[473]

TROTWOOD’S MONTHLY

Copyright 1906 by Trotwood Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Entered as second class
matter Sept. 8, 1905, at the Postoffice at Nashville, Tenn., under the
Act of Congress of March 3, 1879.

It was the last of April when I journeyed to New Orleans to study the battlefield I had wished so often to see. No battlefield has ever appealed to me as has that—none has come near it to me, in sentiment, except when I stood in the trenches of Valley Forge and saw the blizzard-swept lines where Patriotism stood in the last ditch.

New Orleans is easily the greatest signal victory ever won on American soil. History shows nothing in its class except King’s Mountain. Everything else in the Civil War that we now regard as decisive was an evenly matched, mathematically planned contest, between great armies, in which, so far as the records go, one lost about as much as the other, with victory at last on the banner of the side with the most troops, the most guns, the better equipment and the best food for marching men.

Shiloh, Stone River, Chickamauga, in the West—Bull Run, Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, in the East—these were all great steel-sheathed locomotives rushing full speed to a head-on collision.

And, after the collision, there was scrap-iron all around.

But New Orleans was a steel ram striking a man-of-war, and the man-of-war was not. There is only one way to explain the miracle of the unexpected—the incongruity of the Incongruous—and that is, Providence.

Now, Providence had selected Jackson for this job.

Five miles below the city the street car lines stop, but it is an interesting walk to clamber up on the bermuda and melilotus-covered levee and follow the river to the Chalmette battlefield. The air is soft and warm, the big river sweeps splendid along, the beautiful old homes on the banks peep sleepily out from pecan and great moss-covered oaks. Far away to the southeast stretch plain and forest.

No wonder they fought for it, you say. Who would wish to die in a fairer land, under sunnier skies?

Then you get a shock.

Just at the battlefield and where the[475] unfinished Chalmette monument (and why should it remain unfinished, O, ye of little faith save in your scrambling for dollars?) looms up there is a repulsive derrick very nearly on the spot where Jackson’s grim lines ran up to the river, and where the Carolina’s fiery little battery spat at the Red Coats from their earthworks. All around are evidences of something that smells like Russell Sage, Rockefeller, Morgan or New York Life. It is a sugar refinery, said to be the biggest of its kind anywhere—a trust, and hence a thief by nature, and now it has butted into the battlefield, buying as it goes, and paying for the privilege of wiping sentiment out with sugar-coated pills. Its great banks already overtop the spot where Jackson stood under the moss-grown oaks. Its embankments shut out the sun of New Orleans. When it gets ready it will take the rest of the battlefield. The sight of it and its vandalism hurts, and the hurt was worse when I found that New Orleans did not care. Nay, I think from what I heard, that she was prouder of the refinery than she was of the battle; for everybody could tell me of the refinery, and no one knew anything of the battle save a little woman who kept the cottage and grounds where the half-completed Chalmette monument marked the spot of Jackson’s breastworks and glorious stand. She knew that Jackson’s breastworks ran down the row of trees at the lane, that his headquarters were right over there in that clump of old oaks, and that Pakenham was buried for six months under that pecan tree, where some old masonry showed there had been a grave. The rest of it I had to dig out of the library of the Historical Society.

An old fisherwoman who stood on the levee where Jackson’s line touched the river, and where the cotton bales were confiscated to help form the first line of breastworks, in answer to my question, told me, after expectorating a large quantity of snuffy fluid into the river, that she “had heurn of a right peart fight bein’ fit hereabouts when my mammy was a baby—but jes’ whur I can’t say.”

In his “Naval War of 1812,” Theodore Roosevelt thus graphically describes the place as he thought it was then: “Amid the gloomy semi-tropical swamps that[476] covered the quaking delta thrust out into the blue waters of the Mexican Gulf by the strong torrent of the mighty Mississippi, stood the fair French city of New Orleans. Its lot had been strange and varied. Won, and lost once and again, in conflict with the subjects of the Catholic king, there was a strong Spanish tinge in the French blood that coursed so freely through the veins of its citizens; joined by purchase to the great Federal Republic, it yet shared no feeling with the latter save that of hatred to the common foe. And now an hour of sore need had come upon the city, for against it came the red English, lords of fight by land and sea. A great fleet of war vessels—ships of the line, frigates and sloops—under Admiral Cochrane, was on the way to New Orleans, convoying a still larger fleet of troop ships, with aboard them some ten thousand fighting men, chiefly the fierce and hearty veterans of the Peninsular War, who had been trained for seven years in the stern school of the Iron Duke, and who were now led by one of the bravest and ablest of all Wellington’s brave and able lieutenants, Sir Edward Pakenham.”

When the President wrote that he was young and undecided whether he would hunt grizzlies or write poetry, I, for one, am glad he hunted the grizzly. Imagine any man standing on the melilotus-covered levees of the Father of Rivers and tracing from horizon to horizon the faint penciling of a sky so blue that it flushes at times into purple, corralling in the compass of its circle, now an old mansion, pecan-shadowed and wisteria-crowned, now a meadow, cattle-dotted and sheened with little lakes, now groves of oak and ash, moss swept with hoariness, now fields beyond, broad in their Southern fullness, big in benisons of eternal summer—imagine this true picture, and then hearing from the Far North the sepulchral croak of a sophomoric bullfrog: “Amid the g-l-o-omy semi-tropical s-w-a-a-mps that covered the q-u-a-king delta!”

I failed to see the gloomy swamps, and the only things that ever quaked there were the bull-bellied British, marching[477] nearly a century ago for the lust and plunder on this fair Creole city, utterly unconscious that any foe worthy of their steel and stomachs stood before them, until suddenly out of the sunset and shadows of the memorable day of the evening of their landing Jackson’s grim Indian fighters fell on them in the darkness and fought them to a finish, as they fought all beasts, at close quarters, with clubbed guns and bear-knives.

That was the night of December 23d, 1814, the beginning of the battle of New Orleans.

Let us briefly go back and bring events from our last paper—Jackson in the wilderness of Alabama, victor of an Indian war, remover of the strong allies of the Spaniard and British—the red, menacing, butchering wedge that was thrust in between the two parts of the young Republic. It really deserves a chapter itself, and that chapter might well be headed, “What Jackson Did to the Spanish.” Briefly, it is this:

Jackson, having finished the Indian War, marched, May, 1814, homeward, amid the plaudits of the pioneer West, disbanding his army at Fayetteville, Tennessee, and receiving an ovation and banquet in Nashville. He is appointed by the President Major General in the United States Army, and later, by his influence and the great fear and respect the Indians had for him, he closed a treaty with them at Fort Jackson, and the Southern territory to Florida (which belonged to Spain), became the Republic’s. And now, Jackson was free to turn on the treacherous and double-dealing Spaniard, who had secretly helped Britain in the Indian War, and, even then, contrary to her sworn neutrality, was housing and feeding British troops at Pensacola and other portions of her territory, and permitting them, five thousand strong, to rendezvous in Pensacola preparing for the expedition which they knew was already on the high seas bound for New Orleans.

As stated in our last paper, these were the darkest days of the Republic. Only Jackson could have saved it. He alone was the cog that fitted squarely into the wheel of things.

Jackson struck squarely out from the shoulder at the Spanish. He violated our treaty with Spain openly when he marched[478] on Pensacola, for to his straight soul he saw more honor in doing a thing openly and aboveboard than in doing it treacherously and slyly, as Spain had done all along. If he had not whipped the British at New Orleans, we would have had a war with Spain on our hands. He had to act quickly. The British had come and were coming faster. By August, 1814, the sleepy town of Pensacola had awakened to new life—and the life was red—red English. Eight or ten English battleships lay in her harbor; regiments of negro soldiers from the West Indies went ashore, with other British, soldiers, all drilling daily. The English were repairing the forts, and their commander and the Spanish governor slept under the same roof.

There were rumors of a great force coming, but no one knew where it would strike. Jackson learned it first from the Pirate Jean La Fitte, and that pirate’s story and the gallant fight his crew made handling a battery of guns at New Orleans is a story in itself.

Jackson decided to act. He wrote to the Secretary of War, “If the hostile Creeks have taken refuge in Florida and are there fed, clothed and protected; if the British have landed a large force, munitions of war and are fortifying, and stirring up the savages, will you not say to me, raise a few hundred militia, which may be quickly done, and with such regular force as can be conveniently collected make a descent upon Pensacola and reduce it? If so, I promise you the war in the South shall have speedy termination, and English influence be forever destroyed with the savages in this quarter.”

Jackson received an answer six months later, full of sound and meaning nothing, or, if anything, that he mustn’t do it. In the meanwhile he had done it, for the British became bolder, threw off all restraint, and prepared to sally from the neutral port of Pensacola to take Mobile. Jackson sent back to Tennessee through the wilderness for his old fighters. And they came, so eager to fight again under their idolized leader that many paid as high as eighty dollars for the privilege of being substituted for those who could not go. Jackson wrote again and again to the Secretary of War, imploring him, lecturing him: “How long will the United States pocket the reproach and open insults of Spain?... Temporizing policy[479] is not only a disgrace but an insult to any nation.... If permission had been given me to march against this place twenty days ago I would ere this have planted the American eagle; now we must trust alone to our valor and the justice of our cause.” And after a long series of correspondence with the two-faced Spanish governor, Jackson ended his talk with him: “In future I beg you to withhold your insulting charges against my Government for one more inclined to listen to your slander than I am; nor consider me any more as a diplomatic character, unless so proclaimed to you from the mouth of my cannon.”

It was now in early fall. The Tennesseans under Coffee and Carroll were pouring down South to him, past the old battlefields of the Creeks, now an open road to Mobile and New Orleans.

Before they arrived he had strengthened Mobile, and the immortal Lawrence had fought them off from Fort Bowyer, killing 162, wounding the vaunting Colonel Nichols himself, and sending them crestfallen back to Pensacola.

Then, from La Fitte, whom the British had attempted to bribe, he first knew that New Orleans would be attacked, and he waited no longer. He marched on Pensacola and took it, and the English fleet and army vanished at the first thunder of his guns.

But where? To New Orleans, where their great fleet on the high seas was now headed—a fleet with a convoy of ten thousand fighting British. And Coffee and his Tennesseans still in the wilderness!

November 25th, 1814. Good news! Coffee and his Tennesseans are at Mobile. But that is not New Orleans, and a hundred miles of wilderness lie between.

Jackson reached New Orleans December 2d. I hesitate to try to picture him as he appeared to the gay, well fed, well bred people of that Creole town. Chronic dysentery since two years before, terrible in its pains and griping on his nerves and temper.

In the Howard Library, New Orleans, the librarian of which is William Beers, undoubtedly the best living authority of Jacksonia, and a scholar and natural-born bibliophile, I was shown many courtesies and gathered some most interesting facts. Mr. Beers ranks Judge Walker’s book first on Jackson, because he was an accurate, scholarly historian, who got his information first-hand from survivors of the great battle who lived with him in his native city. “Parton’s book was not even secondary, but tertiary,” said Mr. Beers. “He took freely from Walker and gave but scant credit.” Here is Judge Walker’s description of Jackson’s arrival in New Orleans, written while many eye-witnesses were living, in 1855:

“Along the road leading from Ft. St. John to the city, early in the morning of December 2d, 1814, a party of gentlemen rode at a brisk trot from the lake towards the city. The mist which during the night broods over the city had not cleared off. The air was chilly, damp, uncomfortable. The travelers, however, were hardy men, accustomed to exposure and intent upon purposes too absorbing to leave any consciousness of external discomfort. The chief of the party, which was composed of five or six persons, was a tall, gaunt man, of very erect carriage, with a countenance full of stern decision and fearless energy, but furrowed with care and anxiety. His complexion was sallow and unhealthy; his hair was iron gray, and his body thin and emaciated, as of one just recovered from a lingering sickness. But the fierce glare of his bright and hawk-like eye betrayed a soul and spirit which triumphed over all the infirmities of the body. His dress was simple and nearly threadbare. A small leather cap protected his head, and a short Spanish blue cloak his body, whilst his feet and legs were encased in high dragoon boots, long ignorant of polish or blacking, which reached to his knees. In age he appeared to have passed about forty-five winters—the season for which his stern and hardy nature seemed peculiarly adapted.”

One of the strange things about the lives of all great men is the almost certain fact that some grossly untrue story, picturesque lie or exaggerated half-truth[480] of some personal trait will be started and cling to them for all time.

For a half-bred lie always outruns a full-blood truth.

The universally accepted misrepresentation of Jackson’s character is that he was an uncouth backwoodsman, half-spelled, ill-bred and a bragging bully.

As a matter of fact there never lived a man of greater natural dignity, of finer manners or more courtly grace when he wished than Andrew Jackson, in spite of his violent outbursts of passion at times. In 1858, one of the finest old ladies of New Orleans told this story to James Parton:

The new aide-de-camp, Mr. Livingston, as he rode from the parade ground by the General’s side, invited him home to dinner. The General promptly accepted the invitation. It chanced that the beautiful and gay Mrs. Livingston, the leader of society then at New Orleans, both Creole and American, had a little dinner party that day, composed only of ladies, most of whom were young and lively Creole belles. Livingston had sent home word that General Jackson had arrived, and that he should ask him to dinner, a piece of news that threw the hospitable lady into consternation. “What shall we do with this wild General from Tennessee?” whispered the girls to one another, for they had all conceived that General Jackson, however becoming he might comport himself in an Indian fight, would be most distressingly out of place at a fashionable dinner party in the first drawing-room of the most polite city in America. He was announced. The young ladies were seated about the room. Mrs. Livingston sat upon a sofa at the head of the apartment, anxiously awaiting the inroad of the wild fighter into the regions sacred hitherto to elegance and grace. He entered, erect, composed, bronzed with long exposure to the sun, his hair just beginning to turn gray, clad in his uniform of coarse blue cloth and yellow buckskin, his high boots flapping loosely about his slender legs, he looked the very picture of a war-worn noble commander. He bowed to the ladies magnificently, who all arose at his entrance as much in amazement as politeness. Mrs. Livingston advanced to meet him. With a dignity and grace seldom equaled, never surpassed, he went forward to meet her, conducted her back to the sofa and sat by her side. The fair[481] Creoles were dumb with astonishment. In a few minutes dinner was served and the General continued during the progress of the meal to converse in an easy, agreeable manner, in the tone of society, of the sole topic of the time—the coming invasion. He assured the ladies that he felt perfectly confident of defending the city, and begged that they would give themselves no uneasiness in regard to it. He arose soon and left the table with Mr. Livingston. In one chorus the young ladies exclaimed: “Is this your backwoodsman? Why, madam, he is a prince.”

Jackson had indeed arrived, but never did a defender find so helpless and utterly unprepared a city. The city was a bickering, divided thing, not a fortification, not a battery mounted, not an idea even, and scarcely any law.

And scared stiff.

Jackson was both law and idea, and in twenty-four hours, by his own calm and intrepid bravery, his own self-assurance and fiery determination, he had the impulsive inhabitants ready to fight to the death.

On December 8, 1814, just one month to a day before the great battle was fought, a splendid double-deck battleship, the Tornant, flying the British admiral’s flag, and the advance guard of the great host, anchored off Chandeleur’s Island. There were two ways to reach New Orleans—up the Mississippi, or in the open bay through Lake Borgne, thence a march across the level delta straight to the city.

The English chose the latter. Five little American gunboats with 180 men lay in Lake Borgne, and these put up a gallant fight against the forty-five barges and one thousand men who finally grappled with them and took them with cutlass, pike and pistols.

And there, at noon, December 23, 1814, on the banks of the Bayou Bienvenue, a lonely, marshy place, and the last place that Jackson thought they would land, the British, 1,900 strong, under General Keane, one of the ablest officers of the command, landed without opposition and even without the knowledge of Jackson, who was beyond the city, near Lake Pontchartrain, expecting them there. In two hours he had four hundred more troops, a force larger that day than Jackson’s entire available command, and in nine miles of New Orleans, on a dead level plain, bounded on one side by the river and the other by the marshes of the lake.

It was a plain, easy march to New Orleans, and if he had marched at it that afternoon it would have been his before night. And why did he not? For only one reason—neither Pakenham nor Keane nor any general or soldier of all the British army supposed for an instant that there was anything before them but a lot of cowardly backwoodsmen whom they could brush away with their bayonets or stampede with a single charge.

