CHAPTER XVII
1878
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF MINE ABOUT GENERAL GRANT IN THE WAR-GRANT AT CHAMPION HILLS-SHERMAN’S LETTER ON CONFISCATION BY TAXATION IN AMERICA-SILVER NO “CURE ALL”-GRANT AT RAGATZ-I GIVE A BANQUET IN HIS HONOR AT ZURICH.
January, 1878.-To-day made New Year’s calls on some American friends; but it is not customary among the Swiss.
Received copies of my “Recollections of Grant and Sherman,” printed in the Philadelphia Times. It so happened that I had seen General Grant often in the Vicksburg campaign, and he personally directed a charge made by our brigade at the battle of Champion Hills. The battle had been going on for some time, when he rode up close behind the line of my regiment. He dismounted from his bay horse and stood within a few yards of where I was in the line, leaning on my gun. He was under a heavy fire of musketry, and we boys all feared for his life. There was some suspense, before the order to “charge” was given. My company stood there in line on the green grass, just as it did on the village green in Newton, the morning we started for the war. Grant leaned against his horse and smoked, and looked simply as a man would, who had a little piece of tough business before him to consider. Aides rode up to him and rode away. He spoke to them in a low voice, that even I, who was so close to him, could not hear. The awful musketry rattle of terrific combat was a little to the left and right of us, and there was no great noise immediately in our front; but well we all knew that ten thousand rebels were over there in the timber, waiting our advance. There was no cannonading of our line, as we stood there unresistingly, feeling the shots from their rifles, and firing not a shot in return. Grant was not quite ready. I saw him glance, I thought half pityingly, at a few of our wounded who were carried back past him, and he looked very close at one man near me who was shot in the leg and who limped past him to the rear. I think he recognized his face, but he did not speak to him. He spoke to none of us; there was no posing, no sword waving, or hat swinging. I have almost forgotten if he even had a sword on. None but those near by knew that he was within a mile of us. It was just a little plain business he was then looking after, but I know some of us wished he would go out of range of the bullets.
Shortly I saw our colonel walk back to him. There were a few nods and low words, and as the colonel passed me returning, he said to me: “I want you to act as Sergeant Major.” (I was with Company B). “Run to the left of the regiment and yell, ‘Fix bayonets.’” I ran as ordered, crying all the time “Fix bayonets.” Glancing back, I saw Grant mounting his horse. That instant I heard all the officers yelling, “Double quick!”-“Charge!”
We went into the woods and over the rough ground on the run, the bullets of the enemy all the time coming into us like hail. Suddenly, there was in front of us and all around us, a terrific roar of cannon. For nearly two mortal hours, we stood in battle line in that wood, and emptied our rifles into the rebel line of gray as fast as we could load them. They did not seem 200 yards away, though the battle smoke soon partly hid them. We carried muzzle-loading Whitney rifles and forty cartridges. In my regiment, every man’s cartridge box was emptied, and some of us took cartridges from the bodies of the dead. A third of my command were shot.
When it was all over and nearly dark, we were out on the Black river road, resting. General Grant came riding up to where our flags hung on the guns, and stopped. We all jumped up out of the dust to cheer; some one caught up the flag and held it in front of his horse. He simply smiled, and said to the colonel, “Good for the Fifth Iowa,” and then rode off into the darkness.
February, 1878.-Hard times is still the cry everywhere in Europe. A letter from General Sherman shows that now at last our people are finding out what the Civil War cost us, in the way of dollars and cents.
“Washington, D. C., Jan. 17, 1878.
“Dear Byers: – I have just received your letter of January 3d, with your clipping from the London News, for which I am much obliged. I had previously received the letter of December 28th, which I had taken down to my rooms for the perusal of Mrs. Sherman, who is a more reliable correspondent than I am. She and Elly are here from St. Louis for a visit, and will probably remain all of February, to enjoy the social advantages of the capital, now at their height. Though everybody is crying at the hard times, yet extravagance in dress and living has not received a quietus. I wish it was otherwise, but no single man, or set of men, can change the habits of a people in a day or a season.
