There are some European generals whom it is difficult to class, as they showed great capacity and won great victories as well in age as in youth. Prince Eugène was one of these, and Frederick of Prussia was another. Eugène showed high talent when very young, and won the first of his grand victories over the Turks at thirty-four; but it was not so splendid an affair as that of Belgrade, which he won at fifty-four. He was forty-three when he defeated the French at Turin, under circumstances and with incidents that took attention even from Marlborough, whom he subsequently aided to gain the victories of Oudenarde and Malplaquet, as he had previously aided him at Blenheim. At seventy-one Eugène led an Austrian army against the French; and though no battle was fought, his conduct showed that he had not lost his capacity for command. Frederick began his military life when in his thirtieth year, and was actively engaged until thirty-three, showing striking ability on several occasions, though he began badly, according to his own admission. But it was in the Seven Years' War that his fame as a soldier was won, and that contest began when he was in his forty-fifth year. He was close upon forty-six when he gained the Battles of Rossbach and Leuthen. Whatever opinion others may entertain as to his age, it is certain that he counted himself an old man in those days. Writing to the Marquis d'Argens, a few days before he was forty-eight, he said, "In my old age I have come down almost to be a theatrical king"; and not two years later he wrote to the same friend, "I have sacrificed my youth to my father, and my manhood to my fatherland. I think, therefore, I have acquired the right to my old age." He reckoned by trials and events, and he had gone through enough to have aged any man. Those were the days when he carried poison on his person, in order that, should he be completely beaten, or captured, he might not adorn Maria Theresa's triumph, but end his life "after the high Roman fashion." When the question of the Bavarian succession threatened to lead to another war with Austria, Frederick's action, though he was in his sixty-seventh year, showed, to use the homely language of the English soldier at St. Helena when Napoleon arrived at that famous watering place, that he had many campaigns in his belly yet. The youthful Emperor, Joseph II., would have been no match for the old soldier of Liegnitz and Zorndorf.
Some of Frederick's best generals were old men. Schwerin, who was killed in the terrible Battle of Prague, was then seventy-three, and a soldier of great reputation. Sixteen years before he had won the Battle of Mollwitz, one of the most decisive actions of that time, from which Frederick himself is said to have run away in sheer fright. General Ziethen, perhaps the best of all modern cavalry commanders, was in his fifty-eighth year when the Seven Years' War began, and he served through it with eminent distinction, and most usefully to his sovereign. He could not have exhibited more dash, if he had been but eight-and-twenty, instead of eight-and-fifty, or sixty-five, as he was when peace was made. Field-Marshal Keith, an officer of great ability, was sixty when he fell at Hochkirchen, after a brilliant career.
American military history is favorable to old generals. Washington was in his forty-fourth year when he assumed command of the Revolutionary armies, and in his fiftieth when he took Yorktown. Wayne and Greene were the only two of our young generals of the Revolution who showed decided fitness for great commands. Had Hamilton served altogether in the field, his would have been the highest military name of the war. The absurd jealousies that deprived Schuyler of command, in 1777, alone prevented him from standing next to Washington. He was close upon forty-four when, he gave way to Gates, who was forty-nine. The military reputation of both Schuyler and Hamilton has been most nobly maintained by their living descendants. Washington was called to the command of the American forces at sixty-six, when it was supposed that the French would attempt to invade the United States, which shows that the Government of that day had no prejudice against old generals. General Jackson's great Louisiana campaign was conducted when he was nearly forty-eight, and he was, from almost unintermitted illness, older in constitution than in years. Had General Scott had means at his disposal, we should have been able to point to a young American general equal to any who is mentioned in history; but our poverty forbade him an opportunity in war worthy of his genius. It "froze the genial current of his soul." As a veteran leader, he was most brilliantly distinguished. He was in his sixty-first year when he set out on his memorable Mexican campaign, which was an unbroken series of grand operations and splendid victories, such as are seldom to be found in the history of war. The weight of years had no effect on that magnificent mind. Of