ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR KOSSUTH. BY URIAH H. JUDAH. "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" | Ay! sparkling golden dollars of American A brilliant welcome hails him in every direction, and tens of thousands of human beings greet his presence with feelings of thrilling delight. Mansions of affluence are thrown open to receive him; the thatched cottage of content is illuminated with joy to discuss his merits; and he becomes the honored guest of the most distinguished and intellectual of the land. "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" Does not such liberality proclaim American feeling, American friendship? Does it not redound to the honor of the American nation, and brighten the glittering stars of Columbia's banner? Mistaken idea! Deluded mortals! Vain and futile attempt to glorify or beautify the grand, and bright, and enviable name of AMERICA, among the nations of the earth! "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" But how much will ye give to that poor, barefooted, shivering, ragged, and starving mortal, wandering from door to door, and craving a morsel of your bread? Winter has thrown increased desolation and wo round the miserable abode of poverty, and enhanced the manifold sorrows of the child of wretchedness and want. On yonder carpetless floor lies one in the greatest agony of pain. See! see! how she gasps for breath, in the feebleness of that dying hour! Hear! hear! how she sends forth groan after groan, as her sands of life run faster and faster. "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" but will ye give a one thousandth part of that sum to smooth the rugged passage of that dying one in her travels to eternity? "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" coinage. Yet, will ye scatter one thousand loaves of bread among the Hungary (hungry) poor of the city of New-York at this inclement season? Which of ye will dry up the tears of the destitute widow, and place shoes on the frost-bitten feet of that trembling orphan? "Please, sir, give me only one penny; father is sick, and mother has no victuals in the house." "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" But will ye not place in the cold and extended hand of that ragged child the paltry sum she so imploringly craves? "Father is sick, and mother is starving." No, no! give her only an angry word; she is too humble to attract attention, and too insignificant to notice. Yet for Hungary, far-off Hungary, manifest your sympathy and lavish your gold; that will gain ye a great name, and exalt ye among men. "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" But how many thousand cents for those brave soldiers, who, at the beat of the drum, rushed into the thickest of the fight; who have survived their wounds on the battlefields of Mexico, and returned to their homes destitute of means and crippled for life? "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" But which of ye liberal-minded mortals will give one thousand cents to that aged sire, languishing on a couch of death, destitute of the very necessaries of life, deprived of medical attention? None! nothing for him! He spilt his blood in contending for the liberties ye now enjoy; he nobly and manfully fought side by side with Washington! "Please, sir, to give me one dollar. I've a wife and small children, very sick and very poor, and not a loaf of bread nor a bit of fire in the house; only one dollar, if you please sir, and God Almighty bless you!" "Nothing to give; go next door; our store is overrun with beggars. And besides, old man, I've put down my name to the 'Kossuth fund;' one thousand dollars for the 'Great Magyar,' but not one red cent for worthless beggars." And this is charity with a vengeance; 'tis private charity! 'Tis useless to give to the deserving poor! Away with that benevolence which is not spread in glowing letters before the world! "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!" and not one dollar for that needy old man, find that "neighbor," or scatter our bounties to the four winds of heaven, to the remotest corners of the earth: "The private paths, the secret acts of men, If noble, far the noblest of their lives." From the tenor of our hasty remarks, it may be so construed that we are prejudiced against Kossuth, and adverse to the cause of Hungarian independence. This is not the case; for we entertain no feelings of ill-will against the "Great Magyar;" neither are we opposed to the achievement of the liberty of his country. We admire patriotism in the human breast; it is a glorious virtue. We "Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your respect great intellect, wherever it displays door." Thousands of dollars have been expended in a pageant for the reception of Kossuth. The Kossuth fever has prevailed to an alarming extent, and many have been prostrated under its influence beyond the hope of medical recovery. If the money thus extravagantly wasted (the people's money) had been employed in the purchase of food and fuel for the poor of our own city, what an immense amount of substantial benefit would have resulted therefrom! But of what consequence are their sorrows, their wretchedness, their necessities, when contrasted with that godlike benevolence which flows not from the kind and feeling heart, and teaches us not "to feel another's wo?" Godlike, did we say? Think ye that the All-bountiful approves of that pretended softness of feeling which is stamped with interested motives on the one hand, and an attempt at display on the other? When we have ameliorated the condition of our own poor, then, and not till then, let us export our philanthropy. We want it all for home consumption; for, to use a mercantile phrase, the market is not overstocked with the article, and "charity begins at home." It is a mistaken philanthropy, 'tis not practical benevolence to bestow our alms where they are not needed. God has commanded us