Samuel Chapman Armstrong : a biographical study

SAflUELGMfflAN ARMSTRONG

A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG

Samuel Chapman Armstrong

A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY

BY
EDITH ARMSTRONG TALBOT

NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1904

Copyright, 1904, by

Edith A. Talbot
Published, January, 1904

PREFACE

THIS brief outline of my father's life, work and
character is written in the hope that it may be
read not only by those who knew him, but by those
to whom the name of Samuel Armstrong suggests
no personal memories.

The scenes amid which he moved in his early
life have already become unreal in the dimness of a
historic past; many of the problems with which
he struggled are solved ; even in the ten years which
have elapsed since his death such a change has
come over Negro affairs that their earlier aspects
are almost forgotten. To reanimate these bygone
conditions and difficulties which he daily con-
fronted, and more than all to show in the midst
of many intricate activities the man himself, an
embodiment of life and aspiration combating by
sheer determination all discouragement and hesi-
tancy— this is my aim.

This aim alone justifies a disregard of his especial
request that no biography of himself should be
written. He read many biographies. Some of
them he liked and received from them help and
encouragement, while others impressed him as
"pretty good stories" written by "kind friends"
to perpetuate agreeable personal memories. He

v

vi. Preface

greatly feared that such treatment would be given
him when he was no longer able to defend himself ;
to be canonized was a fate that he really dreaded.
Nevertheless, he felt the value of the simple and
sincere story of a useful life ; and had he thought that
the telling of his own life-story would strengthen a
single impulse for good or encourage a single
struggler, he would have cordially assented to the
telling of it. Remembering his preferences, I have
omitted such details of his personal life as satisfy
a merely curious interest.

I wish to express my thanks first of all to my
husband; to Doctor Talcott Williams, Professor
LeBaron R. Briggs, Colonel T. W. Higginson, Mr.
Robert C. Ogden, Mr. Bliss Perry, General O. O.
Howard, Mr. Herbert Welsh, and Reverend H. B.
Frissell, for their kind and generous interest in
this book, as well as to those who have lent their
treasured letters for publication.

EDITH ARMSTRONG TALBOT.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I HAWAIIAN LIFE. 1839-1860 ... 3

II WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 1860-1862 . . 41

III LIFE IN THE ARMY. 1862-1865 . . 62

IV LIFE IN THE ARMY — Continued ... 96
V THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. 1866-1872 . 133

VI THE BEGINNINGS OF HAMPTON . . .154

VII AT HAMPTON. 1870-1890 . . . 181

VIII IN THE NORTH. 1870-1890 . . . 218

IX THE NEGRO AND THE SOUTH . . . 257

X WORK FOR THE INDIAN .... 275

XI LAST YEARS. 1893 291

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Samuel Chapman Armstrong . . .

FACING PAGE

Birthplace of Samuel Chapman Armstrong on the

Island of Maui, Hawaiian Islands . . 8
The entrance to Stone House at Honolulu . . 14
Family group — Samuel Chapman Armstrong at

the age of 18 22

Samuel Chapman Armstrong at the age of 20 . 40
Samuel Chapman Armstrong as Lieutenant-Colonel

of the Ninth United States Colored Troops 96
Samuel Chapman Armstrong — taken about the

time of his sojourn at the officers' hospital

at Hampton, Va 118

A group of friends at Hampton in Freedmen's

Bureau times — Armstrong in the center . 132
Samuel Chapman Armstrong at the age of 28 . 154
Academic Hall — erected 1869 and destroyed by

fire November 9, 1879 . . . .172

General Armstrong — 1880 180

Virginia Hall — erected 1872 . . . .184
Mansion House in 1872 — General Armstrong's

home — foundations of Virginia Hall to the

right 196

Mansion House after improvements in 1886 . 198
Medallion of Samuel Chapman Armstrong made in

1901 by Theo. A. Ruccles-Kitson . .218
Samuel Chapman Armstrong . . . .254

PART I

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG

CHAPTER I
HAWAIIAN LIFE. 1839-1860

The history of a man's childhood is the description of his
parents and environment. — CARLYLE.

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG was fortu-
nate in both parentage and environment. He
was born January 30, 1839, on the island of
Maui, Hawaiian Islands, and brought up amid the
soft airs and noble scenery of that beautiful tropical
archipelago. Maui contains one of the most striking
natural features of the group, the extinct crater of
Haleakala, which thrusts its head into the clouds
10,000 feet above the sea-level, and on the grassy
slopes of this mountain, overlooking the island and
the surrounding sea, was his birthplace and the home
of his parents, Richard and Clarissa Armstrong, mis-
sionaries to the Hawaiians. Although the family
remained in Maui but a year after his birth, he always
retained a peculiar fondness for it, returning to it
often as a boy for horseback rambles among its
forests and gorges. He gloried in its splendid peaks
and coasts ; and about Haleakala (the House of the
Sun) centered in later life his thoughts of rest and
inspiration.

3

$. SamtxeJ Chapman Armstrong

The Armstrongs were people of the pioneer type,
fitted to enter into unbroken fields and prepare
them for later f ruitf ulness ; full of strength ; able to
endure and to hand down their power of endurance
to their children.

The father came of Scotch-Irish parentage, and
was reared in central Pennsylvania, in that whole-
some farm life from which have sprung so many
men of power. Rather delicate in health, he was
regarded as predestined for the ministry, and when
of the proper age entered Princeton Theological Sem-
inary. While there he became convinced that his
work lay in the mission field, and spent his vacations
and spare time studying medicine in Philadelphia in
order to prepare himself more fully for this work.
On applying to the American Board of Commis-
sioners for Foreign Missions for a position in the
Hawaiian Islands, he was accepted by them and
prepared to assume his new duties at the earliest
opportunity. About this time — in March, 1830 — he
wrote home:

"Perhaps you may be somewhat surprised at the
course I have chosen, and will be ready to ask, 'Why
not preach among the destitute at home?' In answer
to this I would say that the choice is not my own; it
appears to be marked out for me by Him whom I am
bound to serve forever. The American Board wish
to send out twenty missionaries in eighteen months.
Most likely I shall be one of them. Then farewell,
America, and farewell earthly enjoyments."

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 5

The farewell to earthly enjoyments, however,
was preceded by a happy event which, with the
completion of medical and theological courses,
marked the last few months of his stay in America.
In September he was married to Clarissa Chapman,
of Blandford, Massachusetts.

Clarissa Chapman had been reared in the same
plain farm life to which he himself was accustomed,
and was endowed with a fine physique and many
practical aptitudes. She wrote of her own early
life:

"In those days women did their own housework,
and it was thought disgraceful to be lazy or untidy.
Daughters worked with their mothers and sons with
their fathers. The spinning of wool and flax and tow,
the knitting and weaving by the fire while one read
aloud, and the singing of sacred hymns, were the
pleasures. I learned to do all kinds of household work,
and also often assisted my father, who was crippled by
rheumatism, in the care of the cows and sheep — an
experience for which in my years of wandering I have
often had occasion to be deeply thankful."

But she had parents who saw in their daughter
possibilities of something more than routine farm
work, and who, in spite of the scoffing of neigh-
bours, sent her away to be educated. When she met
Richard Armstrong she had been graduated from
the Westfield (Massachusetts) Normal School, partly
through her own efforts, partly through the help
her parents were able to give her, and was holding
a position as teacher in a Pestalozzian Infant

6 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

School in Brooklyn, New York, one of the earliest
of schools to introduce from Germany the educa-
tional ideas whose later developments found expres-
sion in the kindergarten.

She was looking forward cheerfully to the unevent-
ful life of a teacher, when Richard Armstrong,
vivacious, impassioned, and demonstrative, a true
Irishman and her very antithesis, captured her
heart and persuaded her that the Divine call to
which he had listened was addressed to her also.
Neither dreamed that the future held worldly
success and influence for them; it was the love of
God and a desire for the coming of His kingdom
that alone gave them courage as they set sail west-
ward on board the brig Thaddeus on a dark Novem-
ber day in 1831. Mutiny on board the ship, and,
owing to head winds and consequent delay, a lack
of provisions, made the voyage a severe tax on the
endurance of the young bride and groom ; the only
pleasant incident recorded by Mrs. Armstrong in
her journal of this voyage is the stop for repairs at
Rio Janeiro. Of this she wrote :

"How delightful it was! The green grass, the fresh
fruits ! It was indeed paradise ; but the trail of the
serpent was there. On an open space I saw a long
trail of black men, miserably clad, chained together,
while beside them were others with great bags of coffee
on their heads, chanting a mournful lay. From that
day my sympathies went out to the poor slaves every-
where, but little did I think I should live to rear a son

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 7

who should lead the freedmen to victory in the great
contest which should come in future years."

At last Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong reached the port
of Honolulu in safety and began their work of
preaching and teaching there.

At the end of a year, in which a daughter was
born to them, they were sent on a dangerous mis-
sion to the Marquesas Islands, inhabited by canni-
bals, where they lived a year in friendliest relation
to these fierce folk, and succeeded in holding in
check their cannibal habits. Here their second
child, who lived but a short time, was born. That
husband and wife were made of hardy stuff is shown
by the fact that Mr. Armstrong, when compelled
to return to Honolulu for a short time, left his wife,
infant son,* and little daughter in charge of a
cannibal chief, who was, as Mrs. Armstrong noted
in a letter, " indescribably horrible in appearance,"
but who guarded them in safety for weeks by lying
in front of their tent every night.

Owing to its peculiar difficulties they were unable
to make permanent impressions at this post, and
foreseeing reversion to cannibal habits, were recalled
to Honolulu, only to be sent away in a few days to
the island of Maui, a distance of three days' journey
by water from Honolulu.

Here was a more promising field for labour.
Maui was a thickly settled, fertile district, inhabited

*Born while in the Marquesas Islands, and named by the
parents after their ferocious friend, Hapi.

8 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

by a gentle, willing people who flocked gladly to
listen to their new teacher. Here Richard Armstrong
remained for seven years, and here his peculiar
administrative powers found full play. Besides
the duties of his pastorate, he assumed the medical
oversight of his flock of 25,000 natives and the
organization and superintendence of schools for
1,700 children. He saw the need of steady indus-
trial occupation for the natives, and it was through
him that the first sawmills and sugar plantations
on the island of Maui were started. He foresaw
the need of diversified crops, and instructed the
natives in the first principles of tilling the land, which
had been heretofore untouched by them, since their
simple desires were satisfied with its natural fruits.
His son Samuel writes later of this time :

"[My father] used to tell us of the two churches
that he built here, one over each [missionary] station,
each to hold 1,500 people. He planned and super-
intended the whole work without any carpenter. The
timbers of the roof were hewn far up on the mountains,
brought down on the backs of natives, and placed on
walls Df broken stone laid in mortar made from coral
brought up from the sea by native divers. Once,
when a storm destroyed the work of months, the people,
led by their chief, went willingly to the mountains and
began again. Although my father nearly broke down
here, yet afterward, when in the service of the Govern-
ment, he spoke of these as the happiest days of his life,
for his own hardships were forgotten in remembering
how gladly the people heard and, in their weakness,
followed like children."

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 9

While the Armstrongs were at Maui a strange
incident of history occurred, and one in which they
themselves bore no small part. For twenty years
the Hawaiian people had been listening patiently
to the teachings of Christian missionaries, many
becoming converts; but no impression was made
on the mass of the people till the years 1838 and
1839, when a series of waves of religious enthusiasm
swept the whole nation, as it were, into the Christian
fold in a day. Rulers, chiefs, and people resigned
their heathen beliefs, asking only to be taught the
law of Christ.

During the great revival Richard and Clarissa
Armstrong worked with all their might to secure
and intensify good results. If any were skeptical
of the value of this hothouse Christianity they were
not of them, and, like the Church at home, they
regarded the conversion of numbers as the proof of
missionary success. While the husband and father
addressed great meetings, the wife and mother, in
spite of the care of her five children and her
prospect of again becoming a mother, found time
and strength to gather the women about her
nightly and exhort them earnestly to a better life,
or to address large audiences, when occasion de-
manded. Who shall say that her son was not
influenced by that time of spiritual upheaval in
the midst of which he was born?

Richard Armstrong's years at Maui had revealed
to the American Board of Commissioners for

io Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Foreign Missions, who stood in loco parentis to the
missionaries in the field, his administrative skill,
and in 1840 he was moved from Maui to Honolulu
and installed in charge of the First Church, attended
by a large native congregation.

In order to understand the influences that sur-
rounded Samuel Armstrong's childhood, one must
glance at the history of the relation between the
plastic, pleasure-loving native and the stern New
England teacher, who would have about him equal
rights for all and a wholesome theory of sober and
righteous living, based, perhaps, rather on New
England than on tropical conditions. The period
of 1820 to 1840 had been throughout a period of
great change for the Hawaiian people. They had
gradually embraced Christianity, established courts
of justice, granted universal suffrage with slight
property qualifications, established a system of
schools throughout the islands so that in 1835 the
natives who could read and write were numbered
by thousands, and passed laws against drinking,
gambling, Sabbath-breaking, and social vice which
would have done credit to a New England village
and which were at times enforced. These changes,
which the Anglo-Saxon race has been hundreds of
years in making, were consummated in twenty by
the aid of the second and third Kamchamehas,
whose beneficent rule culminated in the year 1839
in the passage of a bill of rights which established
the right of the common people to hold land, a

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 n

right heretofore the prerogative of kings and chiefs,
and the liberty to worship how and where they
would. These rulers, themselves fairly attentive
hearers of the words of the missionaries, were the
first to embrace Christianity and to teach it to
their people.

But however zealous the chiefs and however
zealous the people, the improvement in manners
and morals among the natives did not keep pace
with the improvement in civil government and
forms of worship. The King, followed by chiefs
and people, wavered between the good influences
that in the main governed their public course and
the temptations of their sensual Polynesian natures.
In a land where fish, fruit and the taro could be had
with little toil, habits of industry were not indis-
pensable to happiness. Like the old-time Negroes,
they made their religion their chief business in life ;
like them, they delighted in " speaking in meeting,"
and were born orators; but they found a strict
adherence to the Ten Commandments on week-
days rather burdensome. "The heathen saint is
about up to your New England sinner," as Arm-
strong remarked later. Where one-roomed huts,
•with perhaps a curtain for the guest, were the
rule, no high standard of social morality could
be expected.

To complicate the problem of dealing justly and
effectively with this simple people, drink, vice, and
diseases heretofore unknown in Hawaii were being

12 Samtiel Chapman Armstrong;

introduced by the crews of whaling vessels. More-
over, the beauty, fertility and commercial advan-
tages of these islands had from the first attracted
scheming men, sometimes working in the name of
a foreign government, sometimes independently,
but always for the furtherance of their own plans.
The governments of Great Britain and France saw
the advantage to the United States in the political
ascendency of the missionaries and strove to coun-
teract it at court and among the people, each
through its agents attempting by force to gain
possession of the islands. Many Americans also,
opposed to the aims of the missionaries, and fore-
seeing in their control possible hindrances to
their own plans, allied themselves with the anti-
missionary party.

It is a curious fact in the history of the Hawaiian
Islands that a group of men, originally non-political
in their relations to the natives, should have become
allied closely with the governing forces. Church and
state were never more completely one than in
Hawaii under missionary influence. There are
many instances in the history of heathen countries
of dishonest and ambitious white men who have
played on the vices of native rulers to further their
own selfish ends, but few, if any, except in Hawaii,
of white men of a high type who have accepted
responsible positions in the king's gift and worked
with and through him for his people. In the
Hawaiian Islands the highest political positions,

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 13

such as Minister of Finance and of Public Instruc-
tion, were filled by missionaries. It was into a
complicated political and social situation that
Richard Armstrong found himself transferred by
his removal to Honolulu.

He began his work simply as a preacher, but
his interests and ability soon drew him (in 1840)
into public life, though he never gave up his public
preaching, partly in deference to the wishes of the
Missionary Board, who did not encourage much
devotion to secular affairs, and partly because he
wished to retain a direct hold on the natives.*

Samuel's childhood, like the prime of his father's
life, was spent in the midst of the clash of political
parties, but he grew up all unconscious of it. To
him the conversion of the natives and the fatherly
kindness and self-sacrifice shown by the missionary
teachers appeared dominant, and if he thought of

* At the time of his death the reigning king, Kamehameha,
wrote describing his services to the natives as follows.

" Doctor Armstrong has been spoken of as Minister of Public
Instruction and subsequently President of the Board of Educa-
tion, but we have only partly described the Important offices
which he filled. He was a member of the House of Nobles
and of the King's Privy Council, Secretary of the Board of
Trustees of Oahu College, Trustee of the Queen's Hospital,
executive officer of the Bible and Tract Society, and deeply
interested in developing the agricultural resources of the king-
dom.

"No other government officer or missionary was brought
into such close intimacy with the native as a whole. Although
his week-day duties were so abundant and onerous, he never
spared himself as a minister of the Gospel. He was an eloquent
preacher in the Hawaiian language, and was always listened to
with deep interest by the people in whose welfare he took so
deep an interest. Nearly every Sabbath his voice was to be
heard in some one of the pulpits of the land."

14 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

their opposers, it was as bad men representing
Satan in the world, with whom he need not hold
any intercourse. So the missionary children, a
colony large enough for play independent of other
Caucasian youngsters who might be about, enjoyed
themselves in their own little world.

Honolulu in 1840 was a small town with a cluster
of mercantile houses and grog-shops, where fifty
to a hundred whalers called annually for supplies,
and where some commerce in sandalwood was still
carried on.

A little way back from the water, toward
the mountains, were the mission houses, built
of adobe or wood, the houses of the higher
chiefs, and the old palace where the Kamehamehas
reigned in a sort of opera-bouffe grandeur. The
town boasted but two other buildings of impor-
tance— a brick schoolhouse for the children of
foreign residents, and Richard Armstrong's church,
the Kawaiahao, a great coral-built edifice then in
process of erection.

The Armstrong home, " Stone House," was one
of the pleasantest in Honolulu; set well back in a
fine grove and garden, it sheltered comfortably the
eight children who grew to manhood and woman-
hood there.

Samuel Armstrong's brightest recollections of
his home centered in his merry, blue-eyed father,
who had always a smile and a caress for the clus-
tering young ones — "silent, tranquil, patient, and

THE ENTRANCE TO STONE HOUSE AT HONOLULU

Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 15

loving," as one of the younger children describes
him; alert, wiry, always busy, he carried on all his
duties with a light heart. All the mission children
loved him, and he was the first to gather them into
a class for the purpose of learning the Hawaiian
language — a step which was regarded with suspicion
by many of the mission mothers, who feared lest
knowledge of the Hawaiian tongue might bring their
boys into too close contact with that easy-going
native life which represented to their minds such
fearful laxity of morals. But Richard Armstrong
was less afraid that the young people would be
contaminated by contact with the Hawaiians than
that they should fail to understand that race with
which they were to have to deal in the future, and
so in spite of the frowns of the mothers the class
went on.

Stone House might have been a rendezvous for
the missionary children were it not for a certain
awe which Mrs. Armstrong unconsciously inspired
as she moved with stately dignity about her work.
Her unsmiling mien constrained them and they
went elsewhere for their little games. It was
a stern household, where the rod was not spared,
and where many instincts, now called natural,
were, after the manner of the day, repressed. But
in it justice, truth and respect for duty were thor-
oughly inculcated. Both parents had been trained
in other households, where right was put before
pleasure, and both had encountered such stress in

16 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

life that moral strength appeared to them the
greatest need of the growing mind.

Mrs. Armstrong's serious manner was the result
not only of a certain Puritan habit of repression, but
of an intense moral earnestness. Besides the care
of her large family, she was deeply interested in
work for the native Hawaiians. She conducted
sewing and Bible classes, and gathered about her
the lowest outcasts of Chinatown, urging the
women to leave their lives of sin. Her training in
the science of education gave her a peculiar interest
in matters pertaining to the home and to women
and children, and* to them she mainly devoted her
energies. "She was a worker," said one who knew
her well at this time; "her great characteristic
was to do her work truthfully and well and to
seize on opportunities."

In such a home-setting one can imagine little
Samuel barefooted, clad in faded blue denim,
among his crowd of brothers and sisters and play-
mates, blond and slim, full of his father's fun,
with long, shaggy hair tossed back from dancing
eyes, rushing in and out of the water after his little
boats, to make and sail which was the greatest
delight of Honolulu boys, with their facilities of
reef-locked harbour and constant trade-wind. As
marbles, chess, and cards were not allowed,
and as football was unknown, baseball (in which
Samuel was never proficient), swimming, sailing
and riding were the sports among boys, followed,

Hawaiian Life* J839-I860 17

as the players advanced from the age of blue denim
trousers into that of great care for neckties, by
choir practice, debating clubs, and horseback
rides by night. There were glorious dashes over
the moonlit sands, twenty or thirty couples of boys
and girls abreast, when the game was to have one
extra man, then break the ranks and let all try
for a place in the line with one of the girls. There
were week-long excursions and upward dashes to
the cool mountain-tops, where the cataracts had
their birth and whence one could overlook the ocean
rising on all sides to the level of the eye like a great
blue saucer. "He was a high-spirited youth," says
one who knew young Armstrong well in those
times, "with an abrupt manner of looking up,
shaking his hair from his eyes. He used to say
that he would be a politician or a business man-
that he would be a philanthropist was the furthest
from our thoughts."

His childhood and boyhood are best described
in his own words, written in a chapter of reminis-
cences by him some forty years later, in which the
circumstances of that far-away childhood appear
more idyllic for the lapse of years.

"For several summers after our arrival in Honolulu
we spent some months at Makawao, high up on Halea-
kala, at Mr. McLane's sugar plantation, where the
view of mountain and ocean was magnificent. Here
donkey-riding, eating sugar-cane, hanging round the
sugar-house, bathing in the deep gulches, and exploring

1 8 Samuel Chapman Armstrong;

the wild country and tropic forests filled what were
the happiest days of our lives. How exciting it was
when we were pulled round into Maalea Bay in whale-
boats or sailed in the Maria, and Captain Hobson,
in default of a white flag, sent one of father's shirts up
to the masthead, to announce the arrival of a mis-
sionary party. With our belongings we were piled
into ox-carts, and after five hours' slow pulling up
the sides of Haleakala would at last reach 'Makawao,'
to be greeted by the smiling Hawaiian housewife,
'Maile.' In those days the natives brought their
kumu (teacher) their accustomed tribute of fruit,
vegetables, chickens, etc., thus eking out the small
salary of (I believe) $300 for each couple and $50 extra
for each child. Those were days of cheerful greetings,
youthful rejoicings, and fatherly benedictions, when
the people came — in a minimum of costume — from
far and near with bananas, sugar-cane, guavas, cocoa-
nuts, and delicious ohia.

"The large crop of small boys that swarmed about
the mission had the usual piratical instincts of their
kind, and although we were all subjected to the severest
Puritanic discipline, we managed to execute occasional
raids on the barrel of lump sugar in the mission deposi-
tory when good Mr. Cooke and Mr. Castle were not
looking. The 'Maternal Association' took up the
more hopeless cases of those who played checkers or
said ' By George ! ' The boys were thrown into con-
vulsions when one of our number reported hearing an
excited missionary father say ' By Jingo ! '

"We had one real luxury — that of being barefooted
all the year round, wearing shoes on Sunday only, and
then under protest. The Sunday morning cleaning-
up and dressing was looked forward to with dread,
as our sympathies were all with the natives, who, in

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 19

the early days, took off their clothes when it rained,
so that a shower as church was closing produced an
extraordinary scene. The material of our usual gar-
ments was a blue denim of the cheapest kind, which,
to allow for the growth of the wearer, was made with
two or three tucks in the trousers legs. These being
successively let out after many washings, made a series
of humiliating bright blue bands about our ankles.
I can remember wearing aprons, which I took every
opportunity to discard, although I invariably came
to grief from so doing, as the rod in those days was
laid on freely.

" Molasses-and-water was bliss to us, and ginger-
cake was too good to be true. . . . We went
barefoot, we were hungry, and felt the ferule about
our hands and shoulders, and had our lunches stolen
by the other hungry boys, and had prayer meeting
out among the rocks, and learned seven honest verses
by heart for Sunday-school, besides the catechism at
home. The small boy of to-day tries to be a gentle-
man, which we never dreamed of; our ambition was,
after getting out of sight of home, to throw away our
last vestment — the checked apron fastened around
our necks by fond mothers — and then in native rollick-
ing freedom delight in sea, in salt ponds and wild
mountains.

"We went to Mr. Castle's Sunday-school and also
to the 'Bethel.' We were required to recite seven
Bible verses to Mr. Castle, and to bow as we went out,
which later ceremony was particularly obnoxious to
us and gave rise to much cutting-up. I was a pupil at
the 'Bethel ' of General Marshall and Mr. C. R. Bishop,
and from them received my first instruction in 'Let
dogs delight to bark. and bite,' etc.

"Father's chief work was preaching, and I am sorry

20 Samuel Chapman Atmsttong

to say that, although we always attended the services,
the part we took in them was sometimes far from
creditable. We usually sat with mother, and were
kept quiet by frequent gingerbread, but I remember
that once father took two of us into the pulpit and was
obliged to interrupt his sermon in order to settle a
quarrel between us. But nothing disturbed the equa-
nimity of the natives, not even the dog-fights, which
were of frequent occurrence, for they doted on dogs,
often bringing them to church in their arms, while the
children toddled on behind.

"These dogs were a perpetual trial. I have seen
deacons with long sticks probing after the wretched
curs as they dodged under the seats, the preacher
scolding roundly the while, and not a smile in the
congregation.

"But the services were interesting. Sometimes
when I stand outside a Negro church I get precisely
the effect of a Hawaiian congregation, the same fulness
and heartiness and occasional exquisite voices, and
am instantly transplanted 10,000 miles away, to the
great Kawaiahao church where father used to preach
to 2,500 people, who swarmed in on foot and horse-
back from shore and valley and mountain for many
miles around.

' ' Outside it was like an encampment ; inside it was
a sea of dusky faces. On one side was the King's
pew, with scarlet hangings; the royal family always
distinguishing themselves by coming in very late,
with the loudest of squeaking shoes. The more the
shoes squeaked the better was the wearer pleased,
and often a man, after walking noisily in, would sit
down and pass his shoes through the window for
his wife to wear in, thus doubling the family glory.
Non-musical shoes were hardly salable.

Hawaiian Life* 1839- J860 21

"One of my earliest and most vivid recollections is
of moving into 'Stone House,' which was built of coral
and stood at the foot of 'Punch Bowl,' an extinct
crater, from the summit of which a royal battery of
fifteen sixty-pounders often fired national salutes,
which were answered by ships of war in the harbour
below, making the windows and dishes rattle. Although
the guns were all pointed in the air and could not by
any possibility hurt anybody but the careless artillery-
men, I thought the place impregnable. As a matter
of fact, a couple of pirates could have captured the
whole affair, for the garrison slept all night, and a half-
dozen resolute midnight cats might have scared them
into instantaneous surrender.

"One of our great delights here was that .we had
plenty of white pine for making miniature ships, which
we sailed in the salt ponds and in the quiet waters
within the reef, and for sawing into blocks to represent
soldiers, wherewith my brother Will and I had many
a pitched battle in the garret. Our heroes were those
of the Mexican war — just over — and we fired our powder
and shot out of little leaden cannon. The necessity
of earning our pocket money kept us on the lookout
for profitable chances, but our fun was none the less
joyful because we had to work for it.

" Our herd of cattle, twelve in number, were quartered
at night in the cow-pen in the back yard, the sucking
calves being penned by themselves. Will, Baxter
and I did the milking, for which father roused us every
morning. There was no bringing up of calves by hand ;
we had not even a barn; the herd was driven to the
mountains and watched all day by a Kanaka cow-
boy, who slept most of the time, and then were driven
in at sundown, half wild and altogether unwilling to
be milked. We did not get much milk per cow, and

22 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

spent a good deal of time in fierce combat with the calves.
This did not meet the views of our American-bred
parents, who gave us a series of alarming facts in regard
to New England cows and the boys who milked them
— abnormal boys who 'loved work.' I may say, indeed,
that we were brought up on New England boys, and I
can well remember the interest with which we watched
the first importation into Honolulu of these marvels,
and our delight when we discovered that they were
even lazier than we were — that not one of them liked to
get up early or preferred toil to play. Inspiration from
that quarter, by which we had been so often shamed
into laborious days, was thenceforth 'played out.'
In the general mission cow-pen, much larger than
ours, I used to think that I could tell to whom the cows
belonged by their resemblance to their owners; in a
few cases I was sure of this. We had no stables, and
out in the wild pasture had to catch with the lasso
every horse we rode; and everybody rode — men, women
and children; the latter sometimes, as in our case,
beginning humbly on calves and donkeys. The natives
were passionately fond of riding, and would walk a
mile to catch a horse to ride half a mile. The women
bestrode horses like men, but with long scarfs of bril-
liant calico draping either leg and streaming behind
them in the breeze. Saturday was their gala day,
and the streets were filled with gay cavalcades of happy
Hawaiians. We played baseball, but not in the
American fashion; and 'I spy' was a favorite game,
especially when we could play it in the graveyard.
Nothing, however, was more permanently popular than
swimming in the great deep mountain-basins, of which
Kapena Falls answered our purpose best. The great
feat was to jump from the cliff, some forty feet, into
the depths below, where we played like fishes. A

FAMILY GROUP- SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG AT THE AGE OF 18

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 23

horseback tour round the island of Oahu was a great
lark, with the races on the long, lovely sea-beach and
the nights at Kaneohe, Kualoa and Waialua.

"My brother Baxter's cattle-ranch at Waimanalo
was a favorite and beautiful resort; it was a little
kingdom by the sea, bounded by the ocean and moun-
tains. It was exciting to jump into a cattle-pen with
a lasso and catch a young steer by the horns, while
another lassoed his hind leg and a third pulled him over
and branded him. In a few moments he was released,
and then a race for the fence ensued to keep out of the
way of his fury. Though we did this dozens of times,
I do not think that any one of us was ever hurt."

The boy kept a journal of his vacations from his
twelfth to his eighteenth year, and from these a
few extracts follow, written when he was twelve
years of age, while taking a school-inspecting trip
with his father.

1 ' July 15, 1851. Left for Kau in a canoe. We went to
Kealea and had a short meeting and then went on to
Kaohe, where we slept. In the morning we had a look
about the country; it was very green. The house
where we slept was an excellent native house; it was
clean and neat.

"July 1 6th. Father examined some schools. A
great many canoes came in. In the afternoon we started
in the canoe for Kapua ; we arrived a little before sunset.
This place is very rocky. They have some goats here.

"July 1 7th. About three o'clock in the morning
we started for Kau on foot. Father was sick, and so
he rode an ox; it was very lazy indeed. Our road
was rocky, especially the first part. During the latter

24 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

part we went through large groves of trees. After a
walk of about five and a half hours we arrived at a
native house, where we had a little rest and then started
on. The road was good and the walk was pleasant, only
we were rather tired. There were several small grass
houses along the road for people to sleep in who went
on the road. When we got to the borders of Kau,
father lay down and I and two native boys went ahead.
We had gone some way when we met the horses. I
took one and went on. I got to Kau about five o'clock.
The rest of the company got there at six. Kau is a
very green place. We have grapevines, figs, sugar-
cane, potatoes, and many nice fruits.

"July 22d. The native schools were examined.
They study principally reading and arithmetic. In
the afternoon we went up on the hill to slide. We had
bananas to slide on. We would balance ourselves and
then shoot down the hill like race-horses.

"July 24th. We had goat for dinner.

"July 25th. We had some presents from the natives
of fish, kalo* and other things. We had some fun in
the evening running races.

"July 27th. Started for the volcano on horseback.

"July 28th. The smoke of the volcano soon began
to appear; also Mauna Loa. After we had gone several
miles we came to the pahoehoe, which is lava. We could
distinguish the road for some way, but at last it got lost.
A native came up and asked to be our guide. He took
us away down in the woods and then up again. After
a while we came in sight of the volcano; it looked awful.
We went on to the house and slept.

"July 3oth. We went down about noon and visited
the volcano. There was not any fire. We got some
strawberries."

* Equivalent of taro.

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 25

It was a childhood of almost ideal advantage
for any man, but especially for Armstrong, in whose
after-life time for recuperation and enjoyment was
more than usually limited. It gave him a delight
in Nature, in the simple pleasures of life, and in
bodily exercise that kept the balance of his mind
true when circumstances impelled him toward
one-sided activity. He never forgot the fun of
being a boy — never, in fact, quite got over being
a boy.

He watched in a respectful, interested way
the drama of native life going on about him.

"The high chiefs — John Young, Kanaina, Paki,
Governor Kekuanaua and others, with their fat wives —
were majestic creatures, towering above the common
people and foreigners, but 'the mighty have fallen,'
and when Queen Emma and Mrs. Bishop died the line
became extinct. I remember the royal soire'es at the
palace, when the gorgeous uniforms and noble bearing
of these chiefs threw foreign diplomats and naval
officers into the shade. We mission children would
join the throng that rallied around there (the old
palace) when the chiefs stalked majestically around
in their regimentals — grander men than they make
in these days — and soldiers stood around in imposing
array holding old flint-lock muskets as harmless as
pop-guns, while the band played; royal fat females
paddled from room to room, the embodiment of serene
dignity. How we boys did not dare go inside, but
looked in at the awful ceremony of presentation and
wondered why people didn't sometimes fall down dead
in awe of the royal presence ! But the supreme moment

26 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

was to come. The banquet hall opened and in marched
kings and queens and nobles and dignitaries; the
famished boys did not dare intrude, but their turn
came by and by. Father got on capitally with this
native aristocracy; they always expected a good time
when he appeared, and in spite of his occasional severity
they truly loved him."

Most of his acquaintance with the rank and file
of the natives was gained on riding trips taken
alone or with his father among them, when, in the
absence of hotels or hired lodgings, he slept night
after night in the native huts.

"The natives were all kindness to friends and to
those who trusted them," he writes. "Father used
to tell us of a walk of twenty miles which he took
through a waterless district, when, distressed and faint
with thirst, he came upon a watermelon in the road.
After some hesitation he ate it, and at his journey's
end met a native who asked if he had found it and told
him he left it there for him. He always gave his purse
to his guide and never lost anything.

"Often have we boys halted our horses before their
thatched houses and been greeted with, 'Where are
you from?' After the reply, the universal formula
was, without regard to time or distance, 'Mama oukou !'
(You have come swiftly.) Next the question, 'Are
you hungry?' to which there was but one answer,
'Very hungry.' Then a stampede of the household
and neighborhood in pursuit of some fish, pigs, poultry
and vegetables, cooked underground on hot stones,
but the food was always eaten cold. After dismounting,
we would lie on our backs on the mats and father's

Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 27

old retainers would ' lomi-lomi ' the fatigue all out of
us, for these people have, it is claimed, the most perfect
massage or movement-cure known. It is part of their
hospitality, and it is delicious."

This close familiarity with the natives at their
homes and in their daily lives gave him an oppor-
tunity to learn the characteristics of a childish race,
weak, yet capable of development under wise
leadership.

To know a race intimately and accurately does
not imply a desire to help it. The young Southerner
is reared in close association with the Negro; the
plainsman knows the Indian; but Armstrong ab-
sorbed from the atmosphere about him an attitude
of protection and helpfulness toward the weaker
race. The conversation of his elders and the daily
work and effort of those whom he most respected
taught him that it is not enough to alone under-
stand, but that to understand in order to pity and
to serve is the proper attitude of a Christian. The
missionary fathers, like the slaveholders, practically
regarded the Hawaiians as of a type inferior to
themselves so far as mental and moral fiber was
concerned ; but no missionary ever lost the point of
view that the soul of each of these people was equal
in the sight of the Almighty to his own, and though
individuals may often have failed in discretion and
wisdom, the missionaries as a whole never forgot
the thought, the mainspring of their work, that to
build up and strengthen a human soul is the most

28 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

important work that a man can do. To his
early absorption of this idea may undoubtedly be
ascribed Armstrong's later unquestioning dedica-
tion of his powers to philanthropic work.

Samuel Armstrong received his early education
at the " Royal School" at Punahou, founded in 1840
for the training of the young chiefs. Some of these
dark-skinned youth, among them Kalakaua and his
sister Liliuokalani, or " Lydia" as she was familiarly
called, who later became king and queen, were his
playmates; but the Hawaiians, scant offspring of a
declining race, were soon outnumbered by the sturdy
mission children who were admitted to the school,
and in time the Hawaiians disappeared from it
altogether.

The " Royal School" was presided over by the
brothers Edward and George Beckwith, who suc-
ceeded in inspiring their scholars with a real interest
in study. Armstrong wrote of it in later years :

"I have never since seen or heard of such a school as
this became. Every boy and girl seemed inspired to
learn, and we played as hard as we studied. Our
teachers led us up the hill of science. There was a
moral atmosphere, a Christian influence in the school
which permanently affected the lives of most of the
pupils. I regard it as the ideal school of all I have
ever known for the perfect balance of its mental and
moral inspiration. Under Mr. George Beckwith, a
pupil of Doctor Samuel Taylor, of Andover, and a

Hawaiian Life* I839-J860 29

remarkably fine classical scholar, we plunged into the
mysteries of Latin and Greek."

Some manual labor was required of all the pupils.

"More distinct is my recollection of our manual-
labor drill — I did not then have it on the brain. How,
required to hoe our patches in severalty of melons or
corn or summer squash till we could count seven
stars, we studied the heavens as I have never since
done, not daring to shirk, for Mr. Rice, the farmer, was
an embodiment of firm, kindly discipline that I have
never forgotten. He hit us hard sometimes, when
delinquent, but was always fair. How I hated work
then, impatiently digging up the melon seeds to see if
they had started !"

That he took a genuine pleasure in school work
is shown by the following extracts from the vacation
journals. A boy who names his sail-boat and his
horse after the heroes of his text-books, and studies
his Latin grammar before breakfast in vacation, has
no half-hearted interest in his studies.

"HiLo, Hawaii.

" November 27, 1857. Friday. This A.M. I finished my
review of the Greek grammar to Section 133; burrowed
round among Doctor Coan's books to find some classical
authors. It was very rainy all day and favorable to
study. Delved into Telemaque as yesterday and read
two books. . . . Made a topmast and squaresail
spar for the Telemachus preparatory to to-morrow's
sailing. The evening closed early, and I read aloud in
'Peter Parley's Recollections of a Lifetime' most of

3° Samuel Chapman Armstrong

the evening. Read C * to sleep from 'Blair's

Rhetoric.'

"Saturday, November 28th. Commenced this morn-
ing a review of the syntax in Andrews and Stoddard's
Latin grammar; completed three pages and intended

*A delicate sister.

NOTE. — While he was studying at Oahu College events
occurred which perhaps furnished the first practical test of
his powers. He was called on to take charge of a geometry
class whose regular teacher, one of the principals, had been
obliged to give it up for a time. This incident is described by
one of the pupils thus: "It required no little tact for an under-
graduate to take charge of a class under such circumstances.
But Armstrong seemed equal to any emergency. On the play-
ground he was the leading spirit in all athletic exercises, and
was the undisputed champion in the game of wicket, in which
his side seemed always victorious.

" On taking the class in geometry, from the very first
he began to inspire us with some of his own enthusiasm.
Coming in from a hotly contested game of wicket, he
looked every inch a man. He would deliberately close
his own book and lay it one side, seldom referring to it
during the hour of recitation. It was thus easy for him
to persuade us to follow his example in this particular. Our
memories were trained to do admirable service, so that at the
end of the year the majority, if not all, of the class could repeat
the entire seven books, except the demonstration and mathe-
matical calculations, from beginning to end, or give any axiom,
any definition or proposition by its appropriate book and
number.

" In the demonstrations on the blackboard a very different
course was pursued. The figures were often purposely
changed from the form given in the book. Numerals were
usually substituted for the letters, and every effort was made
to make the demonstration as much as possible a training of
the reason with as little of memorising as could be. We were
stimulated to study up other demonstrations, and sometimes
he would set the example by giving us the result of his own
study of other text-books. In this way we were trained to self-

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 31

to make a furious onset at the same thing after
breakfast.

"After breakfast we talked or gossiped. They,

H and D , called, and soon after that we

had a splendid bath in the Wailuku, which is now

reliant habits of study, which I have found the greatest service
in all my subsequent mathematical work.

"It was remarkable how much hard work he got out of his
class. But in this, as in everything else, he always led others
by his example. I have been under the instruction of various
teachers in the higher mathematics; some of them were finer
scholars than Armstrong, but I have yet to know the man who
could inspire an entire class with his own spirit and purpose as
he did. There was something in his personality far more
influential than mere learning or scholarship, and I can never
cease to look back to the work done under him as among the
most valuable to me of my whole life.

"With the end of the school year came the public examination.
The books were, as usual, laid aside, and with a method and
precision almost military the class was put through its drill.
Every one was delighted with the bearing of the teacher and
the readiness of the class. At length, by way of variety,
Edward Wilcox was told to demonstrate a certain theorem in
Book First. After drawing the figures, he was requested to
change the order of the numerals to be used in the demonstra-
tion. Then, after a few moments given him to fix the figures thus
renumbered in his memory, he was ordered to turn his back
on the board and proceed with the demonstration from the
figures thus pictured in his mind. This was done in such a
ready and prompt manner as to excite the surprise of one of
the examining committee, who, not appreciating the true object
of this unusual display of intellectual gymnastics, interrupted
him with the repeated request, 'Look at your figures, young
man.' Armstrong then explained to the rather puzzled
examiner the nature of the test to which he was putting his
pupil, who was now permitted to finish his task, to the great
interest of all present. The superior work done by the teacher
and his class was highly appreciated by the committee, and will
never be forgotten by those who had the good fortune to belong
to the class." — Joseph S. Emerson, in The Outlook, Oct. 21, 1893.

32 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

high. Only D and I ventured to cross the main

current. H 's wife didn't want him to try it.

"June nth. We finished up our Virgil yesterday
and have now on hand the Anabasis and Cicero. We
commenced the Manilian Law yesterday — it's rather
tough. After lunch I saddled my little mare and
went to Hamakua-poko to find my horse Draco. I
scoured the country and saw about every horse in
Hamakua, but after riding some twelve or thirteen
miles came back without him, but found the cow down
near Maliko with no rope on ; the scamps had stolen it.
Reaching home, I found that the horse had been on
hand all the time and was with the others."

He remained at the Punahou School till the year
1860, first as a small boy rebellious against hoeing
his patch of corn, then as a youth with increasing
social interests and increasing ambitions, and finally
as a collegian; for in 1855 the school was renamed
Oahu College, and became an institution for higher
learning. Here as one of a class of four he took
the first two years of a college course, which pre-
pared him to later enter the Junior class at Williams
College in 1860.

The following extracts from the vacation journal
show that he was not permitted to fall into a way
of life where his head did all the work:

"Saturday, January 9, 1857. After breakfast, father
decided to build a house for Akio (the Chinese man-
servant), and I went to work to collect materials. Got
3x4 scantling from Castle's for plates ; procured the
rest, tie-beams, rafters, floor-joists, clapboards, shingles,

Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 33

etc., at Lewer's. Scantling now cost 3 £ cents per foot,
shingles $8 per thousand, clapboards (spruce), 6 feet,
$9 per hundred, which is very reasonable. After draw-
ing the lumber with Boki (the horse) and Akio, I took

to H a copy of the ' Anonymous ' which I had

borrowed. We had singing-school in the evening.

"Monday, January n. This morning I got up
early and tinkered away at a new gate for the upper
lot. I finished it by ten o'clock.

"Tuesday, January i2th. This morning I rose
early and bathed. After breakfast I overhauled the
wire fence lot, straightened the wires and braced the
posts. This dirty job took me till 2:30 P.M., when I
went home and devoured something, and then collected
my thoughts as I could and considered my address."

The question of pocket money still occupied the
missionary children, and many were the ways they
adopted of earning it.

"One of the ways of earning pocket money as we got
older was to get an appointment as assessor of taxes
in some country district during the summer vacation.
Six weeks of hard work would bring in fifty dollars. It
was not play, especially when it came to counting the
dogs, which, being a luxury and a nuisance, were taxed
at a dollar a head. The burning question of Hawaiian
politics was the dog tax; any man who would pledge
himself to diminish it was sure of his election to the
Hawaiian legislature. Torrents of eloquence were
poured out on this subject, and one country member,
Ukeke, nearly gained immortality by a bill to abolish
the tax on good dogs and tax only bad ones, but the
revenue tax was necessary to support royalty and the
state, and there was no escape. It goes without saying

34 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

that every subterfuge was resorted to by the owners,
and I remember that my favorite method of detection
was, with my escort, to gallop furiously up to the house
and halt suddenly, making such a racket that the curs
would bark and betray themselves in their hiding-
places, inside calabashes, under the dresses of their
squatting mistresses, and tied to distant trees. Then
began pleading: 'Don't count that dog; we are going
to eat him to-morrow ! ' ' That one is too little,' etc. It
was tiresome work, but often very funny. Many of my
contemporaries at the islands assisted in some such way
in paying the expenses of their education, and it did none
of us any harm. [Some] worked as surveyors, striking
their lines through tropical jungles; others took posi-
tions as governors of guano islands 1,500 miles away
in the remote Pacific seas, and with groups of natives
under them loaded the clipper ships that ran down
from San Francisco for freight."

To supplement his summer earnings he undertook
in his twenty-first year the work of chief clerk to
his father during the absence of the latter in the
United States, in the year 1859-60.

"I was then," he says, "a sophomore at Oahu College,
but the liberal salary and the prospect of independence
tempted me, and for some months I worked hard,
editing, book-keeping, superintending schools, etc.,
keeping up my studies by night and morning work and
my strength by long gallops to and from the beautiful
Manoa Valley."

It was perhaps for financial reasons also that he
undertook the editing of the Hae Hawaii, a
newspaper, written in the Hawaiian tongue, which

Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 35

was read freely by the natives. "Often a group
of natives could be seen," writes his brother, "in
the heart of the wood, listening while one read
aloud Sam's words of editorial wisdom." By
means of this editorial work the young man gained
some influence among the Hawaiians, and added
to his store of experiences an acquaintance with
wily white politicians.

