The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

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Between fields made memorable by hard fighting I rode eastward, and,
entering a pleasant wood, ascended Little Round Top. The eastern slope
of this rugged knob is covered with timber. The western side is steep,
and wild with rocks and bushes. Near by is the Devil's Den, a dark
cavity in the rocks, interesting henceforth on account of the fight that
took place here for the possession of these heights. A photographic
view, taken the Sunday morning after the battle, shows eight dead Rebels
tumbled headlong, with their guns, among the rocks below the Den.

A little farther on is Round Top itself, a craggy tusk of the rock-jawed
earth pushed up there towards the azure. It is covered all over with
broken ledges, boulders, and fields of stones. Among these the
forest-trees have taken root,--thrifty Nature making the most of things
even here. The serene leafy tops of ancient oaks tower aloft in the
bluish-golden air. It is a natural fortress, which our boys strengthened
still further by throwing up the loose stones into handy breastworks.

Returning, I rode the whole length of the ridge held by our troops,
realizing more and more the importance of that extraordinary position.
It is like a shoe, of which Round Top represents the heel, and Cemetery
Hill the toe. Here all our forces were concentrated on Thursday and
Friday, within a space of three miles. Movements from one part to
another of this compact field could be made with celerity. Lee's forces,
on the other hand, extended over a circle of seven miles or more around,
in a country where all their movements could be watched by us and
anticipated.

At a point well forward on the foot of this shoe, Meade had his
head-quarters. I tied my horse at the gate, and entered the little
square box of a house which enjoys that historical celebrity. It is
scarcely more than a hut, having but two little rooms on the
ground-floor, and I know not what narrow, low-roofed chambers above. Two
small girls, with brown, German faces, were paring wormy apples under
the porch; and a round-shouldered, bareheaded, and barefooted woman,
also with a German face and a strong German accent, was drawing water at
the well. I asked her for a drink, which she kindly gave me, and invited
me into the house.

The little box was whitewashed outside and in, except the floor and
ceilings and inside doors, which were neatly scoured. The woman sat down
to some mending, and entered freely into conversation. She was a widow,
and the mother of six children. The two girls cutting wormy apples at
the door were the youngest, and the only ones that were left to her. A
son in the army was expected home in a few days. She did not know how
old her children were,--she did not know how old she herself was, "she
was so forgetful."

She ran away at the time of the fight, but was sorry afterwards she did
not stay at home. "She lost a heap." The house was robbed of almost
everything; "coverlids and sheets and some of our own clo'es, all
carried away. They got about two ton of hay from me. I owed a little on
my land yit, and thought I'd put in two lots of wheat that year, and it
was all trampled down, and I didn't get nothing from it. I had seven
pieces of meat yit, and them was all took. All I had when I got back was
jest a little bit of flour yit. The fences was all tore down, so that
there wa'n't one standing, and the rails was burnt up. One shell come
into the house and knocked a bedstead all to pieces for me. One come in
under the roof and knocked out a rafter for me. The porch was all
knocked down. There was seventeen dead horses on my land. They burnt
five of 'em around my best peach-tree, and killed it; so I ha'n't no
peaches this year. They broke down all my young apple-trees for me. The
dead horses sp'iled my spring, so I had to have my well dug."

I inquired if she had ever got anything for the damage.

"Not much. I jest sold the bones of the dead horses. I couldn't do it
till this year, for the meat hadn't rotted off yit. I got fifty cents a
hundred. There was seven hundred and fifty pounds. You can reckon up
what they come to. That's all I got."

Not much, indeed!

This poor woman's entire interest in the great battle was, I found,
centred in her own losses. That the country lost or gained she did not
know nor care, never having once thought of that side of the question.

The town is full of similar reminiscences; and it is a subject which
everybody except the "Copperheads" likes to talk with you about. There
were heroic women here, too. On the evening of Wednesday, as our forces
were retreating, an exhausted Union soldier came to Mr. Culp's house,
near Culp's Hill, and said, as he sank down,--

"If I can't have a drink of water, I must die."

Mrs. Culp, who had taken refuge in the cellar,--for the house was now
between the two fires,--said,--

"I will go to the spring and get you some water."

It was then nearly dark. As she was returning with the water, a bullet
whizzed past her. It was fired by a sharpshooter on our own side, who
had mistaken her for one of the advancing Rebels. Greatly frightened,
she hurried home, bringing the water safely. One poor soldier was made
eternally grateful by this courageous womanly deed. A few days later the
sharpshooter came to the house and learned that it was a ministering
angel in the guise of a woman he had shot at. Great, also, must have
been his gratitude for the veil of darkness which caused him to miss his
aim.