And who, indeed, were these men? Who was their commander, and what had they done on battlefield before? Speaking of Pakenham’s utter defeat of the French Field Marshal Soult, but a short time before, the English historian, Napier, says: “He was opposed to one of the greatest generals in the world, at the head of unconquerable troops. For what Alexander’s Macedonians were at Arbela, Hannibal’s Africans at Cannae, Caesar’s Romans at Pharsalia, Napoleon’s Guards at Austerlitz—such were Wellington’s British soldiers at this period.... Six years of uninterrupted success had engrafted in their natural strength and fierceness a confidence that made them invincible.”

And here is the same author’s description of how Pakenham fell on Salamanca, routing the best soldiers of continental Europe:

“It was five o’clock when Pakenham fell on Thomieres.... From the chief to the lowest soldier, all of the French felt that they were lost, and in an instant Pakenham, the most frank and gallant of men, commenced the battle. The British columns formed lines as they marched, and the French gunners, standing up manfully for their country, sent showers of grape into the advancing masses, while a crowd of light troops poured in a fire of musketry, under cover of which the main body endeavored to display a front. But bearing onward through the skirmishes, with the weight of a giant, Pakenham broke the half-formed[482] lines into fragments and sent the whole in confusion upon the advancing support, spreading terror and disorder upon the enemy’s left.”

Pakenham, and the army under him at New Orleans, were the pick of Wellington’s troops, who had driven Bonaparte’s greatest general across the Pyrenees. They had conquered at Rodrigo, Badajos, San Sebastian, Toulouse, Salamanca. They laughed at raw backwoods militia, with not even a bayonet to their long, uncouth rifles. And what were they in victory? Was there any real ground for fear that they would carry out their threats of Beauty and Booty in New Orleans? When Jackson rode along in the afternoon of December 23 to the front to meet the British, women and children surrounded him in consternation. “Say to them,” he said to Livingston, “that no British soldier shall enter the city unless over my dead body. I will smash them, so help me God!”

But that night many of the women of New Orleans slept with small daggers in their bosoms. And well may the handsome Creole women of New Orleans have been afraid. Badajos, San Sebastian, Toulouse, all were friendly towns, only the garrisons being hostile to the English. And yet, General Napier, who was an eye witness to what he describes, tells how these same soldiers did at Badajos:

Jackson reached New Orleans December 2d, as stated, more fit for the hospital than the camp, and with only three weeks in which (as it proved) to prepare the defenseless city. But under the magic of that strange, positive, fiery man, the quick tempers of the impulsive inhabitants were welded to the white heat of desperate determination. And what a motley lot of defenders he found—About 800 new troops, regulars, raw and undrilled; Planches’ City Battalion, five hundred; two regiments of State militia, armed with fowling pieces, muskets, old rifles; a regiment of free negroes, or, as Jackson called them, “free men of colour,” and right well did they quit themselves in the fight—in all, about 2,000 men. Two little men-of-war-armed schooners, the Carolina and the Louisiana, lay in the river.

But Coffee and his Tennesseans were coming from Pensacola through the woods, and Jackson sent courier after courier to them, saying: “Don’t sleep till you reach me or arrive in striking distance.” Carroll, with other Tennessee and Kentucky troops, had floated down the Cumberland, the Ohio, and were now on the Mississippi. But he had only one gun to ten men until he overtook a boatload of muskets, and with these he drilled his men on the decks of his boat. To him Jackson sent a steamboat up the river with this message: “I am resolved, feeble as my force is, to await the enemy on his first landing, and perish sooner than he shall reach the city.”

Two thousand Kentuckians under Generals Thomas and Adair were also floating down the Mississippi, a ragged, defenseless and almost gunless crowd, without blanket or tents, and only one cooking kettle to every eighty men. And now it was the 14th day of December, and the British had been at the mouth of the river nearly a week.

On the evening of the 17th Coffee, one hundred and twenty-nine miles from New Orleans, received Jackson’s note. His horses were poor, three hundred of his men sick, but in three days he was there; but only with his picked men—800—all that could follow so rapid a march. Here is a description of them: “Their appearance was not very military. In their woolen hunting shirts of dark or dingy color and coperas-dyed pantaloons, made, both cloth and garments, at home, by their wives, mothers and sisters; with slouching wool hats, some composed of the skins of raccoons and foxes, with belts of untanned deerskins, in which were stuck hunting knives and tomahawks, hair long and unkempt, and faces unshorn.”

Of their leader, Jackson, Roosevelt says, in his “Naval War of 1812:”

“Yet, although a mighty and cruel foe was at their very gates, nothing save fierce defiance reigned in the fiery Creole hearts of the Crescent City. For a master spirit was in their midst. Andrew Jackson, having utterly broken and destroyed the most powerful Indian confederacy that had ever menaced the Southwest, and having driven the haughty[483] Spaniard from Pensacola, was now bending all the energies of his rugged intellect and indomitable will to the one object of defending New Orleans. No man could have been better fitted for the task. He had hereditary wrongs to avenge on the British, and he hated them with an implacable fury that was absolutely devoid of fear. Born and brought up among the lawless characters of the frontier, and knowing well how to deal with them, he was able to establish and preserve the strictest martial law in the city without in the least quelling the spirit of the citizens. To a restless and untiring energy he united sleepless vigilance and genuine military genius. Prompt to attack whenever the chance offered itself, seizing with ready grasp the slightest vantage point, and never giving up a foot of earth that he could keep, he yet had the patience to play a defender’s game when it suited him, and with consummate skill he always followed out the scheme of warfare that was best adapted to his wild soldiery.”

It was two o’clock, December 23, before Jackson learned that Keane, with 2,300 men, had landed and marched to the river’s bank, in six miles of New Orleans. Without a moment’s hesitation he drew up his thin, sallow form, struck his clenched fist on a table and said: “By the eternal, they shall not sleep on our soil!”

Very quietly, later, he ate a little rice and dozed on a sofa—the only sleep he had, say several reputable historians, for four days and nights thereafter, and he started to meet the enemy with a little over two thousand men.

I am willing to stake my claim, previously made, that this man was one of the greatest military geniuses of the first century of the Republic on this one act alone. Here were the British, more than a match for him in numbers, equipment and confidence. So sure were they of taking the city that they had loafed along all afternoon and now had gone in a jolly camp at sunset, on the banks of the great river, preferring to march into the city[484] in the morning, and not at night. They were disciplined and bayonetted, jolly as a lot of schoolboys, and brave as men get to be, full of fun and fight. I cannot think of another general, from Washington to Lee, from Gates to Grant, who would not have said: “I will fight them in the morning; this evening I will prepare. I will barricade, I will entrench, I will throw up my wall between them and the city.”

And this would have been fatal. In broad daylight Keane would have whipped them. He would have whipped Jackson’s troops that night but for the darkness, but for the darkness and the grizzled, homespun clothed men, who had cat-eyes for night fighting, who had stalked deer and panther and Indians in the shadows of it, who could steal in and steal out and use their knives in close places.

This was December 23, but that night he won the greater battle of January 8.

He fell on them like a panther from the darkness of the swamp.

He gave them a jolt that Soult, nor Ney, nor Napoleon had ever given. He taught them a warfare they had never dreamed of before. He took the sand out of their craws and the conceit out of their boasting mouths.

When he finished with them, at midnight, they decided they had gone far enough toward New Orleans for that day, and several others. They threw up entrenchments and waited for more troops.

They were hacked, demoralized, beaten!

And this is the way that Jackson did it. For my part I think it a far prettier fight than he made two weeks later, when he finished the blow.

Jackson put his troops in motion about three o’clock, amid alarm guns and beating of drums. But he himself galloped to the river bank and signalled to the little Carolina to drop down. Then he put spurs to his horse and galloped after the dust cloud going down the road to the Rodriguez Canal. I could see it all so plainly as I stood on the banks of the river and saw the same landscape before me. The lean, sallow, booted man, his long legs dangling underneath his horse’s belly, galloping seemingly to defeat. This man of destiny, this man who believed in himself, this man who knew that God Almighty had sent him to whip the British, just as he knew he would kill Dickinson.

And the troops went down so merrily to death in that cloud of dust—what pathos, what patriotism, what sublime ignorance of what they were up against, what blind faith in Jackson and God went forth that day to fight the conquering, red English, who knew no such word as defeat, no such tactics as retreat. Marines, raw troops who hardly knew how to drill, and one little battery, in all, 884; flashy Creoles, gaudily equipped and making much noise, the battalion of St. Domingo, “men of color,” 210; Choctaw Indians, 18; Coffee’s Tennessee Volunteers, mounted riflemen, 563; Beall’s Orleans Rifle Company, 62; Mississippi Dragoons, 107, in all 2,131.

And this crowd were going to drive the victors of Toulouse, San Sebastian, Salamanca and Badajos into the river, and do it at night, and not a hundred bayonets on their guns and only two little six-pound cannon!

It was six o’clock and the British were having a jolly good time, with campfires burning merrily and abundance of supper for hungry, healthy stomachs. And now it is seven o’clock and suddenly a little gunboat looms out in the twilight of the river before them, a queer looking little craft to them, and they crowd up on the bank to look at it. It came steadily on, its guns trained on the crowd of soldiers on the bank, who were laughing, jollying and bantering it with empty jokes. “Can it shoot?” “What is it?” “Give it a few from a musket,” are the shouts, and they fired on the little Carolina with muskets and out of the gathering darkness came:

“Now, boys, for the honor of America. Give it to them” And, to their consternation, there was poured into the joking crowd a regular hell of grape and shell, driving the British pell-mell to camp and arms and the levee banks.

Jackson had reached the Bayou Bienvenu about four o’clock and formed his thin lines as far across the plain as he[485] could, to flank the enemy. Notices were stuck up everywhere, signed “Keane and Cochrane:” “Louisianans, remain quietly in your homes; your slaves will be preserved to you and your property respected. We make war against Americans!”

The Carolina floats down to the river opposite Jackson. He sends an aide aboard and gives her commander his orders to drop down and open on the British camp. It was an hour before the waiting Jackson heard her guns two miles below, and then he advanced, Coffee, regulars, marines, Indians, negroes, artillery, forward, with blazing guns and American yells and the British caught a circle of fire.

No man can paint that battle in the dark, for no man ever saw such a fight in the dark before. The English fought nobly, but Jackson went right in on them, his men using their knives and rifle butts, and in the mix-up they knew not front from rear, nor friend from foe. Powder smoke settled, gray and sulphurous over the plain, half dimming an already cloud-dimmed moon. The fog added to it, and out of it, on the river, thundered the guns of the Carolina pouring shot into their ranks, and before them the sheeted fire of Jackson’s battery, up the levee, poured it in from the front. They fought by companies, battalions, squads. They charged around in the darkness and under clouds of smoke and fog, and heard strange backwoods yells and ungodly oaths, and felt strange bear-knives rip into their vitals from out of the dark. They fell back, fighting, to the river bank, to the camp of trees. They charged and drove the Tennesseans time and again before the naked, cold bayonet, but each time they came back before clubbed guns and tomahawk and bear-knife. It was a riot, not a battle; a butchery, not a fight; a stabbing contest in the dark, where the bear killers and Indian fighters had all the advantage.

At midnight Jackson collected his men, fell back to the canal and began there to throw up the long line of entrenchments over which the vaunted British battalions never put their foot.

Keane was stopped, shocked, chagrined; his troops dumbfounded. Three hundred and three lay dead or wounded in the field, and sixty-four had run off or been captured.

And now before them, entrenched, lay the same intrepid backwoodsman who had violated all the rules of warfare in fighting them hand-to-hand in the night, when, if he had waited a few more hours, the city had been theirs.

They had gone far enough. They would entrench and await Pakenham and the ten thousand embarking troops. They would take the city later.

Shakespeare did not write his plays to live, but to make a living.

There is no greater coward than he who despairs.

A young girl on a bare-backed mule rode up in front of a cabin at the foot of a hill in the Tennessee mountains. Slowly she surveyed the premises; beside the open door hung a gun and a powder horn and a string of red peppers; to the left, rearing itself against the hot afternoon sky, stood a gaunt martin pole, and around the corner of the house, inquisitive, but not unfriendly, advanced a lean, spotted hound.

“Hullo,” she called in a quiet voice.

From inside a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles was shined upon her, and the heads of two half-grown girls peered out.

“Ther’s somebody at the gate, thar, Gabe,” said the woman.

But the man had already taken in the figure in the pink calico frock and faded sunbonnet and was regarding it with a stealthy, sidewise glance from under his flop hat. Deliberately he rose, and was followed by the woman and the two girls.

“It’s Whit Bozeman’s Luce, from over t’other side the mountain,” he said, halting in the doorway. Then to the girl waiting at the gate: “Hullo.”

But the woman went out. “’Light an’ come in,” she said, advancing with some show of interest.

“No, I ain’t hardly got time,” responded the girl. “Ole Gran’pap Bozeman is be’n tuk pow’rful bad with the mizry in his side, and I rid over to see ef I could git a black chickin. I come acrost to Weems, but nobody wasn’t to home, an’ I come on down here. I ’lowed I didn’t know none o’ you-all, but I’d hearn tell yer was mighty feelin fer folks in trouble, so I’d resk it.”

“I seen yer at the meetin’ over at Big Valley,” said Gabe from his station in the door.

“A black chickin? Co’se yer kin hev the blackest one we’ve got. Chicken gizzard tea is mighty good fer the mizry in the side. My ole aunt used to keep ’em dried and ready. Ever’ time she’d kill a black chickin she’d save the gizzard an’ jes’ string it up ’gainst the time when some o’ the folks or the neighbors would be tuck down. She wuz a master han’ fer chicken gizzard tea. But git down an’ come in; settin’ in a cheer is jes’ as easy as on the back o’ that thar critter.

“Gabe, ketch that long shanked young rooster I be’n er-saving—the one with feathers on his legs. G’long, chillun an’ he’p yer pap run that chicken down! An’ don’t yer be long about it, fer the sun’ll be gittin’ low afore she gits back over t’other side the mountain.”

Luce sprank lightly to the ground and the two seated themselves on the rude wooden bench upon the porch. As the girl removed her bonnet her reddish hair clung in a mass of shining wave about her neck, the warmth of the summer sun was in her cheek, and stood in a delicate moisture above her full lip. The elder woman settled her glasses and regarded her.

“Law, yes,” she said. “I had gizzards saved up sence ’way back ’fore Chris’mus two year ago, but Gabe’s las wife wuz sick quite a spell—she jes died this spring—and the gizzards jes’ did hold out. She mighty nigh lived on chicken gizzard tea toward the las’. I give it ter all o’ his wives. Gabe’s be’n married moren’t onct or twict,” she said explanatorily; “he don’t have no luck with his wives. The fust one died in no time, an’ the next one didn’t live so very long—she wuz the mother o’ these two chillun; the las’ one never had none. Gabe’s a master han’ fer marryin’.”

Just then Gabe and the two girls and the dog, in wild pursuit of the long shanked rooster, the feathered legs well in the lead, rushed pell-mell around the house.

“What’s them girls’ names?” asked Luce.

[487]

“Liz an’ Bet,” replied their grandmother. “The’r ma wuz name’ Lizabet’, an’ when the twins wuz born I sez: ‘Well, ef it had er be’n jes’ one we’d er called it Liz, an’ sence it’s two we’ll call ’em Liz an’ Bet.’ An’ so ’twuz. They’ll be fourteen year ole three days afore this comin’ Fourth o’ July. I ain’t never fergot, kase I didn’t want ’em ever axed no questions about the’r age thet they couldn’t answer. I ain’t ever knowed jes’ how ole I wuz, an’ sometimes I kinder wisht I did. My ole man, he used ter figger on it, but I never could feel no ways certain. I wuz married when I wuz fifteen, an’ from then on I kep’ ercount o’ things jes’ in my head. Like them hats in thar tells me how many year I be’n er livin’ on this mountain.”

She motioned her hand toward the open door, and Luce shifted her position to get a better view of a string of wool hats swung across from one joist to the other.