"Sam is acquiring quite a reputation as an editor,"
wrote his father to the eldest daughter, away in Cali-
fornia, "and even numbers His Majesty among his
editorial corps. There have come in about 600 new
subscribers since Sam took charge of the paper. The
Queen spoke yesterday of the Hae as a very interesting
paper; but having his college studies to attend to, Sam
is rather overworked."

The years 1859 and 1860 passed in this busy
fashion without radical change till September,
1860, when an event occurred which suddenly
formulated his plans and stirred him into manhood.

"On a quiet Sunday morning . . . , " he writes,
' ' I rode home from service to find a gathering of natives
at the gate and my sister weeping at the door. Before
she spoke I knew that father was dead."

A fortnight before, Richard Armstrong had been
thrown from his horse and seriously injured, but
heretofore his recovery had seemed probable.

It had been the father's dearest wish that his son

36 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

should go to Williams College in order that he might
te under the influence of Doctor Mark Hopkins,
its president, then regarded as the leading teacher
of philosophy and morals in America. Samuel
determined, therefore, to leave the islands at once, in
order to enter, if possible, the Junior class of Williams
College in time for the winter term ; and toward the
end of September he set sail for the United States,
leaving his sorrowing family behind him — four
sisters, mother and brother, in the old Stone House.

The voyage to America was accomplished with-
out accident, though the ship encountered a terrible
gale which blew it with perilous speed toward the
coast. The gale was succeeded by a calm which
detained the voyagers several days within sight
of land. During this time, as Armstrong dis-
creetly observes, " everybody but I did nothing but
swear and smoke; I sighed for poi and my native
land."

In later years, looking back over his youth, his
mind passed over the pleasant social aspect of it —
the jolly rides with his companions and the merry-
makings— and turned to the inspiring beauty of
Hawaiian scenery. He wrote in 1886 from a sick-
bed to a group of young people then in Hawaii :

"The beauty and grandeur of Hawaiian scenery is a
noble teacher. ... It will make you better men
and women if you will let it. Get all of it you can.
Your special gaieties, parties and things are of no
account whatever compared with the ministry of

Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 37

mountain and sea. Listen to them. Approach and
live with them all you can. Hear and heed these great
silent teachers about you."

And again:

"You have the volcano to make you devout."

But now, naturally enough, it was of his friends,
of the home behind him, and of his plans for the
future that he thought. From this voyage dates
the beginning of a series of letters to his mother
and sisters which describe minutely his voyage,
his college life, and his experiences in the army,
written at first in the flowery style then fashionable,
later with increasing brevity and force. In the
first letters one can see the young man, half home-
sick, half glad to escape from the tears and mourn-
ing of Stone House, hardly conscious of his inexpe-
rience and certainly unabashed by it, intending
heartily to return. To what he was going he knew
not. His parents had both desired that he should
be a minister, and in the absence of any other plan
he held their wishes first ; but there was in his heart
a rollicking delight in life that did not draw him
toward a theological seminary.

Caroline, the eldest sister of the Armstrong chil-
dren, had married some time before this and was
living at Sacramento, California. Toward her home
he made his way. He describes his arrival in
Sacramento as follows:

"As I walked up to the Railroad House in that new

3 8 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

city (new to me), I could almost have sung 'Home
Again.' There I was taken charge of by a little squirm-
ing fellow that always went on a smart dog-trot, and
held a dozen lamps in one hand, two carpet-bags and
several keys in the other, and opened doors without
laying anything down; that chap stowed me away in
a little cell, where I felt like a dog shut up for chasing
hens. In the morning I found my Sacramento home."

After a merry week with his sister he took ship for
Panama and crossed the isthmus, where another
vessel bound for New York awaited him. He
wrote his mother, describing the short journey by
rail as follows:

"At 4 P.M. we started over in the cars. The scenery
was quite Hawaiian-like, and the luxuriant foliage was
good for the eyes. Soon we stopped for another train,
about an hour, and I managed to procure a lot of excel-
lent sugar-cane, which was a delightful luxury to the
girls and myself. It was now night, and the train
thundered along, rousing the dogs in the little dirty
hamlets we passed through, and the dark, oily-skinned
savages would come with lights to their doors to see
us and give us a salutatory yell as we passed along,
while naked little imps would throw sticks at the cars.
The thickets were enshrouded in darkness, and we
could see the quiet Chagres River close by us through
the openings in the chaparral. Anon we would dive
into a gloomy gorge, and the scene on the whole was
romantic, especially as the fire-flies were flashing from
every dark bush and gleaming in every shade. I often
think how little those at home fancied where I was
during those moments. I like the strangeness and
wildness of things.

Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 39

"At about eight o'clock we stepped into a restaurant
at Aspinwall to wait for the steamer to get up steam,
and I strolled about, beset with entreaties to buy and
eat or to purchase shell baskets; but I was inexorable.
Soon we were on the Ariel and away on a smooth sea."

In two weeks he arrived at New York, a month
after his departure from Hawaii. An elder brother,
William N. Armstrong, had been settled in New
York as a lawyer for several years, and to him the
newcomer went at once. The two lived together
for some days, and under the guidance of the elder
the younger saw the sights of the town.

"It's Friday evening, November 3oth, and I'm now
in Will's room in 28 Union Square, away uptown and
away up in the fourth story [sic !], and it's eleven o'clock.
You may want to ask, as many do, 'How does New
York seem?' It seems sure enough a great city. I
am not disappointed either way. It gratified my
curiosity to see the marble palaces and majestic buildings,
but excites no feeling, no emotion. Nothing looks as
if it had been very hard to construct. I only think how
much these houses cost. Things are generally exag-
gerated; the crowds on the sidewalks are not so great,
after all — one can cross the street a hundred times an
hour without danger, even in Broadway. I make
nothing of doing it; it only requires self-possession and
quickness.

" In these crowds a fellow feels as he does in a wilder-
ness, except that in the latter there is a certain solemnity
and sacredness. In both one feels that no one is
noticing him and he can do just as he likes. I'll tell
you what did astonish me — it was Beecher's Thanks-

40 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

giving sermon — a splendid effort. His eloquence was
matchless, his control over the audience wonderful.
Beecher is equal to his fame.

"I also listened for half an hour or so to the opera
of 'The Jewess' at the Academy of Music, and it was
my first sight. I was and am a convert to the opera;
such sylph-like grace in acting, such queenly beauty,
rich, melodious voices, gorgeous robes, magnificent
scenery; such a majestic bass as that of Carl Formes,
and the delicious trilling and swells of Madame Anna
Bishop were enough to inspire me with a flow of delightful
sensations such as I never before have known. The
music gave dignity and power to the language they
uttered, and the story involved lent a charm to the
music. The opera was grand ! Quite different from
the chorus of ten thousand wild he-goats that usher in
the morning and raise their clarion-like matins on the
crags of Waimanalo. Could you have stood by out
side that evening as the full chorus burst out, or heard
the voices of the Jewish maidens, you'd have felt
healthier for a week.

"Well, it's past twelve; to-morrow I go to Barrington
and Williamstown ; the rest of our party are all at
Barrington now."

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG AT THE AGE OF 20

CHAPTER II
WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 1860-1862

"It was, I think, in the winter of 1860, when I was
rooming in East College at Williams, that into my
introspective life Nature flung a sort of cataclysm of
health named Sam Armstrong," wrote a friend and
classmate many years after, "like other cyclones from
the South Seas ; a Sandwich Islander, son of a missionary.
Until Miss Murfree wrote her 'Prophet of the Great
Smoky Mountains, ' it would have been impossible to
describe Armstrong's immediate personal effect. There
was a quality in it that defied the ordinary English vo-
cabulary. To use the eastern Tennessee dialect, which
alone could do him justice, he was 'plumb survigrous.'
To begin with, as Mark Twain might express it, he
had been fortunate in the selection of his parents.
The roots of his nature struck deep into the soil of
two strong races. . . . Then, too, he was an islander;
his constitution smacked of the seas. There was about
him something of the high courage and jollity of the
tar; he carried with him the vitalities of the ocean.
Like all those South Sea Islanders, he had been brought
up to the water ; it had imparted to him a kind of mental
as well as physical amphibiousness. It seemed natural
for him to strike out in any element. But what im-
pressed one most was his schooling. Not but that
it was in unison with the man; it was, in fact, remark-
ably so; but it was so entirely out of the common —
so free-handed and virile. His father had been minister

42 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

of public instruction at Hawaii. The son accompanied
him on his official tours and had been let into the
business. He could manage a boat in a storm, teach
school, edit a newspaper, assist in carrying on a govern-
ment, take up a mechanical industry at will, under-
stand the natives, sympathize with missionaries, talk
with profound theorists, recite well in Greek or mathe-
matics, conduct an advanced class in geometry, and
make no end of fun for little children. In short, he
was a striking illustration of the Robinson Crusoe-like
multiformity of function that grows up perforce under
the necessities of a missionary station. New England
energy, oceanic breeziness, missionary environment,
disclosed themselves in him. Such was Armstrong
as he came into my life, bringing his ozone with him.

"Armstrong gravitated to Williams College by
social law; it was the resort for missionaries' sons;
there was the haystack at which the missionary enter-
prise was started; it was a kind of sacred idol, a rendez-
vous for spiritual knights-errant, and Armstrong,
though not very spiritual, was a knight-errant to the
core. Like other missionaries' sons, he poked fun at
the natives and entertained small circles with the
ridiculous phases of missionary life; yet he was a kind
of missionary in disguise, always ready to go out of
his way for the purpose of slyly helping somebody up
to a better moral or physical plane. His 'plumb
survigrousness ' gave him an eternal effervescence; in
fact, his body was a kind of catapult for his mind; it
was forever projecting his mental force in some direction
so that he was continually carrying on intellectual
'high jinks' — going off into extravaganzas, throwing
every subject into grotesque light; as a result, he was
never serious, though always earnest. He took to
Williams College as to a natural habitat; he lifted up

Williams College. J860-J862 43

his 'plumb survigrous' voice and made intellectual
pandemonium at the dinner table.

"He was a trifle above middle height, broad-
shouldered, with large, well-poised head, forehead high
and wide, deep-set flashing eyes, a long mane of light-
brown hair, his face very brown and sailor-like. He
bore his head high and carried about an air of insolent
good health. He was unconventional in his notions,
Shaksperean in sympathy, and wished to see all sides of
life, yet he never formed affiliations with the bad side.
If he touched pitch, he got rid of it as soon as he could
— pleasantly if possible, but at all events decidedly; he
had a robust habit of will, and laid hold always of the
best in his environment.

"Intellectually he was a leader. Spiritually he was
religious, with a deep reverence for his father's life
and work. . . . Yet all felt him to be under great
terrestrial headway. Sometimes he seemed to have
little respect for the spiritual ; he shocked people by his
levity and irreverance. Yet there was about him at all
times a profound reverence of spirit for God, manhood,
womanhood, and all sacred realities. Indeed, with him
reverence and religion alike were matters not of form,
but of inward principle whose application he had not
yet mastered. Other men were original in thought;
he was original in character; but above all there was an
immediacy of nature. His greatest tendency seemed
to be to go ahead; he has, in fact, often reminded me of
Harry Wadsworth, the hero of E. E. Kale's 'Ten
Times One is Ten.' He was the most strenuous man
I ever saw. Naturally he was a problem to us — what
would he come to ? Doctor Arnold said of himself :
'Aut Caesar, aut nullus/ Armstrong said of himself:
'Missionary or pirate.' " *

*Dr. John Denison in Atlantic Monthly , February, 1894.

44 Samuel Chapman Armstrong;

The college world in which Armstrong found
himself during the eighteen months of his stay in
Williamstown was a different one from that of
to-day. The years of conflict from 1861 to 1865
brought about a more radical divergence of student
ideals and customs than the twenty between 1870
and 1890, for the war, breaking the barriers
between East and West and North and South,
introducing the resources of the country to the
men who were able to handle them, enlarged the
scope of college as of national life. This ante-
bellum college world was a very little one, in which
a kind of family life was possible ; in it men met
their social equals and few besides; the distinctions
between rich and poor were not emphasized as
now by luxurious apartments for the well-to-do
and the plainest of dormitories or boarding-houses
for the men who have to work their way. Less
cosmopolitan, surely, the old way, but more
companionable.

In such a setting individual characters stood
clearly denned and single voices could be heard.
More regard was given to the teacher than to the
laboratory. Garfield's definition of a good college
as "a log with Doctor Hopkins sitting on one end
and a student on the other, " was the standard of
academic worth. So Armstrong was sent, not so
much to Williams College, as to be under Doctor
Hopkins, for Doctor Hopkins was the college.

Armstrong saw nothing of him, however, during

Williams College. J860-J862 45

the first three months of his stay at Williamstown.
His impressions at first were mainly of cold weather
and social stiffness. When he first arrived the
long winter vacation had begun, and in addition
to the dreariness of ice and snow everywhere, the
place seemed to him solemn and deserted. He chose
a temporary lodging-place and settled himself to
study and make what he could otherwise out of
this place, more suited, he thought, to a New England
anchorite than to a hot-blooded young fellow from
the tropics. No swimming, no riding, no sailing,
no flirting even; yet a man cannot study all the
time ! No wonder the scenery moved him to
ridicule and the society to homesickness.

In a home letter written December 14, 1860,
he says :

"Williamstown is shockingly lonely. It is, you
know, the early part of the long winter vacation now.
I suspect that they keep the girls tied up or that they
stay abed all the while, it's so cold; I have seen but
a few girls and only three or four squads of urchins
sliding down hill. The girls sometimes slide, and they
look really pretty as they kneel on the sled, catch the
boys' shoulders and ' scoot ' away like fairies.

"The mountains here are nothing more than Nature's
warts, little stuck-up hills that you could cross in an
hour on a donkey going backward faster than forward.

"Well, I'm in a very nice room, at a desk with a
kerosene lamp, and a stove fire just behind me, about
ten o'clock P.M.

"I showed my old lady yours and Ellen's drawings;

46 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

she thought that 'people can get educated there as
well as here/ The floor is carpeted and the room is
papered.

"The snow lies a foot deep — weather awfully cold;
two below zero to-day. I'll tell you why to-day has
been a very peculiar and strange one to me. First, I
finished my Greek studies. I've read steadily some
seven or nine hours every day for ten days (Sundays
excepted) in Demosthenes — enough to have used me
clean up at the islands, but I don't mind it at all here.
I feel free, as the hardest is over. You see, the term
was out a little after I arrived in New York, and I
have to do in four or five weeks all the work of the
last term and considerable of the previous in Sopho-
more year. The work is over and I breathe freely.

"Secondly, I had a letter from J [a sister]; she is

doing well; letters, you know, are precious to the exile.

"Thirdly, I had my first sleigh ride! I hired a
sleigh and invited a student to go with me; but I had
to rub my ears to keep them from freezing — more
work than fun.

"Fourthly, as I was reading the peroration of Demos-
thenes' Oration on the Crown, little George C

brought me a letter in Will's handwriting. I opened
it and was surprised to see the delicate handwriting
inside. I wondered again, and just then saw 'Stone
House, ' and soon I knew it was from you, and with
an intensity of interest that you haven't the remotest
idea of I devoured its contents."

At last the loth of January came and the term
began. He moved from his room in the lodging-
house to the college dormitory, whence he writes
as follows:

Williams College* J860-J862 47

"WILLIAMSTOWN, January 10, 1861.

"I have left Mrs. C 's and room now in 13 East

College. We are on the ground floor, and here is a plan
of the room. The floor is carpeted plainly and the
walls are papered; just behind the sociable hangs the
'Court of Death,' and other pictures hang around the
room — one a most exquisite gem, 'Christ of the Cross';
it is small but rare. I'll get one and send it home if I
can. We have cozy little bedrooms, about two-thirds
as large as our spare room at home. My bedroom is
nicely carpeted. I have a fine iron bedstead and good
bedding. The large room was furnished when I came,
so that I only had to fit up my bedroom, which I did
at a cost of some $15, including a desk and a chair.
Bedding is very expensive, and quantities are necessary
in this weather. At six A. M. a bell rings; in about
thirty minutes a fellow comes in and lights our fire
(we sleep in a cold room all night), and when the second
bell, at seven, rings I jump up, sponge all over with
biting cold water — this makes me feel fine — dress and
hurry off to breakfast at Ilosford's, about half a mile
distant, where I get board at $2 per week.

"At nine we attend prayers in the chapel. . . .
After that Sam Alexander and I go to the gymnasium
and have a 'set-to' with the boxing-gloves for exercise,
and then I go to my room and study mechanics, which
is a little tough, especially Jackson's Mechanics. At
eleven we attend recitation in mechanics to Professor
Albert Hopkins twenty or thirty minutes; then return
to our rooms till twelve and then go to dinner; return
at one P. M., always stopping at the post-office on the
way, as we do also when we go to breakfast, and are too
often disappointed. We then study our Latin, Tacitus,
and recite to Professor Smith. After that we have
evening prayers, always conducted by the president,

48 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

and from prayers march to supper. The evening is
then before us, for study or otherwise. On Wednesday
and Saturday p. M. there are no recitations.

"Our class numbers some fifty-two fellows and is a
mixture of very fine and very poor students. Those
with the best memories succeed the best generally,
though not always; study and not thought seems to be
the aim of college exercises. I'm now beginning to
feel a little at home in Williamstown, but don't entirely
like this cold weather. For a few days it was bitterly
cold and I suffered a little, but it has now moderated
and for a few days the climate has been most exhilarat-
ing. I never felt better in my life than I do now. The
snow is very deep, deeper than for many years before,
and when a thaw comes there will be awful slush.

"So now you know what I am about. I'd write you
a longer letter if there was anything to write about;
and, moreover, I haven't the time to write that I had
in vacation."

In the following speaks the philosopher:

"Don't let your health suffer. Ellen writes me that
you look 'careworn,' and I know you must be lonely;
but there are 'living waters' to refresh us and sweet
voices from a better land. ... I hope the girls
get a chance to ride horseback occasionally. I should
be sorry to learn that you don't get your accustomed
rides or that Major is either ill -behaved or lean. There
is only one thing that will keep you up at home and
that is cheerfulness; you must secure that at all events;
if necessary, fill the house with cats from top to bottom,
tie a dog to every lilac, and place monkeys in every
tree; at any rate, keep cheerful. There is no use in
melancholy, and there is a fascination in melancholy

Williams College. J860-J862 49

which is dangerous — it is like the serpent's insidious
charm ; it wears the life away.

"I found it quite hard to study at first; the past
would flash vividly over me and I could not apply my
mind. I'm doing well now, however. I found a pleasure
in reviewing those sad days of gloom, and found, too,
that much of my retrospection did me no good — it was
like a stimulant."

During the winter he had formed a pleasant
acquaintance with a son * of the President and in
March was invited to share his room in Doctor
Hopkins' s house. He gladly accepted this invi-
tation, having conceived a strong admiration for his
president.

"Doctor Hopkins," he said, "is a noble man in the
highest sense of the word; I never saw his equal; he is
essentially a man of power, and combines the highest
traits of character."

So began a lifelong friendship with both the
father and son.

His new situation in a home-life relieved the
sense of loneliness which Armstrong had felt ever
since coming to college and greatly broadened his
social horizon; it was of no slight importance to
him to see something of the ways of the cultivated
New England people he met in the families of the
President and the college professors. He began
to broaden his student acquaintance, and made the

*Archibald Hopkins.

So Samuel Chapman Armstrong

discovery that good clothes and presentable man-
ners are valuable assets.

"When a man's history is not known, dress has a great
deal to do with his position ; when he is once thoroughly
known, dress is a small matter. With two-thirds of
the fellows in college style in dress is nothing, and as
for them I could dress anyhow, but the other third care
much about fashion and are yet smart, fine and polished
fellows — their society gives a man polish. While in
college I wish to be dressed as well as the best. I find
it pleasanter to be received as an equal than to be
looked upon as out of my place when I meet with the
well-dressed of New York or even of Williamstown."

He joined no college society, saying:

"In college I belong to no secret society and must
rely on my own merit for getting friends; when one
joins a secret society all in it are his sworn friends,
right or wrong; this is childish."

He keenly enjoyed this new-found social life,
but it never made him forget the bereaved mother
and sisters at home. He calls his pleasures to
account for themselves in the form of some perma-
nent good:

"It is hardly right for me to be so singularly blest
and so gay while you are still bleeding from the direst
wound that you ever felt. This means something —
God has not done all this to me for nothing. I wonder
what He would teach bv this."

Williams College. J860-J862 51

Meditating seriously upon the future, he writes
at about the same time:

"WILLIAMSTOWN, March 30, 1861.
"Just now there is considerable religious interest
in college, and I think I have become a better Christian
than I used to be. I look forward with joy to a life
of doing good, and if my native land should present the
strongest claims to me I should be willing and glad to
go there. My aim is to study for the ministry, but yet
I hesitate to take the solemn vows — the responsibility
is so awful. Besides, I may not have the means to study
that profession or any other. If the plantation pays
well I may be aided by that — in about a year from
now this question will become a serious one. I believe
the means will come from somewhere, and if they don't
I'll begin to suspect that Providence doesn't design
me for clerical duties. Baxter [his brother] used to say
that none of our family would make good ministers;
if he feels that about my choice, tell him that I mean
to have good times after all and not to look like a
galvanized mummy. Tell him to save me one of his
finest colts — I may need it in about four years."

War excitement touched him in the spring vaca-
tion of 1 86 1. April 2oth he wrote from New York:

"It is no easy thing to compose oneself at this
time. War is the only thing talked about, and almost
the only thing done is getting up regiments and making
uniforms, etc., for the soldiers. Thousands wear
badges of one kind and another on their breast, indi-
cating the allegiance to the flag. The infants in the
nurses' arms hold in their tiny hands the Stars and

$2 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Stripes, and small boys stick little flags all over them-
selves; the drays and carts of all descriptions display
the Union flag, and in every imaginable place the star-
spangled banner is 'flung to the breeze.' The appear-
ance of Broadway and Cortlandt Street is magnificent
from the profusion of bunting hung out of the windows.
"The excitement is extraordinary; since the Seventh
Regiment left, the New Yorkers have taken and will
take the deepest interest in the war. The departure
of the Seventh was a magnificent triumph; never did
the Caesars have such an ovation; handkerchiefs moist-
ened with tears were waved at them — one great surge
of applause rolled down Broadway and continued for
hours. The regiment looked splendidly. Scarcely a
lady of the higher circles of this city but has a friend
there — some of them have many; there are lovers
and brothers and bridegrooms in the regiment. It is
awful to think of the amount of happiness that is staked
upon the petted Seventh. Hundreds of the noblest
hearts will bleed or brighten as those fellows fall or
survive. No one doubts their courage."

He was present at the great patriotic meeting in
Union Square, New York, where a quarter of a
million of persons were gathered, and where Major
Anderson's speech roused the people to white heat.

"I shall go to the war if I am needed, but not till
then; were I an American, as I am a Hawaiian, I should
be off in a hurry. Next term it will be hard to remain
at Williamstown, and harder yet to study."

But ere long lack of money took him back to
Williamstown. He continues:

Williams College* J860-J862 53

" I might say here that I really got tired of New York
City after being there nine days — one fact, however,
is that I couldn't afford to visit the opera and theater;
and I don't get any horseback rides — that is too bad,
' but I must grin and bear it' ! I hope to get a swim in
a month or two. In this miserable hole one can go into
the stream only three months in the year ! Not before
the 4th of July."

The chary Berkshire spring passed and full sum-
mer came.

"But it is almost June and we are wearing our winter
clothing and sit by fires. Many fellows, having burned
up all their wood, are determined not to buy any more
and so have to shiver through. Our stove has been
taken down, and I have to wrap up to keep warm enough
to study comfortably. It is the very meanest kind of
weather — the worst spring that anybody ever knew
here, and the farmers are almost discouraged.

"We see the sun now and then from week to week
and everybody runs to see it when they get a chance.
I can't stand many of these New England winters, and
just now long for the trade winds, clear skies, mountains,
the ocean, and a ride on horseback. A ride here costs
fifty cents, but the nags are a sorry-looking set and can
only trot, and the ladies as well as gentlemen do nothing
but trot, with a few exceptions.

"I have begun to dig in the garden this term, and
when it doesn't rain I get up before breakfast and spade
up flower beds, etc. I have one large flower bed all to
myself — but the rainstorms interfere sadly with this
plan. I am having an easy time now. I study my
lessons only about two and a half hours a day, and on
Wednesday have only one recitation and on Saturday

54 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

none. But I study practical astronomy besides — that is,
I go down to the observatory when it is clear and look
at the stars. It takes up my evenings to a great extent,
but I don't recite to any one. After this, till I gradu-
ate, I shall only have two recitations a day, except on
Wednesdays and Saturdays, when there is only one."

An occasional word gives a glimpse of the opinions
then prevalent concerning the course of the war.

"There is one feeling that you need not now be
troubled with — that is, longing to come to the States.
The Southerners are desperate now, and are bound to
ruin northern commerce. Within three or four months
from to-day, I suppose, the southern privateers will
be hovering about the California coast and the packets
to and from the islands will be in danger; and the
steamers on their way to Panama and up this side
will be liable to capture or a hard fight. Still, they
are pretty formidable and can't be easily caught. The
war will afford but little chance for a young lady here
to get married, and those that stay here will most
likely become spinsters.

"I haven't told you, I guess, that the students are
all drilling in military maneuvers. Each class is
formed into a company and drills once or twice a day —
it's good fun. We sent to Governor Andrew for
muskets, but he won't let us have any at present.
There is nothing going on just now. Politics and war
matters are progressing steadily, but let me assure you
that you probably entirely misunderstand the state
of things. The excitement is not nearly as intense
as you imagine, and naturally so. The reason of this
is, we keep up with events ; every day we get the news,
and so it comes in small driblets; we expect everything

Williams College. J860-J862 55

before it happens and know it within a few hours after
it has happened. You get the news in great masses —
the news of six or eight weeks in one lump, and you
think the world is coming to an end, imagine all kinds
of horrible things, while we are entirely cool and calm.
Now and then a big excitement comes up and lasts a
day or so and dies out; there will be fighting soon, I
guess and hope, but the South cannot conquer and the
North can.

"I board now at Charityville, and we walk four
miles a day in going to and from our meals. There
are eighteen fellows there, comprising the smartest
fellows in the Senior class, and we have high times.
I never sat at a merrier table. The living is plain but
neat. I pay $2 per week. I tell you all this is good
maoli* The summer term of Junior year here is the
most luxurious in college; the best studies — or rather
the most interesting — and having, as I do, such a
splendid home and such kind friends, it almost seems
as if I had nothing more to ask for. This is almost a
'Happy Valley' (yet I owe the barber for cutting my
hair and can't pay him for a while yet; the bulldogs of
poverty have just now got me foul)."

As the summer of 1861 approached, Armstrong
began to feel the reaction from the winter of hard
study and a stimulating climate, following as they
did hard upon his taxing labors in Honolulu and
the death of his father. He complained during
the winter just passed of headache and fatigue,
and, as soon as his engagements would permit,
started with several other young Hawaiians on a
walking trip to the Adirondacks.

* Exceedingly.

5 6 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

A series of letters sent home from this trip reveal
Armstrong as the sportsman, a role he played with
poor grace ; one can see the quizzical eye with which
he regards the deer and the fish as they evade his
attempts to kill.

"I spent a week at Racket Lake, boarding with

Madam W at the reduced fare of $2 per week

for everything, lodging included. Time flew rather
slowly sometimes, but there I read Harper's Magazine and
'Sam Slick,' and went fishing, too, now and then.
It makes me feel riled, sarcastic, cruel and almost like
crying when I think of those pesky fish. One afternoon
I pulled a clumsy boat, containing a consumptive
gentleman besides myself, the distance of twelve miles
to and from a famous fishing-hole, and I caught two
insignificant trout — one for every six miles. Another
time, indeed twice, I fished for lake trout under a
scorching sun some three hours, and caught — nothing !
At times I felt furious; occasionally it seemed like a
good joke, and now and then I would moralize as my
neglected hook lay beneath the glassy waters. Did it
indicate that suasion was not my forte? It certainly
showed that fishing wasn't, and fishing is only an appeal
to the highest faculties of fishes.

"I vainly endeavored to guess the secret cause of
my bad luck, whether it was physical or metaphysical,
whether it was fate or fortune that so blighted my
hopes. I especially noticed that all who were with me
shared in my misfortunes, and I really suspect that
had I lived in the days of the blue laws, etc., I should
have been burned for witchcraft or fishcraft. And
now to all fishing I say a long farewell. It's of no
use — none whatever — I can't de it; and my only con-

Williams College. J860-J862 57

solation is that if a treacherous tempest shall ever
consign me to fellowship with the finny and scaly
tribes they will probably not injure one who never did
them any harm. Henceforth there shall be no inter-
course between me and fishes — the world is wide enough
for us all.

"Twice I went 'floating* for deer; the first time I
only heard a deer in the distance — the next time I saw
one. I saw his flashing eyeballs afar off in the darkness.
I took a nervous aim at the lustrous orbs, fired, and off
he bounded, doubtless singing to himself that little
ditty, ' A rig-a-jig-jig and away we go ! "

The opening of his Senior year in college found
Samuel Armstrong again in Williamstown, eager to
enter upon the interesting course of study presented.
Although he had an intimate personal acquaintance
with Doctor Hopkins, he had never yet come under
his direct instruction. Now for nine hours weekly
he sat beneath that great teacher. Mark Hopkins
was equally a metaphysician and a moralist; he
never let slip opportunities to enforce on his pupils
the homely everyday applications of the great
truths that they were apprehending ; his philosophy
has been called the " philosophy of common sense. "
Yet even more than a thinker and a doer he was a
believer.

"None of the members of the class of 1862," wrote a
classmate of Armstrong, "could ever forget the calm
but earnest words in which he repudiated Hamilton's
statement that ' faith is the organ by which we apprehend

5 8 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

what is beyond our knowledge.' Faith to him was
the trust of the soul reposed in a person."*

In the class-room the air was electric with thought.
Doctor Hopkins encouraged the free asking of
questions and never hesitated to make a point by
means of a good story. Armstrong "reveled in
the class-room discussions," says Doctor Denison.
"He bristled with arguments and swarmed with
new ideas." The opportunities which he was
having impressed him deeply.

"The coming year is fraught with responsibility and
yet pleasure — it must tell heavily on our after lives;
such opportunities never come twice; we are treated
like and feel like men now, and must quit ourselves
like men. Soon the greatest mind in New England
will take and train us. All our study consists of reading ;
we hardly commit anything to memory.

"I'll tell you how I study my lessons. My chum
takes up Hamilton's Metaphysics and reads it aloud.
I take my arm-chair or the lounge and listen to him.
In less than an hour he is through and I am ready for
recitations — that is all the preparation I have, and we
only recite twice a day."

In those days a good memory was not only
desirable, but necessary, in order to pass the final
college examinations. He writes, describing the
customary test at the close of the Senior year:

"The examination was oral and public. Doctor
Davis and all the professors were there, and some

*"Life of Mark Hopkins," by Dr. Franklin Carter.

Williams College, J860-J862 59

others. We were called to the floor to answer questions,
and for two days we sat eight hours per day on hard
benches. It was severe work to endure all this and
have the contents of the seventeen books in our heads
at the same time."

Besides the opportunity to study under Doctor
Hopkins's leadership, his Senior year brought
new social pleasures. No elective system divided
the classes, and with the constant companionship
grew up a passionate loyalty to class and college.
The Senior year was a "perfect festival" and
Williams queen among colleges.

He joined and became president of a debating
society, and took part in the discussions of
another and became vice-president of a theo-
logical society.* More and more he grew to
enjoy the quiet beauty of Williamstown, seated
among the hills, with her elm-bordered streets
and air of academic retirement. After his usual
vacation visit to New York in the spring of
1862 he wrote:

"I do not hesitate to say that its [New York's] tend-
ency is demoralising — lost as one is in the great
throng, he feels like an atom, of no particular account,
and loses by degrees that sense of responsibility to
God which gives tone and character to life. I like
New York exceedingly, but am afraid to make it my
permanent home."

* Having for its aim the discussion of practical missionary
work.

60 Samuel Chapman Atmsttong

During this vacation and the one following he
began to feel more keenly the excitement of war
which was thrilling the country, and the spring of
1862 marked both the opening of his active career
as a soldier and the close of the peaceful episode
of Williams town life.

Scarcely two years had elapsed since he had gone
there, but already he had received many of the most
forcible and permanent impressions of his life.
11 Whatever good teaching I have done has been Mark
Hopkins teaching through me/' he said in later
years; and it was evident that the characteristic
mental and moral attitude of the teacher was truly
reflected in his pupil. Mark Hopkins had a strong
influence in confirming the natural tendency of
his mind toward a philosophical view of life, but
no follower of that sturdy thinker ever allowed a
barren philosophy to sap his interest in every-day
affairs. His philosophy was rather of the sort
that enabled him to bear discouragements with
cheerfulness, to meet obstacles with unfailing
resources, and to depend on no man's strength but
his own in time of need.

Armstrong was indebted to Doctor Hopkins, too,
for the development of a deep and genuine religious
feeling. His boyish letters are tinged with a con-
ventionally pious tone, but from this time on the
references to spiritual and religious matters are
more truly utterances of original thought and feeling :
perhaps this change was due in part to the fact

Williams College. J860-J862 61

that about the middle of his college course he
definitely gave up his project of entering the minis-
try; under the influence of Doctor Hopkins' s large
and generous attitude toward life he became an
honester, simpler man, more modest about his
present attainment and more ambitious for the
future.

CHAPTER III

LIFE IN THE ARMY. 1862-1865

EXAMINATIONS were over and college honors
assigned — to. Armstrong the "Ethical Oration";
class-day was past, with its absorbing interests
of dance and the supper, when "every man told
faithfully whether he was engaged or in love,"
and the last farewells were spoken under the elms
while the morning sun streamed down, finding
every good fellow in "floods of tears." College
life ended, he returned to New York to await what-
ever destiny had in store for him.

For weeks the military situation had been grow-
ing more serious. McClellan had met the Confed-
erates in two battles — Fair Oaks on May 3ist and
Games' s Mills on June 3oth — and the Union Army
had suffered severe defeats. But McClellan laid
all disaster to insufficient support from headquarters,
and demanded from Lincoln always more and
more troops, intimating that if he had had a larger
force these defeats would have been victories.
Ready to give his generals every chance for success,
Lincoln issued a call for troops. The country
responded, "We are coming, Father Abraham,

62

Life in the Atmy. J862-I865 63

three hundred thousand strong," and recruiting
went forward briskly.

Armstrong still considered Hawaii as his father-
land and did not share the burning patriotism of
the times ; neither did he evince any special interest
in the cause of the slave; though before long
the constant presence of danger made him appre-
ciate the need of the sustaining power of a moral
principle and fostered in him both hatred of slavery
and love of his adopted country — still the road to
enlistment in the army was an easy one for him;
his friends and classmates had already entered
upon it, public opinion was urgent, and his own
temperament inclined toward the soldier's life.
He expected at first no more than a place in the
ranks, but yielding to the representations of his
friends, who assured him that few volunteer officers
were well versed in tactics before enlisting and
that educated men were much needed as officers,
he decided to accept a commission. The first steps
were soon taken. A hint from a classmate to the
effect that he had a good chance of success in Troy,
New York, determined him to go to that city, where
a regiment was being raised to be commanded by
Colonel Willard, a regular officer of high standing.
In Troy, therefore, he built a shanty on one of the
public squares and began, unknown as he was, to
enlist men for a company of which he was to be
captain. His methods were successful enough to
enable him to complete the required quota before

64 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

his competitors, and he was sworn in as senior
captain.

Thus the metamorphosis of collegian into soldier
was accomplished. As he studied philosophy, so
he studied tactics and soldiering, with the assist-
ance of Colonel Willard, who interested himself in
the young Hawaiian and gave him much advice in
organizing and drilling his men. It was a thoroughly
congenial life, which he described in a letter to his
mother. Who cannot picture the writer in his
soldier's clothes filled with the zest of living?

"HEADQUARTERS RENSSELAER COUNTY REGIMENT,

"August 9, 1862.

"I am in sole charge of a regiment of men! The
regiment is not yet completed by far, but I am officer
of the day; the adjutant and colonel have left. It is
nine o'clock P.M., and I am in command. I am Captain
Armstrong; not yet commissioned, but hope to be
when my company is filled up. I have now some fifty-
odd men — eighty-three is the minimum. I am seated
in the commander's tent ; my chair rests on the ground ;
I write by the light of a lantern. I have on a sword and
sash and military overcoat. The tents stretch across
the field at a little distance and look beautiful. This
is strange enough for me. I have secured my position
by the fairest means. Such a life I never led before —
how this recruiting business lets one into human nature
— it is the best school I ever had.

"We put up a little wooden shanty on Washington
Square, Troy. Had a large sign painted on canvas
and stuck up; scattered our posters around and went
to work recruiting men. We have met the very meanest

Life in the Army. J862-J865 65

and the very best of men; some enlist for money and
some for love of country. Sometimes men of means
and of family come forward nobly and enter the ranks
as privates.

"I have the most respectable company by far. I
have several fellows of sound principle from the Sabbath-
schools in this city, and intelligent, good men have
heard of my company from some distance and come
to join it. At this very moment (two o'clock Sunday
morning) one of my men has been brought to camp
from the city drunk, and is singing in the guard-house
in the most comical manner.

"I shall soon have to go on the 'grand rounds' with
a sergeant and two privates — i.e., visit all the stations.
I have just given out a new countersign.

"The night is a charming one; the moonlight is
exquisite, and lies sweetly and softly on the Hudson
River, on whose bank is our camp. I now feel quite
wide awake, from being called several times to the
stations where riotous fellows were trying to run the
guards.

"We have been treated with great kindness, and I
am perfectly satisfied with the real cordial interest
which some of the citizens take in us and in me. There
are some splendid men in the city — how that fellow in
the guard-house is yelling ! I have had no time to go
into society at all, and shall not, since as soon as the
regiment is filled we shall probably be ordered away to
a camp of instruction.

"The recruiting service brings one in contact with
human feelings — no outside is put on to the enlisting
officer; mothers beg in tears for him to release their
sons; fathers give their assent to their child's going,
and with a trembling hand and dimmed eyes sign the
boy's release. One father called it signing his son's

66 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

death-warrant. Then the Irish women come around
and make themselves comical and pathetic by turns.
I have lost sleep and flesh in this work, but it is only
working off superfluous stuff. I am hearty as a buck;
this life agrees with me. I have held numerous patriotic
meetings in the country, at places often thirteen miles
from Troy. At these meetings good speakers are
present and we often succeed in getting men after the
speeches. I seldom get back from these meetings till
one o'clock in the morning.

"To-night our company holds two meetings. About
half were from the Baptist and other Sunday-schools of
Troy. They used to call it * the Sunday-school Company'
— boys whom their mothers wished me to take if they
must go. The rest were another class, large country
fellows, farmers from Pittstown and Albia and workmen
from the Troy nail factory; a motley crowd of eighty,
always infused with fun by the little city fellows,
hardly bigger than their own knapsacks."

On August 3oth came the word that the regi-
ment was to start for the front. The departure
was a dramatic one, with " pretty girls in squads"
to say farewell to the soldiers, and shouts and tears
from the people as the train moved away. In
New York Armstrong was met by his brother, who
marched with him and his regiment through the
city, and who tells an incident of the day. The
regiment had camped in City Hall Park for a rest.
"While I sat conversing with him there one of his
men came up and said : ' I say, Captain, where can I
get a drink of water ? ' He at once started off to get
water for him. I said : * It seems to me that it is not

Life in the Army* J862-J865 67

very good military discipline for the captain to be
running around for water for his men/ He replied:
' The men must have water. I'm bound to see that
they get it.' "

After leaving New York the regiment continued
its inspiring progress, sailing through the North
River, with rows of gaily dressed ladies on the
banks waving handkerchiefs and flags, to the
Eastern & Amboy Railroad, where they took a
train to Philadelphia. Feted and fed gloriously
there, they moved on to Baltimore.

"The rest of our journey lay through Maryland. But
first, about our transportation. The regiment was
closely packed in twenty-six cars, forty men in a car —
not passenger cars, but close boxes, each containing
three long, frail benches made of rough boards. We
rode day and night, and, being packed like sheep, there
was no lying down, except on the floor, which was
thickly covered with coal dust and dirt.

"We finally reached Point of Rocks, the first place
where we could at all realize the war; here, as at every
other point we stopped at along the road, the men
jumped from the cars in swarms and devoured every
mouthful of bread or any other eatable the neighbor-
hood could furnish and that money could procure.
From Point of Rocks we rode to Harper's Ferry, and
thence to Martinsburg, Virginia, which we reached
September 2d, the most advanced point of the Federal
lines and one which should be held only by the most
experienced troops. Here we began camp life in
earnest."

68 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Martinsburg was a small town on the Baltimore &
Ohio Railroad, about a day's march from Harper's
Ferry toward the northwest. It was, as Armstrong
says, an advanced post. The main body of the
army had been withdrawn, after the bitter defeat
at the second battle of Bull Run, to the fortifica-
tions about Washington, where a shift of com-
manders was made, Pope being replaced by
McClellan, though a few regiments were scattered
here and there throughout the State for protection
and defense. Of these the One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth New York was one. It was a trying
situation for green troops, with alarms on every
hand, their ears kept constantly alive by reports of
the startling events which were taking place only a
few miles to the north of them. Lee and Jackson,
after thrilling Maryland with their daring, were pene-
trating into Pennsylvania and seemed to be threaten-
ing her very capital. When the One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth New York arrived at Martinsburg the
men thought that Jackson was close at their rear,
though in reality it was not until a week later that
Lee detached and sent him southward.

Thus Armstrong's entrance into military life
was at an anxious time.

"My position taxed my capacities to the utmost. A
captain has as much to do as — in fact, he is practically —
the father of ninety children. Men in camp, sensible
men, lose all their good judgment and almost their good
sense; they become puerile, and come to the captain on

Life in the Army* J862-1865 69

a multitude of silly, childish matters. A captain does
not only his own, but all the thinking of the company.
Well, we drilled at Martinsburg and ate and slept, etc.,
for a few days quietly, but soon there was a consciousness
of peril; whole companies were sent out scouting and
on picket duty. The whole 3,000 men there were
alive and ready. One night, when I was officer of the
day, I tested the efficiency of our guard when they
knew the enemy were expected, and I ran the guard
five times and seized six men's muskets, rendering
them helpless. But I came very near being shot by
one guard, and would have been, but he suspected
who I was.

"At Martinsburg we considered ourselves as bagged;
we were shut out from all communication with our
friends, and Jackson was supposed to be in the rear.
We lived among alarms. An old farmer came to water
his horses near to where one of the pickets was standing
— thirty hostile cavalry were reported in sight — the
regiment was called to arms — there was mounting in
hot haste and some cheeks grew pale. Three companies
started off on double-quick after the old farmer and his
horse. Having scoured the neighbourhood when it was
morally certain from the cavalry scouts that no enemy
was within ten miles, the companies returned — they
took a new track and a report came that 1,000 of the
enemy were upon us. We were ordered out again — a
long rifle-pit was dug — some were almost wild and some
were sick."

As Lee moved northward he found that he would be
unable to live on the country as he had hoped, and
began to consider how he should open a way through
the Shenandoah Valley to his base of supplies.

70 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

The way was clear except for one post, Harper's
Ferry, which was still held by Union troops, though
by all the rules of war it should have abandoned
because of its situation in a hostile country.
To capture this solitary stronghold, therefore,
Lee despatched Stonewall Jackson September loth.
Jackson's marches were rapid, and by night he was
close on Harper's Ferry. All the troops available
were thrown in to defend it, and among them the
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York was
despatched from Martinsburg. Armstrong thus
describes the hasty reenf orcement :

"One night, when deep sleep had fallen upon us,
when after a day of wild reports we were just beginning
to get refreshed most sweetly, an order came which
threw us into the wildest confusion. We were to
retreat instanter. Tents were struck — a thousand-and-
one articles had to be picked up. Misunderstanding
reigned among the commanders, and confusion pre-
vailed throughout; such a wild bustle, such a thoroughly
disagreeable affair I hope never again to participate in.
There was, of course, yelling all the time. Well, finally
the knapsacks were packed, the men fell into line, and
away we marched at two o'clock A.M., September n,
1862. The men were unused to walking and to carry-
ing loads, and within four miles 300 knapsacks were
thrown away. The retreat was a wearisome affair
and hundreds sat down exhausted by the roadside, not
caring what became of them. The men could not be
kept in rank; every apple- or plum-tree on or near the
road was plundered and every well or spring was drained
by dense throngs of thirsty wretches. Order was

Life in the Army. J862-J865 71

turned into disorder, and the regiment, along with
others, moved like a herd of driven cattle. Companies
scattered and left no nucleus ; a few of us held the main
body of our men together; and it was well, for when
close upon Harper's Ferry information came that the
rebels were in strong force in front, prepared to dispute
our advance; only three companies could be brought to
bear against them, and mine was one. That time the
affair seemed serious, and all looked a little paler.
Guns were loaded, all luggage thrown away, and then
we stood still as death — a time in which a person thinks
like lightning. But there proved to be no enemy,
though in twelve hours there were 20,000 rebels where
we stood. We marched from two A.M. till about five
P.M., and less than 100 — two skeleton companies —
followed Colonel Willard into camp. My company
was one of the two.

"Soon, however, the regiment straggled in, though
about 100 men were captured, for the rebel cavalry
pressed hard on our rear."

The story of the surrender of Harper's Ferry is
well known. The garrison and reinforcements
were cooped up in a basin between Loudoun, Bolivar
and Maryland Heights, three towering hills which
surround the junction of the Shenandoah and
Potomac rivers. No proper fortification of these
heights had been made, and the Confederates soon
captured them and then stood pouring shot, shell
and even musket balls into the Union forces, so
close were they to the helpless soldiery below.

"When the first shell struck," says Armstrong, "the
scampering began. The Colonel ordered us off the

72 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

ground at once, and then there was an uproar and a
confusion that baffles the imagination; the infantry,
cavalry and artillery gathered up their arms and
equipage and stampeded like wildfire. The regiment
flew to where their arms were stacked, seized them and
ran in wild disorder to the nearest ravine for shelter.

