TOBIAS WILSON A TALE OF THE GREAT REBELLION.
BYHON. JERE. CLEMENS.
PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1865.Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
To My Wife.
IT is now, my dear Mary, more than a quarter of a century since we began the journey of life together. Both were infants in law, and children in reality; but the love and faith which were plighted then, with mingled smiles and tears, have never been blighted by adversity, or corrupted by prosperity. In joy and in grief, amid petty trials and in great afflictions, you have been a comfort and a support to me—robbing sorrow of its sting—relieving sickness of its weariness and pain, and ever pointing, from the gloom of night, to the brightness of the coming morn. What the future may bring forth, we cannot foreknow; for life is a Pandora's box from which strange and fearful things are forever winging their flight to homes and to hearts that are apparently the most secure. But the past is ours; and in the memory of that past I have thought it appropriate to write your name on this page of a work which records a love as pure and trustful as ever glowed in the bosom of a daughter of Earth, although its opening life was the fruit of troubled times, and blood and tears were witnesses to its maturity.
JERE. CLEMENS.
WEST PHILADELPHIA, January, 1865.PREFACE.
WHEN the last work of the author was given to the public, he promised that it should be followed by a sequel. But in a few months the fires of civil war were kindled in the land. The mad ambition of a few unprincipled leaders, aided by the insane fears of the Southern slaveholders, brought about a rebellion which has no parallel in history, whether we regard the insignificance of the causes which led to it; the madness of engaging in it for such causes, or for any cause short of intolerable oppression; the immensity of the means and resources which have been developed on both sides; the grandeur and obstinacy of the struggle; the heroism manifested in a bad cause on one side, or the steady and dauntless courage, unflinching nerve, and unwavering resolution to maintain the right on the other.
Located, as the author was, for more than three years in the very heart of this Titanic contest, page: vi-vii[View Page vi-vii] steady devotion to literary labor was an impossibility. A few memorandums were made, a few notes taken, a few pages were written from time to time as opportunity offered; but, day by day, the subject diminished in interest as events of a more exciting character thronged the arena. After his removal from the theater of war to the quietude of this city, the work was resumed, but finally laid aside as better adapted to publication in more peaceful times.
The characters of this story are real, though, of course, the names and locations are changed, so as not to wound the sensibility of the survivors, their friends, or relatives. Nothing is depicted here which did not occur as related, or which has not a parallel in some other actual occurrence.
I remember that in a kindly criticism of a former work, written by a gentleman who is now a general officer in the army of the United States, certain passages were commented on as too extravagant for even the privileges of fiction. It so happened that those very passages were literal transcripts from real life. He was young then, and I venture to assert, that if he were to write that criticism over again, in the light of his experience as an officer, it would be a very different affair.
In what I have now written, and in what I shall write hereafter, for this book is only the first of a series, my object is to give a true and faithful picture of life during the first years of the rebellion, at least in parts of the Southern States. Omnia vidi magna pars fui, if not literally true as to every incident, is true as to the greater part.
It is impossible for any one who has not witnessed them to appreciate the wrongs, indignities, and outrages to which the Southern Union men have been subjected. Their property taken or destroyed, their persons constantly threatened with incarceration, if not assassination, and their sons dragged to the slaughter-pen; these were common occurrences, whose frequent recurrence deprived them of half their horror. The sending of our wives into exile, without the means of subsistence, and dependent for bread upon the charity of the people of the North, or of such chance refugees who had escaped under happier auspices,—this, too, in time ceased to be a subject of complaint. But there were a thousand acts of brutality which cannot be described without giving offense to the ears of decency. From a faithful picture of such things the eyes of a modest woman would turn away with unutterable loathing. From the present series all of these are omitted, and only such matter is introduced as may be read without page: viii-9[View Page viii-9] a blush, unless it be a blush of indignation rather than of shame.
One word more. In this volume, everything has been sacrificed to the painting of a correct portrait. If my readers look for other adjuncts to keep alive their interest in the tale, they will be apt to reap disappointment.
THE AUTHOR.
PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 9, 1865.