“Yer see, thar’s eleven of ’em. The ole man, he bought a new one ever’ two year—that would make twenty-two; an’ he’s be’n dead two year, which makes twenty-four sence me an’ him moved into this yere house. I never could bear to see nothin wasted, so ever’ time he quit wearin’ one I jes’ strung it up thar on the j’ist, an’ sence he’s be’n gone I ain’t never had the heart to take ’em down.”

A great flapping of wings and squawking under the lean-to at the rear of the house announcing that the remedy for Gran’pap Bozeman’s “mizry” was in hand, if not in sight, Luce, conscious of the press of time, rose to be ready to receive it. Gabe came round holding the feathered legs in one hand and a strip of old cloth in the other. As he saw the girl’s look full upon him, he straightened himself and quickened his gait.

“They do say,” said old Mrs. Freeler, “that a green gizzard ain’t nigh the good that a dry one is. Ef I kin git holt o’ ary other black chicken I’ll save it and dry it out fer yer.”

“I’m mighty glad I come on down here,” said Luce, as she mounted from the rail fence. “I couldn’t er gone back without that chicken. Gran’pap Bozeman’s pow’rful bad.”

“I’ll be over that er way Sunday,” said Gabe in a low voice, as he handed up the firmly tied legs, “an’ll stop by ter see how the ole man comes on.”

“Ther’s preachin’” replied the girl, a little red coming into her cheek. And when mule and rider had vanished behind the thick wood he took down his gun called to the dog and followed slowly the way she had gone.

Sunday, betimes he had ridden away on the old gray mare.

“Yer pap mus’ be goin’ over ter Big Valley ergin,” said Mrs. Freeler to the girls. “Ther’s a preachin’ over thar onct a month this summer. But he never said nothin’ erbout it. Curious, too; he inginerally does leave some idee o’ whar he’s goin’.”

“I heern ’im tell Dick Weems he seen a mighty fine lookin’ girl over thar las’ meetin’-day,” said Bet.

“Mebbe pap’s courtin’ ergin,” commented Liz.

And when, four weeks from that day he again rode off without having let fall any hint of his destination, the suspicion was confirmed. Mrs. Freeler had come to know the signs; she grew restless and watched Gabe furtively every time he left the house, and when he came into it. His tall, lank form was less indoors than ever, and he grew more silent and moody, riding away oftener over the mountain. Always a shiftless fellow, he appeared more so now, except at times, when, in spurts of industry, he worked off his newly-awakened energy. But not so with Mrs. Freeler. The more her son idled, the faster her fingers flew. “I wuz allus a master han’ at patchin’,” she said, as she turned over and over the garments of them all.

As the haying season came on Gabe became possessed of an unusual fit of application. He had worked steadily for three days when something happened. Driving up with a load of hay piled rather higher than the old mare liked, she rebelled, and while she and he were having it out together the load was overturned. Liz and Bet, walking some distance behind, rushed forward, and Liz stooped to pick up her father’s coat, which, lying on top of the load, had been[488] thrown to one side. As she did so she discovered a letter that had dropped out, and at the same moment his eye fell upon it.

“You Liz,” he cried, his voice trembling with excitement; “you leave my love letter alone!”

The seal was unbroken and Liz turned it over in her hand.

“Gabe Freeler,” she read slowly, “frum Luce Bozeman.”

“You give it here,” he reiterated. “Er—mebbe,” sheepishly, “yer mout make out ter read it. I ain’t rightly guessed what it mout be.”

The girl regarded him uncertainly as she hesitated to break the seal.

“Read it, ef yer kin,” he said irritably, standing beside the mare now disentangled from the broken harness and shafts, and mopping the perspiration from his brow. “Ef ever I’d er be’n ter school three months I ’low I could read any writin’ thet ever wuz writ.”

“’Tain’t no three months!” replied the girl with asperity. “’Twasn’t but only two months and three weeks; but I reck’n I kin read anything Luce Bozeman kin write!”

“You gimme that letter!” he flared. “I guess yer won’t git no chanct ter read it!”

As he advanced to take it from her hand the attention of the three was arrested by the approach of a shock-headed youth riding rapidly around the bend in the thickly-shaded road. He wore no hat and appeared to be in excited haste. Without salutation or unnecessary parley, he delivered his message:

“She says, air yer er comin’? Yes or no!”

Freeler stared at him blankly. “Wall, I know who ye air, an’ I know whar yer come frum,” he said slowly, “but I’ll be durned ef I know what ye air er drivin’ at.”

“Luce,” said the boy, “she writ yer a letter and sont it by Dick Weems las’ Sadday.”

Liz and Bet regarded their father silently. His face was a curious mixture of chagrin, earnestness and baffled determination. He had said Liz should not read the letter; yet he must know the contents now; and how to do it without disclosing to the boy his ignorance of learning?

“I ain’t but jes’ got the letter a little bit ago,” he said, lying lamely as Liz’s eyes were upon him. “Liz, thar, wuz jes’ about ter read it when we seen yer er comin’—I ain’t seein’ very well sence that spell I had o’ the yaller janders.” He brushed an awkward hand across his eyes. “Read it, Liz—ef yer kin!”

But this time the girl did not retort; her curiosity invited nothing that would delay its satisfying.

“Ef yer mean what yer sed las’ Sunday,” she read, spelling out the words slowly, “ther ain’t no time ter lose. Gran’pap Bozeman wuz berried yistidy, an’ no sooner wuz he in the groun’ than Hiram he sez the place is hisn now, an’ ef I’m goin ter stay on here I got ter marry him next Chuseday when ’Squire Stark comes here. Which I’ll die fust, fer I ain’t goin’ ter marry no cuzzen. In pertickler I ain’t goin’ ter marry Hiram Bozeman which I do despise fer the meanest man on this mountain. Ef yer ment what yer sed, then yer kin come ter the big spring Monday nite an’ I’ll be waitin’ fer yer in the shadder er the ole chestnut. Ef yer ain’t thar by nine o’clock thar won’t be nothin’ fer me ter do but ter run away, which I will, so help me God afore I’ll marry him as sez I must.”

“You will no hoo this is frum fer the name is writ on the outside.”

Gabe sat during the reading as if stupefied, but when Liz had finished and held out to him the scrawled sheet, he rose. He looked at the sun; it was five o’clock and a good three hours to Bozeman’s when the mare was fresh; he would have to take it easy, for there was the return trip with the double burden. “Lord!” he ejaculated under his breath, and threw a leg over the animal’s lean flank.

“I ain’t got no hat,” said the boy. “I dropped it fordin’ the crick an’ this pesky critter wouldn’t let me git it—orneriest mule I ever see!”

“I got ter git my saddle an’ bridle. Come on an’ I’ll find yer a hat,” answered Gabe, as he put off in the direction[489] of his stable, followed by the other. And in a few minutes the two returning passed Liz and Bet still sitting in a state of bewilderment by the side of the overturned hay load. As they gazed after the disappearing figures Liz turned to Bet, a growing horror in her wide eyes.

“That’s one o’ Gran’pap’s ole hats he’s got on!” she said in an awe-struck voice.

To reassure themselves they hastened home. Crossing the porch where the dog lay asleep, their hurrying feet lagged a little, a sort of superstitious fear upon them. A sound fell upon their ears—a low, piteous sobbing, that made them clutch each other’s frocks and peer breathlessly in at the half-closed door. On the sill was a freshly-filled pail of water, and in the middle of the floor knelt their grandmother, her head bowed in the string of wool hats which hung dependant from one nail—in his haste Gabe had not taken time to fasten again the end which he had removed from the opposite joist. And so it was, when she returned from the spring whither she had gone when he entered the house, the sight met her gaze—the sacred line of relics trailed in the dust, as it were, affection’s altar rudely torn of its sacred image, and that by the ruthless hand of her own son—and his son!

She raised her head as the boards creaked under the stealthy tread of the twins. “He done it!” she cried brokenly, the tears running down her wrinkled cheeks. “Gabe done it. I seen ’em ez I wuz comin’ up the hil frum the spring—him an’ that thar Bozeman boy er ridin’ off—but I didn’t know ez ’twuz yer Gran’pap’s hat the boy wuz er wearin’ ’tel I got here an’ seen it wuz gone, an’ then I knowed it hed looked pow’rful familiar. But what did he do it fer? What did he do it fer?” her voice rose into a little wail and her bent form shook with painful sobbing.

Bet stared at her, dumb; her round eyes filled with responsive tears which she wiped away with the corner of her dress.

“Did he tell yer?” asked Liz. “He’s gone ter git married.”

Mrs. Freeler sank weakly into a chair, and her hands fell limp in front of her. “I knowed ’twuz comin’,” she said, “but I ’lowed ez how he’d tell me. He ain’t never married yet ’thout tellin’ me.”

“He never had time, I reck’n,” said the girl, and then recounted the incident of the coat and the letter; the coming of the Bozeman boy and the reading of the letter, the contents of which were fully detailed; and, finally, the circumstance which had led to the taking of the hat.

The old woman interrupted her not at all, only when she came to the mention of the hat, wiped her tears again with shaking hand. Then they sat in silence, drifting after a while into desultory talk, as other occasions like this came back to memory.

“I rickerleck,” said the grandmother, “when he brought yer ma home. It was jes’ this time o’ year. She wuz the likeliest one of ’em all—I knowed the minute I set eyes on her she’d do. The fust one wuz a peart enough young thing, too, but she whirled in an’ died that very summer, an’ in two months he married yer ma. You know how long it’s ben sence the las’ one was tuk. Well, Gabe never did lose no time!”

The sun’s rays grew less strong; she rose mechanically. “Git up some light-’ood knots,” she said, as she gathered her milk pail. “They’ll be late gittin’ here, an’ the nights is growin’ chilly. I’ll set up fer ’em an’ have a blaze in the chimley, an’ some supper ready—he allus wants sumpin’ hot when he comes in late.”

And when “the chillun” had gone to bed she sat through her lonely vigil, pondering over the advents and the changes the room had known since the time she and her “ole man” had been its first occupants, gazing mournfully upon the string of hats still hanging as she had found them, and going now and then to look out on the changing sky. She had calculated the extra three miles around by Parson Damon’s would make it twelve o’clock by the time they could arrive, and at eleven the moon had disappeared and clouds were gathering thick and ominous. She moved about restlessly, threw on a fresh pine knot, trimmed the small lamp, and was just settling herself[490] to renewed rumination when a low “Whoa!” fell on her ears. Rising quickly, she flung wide the door so that the friendly light streamed out.

“Well, ye’ve come!” she called into the darkness.

Gabe and the mare disappeared in the direction of the stable, and Luce came in rather uncertainly after her cramped ride in the chill air. “Yes,” she replied, blinking in the light, “an’ I brung yer this,” holding out an old woolen hat. “When Lige Bozeman come back er wearin’ it, I says, ‘That thar ain’t the hat you went off from here with,’ an’ he says, ‘No, this yere’s one o’ ole man Freeler’s,’ an’ I says, ‘Well, jes give it here, an’ I’ll take it back,’ I says. Which I did, knowin’ what store you set by them hats—an’ here it is!”

The old woman was trembling violently. She looked at the girl with eyes that saw only the lost and recovered treasure. When Luce had finished she turned from her without a word, and, hurrying across the room, restored, with little inarticulate cries of joy and love, the precious hat to its place with the other ten, then, mounting a chair, fastened the end of string to the joist again. Descending stiffly she turned to her with glistening eyes.

“Ye’re welcome,” she said. “It’s the most I’ve ever said to any of ’em. I inginerally waits to see how it’s goin’ to turn out—yer never kin tell. But this time, I says, ye’re welcome—an’ Gabe’ll treat yer right; he allus good to his wives. Yer know, Gabe’s a master han’ for marryin’!”

Knowledge is not so much in knowing as in knowing how to know.

It was Plautus who said: “To make any gain some outlay is necessary.”

[491]

MEMORIES

O mystic Land of Smiles and Tears,

O Land that Was and Is,

Alone—unchanging with the years—

The Land of Memories.

—JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.

It seems but fitting that those who are interested in the great seaman’s life should know something of his ancestors and early life.

His maternal ancestor in America was Dudas Minor, an English gentleman who received large grants of land from King Charles II and settled in Virginia.

On the father’s side he was of Huguenot descent. Rev. Jas. Fontaine thus gives an account of Maury’s ancestor, Jean de la Fontaine, a French nobleman who held an exalted position in the court of Francis I:

When the “Edict of Nantes” was revoked the persecution of the Protestants followed, and Fontaine was a shining light for the Catholics, and it was deemed advisable to get rid of so prominent a heretic as soon as possible. A band of ruffians were dispatched on the memorable St. Bartholomew’s eve, and Fontaine and his wife were dragged from their beds and their throats cut. “Oh, my children!” exclaimed the narrator, “let us not forget that the blood of martyrs flows in our veins.” This may explain the strong religious bent of Maury’s nature, which was evident to all long before he connected himself with the Episcopal Church.

He was born near Fredericksburg, in Spottsylvania County, Va., January 24, 1806. When he was four years old his parents moved to Tennessee and settled near Franklin. Maury assisted his father and brothers on the farm, and lived the life of the early settler in a new country. He thus became a sturdy, healthy boy. Here in the wilderness schools and churches were alike few and far between, and the education of the pioneer’s children was derived at home, or in the “old held school.” Plain living and high thinking was the motto in the Maury household.

Matthew’s father was strict in the religious training of his family. He would assemble them night and morning to read the Psalter for the day antiphonally, and in this way so familiar did the barefooted boy become with the Psalms of David that in after life he could cite a quotation and give chapter and verse, as if he had the Bible open before him. Surrounded by simple and pure influences, Maury passed his youth. He possessed a deep and inquiring mind and an insatiable craving for truth.

Perhaps his greatest mental strength lay in the direction of mathematics. “My first ambition,” he says, “to become a mathematician was excited by an old cobbler, Neal by name, who lived not far from my father’s home, and who used to send the shoes home to his customers with the soles scratched all over with little x’s and y’s.” Maury was sent to the Harpeth Academy, taught by the Rev. James Otey, first Bishop of Tennessee, and Wm. Hasbrouck, afterwards a prominent lawyer of New York. Here his brilliant mind and studious habits won the esteem of his teacher, which lasted through life.

[493]

Maury had an exceeding fondness for the sea, which was fostered by the adventures of his elder brother, who entered the United States navy when but thirteen years of age. When Maury made known his determination to accept the position of midshipman, which the Hon. Sam Houston obtained for him, his father did not command him to decline; but he did not approve it, and would not give him any financial aid, or even his blessing. This was a great grief to Maury, but he had put his hand on the helm, and there was no turning back. So, borrowing a horse, and with only thirty dollars in his pocket, and the limited experience of nineteen years, he set out to seek his fortune. There was no naval academy, and the young middy began his duties and his studies on board a man-of-war. What powers of concentration he possessed, with what unflagging zeal he pursued his studies, proving by his subsequent career that genius is the capacity for labor. William Irving, brother of Washington Irving, loaned him many books.

During his first year of service his frigate, the Brandywine, conveyed Lafayette back to France. The great Frenchman was much attracted by the young midshipman, and had many a kind talk with him. In 1831 he passed his examination, was appointed master of the sloop-of-war Falmouth, and ordered to the Pacific on a four years’ cruise. It was on this voyage that Maury conceived the idea of the famous “Winds and Currents Charts,” which have done so much for the commerce of the world.

He returned to the United States in 1834 and married his cousin, Miss Herndon, to whom he had been engaged several years. Shortly after this marriage he went to Philadelphia to arrange for the publication of his works on navigation. His book, like himself, had the true ring or true metal, and won distinction In England and became the text-book of the United States navy.

At this period Maury obtained leave of absence, and on his way to his old home in Tennessee he was thrown from the top of a stage coach, which resulted in an accident that lamed him for life and interrupted his active service afloat. His leg was improperly set, had to be broken again and reset, and this in a day when anaesthetics were unknown. This period of enforced inactivity was most distressing to the ambitious lieutenant, but proved a blessing in disguise, for it was then that his active mind turned to and grasped the scientific part of his profession. In 1839 he began a series of articles on naval reform. He advised that a navy yard and forts can be established on the Gulf coast. “They cannot be too strongly fortified with outfits for shipping and implements of war.” He advocated also a naval school for young midshipmen. This article led to the building of forts at Key West and the Tortugas, and the establishment of the naval academy at Annapolis.

