Charles Carleton Coffin

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Carleton Coffin, by William Elliot Griffis

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Title: Charles Carleton Coffin War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman
Author: William Elliot Griffis
Release Date: August 4, 2007 [EBook #22238]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling has been maintained.]
[Illustration: C. Carleton Coffin.]

Charles Carleton Coffin
War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman
By
William Elliot Griffis, D. D.
Author of "Matthew Calbraith Perry," "Sir William Johnson," and "Townsend Harris, First American Envoy to Japan."

Boston Estes and Lauriat 1898
Copyright, 1898 By Sallie R. Coffin
Colonial Press. Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A.

Dedicated to The Generation of Young People whom Carleton Helped to Educate for American Citizenship.

Preface
Among the million or more readers of "Carleton's" books, are some who will enjoy knowing about him as boy and man. Between condensed autobiography and biography, we have here, let us hope, a binocular, which will yield to the eye a stereoscopic picture, having the solidity and relief of ordinary vision.
Two facts may make one preface. Mrs. Coffin requested me, in a letter dated May 10, 1896, to outline the life and work of her late husband. "Because," said she, "you write in a condensed way that would please Mr. Coffin, and because you could see into Mr. Coffin's motives of life."
With such leisure and ability as one in the active pastorate, who preaches steadily to "town and gown" in a university town, could command, I have cut a cameo rather than chiselled a bust or statue. Many good friends, especially Dr. Edmund Carleton and Rev. H. A. Bridgman, have helped me. To them I herewith return warm thanks.
W. E. G.
Ithaca, N. Y., May 24, 1898.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER Page
I. Introductory Chapter. 13 II. Of Revolutionary Sires. 19 III. The Days of Homespun. 30 IV. Politics, Travel, and Business. 41 V. Electricity and Journalism. 55 VI. The Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln. 66 VII. The War Correspondent. 79 VIII. With the Army of the Potomac. 95 IX. Ho, for the Gunboats, Ho! 107 X. At Antietam and Fredericksburg. 119 XI. The Ironclads off Charleston. 132 XII. Gettysburg: High Tide and Ebb. 141 XIII. The Battles in the Wilderness. 151 XIV. Camp Life and News-gathering. 162 XV. "The Old Flag Waves over Sumter". 175 XVI. With Lincoln in Richmond. 183 XVII. The Glories of Europe. 189 XVIII. Through Oriental Lands. 204 XIX. In China and Japan. 215 XX. The Great Northwest. 229 XXI. The Writer of History. 238 XXII. Music and Poetry. 256 XXIII. Shawmut Church. 268 XXIV. The Free Churchman. 284 XXV. Citizen, Statesman, and Reformer. 294 XXVI. A Saviour of Human Life. 308 XXVII. Life's Evening Glow. 321 XXVIII. The Home at Alwington. 333 XXIX. The Golden Wedding. 341

CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN

INTRODUCTION.
Charles Carleton Coffin had a face that helped one to believe in God. His whole life was an evidence of Christianity. His was a genial, sunny soul that cheered you. He was an originator and an organizer of happiness. He had no ambition to be rich. His investments were in giving others a start and helping them to win success and joy. He was a soldier of the pen and a knight of truth. He began the good warfare in boyhood. He laid down armor and weapons only on the day that he changed his world. His was a long and beautiful life, worth both the living and the telling. He loved both fact and truth so well that one need write only realities about him. He cared little for flattery, so we shall not flatter him. His own works praise him in the gates.
He had blue eyes that often twinkled with fun, for Mr. Coffin loved a joke. He was fond to his last day of wit, and could make quick repartee. None enjoyed American humor more than he. He pitied the person who could not see a joke until it was made into a diagram, with annotations. In spirit, he was a boy even after three score and ten. The young folks "lived in that mild and magnificent eye." Out of it came sympathy, kindness, helpfulness. We have seen those eyes flash with indignation. Scorn of wrong snapped in them. Before hypocrisy or oppression his glances were as mimic lightning.
We loved to hear that voice. If one that is low is "an excellent thing in woman," one that is rich and