sent in
his resignation at once. His reason for doing so, however, was not so
much on account of this personal slight as from the conclusion that he
had accomplished all that was essential to be done in this line. His
chief assistant at Nashville, Capt. R. D. Muzzey, was an able man and
perfectly competent to run the machine which Mr. Stearns had constructed.

The importance of his work cannot readily be measured. It was no longer
easy to obtain white volunteers. With a population ten millions less than
that of France, the Northern States were maintaining an army much larger
than the one which accompanied Napoleon to Moscow. General Thomas's right
wing, at the battle of Nashville, was formed almost entirely of colored
regiments. They were ordered to make a feint attack on the enemy, so as
to withdraw attention from the flanking movement of his veterans on the
left; but when the charge had once begun their officers were unable to
keep them in check--the feint was changed into a real attack and
contributed largely to the most decisive victory of the whole war.

In his last annual Message President Lincoln congratulated Congress on
the success of the Government's policy in raising negro regiments, and on
the efficiency of the troops organized in this way. It seems very
doubtful if the war could have been brought to a successful termination
without them.

In 1898 the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the instance of the veterans
of the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth regiments, voted to have a memorial
tablet for the public services of George Luther Stearns set up in the
Doric Hall of Boston State House, and the act was approved by Governor
Walcott, who sent the quill with which he signed it to Major Stearns's
widow.


EMERSON'S TRIBUTE TO GEORGE L. STEARNS.

_Delivered in the First Parish Church of Medford on the Sunday
following Major Stearns's death, April 9, 1867._

"We do not know how to prize good men until they depart. High virtue has
such an air of nature and necessity that to thank its possessor would be
to praise the water for flowing or the fire for warming us. But, on the
instant of their death, we wonder at our past insensibility, when we see
how impossible it is to replace them. There will be other good men, but
not these again. And the painful surprise which the last week brought us,
in the tidings of the death of Mr. Stearns, opened all eyes to the just
consideration of the singular merits of the citizen, the neighbor, the
friend, the father, and the husband, whom this assembly mourns. We recall
the all but exclusive devotion of this excellent man during the last
twelve years to public and patriotic interests. Known until that time in
no very wide circle as a man of skill and perseverance in his business;
of pure life; of retiring and affectionate habits; happy in his domestic
relations,--his extreme interest in the national politics, then growing
more anxious year by year, engaged him to scan the fortunes of freedom
with keener attention. He was an early laborer in the resistance to
slavery. This brought him into sympathy with the people of Kansas. As
early as 1855 the Emigrant Aid Society was formed; and in 1856 he
organized the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, by means of which a
large amount of money was obtained for the 'free-State men,' at times of
the greatest need. He was the more engaged to this cause by making in
1857 the acquaintance of Captain John Brown, who was not only an
extraordinary man, but one who had a rare magnetism for men of character,
and attached some of the best and noblest to him, on very short
acquaintance, by lasting ties. Mr. Stearns made himself at once necessary
to Captain Brown as one who respected his inspirations, and had the
magnanimity to trust him entirely, and to arm his hands with all needed
help.

"For the relief of Kansas, in 1856-57, his own contributions were the
largest and the first. He never asked any one to give so much as he
himself gave, and his interest was so manifestly pure and sincere that he
easily obtained eager offerings in quarters where other petitioners
failed. He did not hesitate to become the banker of his clients, and to
furnish them money and arms in advance of the subscriptions which he
obtained. His first donations were only entering wedges of his later;
and, unlike other benefactors, he did not give money to excuse his entire
preoccupation in his own pursuits, but as an earnest of the dedication of
his heart and hand to the interests of the sufferers,--a pledge kept
until the success he wrought and prayed for was consummated. In 1862, on
the President's first or preliminary Proclamation of Emancipation, he
took the first steps for organizing the Freedman's Bureau,--a department
which has since grown to great proportions. In 1863, he began to recruit
colored soldiers in Buffalo; then at Philadelphia and Nashville. But
these were only parts of his work. He passed his time in incessant
consultations with all men whom he could reach, to suggest and urge the
measures needed for the hour. And there are few men of real or supposed
influence, North or South, with whom he has not at some time
communicated. Every important patriotic measure in this region has had
his sympathy, and of many he has been the prime mover. He gave to each
his strong support, but uniformly shunned to appear in public. For
himself or his friends he asked no reward: for himself, he asked only to
do the hard work. His transparent singleness of purpose, his freedom from
all by-ends, his plain good sense, courage, adherence, and his romantic
generosity disarmed first or last all gainsayers. His examination before
the United States Senate Committee on the Harper's Ferry Invasion, in
January, 1860, as reported in the public documents, is a chapter well
worth reading, as a shining example of the manner in which a truth-
speaker baffles all statecraft, and extorts at last a reluctant homage
from the bitterest adversaries.

"I have heard, what must be true, that he had great executive skill, a
clear method, and a just attention to all the details of the task in
hand. Plainly he was no boaster or pretender, but a man for up-hill work,
a soldier to bide the brunt; a man whom disasters, which dishearten other
men, only stimulated to new courage and endeavor.

