Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:31:03.073Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2010

Brian Higgins
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Chicago
Hershel Parker
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
Get access

Summary

New York Times, 27 August 1866.

Herman Melville evidently has not the fear of the Radicals before his eyes, for he frankly states in a chapter supplementary to these poems, that he has been tempted to withdraw or modify some of the battle pieces, lest he might, in presenting the passages and epithets of a civil war, be contributing to a bitterness which every sensible American must wish at an end. He explicitly declares his unwillingness to act on paper a part any way akin to that of the live dog toward the dead lion, and he even plainly advises, to use his own language, “that in our national solicitude to confirm the benefit of liberty to the blacks, we should forbear from measures of dubious constitutional rightfulness toward our white countrymen-measures of a nature to provoke, among other of the last evils, exterminating hatred of race toward race.” Then, there is a hint thrown out that it might be profitable for us to place ourselves in imagination “in the unprecedented position of the Southerners-their position as regards the millions of ignorant, manumitted slaves in their midst, for whom some of us now claim the suffrage;” and, further than all, Mr. MELVILLE ventures to advise that we should “be Christians toward our fellow whites, as well as philanthropists toward the blacks, our fellow men;” that “something may well be left to the graduated care of future legislation, and to heaven;” and, he adds, that “in all things, and toward all, we are enjoined to do as we would be done by.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Herman Melville
The Contemporary Reviews
, pp. 507 - 528
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×