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NO GOOD PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN

Probably the reader has seen physiognomies (often old farmers,
sea-captains, and such) that, behind their homeliness, or even
ugliness, held superior points so subtle, yet so palpable, making the
real life of their faces almost as impossible to depict as a wild
perfume or fruit-taste, or a passionate tone of the living voice--and
such was Lincoln's face, the peculiar color, the lines of it, the
eyes, mouth, expression. Of technical beauty it had nothing--but to
the eye of a great artist it furnished a rare study, a feast and
fascination. The current portraits are all failures--most of them
caricatures.

RELEAS'D UNION PRISONERS FROM SOUTH

The releas'd prisoners of war are now coming up from the southern
prisons. I have seen a number of them. The sight is worse than any
sight of battle-fields, or any collection of wounded, even the
bloodiest. There was, (as a sample,) one large boat load, of several
hundreds, brought about the 25th, to Annapolis; and out of the whole
number only three individuals were able to walk from the boat. The
rest were carried ashore and laid down in one place or another. Can
those be _men_--those little livid brown, ash-streak'd, monkey-looking
dwarfs?--are they really not mummied, dwindled corpses? They lay
there, most of them, quite still, but with a horrible look in their
eyes and skinny lips (often with not enough flesh on the lips to cover
their teeth.) Probably no more appalling sight was ever seen on this
earth. (There are deeds, crimes, that may be forgiven; but this is
not among them. It steeps its perpetrators in blackest, escapeless,
endless damnation. Over 50,000 have been compell' d to die the death
of starvation--reader, did you ever try to realize what _starvation_
actually is?--in those prisons--and in a land of plenty.) An
indescribable meanness, tyranny, aggravating course of insults, almost
incredible--was evidently the rule of treatment through all the
southern military prisons. The dead there are not to be pitied as much
as some of the living that come from there--if they can be call'
d living--many of them are mentally imbecile, and will never
recuperate.[8]

Note:

[8] _From a review of_ "ANDERSONVILLE, A STORY OF SOUTHERN MILTTARY
PRISONS," _published serially in the Toledo "Blade" in 1879, and
afterwards in book form_.

"There is a deep fascination in the subject of Andersonville--for that
Golgotha, in which lie the whitening bones of 13,000 gallant young
men, represents the dearest and costliest sacrifice of the war for the
preservation of our national unity. It is a type, too, of its class.
Its more than hundred hecatombs of dead represent several times that
number of their brethren, for whom the prison gates of Belle Isle,
Danville, Salisbury, Florence, Columbia, and Cahaba open'd only in
eternity. There are few families in the North who have not at least
one dear relative or friend among these 60,000 whose sad fortune it
was to end their service for the Union by lying down and dying for it
in a southern prison pen. The manner of their death, the horrors that
cluster'd thickly around every moment of their existence, the loyal,
unfaltering steadfastness with which they endured all that fate had
brought them, has never been adequately told. It was not with them as
with their comrades in the field, whose every act was perform'd in the
presence of those whose duty it was to observe such matters and report
them to the world. Hidden from the view of their friends in the north
by the impenetrable veil which the military operations of the rebels
drew around the so-called confederacy, the people knew next to nothing
of their career or their sufferings. Thousands died there less heeded
even than the hundreds who perish'd on the battlefield. Grant did not
lose as many men kill'd outright, in the terrible campaign from the
Wilderness to the James river--43 days of desperate fighting--as died
in July and August at Andersonville. Nearly twice as many died in that
prison as fell from the day that Grant cross'd the Rapidan, till he
settled down in the trenches before Petersburg. More than four times
as many Union dead lie under the solemn soughing pines about that
forlorn little village in southern Georgia, than mark the course of
Sherman from Chattanooga to Atlanta. The nation stands aghast at the
expenditure of life which attended the two bloody campaigns of 1864,
which virtually crush'd the confederacy, but no one remembers that
more Union soldiers died in the rear of the rebel lines than were
kill'd in the front of them. The great military events which stamp'd
out the rebellion drew attention away from the sad drama which
starvation and disease play'd in those gloomy pens in the far recesses
of sombre southern forests."

