The Sable Cloud A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861)
CHAPTER I. DEATH AND BURIAL OF A SLAVE'S INFANT. "The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master." A Southern gentleman, who was visiting in New York, sent me, with his reply to my inquiries for the welfare of his family at home, the following letter which he had just received from one of his married daughters in the South. The reader will be so kind as to take the assurance which the writer hereby gives him, that the letter was received under the circumstances now stated, and that it is not a fiction. Certain names and the date only are, for obvious reasons, omitted. THE LETTER. MY DEAR FATHER,--
points, he defeated the mountaineers on every occasion, who found that
they had a very different foe to contend with from those to whom they
had been accustomed. Already had he advanced close upon Cettigne, the
capital, when the Austrian government interfered. Operations were
suspended, and General Leiningen proceeded to Constantinople, where he
demanded the total withdrawal of the Turkish forces. This was acceded
to, and Turkey thus lost the hold which it had acquired upon the lawless
Montenegrins. The idea of Ottoman decay acquired daily fresh strength,
and a maudlin sentimentality was excited in behalf of these Christian
savages. Taking advantage of this, they made constant forays across the
border, stirring up by their example such of the borderers as were
disposed to rise, and using force to compel those who would have
preferred a quiet existence under the Turkish rule.
Such was the position of affairs when the battle of Grahovo took place
on May 13, 1858. Although the affair has been grossly exaggerated, and
the blame wrongfully imputed to Hussein Pacha, the military Commander of
the Ottoman forces, it cannot be gain-said that the Turkish power was
much weakened by the event, and the arrogance of the Christians
proportionately increased, while the change of frontier to which it
conduced tended rather to aggravate than diminish the evil. The new
boundary line was defined by an European mixed commission, which decided
on increasing Montenegro by the annexation of territory on the western
frontier, including Grahovo, which they had held since Hussein Pacha's
disaster. Whether the new frontier is calculated to promote a pacific
settlement of the question admits of debate, as the province is
CHAPTER I. DEATH AND BURIAL OF A SLAVE'S INFANT. "The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master." A Southern gentleman, who was visiting in New York, sent me, with his reply to my inquiries for the welfare of his family at home, the following letter which he had just received from one of his married daughters in the South. The reader will be so kind as to take the assurance which the writer hereby gives him, that the letter was received under the circumstances now stated, and that it is not a fiction. Certain names and the date only are, for obvious reasons, omitted. THE LETTER. MY DEAR FATHER,--