"I have heard something of his quick temper: that he was indignant at
this or that man's behavior, but never that his anger outlasted for a
moment the mischief done or threatened to the good cause, or ever stood
in the way of his hearty co-operation with the offenders, when they
returned to the path of public duty. I look upon him as a type of the
American republican. A man of the people, in strictly private life, girt
with family ties; an active and intelligent manufacturer and merchant,
enlightened enough to see a citizen's interest in the public affairs, and
virtuous enough to obey to the uttermost the truth he saw,--he became, in
the most natural manner, an indispensable power in the State. Without
such vital support as he, and such as he, brought to the government,
where would that government be! When one remembers his incessant service;
his journeys and residences in many States; the societies he worked with;
the councils in which he sat; the wide correspondence, presently enlarged
by printed circulars, then by newspapers established wholly or partly at
his own cost; the useful suggestions; the celerity with which his purpose
took form; and his immovable convictions,--I think this single will was
worth to the cause ten thousand ordinary partisans, well-disposed enough,
but of feebler and interrupted action.

"These interests, which he passionately adopted, inevitably led him into
personal communication with patriotic persons holding the same views,--
with two Presidents, with members of Congress, with officers of the
government and of the army, and with leading people everywhere. He had
been always a man of simple tastes, and through all his years devoted to
the growing details of his prospering manufactory. But this sudden
association now with the leaders of parties and persons of pronounced
power and influence in the nation, and the broad hospitality which
brought them about his board at his own house, or in New York, or in
Washington, never altered one feature of his face, one trait in his
manners. There he sat in the council, a simple, resolute Republican, an
enthusiast only in his love of freedom and the good of men; with no pride
of opinion, and with this distinction, that, if he could not bring his
associates to adopt his measure, he accepted with entire sweetness the
next best measure which could secure their assent. But these public
benefits were purchased at a severe cost. For a year or two, the most
affectionate and domestic of men became almost a stranger in his
beautiful home. And it was too plain that the excessive toil and
anxieties into which his ardent spirit led him overtasked his strength
and wore out prematurely his constitution. It is sad that such a life
should end prematurely; but when I consider that he lived long enough to
see with his own eyes the salvation of his country, to which he had given
all his heart; that he did not know an idle day; was never called to
suffer under the decays and loss of his powers, or to see that others
were waiting for his place and privilege, but lived while he lived, and
beheld his work prosper for the joy and benefit of all mankind,--I count
him happy among men.

"Almost I am ready to say to these mourners, Be not too proud in your
grief, when you remember that there is not a town in the remote State of
Kansas that will not weep with you as at the loss of its founder; not a
Southern State in which the freedmen will not learn to-day from their
preachers that one of their most efficient benefactors has departed, and
will cover his memory with benedictions; and that, after all his efforts
to serve men without appearing to do so, there is hardly a man in this
country worth knowing who does not hold his name in exceptional honor.
And there is to my mind somewhat so absolute in the action of a good man,
that we do not, in thinking of him, so much as make any question of the
future. For the Spirit of the Universe seems to say: 'He has done well;
is not that saying all?'"

This monograph was printed in the _Boston Commonwealth_, April 20,
1867, and has never been republished. It is exceptional in Emerson's
writings as the account of a man with whom he was personally and
intimately acquainted.




ELIZUR WRIGHT

The influence of Ohio in the United States of America during the past
half century may be compared to that of Virginia during the first forty
years of the Republic. All of our Presidents, elected as such since 1860,
have come from Ohio, or adjacent territory. Cleveland came from beyond
the Alleghenies, and Lincoln was born on the southern side of the Ohio
River. General Grant and General Sherman came from Ohio; and so did
Salmon P. Chase, and John Brown, of Harper's Perry celebrity. Chase gave
the country the inestimable blessing of a national currency; and even the
Virginians admitted that John Brown was a very remarkable person.

The fathers of these men conquered the wilderness and brought up their
sons to a sturdy, vigorous manliness, which resembles the colonial
culture of Franklin, Adams, and Washington.

Sitting in the same school-house with John Brown, in 1816, was a boy
named Elizur Wright who, like Brown, came from Connecticut, and to whom
the people of this country are also somewhat under obligation. Every
widow and orphan in the United States who receives the benefit of a life-
insurance policy owes a blessing to Elizur Wright, who was the first to
establish life insurance in America on a strong foundation, and whose
reports on that subject, made during his long term as Insurance
Commissioner for Massachusetts, have formed a sort of constitution by
which the policy of all life-insurance companies is still guided. His
name deserves a place beside those of Horace Mann and William Lloyd
Garrison.

[Illustration: ELIZUR WRIGHT]

Apart from this, his biography is one of the most interesting, one of the
most picturesque, when compared with those of the many brilliant men of
his time. His grandfather was a sea captain, and his father, who was also
named Elizur, was a farmer in Canaan, Connecticut. His mother's name was
Clarissa Richards, and he was born on the twelfth of February, 1804. In
the spring of 1810 the family moved to Talmage, Ohio, making the journey
in a two-horse carriage with an ox-team to transport their household
goods. Their progress was necessarily slow, and it was nearly six weeks
before they reached Talmage, as it was generally necessary to camp at
night by the way-side. This romantic journey, the building of their log-
cabin, the clearing of the forest, and above all his solitary watches in
the maple-orchard (where he might perhaps be attacked by wolves), made a
deep poetic impression on young Elizur, and furnished him with a store of
pleasant memories in after life.

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