In 1843 he wrote a notable treatise, entitled “The Gulf Stream and its Causes.” These and other contributions to science were written under the pen name of “Harry Bluff.” They attracted so much attention and were so generally approved by the navy that the officers had great numbers of the papers printed and circulated. When it became known that the young Lieutenant Maury was the author of these papers, his ability and grasp of mind were universally recognized, and his position as authority on naval questions was established. Soon after he was placed in charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments, which office he developed into “The National Observatory and Hydrographical Department of the United States.”

In a speech before the Senate John Bell said: “No man could have been found in the country better fitted than Maury for this difficult duty, and he worked with the zeal and energy expected of him.”

At this time he gave to the world the famous “Winds and Currents Charts and Sailing Directions.” Seamen were at first distrustful of the new charts, fearing that a route which could save from ten to twenty days on an outward voyage, was fraught with danger. At last a Baltimore vessel determined to follow the new chart. The voyage was a complete success, for he made both trips in[494] the time consumed under the old system in the outward passage alone. There was now no hesitation about the use of the charts. Active interest was excited and the world rang with the fame of Maury’s “Winds and Currents Charts.” Copies were sent to every government and distributed to men-of-war and merchantmen. It has been estimated that “if the money he saved to the world were collected, a monument of precious stones could be erected to his memory.” It was frequently urged that Maury, who was drawing a pay small in comparison to his service, might secure a copyright and thus reap material reward from his labors, but his aim through life had been to make himself of use to his fellow men, and he did not put in a claim for prize money.

While at the observatory he wrote his “Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology.” This work met with great enthusiasm in England and America, and was translated into many languages for use in the schools. The interest now excited in meteorology and deep sea study enabled Maury to assemble at Brussels, under the auspices of King Leopold, a congress to which England, Russia, France, United States, Belgium and other countries interested in commerce, sent delegates. At the close of the congress Maury returned to America laden with honors and rich in fame. Many of the learned societies of Europe elected him an honorary member. Orders of knighthood were offered him and medals given him by nearly every crowned head of Europe.

It is said that Humboldt received the Cosmos Medal as being the greatest scientist in the world, but he presented it to Maury as being greater than he, saying that he was the “founder of a new science.”

Maury now began to carry out his plan for meteorological co-operation on land. To effect this he was obliged to travel much and deliver many addresses. Out of these efforts grew the vast “Weather Bureau” of to-day. As early as 1848 Maury had believed that a broad level plateau lay under seas between Newfoundland and Ireland, and Congress dispatched three vessels to perfect his discoveries, and to decide if it would be practicable to lay the cable between Europe and the United States. He was consulted by Cyrus W. Fields and others as to the kind of cable to be used, the way and the time to lay it. At a dinner given in New York to celebrate the first message across the Atlantic, Mr. Field rose and said: “I am a man of few words. Maury furnished the brains, England the money and I did the work.”

In 1858 Maury was advanced to the rank of Commodore, by special act of Congress. Maury also originated the idea of water-marks and river gauging along the Mississippi and its branches. In 1860 he had reached the high tide of his worldly prosperity. He began to realize material benefits from the fruits of his pen when the Civil War broke out. Mr. Lincoln called for 75,000 troops. Virginia’s answer was secession and a call upon her sons for support. Maury resigned his office and went to Richmond. Nothing had been offered him by the Confederacy. He had everything to lose, nothing to gain. He was a peace-loving man, a student and philosopher; besides, he was greatly opposed to the war. But when Virginia called he left his congenial pursuits, his achievements and his discoveries for what he held to be his duty to his mother State. When it became known abroad that he had severed his connection with the United States, he was invited by France, Russia and Mexico to become their guest, but he declined both. He entered the Confederate States navy, with the rank of commodore and chief of the seacoast, harbor and river defences of the South. He assisted in fitting out the Merrimac and invented a formidable torpedo. In 1862 he established the Confederate submarine battery service, at Richmond. In the same year he was ordered to England to purchase torpedo material. After the war he was not allowed to come home for several years.

In 1868 he, together with Tennyson and Max Muller, received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Cambridge. In 1869 he accepted the chair of physics in the V. M. I., at Lexington, Va. Here, surrounded by his family and friends, he passed the remaining years[495] of his life in peace and rest. He died February 1, 1873.

I will conclude with two short extracts, the first from the Richmond Dispatch, as follows:

“The joint resolutions introduced into the Legislature, memorializing the President and Congress to erect, in the shape of a lighthouse on the Ripraps, a monument to Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury, opens the way for the nation to efface from its escutcheon a blot that has long rested there. Soon after the death of Maury a movement was inaugurated abroad to build at a point off the coast of Brazil, an international lighthouse as a memorial to the ‘Pathfinder of the Seas.’ It was intended that each nation should contribute individually to the fund for this purpose, and that the structure should be as enduring as money and human skill could make it. The movement found great favor with foreign nations, and would have materialized but for the attitude of the United States. When this government was sounded on the subject it was found that the partisan hatred and sectional prejudice was so strong at that time that, for diplomatic reasons, the matter was dropped.

“It is designed that the proposed monument shall be dedicated in the presence of the combined nations of the world. And should the United States make the occasion practicable, the grandest naval demonstration that has ever been witnessed anywhere, and in any age, may be expected.

“The great foreign nations in whose scientific societies and aboard whose ships Maury’s name is a synonym of reverence, would delight in an opportunity to pay such a tribute to his genius and to his services. By affording such an opportunity the United States government would put honor not only upon Maury, but upon itself, and reach a higher plane in the eyes of the governments abroad than it has ever occupied since the war. The memorial not only would be a monument to the ‘Wizard of the Winds and Currents,’ but a perpetual reminder of the nation’s confidence in republican institutions and in the fact that we are a reunited people.”

The second extract is from a tribute paid him by the Hon. A. J. Caldwell before the “Agricultural Society.” He said:

“A farmer lad, he was trained by his country for the sea. She made him a sailor; God made him a genius. A genius like Ariel’s, which made wind and tide and meteor’s glare his servants, and laid its wand upon the main of the ocean and made it the servant of the servants of men. The maritime world to-day would be lost if his great works were blotted out from human memory.

“He first spoke of the submarine telegraphic plateau between Ireland and Newfoundland, on which the ocean cable is laid. He first told the ocean steamers of the ‘sea lanes,’ where, outside of the area of icebergs they run safe from shore to shore. And such was the plenitude of his power, such the comprehensive grasp of his reason, and the fullness of the blessing which his genius bestowed upon the world, that, as experience and time go by, his scientific methods are adapting themselves to the needs of every tiller of the soil in every State of the Union and nation of the earth. The Signal Service, with its daily weather reports, its prognostications, control the actions of every intelligent agriculturist in the land to-day.

“With Promethean hand he snatched the meteoric fires from heaven and lit up the altars of industry. He is dead and gone; but what Columbus was to discovery, Newton to astronomy, LaPlace to physics, Humboldt to national history, Maury was to navigation, meteorology and agriculture. The winds and currents of the ocean bear his name around the watery world. The lowing herd, the bleating flock housed by him from the storm, the flowering meads and golden fields which filled with the shouts and laughter of happy toil are memorials on the lands. His memory will brighten as the years go by, and the blessings of his genius will reach every household and the gratitude of mankind will follow him where sweet fields beyond the swelling flood stand dressed in living green.”

Read before the D. A. R., June 30, by

MRS. H. P. COCHRANE.

The Daughters of the American Revolution plant this tree in honor of Commodore[496] Matthew Fontaine Maury, that they may show in this simple way, here in his old home, how they reverence his name. Also by this act that they may help to remove the stain, the disgrace to the American people that no monument has been raised to his memory. This small beginning, they earnestly hope, will lead to greater endeavor. To this end this Chapter has recently endorsed a petition asking the co-operation of the Convention of National Daughters, composed of 7,000 ladies, to memorialize Congress to erect a light-house to his memory, to efface from the nation a blot which has long rested there. This, indeed, has been the third attempt. Soon after the death of Maury a movement was inaugurated abroad to build on the coast of Brazil an international lighthouse as a memorial to the “Pathfinder of the Seas.” It was intended that each nation should contribute individually to the fund for this purpose, and that the structure should be as enduring as money and human skill could make it. It would have materialized, but for the attitude of the United States. When this government was sounded on this subject it was found that partisan hatred and sectional prejudice were so strong at the time that, for diplomatic reasons, it was dropped. Afterwards the Virginia Legislature petitioned the President and Congress to erect a light-house on the Ripraps, off the coast of Virginia, in the Chesapeake bay. It was designed that the proposed monument should be dedicated in the presence of the combined nations of the world, and to be the greatest naval demonstration that had been witnessed anywhere and in any age. How fitting if this could be done at the proposed exposition at Jamestown, in 1907. It is but meet that he should receive the highest acknowledgment of his greatness, not only in reparation, but in gratitude, for it has been said if the money Maury has saved to the world by his charts on the winds and currents and navigation generally, were collected, it would be enough to build a monument of precious stones to his memory, not to speak of the saving of human life. But Humboldt paid him the highest compliment when he presented him with the Cosmos Medal, which he received as being the greatest scientist of the world. He said Maury was greater than he.

It seems particularly appropriate that this tree should be planted in the shadow of this school building, as Maury’s text-book is used here to instruct the children.

And now, Ladies of the American Revolution, I feel that we honor ourselves in paying this tribute to one who, by his goodness, as well as his greatness, has his “name written in the Hall of Eternal Fame.”

The following paper was also received by Trotwood’s, written by Mrs. Mary Lewis Preston, Seven Mile Ford, Va.:

In the little mountain village of Lexington, Va., on February 1, 1873, there passed from earth one of her most choice souls, great in mind, earnest in work, simple in faith, courted by every civilized nation!

His end was so beautifully simple and childlike that even the newspapers far and near rang with it. This great man, when called by the God who made him, simply lifted his hands in the attitude of a little child expecting to be taken up into the arms of a loving father, and died in that attitude.

This was significant of his character. He was too learned to be doubting, too great for shams, too gentle and trusting for affectation.

This man was Matthew Fontaine Maury, “The Pathfinder of the Sea,” born in Spottsylvania County, Va., January, 10, 1806, and was taken by his father to Tennessee in his fourth year.

In 1825 he was appointed midshipman in the United States navy, making his first cruise in the Brandywine, on the coast of Europe and in the Mediterranean. In 1826 he made a cruise around the world in the Vincennes. In 1831 he was master of the sloop-of-war Falmouth, but was soon acting first lieutenant on the Dolphin, then transferred to the frigate Potomac, in which he returned to the United States.

At the age of 28 he published his first work, “Maury’s Navigation,” which was at once adopted as a text-book in the navy!

He was at this time selected as astronomer[497] and offered the place of hydrographer to the exploring expedition to the South Seas, but declined.

In 1837 he was made lieutenant, and not long after met with the accident which lamed him for life.

While unable for active duty, he cultivated his mind, and by his views published in the “Southern Literary Messenger,” worked great reforms in the navy and secured a naval academy.

He first directed the observations of the flow of the Mississippi. He proposed a system which would enable the observers to give information by telegraph, as to the state of the river and its tributaries. He suggested to Congress efficacious plans for the disposition of the drowned lands on the Mississippi. He brought forward and successfully advocated a warehousing system. In 1842 he was appointed superintendent of the depot of charts and instruments at Washington. He added to his labors of astronomer the task of unraveling the winds and currents of the ocean. He instituted the system of deep sea sounding, leading directly to the establishment of telegraphic communication between the continents by cable.

The “Physical Geography of the Sea,” translated into various languages, is an enduring monument to the genius and usefulness of its author. The powers of Europe recognized the value of his services to mankind. France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, Holland, Bremen and the Papal States bestowed orders of knighthood and other honors.

The academies of science of Paris, Berlin, Brussels, St. Petersburg and Mexico conferred the honors of membership.

He left the Federal navy to aid his own State, when Virginia seceded, declining from a sense of duty highly honorable positions from Russia and France.

There have been few greater scientists in the world. Humboldt pronounced him “the greatest the world had ever known.”

The University of Cambridge conferred on him the degree of L.L. D., and Emperor of France invited him to the superintendency of the Imperial Observatory, at Paris. He patriotically preferred to accept the chair of physics at the Virginia Military Institute.

While here he prepared his latest work, “The Physical Survey of Virginia.”

His remains rest beneath a modest monument of native James River granite, in Hollywood, Virginia’s beautiful city of the dead.

When he died the Commander of Virginia Military Institute thought it but just and proper that every power in the world should be informed, and telegrams were sent. All were responded to in the most appropriate manner, except one—that of the United States. Not one word from our then President U. S. Grant!

As his body lay in state at Lexington it was literally covered from throat to waist with decorations, some of them the richest and most valuable jewels, the gifts of the crowned heads of the earth.

Then to the man who first gave a complete description of the Gulf stream, who first marked out the specific routes to be followed in crossing the Atlantic, who first instituted the system of deep sea sounding, who first suggested the establishment of a telegraphic communication between the continents by cable, on the bed of the ocean, and who indicated the line along which the existing cable was laid, who caused the erection of our naval academy—to this great man the D. A. R. of America are striving to induce Congress to build a suitable monument. And what place could be more appropriate than Hampton Roads, and what time better than to have it ready before the greatest naval display the world has ever seen, which is arranged to come off during the Jamestown exhibition in 1907.

Isn’t it a great mistake that America does not see fit to honor her great ones, and if she does not, why cannot Virginia and Tennessee join hands and do honor to whom honor is due?

The voice which lives is the one which moulds the souls of men.

Tom was a sly, rollicking rascal of a darkey, with a catfish smile and a jaybird eye. He was ever ready for a laugh, a joke, a drunk, or a profession of religion. He would spend his nights as quickly in a bar-room as at a prayer-meeting, and by day he was equally as ready to battle for politics as for religion. But his strong card was his wonderful experience “endurin’ de wah,” whither he went as a body servant to “Marse John,” and his “hairbreadth ’scapes in the imminent deadly breach” would have put a flush of envy in the dusky cheek of Othello himself. But Tom’s fighting was now mostly under his tongue, and, like many who are yet wearing the blue and gray a full generation after all hostilities have ceased and all animosities should long ago have ceased with them, Tom’s war spirit increased as the square of the distance from the crack of the last cannon. From his own statements there could be no doubt that, besides actually participating in every battle of the civil war, the Confederate forces were maintained in the field as long as they were, entirely on account of his own skill and genius as a “furager.”

His other weakness was his habit of disputing upon questions theologic. In this he was peculiarly strong; for, if the discussion waxed hot, and he found he could not convince his hearer with words,[499] he did not hesitate to smite the centurion’s ear, or bite off his nose; and as his war record among the darkies was already Achillean and his fistic abilities unquestionable, there were few who were willing to “’spute de p’int wid ’im.” His great argument was the efficacy of faith over work, and he was so scrupulously religious in his belief that he finally ceased to work altogether, while it required but the spirit of a July sun and a weedy garden to set him to arguing with renewed zeal.

Now, a man is what his beliefs make him; and so the effect of Tom’s belief developed one virtue truly apostolic; he took no thought for the morrow, what he should eat or drink; he carried no scrip in his purse, and, at the beginning of this story, he had not even a change of raiment.

But his staunch friend was “Marse John,” the old Judge, who had long been Judge of a Circuit Court in Alabama—so long “the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” as the law books have it. The old Judge was a good man and a good Judge—so just that the poorest and the blackest negro, when jerked up before his bar, never failed, equally with the richest and the whitest man in the district, to get that justice to which he was entitled. Nay, more; for in the dignified old gentleman who looked down upon him, pitying him in his environments of ignorance and poverty, and scrutinizing the evidence brought out by the wily lawyers with an alertness that reminded one of an eagle on his eerie watching the sly maneuverings of a congregation of foxes below, the poor wretch often unexpectedly found a strong and stubborn friend. And if the evidence contained but the germ of a doubt in the prisoner’s favor, he promptly got the benefit of it, though often, to get it, the old Judge had to bring to bear in the case the guns of his own learned and analytical mind. As he grew older, he continued to fight for truth with a zeal that seemed to increase with the silver of his locks, and he would acquit innocence though the hangman’s rope was already around her neck.

The old Judge’s influence in the district was wonderful, as is always the influence of truth and strength. Though unpretentious and often silent, not all the preachers of the circuit could have spun the moral woof that was in the warp of his work.