“Those who clamor for a silver coinage think it will cure all evils, but I am sure no measure that can be concocted by our legislators can change the state of facts, which is the necessary result of the war. Wages and prices of all things necessary, rose to a standard far above the real value. Now all must come down, and each class struggles to go right along as before, demanding that others must make the necessary sacrifices. Meantime also states, counties and municipalities have ‘improved’ by spending borrowed money, which must now be paid, principal or interest. The cost of Government, like all other things, has increased. Local taxation, to meet this cost and interest, is a burden heavier than property can bear, so that real property now everywhere, instead of being a source of income, is the very reverse, and I do not know but that all real property in this great land is ‘confiscate.’ I know that all my property that used to pay me some revenue is now unable to pay its own taxes. I do not see how silver coinage is going to mend this, but such is now the cry, and in some form or other the experiment will be tried. Our papers keep us well advised as to the progress of the war in Turkey, and I have a good map at hand, which enables me to follow the movements of the several columns pretty well.
“I am glad to learn that Mrs. Byers is in better health, and that you content yourself with what you have, for want of better. I hope ere your return to us, things will mend and prosperity once more return to Iowa and the West.
“As ever your friend,W. T. Sherman.”
September 21, 1878.-Yesterday, while up on the Rigi, I received this telegram from General Grant:
“I accept your invitation for Monday.
“Grant.”
It was in reply to an invitation of mine to a dinner party that I wished to give in his honor at Zurich. He had been stopping at Ragatz for some weeks, that beautiful resort on the upper Rhine.
A Swiss paper had this little item the other day: “Among the crowd of fashionables at the resort of Ragatz, one does not notice a certain smallish, plain looking, sturdy man, who takes long walks alone, and who lives the simplest, least conspicuous life of any one there. No wonder few know who the quiet gentleman is. His name, possibly, is not even on the hotel register, but he is the first man in the great sister Republic beyond the sea. It is U. S. Grant.”
September 25, 1878.-Had another telegram from General Grant on the 22d, saying he would reach Zurich at 12:36 next morning. I took train and met him at Horgen. Mr. Corning, the Vice Consul, went with me. Mrs. Grant was with her husband. No one on the train seemed to know of their presence. We found them sitting alone in a little, first class coupé. I had flowers for Mrs. Grant, and they both received us very kindly. We rode together to Zurich and talked only about Ragatz and the pretty scenes they had just passed. Mrs. Grant was especially enthusiastic over the picturesque journey.
A great crowd assembled about the station where we entered. General Grant took my arm and walked to the carriage. Mr. Corning escorted Mrs. Grant. Just as the General was stepping into the carriage, a rough-looking fellow suddenly ran up, caught the General’s arm and cried out, “You are going to speak to me, hain’t you?” There was a momentary fright, and thought of assassination, among all of us. A policeman jumped forward, swinging a club, to arrest him. “Don’t you never mind,” the man cried out in English to the policeman. “I’m one of Grant’s old soldiers.” The policeman halted, seeing the General smile and reach his hand to the apparent ruffian. “Yes, General, I was with you and Johnny Logan at Vicksburg,” the excited man exclaimed, “and look here.” He commenced rolling up his sleeve and showed a wrist shot half in two. The sight of that soldier’s wound sent a quick thrill through every one of us. “The past of the nation was speaking there.”
The ceremony of the occasion was all forgotten. Had there been room, Mrs. Grant would have taken him into the carriage. For myself, I could have gladly walked, to let this wounded hero ride with his General. “Come and see me at my hotel,” said General Grant, “and we will talk it all over.” Again, he shook the stranger soldier’s hand, and the horses started.
“Three cheers for General Grant,” cried the soldier, swinging his hat to the crowd, that answered in a loud Swiss huzza.
In the afternoon, Mr. Nicholas Fish, the American Minister, who had come down from the capital to be at my dinner, went with me to the hotel, and we took the General driving about the town. Mrs. Grant preferred to rest. We went up on the terrace in front of the University, where is spread out to view one of the fairest sights in the world. The city lay below us, in front the chain of the Albis hills, to the left the blue lake, and beyond it the snow mountains.