_From a letter of "Johnny Bouquet," in N. Y. "Tribune," March 27,
'81._

"I visited at Salisbury, N. C., the prison pen or the site of it, from
which nearly 11,000 victims of southern politicians were buried, being
confined in a pen without shelter, exposed to all the elements could
do, to all the disease herding animals together could create, and to
all the starvation and cruelty an incompetent and intense caitiff
government could accomplish. From the conversation and almost from the
recollection of the northern people this place has dropp' d, but not
so in the gossip of the Salisbury people, nearly all of whom say that
the half was never told; that such was the nature of habitual outrage
here that when Federal prisoners escaped the townspeople harbor'd them
in their barns, afraid the vengeance of God would fall on them, to
deliver even their enemies back to such cruelty. Said one old man at
the Boyden House, who join'd in the conversation one evening: 'There
were often men buried out of that prison pen still alive. I have the
testimony of a surgeon that he had seen them pull'd out of the dead
cart with their eyes open and taking notice, but too weak to lift a
finger. There was not the least excuse for such treatment, as the
confederate government had seized every sawmill in the region, and
could just as well have put up shelter for these prisoners as not,
wood being plentiful here. It will be hard to make any honest man
in Salisbury say that there was the slightest necessity for those
prisoners having to live in old tents, caves and holes half-full of
water. Representations were made to the Davis government against the
officers in charge of it, but no attention was paid to them. Promotion
was the punishment for cruelty there. The inmates were skeletons. Hell
could have no terrors for any man who died there, except the inhuman
keepers.'"

DEATH OF A PENNSYLVANIA SOLDIER

_Frank H. Irwin, company E, 93rd Pennsylvania--died May 1, '65--My
letter to his mother_--Dear madam: No doubt you and Frank's friends
have heard the sad fact of his death in hospital here, through his
uncle, or the lady from Baltimore, who took his things. (I have not
seen them, only heard of them visiting Frank.) I will write you a
few lines--as a casual friend that sat by his death-bed. Your son,
corporal Frank H. Irwin, was wounded near fort Fisher, Virginia, March
25th, 1865--the wound was in the left knee, pretty bad. He was sent up
to Washington, was receiv'd in ward C, Armory-square hospital, March
28th--the wound became worse, and on the 4th of April the leg was
amputated a little above the knee--the operation was perform' d by
Dr. Bliss, one of the best surgeons in the army--he did the whole
operation himself--there was a good deal of bad matter gather'd--the
bullet was found in the knee. For a couple of weeks afterwards he was
doing pretty well. I visited and sat by him frequently, as he was fond
of having me. The last ten or twelve days of April I saw that his case
was critical. He previously had some fever, with cold spells. The last
week in April he was much of the time flighty--but always mild and
gentle. He died first of May. The actual cause of death was pyaemia,
(the absorption of the matter in the system instead of its discharge.)
Frank, as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical
treatment, nursing, &c. He had watches much of the time. He was so
good and well-behaved and affectionate, I myself liked him very much.
I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him, and
soothing him, and he liked to have me--liked to put his arm out and
lay his hand on my knee--would keep it so a long while. Toward the
last he was more restless and flighty at night--often fancied himself
with his regiment--by his talk sometimes seem'd as if his feelings
were hurt by being blamed by his officers for something he was
entirely innocent of--said, "I never in my life was thought capable of
such a thing, and never was." At other times he would fancy himself
talking as it seem'd to children or such like, his relatives I
suppose, and giving them good advice; would talk to them a long while.
All the time he was out of his head not one single bad word or idea
escaped him. It was remark'd that many a man's conversation in his
senses was not half as good as Frank's delirium. He seem'd quite
willing to die--he had become very weak and had suffer'd a good deal,
and was perfectly resign'd, poor boy. I do not know his past life, but
I feel as if it must have been good. At any rate what I saw of him
here, under the most trying circumstances, with a painful wound, and
among strangers, I can say that he behaved so brave, so composed, and
so sweet and affectionate, it could not be surpass'd. And now like
many other noble and good men, after serving his country as a soldier,
he has yielded up his young life at the very outset in her service.
Such things are gloomy--yet there is a text, "God doeth all things
well"--the meaning of which, after due time, appears to the soul.

I thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about your son,
from one who was with him at the last, might be worth while--for I
loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to lose him. I
am merely a friend visiting the hospitals occasionally to cheer the
wounded and sick.

