Pine to Potomac

by E. K. Cressey

The future loomed up, real and grand. Their lives took on a glow of interest and earnestness of hope they never had known. There seemed to be a reason in them now, before unseen. They felt their worth and knew their joy, as it was never felt or known before.

Mr. Blaine took his southern trip, and made business of it. He knew the history of all that country, every state and town.

It had a vastly different look to him from any region of the North which he had visited. Slavery was the hideous monstrosity of evil that met him everywhere. It was to him the great contradiction and condemnation of the South.

He had heard and heard, but determined to see for himself, and see he did. There was much that seemed pleasant in plantation-life, but when he went to the slave-pens and the slave-auctions, and saw families broken and sold asunder, and heard their cries, and saw the blows,—their only recognition,—his patriot-blood boiled fiercely in his veins. It was enough. He sought his old home, and spent a happy month or more with its loved ones, those who rejoiced with him greatly over the achievements of the year.

Miss Stanwood made her journey northward amid all the loveliness of Nature, and arrived home far more the woman than when she left. Life was more real and earnest now, and filled with larger hopes. She was charmed with the South, and had strange longings to return. But letters are tell-tale things, for men, without any special reason, will write a great, bold hand.

James was able to lay two hundred dollars on the table on his return, and entertained them by the hour with stories of the South. He had seen much gambling and drinking, many bowie knives and revolvers, and seen many splendid specimens of men.

He was filled with its beauties and glories, and with its generous, kindly hospitalities. It was a region so historic, so immense in possibilities, so alive and magnificent with the old ante-bellum greatness, and splendor of cities and homes; so many graduates from Yale and Harvard, which had been a dream of fame and greatness ever to him; so many men of leisure, and, withal, so much to see; so much of pleasing, thrilling interest; so much stir and life, that weeks passed by.

He spent parts of two winters in New Orleans. He was, in fact, a southern man for the time. His business was in the South, and his great social powers gave him friends and entrance everywhere.

The kind letters of his fellow-teachers,—Colonel Thorndike F. Johnson, the principal of the Academy, and Colonel Bushrod Johnson, after of the Confederate army,—gave him many pleasing acquaintances. This was twelve or fourteen years before the war. The political business and educational interests of the country were a unit. There was no talk of rebels or of treason. The prominent men of the country, politically, were largely from the South. The presidents had been selected largely from that section, and the political contests throughout were carried on by parties whose strongholds were North and South. Only the summer before, President Polk had made a tour through the Middle and Eastern states, going eastward as far as Portland, Maine, and was received with every demonstration of respect. Nathan Clifford, of Maine, was his Attorney-general, and Mr. Bancroft, his Minister to England.

Mr. Blaine’s father had moved to Washington, as he was prothonotary of the courts, during his term at college, so that he had made his home with them during some of these years, and the remainder of the time with a Mrs. Acheson. He had ample opportunity to renew acquaintance with old friends; with Prof. Wm. P. Aldrich, who had drilled him so faithfully in mathematics: with Prof. Richard Henry Lee, grandson of Richard Henry Lee, of the Revolutionary war, who was his professor of rhetoric and belle-lettres; with his firm friend, Professor Murray, who so inspired him in the study of the languages, and gave Mr. Blaine a regular theological drill in the study of Greek, that most perfect receptacle of human thought, in all its shades and vastness, even now,—a language which took up Christ, his kingdom, and his mission, thoughts and doctrines, and perpetuated them for the world.