The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sword and Pen, by John Algernon Owens

Title: Sword and Pen

Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier

Author: John Algernon Owens

Release Date: February 21, 2009 [eBook #28152]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SWORD AND PEN***

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Several minor typographical errors have been corrected in transcribing this work. The corrected words are shown with a light underscore like this: continue. Hover the mouse over the word to see the original text. Typos aside, the text is original and retains some inconsistent or outdated spellings. This HTML file uses the Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) character set, but all non-ASCII characters are rendered using HTML entity notation, for example Æ for Æ.

The original contains two lengthy addenda supplied by the publisher which were not named in the Table of Contents. Entries for these have been added to the Contents for convenient linking.

The 44 full-page illustrations from the original are shown inline in reduced form. Click any illustration to open a larger version that will print at the original size.

Despite the many testimonials in this book, as of 2008, the source of the Mississippi is considered to be Lake Itasca. Following a five-month investigation in 1891 it was decided that the stream from Elk Lake (the body that Glazier would have called Lake Glazier) into Itasca is too insignificant to be deemed the river's source. Both lakes can be seen, looking much as they do in the maps in this book, by directing any online mapping service to 47°11'N, 95°14'W.

Sword and Pen;
OR,
Ventures and Adventures
OF
WILLARD GLAZIER,
(The Soldier-Author,)
IN
WAR AND LITERATURE:

COMPRISING
INCIDENTS AND REMINISCENCES OF HIS CHILDHOOD; HIS
CHEQUERED LIFE AS A STUDENT AND TEACHER; AND HIS
REMARKABLE CAREER AS A SOLDIER AND AUTHOR;
EMBRACING ALSO THE STORY OF HIS UNPRECEDENTED
JOURNEY FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN
ON HORSEBACK; AND AN ACCOUNT OF
HIS DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE SOURCE
OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, AND
CANOE VOYAGE THENCE TO
THE GULF OF MEXICO.

BY
JOHN ALGERNON OWENS.

Illustrated.

PHILADELPHIA:
P. W. ZIEGLER &. COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,
720 CHESTNUT STREET.
1890.

PREFACE.

No apology will be required from the author for presenting to the public some episodes in the useful career of a self-made man; and while the spirit of patriotism continues to animate the sturdy sons of America, the story of one of them who has exemplified this national trait in a conspicuous measure, will be deemed not unworthy of record. The lessons it teaches, more especially to the young, are those of uncompromising duty in every relation of life—self-denial, perseverance and "pluck;" while the successive stages of a course which led ultimately to a brilliant success, may be studied with some advantage by those just entering upon the business of life. As a soldier, Willard Glazier was "without fear and without reproach." As an author, it is sufficient to say, he is appreciated by his contemporaries—than which, on a literary man, no higher encomium can be passed. The sale of nearly half a million copies of one of his productions is no slight testimony to its value.

Biography, to be interesting, must be a transcript of an eventful, as well as a remarkable career; and to be instructive, its subject should be exemplary in his aims, and in his mode of attaining them. The hero of this story comes fully up to the standard thus indicated. His career has been a romance. Born of parents of small means but of excellent character and repute; and bred and nurtured in the midst of some of the wildest and grandest scenery in the rugged county of St. Lawrence, close by the "Thousand Isles," where New York best proves her right to be called the Empire State through the stamp of royalty on her hills and streams—under the shadow of such surroundings as these, my subject attained maturity, with no opportunities for culture except those he made for himself. Yet he became possessed of an education eminently useful, essentially practical and calculated to establish just such habits of self-reliance and decision as afterwards proved chiefly instrumental in his success. Glazier had a fixed ambition to rise. He felt that the task would be difficult of accomplishment—that he must be not only the architect, but the builder of his own fortunes; and, as the statue grows beneath the sculptor's hand to perfect contour from the unshapely block of marble, so prosperity came to Captain Glazier only after he had cut and chiseled away at the hard surface of inexorable circumstance, and moulded therefrom the statue of his destiny.

J. A. O.

Philadelphia, June 14th, 1880.