Tom had belonged to the old Judge “befo’ de wah,” and had gone through that fiery ordeal with his master. There is a peculiarly strong bond existing, in the South, between the master and the servant who have thus faced death together. The world cannot show a similar instance where the tie of servitude was forged in the white heat of its destiny.

And so the old Judge now stood up for Tom through thick and thin, and while he openly lamented Tom’s worthlessness, secretly he never failed to come to his assistance when in trouble or supply him and his family with food when hungry. If Tom got in jail, he “saunt for Marse John,” who quickly bailed him out. If, in a religious scrimmage with another darkey, he adopted the warlike methods of Peter, and was fined for assault and battery, he “saunt for Marse John,” who, after listening to his tale, paid his fine before the Mayor; and turned him loose, to the terror and dismay of all the other darkies who differed from him religiously. If he even concluded that marriage was a failure (and the Chancery Court records will show that he did so conclude at least several times during the first thirty years after the war), he “saunt for Marse John,” who, after listening to his tale, must have concluded that the poor woman was entitled to a divorce, whether Tom was or not, as he never failed to go Tom’s security for the costs and the $15 lawyer’s fee—all that is required in the black belt of Alabama to enable two yoked-up darkies to separate, and then proceed to make themselves miserable again in another effort to solve the problem. This last act raised the old Judge among the gods in Tom’s estimation; there was nothing, he thought, Marse John couldn’t do. The man who could thus sunder bonds that God had joined together, possessed, in Tom’s opinion, a few Olympian attributes himself.

Therefore, Tom went on, in spite of the old Judge’s talks, admonitions, and even threats, until one day something[500] happened. The grand jury returned a true bill against Tom for hog stealing. Now, the old Judge would do anything in the world for Tom outside of his own court, but when Tom got into that temple of justice, he found himself among the laws of the Medes and Persians—and he knew it. If that true bill, properly drawn up by the solicitor and signed by the foreman of the grand jury, had indicted the old Judge’s own son, he would have tried him as calmly as Brutus did his boys of old.

But if Tom was in great danger, he never troubled himself about it in the least. Throughout the trial he sat with the air of one who considered he was being highly honored to be tried by “Marse John,” and in the depths of his face was a secret exultation that foreshadowed a complete, a startling, and even a sensational exoneration.

He had stolen the shoat from “the major,” the old Judge’s neighbor, and the major made out a plain, dead-shot case against Tom. In fact, several colored witnesses, led by the centurion’s servant, as aforesaid, and others who differed from Tom religiously, had even waylaid and watched the defendant and seen him take the shoat and carry it to his own cabin.

In his own behalf, Tom said nothing, but sat with a broad and knowing grin on his face, and in his eyes the look of one who, besides having a straight flush in his hand, held a royal one up his sleeve. His lawyer made a feeble effort at defense, and, after submitting a charge or two to the old Judge, who promptly overruled them, the jury was duly charged, retired, and quickly brought in a verdict sentencing Tom to five years in the penitentiary. This made Tom chuckle outright; he almost split his sides in quiet laughter, to the disgust of the court and the astonishment of his own lawyer.

“Stand up, sir!” gruffly thundered the old Judge. Tom arose with his broadest grin and most waggish air.

“Have you anything to say why this sentence should not be passed upon you?” said the Judge, looking sternly at the prisoner.

And then came a rich scene.

“Look erheer, Marse John—he! he! he!—I sutn’y am s’prised at you—he! he! he!—to sot up dar on dat bench, an’ heah dis jury scan’lize my rippertashun lak dat, an’ den you turn roun’ dar, so sassy-lak, in dat cheer, an’ ax me whut I got ter say erbout it—he! he! he! Marse John, whut you mean by doin’ dis way? Jes’ tell me.”

The old Judge turned red with anger.

“Mr. Sheriff,” he thundered, “take this prisoner to jail!”

For a moment Tom was thunderstruck. Could it be possible Marse John really meant it? Was Marse John, the only white friend he had, about to desert him? Quick as a shot he changed his tactics. He had tried his straight flush and had failed. Now for his royal flush.

“Hol’ on, Marse John! hol’ on!” Tom cried, dropping his funny ways and assuming a look of intense earnestness and desperate seriousness. “You dun ax me now, an’ if nuffin’ else gwi’ do you, I hafter tell you whut I do kno’ erbout it. An you’ll ’skuze me, Marse John, ef I happens not to be mealy-mouf ’bout tellin’ it, nurther; fur you makin’ me do it, whuther-no. But I want you, gemmen ob de jury, an’ de shearf dar, an’ dese lawyers heah, an’ all ob you, to b’ar witness to de fac’, dat Marse John don’ fotch all dis row down on hisse’f, befo’ all dese heah folks heah, er-tryin’ to scan’lize my rippertashun. ’Stid ob sayin’ to you all at the berry fus’, befo’ dis row was urver started: ‘Gem’men, dese seedlings am squash, an’ dis ole nigger kin go!’ he sot up dar on dat bench an’ kerry dis thing on, an’ kerry it on, an’ aig you all on, an’ aig you on, er s’archin’ an’ er s’archin’ an’ er axin’ questions, an’ er nosin’ round in my privut bus’ness twell you all, gemmen, jes’ bleegter go out an’ fotch in dis heah vurdick—an’ I don’t blame you all ’tall, gem’men; I don’t think hard of you ’tall. But I sut’n’y was ’sprised at Marse John, when he turn roun’ so sassy-lak in dat cheer, much es ter say: ‘You ole rascal, I’ve got you now! Whut you gotter say erbout it?’

“Erhuh! Erhuh!” said Tom, chuckling and scratching his head in deep thought. “Wall, suh, heah’s whut I gotter say erbout it: In korse I tuck de majuh’s little[501] bitter old po’ shoat! But I jes’ swap fur ’im, an’ de majuh kno’ as well es I do I was gwi’ gib ’im ernudder one back dis fawl, soon es my ole sower hed pigs—an’ er heap better shoat den I got fum ’im, too; fur, es you all kno’, my old sower is three-quarters Burksheer, an’ ’fo’ Gord, gem’men, es I stan’ heah on my oaf, ’kordin’ to de supervisement of Marse John, to tell you all whut I kno’ ’bout dis thing, dat wus de little bitteres’, no-countes’ pig I urver swap fur in all my life! Gem’men, he didn’t make me one good meal fur de old ’oman an’ de ten older chilluns, let ’lone de two twins—de majuh an’ de jedge. We had ter put dese ter bed befo’ supper, by tellin’ ’em we gwi’ have de pig fur bre’kfus’, an’ ter make ’aste an’ go ter sleep so ester wake up soon in de mohnin’ an’ git dey sheer. Arter dey went to sleep, we greased de majuh’s an’ de jedge’s mouf wid sum cracklin’ skin, an’ put er plate ob rib-bones an’ scraps by de baid, an’ de naixt mohnin’ when dey wake up, we tell ’em dey dun eat dair part whilst dey sleep, an’ dey b’leeve it to dis day! Now, ain’t dat er hog fur ter be kickin’ up sech er dust erbout? Ef it ain’t so, gem’men, an’ dat wa’nt de littles’ razzerback I eber swap fur, den I ain’t nurver stole horgs in Georgy!

“Erhuh! Erhuh!” said Tom, reminiscently again. “Nurver stole horgs in Georgy? Hi-yi-ee! An’ now I’m gettin’ dar, is I? But b’ar in min’, gem’men, Marse John dun fotch all dis down on hisse’f. I’d nurver tole on ’im—no! not eben at de jedgment mohn—don’t keer how hard old Gabri’l keep tootin’ his horn, an’ er lookin’ at me so s’archin’ lak wid his fiah eyes, an’ er sayin’: ‘Tom, whut you kno’ ’bout horg stealin’ in Georgy?’ An’ I jes’ say: ‘Nuffin,’ Marse Gabri’l, nuffin, ’tall, suh, Gord bless you, Marse Gabri’l: nurver was in Georgy in my life, suh, Gord bless you!’ But I can’t say dat now no more, gem’men, ’kase Marse John hisse’f dun ax me to tell whut I kno’ ’bout it!

“Gem’men, when I fus’ went to de wah wid Marse John, fur ter wait on ’im, I was es hones’ es de noonday sun; but I didn’t bin in de wah six weeks befo’ I’d steal ennything frum er saddle blanket to de hoss dat wus under it; ennything frum er hen-aig to de guv’ment steer! An’ why? ’Kase Marse John dar had ter hab sumpin’ n’ur ter eat. You think I gwi’ see my young Marster starve ter def’ fightin’ day an’ night, wid no chance to git nuffin’ to eat, an’ libin’ on parch cohn an’ Georgy branch water, an’ hit smellin’ ob de week’s washin’ ob de po’ Georgy white trash up de creek, allers washin’ dey clothes in it? Ruther walk five miles to wash dey clothes in er branch den ter hab som-body wash ’em fur ’em in er silver-lined wash-tub. You think I gwi’ see ’im starve, I say, jes’ on ’count ob er littl ’lig’us skooples? Menny an’ menny a mohnin’, suh, Marse John ’ud git up from camp so hongry an’ weak he couldn’t hardly walk, an’ say: ‘Tom, you sly raskil! did you furage enny las’ night?’ (He call it furagin’ den, gem’men!) An’ I’d laf an’ say: ‘Marse John, you kno’ you ain’t nurver gin me no money fur to get ennything!’ An’ den he’d laf an’ say: ‘G’long, you sly raskil, an’ fotch in my bre’kfus’!—jes lak he wus orderin’ it from er resterrant. An’ den I’d laf an’ fotch ’im out de sof’-b’iled aigs, an’ de br’iled chicken, an’ de home-made Georgy kwored ham, an’ de biskits. An’, fo’ Gord, gem’men, in all dat campange I nurver knowed ’im to challenge de rigularity ob his empanelmen’ nur ter s’arch too close into de wharfore ob de fotchness. Nur did I eber kno’ ’im ter go out an’ hab er jury ob twelve men fotch roun’ to de tent to hol’ enny inques’ ober de remains ob dat fellerny, wid er leetle ole s’archin’ lawyer fur to ax quextunes, an’ keep hintin’ ’bout stealin’, an’ de pen’tenshury, an’ all dat! No, suh, gem’men; ’stid ob all dis hooraw an’ red-tape, he’d jes’ smile all ober an’ fall to an’ say: ‘Gord bless you, Tom; you am er jewel, an’ no mistake!’

“Now, whar’d dem aigs cum frum, Marse John, an’ dem chickens? Whar’d I laf an’ tell you dey cum from? Ax de Georgy hen-roosts frum Ringgold to Dalton. An’ whar’d dem home-kwored hams cum frum? Ax de smoke-houses ob de widders in de mountings frum Chat’nooger to Atlanter! Erhuh! ’Twas furagin’ den, wus it; an’ it won’ no harm fur to eat de po’ widders’ las’ ham or slorter[502] de chickens ob de innercents, long es you didn’t pull ’em yo’se’f? Erhuh? An’ I ax you right now, gem’men, ef he didn’t read outen a book dis mohnin’ mos’ Solomonly, an’ ’splain to you all mos’ capisly, dat de ’sessery to de crime mus de same es de ’sessor? Erhuh! ’Scuse me, Marse John, fur recognizin’ dis thing so p’intedly, but you kno’ yo’se’f you tell me most p’intedly ter tell whut I kno’ er-bout it, an’ I’m bleegter do it!

“Ole Gabri’l hisse’f c’u’dn’t made me do whut you kin!

“An’ dar’s de majuh, er settin’ an’ er smilin’ an’ er aigin’ dis thing on. Mebbe he’d lakter kno’ whut I gotter say erbout it! Lemme ax you, majuh, ef you disremembers de week befo’ de battle ob Resaker, an’ dat mohnin’ you cum ober to me an’ Marse John’s tent an’ say: ‘Tom, you theevin’ son ob darkness, me an’ yo’ Marse John wanter hab little Jo, an’ General Cheatem, an’ Pat Claybu’n, ober in de tent fur supper ter-morrow, fur we’re all hongry an’ want sumpin’ fit ter eat. We can’t fight fureber on er empty stummic. Now, you jes’ git on my hoss, ter-day, an git er huff on you, you black scamp, an’ go up in dese hills an’ hollers, an’ steal ennything fit ter eat in hair, hide or feathers—jes’ make dese Georgy hen-roosts howl! Git us sumpin’ fit fur de men dat’s gwinter eat it, Tom, fur yo’ rippertashun es er furager is sho’ at stake!’

“Erhuh! Erhuh! You ain’t furgot dat, is you, majuh, nur de supper I got up fur you all? Er hole b’iled ham—I stole dat frum er widder’s smokehouse whilst I wus pricin’ aigs wid her, an’ watchin’ de lay ob de hen-house, waitin’ fur de moon to go down. Er tucky gobbler which I mistuck an’ shot fur er wild one, meanderin’ round in er meader in front ob er orphin ’sylum. Biskits frum flour I got outer er mill dat seem ter kinder run itse’f, an’ two gallins ob mountain dew I stole outen er hard-shell preacher’s cellar. An’ when all de ginerels dun sot round de pine boards I fix up fur er table, an’ I fotch all dem things in, smokin’ hot an’ smellin’ lak er supper in heaben, didn’t all the ginerels’ eyes sparkle lak di’mon’s; an’ little Jo up an’ say: ‘Why, majuh, you ax us ter supper, an’ sot us down to er banquet! Whar in de wurl you git all dis?”

“An’ den you wink yo’ eye at Marse John, an’ say: ‘Gineral Johnson, ef you’d jes’ p’int dat nigger Tom, dar, Cheef ob de Commissary Departmen’ ob de Army ob Tennessee, we’d nurver go hongry enny mo’, an’ we’d whip Gineral Sherman in two weeks!’

“An’ den you all laf, an’ went to furagin’.

“Erhuh! Ain’t dat so? An’ lemme ax you, majah, whut’s de difference in furagin’ in wah an’ in peace? An’ s’pose sum thirty years arter de wah me an’ my fambly ’bout to starve, an’ I heah de chillun cryin’ fur sumpin’ ter eat, an’ I goes by yo’ lot sum dark night er kinder dreamin’ all de time an’ sorter libin’ lak er ole man will, in de past, an’ I ’gin ter think I’m in dat bloody wah erg’in, an’ out furagin’ fur you an’ Marse John, an’ I happen ter knock over one ob yo’ little ole razzer-back shoats, ter take back ter camp ergin—is dat ennything fur ter raise sech er hooraw erbout? Ain’t I gwi’ gi’ you er nudder one back dis fawl? Jes’ tell me!

“But dat ain’t all, Marse John; an’ you kno’ you ax me to tell it all! Who wus it nussed you, day an’ night, when you had de chills an’ fever in camp round Atlanter? Who wus it stood by yo’ side at de bridge, whar de giner’l tole you to hol’ wid yo’ kumpny tell dey capture you or kill you, an’ when de Yankees cum lak bees er swarmin’, an’ shot you outen de saddle, an’ dey captured you, bleedin’ to def—who pick you up an’ kerry you quick to de Yankee surgun’s tent an’ tied de art’ry dat sabed yo’ life? An’ who nussed you in de hospital, day an’ night, er stealin’ aigs fur you when hard-tack would er kilt you, an’ young chickens when bacon meant def? An’ when you got well ernuf ter be keeried to Johnson’s Islan’, who wus it, ’stid ob gwine on wid Sherman’s army to freedom, nurver to be er slave enny mo’, gether’d up yo’ things, took de letter you writ, an’ footed it all de way to Alabama to tell Miss Mary you wus safe an’ well? An’ when he got dar, an’ seed Miss Mary—Gord bless ’er—er cryin’ in de door, an’ de chillun cryin’ erroun’ er’, ’kase when dey seed me bringin’ back yo’ things dey[503] dun gib you up fur dead, lak de papers sed, an’ when I got up close ernuf ter tell ’er you wus safe an’ well, an’ gib ’er de letter you saunt, an’ tell ’er how I cum jes’ ter bring yo’ letter an’ things an’ sword an’ pistol home, who wus it but de statelies’ an’ queenlies’ ’oman in de State—now, thang Gord, one ob de anguls in heaben—dat wept ober an’ clung to dis ole black han’ dat now you say am de han’ ob de hog-theef, an’ fit only fur de pen’tenshury; an’ es ’er tears ob gladness drapt on it, she smiled sweetly through it all, an’ say: ‘Oh, Tom! Tom! Gord will reward you sum day fur this, fur though you am po’ an’ black an’ a slave, you have acted the whites’ ob de white; you chose yo’ duty befo’ yo’ own freedom!’

