■'Grand procession of wide-awakes at New York on the evening of October 3, i860," 

 from Harpefs Weekly, October 13, i860. 



THE WIDE-AWAKE PARADE 



[Excerpt from Harper's Weekly, New York City, October 

 13, i860, p. 650.] 



Thousands of torches flashing in high, narrow streets, 

 crowded with eager people, and upon house-fronts in 

 which every window swarms with human faces; with the 

 mingling music of scores of military bands, and the rip- 

 pling, running, sweeping, and surging sound of huzzas 

 from tens of thousands, but generally a silence like the 

 quiet flow of a vast river; with the waving of banners and 

 moving transparencies of endless device; and through 

 all, out of all, and over all, the splendor of exploding 

 fire-works, of every color — these combined, at night, are 

 an imposing spectacle; and these everyone in the city 

 saw at the Wide-Awake festival on Wednesday night. 



It was certainly the nearest approach to a purely 

 poetic popular demonstration that we have had. Torches 

 have no dangerous antecedants. Fireworks are of no 



party. Splendor and beauty are not yet prescribed. 

 Every man who has at heart the municipal honor or 

 New York (municipal honor?) must have been glad and 

 gratified on Wednesday evening. There was never, 

 perhaps, so immense a political fete which passed off 

 more peacefully. Even the bitterest political opponents 

 of the party to which the organization belongs could not 

 but confess how beautiful the scene was. 



Standing at midnight in Broadway, near the corner of 

 Tenth Street, and looking up toward Union Place, you 

 saw the entire street sheeted with flickering light, and 

 Union Place bright with showers of fireworks; while 

 down town, as far as the New York Hotel, and beyond, 

 there was the same blazing torrent of life and enthusiasm, 

 from which, in profuse and incessant explosion, burst the 

 Roman candles of every celestial hue. 



BULLETIN 24 1 : CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