The General was impressed with the view, but he was getting used to grand scenes in Switzerland; they are everywhere. He looked in silence. Shortly, he commenced talking about the spires and towers of the city below us; asked the name of almost every one of them, and spent a long time studying out the meaning of certain big, red letters on the roof of an orphan asylum under the terrace. He would not give that up. He asked the different German names for such things, how they were spelled, and finally guessed the riddle that neither I nor Mr. Fish (both knowing German) had been able to explain. This noticing everything and trying to solve it, is even to a greater extent a trait of General Sherman’s. May it not be genius’ method of intuitively making things its own?
He examined carefully the architecture of the University building, and talked with Mr. Fish about his father, the ex-Secretary of State. There was also a little reference to his own youth at West Point, not far away from the Fish’s country home.
We went down the terrace steps. Now I noticed that Grant was growing old. His elasticity of movement was all gone. He was getting stoop shouldered, too.
He told me of a stone quarry he had, I think in Jersey. “On the continued profits of that,” he said, “depends whether I shall stay very long abroad, or go back home.”
To the dinner that night, I had invited some representative members of the Swiss army, press, learned professions, etc. Colonel Voegli was there; Dr. Willi, the friend of Wagner; Gottfried Kinkel, the professor and poet; Orelli, the banker; Feer, of the Swiss Senate; Vogt, the journalist; Mr. Fish, the American Minister; Mayor Roemer and others.
It was a gentlemen’s dinner. Mrs. Grant remained in her room, after a brief glance at the table and the flowers downstairs.
It was an ideal place for a happy party. Inside the room the Swiss and American colors were blended, and some of the French dishes were rebaptized with American names for the occasion.
Outside, the almost tropical garden reached out into the lake. There was no music in the rooms, but almost every one present made a little speech. General Grant not only answered to the toast in his honor, but in a second speech proposed Switzerland, and especially Zurich, which he had heard spoken of as a “Swiss Athens.” At no time did I ever see him in such good spirits. The table was not so large but all could plainly hear. Numbers of the guests addressed remarks and inquiries about our country to General Grant. He answered kindly, and proposed many questions of his own, until conversation became extremely lively. In short, his reputation for being no talker was smashed all to pieces that evening. He talked much, and he talked well, and was very happy; so were all of us. The two Republics were one around that table, and we were all democrats. General Grant drank wine with the rest of us, but with moderation. President Hayes, he related to me, had a great reputation for drinking absolutely nothing but water. “It is a mistake,” said the General, and he told me how at a dinner at the White House, the night before the inauguration, President Hayes emptied his wine glass very much in the way that all other people did, who had no reputations for total abstinence. He was amused at some of the French-American names on the menu at his plate. I interpreted some of them for him, and, after the dinner, put his menu with its pretty picture of the lake into my breast pocket, as a little souvenir of the occasion.
We separated at midnight, and the next morning some of the same guests and myself escorted him and Mrs. Grant to their train for Paris.
CHAPTER XVIII
1878
THE ST. GOTHARD TUNNEL-I DESCRIBE IT FOR HARPER’S MAGAZINE-ITS COST-A GREAT SCARE IN THE TUNNEL.
October, 1878.-The great tunnel through the St. Gothard Alps is reaching completion. Nothing like it was ever accomplished before in the world. It happens that Mr. Hellwag, the chief engineer of the stupendous undertaking, is a personal friend, and he gave me every facility for visiting it. His courtesy and hints have helped me in preparing my article for Harper’s (October) Magazine. Hellwag is already famous as the builder of the tunnels for the Brenner pass. He is also the inventor of the Auger, or Spiral tunnel system, by which railway trains reach high elevations up tunnel slopes, winding around and up the inside of mountains. He gave me letters and permits to go everywhere, and, so far as I know, I am the first American to have been inside the tunnel.
The undertaking of this tunnel is something vast. It takes the surplus cash of three governments to build it, Italy, Germany and Switzerland.
The line reaches from Lake Luzern in Switzerland to Lake Maggiore in Italy, one hundred and eight miles. One hundred and twenty thousand feet of this is tunneled through mountains of granite. The longest tunnel in the series is 48,936 feet. Few of the smaller tunnels are less than 7,000 feet long.
It was thought one hundred and eighty-seven million francs would pay for it, but two hundred and eighty-nine millions are now required. It is the usual blundering in figures that comes with most public enterprises. This particular blundering has bankrupted thousands of innocent people who have bought shares. The extra money is now raised, however, and the awful barrier of granite peaks and fields of snow and ice, between Italy and Switzerland, is to be overcome by skill of man.
