THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics.
VOL. XV.—MARCH, 1865.—NO. LXXXIX.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by Ticknor andFields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes movedto the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.
Contents
THE STORY OF A YEAR.
THE FROZEN HARBOR.
AT ANDERSONVILLE.
DOCTOR JOHNS.
ANCIENT MINING ON THE SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR.
TO A POET ON HIS BIRTHDAY,
NEEDLE AND GARDEN.
MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.
OUR OLDEST FRIEND.
EDWARD EVERETT.
NOTES OF A PIANIST.
THE CHIMNEY-CORNER.
THE POPULAR LECTURE.
THE HOUR OF VICTORY.
THE CAUSES OF FOREIGN ENMITY TO THE UNITED STATES.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.
THE STORY OF A YEAR.
I.
My story begins as a great many stories have begun within the last threeyears, and indeed as a great many have ended; for, when the hero isdespatched, does not the romance come to a stop?
In early May, two years ago, a young couple I wot of strolled homewardfrom an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills whichinclosed their rustic home. Into these peaceful hills the young man hadbrought, not the rumor, (which was an old inhabitant,) but some of thereality of war,—a little whiff of gunpowder, the clanking of a sword;for, although Mr. John Ford had his campaign still before him, he wore acertain comely air of camp-life which stamped him a very Hector to thesteady-going villagers, and a very pretty fellow to Miss ElizabethCrowe, his companion in this sentimental stroll. And was he not attiredin the great brightness of blue and gold which befits a freshly madelieutenant? This was a strange sight for these happy Northern glades;for, although the first Revolution had boomed awhile in their midst, thehonest yeomen who defended them were clad in sober homespun, and it iswell known that His Majesty's troops wore red.
These young people, I say, had been roaming. It was plain that they hadwandered into spots where the brambles were thick and the dewsheavy,—nay, into swamps and puddles where the April rains were stillundried. Ford's boots and trousers had imbibed a deep foretaste of theVirginia mud; his companion's skirts were fearfully bedraggled. Whatgrea