''I saw no signs of order, but in truth I thought of
and cared for nothing but my company. By this time
the shells from the new battery were falling all around
us — their whizzing was terrific. I first rushed to the
arms and summoned my men. I then halted them,
formed them in two ranks, and had got a large number
of them into position when the Colonel came by and
ordered me away at once. I started them off and kept
in the rear, bringing up and in the later comers, and my
men marched off in a body for some distance till I got
out of the way into a yard — still, however, exposed to
the shell — halted them and re-formed them, waited for
stragglers, put things into shape again, and then pushed
into the road, which was crowded with flying men,
artillery wagons, horses, and everything else.

"We kept together — I made them keep step — gave
three cheers for Company D with a will, and marched
down into the ravine and reported to my Colonel, who
was trying to rearrange his scattered troops. Mine
was about the only company that came off in good order.
Captains, lieutenants and higher officers 'skedaddled'
in a hurry. But there was no safe place in that exposed
valley; only a dark cloud that overhung the battery-
crowned heights around them the next morning (Sep-
tember isth) prevented a slaughter; and later in the
morning, when the mist cleared, the whole force stood
helpless under a heavy artillery fire, which lasted two
hours before surrender was effected. We took our
men to a little ravine and hid them in a little gutter,

Life in the Army* J862-J865 73

though they were by no means entirely concealed. I
stood near the edge of the gutter with my first lieuten-
ant, in full view and exposed to the enemy's fire. The
shot fell first at a little distance, but soon they edged
over toward us; our battery was all the while replying
smartly. We were almost between the two and just
in front of our own. My company was, I think, the
most exposed of all; we were, at any rate, most nearly
in range. By this time the firing had become general
on every side. Some six batteries of Jackson's artillery
were pouring shot and shell into our position, and the
shrieking of the missiles as they flew was horrible.
One eight-pound shot struck where I had been standing
and bounded over me; another passed by me; and now
we were assured that we were going to be cut up badly.
With my men around me and being conscious of their
gaze, I felt calm, and when the shot struck near me I
didn't move a muscle, but when we moved to a place
of much greater safety and I was sitting in the bushes
I felt much more fear of the shells than before. I tell
you it is dreadful to be a mark for artillery ; bad enough
for any, but especially for raw troops; it demoralizes
them — it rouses one's courage to be able to fight in
return, but to sit still and calmly be cut in two is too
much to ask.

"Here we remained till a fresh battery was about to
rake us through and through, when down went the
Stars and Stripes."

So 12,500 men and much war material fell into
the hands of the enemy. The prisoners of war
were then marched directly across the field, sub-
ject to the continuous fire of a battery which
had not yet heard the news of the surrender.

74 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

This march under fire, Armstrong said, scared

him more than anything else.

\

"There we were on the hill, our arms stacked before
us and waiting ; soon the celebrated ' Stonewall ' Jackson
rode along our lines with his staff, attended also by
our colonel and others. He rode a common-looking,
cream-colored horse and was plainly dressed in citizen's
clothes — a gray, dingy suit. He wore a hat which his
men called his 'new hat,' though it was worn enough.
The costumes of his attendants and whole army were
dirty and torn, their beards unkempt, hats slouchy,
muskets rusty, and they all looked as if a sirocco of red
dust had blown over their gray uniforms. The mounted
men rode well and looked like brave men.

" After a while we were marched to our former camping
ground and assigned certain limits; to which, however,
they did not restrict us. I went down and bathed in
the Shenandoah River with Pat Garden, and on the
way stopped and chatted a long time with a rebel
captain, and, like all the rest, a gentleman.

"Not a syllable of exultation do we hear from them;
and with good reason, perhaps — McClellan's guns had
been roaring all day and a huge battle was waging
some miles off [Antietam] ; there might be a slip 'twixt
cup and lip. The rebels deny themselves more than
we do; Jackson's men devoured what rations our men
had rejected; they also took all of our rations they could;
they gnawed bones that lay around our camps; they
often had for one day's meal but an ear of corn; and
when in their march a man falls down from exhaustion
he lies there — we pick them up. Hence the celerity of
Jackson's movements. Before the last terrible fight
at Manassas his whole force moved ninety miles in three
days and at the end of the march went right into action.

Life in the Army. J862-J865 75

The captain told me this. He says, too, that Jackson's
soldiers never understood his movements, and don't
care to; they 'know he is after the Yankees, will find
the Yankees, and can whip them.'

"We were most civilly treated by the rebels, whom
we found to be in truth 'bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh'; men like ourselves; only the rebels were not
nearly as profane as our men — in fact, they used no
profane language at all. They shamed us; they fought,
they said, not for money, but for their homes, and
wanted the war to cease.

"Our system of munificent bounties and fine clothing
diverts us from the principle for which we are contending
and few of us really know what we are fighting for.
I felt the want of a clear apprehension of it in the hour
of danger.

"The officers were allowed to carry off their side arms,
and all private property was respected; few have been
treated as we were. The day passed in pleasant and
cordial intercourse with the 'secesh' army; we slept
once more on the field, and next morning we were
marching off Bolivar Heights to be passed into our
own lines. Jackson was very anxious to get us off — in
fact, so anxious that he galloped off the day before and
left us with his generals. No paroles were signed by
us; we were paroled as a regiment, and even that parole
was left incomplete."

It was customary to place captured regiments
on parole near their homes, but the One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth was sent with some Illinois troops
to Chicago.

When the plan to separate the men so widely from
their homes became known, it caused much dissat-

76 Samuel Chapman Afmsttong

isf action, and was no doubt responsible for much
of the insubordinate spirit shown on the march
of one hundred and twenty- three miles to Annapolis,
where they were to take the boat to Baltimore on
the way to Chicago. It was an eventful time in
national affairs, though monotonous and confused
enough to the soldiers of the One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth New York. During these "laborious
wanderings" the battle of Antietam was ended and
was followed soon by the Emancipation Proclama-
tion, though the news of this event, so fraught
with meaning to Armstrong, did not reach the
regiment till their arrival at Annapolis. The journal
letter continues:

"The wanderings of Ulysses or of ^Eneas were more
romantic, perhaps, but less laborious than ours. The
Scylla and Charybdis of hunger and disease had to be
passed every day, for we had nothing to eat but maggoty
bacon and hard bread, which Jackson had given us —
the best he had — and 10,000 men with such rations,
with almost no blankets or overcoats (they were thrown
away on the march from Martinsburg to Harper's
Ferry), dragging their weary lengths along, devouring
green and ripe fruit, gulping down water at every well,
and discouraged and demoralized~'by previous retreat
and disaster, were fit victims for sonYe malady.

"We marched five consecutive days. Of course, it
wasn't all dulness. Sometimes our road would lie
through a forest, and shade and cool breezes would
delight us with relief from the dust which enveloped us.
It was a tough job to keep our men in order, and in
fact I had it all to do myself for my company; my

Life in the Army* J862-J865 77

orderly took a short cut, my second lieutenant kept
nosing around for something to eat, and my first
lieutenant was just able to keep up, being a feeble man.
Much of the time I was alone with the company, and all
the time I had the work to do and did it as well as I
could. At night I found the best places possible for
them — gave their comfort the precedence. Sometimes I
got them a good mess of hot coffee — and lost nothing
by so doing. Such are just the times when men see
the real animus of their officers; some captains, as soon
as the regiment halted for the night, would scoot off
with their officers to the best house they could find —
and their men have cursed them for it and remembered
it. To-day when, of the several thousand paroled
troops here, only our regiment can be made to drill —
the rest refusing point blank — my company is, they say,
the most subordinate and dutiful in the 12 5th I exact
the same obedience that I always did, and it has been
invariably given ; not a man have I punished for mutinous
conduct, and yet the most experienced captain of us
to-day sent some forty men to jail for disobedience.

"My men talk like all the rest; they think they ought
not and cannot be made to drill, but when ordered to
1 fall in ' not a man has refused as yet. I believe they
are repaying my attention to them.*

" No promised land greeted our eyes as we approached
the lousy encampment at Annapolis (Sunday P.M.,
September 22d); the thought of seeing the ocean had
given me new vigor on the road thither, but we could
not see it. We slept under the trees; next day built
brush huts and lay in them, doing nothing but eat and
sleep, till we fell in and marched a mile and a half to

* It must be remembered that this and all letters written by
Armstrong during his army life were intended to be read by his
mother and sisters only.

78 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Annapolis — a den of rampant secessionists — took boat
for Baltimore — two and a half hours on Chesapeake
Bay — marched through Baltimore and saw some of
the beauties of the 'Monumental City,' and took those
everlasting box-and-bench cars for Chicago — forty men
in each car; rations consisted of hard bread and partly
cooked fat pork. We traveled slowly night and day.
I slept nights on a board eighteen inches wide — a bench
twenty-six inches high — my head resting on the legs of a
noble fellow of the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New
York Regiment whose ankle was sprained at the battle
of Maryland Heights; we formed a strong attachment;
such private soldiers would make an invincible army."

The One Hundred and Twenty-fifth was encamped
at Camp Douglas, near the shores of Lake Michigan,
where it remained from September 2Qth to Novem-
ber 2 1 st. The time passed there was not altogethei
irksome to Armstrong. He saw much in the wide
stretches of the lake to enjoy and to remind him
of his sea-girt home, and found friends in Chicago
and duties in camp to make the time pass quickly.

''CAMP DOUGLAS, 7 P.M., October, 1862.
"I'll tell you the scene. On the right wing a crowd
of fellows are singing boisterously the ' Star-Spangled
Banner ' ; on the center of the battalion there is a prayer
meeting; just to the left of my tent they are singing
'Marching Along'; they have just sung * There is rest
for the weary.' It is wonderful how these Sabbath-
school airs have such popularity and such a control
over the feelings of strong men; there is nothing that
the soldier likes so well as these simple, sweet melodies.
The night is cold and the moonlight is lovely, extremely

Life in the Army* J862-J865 79

so. [I have] a letter from mother and one from Ellen.
Ellen mentioned her visit to Rana and Ulapalakua;
these names waken memories that refresh me. And
the 'church sewing society.' I suppose the tow-headed
fellows who once only cared for the coffee-room and for
all sorts of shindies in corners and out of doors now
study their neckties faithfully, select their 'Mary Anns,'
and go home with palpitating hearts — generally two
of such hearts get together, some way or other. A ' hog
hunt' in Hanalei — of course no hog, but the dogs and

the horses and busy preparations — Sam A would

generally bring some tall yellow dog that Ponto would
cause to quake by showing his teeth just once — all this
I'd like; the dashing gallop, the halt of the cavalcade,
just to shoot a little 'kolea' a quarter of a mile off —
the prior hunt to catch the unruly dogs, the stealthy
advance of the hunter and final escape of the bird. Then
a moonlight ride with the Punahou girls — three cheers
for them — fine girls they are; will compare with any.
Long live the omnibus and Harvey the driver, and all
the animals that draw it !

" Here I am, a soldier and in a queer fix — how came I
here? But my childhood's and also my manhood's
home will always be a Mecca to my thoughts; they go
back and travel from mountain top to distant horizon;
they leap from island to island and from one mansion
to another — I cannot follow them."

" NOVEMBER 10, 1862.

"I have just come from court, where we are trying
an artillery first lieutenant. Our court is a terror
to all the regiments and brigades here. We have
power over life itself. We have good times in court,
telling stories, eating apples, and smoking. They are
trying to teach me to smoke and I take a whiff now and

8o Samuel Chapman Armstrong

then, but it don't go at all. I am not made for a smoker.
I am kept constantly busy all the time.

"I am sick of the parole. I wish to be in the field.
It galls me to think of my chum, Arch. Hopkins, in
the advancing army and I here ; but we may be relieved
soon — shall be if Burnside makes a big stroke.

' ' I have a first-rate company of boys — they obey me
better than I ever obeyed any one else."

At length the regiment was returned to Wash-
ington for further duty.

" MICHIGAN SOUTHERN RAILROAD,
" NOVEMBER 21, 1862.

"Chicago is about five miles in the rear. We are
dashing over the prairie in elegant passenger cars. I
am with my company, or a part of it — forty-eight of
us in one car. It is nearly dark. I have just witnessed
a glorious sunset on the prairie. I am writing by the
dim light of a car kerosene lamp — the boys are all gay;
there is a banjo a-going, entertaining us with some
rampageous jig — others are singing the beautiful
Sunday-school melody, 'We Shall Know Each Other
There.' It is a scene that cannot be described — it is
never the same for two successive minutes ; a little while
ago all hands were singing ' John Brown ' with inspiring
effect ; now all are chattering like guinea-hens. We have
stopped a moment for wood and water. The scene
within is intensely human, and that outside intensely
natural — divine; there is a long, narrow belt of red
along the horizon ; the heavens are beclouded.

"We are moving again and I can hardly write legibly.
We are in for a four days' ride and are probably bound
to Washington — whether to be sent into barracks or
to Texas, with Hunter to South Carolina or with

Life in the Army* J862-J865 81

Burnside to Richmond, we know not — this is a most
uncertain life.

"This has been a day of breaking up and an awfully
hard day for me, having no officers; one having resigned,

the first lieutenant, and Tom S gone home on

a furlough. I have lost from my company about six-
teen by desertion; the regiment has lost about 300.
After we were paroled the men had little conscience
about desertion. It is almost impossible to keep a
paroled regiment together.

"The boys are getting quieter as it grows dark and
many are asleep, though it is no later than six o'clock;
the evenings are very long; it is dark at about 5 p. M.

"My faithful servant, John Q , sits by my side.

1 sometimes call him my 'Man Friday' or 'My Thief.'
He is singularly devoted. He is a little Canadian
Frenchman — talks the funniest English — has a wife
and four children in Troy. I have detailed him from
my company to wait upon me and nothing can equal
his fidelity. He makes fires, does washing, blacks my
boots, picks up my clothes when I throw them down,
looks at every object he sees as created for my comfort,
and if he thinks anything will contribute to that he
takes it — hence I call him my thief. He is utterly
indescribable. I can hardly look at him without
laughing. Thinking that his sitting by me would inter-
fere with my writing, he has been standing up and
walking about the car for an hour. Such is my servant
Q ; I have not told the half."

The regiment arrived at Washington November

2 5th, and for the next three months it wandered
among the minor military stations of Virginia.
Both officers and men were ignorant alike of the

82 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

meaning of their frequent changes of camp and of
the events going on about them. They knew
only the discomfort of cold and snow and night
marches, and, on the other hand, the pleasures
of camp-life, comrades round a camp-fire, the
arrival of home letters, impromptu gaieties among
the officers, and the never-failing charm of life
under canvas.

The war dragged on during this most discouraging
of winters. In the month of November the North
had been cheered by the news of Union victories
in the West; but McClellan, in command of the
Army of the Potomac, still awaited that condition
of entire readiness to which he looked for success.
At length, wearied by waiting, the President
removed McClellan and appointed Burnside to his
command. Burnside, unable to resist the popular
clamor for action at any cost, fought the disastrous
battle of Fredericksburg on December iyth and
after it lay fronting the foe, but unwilling and
unable to join battle.

The One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York
played a humble part in these larger movements ; held
as a reserve force for the Army of the Potomac,
it was shifted here and there in conformity with its
movements.

Armstrong thoroughly enjoyed this winter cam-
paign. His health was excellent. "I do nothing
but eat, sleep and study tactics," he wrote. Indeed,
with no harassing home cares, in no immediate

Life in the Atmy* J862-J865 83

danger of battle, and in a congenial position, with
good pay, why should he not be happy? He
expected to save most of his salary for the year
and at the end of that time to retire from the army,
if indeed the war was not over by that time.

But in spite of the easy-going camp life, this
positive responsible experience in affairs was grad-
ually maturing him. He wrote to his mother and
sisters :

"I am sorry you felt so about my enlisting. No
great advantage is gained without risk, and the service
has so far been of the greatest advantage to me. It has
been worth far more to me than so many months of
college life. I have not found it demoralizing. I
have gained rather than lost spiritually since I entered it.

"Ladies here visit the hospitals and do something
for the needy; fashionable women do this because of
the promptings of their better natures, not always for
the popularity of the thing. Now at this time and
distance I look back upon the few times I taught in
the Kawaiahao Sunday-school with far greater satis-
faction than upon my labours in the * Foreign Church'
Sunday-school. I should be glad to hear that all the
family had begun to labor in the Kawaiahao Sunday-
school, though in order to do it they did not attend the
other. I hope the girls will imitate you in pursuing an
earnest philanthropic policy worthy of their father.
I never got one-quarter as much real good from English
preaching as I did from teaching those native children.

" It is pleasant at the time to sit under good preaching
and hard to give it up; but should the girls attend
Fort Street church evenings — as father did — and
Sunday mornings teach the Kanaka children, and on

84 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

the way home drop in at the hospital and just go from
bed to bed and speak a word, or go out among the
native houses back of our house, there they will find
sick who will greatly need little comforts; old women
are plenty around our neighborhood who are desti-
tute— help such.

"This is my earnest advice from the field, before a
wary, subtle and powerful enemy. No one in the
wild scene around me — of men building huts and fires,
some shouting and laughing or swearing, of snow falling
in beautiful myriad flakes — no one, I say, would imagine
that I am writing such counsel on this old box-cover.
But I am in earnest. My position and its possibilities
cause me to look at things seriously.

"If you find some are better sympathisers in your
good work than others, just quietly have less to do
with the latter and more with the former. Let them
alone in word and in deed. Don't be discouraged if
the devil takes a new tack to defeat his enemies by
setting them at loggerheads. It will come out all
right."

Regarding his own part in the great struggle
there is a securer tone; he wrote the Christmas Eve
before the Emancipation Proclamation went into
effect :

"I learn to-night that Burnside and Seward have
resigned. What to do as things now look I don't
know — what am I fighting for? But the first day of
January is at hand — possibly the greatest day in
American history — when the sons of Africa shall be
free. To wait until that day I am content, and then I
shall know for what I am contending — for freedom and
for the oppressed. I shall then be willing to go into the

Life in the Army. J862-J865 85

fight, and you will feel less grieved if I fall for such a
cause. You and I will then have occasion to congratu-
late ourselves that our family is represented in the
greatest struggle of modern times for the most sacred
principles.

"I tell you thinking men are more and more largely
of the opinion that the Southern Confederacy is a fixed
fact, and I am inclined to it, but I have none the less
faith in the ultimate triumph of right. Possibly God
will crown our arms with success after the ist of
January, for then we shall be fighting for a principle.
I am curious to see what will turn up.'*

A letter written January i5th to a college friend
strikes a vein of reflective philosophy which appears
in his letters with increasing frequency and became
in later life the dominating influence in his thoughts.

"I know it is dangerous to tell of one's deep purposes —
the profoundest resolutions are so weak; but without
sickness or mutilation I shall not hope to see my friends.
So long as I am of the army I shall be in it, unless, like
you, I am laid down by sickness, and there is no present
prospect of that. I like the army and I am devoted, I
trust, to our cause. Besides, a soldier's life is a constant
life, and for that I am the more satisfied with it; we
profess to be soldiers and are soldiers ; how many of our
other professions are realized in the same manner?
I tell you, chum, civil life is more or less of a humbug —
rather more. Christian men walk arm in arm with the
devil, and are in thousands of cases — shall I say it? —
hypocrites. Since I entered the army I have become
more hilarious, more. jocose than before, but I believe
an honester man.

86 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"We hold ourselves in readiness to fight, and if
prepared to sacrifice life, how much more prepared to
sacrifice things of smaller moment; our position keeps
us in a generous, manly frame of mind.

"Well, chum, I'm rolling over lots of wild schemes in
my head, and D. V. one of these days I'll strike out; I
want you along. But mind — effort leads to success —
there is a point where one ends and the other begins,
and here lies the difference in men. One man will not
do a thing until he snail see exactly where this point
shall be ; another cares not if between where effort stops
and success commences there is a gulf, be it ever so wide.
Such are the extremes ; men are ranged all along between
— I rather lean toward the latter extreme. Where the
eye of sense sees no continuity, but labor and its
results widely separate, a certain faith steps in and binds
them together, and trusting to this faith some men will
go forward as freely as if there were no break, no doubt,
for just here is the place of doubt."

There were a few colored servants in the regiment,
from whom he received his first impressions of the
Negro race. He at first thought them "worse than
Kanakas, " but began presently to respect them in
theory, if not in practice.

"Chum, I am a sort of abolitionist, but I haven't
learned to love the Negro. I believe in universal
freedom; I believe the whole world cannot buy a single
soul. The Almighty has set, or rather limited, the
price of one man, and until worlds can be paid for a
single Negro I don't believe in selling or buying them.
I go in, then, for freeing them more on account of
their souls than their bodies, I assure you."

Life in the Army. 1862-5865 87

This mention of the Negro is the last for several
months — indeed, until he took command of a
regiment of colored soldiers in November of the
following year.

During the month of February the One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth was removed to Centre ville,
Virginia, where it remained in camp for three months.
This was a period which fulfilled a young officer's
dreams of delight and which Armstrong has de-
scribed as follows:

"Summer reigns in Centreville — the place is lovely —
windy and awfully dusty. Our camp looks gay. Along
the line of privates' tents there are double rows of young
cedar and pine trees which have been transplanted, and
they create a cool shade for the men and make our camp
really romantic. There are over six tall cedar trees
around and overshadowing my tent, a bower of ever-
greens in front and two small tents in the rear, all
connecting. I call it luxury. I like it. Camp life is
gay, though there are interruptions, of course. I'll
tell you my pleasures. One is visiting the pretty
secesh girls in the neighborhood. I am on very good
terms with many of them and we have lively times.
Generally go out to see them (in fact, we only can)
on Sunday afternoons. There are also many sensible
people, but being young and foolish I incline to the
aforesaid girls. Then it is pleasant to go out after
dress parade and hear the brigade band play at
' retreat ' ( sundown) . ' '

While in Centreville he was detailed to serve on
one or more military courts-martial, a duty to

88 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

which he was often thereafter subject, and one
which — though he calls it "too dreadful, too sick-
ening"— yet carried with it a certain prestige as a
recognition of an officer's judgment and standing.

But Centreville, lovely, dusty, windy Centre-
ville, with its picnics and pretty girls, was an
episode which came too quickly to a close. June
25th came the order that the One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth was to break camp and join the
famous Second Army Corps, then commanded by
General Hancock at Gum Springs. This move
brought Armstrong at once to the front of the
stage of war.

While the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth had been
encamped at Centreville the battle of Chancellors-
ville had been fought, not far away. This striking
Confederate victory encouraged Lee in the belief
that the time had come for an invasion of the
North. Nothing could so effectively hamper the
movements of Grant, who was hammering at the
gates of Vicksburg, as the fact that some great
Union city was in danger. So without loss of time
Lee pushed northward into Pennsylvania, and after
him followed Hooker with the Army of the Poto-
mac, which he had successfully reorganized and
which was eager for a fight. The One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth marched rapidly to Gum Springs,
and together with the rest of the Second Corps
was hurried northward toward Gettysburg, where
the whole army was gathering under General Meade.

Life in the Army. I862-J865 89

The battle of Gettysburg, Armstrong's first trial
of real warfare, is described at length in letters to
his mother. It seems as if he craved to make clear
to her the many and vivid impressions which
thronged his brain after the battle was over. But
the part played by any one man in a great battle
runs like a single thread through the great fabric
of the whole contest, and in order to be compre-
hended must be seen in relation to the whole.

On the morning of July 2, 1863, the Union and
Confederate forces were drawn up in two curved
confronting lines, separated by a distance varying
fr©m half a mile to two miles. The intervening
space was broken by wooded areas and a brook
or two, and bounded on the south by the hill of
Round Top ; on the north it was open toward the
town of Gettysburg. The right wing of the Federal
forces, stretching toward the northeast, embraced
Cemetery Hill, near which, within the range both
of its batteries and the Confederate guns of
Seminary Ridge, the Second Corps made its first
appearance on the battle-field.

On the afternoon of July 2d Lee advanced to
the attack. He was met by the Third and Second
Corps, which suffered severely but succeeded in
repulsing him. Of this day Armstrong writes,
after all is over:

" BATTLE-FIELD NEAR GETTYSBURG.
"The night before the battle we lay out in the woods,

QO Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

five miles from Gettysburg. All was quiet, and as I
was lying on my back in the open air, looking up into
the sky through the tall and leafy oak trees, I wondered
what would happen on the morrow. I knew I might
at that hour on the night following be as inanimate as
the sods under me and my soul have gone up to its last
account. I felt no quaking, but an anxiety for my own
future condition and for those who loved me on earth.
I soon fell asleep and slept soundly.

"On the 2d of July we were drawn up between
two batteries (one Confederate, one Union) and sus-
tained a severe cannonade, lying on our faces in an
orchard — that is, most of us. I preferred to take my
chance standing and watching the fight and seeing the
skirmishers and sharpshooters pick each other off.
After some time, about 5 P. M., our brigade was marched
off to the left center, formed into line and charged into a
valley full of rebs who were sheltered by a dense growth
of underbrush.

"As we advanced with fixed bayonets and began
to fire, they yelled out from the trees, ' Don't fire
on your own men ! ' We ceased firing, and the rebs
who had so deceived us gave us ' Hail Columbia ' and
dropped some of our best men. Those fellows were
the famous ' Louisiana Tigers ' — but we rushed at them
with fixed bayonets, drove them out of the brush and
then plunged our fire into them as they ran. Many
were within pistol shot, and the old spindle-legged, short-
coat-tailed fellows fell headlong by the dozen; the
bullets whistled by me by scores, but I didn't mind
them, though all the while perfectly conscious of
what might happen. Well, we peppered away at them
and charged furiously and drove them like sheep. But
we were ordered to fall back amid an enfilading fire
from a rebel battery. We fell back and returned in

Life in the Arniy. J862-J865 91

order to our old ground, losing many men from the
rebel canister and grape.

"This was our first fight — my first; a long and great
curiosity was satisfied. Men fell dead all around me.
The sergeant who stands behind me when in line was
killed, and heaps were wounded. In the charge after
the rebs I was pleasantly, though perhaps dangerously,
situated. I did not allow a man to get ahead of me."

By means of this charge the enemy was driven
back and the regiment retired slightly. It had lost
one-fifth of its men, but the opposing force — the
'Louisiana Tigers' — was completely shattered and
lost its regimental existence. Out of 1,700 men it
had lost 1,400.

The One Hundred and Twenty-fifth encamped
for the night on Cemetery Hill. Here it lay pre-
paring for the terrible work of the morrow, which
culminated in the famous Pickett's charge. The
letter continues:

"Next day I was sent to the line of skirmishers with
my division (two companies). It was an ugly place —
the two lines lay about 100 yards apart, rather less in
some places, and the sharpshooters were butchering
each other to no purpose whatever. Both were crouched
down flat on their faces behind fences or in the grass,
and away they popped all the morning, killing and wound-
ing quite a number. I took position on the advanced
line, lying down behind some rails; but I was often on
my feet to give orders, and then I would always hear
bullets whistle over and past me. Finally we were
ordered to charge the rebel skirmishers. It was a foolish

92 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

order — a fatal one. I led that charge, if any one did,
jumping to my feet and waving my sword for the men
to follow, and rushing toward the sharpshooters, some
of whom ran on our approach, while others waited to pick
off a few of us. There were four captains in that charge ;
two were killed near me and one wounded. I escaped,
though I was within fifty yards of the rebs. We drove
them and took their line, but they rallied in great force
and deliberately advanced. Then it was hot. The
bullets flew like hail over my head and it was not safe
lying down. Many were hit near me, and after nearly
all our men had fallen back I ran back to the former
line, which we held. The charge was unnecessary, but
it was ordered.

"After this we ceased firing on both sides, and after
a two hours' lull the heaviest cannonade of the war
was opened, we lying between the two fires — not per-
fectly safe, for the shells often burst too soon and the
fragments fell around us.

"The firing was tremendous. Nothing could have
been more impressive or magnificent.

"Finally the rebels came out of the woods in three
long lines several hundred yards apart, with glittering
bayonets and battle-flags flying.* It was grand to see
those masses coming up, and I trembled for our cause.
I rushed to the skirmish line, saw our opportunity (I
was then with the reserves), returned and assembled
the reserves, and with the men and officers of the
Eighth Ohio Volunteers hurried toward the flank of the
rebel lines of battle and gave them fits. Then it was
grand. I'll tell you my fix. I was exposed to the fire
of our own artillery from the rear, from the rebel
batteries in front, and from the musketry of their line
of battle. Many around me were hit, but Providence

*Pickett's charge.

Life in the Army. J862-J865 93

spared me, although I was in advance and, if anybody
did, led that attack. Some officers skulked behind
a house. I felt no fear, though I never forgot that any
moment I might fall. The responsibility and the high
duty assigned me sustained me, and it was wonderful
that my own men didn't shoot me; they were so excited
and were behind me.

"Well, we turned the rebel flank, and no wonder, for
we did terrible execution; besides, our batteries and
line of battle in front were mowing them down. This
was too much for them. The first line broke and ran;
the second came on, were served in the same way, and
also broke and scattered; yet they were as brave as
lions. Their dead lay close up to our line, and one of
their colour-bearers fell over one of our Napoleon
field-pieces. Hundreds got behind a house and laid
down their arms. We captured ten stands of colors.
Thus the rebs were served all along our line, and on the
whole it was one of the severest fights of the war and
a glorious success for us.*

*An account of the battle given in the Regimental History
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York says:

"Noticing a lull in the cannonading, Captain Armstrong
looked around and saw the Confederate lines marching grandly
down the slope toward our men. He immediately ordered
the entire picket reserves and all whom he could muster —
about seventy-five all told — to fall in and led them on the
'double quick' about three hundred yards down the Emmets-
burg road to get at the enemy in flank. Finding a rail fence
at right angle to their advancing line some sixty or seventy-
yards from their extreme left, he posted his men along the rail
fence. They took position unflinchingly, and resting their rifles
on the top of the fence, took deliberate aim and poured a
murderous fire into the rebel flank comprising Pettigrew's men.
The Confederate leader afterward confessed surprise that part
of the Eighth Ohio had been given the credit for the flank fire
which contributed efficiently to the result. But distinct record
should go into general history of Captain Armstrong's brave
and skilful action at that important point of the battle.
. . . Of the five officers who served with Captain Arm-
strong in his brave action, he was the only survivor."

94 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"But I cannot describe the battle-field — the dead —
the wounded — the piteous groans and the prayers of
agony that went up to Heaven all night and day. The
usual expression is 'Oh, Lord !' — it can be heard on
every side, and when one approaches they cry for water
most piteously. Oh, how they beg to be carried away
to a doctor. Their hands are either half open or clutch-
ing a cartridge or gun or ramrod; just as life left them
death keeps them. I may here say to you that I have
made what inward preparation I can for death, i
keep a little volume of Psalms with me and strive to
act the soldier of Christ.

"Don't be anxious for me. The God above does all
things well. There are more battles to be fought and
I must fight. My sensations in battle are not strange.
I feel simply resolved to do my best, to lead my men,
and to accept my fate like a man."

That night Lee's army stole away southward.

The battle of Gettysburg marks a crisis in Arm-
strong's military life and in the development of his
character. Before Gettysburg he had already
changed from an untried college student to a skilful
disciplinarian with the power of obtaining obedience
from his men at critical times; a soldier used to
hardship: but the great battle revealed to him
life in its deeper aspects. He faced death side by
side with his men; he saw many dear to him die;
he led two important charges where a high degree
of courage and military skill were demanded, and
he saw the greatest soldiers of his time maneuver
their forces on a crucial field. This battle was the

Life in the Army. J862-J865 95

supreme test of those qualities of determination
and judgment, of the power to conceive and execute
effective action and the mastery of self in personal
danger, which had been born in him and which
much of his life had tended to develop. He had
learned his first lesson in the school of responsibility.

CHAPTER IV
LIFE IN THE ARMY — CONTINUED

* "LOUDOUN VALLEY, Virginia,
"Nine miles from Harper's Ferry.

"I have been three weeks at a time without chang-
ing or taking off my clothes — sleeping just as I marched,
and being so tired with long marches that when I had
fixed my little shanty and got my supper I was glad
enough to lie down and sleep in my clothes, with noth-
ing over me and my boots or a canteen for a pillow.
Many a time I have made a good meal off raw salt pork
and 'hard tack' (army crackers); sometimes off less;
generally, however, we have coffee three times a day.
. . . We are now in a lovely, enchanting val-
ley. It is a glorious day and the Sabbath day, too.
The only quiet Sabbath for a month. There are mil-
lions of large, rich blackberries on the hillside, and
the soldiers have bushels of them to eat. I stewed
some for myself in a tin cup — the first stew I ever made,
and it was good. . . .

" We don't know where Lee is now.

" I like this life much, its ups and downs, its lights
and shadows, its storms and sunshines, its weariness
and rest. (Just stopped to eat a quart of blackberries.)
As I resume my pencil, orders come to be ready to
march in an hour; so our lovely encampment will soon
be desolate."

* Written about July 20, 1862.

96

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG AS LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OF
THE NINTH UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS

Life m the Army* J862-J865 97

[Written a few days later.] ' ' We moved along down
the valley about five miles and have bivouacked on a
beautiful slope covered with grass. Our little tent is
of course over us, and I resume my writing, having eaten
another quart of rich blackberries mashed up with
sugar and water in my cup. The face of the coun-
try is covered with little shelter tents, and soldiers are
as thick as bees as far as the eye can reach. This being
in a large army is a singular thing. It makes one feel
most insignificant."

THE Army of the Potomac was not ostensibly
on a berrying picnic, but chasing the swift Lee,
who easily evaded its leisurely pursuit and was
soon out of danger.

On July 27th, Armstrong, now promoted to the
rank of major, left the field for the North, whither
he was called on recruiting service. He was
obliged to stay near New York on this nondescript
duty, except for a trip to Alexandria, Virginia, on
a steamship in command of 1,400 men — ''deserters,
conscripts, stragglers, and soldiers. " But when
the end of October came and with it the approach
of winter, the time for every one to be at work, he
felt that "the army is the place for a soldier," and
applied for permission to rejoin his regiment in
Virginia.

The change had been pleasant, but he had
felt dissatisfied with his position and prospects.
Several prominent citizens of New York had
tried to raise in that State a colored regiment of

98 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

which he was to be colonel. At about this time he
wrote to Archibald Hopkins:

"Here's to the heathen! Rather, here's to the
Negro ! I say Negro or anything to get out of this.
There's the far West, and here am I, a vagabond, a
loafer. There are loose, lazy contrabands and why not
' go in' ? My internal machinery can brook this dread-
ful titter-fritteration of my time no longer. Now I'm
not disappointed in love — there's no one to love ! I
go in for some variation in the old song of do-nothing.
Time won't do it; the War Department won't do it,
and if my dander rises sufficiently I'll do it — I will.
Yes, let us strike out — strike out old forms of life and
thought, and ring in something new for a change."

Owing to the opposition of the State authorities
to the enlistment of colored men, the plan was
never carried into execution and he returned to
Virginia still a major, yet the idea of commanding
black troops had taken firm hold of his mind, and
the place of a major, a "fifth wheel where there is a
colonel," as he wrote later, galled him. Some time
in November he took examinations which entitled
him to a colonelcy of colored troops. These exam-
inations were made especially severe on account of
the fact that only men of character, determination
and education were wanted for the command of
colored troops, and out of eighty-five who were
examined at the same time but four passed. A
lieutenant-colonelcy was soon offered him, which
he accepted the more readily because, owing to the

Life in the Army* J862-J865 99

prolonged absence of the colonel, the active organiza-
tion and command of the regiment would fall at
once into his hands.

At this time the question whether Negroes were
enduring and patient under fire was considered an
open one or answered vigorously in the negative.
The War Department had been employing them
since July, 1862, and they had shown capacity for
daring, if not heroism, at Fort Wagner and Milliken's
Bend ; still an officer in undertaking their command
risked to a considerable extent his military repu-
tation. Moreover, the Confederate Congress had
declared that commissioned officers commanding
' ' Negroes or mulattoes in armies against the Con-
federates should be put to death for inciting servile
insurrection or otherwise dealt with at the discretion
of the court' ' ; or, in the popular wording of the
decree, that "no quarter would be given to 'nigger'
officers." But this fact did not disturb the morale
of the troops; on the contrary, as Armstrong wrote
later:

"Nothing was of more help to the newly established
and not at all fashionable Negro service. In our weekly
officers' meetings to study tactics and discuss the situ-
ation, fully anticipating such treatment, we agreed
that our men must go into battle in good shape and
must be made the most of. We told them what to
expect."

Just before leaving his old regiment for the new
command he wrote:

zoo Samuel Chapman Armstrong;

"CAMP ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH NEW YORK
" VOLUNTEER INFANTRY,

"Near Brandy Station, Virginia.

"Dear Mother: This is the last evening I shall
ever perhaps spend with my noble old regiment, the
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York. To-
morrow I leave my brave old companions, my gal-
lant Company D, my comrades for many months
in pleasure and sorrow, in comfort and in suffer-
ing. It is hard to do this; very hard. As I write,
a band is serenading the General, playing 'When
this cruel war is over.' It is harder than leaving my
classmates when I left college. You cannot imagine
the beauty and the pleasure of the relation in which
I now stand to this regiment.

"I write this in confidence. At first for months
they hated me; my company hated me as they would
Satan himself. It was because I was strict and paid
no respect to their un-military and unmanly humors.
But finally, especially after Gettysburg, all this changed.
Men saw me go where death seemed almost certain
and call upon them to follow and they did so. Men
saw that I never flinched or failed in the longest march,
that nothing swerved me from the line of my duty. And
now I have the utmost confidence of almost every man
in the regiment. I think many of my old company
love me. I know it and I love them. They have said
they would 'go to the devil' for me, and I know that
they would never desert me in the hour of trial, no
matter what dangers and terrors might be before them.
And yet they are young, many of them but boys. Yes,
between them and me there is almost a romantic at-
tachment.

" I go into untried scenes, but with no fear to meet
the future.

Life in the Army* \%&2-i$f)& ii

' ' The Negro troops have not yet entirely proved them-
selves good soldiers ; but if the Negroes can be made to
fight well, then is the question of their freedom settled.

' ' I tell you the present is the grandest time the world
ever saw. The African race is before the world, unex-
pectedly to all, and all mankind are looking to see
whether the African will show himself equal to the
opportunity before him.

"And what is this opportunity? It is to demon-
strate to the world that he is a man, that he has the
highest elements of manhood, courage, perseverance,
and honor; that he is not only worthy of freedom, but
able to win it, so he has a chance. All men must respect
heroism and military prowess — those possessing such
qualities must and will be made free. They are too
noble for slaves, and the nations will despise a country
that attempts to enslave men who have saved her own
constitution and independence.

"The star of Africa is rising, her millions now for
the first time catching the glimpse of a glorious dawn.
Auroral gleams are lighting up the horizon of their
future, and their future in my opinion rests largely
upon the success of the Negro troops in this war. Their
honor and their glory will insure the freedom of their
race ; their dishonor will result in the disbanding of the
troops and in universal contempt for the race. I
gladly lend myself to the experiment — to this issue.
It will yet be a grand thing to have been identified
with this Negro movement."

About the middle of December came the order to
join his new command, and Armstrong left at once
for Benedict, Maryland, where he took charge of
six companies of the Ninth Regiment United States

"Samtjel Chapman Armstrong

Colored Troops, then organizing with three other
colored regiments in that place, the whole com-
manded by General William Birney.

"BENEDICT, Maryland,
" December 17, 1863.

"This is a horrible hole, a rendezvous for blockade
runners, deserters, and such trash; good for nothing
but oysters, without another redeeming trait.

"The place is unhealthy, and many are dying of
measles and smallpox, etc., but I was never more con-
tented. I have brought the regiment up so that we
have completely whipped the Seventh Colored, which
was raised several weeks before this. Our camp is really
beautiful, dressed in evergreens, with handsome stock-
ades and well-graded streets, and nobody says 'boo'
to us. Our tails are up — the Seventh keep theirs down
and 'acknowledge the corn.' I have a fine, an excellent
set of officers; they are full of pride and spirit, bound
to beat anything around. ... I assure you it is
gratifying, because the task has been laborious, diffi-
cult, and subjected me to a good many severe tests.
I have got along better than I expected to.

"One of my captains was a lieutenant-colonel and is
smart as steel.

"I tell you this service will get to be the thing. All
are satisfied. The men are willing, learn very quickly,
and the regiment runs twice as smoothly as a volunteer
regiment.

"To-day is Sunday, but of course no preaching, no
Sunday-school, but a day of leisure. To-day it has
rained all day. After dinner two of my soldiers were
buried. I saw the procession start, ordered my horse
and followed it. It was a strange thing to see a man
who had been born a slave and lived the life of a slave

Life in the Army* J862-J865 103

under the lash like a dog carried to the grave with the
Stars and Stripes shrouding his coffin, in a procession
headed by a brass band playing a funeral dirge, escorted
by a body of soldiers with arms reversed, and followed
by a procession of comrades in the uniform of United
States soldiers, under charge of three commissioned
officers of the army. The procession reached the grave ;
the same funeral service that is read at the funeral of
sovereigns was read at the grave of the slave-soldier,
and three volleys of musketry were fired over his
coffin.

"It was a most impressive comment upon the gran-
deur of the struggle in which we are engaged. We are
fighting for humanity and freedom, the South for
barbarism and slavery. Remember, that was the
burial of a private soldier, the humblest man in the
army, and the funeral of a Negro who, had it not been
for the freedom we gave him, might have been beaten
to death and tumbled into a pit.

"I have been visiting the hospitals to-day, where
about 100 of my regiment are quartered. They seemed
glad to see me.

"But I must tell you about Christmas. These
Negroes are used to having grand times on that day,
and so I determined to give them some sport."

It is interesting to note that Armstrong grasped
thus early the importance of providing for and
guiding the social instinct of the Negro. The
competitive trials referred to in the next extract
from the journal developed regimental pride, in
which the Negroes were often lacking.

"We officers subscribed money freely and bought
an ox, which we roasted whole for the regiment.

104 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"The day's sports opened with trials of strength at
rope-pulling, the victor always receiving a prize and
always being greeted with vociferous cheers. After
this they ran races for prizes, and there was some
wonderful running. Then they had a greased pole to
climb, with $5 on top of it, which afforded rare
sport. Next was a chase after greased pigs which had
all their hair cut off and had been well oiled. The
captor was to have the pig provided he caught him
by the tail. A lot of bags had been furnished for a
sack-race, which passed off with great success.

"After dinner the two regiments were drawn up facing
each other, about ten rods apart, and the champion
runners contested twice for a $5 prize. Also there
was a blindfold race. My regiment won all the
prizes and had during the day three times as much
sport as any other. The men said they never had
such a Christmas before. The roast ox was eaten for
supper. During the afternoon I had most of my
officers get horses. Some got horses, some got colts,
some got mules, and I drilled the squad on the parade
ground, also ran races and cut up generally: had a high
old time.

"I feel more in my element since being a mounted
officer. I have got along finely with my regiment.
Have the finest camp in the brigade, and the Ninth is
acknowledged to lead the rest. The regiment next to
us had six weeks the start of us, and to-day they are
not over one week ahead of us in drill and far behind
us in everything else. We expect to beat everything
around in everything, and we are in a fair way to
do it."

He also stimulated self-respect among his men by
insisting on a high standard of neatness in their

Life in the Army* J862-J865 105

camp and individual quarters, himself taking the
lead with enthusiasm. He never put up a tent,
whether for the stay of a week or of six months,
without decorating it with such simple garlands as
the woods afforded, setting up his books and
pictures in a homelike way, and contriving pleasant
arbors and approaches to shelter it. In the same
spirit the tents of the regiment were pitched in even
lines; trees planted to shade the company streets
and the streets themselves neatly sanded. Said
he, " Though I am a poor housekeeper, I am a good
camp-maker."

"CAMP STANTON, Benedict, Maryland,

"Februarys, 1864.

"I am writing in my own tent. I have a man whose
sole business is to keep my tent in good order and my
fire a-going, and so zealous is he that on warm days
like this he almost roasts me by the great blaze that
he makes up. Cedar is now burning and the room is
filled with a fragrance that exhales from the wood.
It is almost equal to the perfume of sandal wood. My
floor is swept eight or ten times a day, and although I
do my best to scatter things around I don't succeed
very well. The ' Dominie ' has a great taste for natural
history and botany. He has decorated the room with
boughs of holly and a cunning bird's nest nestles among
the evergreen leaves. My furniture is simple, a bunk,
a chair, a desk, two boxes, one for a seat and one for a
wash-stand, comprising it all. I have several shelves
laden with books and papers. All around the room
are suspended on nails various articles; my sword,
sash, rubber overcoat, woollen (blue) overcoat, haver-

io6 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

sack, clothes, and the Dominie's things. Everything
is neat, tidy, comfortable and homelike. I have plenty
of books, as Tennyson, Virgil, Pope's ' Iliad,' Mitchell's
' Lectures on Astronomy,' 'Kavanagh' and 'Outre Mer,'
Professor Wilson's 'Noctes Ambrosianae' (which are
magnificent), etc.; also many military works, as
Jomini, Schults, etc.

"I never enjoyed myself better than here. Have
plenty of visitors. Many of the officers sing. Dom-
inie's tenor is excellent and we frequently serenade the
camps. Our collection of songs is rare, and we some-
times get a lot of officers together and prolong our
hilarity over oysters, etc., till late. There are plenty
of splendid fellows here among the officers. The
colored troops have much better officers than the
State volunteer regiments."

Writing twenty years later of these days he says :

"How we studied and drilled! General Birney
driving us hard. He proved himself a great organizer
of camps. His service in Maryland in raising colored
troops was a bold, successful and grand work. Secre-
tary Stanton was back of him. President Lincoln
did not seem to feel quite so sure of a step not strictly
legal.

"Many a master who came to get a receipt for his
human property was halted by a sentinel who two
days before had been his slave.

' ' The old flag in our camp was like the brazen serpent
raised in the wilderness. Once in sight of it, across the
sentry's beat was instant freedom. How the men
sang at night around their camp fires ! Much of it was
rude, uncouth music, and the officers complained of it.
One night I was drawn out of my tent by a wonder-

Life in the Arniy. J862-J865 107

ful chorus. The men had struck up an old church
hymn — 'They look like men of war; all arm'd and
dress' d in uniform, they look like men of war.'* It

*THE ENLISTED SOLDIERS
Sung by the men of the United States colored volunteers.