There was no road over the Gothard for five hundred years, and not until a century ago was a vehicle of any kind ever seen up there. Even now, the wagon road is one of great peril, as I have myself experienced, a whole sledge load of us once barely missing being overwhelmed by an avalanche that fell a hundred feet ahead of us. There were granite boulders in that slide of snow, big as our horses, and the thing fell without a warning, and with a crash that was stupendous. Many lives have been lost in this pass; half the year, even now, it is abandoned entirely to the winds that howl among its mountains of desolation.
The tunnel was not quite finished when I was there. The boring machines inside are worked by compressed air, furnished by enormous air compressors outside. These also force air in for ventilation. They compress air also for the peculiar locomotives that are moved by air, not steam.
My guide and I got on the front platform of one of these air engines, and were shot into the tunnel for miles through a black cloud of smoke and gas that I thought would kill me, or cause me to fall off the engine. It was Cimmerian darkness. The engineer said: “You shall now see a glimpse of the bowels of hell.” I saw nothing for miles, and then suddenly we came to the weird lights, the big air machines boring into the granite walls, and the half-naked workmen. It was a gruesome picture in there, with the yellow lights, the racket of the machines, and the occasional explosion of dynamite. The water in places burst from the rocks in streams as big as my arm, and with force enough to knock the workmen from their feet. At one spot, the torrent broke through fine crevices, at the rate of four thousand gallons a minute. A special canal was made under the railroad tracks, to carry this river of water out of the tunnel.
I was greatly impressed, not only by the scene inside, but to think that at that moment avalanches were falling five thousand feet above our heads, storms were raging among the cold peaks up there, and a rapid mountain river was rushing right along over us. It seemed a perilous place. Indeed, it was often feared that some mighty torrent might be struck suddenly, some day, and destroy every life in the tunnel.
Far in, where the compressed air left the pipes, the ventilation seemed better, but it would kill most men to stay in there at all for any length of time. It is well known that the health of these unfortunate workmen is being ruined. An early death stares every one of them in the face.
Something is always threatening to happen, and my conductor relates an incident that shows how easily alarm sets in. He was one day walking along in the half darkness, inspecting something near the mouth of the tunnel, when he heard far behind him what sounded like the tramping of a herd of buffalo, or the bursting of a torrent. Suddenly, he saw quick moving lights and heard human voices. Whatever it could be, exploding gas, demons, or torrent, it was rushing towards him like an avalanche. He jumped into a niche at the side of the tunnel, to save his life. Then he heard the cry, “The mine, the mine! run for your life!” He, too, then ran till he broke down and saw the terrible army of half-naked, begrimed men, with the coal lamps on their heads, rush by him in terror. A jutting rock had saved his life, but the herd of men, still screaming “gas,” “the mine,” “run, run!” tumbled over each other and tramped each other down, till the mouth of the tunnel was reached.
When my informant picked himself up, and went down to the company’s offices, he found the whole crowd gesticulating and talking loudly. There had been no “explosion”-no “mine”-no “gas.” It was simply a strike. The leaders had adopted this plan to scare everybody out of the tunnel.
The next day, and the next, the strikers refused to either work or disperse. They were trying “the dog in the manger” system of the United States strikers, neither working nor letting work. A regiment of militia was sent there, and, unlike American militia, did their duty. A very few musket volleys, and the poor, deluded strikers went away, though a good many staid there in their blood.
CHAPTER XIX
1879
AMERICAN ARTISTS AT MUNICH-I MEET MARK TWAIN-TAKE HIM TO AN ARTISTS’ CLUB-CONVERSATIONS WITH HIM-BEER DRINKING-HE READS THE ORIGINAL OF “WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE GERMAN LANGUAGE”-WE ENTERTAIN THE AMERICANS AT ZURICH-A LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN-CONFEDERATES MORE POPULAR THAN UNION MEN-SHERMAN READY TO SURRENDER.
February 1, 1879.-Spent part of January in Munich, and very much of the time among the studios of the American artists. There are not less than fifty of our countrymen here, either practicing art or learning it.