“Dat’s whut she sed, Marse John; yo’ own blessed wife an’ my Mistis’ dat’s in heab’n an’ de grandes’ women dat now libs in dat lan’ ob light! An’ dar I staid, Marse John, an’ ’tended de place an’ wurked de crap, an’ tuck keer ob Miss Mary an’ de chilluns tell you cum home yo’se’f. Dat’s de truf, Marse John, es you kno’ it is yo’se’f; and now I’ve tole it all es you ax me.”

And Tom sat down.

From suppressed laughter in the beginning of Tom’s speech, the entire court had now dropped into subdued sympathy, and even tears. The old Judge himself blew his nose vigorously, and looked carefully over his charges again, while the major came up and whispered in his ear. Finally he said, quietly, yet subduedly:

“The court is of opinion it has been too hasty in this matter, for, on reading carefully the second charge submitted by the defendant’s counsel, the court is convinced it erred in not giving this charge to the jury. The verdict is, therefore, set aside, and a new trial will be given the defendant.”

And Tom walked out quietly and solemnly, but a free man yet. But the case never came to a trial again. Tom was not himself from that day on. He was sobered, subdued, crushed. He seemed to think “Marse John had gone back on him.” He quit drinking, fighting, and disputing on things religious. He even quit telling his experience “endurin’ de wah,” and, more wonderful still, he actually went to work. All this was too much for him. As the day approached for the trial he became melancholy, morbid, and finally took to his bed in earnest. At first they thought he would get up soon, but he grew rapidly worse; and a week before the trial, the doctor said that Tom would never “furage” again. The old Judge was holding court in another county, and had not heard of Tom’s sickness. He promptly called the case in its order on the docket. Tom’s lawyer read the physician’s certificate as to Tom’s condition. The old Judge looked worried—even troubled. Then he glanced around the court—the major was not there. He took up his pen and wrote quickly across the docket: “Case nolle prossed; no prosecutor!” and as soon as the court adjourned he went by Tom’s cabin to see if he wanted anything, and to tell him about the nol prossing his case. As he neared the cabin he heard the uncanny music of the negro mourning song, and it startled him as he went in and found them chanting it around Tom’s bed.

He looked at Tom; he was sober, but dying.

The old Judge went up, sat by the bed, and took Tom tenderly by the hand. The negro’s face lit up for a moment with its old-time light as he recognized the old Judge. Then he remembered:

“Will dey try me ergin; will dey convict de old man ergin, Marse John?” eagerly asked Tom.

“Not while I am Judge of this circuit, Tom—never!” as he gripped Tom’s hand.

“Thang Gord, Marse John! thang Gord! I knew you—wouldn’t! You see I—wus—jes’ furagin’! The majuh knowed it—jes’ furagin’.” He was quiet a little and dozed some. Then he sprang half-way up in bed—a startled look in his eye:

“Lemme out! lemme out!” he cried. “Don’t you hear it, Marse John? Dat’s taps—de army ob de Tennessee am sleepin’—de lights mos’ out—I must hustle an’ git sumpin’ to eat—I mus’ furage—gwine on er long furage—but I’ll wait—on—you—foreber—in—de—camp—dar, Marse John——.” He broke off suddenly; a radiant light gleamed in his eyes; “Miss Mary, my mistis; O dar she am, beckinin’ an’ smilin’ to po’ ole Tom;[504] beckinin’ an’ smilin’, ‘Gord will reward—you—sum—day!’ Oh, home, home, Marse John!”

Two hours later the old Judge came out of Tom’s cabin, crying like a boy. Tom had gone on his last “furage.”

The following characteristic letter accompanied the story:

It was at Gainsville, Ala., we parted with our old Fifer Casey. He had been with us ever since the regiment was organized at Camp Boone, Tenn. He had fifed all through the Mexican War and nearly three years of the Civil War. At first he had lots to tell us about Cerro Gordo, Palo Alto and Chepultepec, but after we got down to business old Casey gave the Mexican War and Greasers a rest.

He was a tall, slim old fellow, carried himself as if steel ramrods were his regular diet, scorned to ride in an ambulance or wagon on a march, kept at[505] the head of the regiment all the time, and went into all battles playing his liveliest tunes.

At Shiloh, in the charge that broke up the “Hornet Nest,” old Casey was playing “Cheer, Boys, Cheer,” and the whole regiment singing it as they closed in with the Yanks.

At the tale end of many a long day’s march, when everybody was footsore and weary, thinking and wishing for camp, marching any kind of old way, Casey would notice it, and strike up “The Girl I Left Behind Me” or “The Stump-Tail Dog.” The boys would forget about their weariness, close up, catch the step, and before we had gone an hundred feet, without a word from any officer, we would be sailing along like we were “passing in review.”

Casey had a musical chum that belonged to the 9th Arkansas, of our brigade, who was just the opposite of Casey—short and stout built. The top of his head would scarcely reach old Casey’s shoulder. When those two got together with a canteen of whisky there would be little sleeping in that regiment that night. We used to call it “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” with variations, “Long Girl” and “Short Girl.”

Casey always refused to be mounted, saying he did not enlist in a cavalry regiment and did not propose to be killed by some fool horse. He did not condescend to ask for any papers, but coolly walked over and joined the 9th Arkansas, with his old chum.

Our only regret about being mounted was leaving the other regiments of our brigade—Buford Brigade, Loring Division. We had been together a long time, and many battles and long marches had formed many warm friendships. General Buford had drilled us till we were one of the best drilled and most soldierly-looking brigades in the C. S. A., and always gave a good account of ourselves in battle. The regiments were the 35th and 27th Alabama, 9th Arkansas and 12th Louisiana, nearly all young men, and as good soldiers as ever marched. After we left, Colonel Scott, of the 12th Louisiana, was ranking officer, and commanded the brigade. General Buford accepted an offer from General Forrest, and followed us to North Mississippi, where we joined General Forrest. The 3d, 7th, 8th and 12th Kentucky were brigaded, and Col. A. P. Thompson commanded. He was killed a short time after at Paducah, Ky., and General Lyon succeeded him. Lyon and Bell’s brigades formed the Buford Division.

We followed the “Wizard of the Saddle” till the surrender, and were engaged in every fight and raid in which he was.

On the campaign to Nashville in front of General Hood, I was detailed to act as courier for General Buford. The day of the battle of Franklin, Tenn., General Buford had the right wing of our army. There was nothing but General Wilson’s cavalry in front of us. We drove the Yankees back across Harpeth River, and at a crossing five miles above Franklin they dismounted and prepared to make a desperate resistance to our crossing. They formed their line on the north bank close to the edge, and across the river was an old field which we would be forced to cross to reach the ford. They could rake us fore and aft before we could get to the river. As soon as General Buford saw the situation, he dismounted two of Lyon’s regiments back of the field a half mile from the river, and with four guns of battery double-quicked them across the field up to the river. They then opened a rapid fire on the Yankee line across the river. The two lines made a dense smoke which hung like a fog over the river. Under cover of the smoke, General Buford with the balance of the command crossed, mounted, the smoke completely screening their movement, and the Yankees never fired on them while crossing. The boys had orders to cease firing after we got down the bank, which they did. The Yankees thinking they had gained a victory because the fire stopped, cheered lustily, and almost ceased firing. While they were still cheering, a long line of stern-faced men cleared the bank and fell onto them with carbine, pistol and saber.

I thought I would be smart, and got right behind General Buford, going up the bank at a place that I did not think a goat could climb. The General weighed 320 pounds, and rode a big, old horse.[506] I did not think a ball could find me behind such good works. A moment after, when I saw old “Waggoner” and the General hanging right over me, I thought I had been a little too smart, but old “Waggoner” did not slip. He got his front feet on the top and sprang as lightly as a cat right into the Yankee line. One of them thought he had found a loose horse and grabbed him by the bit, but turned him loose with an awful howl. We actually surprised the Yankees as much as if we had ambuscaded them from a stone wall, got the first fire, which at such close range counts up. The boys who did the firing on the south bank, and the battery, mounted and came over and joined. The Yankees were of the very best brand—tall Westerners, could ride and shoot with the best. They put up a good fight, but we got away with them and scattered them. There was nothing between us and the Nashville and Franklin pike then.

General Buford made a report to General Forrest, and told him if he were backed up by Infantry he would swing on around and grab the Nashville pike, and that would force the Yankees out of their breastworks at Franklin. I was selected to carry that dispatch.

To my anxious inquiry where I would find General Forrest, “Damn if I know,” said old Abe. “About Franklin, I guess,” was all I could get.

The fight at Franklin was just commencing then. I recrossed the river. I had the choice of two routes. The one up the river was shorter, but as far as I could see it lay across soft fields that would force me to ride slowly or kill my horse. The other was a good, hard road that, from the course it ran, I knew must lead into the pike on which General Hood’s army was advancing, a few miles south of Franklin. I chose the latter.

I reached the pike just as Hood’s artillery was going to the front under whip and spur.

There is nothing more thrilling than to see a well-equipped battery going to the front. As far as I could see up and down the pike they were rushing forward, six horses to each gun, and on the Jump. Cannoneers sitting braced in their places, stripped to the waist, yelling and laughing at everything, as if it were the most joyous thing in the world—fighting. The guns followed each other so close, and were going at such a rapid gait, that I had to watch my chance and slip across the pike. Across the pike, and marching in the field parallel with the pike, was the head of General Stewart’s Corps, just passing, the General riding in front. I knew him by sight, and I thought he might be able to give me some information as to the whereabouts of General Forrest. I slipped across the pike, jumped a wall and saluted General Stewart. The General returned my salute as politely as if I were General Hood. I told him who I was, and asked him if he knew anything about General Forrest.

He said no, he had not been to the front yet, and did not know what they were doing.

I had turned, and was riding with him. He then inquired of me what the cavalry were doing. I told him about the fight at the river, and added that if we could get the infantry there would be no serious fight at Franklin. He seemed to be greatly interested.

Just then a staff officer came flying down the pike, jumped the wall in front of General Stewart, saluted, and said: “General Hood’s compliments; you will please move your command forward at double-quick.”

While he was talking to General Stewart, I was sizing him up. He was a young, handsome, dashing looking fellow, finely mounted, and a good rider, but he looked as proud and haughty as if he commanded the whole army. I hesitated some little time before I could muster courage to address such a magnificent creature. Poor couriers did not always get courteous treatment.

I think General Stewart noticed my slowness, for he turned to the staff officer, and said: “Here is a young man very anxious to find General Forrest. Can you inform him?” The fellow never even looked at me, but whirled his horse around and said, “Follow me!” He took the wall, into the pike.

There was something about that “follow me” and manner that got my back[507] up. He had hardly got his horse straightened out down the pike before I was alongside of him. If my thoughts had been spoken there, they would have been something like: “D— you, I have always been used to riding beside better men than you are.”

We passed the guns as if they were standing still. Never a word or look did that fellow give me. He kept on till I thought he was surely going to charge the town. After I had about given him up as crazy, he suddenly pulled up, and I, not expecting it, shot on by, but stopped in almost a bound and rode back. Pointing to the right of the pike, he said: “I saw General Forrest up there a few moments ago, and guess he is there yet.”

I looked in the direction he pointed, but could make out nothing for the smoke. The lines seemed to be close together and engaged in a fearful conflict. This was my first and lasting sight of the fearful fight at Franklin. I turned toward the staff officer to get more definite directions, and found he had disappeared. I never saw him any more. I left the pike and rode in the direction he had pointed. The ground was strewn with dead and wounded men. I had to ride slowly. I worked my way along in the rear of the Confederate lines a long ways to the right, but could not find General Forrest. Then I concluded I was too close in. I knew he had no command there. I did not think he would go up so close to the firing line if he were only looking on, so rode further off and then turned towards the pike again.

I had almost reached the pike when I heard someone swearing at a fearful rate. I could not see very far for the smoke and gloom.

I thought, “If that is not the General, it’s his twin brother, for nobody could swear that way but he.”

It proved to be the old boy himself. By that time our lines were giving way, and men were going to the rear in squads. The General was trying to rally them. He had worked himself into a terrible rage, had his saber drawn, and I expected to see him use it on some of them, and they would probably have shot the stuffing out of him. They did not know him, and seemed to resent his interference. Their own officers rallied them and charged those impregnable breastworks nine times, they say.

I rode up to General Forrest, stuck my dispatch under his nose and told him it was very important. He glared at me a moment like he could not make up his mind whether to cut my head off or shoot me. Finally he called, “Major!”

Out of the smoke rode the major and took the dispatch and read it to the General. I don’t recollect now whether it was Major Strange or Anderson. Both were nice men to do business with. Before he got through reading the report all signs of anger and passion had disappeared from the General’s face. It was always my private opinion that most of it was “put on,” though I did not tell him so for various reasons.

“Bully for old Abe,” says General Forrest, after hearing the report. “Major, tell him to hold what he’s got, and I will be with him as soon as I see General Hood and get the infantry.”

He went off on the jump. We were standing then on the side of the pike. The major was dismounted, stooping down writing on his knee, and I was holding his horse.

Out of the gloom and smoke came the sound of drum and fife. I looked back down the pike and saw a long line of bayonets coming at a double-quick with “trailing arms.” They were not yelling, their line as straight as a string, and perfect time. Though they were leaving a broad trail of dead behind, they kept the ranks closed up. From the stern, set face and fierce light of battle in their eyes, I could see they meant business. In front of them was our old fifer, Casey, and his Arkansas chum, playing “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” They had two kettle-drums and a bass. They passed within ten feet of me.

I yelled at old Casey as he recognized me, and nodded as he flashed past. I knew then that was our old infantry brigade. I saw General Scott further down the line. It enthused me so to see our comrades going in so gallantly that I yelled to beat the band. My horse thought hell had broken loose somewhere and wanted to go, too. The Yankees were[508] sending a perfect storm of shot and shell down the pike. Two lines of breastworks, two solid sheets of flame above them, the batteries looked like the whole top of the hill was ablaze, but into that hell our old boys charged, over the first line like a flash, and a race with the Yankees for the second line. I watched old Casey. All the musicians were killed or wounded before they reached the second line, but Casey, above the roar of the guns and the bursting of shells, still marched, playing on, and I could hear that old fife screaming “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” At last, for one short moment, I saw old Casey’s tall, slim form mount the second line of Yankee works, and then “The Girl I Left Behind Me” came to a sudden end. His music suddenly ceased. A Yankee knocked him over the head with a gun. Casey was captured and sent to prison. I have never seen him since, but the last I heard of him he was living in Cadiz, Ky.

I was called back to my own business by a gentle tap on my knee and heard the major say, with a very superior smile: “You seem to be a little excited.”

“Don’t get that way often, Major,” I replied, “that’s our old infantry brigade. Look how they go in.”

He looked across my horse, and I could see his face light up. “By God, those are gallant fellows,” he says.

“Yes, old Abe trained them,” was my answer.

The major gave me the dispatch, and I was obliged to leave at once.

Hood would not give Forrest the infantry nor allow him to flank and follow up our victory.

Twice in twenty-four hours had Forrest let the bars down to the Yankee rear, and Hood would not take advantage of it. Things were changing every moment, and I had to make several trips between Buford and Forrest, just how many I don’t remember. I was riding long after the fight was over.

The education which is worth while is the one we learn in making a living.

[509]

The Candle

Some people work and wait, and smile and steal, and cringe and plan; make shifty cuts and cheat, lay up whole tons of revenue and rot and work their lives out—just to see how big a funeral they may have.

—John Trotwood Moore.

Castleberry, Ala., April 28, 1906.

This is the center of the strawberry industry of Alabama. As your car passes through the pine lands, stretching along the lower half of the State, you catch a whiff, now and then, from a passing car-load of the queen of fruits. It extends practically from the thriving town of Greenville to Flomaton. It is a delightful odor—these strawberries—mingled with that of the pine, and the perfume of some wild flower gifted beyond its kind. It is a pretty sight to step off at this little pine-bowered village, which, a few years ago, was virgin pine lands, and see some five hundred berry pickers in one field of a hundred acres or more. The pickers are nearly all negroes, and about half of them women and children, and they make wages while the season lasts that should easily keep them the rest of the year.

