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- Footnotes.
1. The gloomy lull of the early part of the winter of 1860-1, seeming
big with final disaster to our institutions, affected some minds that
believed them to constitute one of the great hopes of mankind, much as
the eclipse which came over the promise of the first French Revolution
affected kindred natures, throwing them for the time into doubt and
misgivings universal.
2. “The terrible Stone Fleet on a mission as pitiless as the granite
that freights it, sailed this morning from Port Royal, and before two
days are past will have made Charleston an inland city. The ships are
all old whalers, and cost the government from $2500 to $5000 each. Some
of them were once famous ships.--” (From Newspaper Correspondences of
the day.)
Sixteen vessels were accordingly sunk on the bar at the river entrance.
Their names were as follows:
Amazon,
America,
American,
Archer,
Courier,
Fortune,
Herald,
Kensington,
Leonidas,
Maria Theresa,
Potomac,
Rebecca Simms,
L.C. Richmond,
Robin Hood,
Tenedos,
William Lee.
All accounts seem to agree that the object proposed was not
accomplished. The channel is even said to have become ultimately
benefited by the means employed to obstruct it.
3. The _Temeraire_, that storied ship of the old English fleet, and the
subject of the well-known painting by Turner, commends itself to the
mind seeking for some one craft to stand for the poetic ideal of those
great historic wooden warships, whose gradual displacement is lamented
by none more than by regularly educated navy officers, and of all
nations.
4. Some of the cannon of old times, especially the brass ones, unlike
the more effective ordnance of the present day, were cast in shapes
which Cellini might have designed, were gracefully enchased, generally
with the arms of the country. A few of them--field-pieces--captured in
our earlier wars, are preserved in arsenals and navy-yards.
5. Whatever just military criticism, favorable or otherwise, has at any
time been made upon General McClellan’s campaigns, will stand. But if,
during the excitement of the conflict, aught was spread abroad tending
the unmerited disparagement of the man, it must necessarily die out,
though not perhaps without leaving some traces, which may or may not
prove enduring. Some there are whose votes aided in the re-election of
Abraham Lincoln, who yet believed, and retain the belief, that General
McClellan, to say the least, always proved himself a patriotic and
honorable soldier. The feeling which surviving comrades entertain for
their late commnder is one which, from its passion, is susceptible of
versified representation, and such it receives.
6. At Antietam Stonewall Jackson led one wing of Lee’s army, consequenty
sharing that day in whatever may be deemed to have been the fortunes of
his superior.
7. Admiral Porter is son of the late Commodore Porter, commander of the
Frigate Essex on that Pacific cruise which ended in the desparate fight
off Valparaiso with the English frigates Cherub and Phoebe, in the year
1814.
8. Among numerous head-stones or monuments on Cemetery Hill, marred or
destroyed by the enemy’s concentrated fire, was one, somewhat
conspicuous, of a Federal officer killed before Richmond in 1862.
On the 4th of July 1865, the Gettysburg National Cemetery, on the same
height with the original burial-ground, was consecrated, and the
corner-stone laid of a commemorative pile.
9. “I dare not write the horrible and inconceivable atrocities
committed,” says Froissart, in alluding to the remarkable sedition in
France during his time. The like may be hinted of some proceedings of
the draft-rioters.
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