The Tranquil Waters Softly Rippled A
Response To The Touch Of My Oars; All Was Peace
And Quiet Here, Where,
Only a few short years
before, the thunder of cannon woke a thousand
echoes, and the waves were stained with
The
lifeblood of America, - where war, with her iron
throat, poured out destruction, and God's
creatures, men, made after his own image,
destroyed each other ruthlessly, having never, in all
that civilization had done for them, discovered
any other way of settling their difficulties than
by this wholesale murder.
The actors In this scene were scattered now;
they had returned to the farm, the workshop,
the desk, and the pulpit. The old flag again
floated upon the ramparts of Sumter, and a
government was trying to reconstruct itself, so that
the Great Republic should become more
thoroughly a government of the people, founded
upon equal rights to all men.
A sharp, scraping sound under my boat roused
me from my revery, for I had leaned upon my
oars while the tide had carried me slowly but
surely upon the oyster-reefs, from which I
escaped with some slight damage to my paper
shell. Newspaper reading had impressed upon
me a belief that the citizens of the city which
played so important a part in the late civil war
might not treat kindly a Massachusetts man. I
therefore decided to go up to the city upon the
ferry-boat for the large mail which awaited my
arrival at the Charleston post-office, after
receiving which I intended to return to Mount
Pleasant, and cross the bay to the entrance of
the southern watercourses, leaving the city as
quietly as I entered it.
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