That is, it would keep anybody but a negro—who never keeps.

At two cents a quart they earn from two to four and one-half dollars per day. They could earn more and save it all if they would work Saturday afternoons.

But a negro, like a mule, has some peculiar ideas engrafted into the network of his being, garnered from a long line of holiday-taking ancestors. “Like produces like or the likeness of an ancestor” is the unchanging rule of the physical world; and it must not be forgotten that for many thousands of years the negro took nothing but holidays and whatever else he found lying around that was good to eat.

And he wore nothing but a smile. This knowledge may help you in solving the problem.

It is creditable to the white man that he has bred any work into him at all. However, he has ideas on the subject yet, and one of them is that, since his freedom, it is contrary to some amendment of his Constitution to work Saturday afternoons, even in fields carpeted with berry leaves, studded with crimson clusters of reflected sunset, cooled with healthful pine breezes and saturated with the perfume the gods loved most and the soft balminess of the eternal spring in the sky.

That sounds like heaven, but it is not the heaven the negro wants. That’s the white man’s heaven, and the white man would just be fool enough to work right on till dark, making that extra two dollars and saving it and all the rest of his week’s wages by keeping away from the dives of near-by towns.

But the white man is a vain and foolish creature to the negro.

He has aspirations and he lives for the morrow. The negro has none—the pure-blooded negro never had an aspiration in his life—and he lives not even for the day but for the night following it, when his work ends and he may be a nigger among his kind.

The white man works to accumulate; the negro to spend. And Saturday afternoon and night is a bully time to spend what he has made the rest of the week. There is only one better time, and that’s the next day, if there is a foot-washing or a funeral.

That’s enough for the negro. His problem is nearly solved, for the tide of immigration that has been flowing westward is being turned southward. And when it turns there will be no negro question. Like everybody else he will take his place in the order of things where his nature fits. He will be then one muscle in the South’s great arm of labor, but he will never be the biceps.

I found the people primitive, but honest and kind. They have lived around here all their lives, and this thing is a revelation to them. It is more money than they ever heard of before. Why, people actually carry bags of silver around with them to pay off pickers. Heretofore the land had been most anybody’s for the asking, but now they can make more money on one acre properly tended to berries than they had before on a whole farm.

[511]

[512]

A small boy came in going to mill, driving two little steers hitched to a cart with wheels as primitive as the ancient Britons used, sawn from the sound pine logs. He is immediately surrounded by the jolly drummers, while their picture is taken for Trotwood’s. The big, two-wheeled log carts used for hauling the big pine logs, are everywhere. Four, five, six and even twelve yoke of oxen are seen in the woods or on the roads, with tall, rawboned, sinewy fellows driving them with a long whip able to reach to the farthest yoke. He whirls it around his head and it cracks with a noise that would make it a great thing for a small boy on the fourth of July.

Only it takes a man to crack it, and I noticed that it never fell on his patient team—only the terrible exploding crack popped in the air above their ears, and I rather thought the yoke seemed as proud of it as their driver, for after every crack I noticed he added soothingly and softly: “Haw there, Buck!” and Buck hawed calmly, as if he was not at all afraid, nor even in a hurry, and they all went forward together with the steady pull of perfect understanding between the man and his team.

I induced one of them, a lithe, fine looking fellow, to stop his team in front of a car of berries, that I might take them, whip and all. And as I looked at him I knew that in all his life nothing he had ever eaten had ever disagreed with him, and that he had eaten everything that came his way.

O for his legs and back and these pineland quail, and my own love for hunting!

This pine belt of Alabama (I think while geology was fresh with me that it was called a tertiary formation, it came far after the carboniferous period around the Birmingham district) is one of the finest opportunities in the world for the homeseeker. The price of the lands is simply a song with a pine-top attachment. Two dollars per acre, wild, and the improved lands ten to fifteen. They are sandy, with a good clay foundation, and capable of holding what they get, and of great improvement. When I went through them last they were a wilderness untouched, save where large corporations had gobbled them up in vast tracts for almost nothing and held them[513] for the long-leafed yellow pines upon them. After the sawmill came the cotton and corn. And of late has it been learned that in this belt alone lie possibilities of all kinds of fruits and vegetables, undreamed of four or five years ago. It is safe to say that in the belt alone, extending from the seaboard clear across the South, through Texas, even, and Oklahoma, lies the future’s great early fruit and vegetable area of the continent.

The industry has scarcely begun here yet, and that only along the line of the railroad, and yet from Castleberry the L. & N. railroad is shipping from five to ten car-loads of strawberries alone per day.

The American people are now rich—richer than any nation ever was before. They are learning how to eat and to live comfortably, and to spend their money for delicacies. They hunt Southern climates in winter and winter climates in summer. Once, when they were poor, they were satisfied with things in their season. In the memory of the young man of to-day he who used ice or had ice cream in summer was classed as the profligate Solomon spoke of, and was destined to die in rags. As for having strawberries in February and March, tomatoes at Christmas, asparagus the year round, cabbages, lettuce—many of the vegetables so common that even the poor may indulge now and then out of season—it was undreamed of. Think of what it will be a century from now. Think of it and all this great, balmy, bright-watered, sky-domed, clay-founded, health-breeding, beautiful, blossoming land, greater in extent than a half dozen Eastern States, lying sweet and cool under the dark green of shadowing pine, untouched by ax or plow, that may be bought up for two dollars, and needs only a little brains and energy to flush crimson in peach or berry or green in vegetables.

And will it pay? I will give just one instance, not the unusual incident, but the common one. I had walked around taking in the pretty picture at Castleberry, the cottages among the pines, the great gaps cut out solidly in the woods, forming fields alive with pickers, veritable pictures of life in paints of red and green, and enclosed in frames of deep emerald. I crossed the yellow, bright waters of a creek, stepping from log to[514] log. I saw a dozen kinds of birds that had not yet reached Tennessee in their northern flight. Wild vines and flowers bloomed everywhere. I walked two miles along from Castleberry to Marble, another coming town of berries and fruits, enjoying it all as I did as a boy, when I wandered among these trees of poetry in a land of poems.

The very smell of them said “home.” The skies said “home,” the dying pine needles, giving out their aroma beneath the foot, the way a little stiff-tailed woodpecker shifted around a rotting pine stump. It meant home and memories—memories that had slept embalmed.

Life—it has always hurt me. Was it given us for pain, that we might not become as the fatted swine, who, having no hurt neither have any hope of immortality?

To me it has been one great hurting and the times I have been joyous are the times I have acted in self defense.

I unslung my little kodak and tried to take a razor-back in the edge of the woods. I wanted a good picture of one—this hog of the Cracker South, whose sinewy, lean, sweet bacon is sought for at fabulous prices by the nobility of Europe. I approached him with confidence, thinking he would recognize me as an old friend—nay, even, from my build, as one of his kine. (A horrid pun, but a slippance.) But the razor-back is born in the land of the darky, and the same great Designer who gave lightness to the fingers of the darky gave speed to the heels of the razor-back.

And thus has he survived and still lives. I think he did not even stop to look at my face. To this day he thinks I was black.

Around Marble there are 350 acres in strawberries and 100 or more in Alberta peaches, and as I stepped into the clearing I met a native with a good, honest face and carrying a bag of silver in his hands. We soon became acquainted and he told me his name was John Barns and that he was going to the field to pay off his pickers. It being Saturday noon. I found him very straightforward and not inclined to exaggerate. He had bought his farm of 240 acres Christmas, 1901, for $500. His daughter married one W. W. Wright, who took a notion to plant strawberries—just one acre. He set out the plants December, 1905, and though this had been the poorest year in the history of the berry around Marble, the late spring and frosts holding them back fully three weeks, and cutting off the first crop entirely, Mr. Wright had[515] cleared, after paying for his plants, labor, fertilizers and picking, one hundred and twenty-five dollars on that acre.

“Now, 1903 was our best year,” said Mr. Barns, and he pulled out a little notebook he had. “Now, that year I planted my first berries, one and one-quarter acres, and they netted me $521.27, to be exact.”

We were joined, as we walked along, by another native, Mr. W. R. Adkinson, who told me that in 1905 his neighbor, Mr. Elisha Downing, cleared $2,050, net, on seven and one-half acres of berries. They both agreed that this year was not so prosperous, and yet the railroad agent told me they shipped fifteen carloads the Saturday before. They fetched $2.50 to $3.50 per crate f. o. b. track at Castleberry. There were several representatives of rival commission houses on the ground all during the shipping season.

Although the section is comparatively new in the berry and fruit business, I found it had spread all up and down the railroad, and from a reliable party I found the area planted to be about 1,800 acres in berries and 1,100 acres in Alberta peaches, extending from Bolling and including Garland, Dunham, Owassa, Evergreen (a beautiful little town and a great health resort), Sparta, Marble, Castleberry, Kirkland, Brewton (another beautiful and thriving town), Flomaton,[516] Century and Canal. An hundred acres will be planted at Evergreen this year in cantaloupes, while many cars of radishes were shipped from Greenville this year. Eighteen hundred acres out of as many hundred thousand, and two or three weeks of strawberries for the millions of people who have been waiting all winter for them! This looks small and shows what may be done in the future.

At Marble I found a most interesting strawberry farm, and there I saw the field dotted with pickers, a picturesque, poetic sight, especially when dinner time arrived and the berries came in with the cream. The berries we had for dinner were red and firm, with a fine flavor, and Mr. Lister, who raised them, assured me that just thirty-five days before, or on March 23, he had transplanted the vines. He called them, I think, the Three W’s, though other berries which were cultivated for market were Lady Thompson, Klondike and Excelsior.

[517]

I found Mr. Lister a great stickler for fertilizer, and though he said he had not yet been able to carry out his plans fully, he recommended the following as a sure process to attain the highest degree of success in raising the berries: Five hundred pounds of acid phosphate and cottonseed meal, equal parts, to begin with. Later, in October, side dress them with 500 pounds equal parts acid phosphate, cottonseed meal and kainit. Top dress in February with 400 pounds fertilizer, one-eighth per cent. potash, seven per cent. acid phosphate and five per cent. nitrate soda. After they are one year old about 500 pounds under them in fall, and so applying about three dressings a year, every four months apart, of about 400 pounds, for feeding the plants and building the foundation for the berries.

Mr. Lister thinks that the land may be bought cleared, fenced, fertilized, planted and cultivated ready to pick for sixty dollars per acre. The following are some of the companies I found engaged for a hundred miles down the line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. I was unable to get all of them: Bolling Stock Company, Bolling, Ala., about $20,000, eighty acres in berries, eighty in peaches and tomatoes in car lots; Garland Company, Garland, Ala., forty acres; Dunham Stock Company, Dunham, Ala., sixty acres, radishes in car lots; Brown Shepard Fruit Co. and Gravella Fruit Co., Owassa, about 215 acres in berries and peaches; Evergreen, Ala., about 100 in berries and 300 in peaches; Sparta, Ala., forty acres in berries; Marble, Ala., 350 acres in berries and 100 acres in peaches, and so on, as enumerated above. In some places I have found that they were planting the berries between the rows of peaches, and, they tell me, with good results. Mr. W. D. Brown, of Gravella, told me of eight acres of berries which netted their owner $1,800. I was impressed by the fact that the entire business was in its infancy, so far as gauging the possible demands of the future or in establishing the line of fruit and berries for which the land was adapted. As time goes on they will doubtless find that the land will be found suitable for both cantaloupes and watermelons and fruits of all kinds, including figs and grapes. In the matter of grapes alone, I happen to know that in a similar section in Butler County, Ala., a light, sandy land, with good clay subsoil, the finest of Scuppernong grape[518] arbors flourished, some of them covering a half-acre of ground, from which the best of home-made wines are brewed.

Throughout all that section of the South, the land itself is good for all farm purposes, differing, more or less, in different sections, but all capable of holding the fertilizer used and returning good crops of cotton, corn, oats, sugar cane, peas and other legumes. I doubt if better cotton lands may be found in the South than in the pine flat section of Alabama. On all of these lands wild grasses and clover grow in abundance, and I find the cost of growing stock reduced to a minimum.

Strawberries and fruits are the poetry of it—the prose is there, too, and awaits only the hand of the practical, steady, industrious man to make as good a yield of good things all under the fairest skies and in a climate as healthful and amid people as hospitable as may be found in all the world.

The first Tom Hal of which there is any record was a roan pacer about fifteen hands high or a little over, with a black mane and tail, very strong and well muscled, and of a great deal of style. He was a clean-limbed, beautifully-turned little saddle horse (if tradition has it right), remarkably fast at the pace and going all the saddle gaits, especially the running walk or fox trot, so desirable then, as now, when a business gait under the saddle was needed. This was about the year 1824-5; and he was ridden (so says tradition) by a Dr. Boswell, who bought him in Philadelphia and rode him from that city to Lexington, Ky., his home. Boswell called him a Canadian, and declared he was the best saddle horse he ever rode. He also said he was an iron horse, and later, to prove it, he agreed for a wager to ride the horse from Leesburg, Ky., to Louisville, a distance of about seventy-five miles, and back, in the same day. It was midsummer at that. He did it, but tradition says the hard, hot ride came nearly ruining the horse, causing him to go blind. I have often thought of this Dr. Boswell. A right gallant pill mixer and letter-of-blood he must have been. I have never heard anyone describe him, but I think I can: A good natured, horse-loving, poker-playing, jolly cuss, a little fat, with a well padded seat, or else he had not been so fond of a saddle and seventy-five miles a day. No skinny man ever sticks to a saddle long. They prefer to walk, even in those days when all the goods for the Western Settlement (as Kentucky and Tennessee were called) were purchased in Philadelphia and hauled across the mountains five hundred miles, or floated down the rivers a thousand. So Boswell loved a horse, and loved to ride. He was not averse to sharp horse-trading (as was customary in those days), nor did he fail to put up a little wager now and then, as witness his bet that he could ride Tom Hal from Leesburg to Louisville and back in a day.

Now, in studying Boswell and his horse, we must go back to the times in which they lived. Philadelphia was the city which then rivaled New York, and was the business market for nearly all the Western and Southwestern States and Territories. In our story of the Hermitage we have seen that General Jackson bought all the goods for his store, even as far as Nashville, in Philadelphia. It was the great mart for the Western world. And all men rode in those days. There were few roads, and rough ones, and when the now famous Dr. Boswell (it is very likely he was a young fellow, who finished his medical education at old[519] Jefferson College) started back to Kentucky, the cheapest and best way to get there was to buy a Canadian pony, ride him through, and sell him in Kentucky. Anyway, that is what he did.

A sad pity it was that the booted mixer of pills and calomel did not leave some record behind as to just what the little roan was. A sad pity he did not tell us in enduring lines why he called him Tom Hal, whom he beat in a horse trade when he got him, whom he robbed when first he mounted the original Tom Hal and rode him to Kentucky to fame.

For Boswell is famous—yea, as the other one was, for the other one is known as the biographer of Johnson, and this one as the biographer of the little Canadian pacing stud horse, the immortal Tom Hal, the pregenitor of the tribe of Hals.

Glorious Boswell, we know not what was his life, nor how nor when his taking off; nay, nor whom he took off—though we may be sure that in his day and generation he did his share with his lancet, his blue-mass and his calomel. Doubtless around the classic town of Lexington, perhaps even from Leesburg to Louisville, he left in his track lamenting widows and heart-broken orphans, whose sires first called in the horse-trading Boswell, and whose widow next called in the undertaker. Many a night, too, he rode the little pacer through the mud and sleet to the cabin of some lusty pioneer who had partaken too freely of biled cabbages and moonshine, and let a quart of blood from his guzzled body at the time he needed it most, or put a hot rock on the stomach that already had too much thereon. Often—often—the little pacer followed the trail of the stork at a two-minute clip, until, doubtless, in the language of Sentimental Tommy, he knew the difference between the wail of a “kid” and the groan of a “deader.”

And the pride of it—the glory of it! Didn’t every barefoot boy know him? “That’s Dr. Boswell an’ Tom Hal.”