1. Hark! listen to the trumpeters,
They call for volunteers;

On Zion's bright and flow'ry mount,
Behold the officers.

REFRAIN. — They look like men, they look like men,
They look like men of war;
All arm'd and dress'd in uniform,
They look like men of war.

2. Their horses white, their armor bright,
With courage bold they stand,
Enlisting soldiers for their King

To march to Canaan's land. — REFRAIN.

3. It sets my heart quite in a flame
A soldier thus to be;

I will enlist, gird on my arms,
And fight for liberty. — REFRAIN.

4. We want no cowards in our band
That will their colors fly;

We call for valiant-hearted men
Who're not afraid to die. — REFRAIN.

5. To see our armies on parade,
How martial they appear !

All armed and dressed in uniform,
They look like men of war. — REFRAIN.

6. They follow their great General,
The great Eternal Lamb,

His garment stained in His own blood,
King Jesus is His name. — REFRAIN.

7. The trumpets sound, the armies shout,
They drive the host of hell;

How dreadful is our God to adore,
The great Immanuel ! — REFRAIN.

io8 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

fitted the scene, and their hearty singing of it sent
through me a sensation I shall never forget. It became
their battle-hymn. These were the dramatics of war;
the dynamics came later.

"I did not then realize how wise it was to put the
black man into uniform and use him as a United States
soldier, though the pay was but $7 a month; white
soldiers received $13 a month.* Treating him as
a soldier made him one. The Negro rallied grandly to
the duty required. There was, as there has been ever
since, more in him than we expected to find and more
than his old masters ever dreamed of.

"Both armies despised our black troops in those
days; but before the war was over they were drilling
Negro troops in the Capitol Square at Richmond, Vir-
ginia, to help save the Confederacy.

"I was called to command a party to hunt a South-
erner who had shot, under excitement, one of our
recruiting officers, and had the unpleasant duty of
searching the house of a charming family who had most
kindly entertained me the week before.

"My soldiers wished to do their whole duty. As I
galloped one day by the pioneer corps, who were re-
turning from woodchopping, they solemnly presented
axes.

"The sentries were loyal, but not always clear-headed.
A party of officers lugging slyly into camp a keg of
beer were halted with 'Who comes here?' 'Comrades,
bearing the body of a deceased brother,' was the reply.
The solemn-sounding words and the dignity of death
overcame the awe-struck guard, who let them in with-
out the countersign.

"Mess life was usually hilarious. The ' Anvil Chorus '

*After May 22, 1864, the Negro troops received pay equal to
the whites.

Life in the Army. J862-J865 109

was produced with great effect with tin cups, knives
and tin plates.

"With all the care in selecting men, the mortality
was great. The men lived and were clothed differently
than usual. Pneumonia carried off many. The new
quarters, built of logs and mud, were damp. Even on
their own ground, with no climatic change whatever,
the death rate was high. One reason was, no doubt,
their superstitious fears excited by sickness. The
doctors afterward said that the black soldiers bore
surgical operations with wonderful fortitude, but in
ordinary sickness their pluck failed and they gave up."

At Benedict was a school for Negro soldiers,
probably an excellent example of the military
schools that were springing up here and there in the
South wherever colored soldiers were stationed,
and it is interesting to note that to Armstrong was
given the presidency of the "college." The jour-
nal resumes:

"There are five ladies from Boston at this place
teaching, sent at General Birney's request by a Boston
society. I am in charge of the college, which is an old
secesh tobacco barn, cleaned out, ventilated, and illu-
minated by a few tallow candles ; well seated and holds
500 men. The school is held two hours by day and two
hours in the evening, and it is a sight to see the soldiers
groping after the very least knowledge. They are
principally learning their letters; a pitiable sight, and
thank slavery for it. In book knowledge, in drill and
all military duty they make remarkable progress.
At such a time one realizes the curse that has been upon
them. Slavery makes brutes of men, and then refuses

Samuel Chapman Armstrong

to give them freedom because they are so brutish. I
think those men have a good reason for fighting and
that they will fight."

"STEAM PROPELLER AND TRANSPORT SHIP 'UNITED

STATES,'

"March 4, 1864, 7:30 o'clock p. M.
"Chesapeake Bay, near mouth of Patuxent River.

"Dear Mother: Most snugly and cozily am I ensconced
in an arm chair in the ladies' saloon of this new and
elegant steamer of 1,278 tons.

"We have on board 1,300 colored soldiers — one and
one-third regiments — bound for Hilton Head, South
Carolina. The evening is lovely as lovely can be, but
rather chilly. So, after going all over the ship and see-
ing that the men were as comfortable as could be, and
drinking in delight for awhile as I viewed from the top of
the bulwarks the sky, the stars, the gorgeous sunset
clouds and the glassy sea, I have taken my portfolio from
my valise and in this quiet place turned my thoughts
homeward. At my feet lies our noble St. Bernard and
Newfoundland dog Charlie — the noblest brute I ever
saw; at my elbow sits ' Dominie ' H— - (the chaplain). .
. . Every one is gay to-night. This is so far a pleasure
sail. Some are playing cards, some are singing, some
reading, all are merry. But who will come back of all
these whose hearts now throb with life, whose eyes are
lit with the hopes within them? Never mind; our
term may indeed be a little shorter for this war, but at
the longest how brief it is ! And so I don't bother
myself much about possibilities, but strive rather to
obey the calls of the present and trust in God.

" If I fall, be assured that I never was better prepared
than now for the worst. Since entering this branch of
the service I have felt the high duty and sacredness of

Life in the Army* JS62-J865 in

my position. It is no sacrifice for me to be here; it is
rather a glorious opportunity, and I would be nowhere
else than here if I could, and nothing else than an officer
of colored troops if I could. This content, this almost
supreme satisfaction has shed a rich glow upon my
life. I have felt, and do feel, like a very apostle of
human liberty striking the deadliest possible blow at
oppression ; and what duty is more glorious than that ?
What nobler work has been given to man since the
Reformation ? I feel more than ever in sympathy
with the good, the holy, the just and the true, and the
blessedness of religion has descended upon me with a
sweetness, a beauty, a richness and a power that it
never had before. Besides all this, I have a certain
consciousness that I am no disgrace to this sacred
service, which I think is well based. I certainly could
ask no pleasanter relations than I now hold to my
fellow officers."

The expedition to Hilton Head was made for the
purpose of reenforcing Port Royal, a post which,
though surrounded by rebels, had been in the hands
of the Federals since November, 1861. There was
little actual fighting. The picket line, twenty miles
in length, was in no place over a mile from the
enemy, and at many points the outposts were only
separated by a stream, so that occasional friction
occurred.

Here Armstrong stayed four weary months,
the routine of camp life broken only by occasional
raids in the enemy's territory — casual affairs which
gave no satisfaction or definite results, but which
served to increase his confidence in his black troops —

ii2 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

and by the social pleasures which he extracted
from almost any situation. Early in August he
wrote to his friend Archibald Hopkins, who was
engaged in active service:

"For myself I am one of the most miserable of men.
I never was so wretched. No disappointment of love,
no crushing sorrow could so prostrate me as the feeling
that I am idling and loafing on these sands, while my
old comrades and others are struggling so nobly in
Virginia. ... I would rather grind a hand-organ
for the edification of the mule-teams of the Army
of the Potomac than review a dress parade of a
regiment down here.

"Thus it is always. Some men's hopes must be
realized and the hopes of some must fail. God only
is great, and any service of His is good enough for mor-
tals. The fact is, I am mortally jealous ! "

About August 5th came the welcome order to
return to Virginia. There the main action centered
about Petersburg, which had been in a state of
siege since June, and toward this city the Ninth
Regiment, still part of Birney's corps, now under
General Butler in the Army of the James, was
directed to move. Their way inland was a hard-
fought one. Severe brushes occurred at various
Confederate breastworks and other fortifications.
Armstrong was overjoyed to be again where some-
thing was going on. "We are bound to glory
with a fair wind," he wrote; "nothing but working
and fighting ahead."

Life in the Army* J862-J865 113

The following incident of the approach to Peters-
burg, which occurred when he was ordered to attack
a certain formidable breastwork, shows the con-
trol of his troops which Armstrong had acquired
through his constant watchfulness for their comfort :

"Next day there was a bloody assault on the enemy's
works, which were captured, and my regiment was
sent to occupy a portion of them. I went in under a
heavy front and flank fire, got into position in the rifle-
pits, and for fifteen minutes or more we had it hot and
heavy. My men fell fast, but never flinched. They
fired coolly and won great praise. I walked along the
line three or four times, and as the work was hardly
breast high was much exposed. I passed many killed
along my path, and the wounded went in numbers to
the rear. Finally, however, the rebs flanked us on
the left and forced us out. Standing there in line we
were harassed by an unseen foe hidden in the bushes.
It was impossible to hold the position, and I ordered
them to walk, and they did so the whole distance, shot
at by the unseen enemy as they went, and having to
climb over fallen trees and go through rough ground.
They got back panting with fatigue and lay down
exhausted. But orders came, and off we went to retake
the rifle-pits.

"My worn-out regiment and half another were
ordered to do what a whole white regiment had done
before, and to take works which twice their number had
just failed to hold against the enemy. We were to
attack five times our number, and that, too, behind
strong works protected by timber felled in front.

"It was madness in our general; it was death to us,
sure death — total annihilation. The order was given,

ii4 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

' Forward !' Off we went cheerfully to our doom. I
never felt more calm and ready for anything, but just
as we had advanced a few yards another general came
up and ordered us to halt and not attack. He saved
us. He was General Terry."

By the end of August the Ninth Regiment was
encamped before Petersburg. The army, though
commanded by Grant, was in a demoralized con-
dition, owing in part to the recent defeat at Cold
Harbor and in part to the low character of our
bounty-paid troops, who were constantly arriving
as reinforcements. The insubordination of the
white troops probably did not extend to the colored,
who had their separate quarters and messes, and
whose officers were, as has been said, men of unusual
courage and character.

Armstrong was marked even among his fellow
officers for his daring. While encamped before
Petersburg he selected for his men a sheltered
ravine out of reach of the enemy's guns, while he
himself pitched his tent on an elevation close by,
across which the enemy's cannon-balls were con-
tinually ricochetting, placing him in hourly peril
by day and night. He felt that the morale of
the colored troops could only be maintained by a
commander who showed himself superior to fear.
As illustrating this habitual self-command a brother
officer relates the following incident: Armstrong
came into his tent one day, having ridden from his
own quarters during a severe shelling, and remarked

Life in the Army. J862-J865 115

that a shell had burst directly in front of him. " I
instinctively reined in my horse!" he said, as if
apologizing for an act of cowardice.

"Although a martinet in discipline where military
principle was concerned," says the same officer,
" his soldiers felt toward him a regard that amounted
almost to deification."

The siege at Petersburg continued through
summer and fall, with but few sorties on either side,
the pickets alone keeping up a desultory warfare.

"!N THE TRENCHES BEFORE PETERSBURG,
"August 30, 1864.

"The world moves on, and so do regiments. There
is nothing so unsettled as a soldier's camp or life; you
never know here what to expect. One fine afternoon
I was ordered to retake a portion of the picket line
from which our troops had fallen back. I went expect-
ing a fight. Charged the lost line with three companies,
but the enemy did not wait for us and ran without
even firing a piece.

"We had a beautiful little camp over the Appomat-
tox near Bermuda Hundred, at Hatchett's. I have
everything as regular and handsome and clean as pos-
sible, and my camps are not only the cleanest, but the
handsomest in the brigade. I always work quickly,
and give clear, positive instructions to my officers,
and they obey my orders with utmost fidelity as a
general thing. Here is an instance. Yesterday our
sister and rival regiment, the Seventh United States
Colored Troops, and my own, the Ninth United States
Colored Troops, were ordered to establish permanent
camps in the second line of works. I went to work

n6 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

and in four hours had strong, massive bomb-proofs
built. The other regiment had only burrowed a few
holes in the dirt, and when last night we were heavily
shelled, my men were as safe and comfortable as they
could have been in Kawaiahao church, while the other
regiments around us were crawling into holes and
dodging about, well scared.

"The fact was, I sent my men out and 'gobbled up*
all the spades, axes and logs in the neighborhood.
During this shelling I sat in my tent, where I am now
writing, and lifting my eyes could see the mortar shells
gliding like meteors through the sky; some going and
some coming. Several shells burst quite near us, not
over 100 yards off. On such occasions I seldom seek
shelter, although I require my men to take it. The
chances of an individual are very great, and besides
there is nothing very dangerous about shells unless
they begin to drop close by. It is a splendid sight to
see shelling at night, to watch a huge 13 -inch mortar
shell shoot far up into the heavens and then seem to
glide awhile among the stars, a ball of light, then
slowly descend in terror and vengeance into the heart
of a great city whose spires are in sight from here. . . ."

"I forgot in my last to tell you about the flag of
truce in our campaign at Deep Bottom, over the James
River. It was to bury our dead, and being in command
of our picket line that day, I was present. We met
the rebels half-way between the lines. I saw thousands
of them swarming their works, and scores came to
meet us, bringing on stretchers the ghastly, horribly
mutilated dead whom we had lost in the charge of the
day previous. The sight and smell would have made
you wild, but we are used to it. I had no particular
business, and so I talked with the rebel officers and
found myself conversing with Colonel Little, of the

Life in the Army. J862-J865 117

Eleventh Georgia Regiment, and with the rebel General
Gary. They were very gentlemanly, and we had a
delightful chat, or rather argument, of two hours;
the Colonel being very social and jovial, and the General
trying hard to convince me that slavery is divine and
that I was wrong. I frankly told him that I was a
foreigner, a Sandwich Islander, who had no local
sympathies; but seeing the great issue to be that of
freedom or slavery for 4,000,000 souls, had given myself
to the war cheerfully, and counted no sacrifice too
great for the cause. I told them I commanded a
colored regiment, and all this, instead of disgusting
them, seemed to win their respect; rather unusual,
since officers of Negro troops are commonly despised
in the South.

" The General said he thought it more reasonable
to fight, as I was doing, for a principle than to fight
merely to restore a Union which was only a compact
and to which they were not morally bound when they
considered the other side had violated the agreement.
The truth is, I partially agreed with him. The Union
is to me little or nothing. I see no great principle
necessarily involved in it. I see only the 4,000,000
slaves, and for and with them I fight. The rebs told
me they buried a good many of our colored men, for
they were the very men we had fought the day before.

"Well, the General tried to show me the evils of
slavery v/erc imaginary, that it is divine and all right,
etc. His manner and language were charming. He
\vas a graduate of Harvard (class of '54, I believe).
He did not, however, admit that slavery was the corner-
stone of the Confederacy, and he further assured me
that Alexander Stephens, who used that famous
expression about slavery being the corner-stone, etc.,
had retracted his language at a subsequent time,

n8 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

and his opinion is, I think, strongly supported in
the South."

The period spent in the trenches before Petersburg
was a time of heavy responsibilities for Armstrong.
He was obliged to work day and night strengthening
and improving the works held by his brigade; and
at the end of this time, about October ist, when
his regiment was removed from Petersburg and sent
to a point very near the rebel lines, seven miles from
Richmond, he succumbed to fatigue and went to
the officers' hospital near Fort Monroe, only a few
rods from the scenes of his later life-work. While
he was there his regiment was sent to attack Fort
Gilmer, one of the main defenses of Richmond.
Concerning this attack he wrote home as follows :

"My regiment was sent alone and unsupported to
attack a tremendously powerful fort supported by two
other strong forts, also by a heavy line of breastworks,
and before this immense line was a very large, deep
ditch and slashed timber for over half a mile, making
it almost impossible to even get to the enemy's lines.
The Ninth went in nobly, was raked and cut to pieces,
and finally fell back before a hellish fire of grape,
canister, shrapnel and shell from three forts.

"To go forward would have been certain destruction.
The Negroes never turned their backs, but walked
steadily 'into the mouth of hell' until the commanding
officer ordered a retreat. About one-third of the
regiment was hors de combat. No men were ever
braver than the slaves of Maryland. I was of course
absent, but the officers of the regiment were heard after

SAMUEL CHAPMAN1 ARMSTRONG
Taken about the time of his sujourn at the officers' hospital at Hampton, Va.

Life in the Army* J862-J865 119

they came back to curse the general who managed
them so badly, and to 'thank God that Colonel Arm-
strong was not there, for if he had been there they
would all have been in hell or Richmond.' They don't
expect to get the order from me to retreat. I only tell
the truth when I tell you that I am numbered among
the fighting men. Still I think I should never sacrifice
my men for nothing; such a course is wrong morally."

On returning to the field he was put for a short
time in command of the second brigade of his
division, and on November 3d was promoted to the
colonelcy of the Eighth United States Colored
Troops, which were stationed close to the borders
of Richmond. Of this new command he wrote :

"The men are tried soldiers, and it is considered the
best colored regiment in Birney's division. I have
a splendid camp and a very fine brass band — the only
one in the division. Men all live in log houses, so do I.
Have cozy fireplaces, where we sit and think hour after
hour or read. The 'Household Book of Poetry' is
everything to me; it is my constant friend, but unluckily
books are scarce, and it is in great demand. It is now
on a visit to headquarters first brigade of my division,
and my own brigade commander sends frequently for
it, and others — all wish to get it. The collection is, I
think, a superb one. One of the sweetest things in
it is 'Lycidas,' by Milton. Have you noticed the
'Trailing Arbutus,' by Rose Terry? The last stanza
is exquisite.

"There is some talk, of arming my regiment with
the famous and deadly Spencer repeating rifle. The
rebels are in terror of it, and it is given to but very

120 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

few regiments in the army. It is very elaborate and
expensive.

"We are kept constantly on the qui vive. The
enemy is near. I can sit at my tent door and see their
long line of earthworks, with immensely strong
forts thrown in every quarter of a mile. Their guns are
pointed at us and ours at them. I can see their tents
easily. They can at any time throw a loo-pound shell
right into my camp, yes, a dozen of them; we are in easy
artillery range, but both sides seem to have tacitly
agreed not to fire, and so we live on, perfectly at ease
and always ready. The pickets stand watching each
other some 300 yards apart, often much less. During
the last two nights they have attacked our lines at
Bermuda Hundred and got us all up, which was not
agreeable. . . .

"I have a splendid regiment and a splendid oppor-
tunity; shall do or die; shall be distinguished or
extinguished — that is, if I shall have the chance."

But the chance never came. Winter and the
war drew together to a close. April 3d Petersburg
was evacuated, and on April Qth Lee, unable to
escape from the tightening lines of the Union forces,
saw that he could not save Richmond, and signed
terms of capitulation. Armstrong witnessed the
surrender and thus describes it :

"APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE, Virginia,
"April 9, i86^.K

"God is great! To-day, by His help, the great
Confederate General and his army have surrendered
unconditionally. I have [just been viewing from a

Life in the Army* J862-J865 121

near eminence the captive host, the artillery and
wagon trains.

"Yesterday General Custer took all the supplies sent
from Lynchburg to Lee's army; our army closed in
around the rebels, and this morning they found them-
selves surrounded and without provisions. Early we
advanced and our skirmish lines met those of the
enemy. Mine drove not only the rebel skirmishers,
but also their line of battle. We expected a fight —
I never felt more like it. I mounted my noble stallion
and was ready to lead on at the word. A few bullets
whistled around, a few shells passed over — the rebs
gave way — all was quiet, there was a rumor of sur-
render; we waited; other rumors came, and finally it
was certain that the cruel war was over. The first
inkling I had of it was the continuous cheering of troops
on our right. Soon staff officers galloped up with the
news that Lee was making terms of surrender; the
firing ceased. It was impossible to realize that the
terrible army of Lee was in existence no longer! The
truth was stunning. As for myself, I felt a sadness, a
feeling that the colored soldiers had not done enough,
been sufficiently proved. We just missed a splendid
chance of taking a rebel battery an hour before Sheldon's
cavalry came tumbling back — the rebs were driving
them, and we were put in to arrest their advance, which
we easily did, for they no sooner saw us than they
halted and retired before our skirmishers. This delay
lost us our chance."

Although he now received a brevet title of
brigadier-general of. volunteers, and commanded
brigades for some months to come, he never while
in the army wore his brigadier's stars, using the

122 Samuel Chapman Armstrong1

familiar colonel's eagles. When a friend questioned
him about this habit, he laughed and said: "Oh, I
guess I'll stick to the old birds."

In spite of the fact that the Civil War was over,
the colored troops were not at once disbanded.
Mexico had also been in the throes of civil war,
and the insurgents were plotting for the overthrow
of the Emperor Maximilian. To lend friendly
support to the republican insurgents and to secure
our own boundary lines during the confusion it was
decided to send a small force to the Mexican border.
Of this force Armstrong's regiment, the Eighth
United States Colored Troops, was a part, and May
30, 1865, he embarked for Texas, writing a month
later to his mother as follows:

"We had a most delightful run from the fort to
Mobile Harbor. Most of the way the sea was perfectly
smooth, and I was very little seasick. We took the
'outside passage'; passed 'Memory Rock,' the Bahama
Islands, Key West and the 'Dry Tortugas.'

"You can hardly imagine how glorious it was to sit
on one of the huge paddle-boxes at sunset — seeing the
sun go down, the western sky draped in the most
gorgeous cloud - tapestry — the ship gliding swiftly
through a glassy sea — a brass band discoursing rich
music, and a scene of life and pleasure on board. The
nights were warm and many of us slept on deck, subject,
however, to the inconvenience of being roused very
early when the ship was washed down.

"It is no easy matter to regulate a thousand men
crowded on shipboard, unused to the sea, sick or uneasy
or irritated with ennui. Still, our voyage passed off

Life in the Army. J862-J865 123

very well — the men were kept clean and were fed. I
used to have them stripped, 100 at a time, put in the
forward part of the ship and then had the hose play on
them."

As they approached the mouth of the Rio Grande
River, in order to land at Brazos Santiago, the first
stopping-place, a shipwreck occurred in which his
whole expedition nearly came to a disastrous end.

On attempting to land, they found the sea
running very high near the river's mouth. Arm-
strong left the ship and went ashore to select a
camp-ground and assist from the shore side in
landing his men.

" I then took my position on a pile of lumber to watch
my regiment come ashore, it having been transferred
to a large schooner in order to get over the bar, which
is very shallow and across which the surf breaks.
Indeed, this is an ugly coast and is strewn with wrecks.
There is a sand bar and a line of breakers for hundreds
of miles along this shore.

"The surf was running high, and lying well over,
under a stiff breeze, the vessel stood in for the bar. I
had heard it stated that she drew too much water to
pass the bar, and knew that the best pilot in port
refused to bring her in. The schooner came tearing in,
but all at once she stopped, her sails shivered, and
there she lay among the breakers with my regiment on
board and darkness just coming on.

"I never in my life was more distressed or helpless.
Got a boat's crew to pull me out toward the wreck, but
it was impossible to reach her. She was fairly crowded
with men and I expected to lose half at least of them.

124 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

She drifted and thumped along, however, toward the
remains of an old steamer, the Nassau, formerly
wrecked in Banks 's expedition, and whose engine was
partly out of water. The greatest danger was that
the schooner would drift against this wreck and break
to pieces. This was at eleven o'clock at night."

He found some Italian boatmen who undertook
to unload the steamer, but looking about for a
quicker means of saving his men he found a large
metallic life-boat, perfectly sound, which had drifted
ashore. This he manned with his own officers and
men, and in spite of a recently broken arm took
the steering-oar himself and put out to the schooner.

"It was most exciting and difficult, as my right arm
is nearly useless for hard work. The rollers would
come in and pick up my boat and carry it like a shot
for a few rods, and as it was so short and light it was
difficult to keep it in the right position. I wonder I did
not break my arm or get stunned or swamped, for the
oar would sometimes be snapped out of my hand, and
the boat would slew around and I could barely fix her
for the next wave. The surf kept increasing, and my
little boat would sometimes stand up, almost, or be
lost in spray. But nothing serious happened till the
schooner broke away and drifted up so close that the
men jumped off.

"The discipline of the men never broke, but every
man stood at his post till called for. Those on shore
were organized into parties for seizing the boats as the
waves swept them in, generally half full of water;
helped the men out, bailed out the boats and started
us off again for the ship. Others were boiling coffee

Life in the Army* J862-J865 125

for the wet and drenched troops ; the Chaplain dealt out
whisky. All those working were stripped to the waist
and barefoot. Officers and men pulled oars side by
side It was exciting.

"At last, after I had got about 400 men off in boats,
the schooner drifted close in and the troops jumped
off, throwing their knapsacks overboard and jumping
after them. I only lost about ten guns and twenty
knapsacks, and no lives."

Brazos Santiago is a long, low island, entirely
destitute of verdure and below the level of the
highest winter tides.

"There is no wood to be had, no water in the region.
We use condensed water often while it is warm, or the
water of the Rio Grande, which is nine miles off and is
brought here in schooners. It is very nasty just now,
as the river is swollen.

"At one time there were 10,000 troops here three days,
and 2,000 gallons of water per day supplied. Some of
my regiment walked to the Rio Grande, loaded with
canteens and dragging a barrel for water. There was
much suffering.

"We get no fresh vegetables or vegetables of any
kind and seldom secure fresh meat. Our men are
worked to death unloading vessels, and we are all
disgusted and greatly provoked and are fast getting
demoralized. We seldom receive letters or newspapers
— nothing ever happens.

"We expect to move soon up the Rio Grande, but
here there are no mosquitoes or sand-flies. Further up
there are swarms of flies and mosquitoes and 'swifts'
and snakes. The 'prickly pear' covers the whole
country. The prospect is dismal, withering, though,

126 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

speaking for myself, I am not feeling very uneasy or
demoralized."

By August the regiment, with one other, was
encamped at Ringgold Barracks, where it remained
till early in October. This was a dull but healthful
spot, and as the officers became acquainted with the
people they varied the monotony of camp life by
giving balls and dinners to their friends. One of
the latter occasions he described to his sister:

"To-day I gave a dinner to the commander of the
Liberal forces in the north of Mexico and his staff.
I had invited him to come and bring a few friends,
expecting about five in all. A small army came. A
great cloud of dust announced their coming and made
us tremble. We were amazed, confounded, dumb !
Were we to feed a regiment? Your brother Samuel
was in a fix about that time. I hadn't invited the
whole army, yet it came. The General dismounted.
We rushed (literally) into each other's arms, the Mexican
expression of cordiality. I hugged half a score of these
Indians. My own field and staff officers did the same.
Oh, what a funny scene ! None of them could talk
English; we couldn't talk Spanish. A weasel-faced
quack doctor (surgeon-general of the army) acted as
interpreter. Polite inquiries were exchanged and diplo-
matic observations (and lies) passed and repassed.
My line tents (ten large wall tents) were nearly filled
and I had in my tent the only interpreter. There was
lots of glorious good feeling and lots of hugging and
clinking of glasses, and bows and grimaces, and then
more hugging and lively conversation on a very small
stock of words, not over a dozen (in Spanish). But

Life in the Army. J862-J865 127

the dinner ! Ghosts of all housekeepers, embodied and
disembodied ! The day of miracles being past and a
deus ex machina coming down on only a few favored
stages, we had to resort to substantial and ordinary
means.

"We dined ten at a time. I took the principal
men to the first table, which was set under a canvas
covering, and which was decorated with a common reed
much resembling sorghum; sorghum on the floor, over-
head, and on every side.

"Think of a May party or a Fourth-of-July picnic
with sorghum boughs and wreaths ! We had, after
all, a 'right smart' dinner, and of course the proper
toasts were proposed and responded to, all of which
was exceedingly novel and rich. I spoke on behalf
of the American people; made touching allusions
to the national sympathy, kicked old 'Max' out of
the halls of the Montezumas, and made my chief
guest the hero and martyr of Mexican liberty, all of
which was put into Spanish and swallowed (?).
Some attended dress parade. Others sat down at
the table, and then the regimental band performed.
Everybody grinned and said, ' Muckisima gusta,' which
means 'infinite pleasure.'

" It being nearly dark, our guests took their departure
amid the most overwhelming assurances of mutual
satisfaction and violent caressing. I hugged General
Espinoza five times before he departed, and embraced
more than I have any recollection of.

"This hugging is delightful. I wish it were gener-
ally introduced. Confound the formality of our society !
Let society learn the etiquette of the heart on the
banks of the Rio Grande — dethrone the head that
now rules ! And so they departed amid the ' adios ' of
everybody and 'Hail, Columbia' from the band."

128 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

From the same place he wrote :

"CAMP EIGHTH UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS.
"RiNGGOLD BARRACKS, Texas,

"August 23, 1865.

"I find that I am not polite and accomplished. I
aim rather to be just and manly, and patiently seek
to realize the higher, more heroic qualities. These are
a guarantee of success, not what is commonly called so,
but of that fulness and completeness in character that
gives an inner and calm and rich assurance that one is
a true man and makes one satisfied no matter how
circumstances may change. This inner strength is
the thing, and it is completed, perfected and made
glorious by religion. Thus one, though poor and
unnoticed, may be greater, grander and far more
beautiful than anything that is made of the costliest
stone. Men are as a rule heathens; we adore as many
absurdities as the Hindoos; society impels us to a false
manhood, as false as it can be. Here it is easier to be
manly, to cultivate noble aspirations than in the most
pious New England village. A greasy, dirty Mexican,
fighting for the liberty of his country, inspires me more
than the whole faculty of Andover Theological Seminary
would. Don't let us pity the Zulus and the Eskimo
too much. We are almost as blind as they — they by
darkness, we by too much light. Soldiering has some-
times set me to thinking. My few opportunities in the
army have been of far more use to me than the abundant
measure I had before. When a meeting-house burns
up I care very little ; under the trees it is better — under
the evening sky as the sun goes down in glory (as we
worship) is the grandest time and place for it. I am
terribly down on two sermons every Sunday. The
drawing-out process is the best and truest. Set the

Life in the Army* J862-J865 129

people to work and the ministers to chewing tobacco if
necessary to make them like other men, not still and
mannerish, but open, free, hearty and happy. A good
hearty, healthy laugh is as bad for the devil as some of
the long nasal prayers I have heard — yes, worse. There
is religion in music, in the opera. Tell me anything
more sacred than the prayer in 'Freischutz' (I spell it
wrong) — ' Benedictus, ' it is called. Is there anything
purer than the tender, passionate strains of ' Norma ' ?
Ministers say the opera is bad; I find religion there.
They say to walk or ride out on Sunday is wicked.
My bethel is by the seashore ; there the natural language
of my heart is prayer. So of the mountains.

"Good people try to do too much to dodge the devil
and to build up a wall to keep him out. What does he
do? He helps build the wall. Meet him squarely;
fight the inner battle of self, and outward forms —
moralities — will take care of themselves. Allow young
people to doubt — doubt anything and everything —
don't crush doubt, because you crush conviction too.
The Hawaiian missionaries have made terrible mistakes
in this way."

Early in October he was ordered to Brownsville,
Texas, and after a few weeks' stay there received
his discharge.

Many were the plans for future work which filled
his mind during these his last days in the army.
A lieutenant-colonelcy in the First United States
Colored Cavalry was offered him, but he did not
care for that kind of work. His brothers suggested
business openings, and he himself had some thoughts
of entering the Freedmen's Bureau, then just

13° Samuel Chapman Armstrong

becoming prominent in work for the Negro. The
world must have spread a very agreeable prospect
to the young soldier, well born, well educated and
full of physical vigor; peace brought with it new
prosperity, and everywhere he saw room for men of
enterprise. To his mother he wrote :

"I have asked Baxter to let me know what openings
there are in California, either of lucrative business or of
other kind. I may go to New York City if Will can get
me fixed off there. I expect to begin at the bottom of
the ladder and work along. Don't expect to study a
profession. I think I shall get into the right place
by and by."

The third anniversary of his enlistment, a few
weeks before he was discharged, brought with it a
new conception of what the future might hold in
store for him.

"To-day, September ist, has been quiet and serene.
A good deal of business, but steady and easy. But one
eventful thing has occurred. My lieutenant-colonel,
major and myself were in conversation together in my
tent. The subject of citizenship was mentioned, and
one remarked that by act of Congress to serve in the
army three years was to become an American citizen.
I at once remembered that yesterday I had been just
three years in the United States service, -and this
morning for the first time walked out into the sunlight
and air a citizen of the Grand Republic. The thought
was tremendous ! To be forever under the shelter of
the broad pinions of the American eagle ! To be one
of the mighty brood of that glorious bird; to sing

Life in the Army. 1862- J865 131

'My Country, Tis of Thee'; to call 'the flag of my
country' that glorious banner that has for four years
been wreathed in smoke and torn and stained in count-
less battles, and now finally and forever triumphant —
this is a thought too immense to be grappled at once,
but enough to excite the profoundest emotions. We
all rose to our feet and I embraced each of the two who
were with me, and we all thought it was very jolly.
I have thrown off the 'kapa'* mantle and assumed the
toga of the Republic.

"There may be a place for me in the struggle for
right and wrong in this country."

At this critical time in his career his thoughts
turned more and more from making money in some
well-chosen business enterprise toward the service
of his bellow men. He wrote :

"I have not given myself to arms, although I have
been one of the most fortunate of soldiers. I have
chosen no profession, nor do I at present think I
shall study one.

'cMy capabilities are of an executive nature, and I
shall seek some chance of usefulness where I can use
my talents to the most advantage and for the cause
of humanity.

"My purpose is to serve the Great Master in some
way as well as I can ; to be of use to my fellow men ; to
give the life so marvellously spared and wonderfully
blessed to the source of all mercy and blessing. I
shall probably not enter the ministry; am not made
for a preacher. I should rather minister than be a
minister."

* Cloth made by native Hawaiians.

132 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

Certainly he regarded the uncertainties of the
future with no dread.

"There is something in this standing face to face with
destiny, looking into its darkness, that is inspiring:
it appeals to manhood; it is thrilling, like going into
action.0

a 1
< *

CA!

Q

CHAPTER V

THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. 1866-1872

AFTER his discharge, Armstrong went to New
York, where he spent several weeks with his brother.
Toward the close of winter he made his way to
Washington with some thought of applying for a
government position, but what he saw of politi-
cal office-seeking in the President's waiting-room
so disgusted him that he gave up this idea, and
remembering his former plan of work for the Negro
in the South, applied to the Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen and Abandoned Lands for a position.

The Freedmen' s Bureau had come into being in
response to the crying needs of the Negroes left help-
lessly adrift during the closing months of the war i /
when the Emancipation Proclamation had loosened
home ties and there appeared neither refuge for
the suffering women, children and infirm nor occu-
pation for the able-bodied. It was made a depart-
ment of Government by act of Congress, 1865,
and put under the leadership of General O. O.
Howard, who, as Commissioner, alone directed
its operations and selected the men that were to
do its work.

This work General Howard describes as follows:

134 Samuel Chapman Armstrong;

"The first consideration was how to do the work
before us. The plantations were all left uncultivated;
some were abandoned, all had lost their slaves. People
said, 'We can't raise cotton with only free labor.'
Our task was to show them they could. I started some
joint stock companies from the North. Northern
capital undertook the work. The result was, more
cotton was raised the first year after the war than had
been raised in any one year before. Other years were
not as successful, but the point was proved and an
impulse given to free labor.

"Another work we had to do was to settle the rela-
tions between the former master and ex-slave. Troubles
were continually arising. To settle these we estab-
lished courts made up of one agent of the Freedmen's
Bureau, one man selected by the whites and one by the
Negroes. These courts settled all such difficulties till
finally the courts themselves were transferred to the
State and local authorities upon condition of the recep-
tion of Negro testimony.

"Then there were the land troubles. When the
owners abandoned their plantations the colored people
settled on them — lived in their houses and used the
land.

"Most of the land was given back to the owners
by the Government, under our direction and advice.
It was often hard on the colored people. I was sorry
for them and would have liked sometimes to do differ-
ently. Yet I believe it was on the whole better for them.
It put them at the bottom of the ladder.

"Then we had a hospital department. That was
for the old and decrepit men and women and the sick
and disabled who could not take care of themselves.
We had also a department to establish asylums for the
little children whose fathers had been killed in the

The Freedmen's Bureau. J866-J872 135

war or who had strayed from their homes and been
lost, as many had.

"But the main point we had to attend to was the
care of the schools." *

The bureau, with its three departments, eco-
nomic, charitable and educational, thus held com-
plete control over the doings and prospects of the
ex-slave. It was a government within a govern-
ment, held closely together by an elaborate system
of reports from subordinate to superior and directly
responsible to its own Commissioner only.

Many besides Samuel Armstrong were looking
to the Freedmen's Bureau for the solution of the
problems that were vexing the nation. What
should be done with the Negro? How secure to
him his new political rights? How befriend with-
out pauperizing him? How fit him to care for
himself ?

People everywhere in the North were asking
these questions — people who were not involved
in the vortex of political jobbery that surrounded
Washington, who had borne the strain of the war
for conscience's sake and who were now prepared to
shoulder the responsibilities that followed it; and
they waited for the Freedmen's Bureau to present
effective answers to these questions — answers that
should settle the status of the Negro in the South
in a permanent and satisfying way. This was not

* Address delivered by General Howard at Hampton Insti-
tute, 1889.

136 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

the only way in which it was proposed to meet the
needs of the Negro ; deportation to Africa, segrega-
tion of the Negroes in one or two States and in in-
dustrial communities managed by the Government
were suggested, but the people in general looked to
the Freedmen's Bureau to show the way out.

While this organization combined such differing
forms of activity, the workers in it themselves pre-
sented also varied aspects of character and fitness.
Some men and women more zealous than well in-
formed sought in it an outlet to their charitable
desires; others, less zealous, found lucrative posi-
tions at the expense of their charges ; however, many
intelligent and public-spirited persons were installed
under its direction.

General Howard's policy was to place officers of
the regular army at the most responsible points,
while civilians were usually employed as agents at
less important centers ; and when Samuel Armstrong
applied, with a letter from his late chief of staff
and his brilliant record as an officer of colored
troops, he was received favorably.

Concerning the interview General Howard writes :

"Though already a general, General Armstrong
seemed to me very young. His quick motions and
nervous energy were apparent then. He spoke rapidly
and wanted matters decided if possible on the spot.
I was then very favorably impressed with his knowledge
and sentiment toward the freedmen, and thought he
would make a capital sub-commissioner."

The Freedmen's Bateau* J866-J872 137

There was no vacancy in the department, however,
and Armstrong left the office, visited friends and
decided to return to New York. But before leaving
Washington he again called, satchel in hand, at the
office of the Freedmen's Bureau to see if an opening
had presented itself since his former visit. As he
entered the office one of the aides looked up and
said: "We've a great lot of contrabands down on
the Virginia Peninsula and can't manage them; no
one has had success in keeping them straight.
General Howard thinks you might try it." Another
conversation with that officer resulted in Armstrong's
receiving a double appointment — as agent under the
Freedmen's Bureau, having control over ten counties, J
the fifth sub-district of Virginia, and also as superin-
tendent of schools, or Bureau Superintendent, over
a large, loosely defined area.

As agent he was one of eight men who controlled
the fortunes of the Negroes and to a certain extent
of the whites throughout the State of Virginia,
each of the eight holding a district of from six to
twelve counties and reporting to Colonel Orlando
Brown, at Richmond, who held the office of Assistant
Commissioner. As Bureau Superintendent, Arm-
strong was one of several men holding that office J
in the State, but he alone usually reported directly
to General Howard on all matters connected with
the education of the freedmen. General Howard
urged that he now officially use the title of General,
thinking that it would help him to secure the imme-

138 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

diate respect of his subordinates, many of whom were
army officers, when he, a young man of twenty-
seven, appeared among them as their superior.

About March 15, 1866, Armstrong arrived at Fort
Monroe and rode a few miles to his post at the village
of Hampton. Hampton is beautifully situated near
the mouth of a short tidal river and was once one
of the finest towns in the South, but several years
before Armstrong's arrival had been burned to the
ground, and only massive chimneys, with gaping
fireplaces, remained to mark the site of former
pleasant homes. The contrabands, like weeds
springing up on burned ground, had swarmed over
the place, building huts or pitching tents against
the old chimneys. Within a radius of three miles
from his office lived 7,000 Negroes, camping in this
squalid fashion, waiting for they knew not what.
The immediately surrounding country under his
control was a vast stretch of low, often marshy,
partially wooded land, dotted with hospital barracks
and log cabins, intersected by the muddy roads of
Virginia, and bounded on the east and north by the
waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the ocean.

Full of enthusiasm for his work and full of the
courage of youth, Armstrong settled himself in his
new home. He made his headquarters, with his staff
of assistants, at an old mansion near the residence
of the teachers employed by the American Mis-
sionary Association, and appeared as a conspicuous
figure among the isolated little group of Northerners

The Fteedmen's Bureau* J866-J872 139

working under difficult conditions, making many
mistakes, yet furthering as best they could what
they conceived to be the highest interests of the
community.

His associates trusted from the first that his
strong, straightforward methods would untangle
the network of political and social difficulties in
which they had been working. With a happy
temperament, an easy control of subordinates and
a natural gift for dealing with the Negroes, he
inspired general confidence and soon brought about
order throughout his district.

He wrote to his mother as follows:

"BUREAU OP REFUGEES, FREEDMEN AND

ABANDONED LANDS,

"Headquarters Superintendent Ninth District, Virginia.
"FORT MONROE, Virginia, June 2, 1866.

"Dear Mother: I have been on duty in the bureau
three months, and a singular experience it has been.
Providence seemed to put me in just the place I wanted.

"The work is very difficult; there are here, congre-
gated in little villages, some 5,000 colored people,
crowded, squalid, poor, and idle. It is my work to
scatter and renovate them; one in which much is ex-
pected, but very limited means are given. I think
I have secured the confidence of the people as well as
of my superiors, at least so far that I am the only
civilian in the whole bureau occupying a position of
superintendent, which is a special favor from General
Howard. All the rest are discharged. How long this
work will last I do not know — it ma;- soon die out, or
I may be discharged, or it may lead me to some other

140 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

work. I am uncertain of the future, but still am confi-
dent that all will be well.

"I am living in the so-called 'Massenburg house/
once one of the stateliest of the beautiful village of
Hampton, now shorn of its glory — its greenhouse and
garden destroyed and its rooms turned into offices and
quarters. In the rear of the house is the bureau jail,
where I summarily stow away all sorts of people when
they are unruly — I have murderers, thieves, liars, and
all sorts of disorderly characters — a squad of soldiers
under my orders, who make quick work with any
troublesome people. I am quite independent and like
the position and the work.

"I have about a dozen officers under me, though I
am a civilian, and a glorious field of labor. I have
some thirty-four lady teachers from the North. Some
splendid people are helping me.

"This place is historic. A little above here is
Jamestown, in my district, where the first settlers came,
and the ruins of their church are standing. In my field
were fought many hard battles, and some of my own.

"This Hampton has been the city of refuge of the
Negroes throughout the war — here they came from all
Virginia to seek freedom, food and a home; hither
caravans daily poured in for months with young, old
and helpless, and here they built their little cabins and
did what they could.

"Here were raised several colored regiments, which
took the men and left the women helpless — and oh,
the misery there has been — it can never be told ! But
the worst is over. The men came not back, since
most were killed, disabled or died, and here are their
families in my charge; and they are a great care; we
issue 18,000 rations a day to those who would die of

The Freedmen's Bureau. \ 866- \ 872 141

starvation were it not for this, and keep their children
at school, and get them work and prevent injustice.
Take us away and the Negroes might as well all be
hanged at once.

"There is not much peace; work comes on all days of
the week, Sundays not except ed. I like it — there is a
large field and lots to do. I am compelled to do some
speech-making — have held forth at divers times and
places to the darkies. Have to deal, too, with some
cute, oily white men, smart as steel and smooth as
sycophants ; it reminds me of the old times when I was
editor of the Hae Hawaii.

"I am going around to the county court-houses
where the Circuit Court holds session (next week) and
harangue the mobs.

"To-day is Sunday — went to meeting, sang in choir;
dine with Mrs. D .

"Yesterday I received a courteous note from a highly

accomplished and wealthy lady of New York, Miss W ,

asking for two photographs of mine; one for Count de
Gasparin and one for Laboulaye of France, as one who
has drilled the colored troops; she is making a collec-
tion of United States officers for these gentlemen.

' ' You have no idea of what splendid oysters we have
here — the best in the world — cheap as dirt — and lots
of fish in summer; fine roads and rides.

"I will tell you my counties, so you can see my
domain on the map. They are these: Matthews,
Gloucester, York, Warwick, Elizabeth City, Charles
City, James City, New Kent, and King William counties.

"General Howard told me it was the hardest position
to fill he had: there is such ill feeling between whites
and blacks, so many paupers, so much idleness, and
such an enormous population.

142 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"Shine, ye lucky stars!

"There is a beautiful sheet of water before the vil-
lage— the scene of the fight between the Merrimac
and the Monitor; the naval rendezvous of the war
and twice the base of operations of the Army of the
Potomac.

"The work is splendid, and if God leads me as He has
done, I shall have nothing to fear — all will be well.
" I am known as General Armstrong by everybody."

He wrote later in an official report concerning
his work at Hampton :

"Colored squatters by thousands and General Lee's
disbanded soldiers returning to their families came
together in my district on hundreds of 'abandoned'
farms which the Government had seized and allowed
the freedmen to occupy. There was irritation, but both
classes were ready to do the fair thing. It was about a
two years' task to settle matters by making terms
with the landowners, who employed many laborers
on their restored homes. Swarms went back to the
'old plantation' on passes, with thirty days' rations.

"Hardest of all was to settle the ration question;
about 2,000 having been fed for years were demoralized
and seemed hopeless. Notice was given that in three
months, on October i, 1866, all rations would be stopped
except to those in hospital, for whom full provision was
made. Trouble was expected, but there was not a
ripple of it or a complaint that day. Their resource
was surprising. The Negro in a tight place is a genius.

"In general," said he, "the whites were well disposed,
but inactive in suppressing any misconduct of the

The Freedmen's Bureau. J866-J872 143

lower class. Friendliness between the races was
general, broken only by political excitement, and was
due, I think, to the fact that they had been brought
up together, often in the most intimate way, from
childhood; a surprise to me, for on missionary ground
parents — with the spirit of martyrs — take every pains
to prevent contact of their children with the natives
around them.