W. W.

THE ARMIES RETURNING

_May 7_.--Sunday.--To-day as I was walking a mile or two south of
Alexandria, I fell in with several large squads of the returning
Western army, (Sherman's men as they call'd themselves) about
a thousand in all, the largest portion of them half sick, some
convalescents, on their way to a hospital camp. These fragmentary
excerpts, with the unmistakable Western physiognomy and idioms,
crawling along slowly--after a great campaign, blown this way, as it
were, out of their latitude--I mark'd with curiosity, and talk'd with
off and on for over an hour. Here and there was one very sick; but all
were able to walk, except some of the last, who had given out, and
were seated on the ground, faint and despondent. These I tried to
cheer, told them the camp they were to reach was only a little way
further over the hill, and so got them up and started, accompanying
some of the worst a little way, and helping them, or putting them
under the support of stronger comrades.

_May 21_.--Saw General Sheridan and his cavalry to-day; a strong,
attractive sight; the men were mostly young, (a few middle-aged,)
superb-looking fellows, brown, spare, keen, with well-worn clothing,
many with pieces of water-proof cloth around their shoulders, hanging
down. They dash'd along pretty fast, in wide close ranks, all
spatter'd with mud; no holiday soldiers; brigade after brigade. I
could have watch'd for a week. Sheridan stood on a balcony, under a
big tree, coolly smoking a cigar. His looks and manner impress'd me
favorably.

_May 22_.--Have been taking a walk along Pennsylvania avenue and
Seventh street north. The city is full of soldiers, running around
loose. Officers everywhere, of all grades. All have the weatherbeaten
look of practical service. It is a sight I never tire of. All the
armies are now here (or portions of them,) for to-morrow's review. You
see them swarming like bees everywhere.

THE GRAND REVIEW

For two days now the broad spaces of Pennsylvania avenue along to
Treasury hill, and so by detour around to the President's house, and
so up to Georgetown, and across the aqueduct bridge, have been alive
with a magnificent sight, the returning armies. In their wide ranks
stretching clear across the Avenue, I watch them march or ride
along, at a brisk pace, through two whole days--infantry, cavalry,
artillery--some 200,000 men. Some days afterwards one or two other
corps; and then, still afterwards, a good part of Sherman's immense
army, brought up from Charleston, Savannah, &c.

WESTERN SOLDIERS

_May 26-7_.--The streets, the public buildings and grounds of
Washington, still swarm with soldiers from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio,
Missouri, Iowa, and all the Western States. I am continually meeting
and talking with them. They often speak to me first, and always show
great sociability, and glad to have a good interchange of chat. These
Western soldiers are more slow in their movements, and in their
intellectual quality also; have no extreme alertness. They are larger
in size, have a more serious physiognomy, are continually looking
at you as they pass in the street. They are largely animal, and
handsomely so. During the war I have been at times with the
Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Corps. I always feel
drawn toward the men, and like their personal contact when we are
crowded close together, as frequently these days in the street-cars.
They all think the world of General Sherman; call him "old Bill," or
sometimes "uncle Billy."

A SOLDIER ON LINCOLN

_May 28_.--As I sat by the bedside of a sick Michigan soldier in
hospital to-day, a convalescent from the adjoining bed rose and came
to me, and presently we began talking. He was a middleaged man,
belonged to the 2d Virginia regiment, but lived in Racine, Ohio, and
had a family there. He spoke of President Lincoln, and said: "The
war is over, and many are lost. And now we have lost the best, the
fairest, the truest man in America. Take him altogether, he was the
best man this country ever produced. It was quite a while I thought
very different; but some time before the murder, that's the way I have
seen it." There was deep earnestness in the soldier. (I found upon
further talk he had known Mr. Lincoln personally, and quite closely,
years before.) He was a veteran; was now in the fifth year of his
service; was a cavalry man, and had been in a good deal of hard
fighting.

TWO BROTHERS, ONE SOUTH, ONE NORTH

_May 28-9_.--I staid to-night a long time by the bedside of a new
patient, a young Baltimorean, aged about 19 years, W. S. P., (2d
Maryland, southern,) very feeble, right leg amputated, can't sleep
hardly at all--has taken a great deal of morphine, which, as usual,
is costing more than it comes to. Evidently very intelligent and well
bred--very affectionate--held on to my hand, and put it by his face,
not willing to let me leave. As I was lingering, soothing him in his
pain, he says to me suddenly, "I hardly think you know who I am--I
don't wish to impose upon you--I am a rebel soldier." I said I did not
know that, but it made no difference. Visiting him daily for about two
weeks after that, while he lived, (death had mark'd him, and he was
quite alone,) I loved him much, always kiss'd him, and he did me. In
an adjoining ward I found his brother, an officer of rank, a Union
soldier, a brave and religious man, (Col. Clifton K. Prentiss, sixth
Maryland infantry, Sixth corps, wounded in one of the engagements at
Petersburgh, April 2--linger'd, suffer'd much, died in Brooklyn, Aug.
20, '65). It was in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong
Unionist, the other Secesh; both fought on their respective sides,
both badly wounded, and both brought together here after a separation
of four years. Each died for his cause.

SOME SAD CASES YET

_May 31_.--James H. Williams, aged 21, 3d Virginia cavalry.-About
as mark'd a case of a strong man brought low by a complication of
diseases, (laryngitis, fever, debility and diarrhoea,) as I have ever
seen--has superb physique, remains swarthy yet, and flushed and red
with fever-is altogether flighty--flesh of his great breast and arms
tremulous, and pulse pounding away with treble quickness--lies a
good deal of the time in a partial sleep, but with low muttering and
groans--a sleep in which there is no rest. Powerful as he is, and so
young, he will not be able to stand many more days of the strain and
sapping heat of yesterday and to-day. His throat is in a bad way,
tongue and lips parch'd. When I ask him how he feels, he is able just
to articulate, "I feel pretty bad yet, old man," and looks at me with
his great bright eyes. Father, John Williams, Millensport, Ohio.

_June 9-10_.--I have been sitting late to-night by the bedside of
a wounded captain, a special friend of mine, lying with a painful
fracture of left leg in one of the hospitals, in a large ward
partially vacant. The lights were put out, all but a little candle,
far from where I sat. The full moon shone in through the windows,
making long, slanting silvery patches on the floor. All was still, my
friend too was silent, but could not sleep; so I sat there by him,
slowly wafting the fan, and occupied with the musings that arose out
of the scene, the long shadowy ward, the beautiful ghostly moonlight
on the floor, the white beds, here and there an occupant with huddled
form, the bed-clothes thrown off. The hospitals have a number of cases
of sun-stroke and exhaustion by heat, from the late reviews. There
are many such from the Sixth corps, from the hot parade of day before
yesterday. (Some of these shows cost the lives of scores of men.)

_Sunday, Sep. 10_.--Visited Douglas and Stanton hospitals. They are
quite full. Many of the cases are bad ones, lingering wounds, and
old sickness. There is a more than usual look of despair on the
countenances of many of the men; hope has left them. I went through
the wards, talking as usual. There are several here from the
confederate army whom I had seen in other hospitals, and they
recognized me. Two were in a dying condition.

CALHOUN'S REAL MONUMENT

In one of the hospital tents for special cases, as I sat to-day
tending a new amputation, I heard a couple of neighboring soldiers
talking to each other from their cots. One down with fever, but
improving, had come up belated from Charleston not long before.
The other was what we now call an "old veteran," (_i.e._, he was a
Connecticut youth, probably of less than the age of twenty-five years,
the four last of which he had spent in active service in the war in
all parts of the country.) The two were chatting of one thing and
another. The fever soldier spoke of John C. Calhoun's monument, which
he had seen, and was describing it. The veteran said: "I have seen
Calhoun's monument. That you saw is not the real monument. But I
have seen it. It is the desolated, ruined south; nearly the whole
generation of young men between seventeen and thirty destroyed or
maim'd; all the old families used up--the rich impoverish'd, the
plantations cover'd with weeds, the slaves unloos'd and become the
masters, and the name of southerner blacken'd with every shame--all
that is Calhoun's real monument."

HOSPITALS CLOSING

October 3_.--There are two army hospitals now remaining. I went to the
largest of these (Douglas) and spent the afternoon and evening. There
are many sad cases, old wounds, incurable sickness, and some of the
wounded from the March and April battles before Richmond. Few realize
how sharp and bloody those closing battles were. Our men exposed
themselves more than usual; press'd ahead without urging. Then the
southerners fought with extra desperation. Both sides knew that with
the successful chasing of the rebel cabal from Richmond, and the
occupation of that city by the national troops, the game was up.
The dead and wounded were unusually many. Of the wounded the last
lingering driblets have been brought to hospital here. I find many
rebel wounded here, and have been extra busy to-day 'tending to the
worst cases of them with the rest.

_Oct., Nov. and Dec., '65--Sundays_--Every Sunday of these months
visited Harewood hospital out in the woods, pleasant and recluse, some
two and a half or three miles north of the capitol. The situation is
healthy, with broken ground, grassy slopes and patches of oak woods,
the trees large and fine. It was one of the most extensive of the
hospitals, now reduced to four or five partially occupied wards,
the numerous others being vacant. In November, this became the last
military hospital kept up by the government, all the others being
closed. Cases of the worst and most incurable wounds, obstinate
illness, and of poor fellows who have no homes to go to, are found
here.

_Dec. 10--Sunday_--Again spending a good part of the day at Harewood.
I write this about an hour before sundown. I have walk'd out for a few
minutes to the edge of the woods to soothe myself with the hour and
scene. It is a glorious, warm, golden-sunny, still afternoon. The only
noise is from a crowd of cawing crows, on some trees three hundred
yards distant. Clusters of gnats swimming and dancing in the air in
all directions. The oak leaves are thick under the bare trees, and
give a strong and delicious perfume. Inside the wards everything is
gloomy. Death is there. As I enter'd, I was confronted by it the first
thing; a corpse of a poor soldier, just dead, of typhoid fever. The
attendants had just straighten'd the limbs, put coppers on the eyes,
and were laying it out.

_The roads_--A great recreation, the past three years, has been in
taking long walks out from Washington, five, seven, perhaps ten miles
and back; generally with my friend Peter Doyle, who is as fond of it
as I am. Fine moonlight nights, over the perfect military roads, hard
and smooth--or Sundays--we had these delightful walks, never to be
forgotten. The roads connecting Washington and the numerous forts
around the city, made one useful result, at any rate, out of the war.

TYPICAL SOLDIERS

Even the typical soldiers I have been personally intimate with,--it
seems to me if I were to make a list of them it would be like a city
directory. Some few only have I mention'd in the foregoing pages--most
are dead--a few yet living. There is Reuben Farwell, of Michigan,
(little "Mitch;") Benton H. Wilson, color-bearer, 185th New York; Wm.
Stansberry; Manvill Winterstein, Ohio; Bethuel Smith; Capt. Simms,
of 51st New York, (kill'd at Petersburgh mine explosion,) Capt. Sam.
Pooley and Lieut. Fred. McReady, same reg't. Also, same reg't., my
brother, George W. Whitman--in active service all through, four
years, re-enlisting twice--was promoted, step by step, (several times
immediately after battles,) lieutenant, captain, major and lieut.
colonel--was in the actions at Roanoke, Newbern, 2d Bull Run,
Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, Vicksburgh,
Jackson, the bloody conflicts of the Wilderness, and at Spottsylvania,
Cold Harbor, and afterwards around Petersburgh; at one of these latter
was taken prisoner, and pass'd four or five months in secesh military
prisons, narrowly escaping with life, from a severe fever, from
starvation and half-nakedness in the winter. (What a history that
51st New York had! Went out early--march'd, fought everywhere--was in
storms at sea, nearly wreck'd--storm'd forts--tramp'd hither and yon
in Virginia, night and day, summer of '62--afterwards Kentucky and
Mississippi--re-enlisted--was in all the engagements and campaigns, as
above.) I strengthen and comfort myself much with the certainty that
the capacity for just such regiments, (hundreds, thousands of them) is
inexhaustible in the United States, and that there isn't a county nor
a township in the republic--nor a street in any city--but could turn
out, and, on occasion, would turn out, lots of just such typical
soldiers, whenever wanted.

"CONVULSIVENESS"

As I have look'd over the proof-sheets of the preceding pages, I have
once or twice fear'd that my diary would prove, at best, but a batch
of convulsively written reminiscences. Well, be it so.

They are but parts of the actual distraction, heat, smoke and
excitement of those times. The war itself, with the temper of
society preceding it, can indeed be best described by that very word
_convulsiveness_.

THREE YEARS SUMM'D UP

During those three years in hospital, camp or field, I made over six
hundred visits or tours, and went, as I estimate, counting all, among
from eighty thousand to a hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as
sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need. These
visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night; for with dear
or critical cases I generally watch'd all night. Sometimes I took up
my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch'd there several nights
in succession. Those three years I consider the greatest privilege
and satisfaction, (with all their feverish excitements and physical
deprivations and lamentable sights,) and, of course, the most profound
lesson of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I comprehended
all, whoever came in my way, northern or southern, and slighted none.
It arous'd and brought out and decided undream'd-of depths of emotion.
It has given me my most fervent views of the true _ensemble_ and
extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands
of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all
the States, North and South, without exception. I was with many from
the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found,
during those lurid years 1862-63, far more Union southerners,
especially Tennesseans, than is supposed. I was with many rebel
officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I
had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I was among the army
teamsters considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to
them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband
camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what
I could for them.