Twenty Years in Europe

Samuel Byers

Samuel H. M. Byers

Twenty Years in Europe / A Consul-General's Memories of Noted People, with Letters / From General W. T. Sherman

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

While staying in Switzerland and Italy as a consular officer, during a period of well on to twenty years, I kept a diary of my life. Without being a copy of the diary, this book is made up from its pages and from my own recollections of men, scenes, and events. It was during an interesting period, too. There were stirring times in Europe. Two great wars took place; one great empire was born; another became a republic; and the country of Victor Emmanuel changed from a lot of petty dukedoms to a free Italy. It seemed a great period everywhere, and everything of men and events jotted down at such a time would of necessity have its interest. This book is not a history-only some recollections and some letters.

Among the letters are some fifty from General Sherman, whose intimate friendship I enjoyed from the war times till the day of his death. They are printed with permission of those now interested, and they may be regarded as in a way supplementary to the series of more public letters of General Sherman printed by me in the North American Review during his lifetime. They possess the added interest that must attach to the intimate letters of friendship coming from a brilliant mind. Their publication can only help to lift the veil a little from a life that was as true and good in private as it was noble in public.

В В В В S. H. M. BYERS.

St. Helens, Des Moines.

CHAPTER I

1869

A LITTLE WHITE CARD WITH PRESIDENT GRANT’S NAME ON IT-A VOYAGE TO EUROPE-AN ENGLISH INN-HEAR GLADSTONE SPEAK-JOHN BRIGHT AND DISRAELI.

In the State Department at Washington, there is on file a plain little visiting card, signed by President U. S. Grant. That card was the Secretary’s authority for commissioning me Consul to Zurich. “I would much like to have that little card,” I said to an Assistant Secretary, long years afterward. “Most anybody would,” replied the official, smiling. “You may copy it, but it can not be taken from the files.”

That card, in its time, had been of consequence to me. It took me from a quiet little Western town to a beautiful Swiss city, where I was to spend many years of my life, and where I was to meet people, look on scenes and experience incidents worth telling about. And now it has led to my writing down the recollections of them in a book.

I had served four years, that were full of incident, in the Civil War. At its close the opportunity was mine to enter the regular army with a promotion; but many months in Southern prisons had nearly ruined my health and I declined the proffered commission.

“You did well,” wrote General Sherman to me, “to prefer civil to military pursuits; and I hope you will prosper in whatever you undertake. You now know that all things resulted quite as well as we had reason to expect” (referring to the Carolina campaign), “and now, all prisoners are free-the war over.”

The years immediately following the war were spent in efforts to get well, and now when this offer to go to Switzerland, with its glorious scenery and salubrious climate, came, I was overjoyed.

On the 23d of July, 1869, my newly wedded wife and I were standing on the deck of an ocean steamer in the harbor of New York. It was the “City of London.”

As the sun went down in the sea that night, many stood on the deck there with us, straining their eyes at a long, low strip of land bordering the horizon, now far behind them. It was America. Some were looking at it for the last time. My wife and I were not to see it again, except on flying visits, for sixteen years. The gentle breeze, the summer twilight, the vast and quiet ocean, the limitless expanse, the silence, save the panting of the engines, the white sails and the evening light of distant ships passing, gave us a feeling of far-offness from all that belonged to home.

Shortly the great broad moon, apparently twice its usual size, quietly slipped up