Frank Duveneck (later widely known) had a large class of devoted students, who were also his followers in a style of painting peculiar to himself. There was a strong belief that he was a man of genius, but he spent much time teaching, when he ought to have been painting. Duveneck’s students followed him later to Florence, where I saw them again.
Chase was also at Munich at this time. I can imagine no city more desirable for a student of art. The social atmosphere breathes of art; the galleries, of course, are unsurpassed. There are plenty of teachers-and models are plenty, and all very cheap.
I was introduced to Carl Piloty, head of the Academy of Arts. It was on the street a friend and I met him. The day was cold, the wind blowing. There could be little conversation. He wore a big paletot wrapped about him, and his face and head were so covered that I could not tell what he looked like. Saw him the same evening on the platform in the academy, posing models for the students. There was great enthusiasm for him.
Like most strangers, we visited the famous breweries, and at the “Hof Brauerei” waded around over the wet, stone floors and helped ourselves to beer, as was the custom. The place was full of loud-talking people, with many soldiers among them, some sitting at tables with schooners of beer before them, others carrying their beer glasses about with them as they gesticulated together in groups. A band played all the time. It was to me a wet, noisy, half-lighted, disagreeable place; but it was “the thing” to go there and help yourself to the world-renowned beer.
This brewery, too, is a great place, where one can see German types of many curious kinds, and know what German beer-drinking really is. As we came out into the court, we were near being drowned by some careless employee’s turning loose several barrels of dirty water, from a spout over the doorway. Some soldiers in the vicinity laughed at the speed with which we escaped the flood of beer and water.
Out in the street we noticed a not uncommon Munich sight. It was a little parade of University students in open carriages. They wore their corps uniforms of high boots, jaunty caps, and ribbon across the breast. Some of them held aloft a schooner of beer. The front seat, or the place of honor, in each carriage was occupied by a stately bull-dog, arrayed in ribbons and brass collar.
The great bronze foundry was a place that entertained us greatly. The method of casting statues and monuments was explained to us, and the copies of noted American figures they had cast at different times, now in the exhibition room, made us feel very proud.
It was a group of great men who long ago won for our country the respect of the world. There is not a spot in America, or elsewhere, where one can see more of American genius represented in one room than is seen here in the museum of this foundry.
The sights of the city were not so different from the sights of other cities. King Otto drove by us a time or two on his way to that wonderful palace of his, with its gardens and lake and swans, and all that, up in the top of the building.
One of his Cabinet had spent a summer with us at Obstalden, in Switzerland. His family invited us to a little lunch, where we could talk much about the King; but it had to be in a complimentary way, for these good people saw nothing of what everybody else saw-that is, that he was a very unique personage, and probably going crazy. All the world, though, has been glad that he was sane enough to give it Wagner, for without Otto’s long and splendid patronage, Wagner’s music would still have been “a music of the future.”
One of King Otto’s freaks is his wonderful fairy castle, built high up in the Bavarian Alps. When the snow is deep on the mountains, and the wind blows, he goes sleigh-riding late at night, and quite alone, in his wonderful sleigh. This sleigh is a gorgeous little coupé on runners. Inside, it is all cushions, luxury and shining lights. Outside, it is illuminated too, and when the mountaineers hear the jingling of bells late at midnight, and see the apparition passing, they cross themselves, and say: “God keep King Otto in his right mind.”
We heard Wagner’s operas given by his own trained orchestra, almost nightly. They were so long as to be absolutely fatiguing, and made me wonder if this craze for his music is not in part affectation. Enough is enough of anything. We went to bed nights, tired to death; but “it was the thing” to hear Wagner to the end, so we heard.
I think few things interested me so much in Munich as to stand and look at the river Iser. It was full, and dark, and rapid, and great cakes of broken ice floated past. I thought of that night at Hohenlinden
When dark as Winter was the flow
Of Iser rolling rapidly.
Later, as a souvenir of the visit, we bought a little painting by Wex, representing a pretty scene on the upper Iser River.