Shortly after the battle, sad tales were told of the cruel inhospitality
shown to the wounded Union troops by the people of Gettysburg. Many of
these stories were doubtless true; but they were true only of the more
brutal of the Rebel sympathizers. The Union men threw open their hearts
and their houses to the wounded.

One day I met a soldier on Cemetery Hill, who was in the battle, and
who, being at Harrisburg for a few days, had taken advantage of an
excursion-train to come over and revisit the scene of that terrible
experience. Getting into conversation, we walked down the hill together.
As we were approaching a double house with high wooden steps, he pointed
out the farther one, and said,--

"Saturday morning, after the fight, I got a piece of bread at that
house. A man stood on the steps and gave each of our fellows a piece. We
were hungry as bears, and it was a godsend. I should like to see that
man and thank him."

Just then the man himself appeared at the door. We went over, and I
introduced the soldier, who, with tears in his eyes, expressed his
gratitude for that act of Christian charity.

"Yes," said the man, when reminded of the circumstance, "we did what we
could. We baked bread here night and day to give to every hungry soldier
who wanted it. We sent away our own children, to make room for the
wounded soldiers, and for days our house was a hospital."

Instances of this kind are not few. Let them be remembered to the honor
of Gettysburg.

Of the magnitude of a battle fought so desperately during three days by
armies numbering not far from two hundred thousand men no adequate
conception can be formed. One or two facts may help to give a faint idea
of it. Mr. Culp's meadow, below Cemetery Hill,--a lot of near twenty
acres,--was so thickly strown with Rebel dead, that Mr. Culp declared he
"could have walked across it without putting foot upon the ground."
Upwards of three hundred Confederates were buried in that fair field in
one hole. On Mr. Gwynn's farm, below Round Top, near five hundred sons
of the South lie promiscuously heaped in one huge sepulchre. Of the
quantities of iron, of the wagon-loads of arms, knapsacks, haversacks,
and clothing, which strewed the country, no estimate can be made.
Government set a guard over these, and for weeks officials were busy in
gathering together all the more valuable spoils. The harvest of bullets
was left for the citizens to glean. Many of the poorer people did a
thriving business, picking up these missiles of death, and selling them
to dealers; two of whom alone sent to Baltimore fifty tons of lead
collected in this way from this battle-field.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

The greatest name in American history is that of ALEXANDER HAMILTON, if
we consider the versatility of the man who bore it, the early age at
which he began a great public career, the success which attended all his
labors, the impression which he made on his country and its government,
and the rare foresight by which he was enabled to understand that our
political system would encounter that very danger through which it has
just passed,--and passed not without receiving severe wounds, which have
left it scarcely recognizable even by its warmest admirers. Talleyrand,
who had a just appreciation of Hamilton's talents and character, said
that he had divined Europe. An American need not be possessed of high
powers or position to venture the assertion that Hamilton divined
American history, and foresaw all that we have suffered because our
predecessors would build the national edifice on sand, so that it could
not stand against the political storm which it was in the breath of
selfish partisans to send against it, but has, as it were, to be
buttressed by mighty fleets and armies. A system, which, had it been
rightly formed in the first place, would have been self-sustaining, was
saved from destruction solely by the uprising of the people, who had to
operate with bullets and bayonets, when it had been fondly hoped that
the ballot would ever be a sufficiently formidable weapon in the hand of
the American citizen, and that he never would have to become the
citizen-soldier in a civil contest. Had Hamilton been allowed to shape
our national polity, it would have worked as successfully for ages as
that financial system which he formed has ever worked, and which has
never been departed from without the result being most injurious to the
country. At this day, when events have so signally justified the views
of Alexander Hamilton, and are daily justifying them,[F] it may not be
unprofitable to glance over the career of one whose virtues, services,
and genius are constantly rising in the estimation of his countrymen and
of the world, "the dead growing visible from the shades of time."

To be born at all is to be well born is the general belief in this very
liberal-minded age: but even the most determined of democrats is not
averse to a good descent; and Hamilton, who was a democrat in no sense,
had one of the noblest ancestries in Europe, though himself of American
birth. His family was of Scotland, a country which, the smallness of its
population considered, has produced more able and useful men than any
other. The Hamiltons of Scotland, and we may add of France, were one of
the noblest of patrician houses, and they had a great part in the stormy
history of their country. Walter de Hamilton, of Cambuskeith, in the
County of Ayr,--Burns's county,--second son of Sir David de Hamilton,
Dominus de Cadyow, was the founder of that branch of the Hamilton family
to which the American statesman belonged. He flourished _temp._ Robert
III., second of the Stuart kings, almost five hundred years ago. Many
noble Scotch names are very common, because it was the custom of the
families to which they belonged to extend them to all their retainers;
but Alexander Hamilton obtained his name in no such way as that. His
descent from the Lord of Cadyow is made up with the nicest precision.
The family became of Grange in the sixteenth century. The names of the
ladies married by the heads of the Hamiltons of Cambuskeith and Grange
all belong to those of the ingenuous classes. The same Christian names
are continued in the line, that of Alexander appearing as early as the
latter part of the fifteenth century, and reappearing frequently for
three hundred years. Alexander Hamilton of Grange, fourteenth in descent
from Sir David de Hamilton, had three sons, the third bearing his
father's name; and that son's fifth child was James Hamilton, who
emigrated to the West Indies, settling in the Island of Nevis. Mr. James
Hamilton married a French lady, whose maiden name was Faucette, and
whose father was one of many persons of worth who were forced to leave
France because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, through the
bigotry of that little man who is commonly called the Grand Monarch, and
whose bigotry was made active by the promptings of Madame de Maintenon,
who was descended from a fierce Huguenot, as was the monarch himself.

Alexander Hamilton was born on the 11th of January, 1757. His mother
died in his early childhood, a more than usually severe loss, for she
was a superior woman. He was the only one of her children who survived
her. His father soon became poor, and the child was dependent upon the
relatives of his mother for support and education. They resided at Santa
Cruz, where he was brought up. Just before completing his thirteenth
year he entered the counting-house of Mr. Cruger, a merchant of Santa
Cruz. Young as he was, his employer left him in charge of his business
while he made a visit to New York, and had every reason to be satisfied
with the arrangement. He read all the books he could obtain, and read
them understandingly. Even at that early age he was remarkable for the
manliness of his mind. He wrote, too; and an account of the hurricane of
1772, which he contributed to a public journal, attracted so much
attention that he was sought out, and it was determined to send him to
New York to be regularly educated. He left Santa Cruz, and sailed for
Boston, which port he reached in October, 1772. Proceeding to New York,
he was sent to school at Elizabethtown, New Jersey; and in 1773 entered
King's College, in the city of New York, where he pursued his studies
with signal success. But events were happening that were to place him in
a very different school from that in which he was preparing to become a
physician. He was to be the physician of the State, and to that end he
was thrown among men, and appointed to do the work of men of the highest
intellect, at an age when most persons have not half completed the
ordinary training which is to fit them to begin the common routine of
common life.

Hamilton's connection with the history of his country, as one of those
who were making material for it, began at the age of seventeen. The
American Revolution was moving steadily onward when he arrived at New
York, and by the summer of 1774 it had assumed large proportions. He
first spoke at "the Great Meeting in the Fields," July 6th, and
astonished those who heard him by the fervor of his eloquence and the
closeness of his logic. His fame dates from that day. He sided with the
people of his new home from the time that he came among them, and never
had any doubt or hesitation as to the course which duty required him to
adopt and pursue. As a writer he was even more successful than as a
speaker. A pamphlet which he wrote in December, 1774, vindicating the
Continental Congress, attracted much attention, and that and another
from his pen were attributed to veteran Whigs, particularly to John Jay;
but the evidence of Hamilton's authorship is perfect, or we might well
agree with the Tories, and believe that works so able could not have
been written by a youth of eighteen. Other writings of his subsequently
appeared, and were most serviceable to the patriots. Young as he was, he
was already regarded by the country as one of its foremost champions
with the pen. The time was fast coming when it was to be made known that
the holder of the pen could also hold the sword, and hold it to
effective purpose.