him, as it was of Carnôt, it can be said that he organized victory, and made it permanent. His deeds were all the greater because of the feeble support he received from his Government. Like Wellington, in some of his campaigns, he had to find within himself the resources which were denied him by bad ministers. General Taylor was in his sixty-second year when the Mexican War began, and in less than a year he won the Battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista. He, too, was badly supported. The Secession War has been conducted by elderly or middle-aged men. General Lee, whom the world holds to have displayed the most ability in it, is about fifty-six. General Rosecrans is forty-four, and General Grant forty-two. Stonewall Jackson died at thirty-seven. General Banks is forty-eight, General Hooker forty-five, General Beauregard forty-six, General Bragg forty-nine, General Burnside forty, General Gillmore thirty-nine, General Franklin forty-one, General Magruder fifty-three, General Meade forty-eight, General Schuyler Hamilton forty-two, General Charles S. Hamilton forty, and General Foster forty. General Lander, a man of great promise, died in his fortieth year. General Kearney was killed at forty-seven, and General Stevens at forty-five. General Sickles was in his forty-first year when he was wounded at Gettysburg, and General Reno was thirty-seven when he died so bravely at South Mountain. General Pemberton lost Vicksburg at forty-five. General T.W. Sherman is forty-six, and General W. T. Sherman forty-four. General McClellan was in his thirty-fifth year when he assumed command at Washington in 1861. General Lyon had not completed the first month of his forty-third year when he fell at Wilson's Creek. General McDowell was in his forty-third year when he failed at Bull Run, in consequence of the coming up of General Joe Johnston, who was fifty-one. General Keyes is fifty-three, General Kelley fifty-seven, General King forty, and General Pope forty-one. General A.S. Johnston was fifty-nine when he was killed at Shiloh. General Halleck is forty-eight. General Longstreet is forty. The best of the Southern cavalry-leaders was General Ashby, who was killed at thirty-eight. General Stuart is twenty-nine. On our side, General Stanley is thirty, General Pleasonton forty, and General Averell about thirty. General Phelps is fifty-one, General Polk fifty-eight, General S. Cooper sixty-eight, General J. Cooper fifty-four, and General Blunt thirty-eight. The list might be much extended, but very few young men would be found in it,or very few old men, either. The best of our leaders are men who have either passed beyond middle life, or who may be said to be in the enjoyment of that stage of existence. It is so, too, with the Rebels. If the war does not afford many facts in support of the position that old generals are very useful, neither does it afford many to be quoted by those who hold that the history of heroism is the history of youth.
THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH. 5
[1657.]Rivermouth Rocks are fair to see,
By dawn or sunset shone across,
When the ebb of the sea has left them free
To dry their fringes of gold-green moss:
For there the river comes winding down
From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown,
And waves on the outer rocks afoam
Shout to its waters, "Welcome home!"
And fair are the sunny isles in view
East of the grisly Head of the Boar,
And Agamenticus lifts its blue
Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er;
And southerly, when the tide is down,
'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown,
The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel
Over a floor of burnished steel.
Once, in the old Colonial days,
Two hundred years ago and more,
A boat sailed down through the winding ways
Of Hampton river to that low shore,
Full of a goodly company
Sailing out on the summer sea,
Veering to catch the land-breeze light,
With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right.
In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid
Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass,
"Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!"
A young man sighed, who saw them pass.
Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand
Whetting his scythe with a listless hand,
Hearing a voice in a far-off song,
Watching a white hand beckoning long.
"Fie on the witch!" cried a merry girl,
As they rounded the point where Goody Cole
Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl,
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul.
"Oho!" she muttered, "ye're brave to-day!
But I hear the little waves laugh and say,
'The broth will be cold that waits at home;
For it's one to go, but another to come!'"
"She's curst," said the skipper; "speak her fair:
I'm scary always to see her shake
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair,
And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake."