One of the pleasant incidents of the Munich visit was the meeting with Mark Twain. I copy a few lines from my diary:
Saw Mark Twain several times, and one night had the pleasure of taking him to the American Artists’ Club. The young men had insisted on my asking him to come and make a speech. I went to his apartments, near my own, and together we walked clear across the city. It must have been miles, but I was glad of it. He talked all the way, not with the humor that has made him famous, but in an earnest, thoughtful, sincere mood. He told me how he did his literary work, when in Munich. “I hire a room,” said he, “away off in some obscure quarter of the town, far away from where we live; where no one, not even Mrs. Clemens, could find me. The people who let the room do not know who I am. I go there mornings, stay all day, and work till evening. When at my book-writing, I never sleep a wink, no matter how many days or weeks the undertaking. It is now two weeks since I have slept one single hour.” I wondered such a life was not killing him.
As we trudged along under the lamp lights of the streets, we had much small talk of the West, of the time when he was young and when he was “roughing it.” I amused him by relating how I kept a copy of his “Roughing It” at the consulate, to lend to travelers who came along with the “hypo” and like afflictions.
Something was said of certain American writers, recently sprung to fame. I mentioned a letter Charles Dickens, just before his death, wrote to Bret Harte. The letter, in fact, only reached Harte after Dickens’ death, and was followed by Harte’s beautiful verses, “Dickens in Camp.”
“Dickens could well afford to write nice letters to Bret Harte,” said he, “for he has no more faithful admirer and student, and he has adopted the Englishman’s style. Why not? He could not find a better model, and even as great a genius as Balzac boasted of his dependence on the style of Victor Hugo. Solomon, when he said there was nothing new, meant also there were no new literary styles under the sun, either.”
My own belief is that Bret Harte’s short California sketches are better than anything Dickens ever wrote.
When we reached the new art room that night, the artists and students were already assembled, and were sitting at a couple of long tables, drinking beer and smoking. An enormous schooner full of beer stood at every plate, and the smoke in the room was almost thick enough to slice up and carry out.
The students all rose as we entered, and gave Mark Twain a little cheer. As he hung his overcoat up in the corner, he took from the pocket an enormous roll of manuscript. The young men saw it, and possibly began to tremble a little. “Don’t be alarmed,” he cried out, holding the mighty roll up to their view. “I don’t intend to read all this.” The place of honor at the center of one of the tables was waiting him, and the largest beer schooner of all stood in front of it. I was amazed to see him empty it almost before he sat down. “Let’s have some beer, gentlemen,” he said laughing, and schooner after schooner came and disappeared.
The paper was “What I Know About the German Language.” It was the first time this now famous bit of humor saw the light. It did not seem to me so very funny in itself, but his way of reading it made it exceedingly droll.
When he had finished, every one had something equally ridiculous to tell of the bulls and blunders of ignorant Teutons writing English. Some had received wonderful letters that bordered on uttermost farce. Mark Twain begged possession of all these fool epistles, and possibly made his paper funnier than before from their contents.
The smoke, and the beer, and the jokes went on till midnight. In fact, these beer drinking Americans could beat a Heidelberg students’ “Kneipe” all to pieces, and Mark Twain did not propose to be left wholly in the rear.
At last, we all shook hands and started homewards. It was a good hour’s walk he and I had before us, but the cool night air was refreshing. For my own part, I was glad to get out of the dense smoke, and have a chance to talk alone with the humorist.
I liked Mark Twain. He is a small, slight man, with big, blue eyes and a great shock of reddish hair. He has a habit of saying “Thank you kindly.” He has youth yet, lots of money and a very pretty wife.
February 23.-On coming back from Munich, wrote a paper about the Iser. Also wrote for the Atlantic Monthly the account of my experiences inside Atlanta.
Last evening we had all the Americans who are in town at our home, celebrating Washington’s birthday. A few Swiss and German friends were also with us-among the Germans the family of Director Witt. These were among our first and truest friends abroad. We have spent whole summers together at Bocken, Wangensbach and elsewhere, and we are god parents to one of the little girls. Numbers of guests made speeches last night. Sure it is, the flag never seems so dear to Americans as when they can touch it with their hands in a foreign land. Kinkel, the poet, and his wife and son also, were present.
April, 1879.-There are a million Northern soldiers still living in the United States who were true to the Union, and yet the United States Senate elects a clerk whose principal recommendation is disloyalty to his country. It seems to me a nation is in danger of collapse that can not tell its friends from its enemies.