He had joined a volunteer corps while in college, and was forward in all
its doings. The first time he was under fire was when this corps was
engaged in removing guns from the Battery. The fire of a man-of-war was
opened on it, doing some injury. This was the first act of war in New
York, and it is interesting to know that Hamilton had part in it. In the
commotion that followed, he was zealous in his efforts to prevent the
triumph of a mob, and not more zealous than successful. From the very
beginning of his career, he never thought of liberty, save as the
closest associate of law. Diligently devoting himself to the study of
the military art, and particularly to gunnery, he asked for the command
of an artillery company, and obtained it after a thorough examination,
being made captain on the 14th of March, 1776, when but two months
beyond his nineteenth year. He completed his company, and expended the
very last money he received from his relatives in making it fit for the
field. Even at that time he advocated promotion from the ranks, and
succeeded in having his first sergeant made a commissioned officer: a
fact worthy of mention, when it is recollected that his enemies have
always represented him as an aristocrat, there being nothing less
aristocratical than the placing of the sword of command in the hands of
men who have carried the musket. While pursuing his military duties, he
did not neglect the study of politics; and his notes show that before
the Declaration of Independence he had thought out a plan of government
for the nation that was so soon to come into existence. Among them is
this inquiry: "_Quaere_, would it not be advisable to let all taxes, even
those imposed by the States, be collected by persons of Congressional
appointment? and would it not be advisable to pay the collectors so much
per cent on the sums collected?" This, as his son says, "is the
intuitive idea of a general government, truly such, which he first
proposed to Congress, and earnestly advocated." He was in his twentieth
year when he showed himself capable of understanding the nature of the
situation, and the wants of the country. Probably no other person had
got so far at that time, and it required years for the people to reach
the point at which Hamilton had arrived intuitively. With them it was a
conclusion reached through bitter experience. The lesson has not been
perfectly acquired even at this time.

Hamilton's company belonged to that army which Washington commanded, in
1776, in New England and New Jersey; and it was while the army was on
the heights of Haerlem, in the autumn of 1776, that he attracted the
notice of Washington. The General inspected an earthwork which the
Captain was constructing, conversed with him, and invited him to his
tent. This was the beginning of an acquaintance that was destined to
have memorable consequences and lasting effects on the American nation.
On the 1st of March, 1777, Hamilton was appointed to a place on
Washington's staff, becoming one of his aides, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel,--his "principal and most confidential aide," to use
Washington's language. It was not without much hesitation that Hamilton
accepted this post. He had already made a name, and his promotion in the
line of the army was secured; and had he remained to take that
promotion, he would have won the highest distinction, supposing him to
have escaped the casualties of war. His military genius was
unquestioned; and what Washington required of him was service that would
not secure promotion or opportunity to show that he deserved it. He
required the mind and the pen of Hamilton. These he obtained; and the
amount of labor performed by the youthful aide-de-camp with his pen was
enormous. He was something more than an aide and a private secretary. He
was the commander's trusted friend, and he proved that he deserved the
trust reposed in him, not less by his high-minded conduct than by the
talent which he brought to the discharge of the duties of a most
difficult post,--duties which were of an arduous and highly responsible
character. The limits of a sketch like the present do not admit of more
than the general mention of his great services. Those who would know
them in full should consult the work in which Mr. John C. Hamilton has
done justice to the part which his father had, first in the
Revolutionary contest, and then in the creation of the American
Republic, and the settlement of its policy.[G] There was no event with
which Washington was concerned for more than four years with which
Hamilton was not also concerned. The range of his business and his
labors was equal to his talents, and it is not possible to say more of
them. He was but twenty years old when Washington thus really placed him
next to himself in the work of conducting the American cause. In what
estimation his services were held by the commander-in-chief may be
inferred from the fact that he was selected by him, in 1780, being then
in his twenty-fourth year, as a special minister to France, to induce
the French Government to grant more aid to this country. Hamilton did
not take the office, because it was desired by his friend, Colonel
Laurens, whose father was then a prisoner in England.

Colonel Hamilton was married on the 14th of December, 1780, to Miss
Elizabeth Schuyler, second daughter of General Philip Schuyler, one of
the most distinguished soldiers of the Revolution, to whom was due the
defeat of General Burgoyne, and head of one of those old families of
which New York possessed so many. This lady was destined to survive her
husband half a century, and to be associated with two ages of the
country,--her death occurring in 1854, in her ninety-eighth year. She
was a woman of exalted character, and worthy to be the wife of Alexander
Hamilton.

