About this time there appeared in Rosecrans’s camp, with drooping feathers, but brazen face, the thing which patriotism denominated “a copperhead.” He was a northern citizen by the name of Vallandigham, from Garfield’s own State, who had been ostracised by his neighbors for his treason, and compelled to leave the community of patriots to seek congenial company within the rebel lines. He was to have an escort to the enemy’s camp. A squad waited outside to perform this touching task, under the cover of a flag of truce. Vallandigham, who had the mind, if not the heart, of a man, in forced jocularity dramatically spoke the lines from Romeo and Juliet—
“Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.”
Quick as thought Garfield completed the quotation—
“I must begone and live, or stay and die.”
The joke was funny to every one but Vallandigham, but he was the only man in the room who laughed aloud.
A little later President Hinsdale wrote to General Garfield about the treasonable views of some copperhead students at Hiram. Above all things Garfield detested a foe in the rear. He respected a man who avouched his principles on the crimsoned field, but a traitor, a coward, was to his candid nature despicable beyond language. His letter in reply is characteristic:
“Head-Quarters Department of the Cumberland, }
Murfreesboro, May 26, 1863. }
“Tell all those copperhead students for me that, were I there in charge of the school, I would not only dishonorably dismiss them from the school, but, if they remained in the place and persisted in their cowardly treason, I would apply to General Burnside to enforce General Order No. 38 in their cases....