) This
exuberance continued till the armies arrived at Raleigh. There the
news of the President's murder was receiv'd. Then no more shouts or
yells, for a week. All the marching was comparatively muffled. It
was very significant--hardly a loud word or laugh in many of the
regiments. A hush and silence pervaded all.
NO GOOD PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN
Probably the reader has seen physiognomies (often old farmers,
sea-captains, and such) that, behind their homeliness, or even
ugliness, held superior points so subtle, yet so palpable, making the
real life of their faces almost as impossible to depict as a wild
perfume or fruit-taste, or a passionate tone of the living voice--and
such was Lincoln's face, the peculiar color, the lines of it, the
eyes, mouth, expression. Of technical beauty it had nothing--but to
the eye of a great artist it furnished a rare study, a feast and
fascination. The current portraits are all failures--most of them
caricatures.
RELEAS'D UNION PRISONERS FROM SOUTH
The releas'd prisoners of war are now coming up from the southern
prisons. I have seen a number of them. The sight is worse than any
sight of battle-fields, or any collection of wounded, even the
bloodiest. There was, (as a sample,) one large boat load, of several
hundreds, brought about the 25th, to Annapolis; and out of the whole
number only three individuals were able to walk from the boat. The
rest were carried ashore and laid down in one place or another. Can
those be _men_--those little livid brown, ash-streak'd, monkey-looking
dwarfs?--are they really not mummied, dwindled corpses? They lay
there, most of them, quite still, but with a horrible look in their
eyes and skinny lips (often with not enough flesh on the lips to cover
their teeth.
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