Twenty Years in Europe. S. H. M. Byers
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a Mons. le Général Sherman d’avoir pensé à moi en cette circonstance et je vous prie de lui en exprimer toute ma reconnaissance quand vous aurez l’occasion de lui écrire.
“Agréez, monsieur le Consul, l’assurance de ma considération distinguée.
G. H. Dufour, Général.”
CHAPTER VIII
1872
LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--VISIT AMERICA--SANDS OF BREMEN--STORMS AT SEA--ELIHU WASHBURNE--BANQUET TO HIM ON SHIP--I AM A GUEST AT THE SHERMAN HOME--MRS. SHERMAN--ARRANGE TO TAKE MISS SHERMAN TO EUROPE--MEET MR. BLAINE--MY SONG IS SUNG IN THE SHERMAN HOME--CONVERSATIONS WITH SHERMAN--MEET PRESIDENT GRANT--HOW I HAPPENED TO BE IN THE REBEL ARMY ONCE--LETTERS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN.
October, 1872.--As I had now been absent from home just three years, I secured a few weeks’ leave to visit the United States. Dr. Terry was to go along. I arranged to sail on the “Deutschland,” from Bremen, Oct. 10th. Early in September General Sherman wrote me from Ireland, asking me to bring his daughter Minnie (now Mrs. Fitch) back with me to Europe.
“Dublin, Sunday, Sept. 1, 1872.
“Dear Byers: As you can well understand, I have been kept busy and have not had a chance to write letters, save to my home. My trip is now drawing to a close, and by Thursday next we will be at Queenstown ready to take the steamer Baltic for home. I have letters from my family by which I learn that my daughter Minnie is very anxious to spend the winter in Europe. I remember that you proposed to come to Washington about this time, and if you have gone this letter will not find you at Zurich, and I shall hear of you on our side; but if this letter reaches you, please write me at Washington, as I would prefer she should make the trip across with you, and remain with you until she finds General and Mrs. Graham, who are somewhere in Italy. I know you would do this for me, and it only depends on your coming and the conclusion Minnie arrives at after I reach home. I am perfectly willing she should spend a winter in Europe, and only desire that she have the personal supervision of some friend of mine. She could easily join some party in New York, but she desires to stop long enough in some place to perfect herself in French, and to observe the customs and manners of strangers.
“I hope ere this Mrs. Byers has passed the first dread ordeal of mother, and that you have now a child to think of and dream about.
“Please give her my best congratulations and wishes for her continued health. Believe me, always your friend,
“W. T. SHERMAN.”
When I went through the flat, sandy region of North Germany, to take the Bremen steamer, I thought I had never seen so desolate a country in my life. It was a rainy, windy day, and the train was slow, the scene sad; everybody looked poor. Women by hundreds, with red handkerchiefs on their heads, were out in the fields, digging potatoes in the rain and wind. The villages were sorry-looking places. Some day, when the Mojave desert in America has villages scattered all over it, and a poor American peasantry, the descendants of our children, dig potatoes from the drifting sand, the scene will be like that long stretch of ugliness in the rear of Bremen.
Our steamer stopped at Southampton for a day and a night. So Dr. Terry and I took a run over to the Isle of Wight. To this hour, I think, I never saw so lovely an island or a place where I should so like to live. Its clean roads and pretty hedges and beautiful trees, its quiet English villages, its rambles, interested us much. And then there was the blue sea beating all around it, and, passing it in the near distance, the ships of all nations. At the point was the lighthouse and the rocks, and nearer, the noble downs. Here were the rocks and the waves that Tennyson had looked at and walked beside for half his life--the scenes that made his poetry. Not far away was Farringford, the poet’s home. The whole island, that sunny day, seemed like a dream.
The next evening, at twilight, on our vessel’s deck, far out at sea, I lingered and looked at the Isle of Wight, the lighthouse and the dim, gray crags, with the waves beating against them.
We were twelve days reaching New York, and had storms and hurricanes half the way over. The “Deutschland” survived them all, only to go to the bottom, on a later voyage, with three hundred people. That was in the Channel. One day, on this, our New York voyage, everything seemed to be going to pieces, and for an hour or so I knew how it felt to be very close to death. I was more alarmed than I had ever been in any battle. In war, one expects death almost. Here it was different. Not a human being could keep his feet a moment. There was more than one said good-by to comrades that day, as he supposed, forever. I had but one friend on board, Dr. C. T. Terry of New York, who lived in Zurich for many years, and with whom I had made hundreds of foot excursions in the mountains. He was a dentist, possibly in his calling not second to Dr. Evans in Paris. He had come to Switzerland a poor youth, and, by honor, skill and diligence, had amassed a fortune. He, like myself, had left a wife and child behind in Zurich. In the midst of the hurricane, we shook hands, and in a few words agreed what should be done, should either survive. Had that ship gone down, I would certainly not be writing here. No lifeboat there but was being torn to pieces; nothing of human hands could have withstood that sea’s fury another hour. But it was a grand sight spite of the terror. It was ten in the morning, snowing, and the sun shining, every minute, turn about.
As the hurricane eased up, I hung on to a rope by the bridge, and miles away could see lofty white-caps, their shining crowns lighted by the sun, lift themselves and thunder together, or roll on toward us till they would strike the ship. The sea was rolling in deep, green valleys, and, as the ship would leap across these watery gorges, the view right and left was indescribably grand. I looked at the awful ocean, and thought of Switzerland. It was as if the valleys of the Alps had turned to green, rushing waters, and the mountains had commenced falling. I would almost take the risk again, to see so grand a sight.
October, 1872.--The morning after the storm, the sea was still running high, but passengers could keep their feet and, if well enough, talk together.
Pretty soon, a very large, grand-looking man, with a sea cloak about him, came on deck. “And who is he?” I said to the captain. “Why, that’s your greatest American,” he replied. “That’s the man who cared for the Germans in the siege of Paris. That’s Minister Washburne, the friend of Germany.” Sure enough, on a day’s notice, Mr. Washburne had come aboard when we touched at Southampton. He had been sick in his cabin till this moment. He guessed the storm had shaken the bile out of him, he said, when I introduced myself to him. He had been too sick to know the danger we had been in. Now he stayed on deck and was well. Mr. Washburne was General Grant’s first and truest friend. Without his tireless support, from Galena to Appomattox, the name of General Grant had not gone farther than his father’s tannery. Genius must have somebody to open the door for it. Washburne did it for Grant. John Sherman, in the House and Senate, did it for his illustrious brother. Barras did it for Napoleon. Even a cannon ball, rolling down hill, has to be started by somebody.
*****
It is the last day of the voyage. The captain gave a banquet last night to Mr. Washburne. All Germans are deep in their gratitude to him for his work in Paris.
Many speeches were made at the table, many toasts drunk. When Mr. Washburne rose to speak, he looked like the picture of Daniel Webster. The same large head, the same intellectual countenance. He looked like a statesman, not a politician. He was of the kindest manners, and loved to talk of the people he had known. I had the pleasure of walking for hours daily with him, up and down the deck, sometimes far into the night. He had been Lincoln’s friend, as well as Grant’s, and there was no end to the incidents he could tell of the great President. I regret now that I did not write them down. He also talked of the Commune in Paris, whose horrors he had witnessed. He believed socialism and mobism a disease. In Paris it was infectious. He told me much of his youth out West. He went to Galena a poor boy, and when