to "love our neighbor as ourself;" but we need not cross the deep blue sea to itself; in the king or the peasant, the rich man or the beggar; for, in our humble opinion, 'tis a most precious boon from Heaven. That Kossuth is a patriot, is beyond the shadow of a doubt; as certain as the sun of heaven will again and again illumine the world with a dazzling brightness. That he is a man of varied, and grand, and enviable intellectual attainments-a scholar, in the extended and unlimited sense of the term, admits of no conjectures. His able, learned, and eloquent addresses in his onward progress; his vivid eloquence in reply to the "manifestoes" of welcome at his every step, stamp him as one of the most remarkable men of the present century. We find no fault with him, or the cause he so ardently advocates. He goes in heart and hand for the independency of his native land, and is a statesman of the first grade. blame him not, if he could collect thousands of American eagles (golden ones) in furtherance of that one grand object, that great and noble design, which engrosses his thoughts by day, and appears to his view in his dreams by night. Not with him lies the fault; not to him would we impute any blame. fault lies at the door of the American people; the blame rests on the heads of those pure patriots who are so very ambitious of playing the fiddle to every celebrated foreign dancer. We The "One thousand dollars for Kossuth!” But which of ye, very liberal citizens, will My three days of leave were not yet expired, when Gen. Ramarez received orders to move forthwith against Gen. Carrere, who was then on his route to Chili, with the view of revolutionizing that country, and we were soon once more on the move over the pampas, with the prospect of a march of about two hundred leagues before us. ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. pampas, and was diversified, as before, with foraging hunts, chasing of avestruses as they came in our way, and occasionally meeting caravans of traders, with their immense wagons, drawn by six, eight, and sometimes ten bullocks. From one of their caravans we learned that Carrere was quartered with his army at the Punta de San Luis, in Mendoza, then about ten leagues distant, and on the next day our advance was hailed by one of his pickets. Carrere, hearing of our approach, and supposing our division to be a reënforcement that he was expecting, had drawn up his whole force on a rise of land outside of the town, waiting to receive us. We saw him in his position at the distance of a league, when, probably discovering his error, his troops were suddenly marched into the town again. Whatever may have been the object of this last manoeuvre, it deceived our gene This Carrere was a native of Chili, of high family, a family that had been supplanted in its authority by the family of O'Higgins. Two of the General's brothers had, some years before, been shot in the province of Mendoza, in the Argentine, for what cause I know not, and the one now on his march to his native country for the purpose of establishing what he considered his family right, had, a short time previous to this, landed at Buenos Ayres, on his return from the United States, and, with plenty of funds, began gathering an army of adventurers in the interior, for the purpose of crossing the Cor-ral into a belief that Carrere wished, from dilleras into Chili. This movement of Carrere the government of the Argentine felt called upon to check, and it was for that object that the division under Ramarez was ordered to march. Our route lay across the province of San Luis towards that of Mendoza, still over the some cause, to avoid an engagement; and we continued to advance upon the town. As we came near, we saw that barricades had been hastily thrown across the streets to prevent our entrance, and the enemy drawn up behind them. Gen. Ramarez, who was as impetuous as brave, determined upon an immediate assault, and, without a moment of breathing-time, a party was sent forward, by which the barricades were carried, under a murderous fire. The charge was then sounded, and as every man dashed forward into the fray, in five minutes the action became general and furious. Among the foremost and most determined of our troops, was a company commanded by a young man named Mariano Boedo, an officer who, by his bravery in battle, and his amiability out of it, had made himself the favorite and beloved of his whole division; indeed, there was not a coward in the whole army, and our men fought on all sides with ferocious impetuosity: but it was of no avail; the enemy had the advantage in numbers and position, and in less than an hour our army was repulsed with severe slaughter. Our retreat was, however, conducted with order, and, believing that our enemy would not venture into an engagement upon the plain, we halted at a distance of about two miles, and encamped. We had scarcely got settled, however, when our pickets gave information of a movement on the part of the enemy which seemed like preparation for a sortie, and our force was at once put in an attitude to receive them. The day was excessively hot; and, apart from the fatigue of the first assault, our men were suffering with thirst, as not a drop of water was to be found in the vicinity of our camp. The feverish agony of the wounded, under this privation, was terrible, and the last words of the dying were, in beseeching tones, Agua! agua! (water! water!) At two o'clock, P. M., our anticipations of an attack were realized; the main body of Carrere's cavalry charged at full gallop upon our lines, but the shock was such as caused their foremost squadrons to reel and tremble; they were thrown into a disorder that gave us a momentary advantage, and which we lost no time in pressing; the utmost enthusiasm prevailed; and Ramarez, always at points of the greatest danger, rode from place to place, giving orders, and cheering the men by his voice and example. For half an