But merrily still, with laugh and shout,
From Hampton river the boat sailed out,
Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh,
And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye.
They dropped their lines in the lazy tide,
Drawing up haddock and mottled cod;
They saw not the Shadow that walked beside,
They heard not the feet with silence shod.
But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew,
Shot by the lightnings through and through;
And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast,
Ran along the sky from west to east.
Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea
Up to the dimmed and wading sun,
But he spake like a brave man cheerily,
"Yet there is time for our homeward run."
Veering and tacking, they backward wore;
And just as a breath from the woods ashore
Blew out to whisper of danger past,
The wrath of the storm came down at last!
The skipper hauled at the heavy sail:
"God be our help!" he only cried,
As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail,
Smote the boat on its starboard side.
The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone
Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown,
Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare,
The strife and torment of sea and air.
Goody Cole looked out from her door:
The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone,
Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar
Toss the foam from tusks of stone.
She clasped her hands with a grip of pain,
The tear on her cheek was not of rain:
"They are lost," she muttered, "boat and crew!
Lord, forgive me! my words were true!"
Suddenly seaward swept the squall;
The low sun smote through cloudy rack;
The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all
The trend of the coast lay hard and black.
But far and wide as eye could reach,
No life was seen upon wave or beach;
The boat that went out at morning never
Sailed back again into Hampton river.
O mower, lean on thy bended snath,
Look from the meadows green and low:
The wind of the sea is a waft of death,
The waves are singing a song of woe!
By silent river, by moaning sea,
Long and vain shall thy watching be:
Never again shall the sweet voice call,
Never the white hand rise and fall!
O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight
Ye saw in the light of breaking day!
Dead faces looking up cold and white
From sand and sea-weed where they lay!
The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept,
And cursed the tide as it backward crept:
"Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake!
Leave your dead for the hearts that break!"
Solemn it was in that old day
In Hampton town and its log-built church,
Where side by side the coffins lay
And the mourners stood in aisle and porch.
In the singing-seats young eyes were dim,
The voices faltered that raised the hymn,
And Father Dalton, grave and stern,
Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn.
But his ancient colleague did not pray,
Because of his sin at fourscore years:
He stood apart, with the iron-gray
Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears.
And a wretched woman, holding her breath
In the awful presence of sin and death,
Cowered and shrank, while her neighbors thronged
To look on the dead her shame had wronged.
Apart with them, like them forbid,
Old Goody Cole looked drearily round,
As, two by two, with their faces hid,
The mourners walked to the burying-ground.
She let the staff from her clasped hands fall:
"Lord, forgive us! we're sinners all!"
And the voice of the old man answered her:
"Amen!" said Father Bachiler.
So, as I sat upon Appledore
In the calm of a closing summer day,
And the broken lines of Hampton shore
In purple mist of cloudland lay,
The Rivermouth Rocks their story told;
And waves aglow with sunset gold,
Rising and breaking in steady chime,
Beat the rhythm and kept the time.
And the sunset paled, and warmed once more
With a softer, tenderer after-glow;
In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore
And sails in the distance drifting slow.
The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar,
The White Isle kindled its great red star;
And life and death in my old-time lay
Mingled in peace like the night and day!
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY
I was in the shop of my friend on the day of the great snow-storm, when the plan was proposed which he mentions in the beginning of his story, called "Pink and Blue," printed in this magazine in the month of May, 1861. Fears were entertained that some of the women might object. And they did. My sister Fanny, Mrs. Maylie, said it was like being set in a frame. Farmer Hill's wife hoped we shouldn't tell exactly how much we used to think of them, for "praise to the face was open disgrace." But my wife, Mrs. Browne, thought the stories should be made as good as possible, for praise could not hurt them so long as they knew themselves, just what they were. It was suggested by some one, that, if the married men told how they won their wives, there were a couple of old bachelors belonging to our set who ought to tell how they came to be without, which seemed very fair.