We sighted the first pilot-boat on the afternoon of January 3d,
and, as she came sweeping down athwart us, with her broad, white wings
full spread, our glasses soon made out the winning number of the
sweepstakes, "22." It was long past dinner hour when the beautiful
little schooner rounded to, under our lee, but all appetite just then
was merged in a craving for latest intelligence.
It was a caricaturist's study--the crowd of keen, anxious faces round
the gangway--as the pilot came aboard. He was a stout man, of
agricultural exterior, looking as if he were in the habit of ploughing
anything rather than the deep sea; but it is the fashion of his guild to
eschew the nautical as much as possible in their attire. The "anxious
inquirers" got little satisfaction from him--he seemed taciturn by
nature, if not sullen--and they came back to where the rest of us stood
on the hurricane deck, muttering discontentedly, "Gold at 46. No news."
It seemed very odd--such a complete stagnation of affairs, military and
civil--but we went to dinner in spite of our disappointment. Before we
rose from table the truth began to ooze out. One or two New York papers,
that had slipped on board with the pilot, were more communicative than
he would or could be.
Thousands of corpses, the full tale of which will never be known till
the day of judgment, lying rolled in blood, with a handful of earth
raked over them under the fatal Fredericksburg heights; the finest army
in Federaldom hurled back upon its intrenchments; nothing but darkness
covering a disastrous, if not shameful defeat; the papers crowded with
dreary funeral notices, showing how, to every great city of the North,
from hospital and battle-ground, the slain are being gathered in, to be
buried among their own people; a wail of widows and orphans and mothers,
from homestead, hamlet, and town, overpowering with its simple energy,
the bombastic war-notes and false stage-thunder of the press; rumors of
a terrible battle in the far West, where, after three days' hard
fighting, Rosecrans barely holds his own, and yet "_there are no
news_!"
It is an excellent quality in a soldier not to know when he is beaten,
but whether blind obstinacy will succeed when it influences the rulers
and destinies of a great nation, is more than questionable.
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