December 7.—The 4th New York Heavy Artillery has orders to move to Fort Ethan Allen, near Washington, and I have orders to return to Canandaigua. I have enjoyed the five weeks very much and as “the soldier” was on parole most of the time I have seen much of interest in the city. Uncle Edward says that he has lived here forty years but has never visited some of the places that we have seen, so he told me when I mentioned climbing to the top of Trinity steeple.
Village Life in America, 1852 – 1872, by Caroline Cowles Richards
Friday.—Last evening Uncle Edward took a party of us, including Abbie Clark, to Wallack’s Theater to see “Rosedale,” which is having a great run. I enjoyed it and told James it was the best play I ever “heard.” He said I must not say that I “heard” a play. I “saw” it. I stand corrected.
I told James that I heard of a young girl who went abroad and on her return someone asked her if she saw King Lear and she said, no, he was sick all the time she was there! I just loved the play last night and laughed and cried in turn, it seemed so real. I don’t know what Grandmother will say, but I wrote her about it and said, “When you are with the Romans, you must do as the Romans do.” I presume she will say “that is not the way you were brought up.”
November 22.—We had a delightful visit. Mr Thompson took us up into his den and showed us curios from all over the world and as many pictures as we would find in an art gallery.
November 21.—Abbie Clark and her cousin Cora came to call and invited me and her soldier cousin to come to dinner to-night, at Mrs Thompson’s. He will be here this afternoon and I will give him the invitation. James is asked for the evening.
November 19.—We wish we were at Gettysburg to-day to hear President Lincoln’s and Edward Everett’s addresses at the dedication of the National Cemetery. We will read them in to-morrow’s papers, but it will not be like hearing them.
Authors Note, 1911. — Forty – eight years have elapsed since Lincoln’s speech was delivered at the dedication of the Soldier’s Cemetery at Gettysburg. So eloquent and remarkable was his utterance that I believe I am correct in stating that every word spoken has now been translated into all known languages and is regarded as one of the World Classics. The same may be said of Lincoln’s letter to the mother of five sons lost in battle. I make no apology for inserting in this place both the speech and the letter. Mr Whitelaw Reid, the American Ambassador to Great Britain, in an address on Lincoln delivered at the University of Birmingham in December, 1910, remarked in reference to this letter, “What classic author in our common English tongue has surpassed that?” and next may I ask, “What English or American orator has on a similar occasion surpassed this address on the battlefield of Gettysburg?”
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here—but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve, that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
It was during the dark days of the war that he wrote this simple letter of sympathy to a bereaved mother:—
“I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from your grief for a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation which may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.”
November 15. ¹ — “We” went out to Fort Hamilton to-day and are going to Blackwell’s Island to-morrow and to many other places of interest down the Bay. Soldiers are everywhere and I feel quite important, walking around in company with blue coat and brass buttons—very becoming style of dress for men and the military salute at every turn is what one reads about.
Sunday.—Went to Broadway Tabernacle to church to-day and heard Rev. Joseph P. Thompson preach. Abbie Clark is visiting her sister, Mrs Fred Thompson, and sat a few seats ahead of us in church. She turned around and saw us. We also saw Henrietta Francis Talcott, who was a “Seminary girl.” She wants me to come to see her in her New York home.
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¹ Unless Miss Richards had two entries for the same date, the date for this entry is probably in error. November 15, 1863 was a Sunday. The entry noted here as Sunday lies between entries for the 15th and the 19th, a Thursday, the date Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.
November 9.—No. 68 E. 19th Street, New York City. Grandfather and I came from Canandaigua yesterday. He is at Gramercy Park Hotel. We were met by a military escort of “one” at Albany and consequently came through more safely, I suppose. James met us at 42d Street Grand Central Station. He lives at Uncle Edward’s; attends to all of his legal business and is his confidential clerk. I like it very much here. They are very stylish and grand but I don’t mind that. Aunt Emily is reserved and dignified but very kind. People do not pour their tea or coffee into their saucers any more to cool it, but drink it from the cup, and you must mind and not leave your teaspoon in your cup. I notice everything and am very particular. Mr Morris K. Jessup lives right across the street and I see him every day, as he is a friend of Uncle Edward. Grandfather has gone back home and left me in charge of friends “a la militaire ” and others.
November 6.—We were saddened to-day by news of the death of Augustus Torrey Wilder in the hospital at Fort Ethan Allen.
November 1.—The 4th New York Heavy Artillery is stationed at Fort Hamilton, N. Y. harbour. Uncle Edward has invited me down to New York to spend a month! Very opportune! Grandfather says that I can go and Miss Rosewarne is beginning a new dress for me to-day.
October 8.—News came to-day of the death of Lieutenant Hiram Brown. He died of fever at Portsmouth, only little more than a year after he went away.