"Martial law prevailed; there were no civil courts,
and for many months the bureau officer in each county
acted on all kinds of cases, gaining generally the confi-
dence of both races. When martial law was over and
the rest were everywhere discontinued, the military
court at Hampton was kept up by common consent for
about six months.

"Scattered families were reunited. From even
Louisiana — for the whole South was mapped out, each
county officered and as a rule wisely administered —
would come inquiries about the relatives and friends of
one who had been sold to traders years before, and great
justice and humanity were done in bringing together
broken households."

The Freedmen's Bureau was not the only agency
at work for the relief of the freedmen. Fourteen
different societies, distinct in operation though alike
in aim, had their agents at work in the South,
supplemented further by freedmen' s departments
in the northern churches and private charity
acting through various channels.

Wherever the Negroes were found there were
gathered together missionaries, lady teachers,
soldiers, and cooperating with all, supplementing

144 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

their work and yet in authority over them all,
the Freedmen's Bureau.

There was much room for individual action among
the agents of the bureau. It was General Howard's
policy to set forth clearly to his subordinates, by
means of frequent circular letters, the general
policy to be pursued, and then to leave to their
discretion the execution of details. Thus the bureau
offered much scope to a man of executive powers,
while demanding the exercise of constant tact and
originality.

There was opportunity for pleasure as well as
routine work in this life, and that of a sort that
suited Armstrong's tastes exactly. He owned a
boat and often made tours of several days, accom-
panied only by a Negro boy, perhaps camping at
night and living on salt pork and hard tack.* These
excursions were often of a business nature, for the
purpose of inspecting schools and the work of sub-

*From one of these tours he wrote home the following reflec-
tions on the political situation:

"Let me animadvert briefly on the political situation. Repub-
licans are increasing since the election of Grant, and several
southern gentlemen about here are much more radical than I.
'When the devil was sick the devil a monk would be; when
the devil was well the devil a monk was he.' Scores are get-
ting down off the fence and are rushing wildly to the Republi-
can lines and already begin to talk of what they have suffered
for their principles. I was buttonholed this evening by a
devoted radical lately converted, who has confidential talks
with darkies 'behind houses and around corners,' and was
bored with an address upon 'the party,' its principles and its
meanest men, swallowed without a gulp — without a wink.
There are good, noble dogs and ' yaller ' mean dogs. So there
are yellow dogs, humanely speaking, who roll over on their
backs figuratively and wag their tails at the rulers of the hour."

The Freedmen's Bureau. J866-J872 145

ordinates. He took other tours on horseback, and
while riding through the Virginia pine woods often
caught glimpses of Negro life and character, and
received impressions of the value of the obscure
work of faithful missionary teachers, who were
sources of true light to their flocks in the pine woods,
that proved of inestimable value to him in later life.
He had not been long at Hampton when a plan
which promised some relief for the immediate needs
of the freedmen suggested itself, and to many
ladies in the neighborhood of Boston he sent the
following circular letter, which contains his first
mention of plans for industrial education :

"BUREAU REFUGEES, FREEDMEN AND
ABANDONED LANDS,
"FORT MONROE, April 16, 1866.

" My Dear Madam: I beg leave to make a few state-
ments to you regarding the condition of the colored
people^in this place, in the hope that through your
injMence their destitution and suffering may be in some
way relieved.

"There are in this vicinity about 1,700 infirm or
helpless men, women and children drawing rations
from Government, most of whom, should this aid be
withdrawn, would suffer extremely.

"Yet nearly one-half of these are in this dependent
condition solely because there is nothing for them to
do and they cannot go where there is workj Most are
women who have from one to five children apiece.
They are generally able-bodied, apt to learn and anxious
to get employment.

"I have thought that many northern families might

146 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

be willing to take one of these women with one or two
children who are old enough not to be a great care to
the mother and are able to do something for them-
selves; especially in the country, the children might
make themselves very useful; they could be bound out
for a term of years and thus make a return for the
labor and expense of their bringing up.) Mothers will
not leave their children, and in fact, from local as
well as family ties, it is very difficult to persuade
these women to go North or elsewhere. Yet they seem
anxious to work, and I am confident that many valuable
servants can be obtained here. . . . Their future
is dark, for the bureau cannot last long, and then they
must choose between starvation and crime.

"Just now hundreds of able-bodied men are thrown
out of employment by the oyster law lately passed by
the Legislature. It requires taxes and bonds, which
not one oysterman in a hundred can comply with, and
the penalties of violation are very severe — they tax
them $6.20 per annum per man, who has also to give
a bond of $500. ... I should have mentioned that
few trained cooks or house-servants can be got — that
class fled with their owners, who abandoned their silver
but kept their domestics. Those for whom I plead are
mostly field hands, with but a smattering of culinary
training.

"I wish some society at the North would undertake
to find places for some of them, also for their children,
and then communicate with me.

"Many might prefer to employ men and boys. The
Negro is a hostler constitutionally; he rides and drives
by instinct. A large number of such could be furnished.

"The daytime of our labor for the freed people is
short. The North has not as yet done its full duty

The Ffeedmen's Bureau* J866-J872 147

in this matter. I will gladly cooperate with any who
are disposed to take hold of this, and in some way and
to some extent we can, if we will, rescue many from ills
that would surely come to them.

"There is another and most important field for
philanthropic effort. It is the building up of industrial
schools. In order to do this, a teacher should be sent
whose annual support comes to about $300. She should
be supplied with suitable goods to be made up into
clothing by the colored girls and women. These for
their work receive an allowance of clothes — the balance
is given to the destitute, or sold at a low rate to those
able to pay. In this way a useful art is taught (cutting
and making clothing), well-earned clothing is received,
the destitute are provided for and are allowed to buy
cheap and excellent garments.

"I consider this work of great importance, but it is
almost neglected. Can you not persuade friends to
send through the American Missionary Society of
New York two or three teachers? This society has
quarters and other comforts already provided, and
thus there is an economy in sending through it." *

The permanent and only solution of the difficul-
ties that surrounded the ex-slaves became daily
clearer to him. In an official report, dated June
30, 1866, speaking of the indignation felt by the
Negroes at being ejected from the lands they had
squatted upon, which were restoredf to their former
owners, he writes:

"The freedmen hardly yet comprehend the fact of

*As a result of this letter about i ,000 Negroes were actually
placed in families near Cambridge and Boston.

fBy act of Congress.

148 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

the restoration of lands, and cry out against the injustice
of it. They will not as a general rule be permitted
to remain, owing largely to their failure to pay rent.
. . . Their inability or refusal to pay is due to
improvidence, or carelessness, or poverty, or to their not
comprehending the fact of restoration. Their minds
are in much confusion, and many have been honest in
refusing to pay. Many who do not would pay rent if
they believed it right to do so. ... Freedmen as a
class are destitute of ambition; their complacency in
poverty and filth is a curse; discontent would lead to
determined effort and a better life. Many cling to
Hampton and stick to Virginia apparently to lay their
bones there when they have no more use for them.
' Born and bred here, bound to die here/ is often their
supremely stupid and pitiable answer when asked to
go elsewhere. Honest efforts on their behalf they
interpret into designs to reenslave them. No slave-
catcher was- ever looked upon with more horror than the
clerk who recently sought orphans for the farm-school
at Washington. . . . These wild notions are the
result of ignorance, to which is mainly due the troubles
of the race.

"The education of the freedmen is the great work of
the day; it is their only hope, the only power that can
lift them up as a people, and I think every encourage-
ment should be given to schools established for their
benefit."

His thoughts were the more readily directed
toward education for the freedmen because his
especial work, that to which General Howard had
particularly assigned him, was the study of exist-
ing the limited educational opportunities and

The Freedmen's Bureau, J866-J872 149

observing and reporting concerning the need for
others.*

There were already many thriving little schools
in his district. Here and there among the pine
woods or sandy reaches stood log cabins, whither
night after night patient Aunt Dinahs and Uncle
Toms, after laboring all day long, went to pore over
spelling book and arithmetic; or perhaps some
more pretentious building supported by the Ameri-
can Missionary Association, where bright little
colored children took their first steps in learning.

The zeal of the ex-slaves for learning was one of
the phenomena of the decade following the war,
and was one of the tendencies least understood by
their northern friends. It was thought to indicate a
well-considered wish on their part to supply their
own mental deficiencies, while in reality it in general
merely indicated the imitative faculty which led
them to do those things which they had seen done

*He was required by his position as Superintendent of Schools
to state the location of all those within his district, the names
of teachers employed in them, the number of pupils in each,
the name of the owner of the school-building, and of the educa-

tional society by which it was supported. He was further
required to make original investigations tending to the estab-
lishment of schools under the direct auspices of the Freedmen's
Bureau, noting property especially adapted to school use in
present or future (in his reports on this matter he saw to it
that the Wood farm, where the Hampton Institute was
afterward situated, always went to Washington with the endorse-
ment, "Advisable to hold"), and to report what local sentiment
existed for or against the education of the freedmen. With a
characteristic tendency to state the best side of a subject, he-i
writes that there is in some counties "a growing sentiment in 1
favor of the freedmen's education," and an increasing degree of !
safety for Negro school-houses and teachers, especially for those \
of the colored race who seemed to escape the general prejudice
against teachers of freedmen.

150 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

by their former masters, or perhaps a craving for a
hitherto contraband knowledge, though without any
sufficient understanding of the nature of it. Many
sensible people believed that though the Negroes
might have made or might be making political
mistakes, they yet realized their own ignorance and
inexperience and planned for the overcoming of
these faults. It was thought that as material aid
seemed to be their greatest present necessity, so
education defined as the acquiring of information
was their chief future need; those who believed in
them were ready to advocate university training
for them, while the skeptical avowed that any
education was too good for a " nigger. " So, in spite
of general interest in their mental needs, it came
about that their economic and moral faults were in
large measure overlooked; and the realization that
thrift, energy and high moral standards were of
necessity lacking in this lately enslaved race did
not force itself upon most of their northern friends.
But among those who came closely in contact
with the Negroes were a few who grasped the fact
that more important to their present or to their
future than charitable relief, or even than educa-
tion as commonly understood, was training in
common morality and habits of industry and fore-
sight. As General Armstrong said :

"The North generally thinks that the great thing
is to free the Negro from his former owners; the real
thing is to save him from himself. 'Gumption,' per-

The Freedmen's Bureau* J866-J872 151

ception, guiding instincts rather than a capacity to
learn, are the advantages of our more favored race."

He knew of the slave both what the slave-
holder knew — that to put a veneer of learning on the
plantation Negro would be dangerous nonsense — and
what the northern friends of the Negro knew — that
as a human being he deserved a fair chance in life.
He saw that between the university and no school
there was a middle course in which lay the hope
of the race.

This clear vision was no doubt due to his early
training and observation and to a still persisting
sense of aloofness not yet wholly swallowed up in
the sense of citizenship in the United States. This
feeling of separateness saved him not only from the
errors of the partisan, but also from many petty local
annoyances to which he might often have been
subjected as agent of the Freedmen's Bureau.
The Southerners could respect, if they could not
love, an official with semi-foreign antecedents, and
he was never troubled by the intense and burning
local antagonism to his work which made the
situation of many of his fellow-workers almost
intolerable.

He believed in the Freedmen's Bureau; he was
thoroughly loyal to it and to the scheme of recon-
struction of which it was a part.

"I believe the continuance of the bureau desirable,"
he writes officially. "It is a moral power that is

152 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

greatly felt ; it prevents more than it forcibly suppresses.
The freedmen stretch out their arms to the Government
not for ' bread and homes' (as has been said), but for
help and justice; without the bureau they will receive
neither. Every material hope held out by the Govern-
ment has failed them; they are not what and where
they expected to be; they did not fight for this. The
bureau is their last hope; were they anything better
than suppliants for what mercy they can get they would
demand its continuance. For this they universally
and earnestly petition."

And again, relative to the whole subject of recon-
struction, he writes in a private letter:

"I am delighted with the new reconstruction bill.
It is based on justice and truth. I am satisfied that
Negro suffrage, if allowed, will become a fact without
trouble or noise, and it's coming soon."

These two years of work for the Freedmen' s
Bureau were difficult and uncertain. In doubt as to
its continuance and as yet with no other means of
livelihood at hand, Armstrong half expected to be
turned adrift as he had been at the close of the
war. But his determination, as he wrote at this
time, was firm to "stick to the darkies while there
is anything to be done for them."

By 1869 the Freedmen's Bureau began to show
signs of dissolution. Its courts were mercilessly
criticized and at last pronounced unconstitutional.
An outcry from all parts of the South arose against
its authority. The North had to confess that the

The Freedmen's Bureau. J866-J872 153

Negro had not made such progress in moral and
material conditions as had been expected, and
since such improvement was the only excuse for
the continuance of the extraordinary powers of
the bureau its work came to an end.

But its educational department, which had
justified itself by careful and successful work among
the freedmen, was continued until 1872, when it,
too, was brought to a close. Armstrong worked
with this department till the end, carrying it on
side by side with other and new activities.

The brief time which Armstrong actually passed
in the service of the Freedmen's Bureau is more
important to the story of his life by reason of its
suggestions of his future work and character than
any other equally short space of time. He entered
upon it heart-free, care-free, with good spirits oozing
from every pore, expressing himself in his private
life by joyous hyperbole and unbounded delight in
practical jokes, and after passing through a restless
transitional period fell in love, found his life-work,
and emerged from it a man sobered and settled,
full-grown in his mental and moral powers. Of
these brief pregnant years he left in his personal
letters slight record, though official writings
abound, and one must mainly glean from his
outer activities what his inner life must have been.

CHAPTER VI
THE BEGINNINGS OF HAMPTON

GENERAL ARMSTRONG had not been at Hampton
more than a twelvemonth before there began to
grow in his mind thoughts of an educational insti-
tution for the Negroes different from any he saw
there, and adapted especially to the needs of the
ex-slaves. Such thoughts had long been present
in his dreams ; he used to relate in after years how,
lying on the deck of the transport-ship that was
conveying him and his troops to Texas, he saw, as
it were in a dream, the Hampton school, completed
and much as it later actually became; twice again
had come this vision of future achievement, so
that he rather decided upon Hampton as a site for
such an institution than conceived now for the first
time the idea of it.

The peninsula of Old Point was indeed a most
favorable situation, both historically and geo-
graphically. He wrote later:

"Close at hand the pioneer settlers of America and
the first slaves landed on this continent — here Powhatan
reigned; here the Indian was first met; here the first
Indian child was baptized ; here freedom was first given
to the slave by General Butler's famous contraband

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG AT THE AGE OF 28

The Beginnings of Hampton 155

order; in sight of this shore the battle of the Monitor
saved the Union and revolutionized naval warfare ; here
General Grant based the operations of his final cam-
paign. The place was easily accessible by railroad
routes to the North and to a population of 2,000,000 of
Negroes, the center of great prospective development,
and withal a place most healthful and beautiful in
situation."

As he meditated upon the development of the
plan, the Hilo Manual Labor School for Native
Hawaiians,* which he had observed in his boyhood,
often occurred to his mind as an example of success-
ful industrial education for an undeveloped race,
and he remembered that it turned out men "less
brilliant than the advanced schools, but more
solid." But he saw that the cases of the Hawaiian
and the Negro, though similar, were not parallel,
and their needs not identical. There was a small
and decadent people : here a large and rapidly grow-
ing one, and a people related in a peculiar way to
their neighbors, free from the responsibilities of
property, yet holding in many places at least
potential political power.

Soon after the war, when the southern States
made grants of money sufficient to provide a sort
of schooling for blacks and whites separately,

* The Hilo school was a boarding-school for Hawaiian boys,
who paid their expenses by working in carpentry, housework,

fardening, etc., in which they received some slight instruction,
t was the only school where the Hawaiians were expected to
work with hands as well as heads, and was a marked success.
The school still exists.

156 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

white teachers from the North took up the work
of instructing the Negroes; but their efforts were
regarded with disfavor by their southern white
neighbors, and they were gradually replaced by
Negro teachers, who, as has been said, met with less
opposition or were even welcomed.

In Virginia, where the school grants were un-
usually prompt and large, there was naturally a
great and growing demand for young colored
people able to teach their race, but for several
years this demand met with very inadequate
response.

General Armstrong saw this need and set about
to supply the public schools of Virginia and the
South with teachers — with teachers who should be
leaders of their people toward better moral and
physical as well as mental habits.

From the first he viewed labor in this institution
as a triple force:

(1) In its moral aspect; strengthening the will and
thus inculcating a sense of self-reliance and inde-
pendence, relieving labor from the odium which
slavery had cast upon it in the minds of the
Negroes, keeping strongly sensual temperaments
out of mischief, and giving habits of regularity.
" It will make them men and women as nothing else
will; it is the only way in which to make them
good Christians," he said.

(2) As a means whereby the pupils might earn
the education that should fit them to be teachers

The Beginnings of Hampton 157

and leaders and earn it so far as possible by their
own work.

(3) As a means whereby the student might learn
while in the school how to support himself after
graduation by the work of his hands as well as by
his brains, thus affording an example of industry
to his people.

To quote from a later writing of his own:

"The thing to be done was clear: to train selected
Negro youths who should go out and teach and lead
their people, first by example, by getting land and
homes; to give them not a dollar that they could earn
for themselves; to teach respect for labor, to replace
stupid drudgery with skilled hands, and to those ends
to build up an industrial system for the sake not only
of self-support and intelligent labor, but also for the
sake of character."

The idea of combining mental and manual train-
ing is to-day made so familiar by a public school
system where they are given more and more in
conjunction, by the great endowed and the public
technical schools, and by a system of State agri-
cultural colleges extending throughout the Union,
that the fact* of its novelty thirty- two years ago
seems strange. But the public mind was not only
ignorant of the wise application of the theory, but
prejudiced against any trial of it. A certain
method of mingling mental and manual work had
been, indeed, widely practised, and its results were
well known. For some years before Hampton began,

158 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

many institutions, among them Mt. Holyoke Sem-
inary for women, Wellesley College, and Oberlin
College for both sexes, had required the students
to do a certain amount of labor, supposing that
their work would help pay the expenses of the
institutions. One by one these institutions gave
up the experiment, as the pupils, in many cases
young girls unused to manual work, under the
strain of combined labor and study so often gave
out that public opinion would not allow the contin-
uance of the system. Oberlin College (Ohio) was
the most prominent example of this, which may
be called the "old-fashioned" type of manual-
labor schools. Already in 1868 its experiment
had failed as a financial venture and had fallen
short of the moral results which were hoped for from
it. Armstrong knew the work of these schools
and the judgment that had been passed on them
by public opinion. He saw that the difficulties of
combining mental and manual work were both
financial and physical; at Oberlin the farmers com-
plained that the students' hearts were in their
books, while the teachers lamented that the stu-
dents were too tired to study; no effective farm-
work could be done with such half-hearted labor,
while few pupils could with equal zeal study and
toil with their hands. He saw that the Negro,
inured to toil, tough in physical fiber, and without
the highly developed American nervous system,
could undertake a daily routine that would kill a

The Beginnings of Hampton 159

New England girl ; he thought, too, that by a certain
skilful arrangement of work and study he could
avoid the failure of either farm or book work. As
the bulk of the Negroes were unfit for any form of
industrial work other than farming, they must be
placed in a school on a farm where they could plow
and plant as they were used to doing. So he planned
and thought as he worked in his office or rode on
horseback over the sandy roads of his little king-
dom during the first year of his stay at Hampton.

In the early part of the year 1867 he wrote to
the American Missionary Association, as the greatest
financial power interested in Negro education,
suggesting that this was the spot for a "permanent
and great educational work," and recommending
that a valuable estate — "Little Scotland" — com-
prising 159 acres, fronting on Hampton River and
now come on the market, be purchased. The asso-
ciation promptly and cheerfully acceded to his
request, and it was decided that a school should be
placed there under the auspices of the American
Missionary Association.

"Not expeq^ing to have charge, but only to help, I
was surprised one day," wrote Armstrong, "to receive
a letter from Secretary E. P. Smith, of the American
Missionary Association, stating that the man selected
for the place had declined and asking if I would take it.
I replied, 'Yes.' Till then my future had been blind;
it had only been clear that there was a work to be done
for the ex-slave and where and how to do it."

160 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Used to planning far in advance of the present,
his brain was already actively devising ways in
which money to pay for buildings and improve-
ments could be procured. He felt sure that the
people of the North would support a wise work
for the freedmen; that the American Missionary
Association would help him; and that the Freed-
men's Bureau, through General Howard, would
contribute something from its building fund. He
thought, too, that the farm, by raising vegetables
for the northern market, would be a source of
profit and furnish, besides, almost all the supplies
that would be necessary for the school.

These problems of support were still for the
future; for the present the full purchase money for
the Wood farm — " Little Scotland" — was not yet
forthcoming. The American Missionary Associa-
tion had indeed authorized its purchase, but were
not prepared to pay the whole sum, $19,000, and
relied on the young man at whose word the purchase
was made to help them in raising it. While the
matter was thus hanging in the air, a gentleman
from Pittsburg, Honorable Josiah King, execu-
tor of the A very estate, which included a legacy of
$250,000 for Negro education, at the suggestion
of the association paid a visit to Hampton. He
was taken to a high building in the vicinity, was
struck with the adaptability of the neighborhood
to institutional purposes, and shortly paid, through
the American Missionary Association, the $10,000

The Beginnings of Hampton 161

which was still needed. To this visit of Mr. King
Armstrong referred in later years as the first step
toward the foundation of the Hampton Institute.

The estate just purchased included two good
brick buildings on the water-front, the mansion
house, where Armstrong had lived since his coming
to Hampton, and the flour mill of the plantation,
occupied since the war by Negro families. There
was upon the estate, back from the water's edge, a
great triangular hospital building, formerly a United
States hospital, including eight or ten acres of
ground within its walls. To the right of the mansion
house stretched a salt marsh, ending in a small
tidal river and bounded by a sandy knoll on the
water-front. Back from the water the bulk of the
estate stretched in sandy level, its monotony
varied by a few lanes of Negro quarters, dotted
with hospital barracks, new and old (one dating
even from the Revolutionary War), and bounded
on the right by a national cemetery where 6,000
troops were buried. The site had many advan-
tages: the two solid buildings offered housing for
classes and teachers, the barracks afforded material
that could be used again in construction, and the
Hampton River, easily navigable to this point,
flowed past the grounds and gave good drainage.

After the purchase of a farm to provide supplies
and give opportunity for student labor, the next
step was to provide housing for the future pupils,
and on October i, 1867, ground was broken for

1 62 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

the first temporary buildings of the Hampton
Institute. The American Missionary Association
sent two carpenters to put up some cheap wooden
structures, the material to be taken from the old
hospital barracks.

Mr. Albert Howe, who was in charge of the con-
struction, writes:

" After some difficulties we put two wards together,
making a long one-story building, 250 feet long, with
belfry in the middle; next to it a small kitchen, where
'Uncle Tom' cooked for the school. . . . Once
General Armstrong, pointing to a knoll (or bluff)
where Academic Hall now stands, said: 'That's just
the place for an academic building; don't take too much
pains with these barracks; three years will demonstrate
whether we can make teachers out of these colored
people; then we shall make some substantial, lasting
buildings. That will be the spot for the Academic
Hall, and just here a building for girls and a general
dining-room — we'll call it Virginia Hall.' He gave
them the very names they bear now. Then he pointed
out sites for boys' cottages — all just as you see it now.
I sat on a log and looked at him — I thought he was a
visionary — it all came to pass."

As early as 1867 Armstrong foresaw the coming
need of friends in the North and, granted a brief
leave of absence, took several trips thither, quietly
getting himself introduced to a few influential people
here and there. His work for the Negroes on the
peninsula was not unknown, and his project of
starting a normal school to train colored teachers

The Beginnings of Hampton 163

aroused interest wherever it was heard of. In a
letter to his mother he thus describes one of these
early trips:

"I can't complain of not being appreciated in this
country. I wish you could read the warm, friendly
words before me of Miss Anna Lowell, sister of the noble
General Charles Lowell, who fell in the Shenandoah.
We have been many months working together and a
true friendship has sprung up — or see the splendid
Woolsey family of New York, who have been so kind
to me. They are full of interest in my work, are helping
me much, and they have a fine army record. Then, if
I am not bragging too much, the Emersons of Concord
and Higginsons of Cambridge seem to remember me
kindly. . . . But enough to show you that I am
well guarded, heartily encouraged, most kindly treated,
extravagantly complimented, and am now prospering
finely with my normal school.

"This being in the world is everything; it gives a
man manner, and as Emerson says most truly, ' Manner
is power.' My experience shows that in the quickness
of modern life is the necessity of instant action in many
cases. 'The first step counts,' and the success of the
first step depends on how it is done; that is often well
or ill, according to manner. The first thing is to be
right and true. The second thing is to be transparent,
so that the right and true in one shall shine out; but
that is manner, and can only be reached by the highest
culture."

A flattering offer was made to him in the fall of
1867, which he describes in the same letter:

"But I must tell you about my visit to Washington.

164 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Some days ago I received a telegram from General
Howard to report in person to him at once. Ignorant
of his intention, I proceeded without delay to his head-
quarters. It seems he wished me to take charge of the
Howard University at Washington — his pet enterprise.
There are sixty acres of land, splendidly located, with
a commanding view, and two large buildings of artificial
stone going up, one for the students' rooms and one
for recitation, lecture, library, etc. They will look
splendidly. Close by is General Howard's new home.
The locality will be the most stylish in the city. The
university is intended to be central for (especially,
though not solely) the colored youth of the country;
to be, if Howard has his way, the largest educational
enterprise of its kind (i.e., for freedmen) in the land.
At present and for a few years the labor will be all
preparatory, as the freed children are not at all advanced.
I was desired and very urgently and persistently asked
to take hold of this institution, become its head, and
make out of it what is possible. I met the trustees
twice, looked over the whole ground carefully, and
refused for two reasons. First, I was in honor bound
to the American Missionary Association that had so
warmly supported me here and carried out all my
plans. Secondly, I consider that my own enterprise
here has better possibilities (is more central with refer-
ence to freedmen and has important advantages).
„ . . Howard is one of the noblest, bravest and
kindest of men. He has used me remarkably well."

The letter continues:

"After refusing General Howard's offer, I took care to
urge my own scheme; returning through Richmond, had
an interview with General Brown, who has given up his

The Beginnings of Hampton 165

York River affair, has come over to my side and is
going to help my institution. We are ahead and alone.
The ground is new. The enterprise is as full of bad
possibilities as of good ones; most embarrassing condi-
tions will occur from time to time; all is experiment, but
all is hopeful. The success of this will be the guarantee
of a dozen more like it in the South. I have to face
the fact that a manual-labor school never yet succeeded
in the North, but the powers of prayer and faith are
strong — in these we will conquer.

"I am in the midst of the battle now. Worked very
hard. Just about to open. Applicants are coming
forward encouragingly. Truly the pillar of cloud is
before us. Every serious difficulty seems to be removed.
What can resist the pressure of steady, energetic
pressure, the force of a single right idea pushed month
after month in its natural development ? If I succeed
it will be because of carefully selecting a thing to do
and the doing of it. Few men comprehend the deep
philosophy of one-man power. As a soldier I would
always fight on the principle of all great warriors,
'concentration and celerity.' As an educator, as any-
thing, I would apply that same always sound principle,
adding to it with reference to enemies or any other
obstacle, 'Divide and be conquered.'"

The new school was to open with the spring of
1868, and Armstrong looked forward cheerfully to its
financial prospects. General Howard was executing
a skilful flank movement in his dealings with Con-
gress for the purpose of adding to the construction
fund of the Freedmen's Bureau, which he describes
as follows:

1 66 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"In Washington there was a great population of
colored refugees — contrabands, as they were called.
They had flocked there as to the source of light and
love. They were in a deplorable condition, with almost
nothing to eat or wear. Congress gave them soup, now
and then clothing. It was a great question what to do
with them or for them. I thought it would be best
to transport every able-bodied man and woman to some
place where they could get labor. I sent off 10,000
from Washington alone.

" Now, though the idea of education or any legislation
or work to elevate them did not commend itself to
Congress or find any favor, the idea of transporting
was immensely popular at once. * Transportation !
Transportation! That's the idea; transport them, of
course, anywhere. If to Africa, so much the better.'
So then I got large appropriations for that purpose
repeatedly, as often as I asked for them, without any
trouble, much more than I asked. But a great many
were glad to go and pay their own way in part. So I
reduced the population sufficiently without the least
trouble, and when it was done there remained a very
large surplus from the appropriations. I simply asked
Congress that I might transfer what funds were left to
educational purposes, and the request was granted
without much thought of what they were doing. So
Hampton got its plum and all the other institutions
were started, all as the result of that quiet flanking
operation." *

Out of this fund Armstrong expected a grant
of $20,000.

As the year 1868 opened he hastened his efforts

*In an address delivered at Hampton Institute in 1889.

The Beginnings of Hampton 167

to be ready for pupils in April. The one-story bar-
rack, built of old lumber, was completed, the flour
mill repaired, and crops planted to mature in June
in time for shipment to the northern market.

On April i, 1868, school was opened with an
attendance of fifteen pupils and a teacher and a
matron, both employed by the American Mission-
ary Association. A few days after the opening
of school, April 5th, he wrote to his mother:

"Things here look well. My machine has just
commenced to run. The anxiety and patient effort it
has cost are great, but I am now satisfied with it all.
. . . The buildings I have erected and repaired are
insured for $15,000, less than their real value."

By April 26th there were thirty pupils in the
school, doing manual work in the morning and
studying in the afternoons and evenings. The boys
worked on the farm, the girls at housework; three
girls supported themselves by working at a trade
learned before coming. The pupils worked in
squads, one squad working two days in the week
and studying the other four; they were paid for
their work, not in cash, but in credit on the books of
the school. Armstrong hoped by this plan to obtain
sets of men who should be steadily employed at
labor and study for regular alternate periods, so
that study should not suffer from daily interrup-
tion as it did at Oberlin, where part of every day
was spent on the farm, and farm work should not

1 68 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

suffer from having laborers whose minds were bent
on their books. Students were paid a wage, "up
to the point of encouragement," as he said, of 8 cents
per hour; whereas at Oberlin only 4 to 7 cents for
men and 3 to 4 cents for women was paid. Board
was $10 a month, of which half, or in case
of extreme want the whole, could be worked out.
Those who worked out the entire sum were allowed
to attend school at night, thus fitting themselves
mentally at the same time as financially to enter the
day school later. If a student wished to earn his
way by working at some industry other than
what was provided by the school, he was allowed
to do so. No student was expected to pay for his
tuition, a burden which would have been too great
for any Negro to carry in those early times. The
expense of tuition, estimated at $70 a year, was
borne by the management.

With all the care and time incidental to getting
this organization in running order, Armstrong was
still called on to perform his duties as Freedmen's
Bureau agent, for the summer of 1868 was not yet
over. In fact, had it not been for the salary
received from the Bureau until 1872 he could
not have carried on the work of starting Hampton
at all through these unsettled years, for he did not
take even the salary allowed him out of the school
funds, saying:

"Some of my friends don't like this, but they little
know the way of successful leadership. The rebel offi-

The Beginnings of Hampton 169

cers fought without pay, and why should not I in a ten
times better cause? ... I have so far had every-
thing needed for personal comfort, yes, a jolly good time
on the whole, with an occasional grind and sometimes
an impecunious sensation."

In June, 1878, he wrote:

"However it [the bureau] goes, I am too firmly
anchored here to be moved or greatly disappointed by
its failure. The chances are that my life-work is here,
and I shall not regret it."

He continues:

" It is now spring harvest, and we shall gather $2,000
worth of vegetables which the students have raised.
They will be sold in New York and Baltimore. Just
sold a pea crop for $900 — half of it clear profit."

The establishment of a profitable vegetable farm
seems to have been regarded by Armstrong in a
double light.

"It is my intention," he wrote, "to wait till another
year's results are in and when, if successful, I shall have
mastered a highly profitable business, will know all
about it, and of course be able to do a second time what
I have done once. In that case I shall make an effort
to buy and establish a 'truck' farm of my own, thus
having something to fall back upon and also being
known as a landowner, which will make my position
socially far more pleasant and dignified and my political
chances greatly improved. Nothing is so bad for one
in political life as to be dependent entirely upon his

17° Samuel Chapman Armstrong

office. His opponents know it is his weak point and
consequently fling his poverty in the faces of his friends,
and his friends are apt to exact all sorts of things from
him because he is dependent upon their favor. Here
in the South, where nearly all northern men are poor,
it is a powerful thing, a great foothold, to be supposed
even to be worth something."

During the summer of 1868 he made another
northern trip by special order of General Howard,
in order to visit the agricultural and normal schools
of the North. Since his last trip his position had
become more assured, and he was recognized as an
official representative of the educational work
done by the Freedmen's Bureau and by the Ameri-
can Missionary Association.

He felt while on this trip how dear to him the
work at Hampton was becoming, full of perplexity
though it often was. He writes from Boston :

"I have been over the 'Athens ' but wouldn't live
here for anything. I am glad I'm on the outposts doing
frontier duty and pioneer work, for the South is a
heathen land and Hampton is on the borders thereof.
I see my whole nature calls me to the work that is done
there — to lay foundations strong and not do frescoes
and fancy work."

The fall term opened prosperously. A few days
after its beginning he wrote:

"This is no easy machine to run wisely, rightly.
The darkies are so full of human nature and have to

The Beginnings of Hampton 171

be most carefully watched over. They are apt to be
possessed with strange notions. To simply control
them is one thing, but to educate, to draw them out, to
develop the germ of good possibilities into firm fruition,
requires the utmost care. Eternal vigilance will be the
price of success. A very good and noble lady, Mrs.
Griggs, of New York, has just given $1,000 to the
Institute. Work is going ahead. I have just secured
for our farm work an old hospital worth several hundred
dollars. ... I am driving things ahead as fast as
possible and hope with a well-appointed farm next
year to make good profits. I have just been refitting
our home.* This house is a brick thing, rather ungainly
from the exterior, but within it is quite pleasant and
comfortable since the repairs. Outside there is a wide
piazza, about fourteen feet wide and forty feet long,
from which there is a pleasant view and where it is
pleasant to promenade."

The late fall and early winter were spent in the
search for a farmer who should be scientific enough
to command respect and practical enough to make
the farm profitable. The farm was at that time
considered the most completely appointed in the
State, and Armstrong was ambitious to make it the
best and most scientifically managed in the South.
He looked as far north as New Jersey for his man,
writing :

"This is an anxious sort of a trip for me, because so
much — our whole financial success — depends on my
choice of the right man. I only now begin to compre-

*Referring to the old mansion house, where he lived and
which he expected to make his permanent home.

172 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

hend the difficulty of getting the right men for this
work. I see why most institutions and enterprises
fail. There are lots of men, but few who are good for
anything. Many men can talk, can shine — few can do
things."

He succeeded in finding the right man, who abso-
lutely refused his offer, but eventually came to
Hampton — a change of heart not at all uncommon
under Armstrong's magnetic determination to win
his chosen assistants.

The year 1869 proved to be a most eventful
one. Armstrong had determined on the erection
of an expensive and elaborate brick building for
the class work at Hampton, to be called Academic
Hall. He received from General Howard, as he
had hoped, the sum of $20,000 toward it, and in
order that the structure might be a tasteful one
secured the services of Richard M. Hunt as archi-
tect. The bricks were to be made on the grounds,
an industry which was soon in full operation, the
students making several thousand bricks a day.
He told the American Missionary Association that
he would not depend on them for a cent of the
money for its erection, and looked forward to a
struggle to raise the $13,000 which, with the $20,000
already secured, would, he thought, cover the cost.

September 2oth he wrote:

"This has been an interesting day. The mason from
New York has come and there is the bustle of prepara-

The Beginnings of Hampton 173

tion. To-morrow the first bricks are to be laid. Between
them and the last — between the first stroke of the
mason's trowel and the last — what a world of anxiety
and labor there will be ! The erecting of this building
is the most responsible and conspicuous and fateful
single executive act of my life. The failure of it would
be a crushing blow to body and mind. I could not
bear failure. The success of it will be only an inspiration
to other fields of effort, in what directions I cannot tell,
but they will be opened when it is time to enter them.
To-day two more masons went to work and there are
now twelve of them laying bricks. We put up about
20,000 bricks a day. Truly they say the building
ground is a busy place. I only pay $3 a day, and,
what is unknown in this country, I pay white and black
just the same when the work is the same. It pleases
the darkies, but the white masons don't like it much.
They have an idea that the institute is rich and think
it hard if we don't give them more than anybody else.
I have to be supremely indifferent and tell them to go
wherever I like, though I should hate to have them
leave. Half colored and half white is the character
of my gang; they get along in millennial peace. Backy*
and I rather enjoy the plotting of these fellows; they
can't get very far ahead of us.

"Two hundred and fifty barrels of cement arrived
from New York this morning and had to be unloaded
at our wharf. What a singular providence it is that
we have here everything we need ! This wharf, that
is of such service and economy to us, was built
just at the close of the war for the purpose of
landing wounded soldiers more conveniently and
comfortably, but was never quite completed. It is
just what we want."

*His brother Baxter.

174 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

An incident in connection with the erection of
Academic Hall is recorded by Doctor Strieby, the
senior secretary of the American Missionary Asso-
ciation. He and several other men of influence
and character, among them Doctor Mark Hopkins,
the venerable president of Williams College, and
General Garfield, were invited to visit Hampton in
July, 1869, to consult with General Armstrong
about his plans and about the situation of the
new building. Most of them thought that the pur-
chase of the Chesapeake Female Seminary (now the
main building of the Veterans' Home at Hampton),
would be wiser than the erection of a new building,
with all the risks involved. Armstrong, however,
opposed this plan strongly, fearing the traces of
disease that might linger in the building as a heritage
from its use as a hospital in war time, and perceiv-
ing that the level flats stretching along its water-
front would make drainage difficult and expensive.

"We all met on the veranda of the General's house,"
says Doctor Strieby. "We looked the matter over.
I said, 'That is the thing to do — to buy the seminary
building.' General Armstrong was inflexibly opposed
to it (for one reason that it would prevent the erection of
a more suitable and lasting building) . At last President
Mark Hopkins took me to one side and said, 'We had
better let this young man have his way.' And we did."

So the building was placed where Armstrong
had determined, some two years before, that it

The Beginnings of Hampton 175

should be placed, and by the commencement of
the fall term of 1870 was in order for use.

The letters to his mother grew briefer and less
frequent from this time, the beginning of his active
work at Hampton ; but letters to a new correspond-
ent give for a time in equal detail his thoughts
and hopes for his work. The recipient of these
confidences was Miss Emma Dean Walker, of Stock-
bridge, Massachusetts, to whom he was married in
October, 1869. Hereafter for their married life of nine
years the deepest expressions of thought and feeling
are to be found in his letters to her.

Emma Walker was a young girl of rare charm
of person and character, and brought to her new
home at Hampton a spirit of devotion to her
husband's ideals which was of inestimable delight
to him. A frail physique prevented active service
on her part, and they were constantly separated,
both by the needs of the Hampton school for
money and by her own wanderings in search
of health. But in spite of drawbacks the
married life of these two, united by a singu-
larly close devotion to each other and to high
ideals of unselfish living, was full of sympathy
and joy.

Having now a home and family, Armstrong's
thoughts turned longingly sometimes toward the
possibility of securing a more fixed income and
position. He considered running for Congress, but
soon gave up definitely and permanently ideas of

176 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

a political advancement, writing to his mother as
follows :

"I have concluded to give up all Congressional plans
and to stick to my work here. This is not because my
political chances are not good. They are, I suppose,
excellent; but I like less and less this breaking off one
thing and going into another, and besides the tendencies
and dangers of politics I greatly fear. I am more and
more disgusted with all kinds of public life. There's
more worry and bother about it than the positions are
worth. It has ceased to attract."

He applied during the fall for the position of
State assessor of taxes, to which a good salary was
attached, but failed to get it. The conclusion must
have forced itself upon him that the work he had
chosen was his for better or worse, and was, more-
over, a jealous mistress, to be cherished to the
exclusion of all other interests.

The final step in the beginnings of Hampton,
and one which marked the opening of a new period
in its development, was an act passed by the General
Assembly of Virginia June 4, 1870, incorporating
the "Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute,
for the instruction of youth in the various common
schools, academic and industrial branches, the
best methods of teaching same and best mode of
practical industry in its application to agricul-
ture and the mechanic arts."

The breadth of scope shown by this charter,
including every race, industry and method, indi-

The Beginnings of Hampton 177

cates clearly that the founder realized the possibil-
ities of his school and wished to hamper its future
by no limitations. But the school was not incor-
porated by the Virginia Legislature without con-
siderable discussion, and many were the busy days
passed by Armstrong that spring of 1870 in the hot
Richmond lobbies, using his persuasive powers on
the conservative ex-Confederates. It is greatly to
the credit of his eloquence, and a tribute also to
their real liberality, that they should have passed
such an act at a time when hot passions still seethed
about every southern legislative hall.

April 30, 1870, he wrote to his friend and adviser,
General J. F. B. Marshall, who soon became treas-
urer of the Hampton school:

"Our act has not yet passed the House. There has
been trouble in the matter of making 'no distinction of
color.' The conservatives are opposed to such a
liberal basis. They will consent to incorporate 'with-
out distinction of color' only on the ground that a
large portion of the money already granted to this in-
titute has been given on express condition that all
should be admitted without distinction of color. I
have been compelled to obtain papers to prove this fact
— have just done so, and probably we'll be all right
shortly."

It was an early dream of his, never realized
except in the case of one struggling family of poor
whites to whom he gave shelter and a job, that he
could directly help the whites of the South by giving

178 Samuel Chapman Armstrong1

them an industrial education at Hampton. He
foresaw the coming lack among them of skilled
labor, saying mournfully, "The whites have no
apprentices!" and sincerely wished to aid them
in their economic distress.

PART II

ACCOMPLISHMENT

GENERAL ARMSTRONG— 1880

CHAPTER VII
AT HAMPTON. 1870-1890

THE story of the ensuing twenty years, 1870-1890,
is a story of struggle for the existence and growth
of the Hampton school. Of this period there is
little to be learned from Armstrong's personal
letters; his extended activity left him no time for
the leisurely letter writing of earlier years. In
formal reports and public speeches, and in a few
letters that touch slightly on the current events of
his life, are to be found indications of his point of
view on various matters ; but of the story of his life
as told in his own words there is no record. One
must look rather at the record of the development
of Hampton school — study the spirit that formed
it or trace in the North the creation of a public
sentiment in favor of Negro industrial education,
and try to re-create from the memories of friends
the personality that, more than all his eloquence,
won him a hearing in the busy northern world.

The spirit of school life at Hampton is expressed
in a few words which he spoke in 1891 at an anni-
versary of his old school in the Hawaiian Islands :

"It remains to make the best of things. Those who
181

1 82 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

are hopeless disarm themselves, and may as well go to
the rear; men and women of faith, optimists, to the
front. This is the Christian era. 'In hoc signo vinces*
is the motto of the faithful; they are not afraid. But
mere optimism is stupid; sanctified common sense is
the force that counts. Work for God and man is full
of detail. It needs organization, requires subordination,
sometimes painful holding of the tongue; gabble and
gossip, even that of the pious, is one of the most fatal
devices of the evil one; the friction and fuss in God's
army does much to defeat it. Many people are good,
but good for nothing. Working together is as im-
portant as working at all."

The fact that General Armstrong incorporated
his first annual report to the trustees in a report of
twenty years later, with the comment that he would
hardly change a word of it for present or future
use, is significant. Many men start with a concep-
tion of their work which is modified by circum-
stances and experience; but Armstrong adhered
to the same plan for the entire length of his active
life, and his reports and letters might, but for the
record of events of the year — this building com-
pleted, that needed — be interchanged, putting the
first last and the last first. So, too, his views on
Negro affairs, once stated, remain unchanged, for
it could be said of the Negro throughout this period
that "in spite of material and intellectual advances,
his deficiencies of character are worse for him and
for the world than his mere ignorance." *

* First annual report to trustees, 1870.

At Hampton. J870-J890 183

Most of the students at Hampton for this term of
years came from working people who were more
ambitious for their children than for themselves.
Although many of these young men and women
were born after slavery was past, their traditions
were of slavery; and while they were well meaning
and prepared to work if they had to, and while
they practised the forms of Christianity, they
possessed but little comprehension of the real
teachings of Christ, and were ignorant alike of the
care of body and mind. Merry of temperament,
care did not long trouble their breasts; seeking the
light with earnestness, they had to contend against
the bad influences of inheritance and lack of training.
No one believed in them, and they did not believe
in themselves; they needed an accession of self-
respect, and to stimulate this quality General
Armstrong's first efforts were directed.

Partly for this purpose and partly in order to
provide for permanence and future growth, the
first buildings at Hampton were costly and imposing
brick structures. The first building, Academic Hall,
stood alone on a sandy knoll by the water, with
boys' dormitories in the top and rooms for recitations
occupying the body of the building. This building,
which Armstrong spoke of as "my monument as
much as anybody's," rose above the salt marshes
and flats of that desolate region like a monu-
ment indeed.

It was soon followed by a second and larger

1 84 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

building, made necessary by the rapid increase in
the number of pupils and the rapid expansion of
the industrial idea.

This second building, costing $76,000, was begun
when but $2 ,000 was on hand ; but General Armstrong
was confident that the people would sustain a wise
work for the freedmen if they could feel that real
enterprise and devotion were behind the plea which
he made to them; he had a hole dug, piled the
bricks and lumber about it, built the foundation,
had the corner-stone ready to be laid, and invited
a large party from New York and Boston to come
down and visit the " mute appeal." * As a result of
his efforts, money came with which to begin the
erection of the building, and though the panic of
1873 intervened between the beginning and the
completion of the building, he was able, through the
efforts of the "Hampton Singers," who "sung up"
its brick walls with true enthusiasm for the cause,
to complete it without running into debt.

Virginia Hall was a dignified building, of a capac-
ity far beyond the actual needs of the Hampton
school as it was at that time. Some people doubted
the wisdom of erecting such an expensive and com-
paratively elaborate structure for the instruction of
the proverbially careless, unappreciative Negroes, who
were supposed to be trained merely as teachers for
primary schools; the expenditure of $76,000 for such

*As he afterward laughingly called a hole dug for the pur-
pose of dumbly begging aid.