hour we sustained the assault with every prospect of success, when Carrere threw in a fresh reserve of about five hundred men, and drove us a second time from the field. In this engagement I received a severe wound on my left wrist, completely disabling the bridle-hand, but I held the reins in my teeth, and continued to do my best until our clarion sounded a retreat. It was now our turn to suffer the horrors of a pursuit, seemingly equal to that which we had imposed upon the flying army of Artegas; exhausted and overpowered as we were with thirst, our men became an easy prey to the exasperated and comparatively fresh troops of our pursuers, and hundreds of them were put to the sword. The pursuit continued for a distance of near five leagues, when our enemy, supposing that our force was completely and hopelessly broken, sounded the recall, and returned to the Punta. Our scattered troops were now collected, and out of an army of about two thousand two hundred men, who marched in the morning against the Punta de St. Luis, but one thousand five hundred could be found, many of whom were severely and some mortally wounded. Thus in one day the objects of the campaign were frustrated, and some seven hundred of as brave men as ever set foot in stirrup, fell in defense of the republic: but, disastrous as had been the day, the sanguine demon of war was yet unappeased; the worst of this fearful campaign is yet to be told. The evening came down upon us in its most lovely attire; the scorching sun had sunk quietly down below the western horizon, leaving an ocean of ethereal gold stretching far away up in the western sky; while, on the other hand, far as the eye could reach, across the vast unbroken pampas, the full, round, rising moon seemed laboriously to lift her form from the very earth; then, resting her broad disk for a moment upon the plain, rose gradually and softly into the sky. And not more welcome to the weary traveler of the desert is the green spot and the fountain, than were the dressed them in an eloquent and patriotic refreshing shadows of this hour to our famishing and suffering troops; in every direction they were seen sipping from the grass the scant nectar of the dew-drop, or cutting the moist verdure, and squeezing the delicious but stinted draught into the palms of their hands for drink. A most touching incident here occurred, which for a time riveted my attention. There were two brothers in one of our regiments, who were natives of Santa Fé, and who had been with us ever since I entered the service. They were quite young, the eldest being not over twenty-three years of age, and the younger, I should think, less than twenty. Both of them had been severely wounded in our last engagement, and the younger lay extended upon the grass, evidently dying. His brother, whose wound was a deep sabre-cut upon his thigh, was unable, both from the nature of his wound and from exhaustion, to stand, but, with the assistance of two of his comrades, he had been carried and placed by the side of the dying youth; there, as the only means in his power of alleviating the sufferings of his brother, he had gathered the grass within his reach, and was bathing his parched lips with the cool moisture which it contained. The flesh of such of our horses as had been disabled in the battle, furnished an evening repast; for although cattle are found wild and abundant on the pampas, none had fallen in our way, and our men were too much exhausted to search for them, or indeed for food of any kind. In our disasters we had lost our camp equipage, and every thing, save what each man carried about his person, so we went into bivouac with the starry heavens for a canopy, and the earth for a bed: our pickets were set, and without camp-fires to tell of our whereabout, the men were dismissed to quarters, and sank exhausted upon the ground, in the anticipation of an unbroken repose. A council of officers was now called; and when all were assembled, Gen. Ramarez ad manner. After dwelling upon the cause in which we were engaged, the objects of our campaign, and the disasters that had attended it, he expressed an opinion that Carrere would not permit us to escape with our present force, if it could by any possibility be prevented, and asked whether it was the wish of the officers, if again attacked, to continue our defense, and make one effort more for victory. The unanimous response to this inquiry was yes! and it was immediately arranged that, in case of another disaster, all who survived it should assemble at the Villa de la Ranchos, about thirty leagues distant. The council then broke up, and, my wound having been dressed, I threw myself upon the grass, and was soon lost in a broken slumber. My sleep was, however, of short duration, for at about midnight our outpost came rushing in in a body, with information that the troops of Carrere were again advancing upon us. Immediate preparations, as well as could be in our broken condition, were made to receive them; and in about ten minutes from the report of the picket, the assault commenced, in the broad, bright moonlight. Overpowered as we were by quadruple numbers, our troops seemed as determined as ever, and contested their ground inch by inch, until Ramarez, perceiving that to continue the engagement would but court a general massacre, again ordered a retreat, and directed all who could to save themselves. Our whole division was now completely disbanded, and each man sought the readiest means of safety in precipitate and irregular flight. Giving the command, "follow," to a few who were about me, I turned from the field, and with them took the direction of the Villa de la Ranchos. It is needless to depict the sufferings that we endured upon our route, which lasted several days, through an enemy's country. On the first day of our flight, we found what had been a small stream, but now the excessive heat had dried up the limpid current, and left nothing but small, miry pools, |