Daily Observations from The Civil War

September.—I read in a New York paper to-day that Hon. George Peabody, of England, presented Cyrus W. Field with a solid silver tea service of twelve pieces, which cost $4,000. The pieces bear likenesses of Mr Peabody and Mr Field, with the coat of arms of the Field family. The epergne is supported by a base representing the genius of America.

We had experiments in the philosophy class to-day and took electric shocks. Mr Chubbuck managed the battery which has two handles attached. Two of the girls each held one of these and we all took hold of hands making the circuit complete. After a while it jerked us almost to pieces and we asked Mr Chubbuck to turn it off. Dana Luther, one of the Academy boys, walked up from the Post-office with me this noon. He lives in Naples and is Florence Younglove’s cousin. We went to a ball game down on Pleasant Street after school. I got so far ahead of Anna coming home she called me her “distant relative.”

Sunday.—Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is staying at Judge Taylor’s and came with them to church to-day. Everybody knew that he was here and thought he would preach and the church was packed full. When he came in he went right to Judge Taylor’s pew and sat with him and did not preach at all, but it was something to look at him. Mr Daggett was away on his vacation and Rev. Mr Jervis of the M. E. church preached. I heard some people say they guessed even Mr Beecher heard some new words to-day, for Mr Jervis is quite a hand to make them up or find very long hard ones in the dictionary.

August 30, 1858.—Rev. Mr Tousley was hurt to-day by the falling of his barn which was being moved, and they think his back is broken and if he lives he can never sit up again. Only last Sunday he was in Sunday School and had us sing in memory of Allie Antes :

“A mourning class, a vacant seat,

Tell us that one we loved to meet

Will join our youthful throng no more,

‘Till all these changing scenes are o’er.”

And now he will never meet with us again and the children will never have another minister all their own. He thinks he may be able to write letters to the children and perhaps write his own life. We all hope he may be able to sit up if he cannot walk.

We went to our old home in Penn Yan visiting last week and stayed at Judge Ellsworth’s. We called to see the Tunnicliffs and the Olivers, Wells, Jones, Shepards, Glovers, Bennetts, Judds and several other families. They were glad to see us for the sake of our father and mother. Father was their pastor from 1841 to 1847.

Some one told us that when Bob and Henry Antes were small boys they thought they would like to try, just for once, to see how it would seem to be bad, so in spite of all of Mr Tousley’s sermons they went out behind the barn one day and in a whisper Bob said, “I swear,” and Henry said, “So do I.” Then they came into the house looking guilty and quite surprised, I suppose, that they were not struck dead just as Ananias and Sapphira were for lying.

August 17.—There was a celebration in town to-day because the Queen’s message was received on the Atlantic cable. Guns were fired and church bells rung and flags were waving everywhere. In the evening there was a torchlight procession and the town was all lighted up except Gibson Street. Allie Antes died this morning, so the people on that street kept their houses as usual. Anna says that probably Allie Antes was better prepared to die than any other little girl in town. Atwater hall and the academy and the hotel were more brilliantly illuminated than any other buildings. Grandfather saw something in a Boston paper, that a minister said in his sermon about the Atlantic cable and he wants me to write it down in my journal. This is it: “The two hemispheres are now successfully united by means of the electric wire, but what is it, after all, compared with the instantaneous communication between the Throne of Divine Grace and the heart of man? Offer up your silent petition. It is transmitted through realms of unmeasured space more rapidly than the lightning’s flash, and the answer reaches the soul e’re the prayer has died away on the sinner’s lips. Yet this telegraph, performing its saving functions ever since Christ died for men on Calvary, fills not the world with exultation and shouts of gladness, with illuminations and bonfires and the booming of cannon. The reason is, one is the telegraph of this world and may produce revolutions on eart; the other is the sweet communication between Christ and the Christian soul and will secure a glorious immortality in Heaven.” Grandfather appreciates anything like that and I like to please him.

Grandfather says he thinks the 19th Psalm is a prophecy of the electric telegraph. “Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.” It certainly sounds like it.