At Hampton* 1870-1890 185

a purpose seemed a disproportionate outlay. Arm-
strong defended his course by showing how economic-
ally in such a building the various functions assigned
to it could be carried on. "Serving the cause by
its well-arranged and commodious interior, con-
taining no lot of waste room," he said. Scientific
cooking and heating were valuable object lessons for
boys and girls just out of a log cabin. He pointed
out that a less tasteful and imposing structure
would have failed to awaken among the graduates
so much pride in their Alma Mater, and that the
reputation and influence of the school, both among
its white and its black neighbors, would be greatly
increased by the erection of a building of which
every one could be proud. When completed,
the lofty towers of Virginia Hall, showing far
above any building in the vicinity, seen for miles
over the low-lying country by the dwellers in
hundreds of squalid and hopeless Negro homes and
by hundreds of oystermen on the waters of Chesa-
peake Bay, stood for far more than the fact that a
normal school for Negro youths was situated there;
it stood for the faith in their race that was held by
one man who dared to risk financial reputation as
well as social position in their behalf.

Although no expense was spared to make the
buildings permanent and commanding, the furnish-
ings of the room within were simple to plainness.
"Costly buildings stimulate self-respect; but beds,
furniture and clothing are good but simple, no

1 86 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

better than what they can, by their own industry, get
at home." To this rule Armstrong always adhered,
providing male students with home-made straw
mattresses, and all with such simple furnishing that
any of it could have been made at his own home by
either boy or girl. The same idea was carried out
in regard to food; accustomed at home to "hog and
hominy," this or its equivalent was their fare at
school, though he took care that it should be
properly cooked and served.

After the erection of Virginia Hall other buildings
followed in rapid succession, so that during this
period the material growth of the school was its
most marked characteristic. But in Armstrong's
thought the heart of all his work was the arrange-
ment of an effective, practical routine of hand and
head work, the preservation of such an atmosphere
of energy and devotion that no student could fail
to be impressed by it.

The routine planned in 1870 and continued for
twenty years practically unchanged was simple.
Beginning an hour before daybreak in winter, a
twelve-hour day of work, study and military drill,
with but a few minutes for daily recreation, left
little time for self-indulgence and indolence. ' ' There
is little mischief done where there is no time for it;
activity is a purifier," said General Armstrong.
Coeducation, too, a part of the Hampton scheme,
which General Armstrong considered second only
to manual labor as an educational force for the

At Hampton* J870-J890 187

Negro, was only made possible by this very arduous
routine. "Its success," he writes, "is assured by
incessant varied activity of mind and body, with
proper relaxation and amusement in an atmosphere
of Christian influence and sympathy."

It was a test of physique and endurance in which
few white men and women could have come out
victorious. And herein lay Armstrong's audacity
and the secret of his success, that he had dared to
apply it to the indolent Negro ; seeing in his inherited
reserve of physical endurance and patience to plod
on toward a far-away goal, in his docile disposition
which enabled him to accept a hard-and-fast routine
without revolt, qualities which fitted him for constant
application and continuous effort at high tension.

General Armstrong met his pupils regularly and
often, both in public and private. If any had a
"grievance," as he himself would say, or was dis-
satisfied with work or surroundings, he had but to
ask in order to see "the General," as Armstrong
was commonly called by his pupils. He was
accessible to all, sitting in the little box of a room
that served him for many years as an office, where
he received complaints and requests and discharged
them with quick comprehension of the point and
a ready, keen answer that closed the discussion.
Many of his pupils will remember him thus seated,
his pen in his hand, his piercing eyes looking out
over glasses, a straight figure instinct with life.

He knew how to be severe, having no patience

1 88 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

with lying or laziness. "There is no place for a
lazy man in this world or the next," he said. But
a kindly humor lurked in his eyes, and he never
turned a culprit away without the sense that he
was understood and had been fairly treated. Words
that he sometimes used, whether quoted or original,
described his attitude toward his pupils: " Human,
therefore imperfect; human, therefore capable of
improvement."

For Negroes and Indians with their shadowed past
he had a pity and long suffering that enabled him
to bear their failings with philosophy and kept him
from impatience under disappointment. Once,
when a promising pupil unexpectedly went to the
bad, he said: "If we were not working for two
hundred years hence, this might be discouraging."
Through all discipline ran his firm military methods ;
he was severe toward an offense, but when the
punishment was over he bore no ill will toward the
offender — a method well adapted to increase in the
suspicious natures of the Negro and Indian that
confidence in him which they already felt.

He met some of his pupils weekly in the class-
room, instructing them in his favorite study of
moral philosophy, as it was then called, using for a
text-book Doctor Hopkins' s "Outline Study of
Man." It was a great pleasure and relaxation
to him in the midst of his prosaic daily routine to
turn to these larger aspects of man, his possibilities
and his destiny, which were associated with the

At Hampton. \ 870- J 890 189

leader of his youth and with the quiet seclusion of
his college days. He used Doctor Hopkins 's methods
in conducting a class, stimulating by quick questions
and witty rejoinder the interest and mental activity
of his scholars. Like Doctor Hopkins, he believed
that the class-room should be a jolly place, and used
to say that no recitation was complete without at
least one good laugh. " Laughter makes sport of
work," he said. While his military manner and
stern eye made him feared by many in the class-
room, it soon became evident to the most timid,
from his patience in waiting for an answer or
explaining details to the slow, that he was rather to
be loved than feared. As he advanced in years a
brusque manner grew upon him, which often
scared the timid, both subordinates and pupils, but
in the end they all understood his never-failing
patience and love.

One who would see him in his most usual and
interesting relation to his pupils, however, must
picture him as addressing them nightly or weekly
from the central platform of a large upper room
known as the chapel, with seats arranged in tiers,
so that one addressing the audience could hold
every eye, where seven hundred men and women,
Indian, Negro and white, were gathered to listen to
him. On such occasions he felt and appeared like
a general taking command of his little army, an
army organized to fight vice and ignorance, against
which he stood forth as if they had been foes of

1 90 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

flesh and blood. It was his custom to hold by rapid
question and answer, as in his class-room, the atten-
tion of his childlike audience.

An excellent example of his method of address
is the following,, delivered shortly before his death
in 1893:

"Spend your life in doing what you can well. If you
can teach, teach. If you can't teach, but can cook well,
do that. If a man can black boots better than anything
else, what had he better do ? Black boots. [Laughter.]
Yes, and if a girl can make an excellent nurse, and do
that better than anything else, what had she better do ?
Nurse. Yes, she can do great good that way in taking
care of the sick and suffering. Some of our girls have
done great good already in that way. Do what you can
do well and people will respect it and respect you.
That is what the world wants of every one. It is a
great thing in life to find out what you can do well.
If a man can't do anything well, what's the matter
with him? Lazy I Yes, that's it. A lazy man can't
do anything well and no one wants him around. God
didn't make the world for lazy people.

"The Senior Class is soon to go out. You must
expect to teach, and you can teach well, can't you?
You must try, at any rate. If after trying you find
you can't, then do something else that you can do; but
give it a fair trial. This school is a school to train
teachers. It is bound to turn out teachers. It must
be honest. A great deal of money is given and spent
for this object, so we must honestly carry it out.

"We send out the Middle Class, too, to teach a year
before they take the Senior studies. How many are
in the Middle Class now? Seventy-five. And how

At Hampton* J870-J890 191

many are expecting to teach? [All hands went tip.]
All. That's good. Now I will ask some of the Seniors
to say what their year out teaching did for them. . . .
Go out from here to fight against sin. Fight the devil.
Fight against badness, evil and ignorance, disease, bad
cooking. Help your people in teaching, in care of the
sick, in improving land, in making better homes. Do
what you can do well, and do it as well as you can."

Many of these talks bore a deep religious impress,
and many young men and women date from them
their first impulse toward a true Christian life.
Armstrong's nature was so deeply ingrained with
the sense of the presence of a living God that his
slightest word on spiritual themes carried peculiar
weight. There was no pupil present who did not
gain from Armstrong an illuminating sense of the
value of his own petty routine of work, who did not
feel that his daily tasks were made interesting
because they were part of a large, comprehensible
plan, made worth while because behind them all
lay Armstrong's immovable faith in him. There
was no Negro, however ignorant or dull, who did
not at times catch a glimpse of this inspiring vision
of his possibilities and, if he remained long under
the influence of it, become moved into accept-
ance of it.

Though General Armstrong often expressed him-
self unconventionally when talking with his personal
friends on religious matters, in his work he adhered
closely to the customary forms of religious expression.

Samuel Chapman Armstrong

He always bore in mind where his pupils came from
and to what manner of life they were going, and
that what they carried away with them must be
not only genuine, but simple and easily grasped by
their neighbors. He saw that they must not be
thrown out of sympathy with what was good in the
methods in vogue about them, and never spoke in a
way calculated to disturb the simple religious con-
victions of his audience. Regarding religious forms
he once said: "They're imperfect enough, but they
are the best we've got." He was urgent in his
demands on the students to become Christians while
at Hampton, saying that if they did not then do
so they never would. He often spoke at prayer
meetings held by the students, encouraging a free,
genuine expression of religious feeling, but cutting
ruthlessly off long-winded remarks and expressions
savoring of cant. In the early days of the school,
when it was still in the leading-strings of the Ameri-
can Missionary Association, the question of "ortho-
dox or non-orthodox," even to the point of receiving
Unitarian money, * was a live one. He answered it
in his own direct way, and his words were as true
in 1890 as when they were written in 1870:

"The institute must have a positive character. It
has ! It is orthodox and that's the end of it, although
I confess I never told the school it was so, and I don't
believe one of our pupils knows what 'orthodox* means.

*The school received for many years a large part of its income
from Unitarian sources.

At Hampton* J870-J890 193

We mean to teach the precepts of Jesus Christ, accepting
them as inspired and as recorded in the Bible."

How truly he believed in sincere manifestations
of religious feeling may be seen in the following
letter written to a friend in 1883:

"There is now in the school the deepest and most
intense religious feeling I ever knew. We have instead
of evening prayers daily meetings of about half an hour,
in which the students in quick succession rise for a few
words of experience or prayer. In all the five hundred
who are present there is no excitement. It is like a
Quaker meeting, so quiet is it. All speak in an under-
tone. There is a sense of the divine presence in our
midst, yet these four hundred wild, passionate Negro
hearts, stirred to their depth, make no noise. A few
sobs have been heard. The stillness is only broken by
earnest, cheerful verses of hymns sung from time to
time. The most touching of all are the few-months-ago-
wild Indians who speak a few words in broken English
or a prayer in the Dakota language. . . . Routine
work and study go on. The school work is done in
better temper and style than ever."

A pupil writes of Armstrong's relations with
his students:

"I loved to go to evening prayers to listen to his
talks and his prayers for us during the night and for the
work he was doing. General Armstrong always spoke
very fast, but when he prayed it was slow and deliberate.
I did always enjoy his Sunday evening talks. I never
once grew tired of hearing him. He would often say

194 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

to those who were sleepy, 'Sleep on, I don't mind; you
need plenty of sleep. I will talk to those awake.'
When the hour came to dismiss us, he would rouse us by
having us sing a very lively song."

He felt the importance of keeping close relations
with the graduates and ex-students of the Hampton
school, in order that they might retain and be
helped by the impressions received at Hampton.
He said:

"Hampton is a school of civilization meant to bear
directly as a directive, inspiring force on these two
races, not only through those whom it sends out, but
indirectly by its influence on other institutions for
these races which to some degree look to it for
example and lessons."

He regarded these graduate workers as young
lieutenants in the field, fighting their first fight in
command of troops:

"There is a certain spirit of conquest in this work
that I like. We have lots of strong places to take and
we have the force to do it. To be bold and honest and
work the darkey into shape and keep the white man in
good humor is not very easy, but it can be done."

Many of his epigrammatic remarks remained
firmly fixed in their minds. Years after his death,
the students at Hampton sometimes held an evening
of quotations from his words, and many recalled
them with great exactness. One writes:

At Hampton. \ 870- \ 890 195

"I shall always remember his saying, 'Help your
people by giving them what has been given to you.'
'Doing what can't be done is the glory of living.'"

This attitude of cheerful optimism was the only
one which could have roused the Negro to effort and
self-respect. General Armstrong never spoke much
of heredity, but always of the power of surroundings.

"Success is not a matter of conditions, but rather
of predestinations," he said; "not but what heredity
is a power in life, but that it is secondary decidedly to
the surroundings of a man. This fact is not appreciated
as it should be."

This hopeful tone pervaded every phase of Arm-
strong's thought. "Hopeless ones are only grave-
diggers for themselves and the rest." He once
sprang up at a meeting at Lake Mohonk, New York,
when an objection was made that a certain course
approved by him was "impossible." "What are
Christians put into the world for but to do the
impossible in the strength of God?" he exclaimed.
This sentiment he commonly expressed in the
following story — for feeling and fun played twin
parts in his conversation:

"Once there was a woodchuck. . . . Now, wood-
chucks can't climb trees. Well, this woodchuck was
chased by a dog and came to a tree. He knew that if
he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him.
Now, woodchucks can't climb trees, but he had to, so
he did."

196 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Increasingly up to 1878, the year of the death of
his wife, to a somewhat less extent after that date,
General Armstrong was the center of the social life
at the Hampton school. The institution formed a
curious little isolated community, with its four or
five hundred blacks, its group of Indians, and
dominant circle of whites, mostly women. Sufficient
in itself socially this circle had to be, for there was
no social life open to it outside of its own limits.
When work was over, General Armstrong was the
first to propose boating or driving excursions,
picnics, and expeditions of all kinds, as if he had
nothing else to attend to.

"I remember," writes a friend, "however late in the
evening it was, he would be at our doorsteps and full
of some plan, no matter what trouble to himself was
involved. Once we took the boat to Yorktown early
in the morning. He was desirous of getting up an all-
night excursion, and was ready to send blankets and
mattresses anywhere . ' '

The old "brick thing" of a house, the mansion
house of the Wood farm, to which he referred in a
letter written in 1868, was gradually made over into
an attractive and unique home. In the rear of the
solid brick and stucco of the original structure,
garlanded with ivies and honeysuckle and opening
its ample rooms in generous hospitality, was a
series of heterogeneous wooden additions consecrated
to various and ever-changing uses ; at one time, when
the usual recitation building had been burned, the

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At Hampton* f 870-1890 197

entire house became a study-hall, with blackboards
perched in the parlors and bulletins posted in the
corridors. General Armstrong's favorite room was
a little bay-windowed study, where, surrounded by
the books of his choice and pictures of his Hawaiian
home, he found occasional rest. Sometimes, when
elm and honeysuckle were in leaf and flower beside
the water, the old house swarmed with Commence-
ment guests, who sipped lemonade on its piazza and
perhaps looked curiously at the shabby exterior,
with its discolored walls and odd climax in the
shape of a half-crumbling greenhouse at one end.
One said: "Everything seems to be in good repair
but the General's house." In 1886 a sum was
reluctantly accepted by Armstrong for the rehabili-
tation of it. He never thought of a house except
as a shelter from the weather, where you could
meet your friends and where any one who needed
it could find shelter and hospitality.

During the brief hours spent at home he was often
silent and absorbed, and anything that was un-
pleasant or exciting troubled him, especially dis-
cussion, or "debating," as he called it. Music was
a great delight to him in its simpler forms, becoming
fatiguing when more complex. He played a little
on the flute, but never having time to practise upon
it, strove vainly thus to express his musical aspira-
tions. His taste for drawing, which might with train-
ing have developed into a real pleasure and resource
to him, was used only in comic illustrations in letters

1 98 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

to his children. Reading was the only resource to
which in his home life, with its slight opportunities
for relaxation, he could turn. As evening drew on
he loved to ask a few friends to his house, where,
seated in his old green-velvet arm-chair, he would
read in his dramatic way some poems of Browning,
"Lord Clive," or "Martin Relph," or perhaps a
Latin ode or hymn — "Dies Irae" was a favorite;
perhaps some simple poem of nature, as Bryant's
"Green River." Browning was during his latter
years his prime favorite among poets.

He was a great reader, and his table was heaped
with English and American books and magazines
bearing on the Negro, on Indian education or the
general aspect of some question of humanitarian
science ; a book of travel or exploration, like Stanley's
"Darkest Africa," interested and, he said, helped
him, because it was the picture of a man overcoming
difficulties. He deeplv enjoyed Hughes's "Life of
Livingstone," partly for the same reason, partly
because it shed light on the home and habits of the
Negro race in Africa.

He had no interest in the detail of what is
commonly called "science," but was glad to
know of anything that promised relief or benefit
to man. It was a great grief to him that
he could find no time for general literary and
classical culture. "Philanthropy is the thief of
time," he used to say. As early as 1870, in a letter
to his .wife, he said:

At Hampton. J870-J890 199

" I hope when I go to you to do a good deal of reading
and freshen up myself somewhat in the classics; this
rusting out is dreadful; it is wearing out. I wish I could
lay aside human nature as one does a cloak and gently
browse awhile in green pastures."

But his interest in all matters pertaining to the
welfare of man reached beyond the limit which his
brief leisure for reading allowed. He was a subscriber
for years to the National Divorce Reform League,
was interested in the industrial problems of India,
in the civilization of Africa, and most of all in
prison reform. He writes:

"If I shall ever have work or influence in the South
for anything beyond schools, it shall be for prison
reform. That has been in my thought for years. I
long for a chance to take hold, but it will all come out
all right."

His home might have been devoid of lightness
but that it was illuminated by a perennial love of
fun, a love of fun which introduced the "Presby-
terian war-dance" and "puss in the corner" among
the very elect. The "war-dance" was a "grand
right and left" danced to the singing of " Auld Lang
Syne" and gradually growing faster and faster till
every one was too breathless to sing. How many
there are who can recall the gray-haired leader
rushing the dancers on and calling " Faster ! Faster ! "
or scampering across the room or lawn chased by
some small boy whose young legs perforce gained

200 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

the race. He liked to tell his children, when an
organ-grinder went by with his monkey, that the
monkey hired the organ-grinder by the month to
carry him round and play for him, and that you
could tell it must be so, because the man walked in
the dust and heat and carried the monkey sitting
with his legs crossed, and handsomely dressed at
ea§e on top of the organ. An eclipse of the sun
which he saw in New York he describes as follows:

"Did I mention the eclipse? It passed off creditably
as seen through a piece of smoked glass which I bought
of a boy in the streets for ten cents. It amounted to
this, that the sun charged ten cents for every spectator
and must have made a good deal of money out of it,
unless the wretches who sold the glass failed to 'go
snacks ' with his Imperial Majesty the sun. If so, there
will not be another eclipse soon."

The confiding belief of his little girls in these
fables was a source of great delight to him. Indeed,
his relation with them was for many years the
greatest pleasure of his lonely life. While they were
still small girls he wrote constantly to them,
often in a series of story-letters in which cats,
dogs, missionaries and good and bad boys and girls
figure in delightful profusion, and in which the good
are rewarded and the wicked punished with a fidelity
peculiar to fiction.

Fortunately for the permanence of his influence
on young colored men and women, he did not

At Hampton* J870-J890 201

forget that they were but boys and girls and must
have healthy fun and recreation as much as his own
children :

"A social influence over them is all-important, I
think. Whatever you do, get hold of their amusements;
supply something that will delight them. I am con-
vinced of the necessity of organizing pleasure as well as
religion in order to sustain Christian morality. Sur-
rounding influences are, on the human side, the great
uplifting power. The power of it is marvelous, es-
pecially on the moral character. Anything short of
personal knowledge of and influence over them
amounts to little. . . . Here once in a while we
play games, teachers always present; the whole thing
kept well in hand, limited to an hour. The whole
matter is talked frankly and freely over with students,
and very bright, happy times through ten years' ex-
perience shows it to be wise for us. ... Efforts
on the social side may seem discouraging, but touch
and sympathy with natives * must be kept up, if it is
hard work. It will pay when trouble comes."

One part of his house was built in his last years
for the express purpose of recreation, both of pupils
and of teachers. He did not live to organize his
favorite games there, but the room, under the
name of the recreation room, remains as a reminder of
his insistence upon the importance of healthy play
for all.

His teachers discussed frankly with him plans for
the growth of the school. In these discussions he

* Spoken of Hawaiians, but applied equally to Negroes.

202 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

was singularly open to suggestion, and never seemed
to regard the school as his own, but rather as a trust
which he held for the nation. Every new idea he
listened to with eagerness and incorporated in his
work if there was any good in it. It was his theory
that the institution was a kind of experiment
station where the worth of various theories could be
proved. It is an instance of his amenableness to
suggestion that he often invited a free written
expression of opinion from subordinates in regard
to their departments, though keeping his own
counsel in regard to the acceptance of advice :

"I have seldom followed advice implicitly, which is
sometimes the best and sometimes the worst thing in
the world, according to the good sense of the giver, but
it has been of unspeakable value as stimulating thought
and has led to much change of direction; one 'caroms'
on it, as one billiard ball does on another." *

It will readily be seen that much of his success in
dealing with an impressionable race like the Negro
lay in his selection of assistants. He believed that
most of the teachers engaged in preparing pupils
for teaching in the public schools should be women,
as he thought their influence over the blacks of a
more refining nature than that of men, so that for
many years most of his assistants were women.
One who was closely and for a long time associated
with him writes:

*Address at Hawaiian Islands, 1891.

At Hampton* 1870-1890 203

"General Armstrong had strong convictions in regard
to 'culture' training for teachers; for this reason he
rather leaned toward college-trained teachers, or women

of broad culture coming from families like the B s

[a well-known family of inherited intellectual ability].
He felt that the lack of knowledge in theory and practice
which these teachers often show was offset by their
superior mental culture. He was often heard to say
that such students as those at Hampton needed to be
surrounded by ladies and gentlemen of culture ; that the
Negro was quick to recognize 'de quality.' '

In his eagerness to help the unfortunate wherever
they were he sometimes invited persons in the con-
dition known as "down on their luck" to become
teachers at Hampton, expecting, it would seem,
that as the inspiration from contact with so great
a cause came upon them, the faults which had
brought them to this condition would be remedied.
One or two of these persons were usually to be found
at Hampton occupied in some branch of work
devised especially for them, oddly incongruous
elements, but not disloyal to the genuine kindness
which brought them there. From his earliest to his
last days Armstrong's sun rose alike upon the evil
and the good; on the whole, however, he gathered
together a strong body of teachers, remarkably suc-
cessful in working together.

" In our associated life at Hampton, of all things we
wish charity and consideration for each other. Hasty
and sharp expressions when we differ are most mis-

204 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

chievous; good temperament is the great thing to
secure unity and a never-broken mutual cooperation in
making our work as strong and perfect as possible."

Having in mind always, like another great
teacher, Thomas Arnold, that education which is
not mortal and spiritual is worse than no education,
he yet bound his teachers to no creed. Speaking
of one's coming, he said:

"She need not be 'orthodox,' but simply loyal to the
school as it is and do the best she can. A fine, well-
developed personality, along with skill in teaching,
makes, I think, an ideal teacner, but they do not often
go together."

He eagerly seized on people whom he thought
adapted to Hampton, and drew them there often
against pressure from their homes, or even against
their own previous inclination; for as he said, "I
want people whom everybody else wants." When
they were there he tried to make them happy, encour-
aging any reasonable taste or hobby in them, or
urging them to develop new lines of work at Hamp-
ton ; for he valued the faculty of originality in sub-
ordinates as a sign of potential influence and innate
power. Yet, although intending to allow full scope
for the individuality of each teacher, he was unable
to avoid impressing his own marked characteristics
upon them to some extent; a fact to which is due
largely the impression of unity between the man
and his work which was made on every visitor.

At Hampton. J870-J890 205

His ideal of the scope of a teacher's work was
high:

"The country and people must be studied by them as
none of us are able to do. Only by touching the people
he is working for can a teacher get the true range and
do his best work."

He believed that the study of man, the conditions
of civilization, of history and the laws of develop-
ment were necessary in order to make a successful
teacher of the Negro and Indian races.

"Many teachers seem to me," he said, "to have
disproportionate ideas of the forces that make up man.
. . . There is plenty of study of methods, not enough
of study of men or of the problems of life."

He considered the gain to the teacher to be equal
to the gain to the pupil at Hampton :

"We are forced to do work that by bringing us more
directly into the line of God's providence gives us a
drill that is as good as any that is given to our students."

He desired that no teacher should come to
Hampton unless filled with a spirit of helpfulness to
the unfortunate. In a letter urging one to accept
an offer of a teacher's place there he says :

" You well-born, from good homes, have a great advan-
tage over these children of darkness and misfortune.
These pupils are in earnest and are to be teachers and

206 Samuel Chapman Armstrong;

leaders, and in putting your mark on them you are
putting it on many others."

The labor system first recognized by General
Armstrong as the distinguishing mark of the
Hampton school assumed more and more impor-
tance as the years went by. The circumstances of
its earliest years and the final and permanent out-
come of General Armstrong's work for the principle
of combined manual labor and mental work are
best told by Booker T. Washington:*

"When General Armstrong undertook to introduce
industrial education at Hampton, the whole subject
was new, not only to the Negro, but to northern and
southern white people. The general impression which
prevailed among a large number of colored people,
especially those who lived in cities in the North and
who had received some advantages of education, was
that industrial education was something which was
meant to retain the Negro in a kind of slavery to limit
his sphere of activity. Many of the colored people
felt, also, that it was a kind of education that was to
be applied to the colored people only. Added to this
difficulty was another. The southern white people as
a rule approved of industrial education. This made
the colored people all the more suspicious of its value
and object. They applied in a measure the same rule
to this that they applied to politics in the early years of
freedom. If a southern white man favored a certain

*Principal of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama, who
at Hampton Institute in its earlier years received the baptism
of General Armstrong's spirit and has since his graduation
carried on a similar work.

At Hampton. J870-J890 207

political measure, the colored people usually opposed
it. Many felt that if industrial education was a good
thing for the Negro the southern white man would
not favor it.

"For a number of years after the work was started
at Hampton it was misunderstood in the directions to
which I have referred, as well as in many others which
I shall not take the time to name. General Armstrong,
however, went on calmly pursuing the ends that he had
in view, seldom stopping to explain himself or to be
troubled by misrepresentations. He realized the value
of what he had in mind, and felt sure that in the
end the whole country would understand him and come
around to his position.

"As I have often heard him explain his theory of
industrial education — both to me personally and to the
school — when I was a student at Hampton, I think I
might state his objects briefly as follows :

"First. He was anxious to give the colored people
an idea of the dignity, the beauty and civilizing power
of intelligent labor with the hand. He was conscious
of the fact that he was dealing with a race that had
little necessity to labor in its native land before coming
to America, and after coming to this country was forced
to labor for two hundred and fifty years under circum-
stances that were not calculated to make the race fond
of hard work.

"Second. It was his object to teach the Negro to
lift labor out of drudgery and toil by putting thought
and skill into it.

"Third. He saw that through the medium of indus-
trial education he could bring the two races in the
South into closer relations with each other. He knew
that in other matters there were differences which it
would take years to change, but he knew that indus-

208 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

trially the interests of the two races were identical in
the South, and that as soon as he could prove to a south-
ern white man that an educated skilled Negro workman
was of more value to the community than an ignorant,
shiftless one, the southern white man would take
an interest in the education of the black boy.

"Fourth. Through the industrial system at the
Hampton Institute it was his object to give the students
an opportunity to work out a portion of their boarding
expenses. In this way he meant to prevent the school
becoming a hothouse for producing students with no
power of self-help or independence. I have often heard
him say that the mere effort which the student put forth
through the industries at Hampton to help himself was
of the greatest value to the student, whether the labor
itself was of very much value or not. In a word, he
meant to use the industries as a means for building
character — to teach that all forms of labor were hon-
orable and all forms of idleness a disgrace.

"The idea of industrial education, beginning for our
people at Hampton, has gradually spread among them
until I am safe in saying that it has permeated the
whole race in every section of the country. There is
not a State in the Union where there is any considerable
proportion of our race whose influence counts for any-
thing in which they are not interested in industrial
education and are manifesting this interest by the
establishment of a school or by other substantial helps.
They now realize, as never before, that the education of
the head, the heart and the hand must go together.
That while we need classical and professional men, we
need a still larger number trained along industrial lines.

" Not only has General Armstrong's belief in industrial
education spread among our people in the South, but
its influence is felt in the West Indies and Africa and

At Hampton, J870-J890 209

other foreign countries, to such an extent that there are
many calls coming from these countries for industrial
education.

"The work at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute is simply one of the results of the work of the
Hampton Institute. There are a number of industrial
schools, either small or large, in every State where there
are any considerable number of our people.

"Perhaps the most interesting thing in connection
with the influence of General Armstrong is the rapid
growth and spread of industrial education among the
southern white people. For a number of years after
the Hampton Institute was started the southern white
people gave no attention to the subject, and rather took
for granted, I think, that it was something in which the
Negroes only should receive training. But as they
realized from year to year the rapid growth of industrial
education among the colored people and the skill and
intelligence which they were acquiring, southern white
educators here and there began to make investigation
and to inquire whether or not the same kind of educa-
tion was not needed for the southern white boy and girl,
and very carefully and modestly at first industries were
introduced into a white school here and there. These
schools, however, were not very popular among the white
people at first, but the idea of industrial education
among the southern white people has spread until at
the present moment I think every southern State has
one or more institutions established for this kind of
training for white youths, and the industrial idea has
become almost as popular among the white people as
among the colored people.

' ' I think I am not going too far when I make one other
suggestion, and that is that the whole country owes
General Armstrong a debt not only for the rapid and

Samuel Chapman Armstrong

permanent growth of industrial education among the
colored people and white people of the South, but it is
to him that all are indebted more than to any one man
for the growth of the hand training in the northern and
western States. It is seldom, in my opinion, that one
individual has had the opportunity through a single
idea to revolutionize the educational thought and
activity of so large a proportion of the world as has
been true of the founder of Hampton."*

The idea referred to by Mr. Washington as held
by the Negroes — namely, that industrial education
tended to lower them in their own eyes and in the
esteem of others — contains this germ of truth, that
in the economic sense an education for labor alone,
even for skilled labor, is a class education. Many
Southerners no doubt acquiesced in the idea of indus-
trial education for the Negroes, because they thought
that to keep them artisans, mechanics and farmers
was to keep them in a class by themselves, and a
class separated from, their own by a lack of culture
and of common social meeting-ground. It was
no wonder that the colored race distrusted
Armstrong's scheme of combined labor and learning
and that they sought the advantages of Hampton
for many years more because of the intellectual
than the manual training afforded there.

General Armstrong, however, conceived of the
value of labor in a different way ; he did not wish to
make a labor caste, a social grade of hand-workers,
although their skill and training should force

* Written for this book.

At Hampton* 1870- J890 211

respect for their race; he simply saw that habits of
labor constituted a great and the only conceivable
moral force that would lift the average Negro from
his attitude of indifference and slovenliness to one
of earnest endeavor and industry.

As the manual- training system worked itself out
at Hampton, Armstrong held with an iron grip to his
original idea, " Labor as a moral force, " and produc-
tive labor,* because it taught the student more life
if less trade. He was filled through and through
with a deep sense that by hard work alone can any
of us be saved — a sense based on many obscure
foundations of observation and deduction. Away
back in the corners of his mind were recollections
of sundry wood-choppings and milkings carried on
under protest by himself and his companions, and
knowledge, too, of how his father and mother had
spent their ambitious youth in work, the mother
spinning by the fireside, the father doing chores at
his home in Pennsylvania. It was the boys who
faced and conquered hard physical jobs that became
the men of endurance later. These half-defined
thoughts did much to shape his policy toward the
Negro. What builds character in one man builds
it in another, he thought, and forthwith set about
to imitate the old home training — hard work done
for the sake of the product and rewarded by the
satisfaction of accomplishment, as well as by more

* That is, as opposed to the technical method which teaches
principles alone and as a general rule destroys the product.

212 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

tangible benefits — but to better it by more instruc-
tion than his parents ever got in doing their chores.
Writing (in 1887) of the St. Louis Manual-Labor
Training-School, he said:

"The manual instruction is given on the Russian plan ;
that is, men are taught to make those forms of wood
and iron which enter into every article that can be made
of these materials ; just as girls learn the piano by playing
exercises and not tunes. . . . It is no experiment.
It is the nearest to perfection of the fine methods of
training head and hand together that I know of. ...
I only here remark that such a labor school belongs
rather to a high civilization. The student's personal
support is assured by the accumulated savings of edu-
cated generations. There is nothing to do but to go
directly at the special work in hand. At Hampton,
for instance, and in like schools for like people, the bread
and butter and clothes question is primary if not para-
mount. They must have something to eat before they
can be taught. So we pay them for their work, instead
of, as in St. Louis, being paid for what work we give
them. We must make not ideal articles, but things we
can sell or eat, or it will be all up with us. In doing
this our workmen learn much, not so thoroughly, nicely
and quickly as by the Russian method, but perhaps
better for the rougher life and experience of the South
and West. A rounded character rather than mere
technical skill is our point. The morale of the one is
assumed; in the other it is to be created.

"They wish to make a specialist; we wish to make a
self-reliant man. They chisel daintily away at one
who is 'heir of all the ages,' to make him a little more
perfect. We hew from the raw material men who have

At Hampton. J87CM890 213

come out of deep darkness and wrong, without inherit-
ance but of savage nature, the best product we can, and
care as much to infuse it with a spiritual life and divine
energy as with knowledge of the saw, plane and hoe.
Such work is full of inspiration. It drags only because
few appreciate the tremendous drain on the skill and
resources required. . . . There must be a differ-
ence in the educational methods for the races in our
country that are a thousand years behind the whites
in the line of development."

He writes in 1885:

"Eventually, special training should be given to
special students. It is only a question of time and
money when we shall have a technical department here
equal to any in the northern cities. It is precisely in
the line of our development. Constant work for wages
and discipline is the foundation of our industrial and
academic system. Special class-training in mechanical
principles for the higher walks of labor should be its
completion. . . . We aim to train teachers for
teaching schools in the South, taking the best material
from our industrial departments."

As the Negro advanced from what Armstrong
called "the dead level of slavery" into a state of
division into classes, the originally simple system
in vogue at Hampton became more complex. The
coming of the Indians, too, made necessary changes
in the industrial departments that were productive
of widespread results. Indeed, the coming of the
Indians marked a distinct step in the advance of
the Hampton school. Next to the tour of the

214 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Jubilee Singers, it brought the school into wider
prominence than any event.* The War Department
undertook the tuition charges of these new pupils,
but General Armstrong assumed the other expenses.
The Indians, unlike the Negroes, were not inured
to work, but held it in lofty contempt, an attitude
General Armstrong thought as fatal to their devel-
opment as the laziness of the Negro. He quotes
in a report, with approval, the words of Secretary
Teller:

"The Indian question will never be settled till you
make the Indian blister his hands. No people ever
emerged from barbarism that did not emerge through
labor."

He himself said on this subject:

"The Indian's endowment of land and his right to
rations is like a millstone around his neck, for only when
it is work or starve will the average man work." f

So, although the Government paid the bills, the
red man had to go to work; and his work, directed
toward trade-learning rather than toward a finished
product, gave an impetus to technical training
throughout the school.

Many regarded the introduction of the Indians

*The Indians first came in 1878, brought byCapt. R. H. Pratt,
then an officer of the regular army in charge of Indian prisoners
at St. Augustine, Florida. Seeing their deplorable condition,
he wrote Armstrong for permission for seventeen of them to enter
the institute.

t Referring to agency system. Report of 1887.

At Hampton* J870-J890 215

as a very doubtful experiment. The mingling of
races in close companionship and the added financial
needs the Indians would bring contained possibilities
of trouble. But on the whole it proved to be a wise
step and justified Armstrong's confidence in the
Hampton school. The new race was assimilated
and became an element of strength. No serious
trouble occurred between the races, and the effect
on Negroes and Indians alike was to broaden their
conceptions of man and duty. The coming of the
Indians also brought the institute into closer
relations with its southern neighbors, who had a
sympathy with the Indian which they could not
summon for the Negro. From this time General
Armstrong was able to rely confidently upon some
of his neighbors for support in his work.

Not upon all, however. The Hampton Institute
was not free from those attacks upon its work and
character which usually attend successful enterprises.
In 1886 a complaint was made by some persons
living in the vicinity of the school that they were
oppressed by its industrial competition. General
Armstrong personally urged at Richmond the
appointment of an investigating committee, which
was asked for by the complainants, and gave every
opportunity to get at the truth. The investigation
ended in a hearty endorsement of the Institute.
General Armstrong never allowed this attack to
influence his belief in the kindliness of his neighbors,
saying publicly that "the Hampton Institute was

216 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

generously recognized and appreciated, and that
the investigation, so far from doing harm, had
done much good."

Two years later more serious charges were made
against General Armstrong and his work for the
Indians. These attacks followed soon after his par-
tial recovery from a severe illness in 1886, continued
for months in the form of oft-repeated newspaper
charges, disproved only to be repeated again, and
wore greatly upon him. •

His attitude toward all these attacks was char-
acteristic.

"Our point," he wrote, "is not to clear ourselves,
but to bring out the whole truth. None of us are too
good for an investigation. . . . Any assumption
of correctness is intolerable. I wish always bottom
facts. In missionary work especially the whole truth
should always be told."

Instead of making formal defense of the insti-
tution, he requested a committee of investigation
to be sent from Washington, and invited men
whose opinion carried local weight to go over the
ground fully and freely with him.

"This is the point of issue," he wrote; "not to hurrah
for Hampton, but to see that things are fairly looked
into."

A few recommendations were made by the com-
mittee and were promptly carried out.

At Hampton* J870-J890 217

So as an experiment of which the details must
be worked out from day to day and which was
liable to mistakes and misconstruction, General
Armstrong's work grew.

"Though every forward step has *)een r, struggle,"
he wrote in 1890, "the school has been a growth, deep-
rooted and healthy. We are here not merely to educate
students, but to make men and women out of individ-
uals belonging to the down-trodden and despised races ;
to make of them not accomplished scholars, but to build
up character and manhood; to fit the best among them
to become teachers and apply the best educational
methods, for the work is a rounded one, touching
the whole circle of life and demanding the best energies
of those who take it up. In God's providence it has
been especially given to this nation as a work to be
done, and to be done now, not only for reasons of
honor and humanity, but from the lower motives of
self-preservation, for our own safety as much as for
the good of those who are entreating us for help.'*

CHAPTER VIII
IN THE NORTH. 1870-1890

NOT more than half of this period of twenty
years was spent at Hampton. To organize, stim-
ulate and oversee the growing institution would
seem to be work enough for one man; but since
the very existence of Hampton depended on money,
and money must be sought where it could be found,
General Armstrong became an equally familiar
figure in the streets of Boston and on the shell
roads of Hampton. Two-thirds of his immense
energies were spent in getting money to carry out
the ideas that his brain was continually evolving —
money in amounts generally so inadequate to his
needs as to render necessary a constant adjustment
of ends to means, modifications of his ideals within
the bounds of what he could do with the money he
had — a limitation ever present with the idealist who
not only dreams but does.

In his early trips to the North he had to deal
with a public weary with the story of southern
outrages.

1 ' I am getting up meetings in the various cities of
eastern Massachusetts," he wrote to a brother in 1870.

218

In the North. J870-J890 219

"People here have gotten tired of the Negro question,
and wind and tide are against me. It is fearful to
throw oneself against the popular current, and it is
the most exhausting thing I ever tried. Northern
people are so busy that they don't know what is the
real state of things at the South. The story of
Ku-Klux and blood is so familiar that no one
notices it."

These early appeals were made at a time when
business was in the process of recuperation after
the stress of war time and when charitable people
were besieged for aid to those left helpless by
bereavement or disablement ; moreover, the capabil-
ities of the Negro race were distrusted at this time,
when the excesses of the reconstruction period
were still of recent occurrence ; nor were people gen-
erally disposed to look with favor on a theory that
at Oberlin and kindred schools had already resulted
unsuccessfully,* the theory of the mingling of mental
with manual work. They failed to see what Arm-
strong had already clearly perceived, that, rightly
applied, the theory of education by training the
hand was in a short time to affect education radically
throughout America; that it would at length take
the place of all other methods in the training of
undeveloped races.

He hoped that his appeals might in a few years
bring an answer adequate to the needs of the Negro,
but money came slowly.

He returned again and again to his home at

* See page 158.

220 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Hampton, between his money-raising "campaigns,"
as he called them, hoping to be able to rest and
organize his work there, and to enjoy his peaceful
home life and the society of the little family growing
up by his side. He soon saw, however, that if the
school was to continue its growth there was to be
no end to this effort while he lived, and he resigned
with sorrow this pleasant anticipation. His early
hope he expressed in a letter to his mother,
written August, 1870:

"Just as soon as the building, Academic Hall, the
first large building on the grounds, is done, I must pitch
in for an endowment of $200,000; that is the final
struggle. It will cost me terribly; a three years' cam-
paign of the hardest kind. After it I must take a rest
of several months if I can afford it. This is my plan:
get the endowment, then go home again. Oh, for a
sight of the cocoanut trees !"

This particular plan of a three years' campaign
was never carried out ; after each stay at Hampton
following a northern trip new needs would press
with the opening of the school term, expenses
incidental to growth would run over income, and
he would be forced to leave home again for a trip to
the North.

In a letter to his mother he thus describes an
early tour:

"I was told I must expect little or nothing, but I
had to beg. I was forced to get money to pay the

In the North. J870-J890 221

pressing way of the school or let it go to the wall, and at
it I went with all my might and haven't had a day's
rest for two months. It is hard — this begging; it takes
all one's nervous and physical strength, even when
people are kind and polite, as they generally are. It is
never and never can be easy, and I have always to use
all my strength, fire every gun in order to bring to the
hurried, worried business men that powerful influence
that alone can secure money in a place like Boston,
where for every dollar that even the richest are able to
give there are ten chances to put it to good use and
twenty demands for it from one source or another. It
is amazing how hard is the pressure of appeal .and yet
how polite and good-natured most people are, how
patiently they listen and how many give up their last
spare dollar not needed for personal comfort. Boston
has been educated to giving and gives splendidly. But
thousands are turned away — few succeed, many fail
who try for money, just as in the business world. In all
this howling appeal and fearful competition of charities
I have been making the best fight I could — watching
every chance, following up every chance, finding
out new people, making new friends to the cause,
talking in houses and in churches, at parties and at
dinner tables, in season and out of season, and on the
whole I have done well. ... I am received always
in the pleasantest way by the best people and have
made a great many strong friends. Am rushing
about all the time and necessity is after me sharp.
. . . Am going to drive things while there's any
life in me. I am well and think I can stand it ; success
is the best medicine and will cure me. ... I
have raised several thousand dollars, and am con-
sidered to have had remarkable success, considering
the times."

222 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

There was at the time of these first trips in the
North a group of persons in and about Boston who
had been prominent in war and sanitary commis-
sion affairs — men and women of mature age, social
position and comfortable incomes. Most of this
group were women, the men of their generation
being deeply engrossed in affairs or disabled or
killed in the war. Such names as Quincy, Wiggles-
worth, Cooper, Paine, Loring, Bowditch, Putnam,
Fields, Claflin, Hemenway and Parkman suggest
this group of public-spirited citizens, who not only
gave their interest and money to help the cause,
but their personal friendship.

This friendship began, in many cases, in November,
1871, when Mrs. Augustus Hemenway asked General
Armstrong and his young wife and baby to visit
her in Boston. Under her social guardianship
General and Mrs. Armstrong heard good music
and drama and widened greatly their circle of
acquaintance.

A cordial personal recognition was an agreeable
relief from the strain of debt and financial responsi-
bility that even now bore him down with a crushing
weight. It was to prove not only a pleasant inci-
dent in his career, but an event of vital importance
to his work, for a social introduction proved to be
the very means whereby he was able to approach
and to know charitable Boston. He saw that here
was an opportunity to meet the people, many of
whom had been friends to the rights of the Negro

In the North* J870-J890 223

when abolitionism was unfashionable and who were
the most ready of all in the North to help and under-
stand his work. For their part, they saw in the
freshness and vigor of the man, in his entire absence
of selfish ambition and in his notable war record
promise of future success. They were attracted
by his delight in working for the right — his youth-
ful buoyancy of outlook joined to intense moral
earnestness, qualities that spoke of staying power
and effectiveness. The man who could say, " Isn't
it jolly to be a mounted soldier in the service of
the Lord?" would never desert his colors. Later
they became convinced of the wisdom of his plans,
and from that time on this group of people gave
him hearty social and moral backing and financial
support in general, though the great fortunes with
which universities are founded were not theirs
to give.

That he succeeded early in persuading men and
women of moral influence to lend their support
to his plans is shown by the fact that on January
27, 1870, his first public meeting, held in Music
Hall, Boston, under the auspices of the Hawaiian
Club of Boston, through his old and intimate friend
General J. F. B. Marshall, was presided over by
Governor Claflin, and attended by many of the
philanthropic people of Boston. This meeting
marked the beginning of a two months' campaign
which was the first of a series that extended over a
period of twenty years.

224 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

It is a striking comment on these times, as General
Armstrong noted, that on the very night when
this meeting was held which marked the organiza-
tion of Hampton's work in New England, all that
was left of the old Abolition Society met to lay
down its arms and give up its organization, resolv-
ing that nothing remained for it to do. " It failed
to see," as General Armstrong says, "that every-
thing remained. Their work was just beginning
when slavery was abolished."

It must not be imagined that he confined himself
to making friends among the naturally philan-
thropic and the well-to-do classes. He desired
from the beginning and throughout his life that
his work should be the work of the people, and
such to a peculiar extent it was. A glance at the
record of gifts to Hampton for this period of twenty
years shows that the majority of the individual
gifts range from ten to fifty dollars. Poor country
churches and religious societies sent small sums
yearly; many persons gave sparingly, as they could
afford it, out of moderate incomes; church fairs
and Sunday-schools sent small amounts from time
to time. It was the custom in many New England
churches to take up a quarterly or yearly collec-
tion for Hampton, grouping it with their contribu-
tions to foreign missions or the evangelization of
the new West. Hampton took its place in New
England as a charity of recognized worth. Clubs or
committees were organized which pledged them-

In the North* J870-J890 225

selves to send a fixed sum yearly; a scholarship
or a small sum of money which paid the tuition of
one student for one year and established a personal
relation between giver and recipient was a favorite
mode of giving. From such sources about one-half
of the income of Hampton was derived for twenty
years.