“Didn’t the boys around the old fort store know him?

“Doc, thet’s a hell of a good little pony you’re ridin’.”

Didn’t all the old grannies know him: “Thar comes the Doctor, Sal, a-ridin’ his little amblin’ stud. Lemme get some clean sheets on the bed.”

Didn’t all the world know him—all the great, wide world, extending from Leesburg to Louisville? For there was nothing beyond. You bet your life they did. They all knew “Doc an’ his pacin’ stud.”

And Doc died and went the way of all the others he helped over the Styx, and, saddest of all, he left us nothing that we know.

For knowledge at last is just nothing that we know.

Less even than Shakespeare. For we know positively three things of Shake: He stole a deer in his youth, he married Anne Hathaway in his manhood, and he died and left a will in his older age—left a will in which he very cautiously told what was to be done with his best bed. But Tom Hal, the equal of his kind—equal even to Billy Shake and Dr. Jonson—of Tom Hal (he never had any best bed), and all we know is he was bought in Philadelphia, was a little, clean-limbed, rubber-hard pacer, and had his eyes ridden out of his head by a little wind-galled, blood-letting Doctor.

Great is Billy Shake! Great is Tommy Hal! Genius runs in parallel lines, and after centuries of mixing recipes to produce it, mankind has given it up and is willing to let it hit the earth now and then, untrammeled by toe-weights, unreined, unchecked, unbitted and unspurred. Shakespeare once wrote a description of a horse. You will find it in Venus and Adonis (if you’re not an old maid or a preacher), and this verse is as great and beautiful a description of Tom Hal, as he was and as he must have looked then (barring his “fet-locks shag and long”), as the poem itself is the most vivid and beautiful story of red-hot, immodest love:

But the horse of Shakespeare’s day was not the horse of Tom Hal’s day.

“Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,” doubtless expressed the Norman blood that Shakespeare knew. To-day the round-hoofed ones are plugs, the short-jointed ones are cart horses, and those with fetlocks shag and long are close kin to the Mustang.

But the rest of it was Tom Hal:

Yes, all this was the first Tom Hal—and more.

[Our authority, as may be seen from the chapter quoted, is Hon. Bailey Peyton, now deceased, than whom no more accurate authority on that subject existed. We are glad, however, to publish the above.—Ed.]

He who jests is weak, and nothing kills greatness like humor.

The South’s Need for a Magazine of Its Own.

Editor’s Note.—Trotwood’s thanks Mr. Sims (who, so far, like many of our readers and contributors, is a stranger to us) for his kind expressions. We learn that he is a graduate of Princeton, and a teacher and writer of reputation. We agree with him that the South has problems peculiar to itself, and that the proper place for their discussion is among ourselves and in a Southern journal. It is the aim and ambition of Trotwood’s to be the medium for this as well as for the development of the South’s great resources. We welcome such communications as the above, even if some of his plain assertions do grate somewhat on our nerves; for only by a calm and fair discussion of the problems which confront us can the truth be ascertained. Some of Mr. Sims’ assertions above are plainly open for discussion, and some are plainly ambiguous. For instance, what does he mean by “As to the code of social relations, there are some sections fertile and penetrated by railroads which are in vital respects half a century behind the advance guard of Anglo-Saxon civilization?” Social relations and civilization are two different things, and as to the former, it is our opinion that the South, in her fight for the purity of her race, the integrity of her morals and the hospitality of her people, surpasses all other sections of this country. In proof of this I will call our esteemed contributor’s attention to the following facts.

1. The white population of the South, never having been augmented by foreign immigration to any appreciable extent, is more purely American than any other section. It is to-day as it was one hundred years before the Revolution. I am not asserting that it is better for this fact, but as a matter of “social relations” I am claiming that it is purely American.

2. The religion of the South is in keeping with the Anglo-Saxon race; it is the simple religion of the Protestant peoples of England, Scotland and Wales, the Huguenots of France, and the sturdy, honest Catholics of Ireland. There is less skepticism and less materialism in the South than in any other section. I consider the above statement appropriate, under the head of “social relations.”

3. There are fewer barrooms in the South than in Greater New York alone—about 35,000. The South is essentially temperate. This, too, seems to Trotwood too, under the head of “social relations.”

4. Lastly (and this will doubtless astonish some of our readers) since the half-breed, the grade—the mulatto—is the curse of any nation, whether white, black, red or yellow, every mulatto is a living misfit, whose making is the spoiling of two men—a white man and a black man. Either of these, in his ability to accomplish the ends for which he was made, is far greater than the cross-bred, this being true in Maine,[1] where there are no barriers between the social relations of the whites and blacks, about two per cent. of the population are negroes, but about 59 per cent. of her negroes are mulattoes, while in South Caroline, where 59 per cent. of her people are negroes, only 9.7 per cent. are mulattoes. And it runs about that way in the entire country, north, where negroes are permitted to intermarry with the whites. And if the sturdy white population of the grand old State of Maine—the State of such intellectual giants as Blaine, Hale and hosts of others—if this State becomes wholly mulatto, it might as well be wiped from the map of civilization and be added to Hayti, the Philippines and Cuba.

This, to Trotwood’s, seems to be an unanswerable argument as to the superiority of the South’s social relations.

But this is as we understand social relations. We welcome all communications of thought and progress, but we expect[523] each correspondent to defend his position and if, on the other hand, our correspondent means to use social relations and civilization as synonymous, this is another proposition, and one which, doubtless, he is able to defend.

There are other of his premises so painfully true that we repeat them for emphasis:

1. “In the realm of economics, most of us in the South have yet to learn some of the first principles.” For example, it is said that the thrifty Yankee can live on what the Southerner wastes. And

2. “As to our courts of justice,” etc.—e.g., where to-day is the old Southern lawyer, who held his profession above money, and his opinion beyond barter?

EDMUND WINSTON PETTUS.

It is seldom that any magazine may present to living readers the letter of a man who has seen four generations arise and pass away. And such a man!

Edmund Winston Pettus is one of the great living men of the world. He is an old Roman who represents the high-water mark of the Republic’s true greatness—one who might sit at the council table of the Gracchii, of Pitt, of Washington. I speak not from hearsay—all my life I have known him. And never will the Republic look upon his like again, for as he quotes, “Time changes and men change with it.” But there was a scope, a broadness, a breadth and dignity in the Time which reached out to all the ages in making the men of his day and generation which seems sadly lacking to Trotwood’s in making of some of our Southern statesmen of to-day. But blame not the South for this. She has passed through the shoals and the rapids of politics since the war. It is natural that much froth and foam should follow it. But the two old Romans which Alabama has sent to the Senate go far to atone for the froth of some of our sister Southern States. All honor to Alabama for clinging to such ideals!

The picture we present of this grand old man (by courtesy of The Saturday Evening Post) brings to my mind a flood of remembrance—tender, and of the kind which has gone into the soul of me. One morning in the year 1868, when I was too small a boy to go anywhere alone, my father took me by the hand and led me to the courthouse to hear General Pettus speak. He turned me over to the sheriff while he himself went on the bench, and the sheriff placed me in a big chair, and, small as I was, I sat spellbound under the thunder of this man’s oratory. It was the first great speech I had ever heard.

And when I see this picture I see the old Judge, before whom he practiced—the old Judge, my father—who died the oldest judge in the State, wearing for twenty-six years the ermine and never sullying it.

They were men of the same type—men of the Old South—men whom the poet called for, saying:

The Saturday Evening Post, in its issue of March 17th, says this of Senator Pettus: “It isn’t much of a trick to be eighty-five years young, but to be a vigorous and virile senator at eighty-five is an accomplishment. Few men have done that. Edmund Winston Pettus, of Alabama is one. One is reminded of a buffalo when Pettus comes into the Senate chamber. He has shoulders a yard across and a barrel of a chest upholding a short, thick neck and a massive head.[524] When he walks he holds his head forward and shakes it slowly from side to side. It is fascinating to watch the sturdy old man and speculate how strong he was when he was young. He left Selma with a party of neighbors at the beginning of the gold excitement and rode horseback to California. He carried a Bible and a copy of Shakespeare in his saddle-bags and read them while on horseback and by the light of the camp fires at night. The Senator asserts that no better library has been taken there since. Pettus was a lieutenant in the Mexican War and a brigadier-general in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. There is a big, sprawling painting of the battle of Chepultepec over one of the stairways in the Senate wing of the Capitol. A few days ago a man was studying the picture. Senator Pettus came along.

“Sir,” said the man, “I observe that you are an old man. Will you kindly tell me if the people of those days wore clothes like those in the picture there?”

“No, sir,” thundered Pettus, “they did not! I was in that battle, and I saw no such clothes as those. So far as that raiment is concerned that representation is a mere pictorial lie!”

It is remarkable that from one section of Alabama—the Black Belt—and from one town in it—Selma—should have come two such men as Pettus and Morgan, both now octogenarians, and the same intellectual giants they were a half century ago.

In a near issue of Trotwood’s, perhaps in the next number, will be told the story of that section—a section rich not only in sturdy, progressive people, but in a soil and climate of such great natural advantages that the mere telling of it will be a revelation to those who have not heard of it before.

[525]

And Plutarch says: “We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against nature.”

[526]

TROTWOOD’S MONTHLY Devoted to Farm, Horse and Home.

TROTWOOD PUBLISHING CO., Nashville, Tenn. Office 150 Fourth Ave., North.

JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE,
Editor-in-Chief.

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NASHVILLE, TENN., JUNE, 1906.

THE TRUTH IS PRECIOUS.

Trotwood holds that the truth is a very precious thing. “It is more to be desired than gold; yea, than much pure gold.” It is more to be desired than office or fame or popular approval. For these things are transient, while truth is eternal. And one truth fits every other truth in the world, whereas, a lie fits nothing but some other lie, made especially for it.

Trotwood loves also to build up. He does not wish to tear down. And if he is anything, the records of his writings—and there is no record so complete as the records put in writing—will show that he has, both in and out of season, plead for a reunited country.

In the May installment of our “Historic Highways” we gave what we knew to be the plain facts of history when we said that the War of 1812 was very unpopular in New England; that she secretly aided the enemy; that she held the first secession convention ever held on our soil. And this was said, as stated, not in malice nor to arouse bitterness, but for the truth of history, which is precious.

Fortunately, we know Dr. Preston, the writer of the above, and remembered most pleasantly that he stopped off once to see us in his journeyings South. He is a gentleman and a man of much intelligence, and we must make good our assertions or acknowledge we have erred.

When Thomas Jefferson was elected to the Presidency in 1800, New England regarded it just as the South did Lincoln’s election sixty years later—as a fit cause for secession. John Quincy Adams published a statement over his own signature in which he said that in the winter of 1803, a plot was formed in New England to separate from the Union: “The plan,” he says, “was so far matured, that a proposal had been made to an individual to permit himself, at the proper time, to be placed at the head of military movements which, it would be foreseen, would be necessary to carry the project into successful execution.” Again, he says: “The separation of the Union was openly stimulated in the public prints, and a convention of delegates of the New England States, to meet at New Haven, was proposed.” This is the same gentleman who was the sixth President of the United States, but who, before that event, was forced to retire to private life by his New England constituency for voting with the Jefferson Administration in laying[527] an embargo on all shipping in American ports in retaliation for the insults of England. “The great damage fell upon the maritime States of New England, and there the vials of Federalist wrath were poured forth with terrible fury upon Mr. Jefferson and the embargo. But the full measure of their ferocity was reserved for the Adams,” etc. (Appleton’s Enc. of Am. Biography, Vol. I., p. 25.)

Governor Wolcott, of Connecticut, said: “I sincerely declare that I wish the Northern States would separate from the Southern the moment Jefferson is elected.”

And Governor Plummer, of New Hampshire, declared in 1805 that it was the purpose of certain distinguished New Englanders “to dissolve the Union.”

James Millhouse, U. S. Senator from Connecticut, said: “The Eastern States must and will dissolve the Union and form a separate government of their own, and the sooner they do it the better.”

Jonah Quincy, on the floor of Congress: “I am compelled to declare, as my deliberate opinion, that if this bill (to admit Louisiana) passes, the bonds of the Union are virtually dissolved; that the States which compose it are hereby freed from the moral obligations, and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some to prepare definitely for the separation, amicably, if we can; forcibly, if we must.” When he was called to order for this by Poindexter, of Mississippi, who proposed a vote of censure by the House, the House sustained Quincy and let him proceed.

Julian Hawthorne, in his “History of the United States,” says: “In the War of 1812, our antagonists were many. First, we had to fight the New England Federalists.” Again, he says: “Connecticut went so far as to raise a separate army for the defense of her own domain—whether against England or America might be left to decide.” (U. S. History, p. 709.) And again, he tells that by a system of blue light signals the New England Federalists kept the English fleet informed of the plan of our troops, thereby greatly aiding the enemy and embarrassing our movements. “Thus,” he says, “the Blue Light Federalists secured for themselves a place of infamy in our annals.”

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts declared that no power was given to the President or to Congress to declare war or to levy troops; that only to the States did they belong; and thereupon the Governor of that State refused the request of the President for its quota to defend their coast. When the New England members who voted for the War of 1812 returned home, they were reviled, denounced and one of them actually kicked and cuffed by a mob in historic Plymouth. The Federalists of New England prevented the Government’s every effort to raise money or troops. Finally, on December 15, 1814, when Jackson was moving heaven and earth to save New Orleans, a New England Convention, “summoned by State authority, assembled at Hartford, Connecticut, whose object was to secure armed resistance and overthrow of the Union.... This convention was attended by twenty-six delegates, all respectable, cultivated gentlemen.” (Hawthorne’s U. S. History, p. 731.) “It was composed of twelve delegates from Massachusetts, seven from Connecticut, four from Rhode Island (appointed by the legislatures of these States), and two from New Hampshire, and one from Vermont (appointed by counties), all Federalists.... Its proceedings were carried on in secret, and the convention was suspected at the time of treason.” (Cent. Dict., Vol. IX., p. 484.) In their declaration this convention said: “But in cases of deliberate, dangerous and palpable infraction of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of a State and liberties of a people, it is not only the right but the duty of such a State to interpose its authority for their protection in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur which are either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own decisions.” (Niles Register, Vol. VII., p. 306.)

This was the view taken by the Southern States when they seceded in 1861,[528] and which the great Civil War decided in the negative forever, not as a question of right nor of wrong, but as a policy of a majority of the people of this country, in arms assembled and on the field of battle.

“Whatever may have been the sins of New England, secession was not one,” says our correspondent. In proving that our friend is mistaken in his facts, I take the liberty also of defending New England as to his assertion that this was a sin. It certainly was not a sin. The New England States had this right, as did every State up to its final settlement by arms in 1861-5. It were no more a sin then than for New England to vote for McKinley and the gold standard in 1896, or for the South to vote for Bryan and silver. There can be no sin in a mere question of national policy by any people or peoples. “Not all of New England favored the War of 1812, but that is not secession,” he adds, as the gist of his argument.

That is true—neither did all the South favor secession in 1860-61. Perhaps it may be interesting to relate here that Tennessee, on the only vote taken by her as to whether it should be secession or not, voted by nearly 60,000 majority against secession. Afterwards, Governor Harris and the Legislature declared her out of the Union. Perhaps it may be still more of interest when I say that although the South sent fully 600,000 troops into the war to battle for States’ rights, she sent nearly 400,000 to fight on the other side. But everybody knows that a majority of the Southern people were for seceding and the foundation of our esteemed correspondent’s argument is gone when I assert, as I can prove, that from the election of Jefferson to the Battle of New Orleans, the majority of the people of New England, as voiced in the Federalist vote, were opposed to the policy of Jefferson, to War of 1812, and but for the Treaty of Ghent and the Battle of New Orleans would have voted to secede. In conclusion, let me say, those questions are all settled—“those far-off, old, unhappy days.” But the truth, at all times, should be precious, for among its many crowning glories, it teaches us that man is not very different from his neighbor after all. In 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish War, and when the United States troops had rendezvoused on Chickamauga battlefield, before marching into Cuba, Tennessee unveiled her statue erected to both her soldiers of the Blue and the Gray who died there. The writer was asked to read the dedicatory poem. On the stage were General Wheeler, General Stewart and many distinguished soldiers of both armies. And thus was the poem read: