Sharpsburg is a name which will be long remembered, and is destined to be found in many a lay and legend. Among the earliest written commemorating it, we have the following, from one whose lyrics are well known to our readers:
THE POTOMAC AT SHARPSBURG.
BY H. L. SPENCER.
Once smiling fields stretched far on either side,
Where bowed to every breeze the ripening grain;
But now with carnage are those waters dyed,
And all around are slumbering the slain.
Patriots and heroes! unto whom in vain
Ne'er cried the voice of Right,—their names shall be
Graved on a million hearts, and with just pride
Shall children say, 'For Truth and Liberty
Our fathers fought at Sharpsburg, where they fell—
They bravely fought, as history's pages tell.'
Not for the fallen toll the funeral bell,—
Their rest is peaceful—they the goal have won.
Let the thinned ranks be filled, and let us see
Complete the glorious work by them begun.
Yes—forward! onward! Let it be complete. Scripta est—it is written, and it will be done. After going so far in the great cause which has become our religion and our life, it were hardly worth while to retreat. Life and fortune are of small account now in this tremendous opening of new truths and new interests. And we are only at the beginning! With every new death the cause grows more sacred, and the North more grandly earnest. 'Hurrah for the faithful dead!'
MRS. H. BEECHER STOWE AND THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND.
My Dear Mrs. Stowe:
Your great work, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' will no longer circulate in England. Mr. Mason, the Southern ambassador, has convinced us all that slavery is a divine institution, that whipping and branding are really good for the negro, and education dangerous. Indeed, we dare not educate our own working classes. We begin to perceive the truth of the corner stone principle of the Southern Confederacy, that capital should always own labor, whether white or black. Then we would have no more strikes, or riots, or claims for higher wages, or for the right of suffrage, and all would be peace. You see my opinion of slavery has changed; and so has that of England in church and state, except the working classes, who wish to vote, and such pestiferous democrats as Bright and Cobden.