TH

HISTORIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE CON

FEDERACY-VOLCK'S ETCHINGS

HE most deeply interested readers of stories are of two classes-those to whom that in hand is old and thoroughly known, and those whose interest is untouched save with foreshadowed intelligence. Letters by descriptive writers are relished especially by travellers whose own experiences are sketched, and by persons who never have been in the neighborhoods described and to whom the pictures drawn and the information given are quite fresh. One says, "I read that chapter with great pleasure because I have been there and know all about it myself"; and another, "I read it with delight for the reason that it was news from a country just discovered, for me."

War history is intensely interesting to those who were engaged in the warfare, and to the young born after the combat, to whom the truth of immense events comes in glimpses like a landscape seen in the flashes of lightning. How fast the old time fades! how seldom the clear light shines! and how suddenly the twilight darkens and the night descends! The Confederate etchings herewith presented in the Cosmopolitan Magazine* are remarkable for the fidelity with which they express the convictions and the temper of the Southern people during the first years of the war between the United and Confederate States. Those whose personal reminiscences cover these times will study the lines of the drawings and recognize the unerring touch of the artist; while the generation of the last quarter of a century will be startled to find in a form so concentrated a record of the fierce animosities, the bitter resentments, the implacable prejudices, the passion, the frenzy and the ferocity of the war, as it was and as it appeared within the lines of the Confederacy, and to the sympathizers, without reserve or misgiving, with the Confederates.

*August, 1890.

It will surprise many in the South and still more in the North, to study these etchings and recognize in them what the public opinion was of the citizens who took up arms against the government of the United States, because President Lincoln opposed the extension of Slavery and was supposed, when elected, to represent aggression toward the states that maintained slavery and a deliberate purpose to destroy them as sovereign powers, and deprive them forever of that political potentiality of which they were prouder than anything else they held or hoped for.

Now it is rare to hear President Lincoln spoken of without expressions of deepest respect; and men of all parties understand and declare his high and honorable place in history, and praise him above all things for his kindliness, charity, long-suffering, forbearance and generosity, and there is forever quoted as the best expression of his character, personal and public, his immortal phrase, "With malice toward none, with charity for all." It is instructive with this in mind to study the etchings in which he is depicted, remembering that this is the work of a man of cultivation, and is courtesy itself compared with the coarser manifestations of the like sentiment. The time was when it was politeness to call President Lincoln, "Abrahamus," and denounce him as a despot who trampled upon the constitution of his country and steeped the land in the blood of white men for the sake of the negro.

Three of the drawings here are especially directed at President Lincoln, one founded on the story of his flight to Washington wearing a Scotch cap. Mr. Lincoln was induced to change his route and time of passing through Baltimore when on the way to be inaugurated, because it was discovered that the crowd certain to collect there to receive him would be hostile, boisterous and perhaps dangerous—and it was believed there was a plot to assassinate him. The recollection of the attack upon the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment of volunteers in Baltimore, a short time after, and the murder of Lincoln at the beginning of his second term, remove all