The relations between Washington and Hamilton were briefly interrupted
early in 1781, and Hamilton left the commander's military family. He had
a command in that allied army which Washington and Rochambeau led to
Yorktown, the success of which put an end to the "great war" of the
Revolution on this continent. When the British redoubts were stormed,
Hamilton commanded the American column, and carried the redoubt he
assailed before the French had taken that which it fell to their lot to
attack. Shortly afterward he retired from the service, and, taking up
his residence in Albany, devoted himself to the study of the law. In
1782 he was elected a member of the Continental Congress by the
Legislature of New York, and took his seat on the 25th of November. He
proved an energetic member, his attention being largely directed to the
financial state of the country, than which nothing could be more dreary.
At an early day he had been convinced that something sound must be
attempted in relation to our finances; and in 1780 he had addressed a
letter on the subject to Robert Morris, which showed that his ideas
regarding money and credit were those of a great statesman. But the time
had not come in which he was to mould the country to his will, and make
it rich in spite of itself, and against its own exertions. More
suffering was necessary before the people could be made to listen to the
words of truth, though uttered by genius. Military matters also
commanded the attention of the young member, as was natural, he having
been so distinguished as a soldier, and retaining that interest in the
army which he had acquired from six years' connection with it. His
Congressional career was brilliant, and added much to his reputation. It
seemed that he was destined to succeed in everything he attempted. Yet
at that time he thought of retiring altogether from public life, and of
devoting himself entirely to his profession, in which he had already
become eminent. In November, 1783, he removed to the city of New York,
which then had entered on that astonishing growth which has since been
so steadily maintained.

The first of the law labors of this great man were in support of those
_national_ principles which are more closely identified with his name
than with that of any other individual. In advocating the cause of his
client, he had to argue that the terms of the treaty of peace with
England and the law of nations were of more force than a statute passed
by the Legislature of the State of New York. He carried the court as
decidedly with him as public opinion was against him; and he had to
defend himself in several pamphlets, which he did with his usual
success. As time went on, it became every day more apparent that the
country's great need was a strong central government, and that, until
such a government should be adopted, prosperity could not be looked for,
nor order, nor anything like national life; and had not something been
done, North America would doubtless have presented very much the same
spectacle that has long been afforded by South America, and from which
that rich land is but now slowly recovering. Of those who most earnestly
and effectively advocated the action necessary to save the country from
anarchy, Hamilton was among the foremost. As we have seen, he had
thought soundly on this subject as early as 1776, and years and events
had confirmed and strengthened the impression formed before independence
had been resolved upon.

Appointed a delegate from New York to the commercial convention held at
Annapolis in 1786, Colonel Hamilton wrote the address put forth by that
body to the States, out of which grew the Convention of 1787, which made
the Federal Constitution. To that Convention he was sent by the New York
Legislature, and his part in the work done was of the first order,
though the Constitution formed was far from commanding his entire
approbation. Like a wise statesman, who does not insist that means of
action shall be perfect, but makes the best use he can of those that are
available, Hamilton accepted the Constitution, and became the strongest
advocate for its adoption, and its firmest supporter after its adoption.
This part of his life--a part as honorable to him as it was useful to
his country--has been systematically misrepresented, so that many
Americans have been taught to believe that he was an enemy of freedom,
and would have established an arbitrary government. He was accused of
being opposed to any republican polity, and of seeking the annihilation
of the State Governments. He was called a monarchist and a
consolidationist. These misrepresentations of his opinions and acts were
forever dispelled, according to the views of honest and unprejudiced
men, by the publication of a letter which he wrote to Timothy Pickering,
in 1803. In that letter he said,--"The highest-toned propositions which
I made to the Convention were for a President, Senate, and Judges,
during good behavior, and a House of Representatives for three years.
Though I would have enlarged the legislative power of the General
Government, yet I never contemplated the abolition of the State
Governments; but, on the contrary, they were, in some particulars,
constituent parts of my plan. This plan was, in my conception,
conformable with the strict theory of a government purely republican;
the essential criteria of which are, that the principal organs of the
executive and legislative departments be elected by the people, and hold
the office by a responsible and temporary or defeasible nature.... I may
truly, then, say that I never proposed either a President or Senate for
life, and that I neither recommended nor meditated the annihilation of
State Governments.... It is a fact that my final opinion was against an
executive during good behavior, on account of the increased danger to
the public tranquillity incident to the election of a magistrate of his
degree of permanency. In the plan of a constitution which I drew up
while the Convention was sitting, and which I communicated to Mr.
Madison about the close of it, perhaps a day or two after, the office of
President has no longer duration than for three years. This plan was
predicated upon these bases: 1. That the political principles of the
people of this country would endure nothing but a republican government;
2. That, in the actual situation of the country, it was itself right and
proper that the republican theory should have a full and fair trial; 3.
That to such a trial it was essential that the government should be so
constructed as to give it all the energy and the stability reconcilable
with the principles of that theory. These were the genuine sentiments of
my heart; and upon them I then acted. I sincerely hope that it may not
hereafter be discovered, that, through want of sufficient attention to
the last idea, the experiment of republican government, even in this
country, has not been as complete, as satisfactory, and as decisive as
could be wished."

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