Armstrong's greatest single effort to enlist public
interest was the tour of the Hampton Jubilee
Singers, beginning in February, 1872, and lasting
until June, 1875. The immediate occasion for it
was the pressing need first felt in the fall of 1871
for better accommodations for girls ; but as early as
this year General Armstrong felt the need of a
permanent endowment fund, something that would
yield a regular interest and leave him more time
for improving the school itself. The singers started
on their long tour hoping to raise a sum of at least
$200,000 for this purpose.

Many obstacles lay before them : the Fisk Jubilee
Singers, aided by the influence of the American
Missionary Association, had just finished their
series of concerts in the North; it was doubtful
whether the enthusiasm they had aroused could
be awakened so soon again by a Negro chorus.
Speculators assuming the name of jubilee singers
were prejudicing people against all such companies ;
the expense of the trip would be great ; many thought
that it would demoralize the student singers and
thus react for evil on the school. But Armstrong

226 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

had made up his mind to raise the needed $200,000,
and relied on the help of friends in the North and
on the charm of that music which, once heard, draws
the hearer again to listen to its wild and plaintive
tones.

February 13, 1872, the party started. General
Armstrong regarded the duration of the tour as
indefinite, expecting to extend it to England and
California if it was successful. The party traveled
by day and gave their concerts generally in the
evening, taking their school-books with them and
studying persistently while on train or boat in order
to keep up with their classes. Audiences, indeed,
were not so large as those that gathered to listen to
the Fisk singers, nor were the sums of money taken
in as great. At the close of the first year $10,000
was sent back to Hampton as net proceeds. The
second year was less directly profitable, owing to
the financial panic of 1874 and 1875, ^ut much in-
terest was excited. Over 7,000 copies of the book,
4 'Hampton and Its Students," were sold, and a gift
of $10,000 was made for the completion of a chapel
for general gatherings. Mrs. Augustus Hemenway
and Mrs. S. T. Hooper, of Boston, were present
at many of the concerts, lent their valuable
influence and prestige to the undertaking, and
aided in many ways to reduce expenses and excite
enthusiasm. The singers gave 500 concerts,
traveled over eighteen States, and visited Canada.

The tour of the singers did little to start an

In the North* J870-J890 227

endowment fund, but as an advertisement it was
invaluable, and in no other way could information
about Hampton have been so widely diffused; in
no other way could the acquaintance of Armstrong
have been enlarged so rapidly. It was the first
step in the larger life of the Hampton school. It
was the first presentation of its claim upon the
whole country for support. After this tour General
Armstrong was no longer simply the principal
of a struggling Negro school in Virginia; he became
a public man with a scope of influence which
increased yearly until it became national.

Already in the midst of the trip he perceived the
scope of his work, its needs, its future and its sure
support, and wrote to the editor of a New Bedford
(Massachusetts) newspaper:

"I enclose a circular to which you may, I hope, call
attention, as it refers to a very important movement
and one which would probably interest your readers.
You will hear of it anyhow, and I write to anticipate
rumor and, if possible, prevent unpleasant impressions
liable to be formed from my going into such an enter-
prise.

''The truth is, we have, as Lincoln used to say of the
war, a 'big job' on our hands. It's no use to whine
about the great demand for means to lift up the Negro
race. The work is not done; it is given us as a nation
to do. It is the duty of no section, but of every one.
Practically those who care for it, wherever they live,
do and will help; those who don't care will not. The
helpers are comparatively few. The money contributed

228 Samuel Chapman Armstrong;

has been in small sums — rarely has a large amount been
given. But aggressive, powerful institutions that make
their impress upon the populations need large endow-
ments and extensive buildings, so that students from all
quarters can be massed together, instructed, inspired
with vital truth, and sent out as builders of a better
civilization. Hampton aims to do the Negro race a
real good by supplying a host of thoughtful, trained,
practical teachers, who have been drilled not only in
books, but in shops and on the farm, in the kitchen
and in the sewing-room. These will teach not only
spelling and arithmetic, but the more important lessons
of respect for labor, and they will impart of their
own essential manhood and womanhood to those whom
they teach. The Negro has been taught to work, not
to despise it ; he has the habits of labor, but no enthusi-
asm for it ; he is satisfied with his job if only his employer
is. The true laborer may not love hard work, but he
does his work well for the sake of doing it well and
takes pride in it.

"We wish to spread broadcast right ideas of life and
labor; to unite morality and religion in the holy tie
that binds them and that is not recognized here: for
the divorce is complete.

"Hundreds of teachers, apostles of a true Christianity
and civilization, are needed. We are compelled con-
stantly to say to applications from all parts of Virginia,
'We cannot send you any more teachers.' Four times
as many as we can supply are needed now, and school-
houses are empty and thousands untaught for want of
them. Yet we have been forced, for want of room,
to reject this year thirty-five young men and women
who were eager to come and fit themselves to teach.
We have encamped thirty in old army tents in the open
field, and they have been for months in terrible freezing

In the North* J870-J890 229

weather and exposed to howling winds. But not a
murmur. They'll stand it a good while yet — all this
and all next winter if necessary. We expect to have
seventy or eighty men under canvas next year. But
we cannot put women in tents. We have planned a
large dormitory, including sixty-eight girls' rooms, a
chapel, sewing-room, etc., capable of accommodating
nearly 140 women. It will cost complete $75,000.
We must have it next fall or send back fifty
colored girls to the pine-barrens and plantations.
It is of no use to beg. We must help ourselves.
We propose to give concerts, singing the old Negro
spirituals, of which we have collected an entirely
new and wonderfully beautiful number, and with the
avails of these concerts raise the walls of a building for
the education of colored women. I believe the men
and the women of the North will help us. They will
have the chance. We will give our first concert in
Washington next Saturday night, the i5th inst., and
will advance upon Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
It is a venture and may not be successful. But it
seems the thing to try, for there's a power, a vividness,
a genuineness in this fast-dying-out music that excels
everything ever composed. It is the echo of old times ;
it is full of wailing tenderness and passionate faith.
It will soon be gone. Why should it not be used as a
reminder ' to the North that there really was such a
thing as slavery and that its terrible and its worst
effects are upon the Negro yet?

The degradation of centuries cannot be thrown off
in a decade or generation. Negro civilization must
be a slow growth of time and of persistent, untiring
effort. Hampton is organized on a permanent basis
in order to accomplish its end, which is to see the
Negro through."

230 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Nothing will maintain a man under severe strain
so well as inspiration and a sense of humor.
He wrote to his class secretary from Hampton,
September 30, 1874:

"In obedience to your instruction I have the honor
to inform you of myself, life, wife and children as
follows : I have a remarkable machine for the elevation
of our colored brethren on which I mean to take out a
patent. Put in a raw plantation darky and he comes
out a gentleman of the nineteenth century. Our
problem is how to skip three centuries in the line of
development and to atone for the loss and injustice of
the ages. About $370,000 have been expended here
since I took hold in the fall of 1867.

" I have been in the traveling show business for the
last two years; have given over 300 concerts with the
Hampton students (ex-slaves) in behalf of the school.

"This is a rough and terrible fight with difficulties,
but I think I'm on top.

"I am the most fortunate man in the world in my
family. I have a wife and two little girls — one two
and the other four years of age. My 'jewels' are the
rarest and richest on the planet.

"'Sixty-two' men will always be welcome at my
home on Hampton Roads — your reverence [the class
secretary] especially. I have reserved the choicest
oysters in this paradise of oysters for the exclusive use
of the members of that class.

"The stake of my destiny is planted here, and I have
never regretted it; this is part of the war on a higher
plane and with spiritual weapons; it will not soon end
and success is yet to be won. I cannot understand the
prevailing views of the war among pious and intelligent

In the North. J870-J890 231

Americans. It is simply barbaric — to whip the South
and go home rejoicing; to build monuments of victory,
leaving one-third of their countrymen in the depths
of distress. The case is chiefly moral and the duty sits
very lightly on the general conscience."

He paid the price for celebrity which most public
men must pay, however, in the sacrifice of home
life and in enforced separation from his family.
This separation was the more painful because his
wife's health had begun to fail. In 1878 Mrs. Arm-
strong died, leaving two little girls six and eight
years of age. Here ended such broken home life
as this naturally most domestic of men had been
able to enjoy in his free moments; and Armstrong
became a kind of wanderer, rinding in his life at
Hampton absorption in routine work and in the time
spent at the North a sympathy and companion-
ship in the society of congenial friends that was
lacking in his own home.

The years 1878 to 1890 may be especially called
the constructive period of the Hampton school;
during these twelve years alone eighteen large
buildings, at a cost of $423,400, were erected and
land costing $13,500 was purchased. In round
numbers the expenditures for " plant" alone during

23 2 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

these years, exclusive of running expenses, amounted
to $500,000; from 300 students in 1878 the number
increased to 678 in 1886, a number not since (in
1902) exceeded. A natural consequence of this
rapid growth was a great increase in running
expenses; and General Armstrong was obliged to
raise yearly from $50,000 to $80,000 merely to keep
the wolf from the door.

Under the pressure of this necessity, he addressed
himself with new care to his work in the North,
like the hero of a story which he was fond of telling,
and which embodied what he called his ''rule of
conduct":

"Once there was an old darky who could not be
dissuaded from hunting in an empty 'possum hole.
'Ain't no 'possum in dat hole? Dey's just got to be,
'cause dey's nuffin* in de house fer supper."1

So the "'possum hole" of the North was again
and again invaded. He wrote to a friend, engaged
like himself in the education of the northern public :
"Punch the public or you get nothing; give them
no peace till you get your money." A certain
obstinacy of the sort that fights blindly to the end
was aroused by these constant struggles against
competition, lack of interest and the prophecies
of failure which often came to his ears.

"The dry bones of a thousand failures are in our
path," he said. "The wet blanket of endless disap-
pointments has been thrown on us. Men say, ' You
can't do it.' Experienced men shake their heads; but

In the North* 1870-J890 233

G [a missionary friend] is going to take hold and

worry the Christian Church till it planks down the
money, and it's of no use. Saint and sinner must, side
by side, jerk the old thing till it moves. Infidel and the
elect will drop their mites into the contribution box
till it is filled. We are doing this over a vortex of
financial calamity, into which we hope not to fall."

In his appeal for money he always made an
impassioned plea, not for a direct gift of money
to relieve the needs of the Negro, but for money to
help him to help himself through a system of indus-
trial labor. Knowing that people are best reached
through their emotions, he generally took with him
a small band of singers, who could touch with their
pathetic songs hearts that remained impervious to
any other appeal ; and perceiving, too, that until a
cause is personified it has little power to touch the
hearts of men, he always included in his program a
few telling recitals of personal experiences. The aim
of these northern trips was not primarily to bring
home money, but, in his own words, "to enlist the
interest of the friends of southern education, and
if possible to give direction to the benefactions of
those disposed to aid in the elevation of the lately
enfranchised race."

He first organized his campaigns on paper, and
sent an agent before him to arrange for places of
meetings; then he himself, with a quartet of
Negroes, followed — accompanied, perhaps, by two
Indian students. Their tours extended sometimes

234 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

as far west as Chicago or St. Louis, but usually
centered round about the towns of New England
and the cities of New York and Philadelphia. If
the meeting was in a church at a regular Sunday
or week-day evening service, a collection was taken ;
if in a private house, none was taken. General
Armstrong utilized the interest felt by almost every
one in the slave songs, the desire of young people
to see an Indian, and the philanthropic sympathies
of many toward the freedmen, to draw audiences,
which gathered in elegant private drawing-rooms,
in hotel parlors, in churches and in schools. To
them spoke the little band, ever vitalized into new
enthusiasm by the spiritual passion which General
Armstrong diffused like an atmosphere about him.

"I must win," he said. "I can't but see that many
put faith in me; it would be wrong to humanity to fail,
and the way is clear. God has not darkened the way,
but His hand points to a steep and craggy height — it
must be climbed — I will climb it."

To infuse enthusiasm into half-alive interests
seemed to be the work to which he was especially
dedicated by nature.

"It [enthusiasm] is a scarce article always," he
wrote. "Everybody is 'interested' in everything that
is good. We all are in the elevation of the Hottentots
or that the Marquesas Islanders should have shirts !"

His companion for twelve years in this work

In the North. J870-J890 235

of energizing passive wills, Reverend Hollis Burke
Frissell, thus describes a meeting which may be
considered typical:

"When the other speeches had been made, General
Armstrong produced some large diagrams and pictures
of the new buildings. People were asked to take rooms
for furnishing at $15 each. He was so rapid in his
utterance that the audience could hardly hear one
word in ten which he spoke, but he was so intense that
they were interested and gave the furnishing for the
rooms. I think from $15,000 to $20,000 were sub-
scribed that night. His struggle to be deliberate in
speaking was always interesting. He would walk on to
the stage in a very quiet way and commence slowly and
go faster and faster as he got into his subject. He
always thought it wise to present facts, statements of
what had been done, rather than philosophical dis-
quisitions and race and educational problems."

Another who often attended these meetings as
a listener says:

"I suppose that every lover of General Armstrong
recalls some special incident which seems most entirely
typical of the man's life and heart. For my part, I
think oftenest of one of those scenes in his many begging
journeys to the North. It was at a little suburban
church far down a side street on one winter night in
the midst of a driving storm of sleet. There was, as
nearly as possible, no congregation present; a score or
so of humble people, showing no sign of any means to
contribute, were scattered through the empty spaces,
and a dozen restless boys kicked their heels in the front

236 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

pew. Then in the midst of this emptiness and hope-
lessness up rose the worn, gaunt soldier as bravely and
gladly as if a multitude were hanging upon his words,
and his deep-sunk eyes looked out beyond the bleakness
of the scene into the world of his ideals, and the cold
little place was aglow with the fire that was in him,
and it was like the scene on the Mount, that was not any
less wonderful and glistening because only three undis-
cerning followers were permitted to see the glory." *

When he spoke, in hall, church, theater or
parlor, his speech gushed forth with the ease of the
born orator; but rapid as it was, it could not keep
up with his thoughts, which seemed ever pressing
it outward and onward. Yet it was not the flow-
ing style of his contemporary, Phillips Brooks.
His ideas were shot forth in brief, compact sen-
tences, not distinguished so much by logical sequence
as by their power to throw flash-lights of truth
on different phases of the subjects he touched.
Once, in commenting on a certain discussion held
by a number of ministers, he unintentionally char-
acterized his own style, saying:

"Their discussion was rather plain and perky. Not
one of them took the subject up and shook it as a
terrier dog shakes a rat."

No side of his work is more characteristic than
his persistent effort through times of financial stress
or in apparently unprofitable situations. He said:

* Reverend Francis G. Peabody, in an address delivered
Founders' Day, 1898.

In the North. J870-J890 237

"Do men give more money to good work when they
make the most or when they think the most? For
twenty-three years I have worked for a charity, through
sharp times and through prosperous seasons, but the
times have made very little difference. Nothing extra
is to be expected for the Lord's work in 'flush times,'
and a certain fine spirit carries it through the darkest
day."

One gets an interesting view of his own attitude
toward this unceasing labor of money-raising in
the following extract from a letter to the Southern
Workman:

" We are now on our way to Columbus for our thirtieth
meeting, having since our first, at Scranton, Pennsyl-
vania, on November nth, which was most successful
and satisfactory, held meetings in the cities of Boston,
New York, Cleveland (Ohio), Detroit, Milwaukee,
Madison, Chicago, Indianapolis and Cincinnati. We
are to end with Columbus, Pittsburg, New York City
and Germantown, Pennsylvania, on December nth.
Our party consists of Reverend Mr. Frissell and myself,
with our quartet, two of whom, Major Boykin and
Mr. Daggs, are also speakers, and two Indian boys.
Our main object has been to create interest rather than
to collect money, and yet the plate collections, kindly
volunteered at the end of most of the meetings, will
probably bring a few hundred dollars over expenses.
A few seventy-dollar scholarships have been secured.
Presbyterian, Episcopal, Congregational, Baptist and
other churches have been most hospitably opened
everywhere without expense to us. Clergymen of
various denominations have usually honored the plat-
form and taken part with us in hearty and cordial ways.

S&muel Chapman Armstrong:

The rich chords of the old slave music have floated
away into the arches of church and cathedral, or been
echoed by the walls of plain 'meeting houses' with
equally touching effect, sustaining always their fitness
and dignity. To the simple and original thoughts of
the speakers we also owed much. The first two speeches
are somewhat personal and descriptive; the last two
are broader in outlook and more general in statement,
and we found they are quite as appropriate for Sundays
as for weekday services, for they are genuine and
straightforward, showing that they are the honest
outcome of the speaker's experience. The endeavor
to create a breadth of interest had been one of our
aspirations. Our claims are second to those of local
charities and denominational societies created in the
interest of the two races whom we represent; churches
as such do not help Hampton, but individuals in them
are our help and strength. We always, I think,
strengthen rather than weaken the local effort for
Indian and Negro, and have done almost as much good
for other schools as for our own. Our point has been
to make a better and broader hope for and interest
in both races. But it is of little use to excite momentary
interest unless this is followed up by personal effort,
and there is seldom any one to do this, though it some-
times happens that some listener is moved to undertake
it as a labor of love. Those willing to work have
already all that they can do. I never realized more
fully how true it is that Christian churches are ' centers
of work.' Pulpits are used so much as advertising
mediums that printed Sunday bulletins are introduced
instead and work well. A money harvest, like any other,
comes from cultivation of the ground. We sow seed,
much of which would bear fruit if attended to, but at
the moment it is always impossible to estimate as to

In the North. I870-J890 239

the effect of any meeting, for there may be far-off
results of which we see no present evidence. The
maxim of war that 'one shot in five hundred hits'
often occurs to me. Always, too, it has to be borne in
mind that an enlightened public sentiment is at the
foundation of all good public effort. From this point of
view the educational value of our thirty-five meetings
more than justified what they cost in time and money.
The usually good audiences represent only a small
part of those influenced. Newspaper notes and reports
have reached hundreds of thousands, and though only
glanced at by most readers, are on the side of hope and
faith in our 'despised races.' It is true that all this
is only a 'drop in the bucket,' but drop by drop the
bucket is filled. Ours is one of many influences by
which the Negro and Indian questions are kept before
the people. During the first twenty years after the
war magazines and newspapers contained little dis-
cussions of the 'race question'; now books, pamphlets
and articles on it are constantly appearing, and most
of them have only impracticable solutions to offer,
such as disenfranchisement or deportation of the
blacks, etc. As an object lesson, therefore, our four
speeches are always telling. The two Negroes and their
two Indian companions stand for tens of thousands
behind them, who only need a fair chance to become
good citizens. They speak their own thoughts and
words, not written for them, and their appeal is strong.
' Give us a chance to make men and women of ourselves '
is all they ask. . . . The study of audiences is
interesting, and we are struck by differences as we go
west and in the churches in which we speak. There
are almost always a lot of small boys in front, who
come to get a good look at the Indians, and can hardly
realize that these tall, manly, uniformed young men are

240 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

the objects of their curiosity. They are a sure test
of the meeting; if it is too long, their gaze wanders and
they finally fall asleep. While their eyes are still open
we know all is well. The newspapers are as a rule
ready to lend a hand to a good cause and have been
uniformly kind and liberal in their motives, but there
is a marked difference in reporters, some catching the
spirit of things while others merely state the facts.
The freshness and vigor of the student speakers and
singers, after thirty-five meetings of the same kind,
are remarkable. No sign of weakening or of parrot-
like repetition can be seen — each new audience is a
stimulus that brings one up to his best. School studies
are continued in the cars and at hotels. A month out
is a serious thing, and would put the boys hopelessly
back in their studies did they not work over their
books every day from three to five hours.

' ' I notice a better feeling of late toward well-appearing
colored people. All hotels do not welcome our party,
but we can always get good places. On the whole,
prejudice seems to be slowly giving way. There is a
marked difference between to-day and 1873, when the
Hampton singers were out on their campaign of three
and a half years to erect Virginia Hall. I am sure that
the present expedition has done good ; the manly bearing
of the students has been marked and their appearance
at table commended. There has been no friction
whatever, only kindness and good will from first to
last. Things are improving along the whole line, too
slowly for some, but that revolutions do not go back-
ward is strikingly shown in recent American history."

On these trips he denied himself, for economy's
sake, the ordinary ameliorations of travel, rarely
even taking a parlor car. He habitually read or

In the North. J870-J890 241

wrote while riding in trains, and thus it was that
he was able to keep up the wide range of reading
which held him in touch with men of widely varied
interests. In traveling he often went to the
same hotels as his colored students, refusing offers
of private hospitality from a sense of loyalty to the
race who had responded so nobly to his efforts in
their behalf.

General Armstrong felt that the effort of raising
money by such means as these, difficult as they
were, should never be completely abandoned; for
he feared that the Hampton school, once comforta-
bly well off, would become an "easy" place for a
young man or woman to get an education, and
that the North, once free from constant appeals to
aid, would become indifferent to the needs of the
Negro and the Indian. This feeling, coupled with
his always earnest desire to have a fund that would
" lessen the severe and in more ways than one costly
labor of collecting income, give the school a life of
its own, independent of any one man's life or power,
and better secure it against exigencies," caused him
at times to speak in ways that appeared incon-
sistent, but it will readily be seen that his thought
was simple ; he desired partial, not complete endow-
ment.

In the course of these "begging" trips — his own
designation — there .was necessarily, as his acquaint-
ance became larger, a vast amount of individual
work, carried on by means of personal calls at the

242 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

houses or offices of business men or by means of
letters. It was his habit not to ask directly for
money, but to present his cause and let it plead
for itself, but there were times when a more direct
method was necessary.

"I always feel as if I was sticking my head in the
lion's mouth when I am asking for money. Well, it
has never been bitten off yet," he said.

In a letter to a friend to whom he .was used to
apply for advice in these personal matters, he says :

"Would it be wise, do you think, to write direct

to , who must be overloaded and deafened by

continuous howls of poverty-stricken institutions and
humanity? But we howl, too; it is our business. But
it doesn't do to howl imprudently; discretion is the
better part of begging. My idea would be to suggest
a seventy-dollar scholarship given yearly, with no
promise whatever of continuance, taking the matter up
yearly for a fresh decision. I care for no pledges.
People who take hold here usually don't let go. Volun-
tary offerings are the best. Pledges are uncomfortable.
Still we need not a big lift all at once, but a stream
coming in steadily from year to year. I wish to get
people into this, to swell the stream, making it a river
of life and light to Africa."

In these personal dealings great discretion, tact
and delicacy were needed. To the same friend he
wrote :

"Many times it is better to do nothing in order to
succeed. People who give and who advise are com-

In the North* J87CM890 243

pelled to a severe consistency and system of use both
of money and of influence, which is indispensable to
the best results. Where I have the most influence I
use it the least. The result, I believe, is in the end
far better."

In a report to the trustees, written in 1889, he
says:

"I never cease to wonder at the patience and kindness
of those who daily listen to appeals from here and some
other quarters, the wear and tear of which can be
hardly less than of those who solicit aid from these
overtaxed givers. Having myself sometimes been
called on to endorse agents from southern schools,
I have found it usually difficult to do justice to these
earnest workers and at the same time to be fair to the
charitable who should give in the light of all the facts.
I therefore venture to tell briefly and by way of
illustration our own methods.

"Mr. Thomas Cayton, a graduate of the Hampton
school and for six years a teacher, but compelled by a
partial loss of sight to give up this work, is sent to
secure subscriptions for the Southern Workman and
aid for and interest in the school. He presents a letter
from me, stating his mission, his salary, that he has no
commission, how his expenses are paid and the amount
and description of the money he collected the preced-
ing year. In these cases I think money should always
be refused unless the gifts of the preceding year are
accounted for.

"Nothing so encourages carelessness and waste of
money (of which there has been a great deal), by often
well-meaning agents, as taking for granted that an im-
pressive appeal is necessarily trustworthy.

244 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"Those who do not keep strict accounts are not fit
to be trusted with money, and such accounts would
sometimes show a large per cent, used as expenses.
Care in giving means, in the end, the ability to give not
only more, but more wisely."

If his overtures were not at once heeded, the
delay or failure only stimulated him to fresh effort.
One of his favorite mottoes was a saying of his old
colonel in the Troy regiment: " Cap tain, when you
want anything and can't get it, raise the devil ! "
General J. F. B. Marshall said of him:

" For most people an obstacle is something in the way
to stop going on, but for General Armstrong it merely
meant something to climb over, and if he could not
climb all the way over he would get up as high as
possible and then crow!"

As he grew older he began to crave the stimulus
of constant hurry, work and rush, and grew impa-
tient after even a few days of inactivity.

"I have had a taste of blood," he said; "that is, I
have had the taste of life and work — cannot live with-
out the arena. I must be in it. . . . Despair shakes
his skinny hands and glares his hideous eyes on me to
little purpose. I feel happy when all my powers of
resistance are taxed."

This restless life produced its due effect physically
and he was troubled for years with dyspepsia and
sleeplessness. It is an indication of great physical

In the North* J870-J890 245

vigor, the priceless legacy of his long and whole-
some boyhood, that in spite of this physical weak-
ness he was able to keep the courage and optimism
of his youth until middle life. He sincerely tried to
conquer these harmful physical tendencies, to use
great caution in eating and to take rest whenever
possible, but never succeeded in bearing in mind
his physical limitations when it seemed to him
that the welfare of Negro and Indian was at stake.
He wrote to his wife as early as 1870:

"Your prayer that the sweet little cherub that sits
up aloft may watch over me in cars, boats and hotels
is especially in point in respect to the latter, for do not
little imps hide in fried potatoes and oysters, while the
paw of the fiend has consecrated pie to an unholy mis-
sion? Dyspepsia is but the buffeting of Satan, while
sirens that lure the young man to the shipwreck of his
soul do not in reality sing songs upon inviting shores,
but with white aprons on bring hot cakes wherewith to
entice him to his ruin. The Circean cup is for sale by
all druggists. . . . Sound, sensible cooking has a
great deal to do with the sublimes t raptures of the soul."

In 1886 he suffered from a severe illness, the
effect of this long-continued strain, and at this
time made strong resolutions to reform:

"It all comes from overdoing — from my intemperate
life. I have to learn a hard lesson: to reform, to have
to live in a wise, not wasteful but useful, way after a
life of extravagance is not easy. Am I to be like an
old patched-up steam boiler that after all is worn out

246 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

and good for nothing ? Heaven forbid ! Help me
with your prayers !"

At this time a subscription was taken up among
his friends and a considerable sum sent to him to
use as a "health fund." His comments on this
gift are characteristic. To a friend, one of the
principal givers, he writes:

"Have just received — as a health fund — a trust
fund to turn into strength and work for the country
what is left of my somewhat weakened powers. I hope
to make it a good investment. I will try to work it
out and make my good friends feel that they have done
well, for you know there are other fellows better than
I putting in their best licks for God and humanity
who don't make half the fuss I do, who to do their work
have had to keep near to the paths of impecuniosity,
so to speak, and need looking after; for me to feast is
to go terribly back on them, for it would discourage the
good like you, who are on the lookout to see what lift
or help they can give in the world's scrimmage. Pray
for me that I be sensible and level-headed in this new
and blessed and yet trying experience."

Some time after the receipt of this "trust fund"
he rendered a formal account of the expenditure of
it for distribution to the unknown donors through
the chairman of the committee in charge of the
matter. The sum, which amounted to a few
thousand dollars, he had divided into three parts.
The first part, which amounted to about half of the
entire sum, he spent in putting up a small cottage,

In the North. J870-J890 247

conveniently near, yet separated by a stretch of
water from his home at Hampton. He writes con-
cerning this item of expenditure:

"Bluff Cottage is a pretty, well-kept cottage across
Hampton Creek, beautifully situated upon the highest
point of the neighboring shore. There I spend a few
weeks in the late spring, and the teachers get delightful
rest and change, going in parties of six or seven to spend
Saturday and Sunday nights in the late winter and
spring. The sound of plashing waves and the fine
water view over there make it a complete break from
school routine."

The next statement concerns a small sum spent
in a trip to the South and the Bahama Islands.
Referring to this he writes:

"My southern trip has been ever since a great help
in discussing the Negro question. I had long wished
to study the blacks in the Gulf States and the English
treatment of them at the West Indies. . . . Five
weeks in Dakota in August and September, visiting
six reservations and studying Indian life and conditions,
has given me vantage ground of the greatest value in
writing and speaking on the Indian question. I have
had almost constant use for the facts and impressions
gained on my southern and western trips."

The few hundred dollars that remained were used
partly as a gift to an associate and partly for a
summer camping trip:

"Mr. has had much extra work on account of

my illness and needed the little trip. Camping out

248 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

with my daughters at Asquam Lake, New Hampshire,
in July and August, was most pleasant and in every
way profitable. . . . Please excuse this egotistic
statement."

This use of money was characteristic. All per-
sonal funds were to him trust funds, to be put,
if absolutely necessary, into procuring a working
outfit of health, but if possible to be given directly
over to the pressing needs of his work, whose varied
claims could never be met by gifts, which were
usually for specified purposes alone.

Such was the pressure of his work, however, that
the excellent resolutions he formed when sick and
suffering modified but slightly his later course in
life. It was only at the houses of friends in the
North that he found such approach to rest as his
temperament allowed him.

Says one by whose hearth he felt most at home:

"He talked little of his work unless asked directly
about it. He caught up any topic that was touched
upon and tossed the ball of conversation most nimbly to
and fro. A delightful gaiety is my most general
recollection. There were serious moments when he
rose to very great heights of simplicity and insight.
. . . One felt the whole striving of the man
toward a goal he revered.

"But geniality, wit, humanity, all these showed in
his speech, and when he came in it was always
as if a wind of strength and healing blew. I
never saw him discouraged or downcast, even
when things seemed very doubtful. I remember his

In the North. J87CM890 249

telling me once about a college mate he had just seen
who had grown suddenly very rich, and spreading his
hands he said, 'These are all there is between my
little girls and the world,' and then he threw back his
head and gave a most boyish laugh. 'And that's the
way I like it ! '

"He was often brilliant, always delightful, even when
we knew he was tired and suffering. It was his wonder-
ful courage that never flagged that shines most in my
memory. Whatever topic he touched on, one felt the
gallant heart. . . . He told delightful stories to
my children, and no one ever went away from him
without strength and fresh hope."

He often sought relief under pressure of care in
some outburst of nonsense. When a company was
gathered together to meet him socially, he some-
times offered to sing his famous Chinese song.
When all had expressed a desire to hear it, he
would procure a tin pan and fork for each and
tell every one to beat on the pan when he gave
the word.

He would then sit down in the center of the circle,
and with a perfectly solemn face sing gibberish
which sounded sufficiently like Chinese, declaring
it was a classical love song in that tongue. At
intervals he would call for the pans, and all would
solemnly beat their pans, producing dreadful dis-
cords; at last some one would burst out laughing
and a general laugh would ensue, which was what he
made the performance for.

He hated melancholy, long-faced gatherings; if

250 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

he could include in his games staid, elderly per-
sons who were used to taking themselves seriously,
or, as he would say, " unused to standing on
their heads as jolly ministers should," he was more
than pleased.

He frequently attended the conference held at
Lake Mohonk in behalf of the Indians, and enjoyed
every moment of scrambling in the woods and
rowing on the lake. One who knew him there says :
"He used to say, 'Just a minute, till I have
disposed of these missionaries, and then we will go
out and flop." This process consisted of lying
near some running stream and watching the clouds
float by, interrupting his reverie often by some
funny incident or story.

At these Lake Mohonk conferences he would
many a time keep every one sitting near him in
fits of laughter with his running comments, and
then without a moment's warning would be on
his feet, speaking with all his usual ardor and
vehemence.

It is as impossible to reproduce the sparkle and
dash of his talk as it is to throw on the canvas the
living man, but bits from his private correspondence
may serve as suggestions of the quality of his
conversation.

These bits are usually found in no direct connec-
tion with what precedes or follows. They are, as
it were, flashed out as a result of some internal
process of attrition:

In the North. J870-J890 251

" The chief comfort in life is babies. Institutions
are a grind, humanity a good deal of a bore; causes are
tiresome, and men of one idea are a weariness."

"What you spend on yourself you lose; what you
give you gain."

"Don't let Emerson with his glittering half-truths
trouble. He is almost a prophet, and as he says indeed,
1 Love will change.' That is well, because it only rests
with us whether for the better or worse. There is always
an evil alternative to every bright possibility. . . . "

1 * This is a world of cares ; let us rather say this — we
are immortal ; our present coil is on the whole a very com-
fortable one and is truly wonderfully made. We are
compelled to rub for a few years through a world in
which things are very much mixed up, and we should
make the best of it, and above all be good natured."

"When it comes to the scratch, I believe in the prayers
of the unorthodox — why are they not as effectual as
any? From the deep human heart to the Infinite
Heart there is a line along which will pass the real cry
and the sympathetic answer — a double flash from the
moral magnetism that fills the universe. Its conditions
are not found in theological belief, but in the spirit of
a little child. We can no more understand our human
brother than our Father in Heaven without bringing
faith — the evidence of things unseen — the subject of
things hoped for — to our aid."

"I attended Dr. S 's church and liked the old

gentleman's preaching, only he read off what he had to
say, and, in the mysterious way ministers usually have —
or, rather, the devil does it for them — he administered
a kind of opiate along with his stirring appeal which
enabled us to go away feeling pretty comfortable."

"The deep truth about all noble life is that it is
renewed every day. It commences from no date. It

252 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

begins with the day, with the hour ; it is constant renewal ;
the passing moment is a crisis. There is little inertia
in the soul. The past has enough to do to help itself,
and we cannot make reserves of goodness; the need of
each day exhausts all the supply."

"True worship is a gentle, sensitive, shrinking emo-
tion that steals softly into hearts in quiet moments,
often in response to some beautiful scene ; sometimes it
comes to us from the faithful true ones near us. It seems
to shun the throng. There is a religious impression
often in a magnificent church, but it is not worship."

"All progress of strong hearts is by action and
reaction. Human life is too weak to be an incessant
eagle flight toward the Sun of Righteousness. Wings
will be sometimes folded because they are wings. The
pinions that endure in eternal flight are fitted to us by
Heaven's messengers that meet the ascending spirit.
The earthly struggle must be enduring — that is all.
There must be no surrender; we can't expect much of
victory here."

"I dislike public prayer very much, because one is
so self-conscious; it is a hard thing to rise up before
people and pray to God and not to them. I have been
greatly troubled in this way, and only take part in that
public exercise when it is plainly in the line of duty and
good sense. I don't mind the students here; I enjoy it
with them alone, but there are always some of the house-
hold present and that I hardly fancy. But this is all
a confession of weakness."

"The kingdom of heaven will, I think, come through
Christian sociology. Missionary work is founded on
it, but doesn't half recognize the fact."

"Experience has been called 'an arch through which
gleams the untraveled world ' ; it has been called ' stern
lights*; but I prefer to call it a slow fire over which

In the North. J870-J890 253

mortals are gradually turned on the toasting-fork of
destiny."

"'There's no such word as fail.' It is very true.
Equally true that there is failure in all success, and the
converse is true."

"Politics and philanthropy are a grind; only when
one is really at the post of duty and knows it there is
a sensation of being lifted and lifting (et teneo et teneor)
which sometimes comes gradually over one. Detail is
grinding, the whole inspiring. God's kings and priests
must drudge in seedy clothes before they can wear the
purple."

"Barbarism is horrible in its reality, but picturesque
and beautiful in its ruin. In killing it there is danger
that we kill the man that has it and his interesting
accessories."

"Royalty is kept from reality and in respect to
genuine opportunities is singularly destitute. The
beggar is nearer to truth than the king."

"God gave men moral energies for moral ends as
other energies for other ends. You will gather where
you sow — you will raise sugar where you work for it.
You will raise up intelligence, morality and religion as
you shall work for that."

"The adversary of souls hasn't half a chance at one
on a bright winter's day. Conscience shoulders arms
and stands at ' attention. ' Hence New England virtue ;
hence tropical looseness."

"To get at truth, divide a hyperbole by any number
greater than two. ... In animated narrative
divide facts by ten."

Naturally interested in educational topics, Arm-
strong had some radical theories in regard to educa-
tion as applied to his own and other people's children.

254 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

He regarded education in its broadest sense, and
always laid more stress on the influence of the
teacher and of the surroundings than on any method
or course of study.

"Education by atmosphere is the most real; its
results are eternal, for it makes character," and he
regarded character as the goal in all education.
"Development is more and more my idea of educa-
tion." He thought it right that each person should
follow his own bent, and felt that "it is mean for
parents to interfere with their children's growth
and progress" by claiming their society when their
development seemed to be better forwarded else-
where than at home.

As the Indian work at Hampton was sustained
financially by yearly Congressional grants, trips
to Washington to secure and insure these appropri-
ations and visits to the Lake Mohonk Indian Confer-
ence to keep himself informed concerning Indian
affairs thus became a part of General Armstrong's
yearly routine and brought him into greater
intimacy with national affairs.

Thus he came more and more into the public eye.
As the leading exponent of Negro education, as a
champion of the Indian, and as a successful industrial
educator, he was often invited to address clubs and
societies in eastern cities, attend public dinners,
or write articles for the press, so that during his
later years he had not only the carrying on of
Hampton and the effort of raising money to meet

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG

In the North. J870-J890 255

its needs, but the varied demands of many public
interests to complicate his life.

In the year 1887 the degree of LL.D. was conferred
upon him by his alma mater, Williams College, and
in 1889 by Harvard University. He felt these
honors deeply, yet received them in all humility
as tokens of the nation's kindness to those who were
doing its work. His response to a speech of intro-
duction at Harvard shows this impersonal habit of
mind. It was his work, not himself, that was ever
uppermost. He said:

"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Alumni:
This is my first presence at a Harvard commence-
ment, and I can never forget the pleasure and the honor
of it. It is great. Those of us who receive these honors
have more pleasure in them for the sake of our mothers
and our friends than for ourselves, and I thank you
for them as well as myself. This scene is grand and
inspiring. You have nobly honored your soldier boys
in this hall. I think the next time the country calls
for them there will be one hundred per cent, of Harvard
students ready to go. Dealing with the so-called
despised races, I have found that there is an inspira-
tion in self-help ; that from the incessant daily strain of
brain and body in a combined system of labor and
schooling, such as would be impossible as a basis of
any northern educational work, there comes to these
people a manliness and moral force and vigor of thought
and action which command the respect of all. The
simply trained Negro boy or Indian boy of Hampton
may be worth as much as an accomplished Harvard
graduate, and he is as ready to die for his country and,
what is more difficult, to live for it."

256 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

To General Armstrong's campaigns through the
North is due a large part of the present interest and
confidence in the possibilities of the Negro under
wise leadership. On these topics the public is now
informed to a far greater extent than formerly, and
the opinion that industrial training is the training
best adapted to these weaker races has become
general. Both his aims at the Hampton school and
his method of raising money at the North have been
many times duplicated, until few persons in the
North can question the fact that it pays, and that
it is a national duty to educate the Negro and
the Indian into worthy citizenship^

CHAPTER IX
THE NEGRO AND THE SOUTH

GENERAL ARMSTRONG'S lifelong habit of pre-
serving a non-partizan attitude, of looking at both
sides of a question, stood him in good stead in his
relations to his southern neighbors and to the
complex problems of southern life. It enabled
him to regard them from the point of view of a
philosopher and not of a political opponent. The
following extracts are taken from letters written to
a society in Honolulu of which he was a life mem-
ber. He often spoke of the similarity of the prob-
lems of southern American and of Hawaiian life,
each encompassed by a large population of dark-
skinned people. In 1889 he wrote:

"You get from the papers very little insight into the
South. They write for their market. The South is
more and more tolerant of free speech; tremendous
but quiet changes are going on, even in the heart of
Mississippi, where the splendid chances for stock rais-
ing are attracting Northerners. Cotton-growing there
is leaving the uplands for the Yazoo bottom and like
regions, whither the Negroes are flocking by thousands
and getting small farms, while Bermuda and orchard
and other grasses are found to flourish on the exhausted
old cotton fields. Grass makes beef, beef makes men;

257

258 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

cotton is dethroned, grass is king; the crop is worth
three times as much as the cotton crop. When the
South raises its own meat — pork especially — and
ceases to buy it in the northwest, reconstruction will
be complete, for then the South can pay any price for
education."

"The Negroes of the South are capable of and do
many provoking things; but generally the fiery south-
ern spirit acts so excessively that sympathy with the
provocation is lost in condemnation of its extreme
measures."

"The war was the saving of the South. Defeat and
ruin brought more material prosperity to the South
than to the North, and the future has untold advan-
tages in store. This is the true reconstruction. Edu-
cation is part of it, but capital and enterprise, which
make men work, are the greater part. The Negro and
poor white and, more than all, the old aristocrat are
being saved by hard work, which, next to the grace of
God, saves our souls. . . . Good sense and a love
of fair play are, I believe, the ruling instincts at the
South, but Southerners so dreadfully overdo the thing
in dealing with the Negro ! Where a mere show of
force would answer they shoot half a dozen blacks, the
whites usually not getting hurt. . . . The angry
race feeling that crops out here and there between the
races at the South is not the rule. But nearly 8,000,000
blacks among 12,000,000 unsympathetic whites will
have some trouble and to some extent must and will
be 'sat on' politically. Monkeying with power,
whether in Hawaii or in the Sunny South, will end by
the monkey losing a part or the whole of his tail."

In an address delivered at Williams College
February, 1890, were these words:

The Negro and the South 259

"There is a great deal of misunderstanding on the
part of the North regarding the South. The word
South means a very large territory. You speak of the
South as a whole as all bad ; but in eight of the southern
States it is admitted that there is no trouble, but they
are held responsible for the acts of the others. In the
other southern States there are occasional outrages,
which are due largely to the peculiar temperament of
the people; this the people of the North cannot under-
stand. They cannot understand the peculiar relations
of the Negroes to the whites. What would you do if
you had this great preponderance of Negroes among
you ? You don't know. No one can know until it
has been tried. The Negro is a great political and
social element which has to be met by the South. It
is not his political standing that makes the trouble,
but his social standing."

In the years that elapsed between 1870 and 1890
a change came over many of his opinions concerning
reconstruction. It will be remembered that while
in the employ of the Freedmen's Bureau he heartily
endorsed that policy in general, as became a loyal
employee ; later he saw that reconstruction measures
had failed in certain radical ways, and characterized
them as "a bridge of wood over a river of fire."

Yet to the basal fact of the reconstruction scheme
he always gave unquestioning adherence. The
granting of the suffrage to the Negroes was the
starting-point of his work; since the Negro was a
voter, he must be a worthy voter ; to make the
enfranchised colored man an honorable citizen was
the best work for his country that General Armstrong

260 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

knew how to do. Without this corner-stone, the
structures of education, thrift and morality which
he was striving to rear rested on no assured basis;
but for the privilege of the suffrage the Negro
would be at the mercy of every unprincipled neigh-
bor. His own words — not the words of a party
man, for though voting with the Republican party
in general he was far from confining his sympathies
to the measures of that party — show his reasons for
this attitude. In a reply to an article by Senator
Wade Hampton, which argued that if a suffrage
with educational qualifications had been granted
when the question was first brought up it would
have acted as an incentive to the Negroes to
qualify themselves to vote, he wrote in 1888:

"How could they have qualified themselves, or who
would have qualified them? Would their former
masters have hastened to put an independent vote into
their hands? What but the pressure of the very exi-
gency of general suffrage has created the general senti-
ment for education and built up the common-school
system in the South that is one of the marvels of the
last twenty years?"

In a public address delivered in 1887, in words
that perhaps express his opinions as clearly as any,
he said:

"After all, being a citizen and a voter has more than
anything else made the Negro a man. The recognition
of his manhood has done much to create it. Political
power is a two-edged sword which may cut both ways

The Negro and the South 261

and do as much harm as good. In the main, it has, I
believe, been the chief developing force in the progress
of the race. It is, however, probable that this would
not have been so had it not been for the support of a
surrounding white civilization which, though not always
kind, has prevented the evils which would have resulted
from an unrestricted black vote."

"The political experience of the Negro has been a
great education to him. In spite of his many blunders
and unintentional crimes against civilization, he is
to-day more of a man than he would have been had he
not been a voter. . . . Manhood is best brought
out by recognition of it. Citizenship, together with
the common school, is the great developing force in
this country. It compels attention to the danger
which it creates. There is nothing like faith in man
to bring out the manly qualities."

"Suffrage furnished him [the Negro] with a stimulus
which was terribly misused, but it has reacted and
given him a training which it was out of the power
of churches and schools to impart. The source of
American intelligence is not so much the pedagogue as
the system which gives each man a share in the conduct
of affairs, leading him to think, discuss and act, and
thus educating him quite as much by his failures as by
his successes. Responsibility is the best educator."

From an editorial written in 1878:

"Hereafter it will be seen that Negro suffrage was a
boon to the race, not so much for a defense, but as a
tremendous fact that compelled its education. There
is nothing to do but attempt its elevation in every
possible way. In their pinching poverty the southern
States have seized the question of Negro education

262 Samuel Chapman Armstrong;

with a vigor that is the outcome of danger. The ex-
slave would have sunk into practical serfdom not by
oppression, but by stagnation of his mind. We have
no reason to think that the South would have fitted
him to vote, but now it must be done, and it will be
done with an energy that is born of emergency. To
universal suffrage in the South, more than to anything
else, is due the existence of the strong and growing
class of ex-slave-holders, who advocate free schools for
all. Reason may appear to be in favor of limited
suffrage; experience seems on the other side.'*

"The talk of disfranchisement is idle; it comes too
late; the Negro is not what he was twenty-five years
ago, and the next half-century will see great changes."

His yearly written observations of the progress
and condition of the Negro race form a series of
papers interesting both to the student of southern
affairs and to one who is concerned with Samuel
Armstrong's development, for here speaks the
mature mind through the practised pen; here he
indicates a method which he found to be adapted
to the treatment of such vexed questions as the
position of the Negro in the South, a method broad,
impartial and reasonable. These extracts touch
briefly on the social, moral, political, financial and
educational situation among the Negroes. In a
report to the trustees, written in 1886, he says:

"Party ties are loosening; personal interest and
influence are more and more decisive in political action.
Reasonably well assured that he is secure in the rights
he has so far attained, the colored man has, in most of

The Negro and the South 263

the southern States, no longer serious anxiety on elec-
tion days. I think that, on the whole, the Negroes
are less devoted than formerly to politics, which are
becoming the specialty of a few, and that our black pop-
ulation is forming itself into strata. The highest — that
is, the best third or fourth — are progressing, gaining
rapidly in education, property and character, while
the lowest third or fourth are stationary in miserable
conditions, or, worse still, are slowly sinking into lower
depths. There is a large, well-behaved middle class
who take life easily and work when they must; they
are laborers and producers, and add much to the wealth
of the country, but lack ambition, are careless of the
future, and must be moved by forces from without
rather than from within. The hope for them lies in the
good management of landholders and employers of
every kind and in the lifting influences of a practical
Christian education.

"The earnest, capable schoolteacher can, both
directly and through his pupils, instruct them in
and inspire them to better things. The graduates
of Hampton and other institutions during the last
sixteen years have proved this. The black race is
strikingly responsive to the influences about it. Its
condition in the South corresponds to that of the
surrounding whites; it shares in their prosperity or
adversity, and has kept pace pretty well with the
stronger race in the growth of 'the New South.'

"The Negroes just now need light more than rights.
In their darkness they are, especially in the South,
suffering untold evils from the credit or contract system,
through which, partly by their own fault and partly
from the advantage taken of them, tens and hundreds
of thousands of them are kept in fixed and hopeless
poverty, harder to bear than their former bondage.

264 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

Dismayed, they blindly seek some change, and their
restless movements from point to point result now
and then in an 'exodus,' where there is always the
possibility of some new development. Imposed upon
by others, helpless under their own appetites and pas-
sions, they appeal to our sympathies more than do
those who are literally blind, for we must never forget
that they are in no sense responsible for their own
ignorance.

"The recent temperance agitation under 'local
option' laws passed by various southern States, Georgia
leading, is a most hopeful sign. Experience has proven
the success of prohibition in country regions, and the
southern population is largely in the country. While
not hard drinkers, the blacks very generally drink, and
keep themselves poor by the yearly consumption of
the value of thousands of farms and homes. To-day
they need emancipation from whisky as much as
twenty years ago they needed it from their task-masters,
but I count upon prohibition only as one weapon among
many which should be used in fighting this battle. It
is not political pressure, but moral inspiration, which
will gain the day, and it is only as the former is
used as a means to an end that I can give it my
hearty support."

And in 1889:

"As might be expected, the popular talk about the
Negro is all in a hopeless key; but to the direct ques-
tions, 'Are the laborer's pigs and poultry and crops safer
than ten years ago? Are the loafer and thief more
likely to get their due? Are the Negroes inclined to
get homesteads ? ' the answer is usually ' Yes. '

"There are unquestionably multitudes of 'low-

The Negro and the South 265

down' Negroes and many wretched neighborhoods,
but I think that intelligent white men everywhere in
the South admit that the line between the good and
the bad is every year more distinctly drawn — a sure
proof of progress. The gain was never so rapid as now,
thanks to Negro pluck and purpose and to the stern
discipline of their past, which developed qualities
beyond the power of schools alone to create; and this
basis of hope is, I believe, beyond the reach of any
political pressure. Increasing enterprise at the South
and the new industrial life of the people are helpful
conditions, and where they are supplemented by educa-
tion are pushing the better part of the Negro race into
prosperity, giving them a place and making them a
power.

"As prosperity creates social distinctions, political
divisions will follow, and the human nature of both
races may be trusted to adjust the relations which are
indeed to-day generally amicable. In those localities
where lawlessness and injustice have repelled capital
and immigration, the penalty of impoverishment is
the swift result and Government can do little; the
people must finish the work of reconstruction.

"I believe there is no such illustration on record of
the law of compensation as is to be found in the history
of the Negro race. More has been given them than
has been taken away. Hard knocks have driven them
forward. 'Development under difficulties ' seems to
be their law of progress, and this is their heroic age.
Indulgence has demoralized the Indian, while harsh-
ness has strengthened the Negro; our black boys could
not afford to have their path made too easy. As I look
at the life of the average white college student, I know
that our young men could not stand the ordeal of so
much prosperity, any more than the former could endure

266 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

the strain which develops our Hampton boys. The
Negro's 'speed,' so to speak, is more rapid than that
of the white student, becaues he still feels the momen-
tum always associated with the first period of growth;
but this, rightly measured, is in no sense deceptive.
There is no doubt that against the Negro can be arrayed
a formidable phalanx of discouraging facts, but the
weight of evidence is finally in his favor, and we have
a right to our enthusiasm. Without it, indeed, we
should poorly serve the cause for which we stand, for
nothing so cripples a worker as a burden of grievances,
and our strength is in our belief that the providential
guidance of the Negro is as manifest to-day as it
ever was."

General Armstrong gained his impressions of the
South and the Negroes both from conversation and
contact with many hundred young colored people
at the Hampton school and from trips taken
through the South for the purpose of informing him-
self concerning the real condition of their people.
While on these tours he traveled incognito, as it
were ; for no one would suspect the northern philan-
thropist in the soldierly, keen-eyed man, dressed
in a rather baggy gray suit and black slouched hat.
Indeed, his type of face resembled rather that of the
Englishman of action, so that unsuspected he was
able to converse freely with men of all sorts every-
where, interrogating with equal interest the station
loafer — while the train made the leisurely halts
peculiar to southern railways — or the more culti-
vated travelers within the coaches.

The Negro and the South 267

The following extracts from letters written to his
school paper describe impressions of South Carolina
in 1887; they show in some detail his method of
obtaining information about the South, and present
pictures of contrasting sides of southern life, now
overhung by a threatening cloud of political con-
fusion, now lightened by increasing thrift and
prosperity :

"COLUMBIA, South Carolina, January, 1887.

"Through the kindness of ex-Governor Thompson,
of this State, I had the most pleasant access to his
genial successor, Governor Richardson, whose appre-
ciation of the importance of the Negro question is deep ;
only thinking, responsible men in situations like his
can so realize it, and he gave much time to its discus-
sion. . . .

"In the entire State there is a black majority of
about 50,000. It is a postulate of politics that this
majority shall not rule the State. Its record of corrupt,
extravagant, high-handed control for eight years was
far worse for the State than the period of the war, which
destroyed the people's prosperity but did not hurt
their manhood. The general demoralization during
the rule of the blacks was unspeakably bad ; civilization
could hardly stand up before it. The Negroes were
not to blame when the expenses of one session of the
Legislature amounted to $1,100,000 — the worst year
of all (the Legislature now just closed, after a thirty-
day session, cost but $53,000); they were led into mis-
chief by unscrupulous white men.

"A better feeling between the races is setting in.
The Governor's plantations are in the black country,
where there is security for all. Negroes are tried by

268 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

jurors of their own race, but frequently prefer white
ones. A black man's poverty never prevents his having
able counsel in criminal cases. Some years ago dread
of the incendiary was a widespread terror. Now the
whites feel secure in the densest black surroundings.
Nearly every Negro is a church member and has no
opinion at all of the white man's religion, but morally
he is very weak and needs more than anything else
improvement at this point. This is the problem of his
education. How shall it be accomplished ?

"My knowledge of things having been gained so far
from Democratic sources, I found (in Charleston) a
Negro Republican who is held in high estimation in the
community and seemed a clear-headed, reliable man.
He said that there are colored policemen in the com-
munity as high as the grade of lieutenant; that one-
third of the paid fire department of the city is colored ;
that colored people on steamboats and railroads in
this State have first-class seats when they pay the
price. I noticed myself that a tidy, respectable class
of colored people ride in the 'ladies' car,' and that only
rough-looking ones were in the smoking car. The
truth is that the entire Republican legislation on the
civil rights of the blacks remains unaltered; much of it,
however, is a dead letter. My informant said that
the Negro vote is practically abolished, and at the last
election only half the whites voted. . . . He him-
self used to believe in universal suffrage, but did so no
longer, from his experience of the ruinous taxation
under Republican rule which made some colored men
of property favor the election of Governor Hampton,
of which he was glad. His taxes have been reduced
from $77 to $22 a year. ... He was not satisfied
with the condition of the black voter, but ' what could

The Negro and the South 269

be done ? ' He thought the whites could, if they tried,
divide the Negro vote.

" I think the Negroes of South Carolina will not suffer
much from not voting — perhaps on the whole they are
improving — and that they are unspeakably better off
than when in power, but that, however, the principles
of popular government in the State are in peril, and
that real democracy may be going to destruction.
An undue Congressional and electoral power is gained.
Tampering with men's right to vote is most dangerous.
Many who see nothing else to do speak of it with the
deepest concern. I had no idea that this sentiment
existed. All seems quite well now, but thinking men
are thinking. They see that there is a black cloud over
the future, and nowhere else is this better appreciated.
. . . There appears to be a general feeling that
an unimpeded Negro majority could repeat the terrible
work of former years. . . . Men talk earnestly
but not bitterly about it, with most kind and friendly
feeling toward the blacks. The true thing for us to
do [is to put ourselves in their places. What would
we do if there? Only a Pharisee could be boastful.
The only hope *for the future is a vigorous effort to
elevate the colored race. The only way out of it all
is by admitting every thoughtful man to education —
practical education that shall fit them for life. To let
things go on indefinitely as they are will, I believe, in
the end prove as disastrous to local civilization as was
the reign of ignorance; for by a longer, slower way
it will at last lead to anarchy.

"Beaufort, South Carolina, is the region where the
finest cotton in the world is grown ; is the center of Negro
politics in this State and one of the strongholds of the
black man in the South. This place, Port Royal
Island, and the other sea islands along the coast, are

270 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

owned chiefly by Negroes, who outnumber the whites
about ten to one, and who, through aid of the tax sales
of the war period, were enabled to buy small farms of
from ten to twenty acres at a very low rate. They are
steadily buying more. The great majority live in their
own homes. There is, I think, no Negro population in
this country just so situated. There are many similarly
located on the mainland close by, making a domain
of blacks which in an interesting way illustrates a phase
of the problem of this race. . . .

"Showing me a very strong statement from a reporter
of a northern paper about the stealing done by colored
employees, a member of the firm of J. J. Dale & Com-
pany, who do the largest business in the sea islands
in ginning cotton, said that fifteen years' experience in
buying cotton from the Negroes had taught the firm
that not over five per cent, of them would cheat by
adding water, salt or sand or overweighing the cotton
in any way, and but one in twenty cheats in business
dealings. With 100 women employees in the gin-house,
and constant opportunity to steal cotton, there is not
two per cent, loss of stock. Dale & Company have
eight large stores on these islands, have no one especially
to watch their goods, and have had little loss.

1 ' Tax and crown land can be bought to an unlimited
extent for $1.25 per acre on which the Negroes can dig
out a living. ... I saw six considerable stores in three
blocks of the principal street kept by Negroes. They
have worked into the business life of the place and fill
quite a number of important offices of trust and honor
— and nobody is hurt. The whites as a class are far
ahead, but the Negro movement — or tendency — is a
healthy and encouraging one. There was more neat-
ness than I had expected to find in the many little homes
I looked into; the floors were universally clean; the

The Negto and the South 271

buildings were often mere shells. Many have complained
of these people's labor. I had a two hours' drive with
Mr. Johnson, a white man, a pineapple planter, etc.,
who has had great experience through a long life with
this labor and was well satisfied with it. He knew
what was reasonable to expect, what allowance to make,
and did a very large and successful business. As every-
where else, the unsuccessful man must have his scape-
goat, and it is very convenient to blame the black man.

"There is a large Negro population in this State with
little or no political organization. There is no agitation
and little voting on their part ; there is peace ; the lamb
lies down beside the lion. A leading educator of the
Negro race told me in the presence of a prominent
Democrat that the three blackest parishes or counties
of Louisiana, wholly officered and controlled by Negroes
elected by the people, are among the best governed
and most orderly in the State. Here is evidence that
Negro majorities in exercise of their right to vote do
not always make for unrighteousness. The Southerner
admitted the statement, but said that the whites there
have the wealth and give bonds for the colored officers,
refusing to back up any in whom they have no confi-
dence, and this keeps out bad men. This was admitted.
It was refreshing to find that the races could live
together so well."

General Armstrong's belief that the country,
since it had taken from the Negro his former means
of support, owed him a chance to make his way,
caused him to give his warm support for many years
to the principle of national aid to Negro education.
But before the year 1887 his feeling on this point
underwent some modification, owing to the effective

272 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

way in which the southern States, headed by
Virginia, were taking up the public-school education
of their own black children, and owing also to a
growing conviction that any aid granted by the
National Government would be poorly administered
by the politicians through whose hands it must
inevitably pass.

He wrote concerning national aid to Negro
education, and especially of the Blair bill, as
follows :

"The nation which freed and enfranchised 4,000,000
slaves, thereby creating most serious and dangerous
political conditions, has felt its responsibility, and
has from time to time attempted to do something
toward cultivating the intelligence and moral sense of
its new-made citizens. The Blair bill is the last
expression of this feeling and has failed.

"Unquestionably a better measure might have been
prepared. Too much was asked for in too short a
time, and this mistake gave some justification to the
cry of 'pauperizing the South.' The $15,000,000
given by northern charity for southern, chiefly Negro,
education has had a tremendous mental and moral
result. The $3,500,000 of Government money used
by the educational department of the Freedmen's
Bureau between 1865 and 1870 was the means of teach-
ing nearly 1,000,000 black children to read and write.
It did broad foundation work for the institutions which
were to follow it. In my opinion, wise and legitimate
means can be found for using national aid against that
worst enemy of republics, an ignorant population.
The need of it for the enormous mass of illiterate blacks

The Negro and the South 273

and whites is unquestionable; there is danger in neglect
of them, and we who know what the trouble of the past
has been see the trouble ahead and feel that the worst
is yet to come."

As the foregoing quotation shows, a wise measure,
avoiding what he thought to be the errors of this
bill, but directed to the same end, would have
found a supporter in him. The agricultural colleges
suggested by Senator Morrill approached nearer to
his idea of what such a measure should be than
any other. These, he thought, might become the
starting-point for a larger development of the in-
dustrial idea for Negroes under State or national
auspices :

"Senator Merrill's agricultural colleges have done
more for the Negroes in the South than all the New
England Senators and Congressmen combined ever did
by legislation. . . .

"His agricultural college measures have been the
best ever passed for our ex-slaves, for they make some
provision for the practical education needed by the
Negro that should fit him to earn a good living and get
a home of his own. Able to do this, his vote is sure to
be counted. United States troops are not needed to
guard his approach to the ballot-box; but there is
greatly needed a thorough system of agricultural
schools, costing much less than armed men, among the
southern blacks and some classes of whites. The
entire country approves public expenditures made for
agricultural colleges. . Party men North and South
write in support of it. Why not establish under the
Department of Agriculture at Washington a system of

274 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

industrial schools that shall reach every Congressional
district in the South?"

All his experience and the continued observation
of years only led him closer to his fundamental and
first idea — namely, that the great need of the
Negroes was character, expressed in thrift, industry
and moral living, and that the only way to supply
this need was found in a system of industrial com-
bined with mental education.

CHAPTER X
WORK FOR THE INDIAN

"THE Negro makes public sentiment, but public
sentiment makes the Indian. . . . The elevation
of the Indians is clearly possible and is dependent on
the will of the people; their failure will be more the
white man's failure than their own."

General Armstrong took every opportunity to
urge upon the people of the country, by public
address, by magazine or newspaper articles, or by
personal conversation, this view of the Indian
question. He threw the force of his personality
and influence into the work of convicting the
conscience of the nation of criminal negligence
toward the red men. The remedy for their troubles
lay, he thought, in enlisting in their behalf a large
and influential body of friends who would zealously
guard their interests, enforce wise legislation,
expose underhanded Congressional action, and
contribute money where it was needed for their
education or improvement.

"Will the red men finally have a constituency of
faithful friends, like that of the blacks, who will steadily
support the educational work for them?" he asks.
"The Government is as good as the people will let it be;

275

276 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

to scold about the Indian policy is idle and useless.
There is need of combined effort that shall press upon
our legislators their duty to the red race, and persistently
work for them at their own homes."

General Armstrong was able to bring this view
into wider prominence than heretofore . His dramatic
instinct that seized upon striking facts for relation,
his readiness with a practical solution of immediate
difficulties, his burning eagerness to help the unfor-
tunate, and the wide circle of friends already inter-
ested in his work made him a most valuable acquisi-
tion to the ranks of the friends of the Indian.

It will be remembered that a few of that race had
come to the Hampton school in 1878, sent from
barracks in St. Augustine, Florida, where they were
held as prisoners of war. Since that time the
Government had granted a fixed sum yearly for the
support of a limited number, and a group of Indians
numbering about 150 had become a part of the
Hampton school.

That institution was peculiarly adapted to the
training of Indians, owing to the fact that English
was the language of instruction and conversa-
tion, and also in no small measure to the steady
tone created by 500 hard-working and loyal
Negro students. " Sending Indians to a Negro
school is like putting raw recruits into an old
regiment," said General Armstrong. The moral
atmosphere at Hampton, too, he felt to be essential
to Indian development. "Their education should

"Work for the Indian 277

be first for the heart, then for health, and last for
the mind," he said. That an individual Indian
should be civilized was barely, from his point of
view, worth the expenditure of money and energy
bestowed on it at Hampton; but that each Indian
should feel under obligation to pass on to his people
the benefits he had received was a result worthy
of the best effort. Hampton could create the
desire for service, the sense of moral obligation in
the Negro, and why not, he thought, in the Indian ?

"Pupils should be taught that they have a duty to
their people, that education is more than a preparation
for their own support and decent living, but that they
have a great work which they must begin by writing
home; they must expect to teach by precept and
example, the more excellent way."

"The Indians are grown-up children," said he. "We
are a thousand years ahead of them in the line of
development. Education is not progress, but is a
means of it. A brain full of book knowledge, whose
physical basis is the product of centuries of barbarism,
is an absurdity that we do not half realize, from our
excessive traditional reverence for school and college
training. We forget that knowledge is not power
unless it is digested and assimilated. Savages have
good memories; they acquire, but do not comprehend;
they devour, but do not digest knowledge. They have
no conception of mental discipline. A well-balanced
mind is attained only after centuries of development."*

"The very atmosphere of civilization is a revelation
to them. Respectability here is in the air; it is a habit;

* " Indian Education in the East." A speech delivered in 1880.

278 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

you inherit it; it is the fashion and it pays. Among
savages, degradation is in the air and in the blood ; it is
customary and comfortable, almost universal, and virtue
is a cross instead of a crown. The civilized man is
honest not because he is good, but because it pays to be
honest; but it took ten generations to find it out. Not
till a race comprehends the practical bearing of integrity
will it practise it. Knowing it is not comprehending it."

He often compared the two races as they mingled
in the school life of Hampton :

"The severe discipline of slavery strengthened a
weak race. Professed friendship for a strong one has
weakened it. A cruel semblance of justice has done
more harm than direct oppression could have done.
The Negro is strong, the Indian weak, because the one
is trained to labor and the other is not. I am told that
the ex-slaves of the Indian Territory are now much
more prosperous than their former red-skinned owners.
One has had too little and the other too much freedom.
Both are now eager to improve; both will make the
most of their opportunities for practical education.
Both have capacity to become citizens and perform all
practical duties. With both the question of progress
is only one of opportunities to provide and then settle
the question."

"The surroundings of the ex-slave are far more
sympathetic and helpful than those of our western
wards, whose large possessions and resultant relations
to the neighboring country have created many compli-
cated questions. The war, with its terrible possibilities,
has resulted in peace and good-will among all our people,
while a hundred years of well-meaning policy toward

Work for the Indian 279

the Indians have just brought us to a measure which
recognizes their manhood." *

" Civilizing Indians and Negroes together is novel, but
hopeful, and it keeps us busy ; it is very stimulating, for
success is not to be taken for granted. We shall see." f

He never perceived that it was more the influence
of his own personality than any other force at
Hampton that tended to make responsible beings
out of those Indian boys and girls just raising them-
selves from barbarism. He commanded their admi-
ration where they would have passed by with scant
notice many men equally well intentioned and able.
They could understand the language of flashing eye
and quick gesture, as they remained at Hampton.
They could soon understand also the simple questions
which he put to his audiences, and it was as often,
in proportion, that an Indian answered them as a
Negro. They enjoyed mightily the scenery, the
soft blue waters, and the passing boats; the songs
of the Negroes with their passionate rhythms and
martial choruses stirred them to the quick. General
Armstrong planned wisely when he admitted them
to the heart of his work; it was heart more than
intellectual cultivation that they needed, and
Hampton was essentially for many years an expres-
sion in brick and mortar, in flesh and blood, of
General Armstrong's own inner self.

While at Hampton they gained a general knowl-

* " Indian Education in the East."

t Address, " The Future of the American Negro," delivered at
Omaha, 1887.

280 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

edge of several trades, and most of them acquired a
mastery of one. Their work at school was planned
in such a way as to fit them to repair their own
homes, to build their own carts and tools, or to
engage in some occupation for self-support. General
Armstrong thought that this manual work, which was
carried on under instruction and was obligatory on
every Indian boy, even more essential to them than
to the Negroes. Owing to their inherited nomadic
instincts a distaste for labor was common among
them, but in the changed conditions prevailing at
their western homes they must now either go to
work or go to the wall; and half recognizing this
alternative, they received their enforced industrial
education with composure.

The test of work for the Indians General Arm-
strong felt to be not what they received at school,
but their record on their return home. As he said :

"The question is no longer, Can the Indian be civi-
lised ? but, What becomes of the civilized Indian ? The
Indians are where they are; a few may be taken away,
educated, and live among the whites, but only a few; this
will barely touch, but not settle the Indian question.
The work to be done is yet at the reservation."

It has long been the policy of the Government to
group Indians within defined tracts known as
"reservations," each of which is presided over by
an agent appointed by the President. Each agency
contains one or more schools which provide for the

Work for the Indian 281

education of Indian children, and a depot of supplies
from which each adult can draw a certain ration,
including both necessities and luxuries, free of
charge. Since the year 1887 this policy has been
supplemented by the provisions of the Dawes Land
in Severalty bill.*

General Armstrong took many trips among the
reservations in order to ascertain with his own eyes
what were the conditions in the midst of which his
returned pupils were to live. He found much in
western life that differed from the current western
and eastern opinion of it, saying:

"If the West knows anything, it knows that you
can't improve the prairie Indian. Crossing the conti-
nent twice of late, I found the universal creed to be,
'There is no good Indian but a dead one,' which has
been adopted by over half the intelligent people of
the East." f

These tours were taken in the company of friends
or of some chance traveling companion; and in
riding or driving over the prairies from one reserva-
tion to another, often camping at night, he found
pleasant reminiscences of army life and gained
fresh strength. Of one of these tours, half for rest
and pleasure, half for purposes of observation,
he writes:

* The Dawes Land in Severalty bill provided that any Indian
expressing a wish to take up land in individual ownership should
have 1 60 acres apportioned to him from the reservation for his
own private use, inalienable for twenty-five years. By taking
up this land he became a citizen of the United States.

t " Indian Education in the East."

282 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"The weather has been cool and our gallops over the
plains in the midst of surrounding mountains have been
exhilarating. Such appetites as we have had ! The
memory of feasts of brook trout, black-tailed deer,
wild duck, ending with flapjacks and maple syrup,
will not soon fade. The hunter of our party is the
Harvard graduate. Our ex-Confederate captain has
a genius for making tea — the charm of such life makes
every camp seem the pleasantest of all. Whenever we
gather around the blazing fire near some river or on the
edge of the woods and the sun is setting in glory and the
plain stretches far away till it meets a distant mountain,
we think we have never found it so pleasant before."

And of one especial trip:

"A three hours' drive over this [Devil's Lake] reser-
vation was one of my most encouraging and inspiring
experiences of Indian life and progress. In every direc-
tion as far as the eye could reach, except where the
ground was broken and wooded, were dotted log houses,
beside each one a tipi, or conical tent, of smoke-browned
cotton cloth, graceful and picturesque, where in sum-
mer the Indians cook and sometimes live. Of the
1,000 people 210 are farmers, heads of families, scattered
over the reserve just as white men would be settled,
cultivating from 100 to 200 acres apiece. . . .

"The climax of my experience was in seeing a
McCormick self-binder and reaper driven with two
horses by an Indian farmer around splendid fields of
yellow grain. All I could say was : ' This is the end of
it.' True, the red man does not put in his full day's
work like the white man, and does not hesitate to take
a good long midday rest; but then, he is on his own
reaping-machine, harvesting the fruits of his own labor,

Work for the Indian 283

which he takes to the agency mill to be ground and
brings back in flour.

"I can never forget this afternoon's drive among
the Indian farms. The air was perfect, every breath
a delight; far and near fields of grain were waving in
the wind, while the slant rays of the setting sun made
their surfaces glisten like jewels as they rose and fell
under the soft touch of the breeze. The redeemed,
disenthralled and regenerate Indian, guiding the compli-
cated, brainy machine — one of forty on the reservation,
each as a rule bought by two or three men together —
seemed fairly established in manhood. The hard
work is done. . . ."

He saw all sides of life among the Indians, and
appreciated the strength as well as the weakness
of their surviving savage customs. From Standing
Rock Agency, Dakota, he wrote:

"The picturesqueness of Indian life was at its climax
when we went to see a modified ' grass dance ' (all others
being suppressed), now allowed once in two weeks in
the afternoon. An outer circle some hundred feet in
diameter was formed of onlookers of both sexes, within
which sat on their heels about eighty braves in full ball
costume ready to spring to the center at the sound of
the drum and chorus of men and squaws whose quaint
barbaric cadences, alternating with stirring staccato
cries, in perfect time, seemed to inspire the dancers as
much as any orchestra could the civilized votaries of
this pleasure. . . . All chant or sing or shout,
while strings of innumerable small bells on arm and
leg and body make a tremendous tinkling as the dancers
go madly round, now erect, now in a bending posture,

284 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

imitating the various attitudes of the hunter or warrior.
After about five minutes of these wild doings, all fall
back to their places and squat for a while. The leader
rises and explains something or recites the exploits or
generosity of somebody, and they all go at it again.
A fire was lighted, and the performance of the curiously
costumed, painted, plumed, richly feathered, splendidly
built half savages was weird and brilliant as they
pranced around it. I cannot see that the severest
criticism of moralists and satirists on civilized ball-
rooms would apply here. The dance was out of doors,
and the whole scene as the sun went down — the infinite
prairie beyond, the gumbo hills in one direction, the
Missouri River winding away to the left, the glory of
color in the west, the strained, intense and brilliant
action before us — made it all seem like another world.
Unpicturesque civilization will conquer all this. One's
mystic instincts are singularly awakened in the remote
West. Nature and her spirit are felt here as nowhere
else."

His mature observations of the system of caring
for Indians adopted by the Government led him to
certain fixed conclusions, both as to the evils and
the benefits of the system and as to the means by
which it could be improved. He regarded the
system of distributing rations to the Indians which
was in vogue between 1880 and 1890 as thoroughly
wrong. Many Indians, he saw, were obliged to
travel long distances, leaving their work at home
in order to reach the distributing stations. When
arrived at the agency they met a number of other
idle braves, awaiting their turn, so that the agency

Work for the Indian 285

became a breeding-place for vice and gossip. Now
that the buffalo and the salmon, the natural food
supply of the wild tribes, were gone, some aid must
be given to the Indian, but he thought that it
should be in the form of farm tools, or, if rations
must be allowed at all, that they should be given
as a reward of merit.

Here lay the fundamental economic error of the
Government policy — that the alternative of work
or starvation, which spurs on the white man to
effort, does not exist for the Indian.

"This endowment of food and land without work is
like a millstone around his neck," he said.

"The thousand Sioux at Devil's Lake Agency,
Dakota, have in three years been all brought near to
the point of self-support, because (by a special provision)
they were fed and helped only as they worked. The
rest of the Sioux are worse off than ever, for the lazy
and intractable among them fare as well as any, and it
would be better to destroy than to emasculate them.

"The treaties that provide food, etc., for Indians
state most emphatically that education and ultimate
self-support are their end. But this result is put farther
off than ever. ... It would be right, I believe, to
deny to lazy, intractable Indians at least sugar, coffee
and tobacco — the luxuries, letting them have beef,
flour, etc., until they should do better. Remarkable
results, which I have personally witnessed, were wrought
among the Shoshone Indians in this way. Looking
at this great pauperizing system, which has no parallel
in our time, which would make a mob of the poor of
our cities and is ruinous to the red man, I believe that

286 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

any revolution in our Indian management is desirable
that would change it to a generous, fair help of the
Indians, . . . putting wise pressure on the idle
and thriftless."

He believed that the reservation system contained
the germ of the wisest care of the Indians possible
under the then existing conditions.

" I am convinced of the truth," he said, "that reserva-
tions under good management afford the best conditions
to prepare the red race for citizenship — develop, not
destroy them."

To find the desired good management for the
reservations General Armstrong thought the most
difficult task for the reformer. He advocated
strongly the appointment of army officers to the
post of Indian agents:

"Civilian agents (excepting a few too valuable ever
to lose to the cause) are a failure, with which the par-
simony of Congress in giving meager salaries has had
much to do. A plan should be devised which shall
give to competent men the details of the difficult,
delicate task of Indian civilization, never to be accom-
plished while a legislative body attempts executive
work. The most natural and simple way is to make
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs an independent,
responsible officer at the head of a department, with
ample discretion; and to create an educational bureau,
with a strong man at its head. The present super-
intendent of Indian education barely appears as a
factor to the problem.

"The fact that army experience is so much at the

Work for the Indian 287

basis of Indian education in the East is significant, for
it can do just as well in the West. There is a class of
men in the army, now that its fighting days are over,
who can be spared to help settle the Indian question
and are better than any other for the purpose; because
they are, and only so far as they are, educated, experi-
enced men of high character and capacity, they have
many advantages of position."

NOTE, — It is interesting to note that since General Armstrong's
death (in 1893) the experiment of employing army officers as
agents has been tried, but without the success which he hoped
for. His reason for advocating their trial was that he felt them
to be men of more tried character than the available civilian, but
the younger generation of officers, unschooled in Indian warfare,
proved unsatisfactory to the friends of the Indians.

The difficulties attending the constant change of
administration in agencies and schools under our
political system were very great.

"Politicians have faintly comprehended and sadly
muddled wise work for the Indian," he said, "and with
good intentions have made the best men reluctant to
take hold of their education.

"I find the Government schools are generally good,
suffering, however, from frequent change of teachers,
which means inexperience and occasionally worse than
that. The denominational schools have a marked
advantage in the character of their teachers and because
the religious element cannot be safely omitted from
any attempt to educate the Indian. They are also a
valuable stimulus to the Government schools, furnishing
in many cases church facilities and influences, of which
the latter often avail themselves, while they create
a moral atmosphere which is a tonic to whole com-
munities."

288 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

In a private letter written in 1889 he says:

"General conditions more than schools have, I think,
moved the Indian, but best of all, behind all and more
than all, missionary work has helped the Indian, and
only in relation with that in the West can we expect
much good from our eastern work."

But with all the good work that the missionary
schools were doing, and with all the stimulus that
well-managed reservation life might afford, there
would always be a few young men and women who
would profit by an eastern education :

"They will not return home scared by our great guns
and arsenals, but stimulated by contact with the
spirit that lies at the bottom of our progress — the
spirit of hard work. They must see civilization to
comprehend it." *

Acting on this belief, he sent West yearly some
representative deputed to collect a few young men
and women who gave promise of ability to act as
leaders and teachers ; returning the best of them to
their homes in the course of three, four or five years,
acquainted with civilized ways, able to earn their
living and ambitious to serve their people.

In general, he says:

"The situation is far from hopeless; from my own
point of view it is encouraging, but it does not admit
of much delay in action. No honest man can touch

* " Indian Education in the East."

Work for the Indian 289

Indian affairs at any point without at first a sense of
humiliation, a consciousness of defeat before he takes
up arms, which is by no means so illogical an experi-
ence as it sounds. There are no precedents; we have
nothing to trust to but the common sense of those with
whom the power lies. And yet every day sees a change
in the direction of development rather than of decay.

"Apply sanctified common sense to the Indian
problem, and you will save them in spite of the steam-
engine and the threats of fate." *

"To stop the issue of rations, introducing in its place
some reasonable system of assistance similar to that
already tested among the Sioux; to complete the
surveys of the Indian lands, through trustworthy and
capable men who will minimize the inevitable danger;
to improve and increase the facilities for education,
especially in industrial lines and under Christian influ-
ences—these are the demands which the Indian would
make for himself if he knew his own needs." f

With the passage of the Dawes bill granting
land in severalty with prospective citizenship a
new era for the Indian dawned. Before that time
General Armstrong would have had all the energies
of the public directed toward the formulation by
Congress of a definite and wise Indian policy which
should ultimately result in citizenship and large
educational measures for the Indians. The Dawes
bill once passed, he believed that a conscientious
and skilled administration of its provisions, a work
almost purely executive, was the end to be sought.

* " Indian Education in the East."
f Letter to Southern Workman.

290 Samuel Chapman Armstrong:

As a permanent educational policy to be followed
for the benefit of the Indians, he believed that
normal industrial education in the East for a chosen
few and many agency schools under religious
influences in the West were the measures most
needed, and to the pleading of these causes he gave
much of the best effort of his maturer years.

CHAPTER XI
LAST YEARS. 1893

THE year 1890 was recognized by Armstrong as
a turning-point in his life. In his annual report
he speaks of the accomplishment of the main objects
for which he had striven for twenty years — namely,
the recognition of the necessity for industrial train-
ing for backward races and of the moral value of
coeducation and productive labor for the Negroes,
and the building up of Hampton so that it was able
to do its work as an " experiment station. " Hamp-
ton had but a small endowment, it was true, but
it had a large circle of faithful friends and an envi-
able reputation. "No man ever realized his ideals
more fully than I have," he said.

In the fall of 1890 he was married to Miss Mary
Alice Ford, of Lisbon, New Hampshire, who for
some years had been a teacher at Hampton, an event
which opened again to him a possibility of home life.
A sense of attainment and of the honor that crowns
successful effort now came pleasantly to him, and was
augmented by a visit to his old home in the Hawaiian
Islands in the summer of 1891. It was not his first
return home. In 1881 he had taken a trip thither
for rest and refreshment, and had returned, bring-

291

292 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

ing with him across the continent half a dozen sugar-
cane stalks and several cocoanuts, in order that his
little girls might taste his favorite eatables in a
condition approaching their natural freshness; but
now he went in more serious vein to deliver a speech
at the fiftieth anniversary of his old school, Punahou,
to bid farewell to his mother, who, now eighty-seven
years old and feeble, was living quietly at San
Jose, California, and to show to his daughters, who
accompanied him, some of the scenes and friends
of his youth. Nevertheless, it was a time of jollity,
rest and triumphal recognition of his work by his
contemporaries, and he returned from it in the fall
of 1891 to take up his work with fresh vigor and his
new-found home life, brightened by the birth of a
daughter in October, with delight.

But the physical refreshment proved to be only
temporary; a strange fatigue began to creep over
him.* On November 27th, while delivering a speech
at Stoneham, Massachusetts, he succumbed to a
shock of paralysis and for several weeks lay at the
Parker House, Boston, very near death's door.

He was quite conscious of his danger, and may
sometimes have wished, as he must die at last, to
go quickly then, for he had always had the natural
desire of a strong man to die without a weakening

* This was accompanied, however, with a sort of mental stimu-
lation. It is related of him that only a few nights before the
collapse he talked with two friends in New York more brilliantly
with a display of wit more pyrotechnic and an insight deeper
than ever before.

Last Yeats* J893 293

of his powers — "in harness," as his own father had
died. Nevertheless, he determined to get well,
announced that what had befallen him was for the
best, as everything always was, and worked as vig-
orously to gain strength as he had worked to build
up Hampton. In course of time he was moved
back to Hampton, and there gradually grew able
to pull himself upstairs or to be wheeled over the
grounds as rapidly as he could persuade his Negro
attendant to push him. In these days of enforced
leisure his figure became a very familiar one to the
boys in the workshops as he rolled quickly up,
signalled with his cane to stop, and sat, the black
coat dropping over shoulders no longer able to hold
it squarely and black slouched hat pulled over his
eyes. Here he would sit cheerfully talking with
students and foremen many a fine forenoon. As
a general thing, he went to his office and assumed
the care of his correspondence for a part of the day,
sitting, when not called upon to make an effort,
quite silent, concentrating all his strength on this
his last fight — a fight not with kindly death, but
with powers that threatened to fail him before cer-
tain self-appointed tasks were done.

For a year and a half the struggle against phys-
ical weakness went on. In the fall of 1893 he took
up his routine work at the school, but the con-
tinuous effort proved exhausting and he was forced
to go South for three months, to return in the early
spring only slightly benefited by the trip, though a

294 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

visit to Tuskegee Institute and the birth of a son
during the spring made the time a memorable one.

It was the time of the rendezvous of the fleets of
all nations prior to the naval review of 1893 in New
York Harbor. He had organized, as was his wont,
excursions and sailing parties among them. On
the night before the fleets were to leave the harbor
he chartered a tug and sloop, invited a party of
friends, and made a tour of the silent fleet. They
stopped before each battle-ship, towering black
in the starlight, with only a watch pacing to and
fro to be seen, and as the boat drifted past the
singers sang the national airs of each vessel (which
they had learned in preparation for some such
occasion), followed by some of their own quaint,
stirring choruses. The effect was magical: from
bow to stern white-clad figures poured out in the
blaze of electric lights, and the serenaders were
greeted with hearty cheers and thanks. General
Armstrong sat silent all the while in the stern of
the tug, wrapped, as usual, in his cape, his snowy
hair gleaming, in the half light, over deep-set eyes
full of tears which he could not control. Time
was, and his spirit was as young as then, when he
would have been leading the songs and cheers on
the sloop.

The next day was fixed for the departure of the
ships, and from far and near the people gathered to
watch the spectacle. Armstrong rose at six o'clock,
drove several miles to Old Point Comfort, and chose

Last Years* J893 295

a seat in the top of a lighthouse, whose steep stairs
he climbed with laboring steps, to witness the
magnificent scene. It was a sunny morning in May.
The foreign ships, each escorted by one of our own
White Squadron, rounded Old Point Comfort,
turned and headed for the ocean, each as she passed
the saluting guns of Fortress Monroe playing her
national air, which mingled over the blue waters
with the strains of our own national songs played
by bands on shore.

That night he was stricken with symptoms which
could only presage death. During the intervals of
comparative freedom from pain he sat in his chair
overlooking the waters near him and the school
grounds, but gazed only at the passing boats; he
made no inquiry concerning school matters, and
said decisively between his long hours of silence:
"My work is done. I must go." He wished and
prayed only to die, and on, May nth his desire
was fulfilled.

After a military funeral, his body was laid,
by his own request, among those of his students,
Negro and Indian, who had died at the school, and
the spot was marked by a block of Williamstown
granite at the one end and Hawaiian volcano rock
at the other.

General Armstrong's spirit still lives in his work,
a spirit and a work not for his own time alone, but
for all time ; not for the Negro and Indian only, but
for races yet to be born.

296 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

He lived, mentally and spiritually, in a world of
immaterial things, though his daily contact was
with the most practical sides of life. All through
his crude youthful years he was maturing a deeper
conviction that spiritual facts were the only reali-
ties. As he grew older this deeply spiritual, almost
mystic tone became dominant in him, and in his
later years he became, as has well been said, "a
sort of saint." * He was drawn toward the imma-
terial side of everything; was interested in all forms
of belief which emphasized the power of mind over
matter; enjoyed reading Thomas a Kempis and the
lives of the fathers of the Church. His favorite
philosophers were Plato and Amiel, and among
his most treasured books was a copy of Amiel' s
Journal, which he filled with markings and often
read of a quiet Sunday afternoon; though this
philosophical tendency never disturbed his robust
common sense, for he never forgot that men and
things must be dealt with as they are, not as they
might be. He wrote :

"The longer I live, the less I think and fear about
what the world calls success; the more I tremble for
true success, for the perfection and beauty of the inner
life, for the purity and sanctity of the soul, which is as
a temple. As I grow older I feel the need of getting
at the root of the matter — of being sure of the nearness
of God, of being free from all the mistiness and doubts
and of throwing the increasing cares of life on Him."

* John H. Dennison in Atlantic Monthly, February, 1894.

Last Years* 1893 297

Prayer was his meat and drink; he spent a tenth
of his busiest days at prayer:

"After all, prayer is a mystery; but this we do know,
that looking back upon our lives and remembering
what we have asked for, we can say that all the real
good we have asked for has been granted. When
Christ repeated 'And whatsoever ye shall ask in
my name, that will I do, that the Father may be
glorified in the Son,' * He spoke as the holy and pure
One whose 'whatsoever' could not refer to all sorts
of things, for that would be absurd, but to the
whole range of heavenly gifts which He doubtless will
give away to those who ask aright, but in His good
time and in a way that we may not discern till long
after the gift.

"One scripture is to be interpreted by another; a
clear head and common sense are, I believe, the best
means of right study of the Bible, and hence the
reason why so many illiterates — even babes — speak
and see wondrous things, while we who are more culti-
vated bring our reasoning powers to bear and are
sadly perplexed. I think, too, that the state of the
heart has as much to do with getting at the more
intricate Bible truths as that of the head. It is true
there is a difficulty as to prayer; God knows and does
all, yet asks us to pray for what we want; there is in
the compound or complex action of this and the human
will on the wants of life an absolute mystery; I cannot
explain it, but elsewhere He says: ' I will give you rest.'
We need the spirit of little children. The moment we
begin to search into the mysteries of God's truths we
are bewildered. Yet because truth comes from God
we should expect not to comprehend it."

*I. John, xiv. 13.

298 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

His thoughts were often directed toward the
next life:

"Body and trees decay, but each expresses a thought
of God that continues to be expressed in consecrated
forms. A large amount of the happiness of the next
life will, I take it, be mental, and none keener than the
perception of identities. Do we do justice to this
wonderful source of delight — I mean the noble mental
occupations of the next world? I look upon much
sincere pious writing about heaven as little more
reliable than 'old wives' fables.'

"I sometimes wonder how Paradise can be Paradise
simply because it is Paradise. It is the end of the
long, toilsome journey. But man was made to act,
not to rest. Yet here he longs for it. 'Rest* is the
sweetest word in our language. But there is no
fatigue there.

"No wonder that tireless, vigilant, splendid soldier,
General Stonewall Jackson, as he was dying said:
'Let's cross over the river and rest under the shade
of the trees ! '

" But when we get there — what ? Really lying off after
a moral victory in this earthly strife ? No ! We will
soon realize that there are galleries far above us to be
occupied by those whose field of action is the universe
when they shall have served well in the heavenly hosts;
a while under the trees, perhaps, and then ' Fall in for
Jupiter' trumpeted out by some angel, and a squadron
of bright spirits shall fly from the groves to some world
where they are needed to help others who are trying
in the midst of conditions like ours here to work out
their own salvation.

"We must keep at it forever. The world moves
above and below."

Last Years* J893 299

After his death the following memoranda were
found among his private papers:

MEMORANDA

"Now when all is bright, the family together, and
there is nothing to alarm and very much to be thankful
for, it is well to look ahead and, perhaps, to say the
things that I should wish known should I suddenly
die.

"I wish to be buried in the school graveyard, among
the students, where one of them would have been put
had he died next.

"I wish no monument or fuss whatever over my
grave; only a simple headstone — no text or senti-
ment inscribed, only my name and date. I wish the
simplest funeral service, without sermon or attempt at
oratory — a soldier's funeral.

4<I hope there will be enough friends to see that the
work of the school shall continue. Unless some shall
make sacrifice for it, it cannot go on.

"A work that requires no sacrifice does not count
for much in fulfilling God's plans. But what is com-
monly called sacrifice is the best, happiest use of one's
self and one's resources — the best investment of time,
strength and means. He who makes no such sacrifice
is most to be pitied. He is a heathen, because he knows
nothing of God.

"In the school the great thing is not to quarrel; to
pull all together; to refrain from hasty, unwise words
and actions; to unselfishly and wisely seek the best
good of all ; and to get rid of workers whose temperaments
are unfortunate — whose heads are not level ; no matter
how much knowledge or culture they may have. Can-
tankerousness is worse than heterodoxy.

300 Samuel Chapman Armstrong

"I wish no effort at a biography of myself made.
Good friends might get up a pretty good story, but it
would not be the whole truth. The truth of a life
usually lies deep down— we hardly know ourselves —
God only does. I trust His mercy. The shorter
one's creed the better. * Simply to Thy cross I cling'
is enough for me.

"I am most thankful for my parents, my Hawaiian
home, for war experiences, and college days at Williams,
and for life and work at Hampton. Hampton has
blessed me in so many ways; along with it have come
the choicest people of this country for my friends and
helpers, and then such a grand chance to do something
directly for those set free by the war, and, indirectly,
for those who were conquered; and Indian work has
been another great privilege.

"Few men have had the chance that I have had. I
never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life — have
been, seemingly, guided in everything.

"Prayer is the greatest thing in the world. It keeps
us near to God — my own prayer has been most weak,
wavering, inconstant, yet has been the best thing I
have ever done. I think this is universal truth — what
comfort is there in any but the broadest truth ?

"I am most curious to get a glimpse at the next
world. How will it seem ? Perfectly fair and perfectly
natural, no doubt. We ought not to fear death. It
is friendly.

"The only pain that comes at the thought of it is
for my true, faithful wife and blessed, dear children.
But they will be brave about it all and in the end
stronger. They are my greatest comfort.

"Hampton must not go down. See to it, you who
are true to the black and red children of the land and
to just ideas of education.

Last Yeats* J893 301

"The loyalty of old soldiers and of my students has
been an unspeakable comfort.

"It pays to follow one's best light — to put God and
country first, ourselves afterward.

"Taps has just sounded. S. C. ARMSTRONG.

"HAMPTON, Virginia, New Year's Eve, 1890."

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 12/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720

YC 59553

GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY

BDOD3b2783

303440

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY