Sword and Pen Part 45

All these features in the career of the soldier-author are portrayed in the most interesting style, and are followed by a graphic description of life in Libby Prison. Mr. Owens winds together the thread of detail in the ventures and adventures of his hero, so that the book reads more like a romance than a veritable history. The book is divided into three parts, which are so closely interwoven that the whole forms one continuous story of a very adventurous life. The hero escapes from Libby, but is recaptured and confined at Camp Oglethorpe, in Georgia. He also escapes from this prison, and with the a.s.sistance of negroes, finally reaches the Federal lines. In 1876, he crossed the Continent on horseback, and was captured by hostile Indians. He escapes and subsequently planned the way for an expedition to the source of the Mississippi River.

_Philadelphia Ledger._

"Sword and Pen" by John Algernon Owens. Captain Glazier, the soldier-author, is the writer of several popular works about the war--"Soldiers of the Saddle," "Battles for the Union," etc. Though still a young man he has had a most eventful life, serving throughout the war, and pa.s.sing through many adventures of which he has since made good use in his life as an author. He has also accomplished the remarkable feat of riding from Boston to San Francisco on horseback.

This memoir tells the story of his life in attractive narrative form, and is full of interesting tales of the war.

_Philadelphia Evening Star._

Captain Willard Glazier, who is well known as the author of several popular works about the late war, some of which have had an extraordinary sale, has himself been made the subject of a book by Mr.

John Algernon Owens. Captain Glazier has had an eventful life; has been a teacher, a soldier, an author, explorer and a horseback tourist; and there is much in his career inculcating the value of self-reliance and other sterling qualities. He has found an appreciative biographer in Mr.

Owens, whose work will more especially interest soldiers and those fond of reading of adventure.

_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin._

"Sword and Pen" is a book describing the ventures and adventures of Captain Willard Glazier, who was one of the many gallant heroes of the civil war, and who wrote some clever books about it after he had laid aside the sword for the pen. The author of the present work is John Algernon Owens, and the account he gives of Glazier's youth and young manhood, his experiences in battle, in prison, after peace came, in domestic life and in literature, is full of interest, entertainment and instruction. We heartily commend it to our readers.

_Philadelphia Inquirer._

Of course all Americans remember Captain Willard Glazier, the well-known soldier-author, who has made himself prominent in war and in literature.

The present volume is a more than usually interesting one, and is most carefully and effectively gotten up. It relates graphically the ventures and adventures of Glazier from his youth to the present time; and many of the adventures through which he pa.s.sed are so thrilling as to seem almost impossible, yet facts prove them true. Glazier's youth is minutely detailed; we are treated to a series of adventures by the youngster, which induce us to believe that his b.u.mp of reverence for his teachers and elders was represented by a cavity. But pa.s.sing through the incidents that precede the age of manhood, he turned up in the Second Regiment, New York Cavalry. From that time until the close of the war, Glazier's career was a stirring one. From the early fight at Flipper's Orchard, he successively took part in the battles of Cedar Mountain, Mana.s.sas, Fredericksburg, Brandy Station, Gettysburg and other engagements. At the cavalry engagement of New Baltimore he was taken prisoner, and soon thereafter made the acquaintance of the inside of Libby Prison. We get many glimpses of life in that well-known Prison-Pen, and are treated to numerous pathetic and humorous incidents that fell under Glazier's notice. All have read of what was endured by such of the Union soldiers who pa.s.sed that ordeal, and the reader can, therefore, imagine what fell to the lot of this das.h.i.+ng cavalryman. The great tunnel attempt at escape is graphically told. Glazier also got a taste of prison fare at Camp Oglethorpe in Georgia. But he made his escape, and fed and sheltered by negroes, at last, after a second capture, reached the Federal lines. Soon after the war he wrote a book, called "Capture, Prison-Pen and Escape;" later he wrote another volume, called "Three Years in the Federal Cavalry." After this came "Battles for the Union," speedily to be followed by "Heroes of Three Wars." After this he rode across the Continent on horseback, and then took the lecture field, and indeed he has proved himself a thorough American in being able to do anything and everything equally well. Being possessed of an energy and audacity that were perfectly marvelous, he rushed in, as Shakespeare observes, "where angels feared to tread." It is a miracle that he ever lived to relate them, for Libby Prison experience alone was sufficient to destroy the const.i.tution of the majority of the prisoners.

"Sword and Pen" will have a large sale.

APPENDIX

BY THE

PUBLISHERS OF

"DOWN THE GREAT RIVER."

ADDENDUM.

The following Appendix to "Down the Great River," by Captain Willard Glazier, is here reproduced in verification of his claim to the discovery of the TRUE SOURCE of the Mississippi.

P. W. Ziegler & Co., Publishers.

720 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, May 10, 1889.

The publishers of Captain Willard Glazier's Works, having recently had their attention drawn to sundry articles in the public prints calling in question his claim to have located the source of the Mississippi, conclude to invite the consideration of the reader to a few of the many press notices, letters of endors.e.m.e.nt and other papers placed at their disposal by friends of the explorer, bearing directly upon the subject of the primal reservoir or true source of the Great River. In view of the apparent incredulity of some critics, it is thought expedient to lay this matter before the public in connection with Captain Glazier's latest work, "Down the Great River," which gives a detailed account of his discovery, in order that a sound and enlightened conclusion may be arrived at upon the merits of the claim presented.

I. LETTERS FROM BARRETT CHANNING PAINE.

We commence with the press correspondence of Mr. Barrett Channing Paine, who, at the period of the Glazier expedition, was a reporter on the staff of the Saint Paul _Pioneer Press_, and subsequently Managing Editor of the Saint Paul _Globe_. This gentleman accompanied Captain Glazier to the source of the Mississippi, and thence down the river in a canoe to the Gulf of Mexico. During the entire voyage Mr. Paine was in constant correspondence with the _Pioneer Press_ and leading papers of various cities on the banks of the Mississippi, to which he furnished detailed accounts of the discovery and incidents of the journey. We present only a few of these letters, selected from a large number, for the perusal of the reader. The writer was certainly in a position to know the truth of the matters upon which he so intelligently reports.

_Letter to the Brainerd (Minnesota) Tribune from Channing Paine:_

"Schoolcraft Island, "_Lake Itasca, Minnesota,_ "July 22, 1881.

"_To the Editor of the Tribune:_

"Captain Glazier's party arrived at this much-talked-of lake last evening, reaching the south-eastern arm by a three mile portage, and then paddling down to the Island, where we encamped. We left Leech Lake on the sixteenth, after cordial farewells with the gentlemen then at the Agency, especially Mr. Nichols and Rev. Edwin Benedict, to whose kindness we were greatly indebted. Launching our little fleet of canoes, three in number, on the billowy surface of the lake, we started for our first objective, Lake Itasca. After leaving Leech Lake our way lay up a river called by the Indians Gabakauazeba. The river broadens out a short distance from the lake, but narrows again and becomes tortuous and full of snags.

Pa.s.sing safely through all these, we reached, late in the afternoon, a fine lake nearly ten miles long, upon the sh.o.r.e of which we encamped. Next morning we paddled to the upper end of the lake, and were there introduced to our first real portage. Two miles and a half over a very rough country--the hardest work we ever undertook--brought us to another but smaller lake, and then, for five days, lakes and portages followed each other in rapid succession, until at length the waters of Itasca burst upon our view. The talk of our guides, coupled with what we had heard at Leech Lake, had led Captain Glazier to the conclusion that, whatever the source of the Mississippi might be, there was reasonable ground for the belief that Lake Itasca was not. Chief among the theories advanced by the Indian guides, one of whom, Chenowagesic, had hunted and trapped for years at the headwaters of this river, was that there existed a lake of good dimensions and wooded sh.o.r.es _above_ Itasca, which poured its waters into the so-called source, and which was itself really the source of the Great River. They also stated (correctly, as we afterwards learned) that the stream which flowed from the lake spoken of by Paul Beaulieu as perhaps the source, contributed much less water to the main stream at its confluence with it than did the stream from Itasca. Resolved to explore the lake _above_ Itasca, the captain started with two canoes, next morning, from Schoolcraft Island, and pushed up to the head of the lake. Chenowagesic piloted us through the rushes with which this end of Itasca is filled, and presently we found ourselves in a small but rapid stream, up which we went, and after following its windings, paddled again through some rushes, and then shot out upon the smooth surface of a beautiful lake. This lake is about two miles long by a mile and a half broad, and its shape is that of a heart. The sh.o.r.es are beautifully wooded, and its waters are deep and clear. On its one promontory our party landed. After exploring its sh.o.r.es, and first slaking our thirst at a spring of ice-cold water which bubbled up near by, we were marshalled in line, and Captain Glazier made a few remarks pertinent to the discovery of the _true source_ of the Father of Waters. After this six volleys were fired in honor of the occasion, and then the question of a name for the new lake arose. This being left for the party to decide, I addressed my companions, and after alluding to the time, money and energy expended by the leader of the expedition, proposed that it be named LAKE GLAZIER in his honor. This proposition was received with applause and carried by acclamation, and it was further decided that the name and date should be blazed on a pine tree which stood conspicuously on the point. After this we re-embarked in our canoes and returned to the Island."

In the following letter Channing Paine gives a further account of the discovery of the head of the Great River:

"Douglas House, "_Aitkin, Minnesota_, "August 11, 1881.

"_To the Editor--Saint Louis Globe-Democrat:_

"Lake Itasca, for many years, has been regarded, both by geographical societies and map-makers, as well as by the public generally, as the source of the grandest of rivers--the mighty Mississippi. But geographical knowledge, like all other knowledge, is of little consequence if it is not progressive, and in its history we have seen the firmly-rooted beliefs of centuries torn up and tossed aside by the explorations and reasoning of intrepid travellers, who, respecting truth and facts more than mere theory, have accepted nothing without proof, merely because others have so accepted it. This is the ground occupied by Captain Willard Glazier in his explorations in search of the source of the Mississippi.

"Starting for the headwaters of this great river in July last, he learned that the dense forests which surround the source of the Father of Waters were rarely penetrated by white men, or even by Indians, at any time except in winter, when lakes and rivers were frozen up, and the whole surface of the country covered with a mantle of snow.

"He also heard through the interpreter and Indian guides who accompanied him that the aboriginal inhabitants of these primeval forests did not regard Itasca as the source; but, while rejecting it, differed among themselves as to what lake really was the fountain-head. Some claimed that the stream from Itasca was not itself the main stream, but flowed into the river proper some three miles below the lake. The stream to which it was tributary, though narrower, was, they claimed, deeper and swifter, bringing to the united streams more water than the one from Lake Itasca.

"Others considered the Itascan stream as the main one, but spoke of another lake, broad and beautiful, which lay above Itasca and poured its clear waters into the accepted source through a small stream which entered the southern arm of Lake Itasca. Captain Glazier determined to thoroughly examine all this region, and to settle definitely and forever the true source of the Mississippi.

"Acting in accordance with this resolution, he pushed on toward Itasca, intending to make it a starting-point for further exploration. Reaching this objective point after innumerable hards.h.i.+ps, he camped on Schoolcraft Island, and after a day of rest directed operations toward the lakes and streams of the surrounding country.

"Thoroughly surveying the stream that the Indians claimed to be the main one, he found it much inferior in volume to that from Itasca.

This point settled, he closely examined the sh.o.r.es of Lake Itasca for tributary streams, finding but three of any importance. Of these three the one by far the largest came in at the extreme head of the lake, at a point where it is nearly filled with bulrushes.

"Taking two canoes, Captain Glazier ascended this stream, which, though shallow, is rapid, yet so narrow in places that to jump across it would be an easy task. Following its windings, he entered what appeared to be a lake filled with rushes. Pus.h.i.+ng through this barrier, however, the canoes soon glided out upon the still surface of a beautiful lake, clear as crystal, with pebbly bottom, and its sh.o.r.es covered with a thick growth of pine. This lake is formed in the shape of a heart, having but one marked promontory.

Its greatest length is about two miles and its width a mile and a half.

"Captain Glazier found that this fine lake was fed by three rivulets, which rose in swamps a few miles from the lake, and thoroughly convinced that this body of water was the true source of the Mississippi, he proclaimed it as such. Without waiting for discussion, the members of the party decided unanimously to call it Lake Glazier in his honor. Modestly expressing his thanks for this mark of their appreciation, Captain Glazier said that, though he firmly believed this lake to be the source of the river, he should relax none of his vigilance on the trip through the unknown part of the stream, but would carefully examine all water flowing into the Mississippi, in order to be positive as to the main stream."