Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War   By: George Alfred Townsend (1841-1914)

OF

A NON COMBATANT,

AND HIS

ROMAUNT ABROAD DURING THE WAR.

BY GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND.

NEW YORK: BLELOCK & COMPANY, 19 BEEKMAN STREET, 1866.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1866, by

GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

SCRYMGEOUR, WHITCOMB & CO.,

Stereotypers,

15 WATER STREET, BOSTON.

Transcriber's note: Inconsistency in hyphenation in this etext is as in the original book.

TO

"Miles O'Reilly,"

Who saw the war as vividly as he sang it; and whose aims for the peace that has ensued, are even nobler than the noble influence he exerted during the struggle, these chapters of travel are inscribed by his friend and colleague.

PREFACE.

In the early part of 1863, while I was resident in London, the first of the War Correspondents to go abroad, I wrote, at the request of Mr. George Smith, publisher of the Cornhill Magazine, a series of chapters upon the Rebellion, thus introduced:

"Few wars have been so well chronicled, as that now desolating America. Its official narratives have been copious; the great newspapers of the land have been represented in all its campaigns; private enterprise has classified and illustrated its several events, and delegates of foreign countries have been allowed to mingle freely with its soldiery, and to observe and describe its battles. The pen and the camera have accompanied its bayonets, and there has not probably been any skirmish, however insignificant, but a score of zealous scribes have remarked and recorded it.

"I have employed some leisure hours afforded me in Europe, to detail those parts of the struggle which I witnessed in a civil capacity. The Sketches which follow are entirely personal, and dwell less upon routine incidents, plans, and statistics, than upon those lighter phases of war which fall beneath the dignity of severe history and are seldom related. I have endeavored to reproduce not only the adventures, but the impressions of a novitiate, and I have described not merely the army and its operations, but the country invaded, and the people who inhabit it.

"The most that I have hoped to do, is so to simplify a campaign that the reader may realize it as if he had beheld it, travelling at will, as I did, and with no greater interest than to see how fields were fought and won."

To those chapters, I have added in this collection, some estimates of American life in Europe, and some European estimates of American life; with my ultimate experiences in the War after my return to my own country. I cannot hope that they will be received with the same favor, either here or abroad, as that which greeted their original publication. But no man ought to let the first four years of his majority slip away unrecorded. I would rather publish a tolerable book now than a possibly good one hereafter.

CAMPAIGNS OF A NON COMBATANT,

AND HIS

Romaunt abroad during the War.

CHAPTER 1.

MY IMPRESSMENT.

"Here is a piece of James Franklin's printing press, Mr. Townsend," said Mr. Pratt to me, at Newport the other day, "Ben. Franklin wrote for the paper, and set type upon it. The press was imported from England in 1730, or thereabouts."

He produced a piece of wood, a foot in length, and then laid it away in its drawer very sacredly.

"I should like to write to that press, Mr. Pratt," I said, "there would be no necessity in such a case of getting off six columns for to night's mail."