Reminiscences

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Grand-pa and His Bright. Beautiful Sunbeams.

REMINISCENCES

BY

ROBERT M. HOWARD.

^^

Columbus, Qa.

GILBERT PRINTING CO.

1912,

Tm NEW Y«EK
PUBLIC LlalLAiiY

351082B

ASTiilt, LCNaX AND

iHJDrjii f;; ::ioations

H l!J46 t

Copyright, 1912

BY

ROBERT M. HOWARD.

DEDICATION.

^Si

With sweet love I dedicate these "Reminiscences" to the true
men and peerless women of "Dixie" 1861-1865 and their
. worthy descendants and to the Critic I respectfully say, "Put
^ yourself in his place.

R. M. HOWARD.

^

Columbus, Ga.
March 21st. 1912.

j,^

CONTENTS

Page

Chapter I 1

Chapter 11 14

Chapter III 27

Chapter IV 33

Chapter V 38

Chapter VI 50

Chapter VII 70

Chapter VIII ------- 100

Chapter IX 104

Chapter X 133

Chapter XI 173

Chapter XII 176

Chapter XIII - - 198

Chapter XIV 203

Chapter XV 213

Chapter XVI 221

Chapter XVII 232

Chapter XVIII 265

Chapter XIX 275

CHAPTER I.

"And God said. Let there be light; and there was light."

T AM the son of Aug-ustus Howard, of Sanders ville,
^ Ga., and Martha, daug-hter of Gen. Ezekiel and
Mary Wimberly, of Twig-gfs County, Ga. I was born
in Houston County, Ga., January 11, 1834. In 1836
my father moved to the home of my grandmother,
now known as the Garrard home, in Wynnton,
a suburb of Columbus, Ga. In this house, when
I was three years old, the fond recollections of
the handsome face and majestic form of my father
and the hallowed memory of my beautiful mother
had their birth, and were I an artist I could to-day,
from these blessed, fadeless memories, paint true to
life the portrait of each; and here beg'an a life
which from that day to this has had its full share of
sunshine and storm, of joy and sorrow, of sweet and
bitter; subject to all the frailties and imperfections,
the same impulses for good and evil to which
humanity is heir. I have known many better by
nature and practice than I have been; I have known
many no better than my long- life has proven and
some not as g-ood. I have ever implicitly believed
in and taken sweet comfort and consolation in ad-
versity, burdens and cares in "Thy will, O God; not
mine, be done." I still most vividly remember the

2

2 REMINISCENCES.

very first Sabbath school I ever attended when the
teacher read the Beatitudes from Matthew v, and
"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see
God" impressed me at the time deeply indeed.

When my father moved to Columbus there were
many Creek Indians in Russell County, Ala., who
soon became hostile and killed many men, women,
and children. There were seven of them tried for
murder in Girard just across the Chattahoochee River
and hungf at the same time from the same gfallows.
On ascending" the scaffold each one was asked if he
had ever done anything- for which he was sorry; six
answered no; the other said he killed an entire
family the last one of which was a babe he took
from its cradle and dashed its brains out ag^ainst a
tree; he said he took the baby in his arms, it smiled
in his face; for this he was sorry and for nothing"
else. As the trap was sprung" they gfave the terrible
Indian war whoop. Soon after this the tribe was
removed by the United States Government to the far
West, and in 1906 and 1907 I saw many Creek
Indians in Indian Territory.

In 1838 my father moved into the home he had
completed in Wynnton, now owned by Robert Car-
ter. I started to school in 1839 to a Yankee school-
marm near our home. Miss Lee (afterwards Mrs.
Wayland) who g"ave me the only whipping" I ever
had at school. She was no kith or kindred of our
immortal Robert E. Lee, and from that g"ood day to

REMINISCENCES. 8

this I have never been half way dead in love with
Yankee school-marms. This school was attended
mostly by g"irls, and the sweetest, smartest and most
beautiful one of that largfe school afterwards became
my stepmother; she was my champion then, and
there dawned in my youthful heart then a love true,
pure, and deep that never grew less and is to-day
hallowed by sweet memories of that beautiful g"irl.
Of the many who attended that school, all save one
and myself have passed over to the g"reat beyond.

Well do I remember the political slog'an of the
Whig- party in 1840, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too,"
and saw it carried at the head of a larg-e line of en-
thusiastic, shouting- men and boys with a coon and
keg of hard cider and a new broom with which the
Democratic party was swept from the political field.
(My oldest brother was named John Tyler Howard.)
A short time after the inauguration of President
Harrison in March, 1841, the city bridge at the foot
of Dilling-ham Street spanning: the Chattahoochee
River was washed aw^ay and landed in Woolf oik's
Bend several miles south of the city. That event
has ever been called and remembered as the Harrison
Freshet. The water was eight feet deep on the first
floor of the building- now owned by the Muscog-ee
Manufacturing: Co., and occupied by them with their
offices. At that time the building- was, with the
entire block, the home of James S. Calhoun and his
wife, who was my aunt.

4 REMINISCENCES.

My mother died July 12, 1842.

•'Yes, 1 have left the golden shore,
Where childhood 'raidst the roses played;
Those sunny dreams will come no more,
That youth a long, bright Sabbath made.
Yet while those dreams of memory's eye
Arise in many a glittering train,
My soul goes back to infancy,
And hears my mother's song again."

My sister Anna and myself lived with our grand-
mother and aunt, Mrs. Crocker, in Twig"g"s County
(my brother Tyler remaining- with my father at his
home in Russell Coimty, Ala.) until October 1844,
when my father married Ann Jane Lindsay (oldest
sister of my wife) daughter of S. C. and E. B.
Lindsay.

During- the campaign of 1844 between Polk and
Clay for President, Walter T. Colquitt, of Columbus,
a member of Congress from Georgia, and one of the
most eloquent orators of his generation, either
South or North, addressed a very large Democratic
mass meeting in middle Georgia. A. H. Stephens,
the idol of the Whig party of Georgia, was present.
Colquitt, pointing to Stephens with all the scorn
and satire that language could paint, said, "I could
pin back his huge ears and bodaciously swallow him
alive." To which little Alec promptly replied,
*'And if you did you would have more brains in your
stomach than you have in your empty head;" upon
which the eloquent Colquitt suddenly collapsed.

REMINISCENCES. 6

My uncle, Thacker B. Howard, of Columbus, was a
Clay elector from Georgfia in the election held at
that time. Many years ag-o a noted Engflishman
visited Washing-ton City when the national Cong-ress
was in session, was taken by a friend to the Repre-
sentatives' Hall and asked to scan thoroug-hly every
member in the vast hall below and point out the
g-reatest man in that assembly. After the lapse of
considerable time he pointed to Stephens; upon
which the friend said, "And why him?" The answer
was, "The mere fact of his being- here stamps him
the g-reatest man I see before me."

In 1845 I attended a private school (taugfht by
Miss Lydia Salmon, of Wadesboro, N. C.) in the home
of Mr. S. C. Lindsay, who g-ave me a fine Indian
pony, and seventeen years later became my father-
in-law. I went to school near the home of my
father in Russell County, Ala., during- 1846 and
1847. For the next four j^ears I went to school to
John Isham in Wynnton and Columbus, the last three
years of which I spent with my dearly loved cousin
Mrs. Randall Jones on Rose Hill. Such was her love
for me and attention shown me at all times that a
strang-er visiting: the home would have said she was
my mother and not my cousin.

I have a silver cup upon which is inscribed the
following-: "Awarded by the M. and R. A. S. at the
fair Nov. 1850 to Robert M. Howard for the best
treatise on the farm by a youth." The committee

6 REMINISCENCES.

making: the award said, "In awarding: the premium
to Robert M. Howard for the best treatise on the
farm by a youth, we mean it in no flattery when we
say that it would have done credit to a much older
head." C. F. Peabody, J. M. Chambers, B. A.
Sorsby, Committee. Several years agfo I gfave this
cup to my brother Richard Howard, who above all
men on earth is the sweet, gfolden apple of my eye.
With the exception of three years I have lived with
him since 1889. No man ever had a purer, more
precious, more priceless pearl for wife than Dick.
If there was ever a harsh word passed between
Addie and myself or even an unkind thoug*ht or
feeling: I do not know it.

When I left Isham's school in 1851 I had read
most of the Latin and Greek authors; could read,
write and speak both lang'uag'es with almost as
much fluency as I could Eng^lish. I have retained
much Latin. Of Greek I now know only the alpha-
bet. Of my many former schoolmates in Columbus
in days of "auld lang* syne" — probably two hundred
— Col. W. S. Shepherd of this city and I alone sur-
vive.

In January 1852 I went to the Georg-ia Military
Institute at Marietta, Ga., Major A. V. Brumby,
Superintendent. I left there in July 1853, and of
the 175 cadets in attendance up to that time I was
one of two that never received a demerit mark.
In Augnist 1853 I joined a corps of civil eng:ineers in

REMINISCENCES. 7

Montgomery, Ala., of which S. G. Jones (father of
Ex -Governor T. G. Jones of Alabama and at
present judg-e of the United States District Court of
Alabama) was chief engfineer. John T. Milner of
Georg-ia was principal assistant engfineer. Until
April 1861 I was engfagfed in the construction of
different railroads in Alabama. In an excavation
near Pintalala Creek ten miles from Montg-omery
we unearthed a turtle fourteen feet from the surface
that was sixteen feet long- and thirteen feet wide; as
to the lapse of time it had been there, ask the
scientists.

I cast my maiden vote in Hayneville, Lowndes
County, Ala., in Aug-ust 1855 for G. D. Shortridg-e
for g-overnor (on the Know Nothing- ticket), S. D.
Moorer for state senator and W. Barrett for the
lower House: we carried the county but lost the
state. Soon after voting- an immense Irishman
g-ave me the lie when I said I was old enoug-h to
vote; in an instant I landed a left-hander in one eye;
and if the sheriff and other friends had not pulled
me away from him I don't know what would have
become of that modern Goliath with g-affs on like
Saul of Tarsus breathing- out direful threateningfs.
In g-rappling- with him I must have absorbed some
poisonous microbes, for in a very few days typhoid
fever in a very malig-nant form developed and for
several weeks I hovered between life and death.
At that time my life-long: friend C. P. Rogers and I

8 REMINISCENCES.

were boarding- with a farmer (E. L. Sanderson, who
had an excellent wife, two manly boys, and two
pretty, charming- daughters) engaged in the con-
struction of what was then known as the Alabama &
Florida Railroad (now Louisville & Nashville) from
Montgomery to Pensacola. Had I been a son and
brother I could not have been more tenderly and
kindly nursed. In my room was a very larg-e clock;
on its face were these words: "Eig-ht-day repeat-
ing brass clock, made by C. & N. Jerome, Bristol,
Connecticut, 1835." Many thousand times did I
count the ever-present tick-tock as the pendulum
vibrated to and fro, wondering if that clock would
sound the last trump of time on a life that seemed
to be fast ebbing away on the shores of Eternity.
My Aunt Gary, who w^as then spending the summer
at Butler Springs, about fifty miles away, sent her
carriage for me when she heard I was sick; but I
was too sick to be moved and remained with my
good friends until I was strong enough to stand the
trip from there to Columbus, Ga., and my father's
home in Russell County, Ala.

In 1857 m3'' friend Rogers, realizing the truth and
beauty of "Two souls with but a single thought, two
hearts that beat as one," informed me that he
intended to steal one of the bright, priceless jewels
of our former friend Sanderson, and that he needed
my assistance. I always believed that where there
was a good deal of courting going on the nuptial

REMINISCENCES. 9

knot should be speedily tied. Of course I was g"lad
indeed to serve him. The conference closed with
the understanding- that I would meet him and his
sweetheart at a certain place near her home at eig-ht
o'clock on the morning- of Aug-ust 12th. I reached
the place of rendezvous on time with a suit of fine
clothes in my saddle-bagfs to wear at the wedding: .
They were there, and with them a young- lady,
cousin of the bride-to-be. He had only one horse
and said to me he would take my horse and that
I could get a mount from a certain neig'hbor and
follow. The bride climbed to the top rail of a hig-h
fence and just as she reached it we saw something-
drop to the ground. On investig-ation we discovered
that it was the bride. We soon relieved her of the
dilemma, mounted her in the saddle, and off they rode
at full speed. As distance g-ave enchantment to
the view, the cousin turned to me and said, "Mr.
Howard, they have g-one;" and I replied, "Yes,
and to Montg-omery to be married." When I
reached Hayneville, seven miles distant, this bold,
dashing- thief who had robbed a doting- father and
mother of their sweet, favorite daug-hter, had
actually pillag-ed my saddle-bagfs of their contents
and married in my clothes. However, "All's well
that ends well," and that priceless pearl, that
true, devoted wife for many years, never cast
aug^ht but brig-ht sunshine and sweet smiles o'er
the pathway of my loved and loving- friend, Charlie

'10 REMINISCENCES.

Bog-ers. Fifty-four years with their many chang-es
have been recorded in the Book of Time since the
dawn of this episode.

"Joys that we've tasted
May sometimes return;
But the torch when once wasted,
Ah! how can it burn?
Many are the changes since first we met.
Friends have been scattered like roses in bloom;
Many at the bridal, many more at the tomb."

To my life-long- friend C. P. Rog-ers of Leto-
hatchie, Ala.

BESIDE LIFE'S TIDE.

•'YoU, Friend, and I have stood beside
Life's fiowing and Life's ebbing tide;
Our hopes we've seen float out to sea.
While cruel storms beat pitilessly.
Thus stood we. Friend, uncrowned, forlorn,
When night came down upon our morn.

"Thus stood we, while within there grew
A strength our faith from heaven drew,
And in that faith our souls abide;
God's ebbing is God's flowing tide,
Behold on it our hopes upborne;
The night has lifted from our morn.

"And now, dear Friend, along the lea.
The sunlight and the quiet sea,
Tho' in this peace there riseth not
The bond of loss and common lot;
Tho' at this task each toils apart,
Each trusteth each, knit heart in heart.
You. Friend and I have stood beside
Life's ebbing and Life's flowing tide."

REMINISCENCES. 11

I lived in Greenville, Ala., during: 1856 eng-agfed in
the construction of the Alabama & Florida Rail-
road. I sold a tine horse for $500.00 payable when
Fillmore was declared elected president of the
United States, another apt illustration of the old
adag-e that "A fool and his money are soon
parted."

I lived in LaFayette, Ala., in 1860 where I had
charg-e of g-rading: a railroad from there to Opelika.
I contributed to a fund with which to erect a Bell
and Everett liberty pole 125 feet hig-h from which to
float a Bell and Everett campaig-n flagf. I was a
secessionist -per se believing" that each state had
the inalienable rig-ht to secede from the Union at its
own discretion and will. When Lincoln was de-
clared elected president I had a larg-e secession flagr
made; some one cut the rope to prevent me from
hoisting- it. I went up to the arm eig-hty-five feet
above the g-round, nailed it to the pole, stood up,
spoke about fifteen minutes, and descended to the
g-round. When I left there in January 1861 it was
still proudly floating- to the propitious breezes
of Heaven.

During- the war when a certain North Carolina
reg-iment was marching- throug-h Richmond to the
front, a little smart Aleck asked the Colonel what tar
was worth in North Carolina; to which the Colonel
replied, "Not a barrel in the state. Jeff Davis has
bougfht the last drop we had to make you Virgfinians

18 REMINISCENCES.

stick in the fight." Sometimes it is best not to be
too inquisitive.

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

In January 1861 m}^ sweetheart and I, after an
eng"agfement of ten years, had a lovers' quarrel (and
the fault was all mine) and severed the engfag'ement,
and I bade her g'oodbye in these words; —

"Thou hast wounded the spirit that loved thee,
And cherished thine image for years;
Thou hast taught me, alas! to forget thee.
In secret, in silence, in tears.
As a young bird when led by its mother
Its earliest pinions to try,
Round the nest will still lingering hover
E'er its trembling wings can fly.
Thus we are taught in this cold world to smother
Each feeling of affection so dear;
Like that j'oung- bird I'll seek to discover
A home of affection elsewhere.
Oh! the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she gave when he rose."

And thus we parted, and never a line or messagfe
passed between us until "we met by chance" in July
1862; we held an immediate council of war, declared
an armistice, and in less than five minutes each
unconditionally surrendered to the other. As is the
bow to the arrow so is man to woman, useless each

REMINISCENCES. 13

without the other. Enchantment itself cannot sever
two hearts that have been one. From that g-ood
day to the time when the sweet, brigrht g-uardian
ang-el of my life was crowned with fadeless g"lory in
God's blissful beautiful Eden, I loved every foot-
print she made in this vale of sunshine and storm.

CHAPTER II.

T T /"HEN General Beaureg-ard's first gun, April 12,
^^ 1861, at Charleston, S. C, startled this
Government from center to circumference and rever-
berated throug"hout the entire civilized world, I was
engfagfed as a civil eng"ineer in gfrading^ what is now
the Louisville & Nashville Railroad at Decatur, Ala.,
on the Tennessee River. I was one of the hundred
and twenty-five young* men who at once formed a
company and tendered our services to the Confeder-
ate States Government at Montg"omery, Ala., for en-
listment of one year; the Secretary of War replied
that the g*overnment would receive no troops for
less than three years or the continuance of the war;
a majority of the company voted ag"ainst a long^er
enlistment than one year and disbanded at once.

I boug^ht a ticket to Richmond, Va., and arrived
in that city the next day at 12 o'clock and joined the
Second South Carolina Reg^iment (commanded by
Colonel J. D. Kershaw) that had been mustered into
service that morning"; we left that nig-ht for the front.

After leaving" Decatur, I never saw any one I had
ever known before until after the first battle of
Manassas.

We stopped several weeks at Mitchell's Ford on
Bull Run and with other troops built a few miles of

REMINISCENCES. 15

breastworks, and then advanced to Fairfax Court-
house, about eig-hteen miles from Washing"ton, and
here, on July 16th, saw a beautiful young- woman on
a thoroughbred race horse running at full speed,
gracefully dismount at General Beaureg^ard's head-
quarters and taking- from her beautiful silken tresses
a letter, inform General Beaureg"ard that General
McDowell with 55,000 Federal soldiers was then
crossing- the Potomac River on their "on to Rich-
mond" march, proudly boastings and loudly pro-
claiming" that they would end the rebellion in sixty
days by hanging^ Jefferson Davis and our leaders
hig-her than Mordecai hung- the infamous Haman.
*'The best laid schemes of men and mice g-ang" aft
ag-ley."

About 9 o'clock the neftct morningf (17th) the head
of the column of this mighty host appeared about
two miles distant with countless flag's flying-, gf listen-
ing" bayonets, with many bands renting- the air with
their joyous notes as they died away on the very-
portals of Heaven. The long roll was at once beaten
by our drummers and we retreated in perfect order
to our breastworks on Bull Run.

The next evening- (18th) they attacked General
Long-street's command on our rig-ht wing- but were
quickly repulsed with considerable loss. And thus
stood matters until the morning- of the 21st, which
was God's Holy Sabbath of rest, and ere the sun
rose throug-h a cloudless sky, the sweet notes of

16 REMINISCENCES.

many a feathered song-ster, from sturdy oaks, piped
to his loved and brooding- mates, mingled their
melodies with the rippling murmers of Bull Run on
its clear winding way to the sea.

About three miles from where my command was
awaiting orders stood Sudley Church and Sudley
Ford, and it was here McDowell crossed Bull Run,
doubtless believing he could easily flank our extreme
left wing, and thus attack us from both front and
rear. About 9 o'clock there comes to our ears
a faint sound, wafted on the gentle breezes of that
holy Sabbath morn. Is it the bell of that historic
old church calling God's people to worship and there
hear "Peace on earth, good will to men?" Hark,
nearer, louder breaks that sound o'er that murmur-
ing" stream. What is it'? 'Tis the cannon's opening
roar announcing the advance of the ruthless invader,
summoning Southern patriots — who were violators
of no law knoAvn to the Constitution, guilty of no
crime — to strike for the God-given right of freedom
and liberty, to "strike for their altars and their
fires, to strike for the green graves of their sires,
God and their native land."

They struck and ere the last lingering flush of
the setting sun had mingled its brig-lit rays with
the gorgeous g-lory of the departing day, Beauregard
and Johnston with less than half as many men as
McDowell had most signally defeated and utterly
routed McDowell's magnificent troop of 55,000.

REMINISCENCES. 17

As the thorouo^hbred racer paws the g-round
with nostrils distended and champs the bit eag-er
for the word "g-o" to be given, so were we all
impatient and anxious to go to the relief of our
sorely pressed comrades. My command was two
miles from where the battle was so terribly rag-ing".
About 2 o'clock my reg-iment and Cash's South Caro-
lina regfiment with our brig-ade battery of four can-
non (Kemper's) were ordered into action. We went
on double quick most of tlie wa.y and formed in line
of battle in an old field under a heavy fire of shot and
shell. About four hundred yards in front of us was
a larg-e, thick woodland. (And here pardon a little
dig-ression. In the fall of 1860 there was a most
famous volunteer military company in Chicag"o
known as Els worth's Zouaves. This company had
challeng-ed any company in the United States to
meet them in Memphis, Tenn., in May, 1861, and
drill for the championship of the Government, and
the Columbus Guards, of which I w^as a member,
had accepted the challengfe. In the meantime Els-
worth had recruited his company to a reg-iment of
1,100 men and taken them to Washingfton and on
arrival there showed them a very fine and handsome
watch, telling- them there were 1,100 just as fine in
the South belongfing- to them and all they had to do
was to take them when they went there. A few
days after this Virg-inia ratified the ordinance
of secession and a man named Jackson, hoisted a

18 REMINISCENCES.

larg^e secession flag" over his hotel in Alexandria,
seven miles from Washing-ton; the next morning-
Elsworth with a squad of his reg-iment entered the
hotel before Jackson had g-otten up, took the flag-
from its staff and coming- down the stairway, wav-
ing- it over his head, said to Jackson who had
suddenly been awakened by the noise: "See, I have
a trophy." "Yes," said Jackson, "and I have one
too," and with a double-barrel shotg-un fired both
barrels, killing- him instantly. Jackson was killed,
and his body pinned to the floor with bayonets.)

We were now ordered to move forward into the
woodland alluded to above where we met Elsworth 's
Zouaves and of the 1,100 we bag-g-ed 900 in killed,
wounded and prisoners. We emerg-ed from the
woods and re-formed in an old road beaten down by
constant use several feet below the surface; in front
was an open field extending- several hundred yards
where the enemy were formingf in heavy columns to
charg-e our lines, and here I saw the most inspir-
ing-, soul stirring- sig-ht of my life, for just here
our battery came at full speed with an old man
eig-hty years old standing- on a caisson, his long-
white hair streaming^ in the breeze with hat in one
hand, hi g-h above his head, loudly calling- out, "On
boys, on! On boys, on!" as thoug-h with an inspira-
tion born of heaven, he fain would say to us now
is the time to dare, do or die for the rig-ht. Our
battery was unlimbered immediately in our rear and

REMINISCENCES. 19

commenced firing' over our heads as fast as they could
load, tills gflorious old hero firing" one of the pieces.
Did God from His throne ever g^aze with rapture
on a grander, more g"lorious earthly scene? Grand
old Edmund Rufiin of Virg-inia! He served with this
battery until the surrender and a very few days
thereafter wrote these memorable words: "I cannot
survive the loss of the liberties of my country," and
with a shotg"un ended his life.

Just at this critical moment Kirby Smith with
1,700 fresh troops appeared immediately in the rear
of this mig"hty host and with the first volley of our
g-uns, this grand army in the twinkling- of an eye,
melted as dew before the morning" sun and sougfht
safety in the most ig"nominious flig^ht and utter rout
that ever occurred in the world.

Several hundred yards from where we now were
was the celebrated Henry house, around which was
Rickett's battery of six pieces, firing" into our own
ranks as fast as they could load. This battery was
known and celebrated in our war with Mexico as
Sherman's Flying" Artillery, and had been captured
and recaptured several times during: the day. We
now captured it ag"ain and manning" it with g"unners,
fired in rapid succession as long" as the routed arm5^
was in rang"e, and then followed in rapid pursuit,
many dead and wounded of both armies covering" the
g"round. And here I literally obeyed the Bible where
it says: "If thine enemy thirst, give him drink."

20 REMINISCENCES.

In stepping- over a wounded Federal, he said,
"Friend, for God's sake g^ive me some water."
Friend — yes, we are all friends in the presence of
death. I handed him my canteen and the sweet smile
and "God bless you" with which he received it more
than repaid me for all the thirst I suffered before I
g"ot any more water. Who knows but what the
recording" ang^el in heaven entered that one pint of
water to my credit as an offset to some of mj many
misdeeds both before and since that historic day.

We crossed Bull Run on Stone Bridge and captured
many more prisoners, among- them Hon. Alfred Ely,
member of Congfress from New York, who claimed
his liberty on the plea that he was a non-combatant
and a mere "looker-on in Venice" as it were. The
last I heard of him he was a real looker-in in
Libby Prison at Richmond, catching- rats for a
decent honest living- instead of faring- sumptuously
every day as an honorable M. C. in Washing-ton.

We had advanced four miles from Stone Bridg-e
and were within four hundred yards of Cub Run, a
small stream spanned by a bridg-e about fifty feet
above the water, the banks almost perpendicular.
The bridg-e was so completely blocked by cannon,
wagons and vehicles of many kinds that a jay bird
-would have needed his spectacles to find his wa3^
throug-h and here were many thousand unable to g-et
on "the other side of Jordan," who would have
doubtless within a few minutes surrendered to the

REMINISCENCES. 21

sweet music of our battery firing- rapid salutes
among- their ranks reminding- them that we were
still very much in love with them — g-rand, g-lorious
Edmund Ruffin still tiring- his g-un with the same
accuracy and sweet satisfaction as with which his
unerring- aim broug-ht the squirrel to his g-ame bag-
from sturdy oaks in his boyhood days — but just at
this moment sounded the death-knell of the Southern
Confederacy and we received a peremptory order
from General Beaureg-ard to return to Stone Bridg-e.
Had he been where we were and had he known what
we knew he never w^ould have issued the order that
robbed us of the fruits of a most g-lorious victory.
I shall believe until I die that if that order had not
been issued our g-lorious battle fiag-s would have
floated to the propitious breezes of heaven in Wash-
ingfton City within less than twenty-four hours,
which w^ould have established beyond a doubt the
independence of the Southern Confederacy.

When we were about faced and started back I was
so mad that but for a quart bottle of the best and
finest champag-ne I ever tasted before or since, that
I borrow^ed from the bag-g-ag-e wag-on of Governor
Sprag-ue of Rhode Island (every drop of which I
drank to his g-ood health), I believe that I would
actually have blown up with spontaneous com-
bustion.

We returned to Stone Bridg-e and other portions
of the battlefield and had captured approximately

22 REMINISCENCES.

in killed, wounded and prisoners 5,000, twenty-eigfht
cannon with caissons, 100 fine artillery horses,
thousands of small arms, many stands of colors and
many hundreds of wag^ons loaded with ammunition,
army supplies and luxuries in largfe quantities.. A
g"ood day's work and merited rebuke to the fanatics
of the North (whose ancestors in the early history
burned innocent, helpless women at the stake for
beingf witches and severely punished husbands and
fathers for kissingf their wives and children on
Sunday) who left their homes and came into our
country with a sword in one hand and a torch in the
other, with which to g"ive the benig-hted heathen of
the South their first Sunday school lesson on
Northern civilization and Christianity; and thus
ended on the battlefield of Manassas, Virg-inia, July
21, 1861, McDowell's first and last sermon in Dixie
from the text "Peace on earth, g"ood will to men."
That nig-ht I was detailed to g"uard prisoners. I
was relieved at one o'clock, and with my cartridg^e
box for my pillow, the broad bosom of nature for
a couch and the blue canopy of heaven for a
shelter, I retired for rest and sleep, and as my head
touched my downy pillow, fond memory recalled to
mind the soldier's beautiful dream:

"Our bugles sang truce and the night-clouds had lowered

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the si?y,
And thousands had sunk on the ground over-powered—
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die."

REMINISCENCES. 23

Sometime during- the nig-ht the very flood g"ates of
the clouds widely opened and let fall a g"reat torrent
as it were of bitter, blinding-, scalding tears, with
which they fain would wash away the great pools of
innocent Southern blood that crimsoned the sod of
this historic battlefield. When I awoke in the
morning- I was in a g-reat puddle of water as wet as
if I had spent the nig'ht in the murmuring- waters of
Bull Run and I had never known when it beg-an to
rain or when it ceased, and if this is not a fact then
I am the biggest liar south of Boston where they
keep the days of the week with codfish, Irish
potatoes and baked beans.

When the Federal Army reached Washington, some
one said to an Irish soldier, "Well Pat, you had to
run from the Rebels." "Yes," says Pat, "and them
that didn't run are there till yet."

"And now," continued Pat, "let me tell you about
that little Sunday School frolic: We had the Rebels
badly whipped all day but they were such fool fight-
ers they didn't have the sense to know when they
were whipped and toward the shade of the evening,
when General McDowell was just about to telegraph a
glorious victory with the capture of the Rebel Army,
Kirby Smith with more fresh troops than Carter ever
had oats (and you know he had so many he had to haul
a part of them from the field to find ground to shock
them) dropped down from the very clouds all over
us, shooting to beat the band and every one of us de-

24 REMINISCENCES.

cided immediately that we had more important busi-
ness in Washingfton than we had in Dixie and so we
started at once and pretty soon General McDowell
on his black horse, white with foam, overtook me
crying- out at the top of his voice: 'A horse, a horse,
my kingfdom for a horse! ' And the one he was on was
running- so fast he looked like a shoe string-, but I
kept up with him and he says: 'Pat, what are you
running- for?' And I answered, 'Because I haven't
got wing-s to fly.' And says I: 'General, what are
you running- for?' And says he: 'I am running- so I
can g-et to Washing-ton and tell the President the
Rebels have g-iven us hell and a heap of it.' And
pretty soon I overtook General John Pope, who had
teleg-raphed to Washing-ton that his headquarters
were in the saddle and he had been able to see only the
backs of the Rebels and his horse had flung- him sky
hig-h out of his headquarters, but the centre of g-ravity
broug-ht him back to the earth and there he was, and
says he: 'Pat, what are you running- for?' And says I:
'I'm running- because I haven't g-ot time to walk,' and
says I, 'General, what are you running- for?' and says
he: 'Pat, I'm running- to keep the Rebels from seeing-
my face,' and with that broke out crying- like his
heart would break. And says I: 'General Pope, I
wouldn't sit there and crj^ like a baby.' Says he:
'Pat, God knows I wish I was a baby, and a sweet
little old g-al baby at that,' and we kept a running-
and the further we went the faster we ran, and before

REMINISCENCES. 25

we g"ot to Washing-ton we were running so fast that
the telegraph poles looked like a fine tooth comb."

Which reminds me that a short time before the fall
of Richmond a Confederate prisoner was carried to
Grant's headquarters to be pumped for information.
After applying- the pumping- process to its full
capacity, Grant dismissed him by telling- him he was
such an infernal fool know^-nothing- that he couldn't
tell a skinned elephant from a picked ia3^ bird, to
which the prisoner replied: "General Grant, you've
asked me a whole lot of questions; may I ask you
one?" "Certainly," says Grant, "fire awa5^"

"General Grant, where are you g-oing- ani^how?"
And Grant replied, "I may go to Richmond, I may
g-o to Petersburg-, I may g-o to Heaven or I may g-o
to hell." To which he retorted, "General Grant, you
can't g-o to Richmond for General Lee is there; you
can't go to Petersburg- for General Beaureg-ard is
there and you know mig-hty well you can't g-o to
Heaven for Stonewall Jackson is there, but as for
g-oing- to hell we aint g-ot no men defending* it, and
I'll bet you my head to a Jews-harp that you and your
whole army can march in without firing- a gnn and
receive a warm welcome for the devil is needing:
recruits of your sort."

In a few days w^e moved forward to Fairfax Court-
house, and apart from daily drilling- and picket duty
our lives were, according- to Grover Cleveland "lives
of innocuous desuetude."

26 REMINISCENCES.

In October we were on picket a few days at
Munsen's Hill a few miles south and plainly in view
of Washingfton City and here I was transferred to
my old company, the Columbus Guards. I never saw
my South Carolina company ag'ain until a few days
before General Johnston's surrender and of the 114
comrades I left, there were three lone survivors.

In September 1861, my regiment (the Second
South Carolina) of 1,100 was reconnoiteringf near
Vienna, Va., south of Washingfton City. We were
moving" in line of battle near a thick woodland and
struck an old field which extended several hundred
yards in front of us. On the line marking" the field
and woodland stood a solid oak g"ate post about two
feet square. Just then a masked battery told us we
had treed something" and we were ordered to lie
down. One man (Stubbs) dropped behind the post.
The next shot came from a rifled cannon, the ball
strikingf the post just above the surface of the
g"round and tore the body of Stubbs into frag"-
ments. Strang"e indeed it was that he alone of 1, 100
men had protection and was the only one injured.
A mile or so from there, we reached Vienna, on the
railroad, just in time with one cannon to fire into a
passing" train loaded with soldiers. Many jumped
from the cars and those not killed were captured.

CHAPTER III.

A T Centreville, Va., in 1861, not long- after being"
^"^ transferred to the Columbus Guards from Ker-
shaw's Second South Carolina Regiment on my return
to camp after a short absence, Dick Potter, orderly
serg-eant, told me I had missed a detail on duty. I
asked for what. He replied, to cut and haul wood
to Colonel Semmes' headquarters. I told him I would
never serve on any such detail; that Colonel
Semmes had no rig"ht or law to call for such a de-
tail. John Lindsay was present and heard what I
said. A few days afterwards he was detailed for
the same purpose. He peremptorily refused to serve,
was immediately arrested and carried to Colonel
Semmes, who asked him where he g"ot his authority
to refuse to do duty when detailed. He replied. Bob
Howard. The Colonel sent a file of soldiers with
fixed bayonets who marched me over to the augnst
presence of this czar of the Second Georgfia Reg"i-
ment. On reaching" him he said, '"The next thing" j^ou
know, I'll have 3^ou shot for sedition and insubordi-
nation." He asked me by what authority I advised
John Lindsay not to cut and haul wood to his tent.
Asking: him for the Articles of War, I read, "No
private soldier shall be detailed or required to do

28 REMINISCENCES.

any menial service for an officer." I then said to him
I was there to figfht for my inalienable rig"hts and
that I would figfht him as quick as I would Abe
Lincoln. There was never another detail made to
cut and haul wood to Colonel Semmes.

In the trenches at Yorktown, Va., in April 1862,
John Lindsay gfave the first blood that was shed from
Columbus in the war. I was sitting* immediately^ by
him when he was shot throug^h both legs and we were
almost immediately ordered to leave the trench we
were in, it being untenable. We retired at once and as
we laid John on the ground he said to me that he left
his knapsack in the trench, that he cared nothing for
anything in it except a Bible given him by his
mother. I told him I would get it and from the time
I got in range of the sharp-shooters from whose fire
we had just retired until I got out of the range
agfain many shots w^ere fired; but then as throughout
the entire war a merciful God ever shielded my de-
fenceless head. On the fly-leaf of that Bible were
about these words: "A mother's gift; remember, boy,
it is no idle toy." I think his daughter, Mrs. G. Y.
Tigner of Columbus, Ga,, has that Bible to-day. In
February 1865 General Lee issued an order giving a
furlough to two soldiers of every regiment of his army
w^ho had been distinguished for marked gallantry and
dauntless courage in front of the enemy. John
Lindsay was given one of these furloughs. On
reaching home lie found a beautiful baby daughter

REMINISCENCES. 29

he had never seen. The first time he came into the
city the provost gfuarcl asked to see his papers. He
refused. Colonel Von Zinken, commandant of post,
ordered the gfuard to arrest him and bring" him to
his headquarters, dead or alive. Tiie next day John
was in town on a horse on Broad Street. The u;uard
ag"ain hailed him and when he reached tlie corner
west of the Racine Hotel the g"uard reached the
southeast corner of Broad and Thirteenth Streets
fired, and he dropped from his horse dead. Dr.
Colzey immediately informed his father. His
brother. Cooper Lindsay, and I were at home on
furloug^h. We mounted horses and rode at the
top of their speed. On reaching- Von Zinken 's
headquarters we found Broad Street packed from.
Twelfth to Thirteeth Streets. A large bodj^ of
Wheeler's Cavalry was in the cit3^ en route to
Johnston's army in North Carolina; many shouting-
"Hang" him! hang" him!" Cooper and I rushed into
Von Zinken's office, seized him, and sent a soldier
for a rope. Just at this moment Mr. Lindsay, the
father, entered and said, "Don't harm him;
'Vengfeance is mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord.'" We released him, and from that daj^
till now I have ever been g"lad that the father en-
tered when he did. Von Zinken was too brave a
man to have been hung" under such circumstances.
No more g"enerous, true, loving" man ever lived;
no more fearless, courag"eous soldier ever drew

30 REMINISCENCES.

g-littering' blade in any ag"e or clime, than John B.
Lindsay. "None knew him but to love him, none
spoke of him but to praise."

Early in 1861, Cooper Lindsay (a brother of my
wife) in his teens, joined the Tenth Mississippi
Reg"iment at Pensacola, Fla. He was soon made
color-bearer of the regfiment. More than once he was
wounded with his flag- wavingf higfh overhead. In
the terrible battle of Franklin, Tenn., November
30, 1861, he was agfain shot down. A comrade said,
"Poor Lindsay, he has gone at last," to which this
g"lorious soldier promptly replied, "You are a damn
liar, grive 'em hell boj^s!" On recovering* from a
wound on the eve of returning* to his command, he was
asked by his father if he needed some money, he
replied that a soldier g-etting* $13.00 per month, his
clothes and rations, had no use for money. I never
met him after he joined the army until the battle of
Perryville, Ky., October 7, 1862. He had drawn to
a bob-tail flush, filled, and had more than $1,000.00
in his pocket; he gfave me $500.00 to keep for him.
The next time I saw him he was dead broke and I
staked him. He swam the Chattahoochee River on
his horse three times the day Wilson's raiders reached
Columbus. The day the raiders left Columbus (Gen-
eral Wilson in Jim Cook's fine carriag"e) Cooper and
a few others, followed the raiders. Near Waverly
Hall they overtook a Yankee captain from Ohio,

REMINISCENCES. 31

two white and two negro soldiers robbing" the house
of Congressman Sing-leton, of Mississippi, whose
family had refugeed to Georgia. The Yanks hur-
riedly mounted their horses and rode off at break-
neck speed. Cooper soon overtook the captain and
with one blow from his sabre broke his neck; the
others surrendered. The party started back to
Columbus. On reaching a swamp about eight miles
east of the city, the two whites died very suddenly
from an overdose of lead. In the swamp of what is
now known as Wildwood Park, the niggers collapsed
and died from an internal dose of blue whistlers.
The3^ had several fine watches, for which all save
one, the boys found the owners.

In February 1866, about where now stands Chan-
cellor's store. Cooper shot and killed a negro soldier.
A white lieutenant with a squad of niggers pur-
sued and captured him at the Central Railroad. B)^
the time they reached the Third National Bank, a
crowd of at least 1,000 had assembled and fearless
old Bob Sheridan with a navy six in one hand and
his watch in the other said to the lieutenant, "I'll
give you just thirty seconds to turn Lindsay loose;"
upon which the lieutenant said, "Go, Lindsay, go!
God knows I've got no use for you." He was
mounted on the first horse in sight and came im-
mediately to my home and spent the night there.
That evening about dark, Major Warner, an ordi-
nance officer and an excellent man, was killed by

32 REMINISCENCES.

some of the nig'g'er gfarrison quartered in what was
then known as the Banks Building" on the east side
of Broad Street, the Major passingf on the west side.
But for the pleading" of man5^ of the older and
influential citizens of the citj^, the entire g"arrison
would have been annihilated that nig-ht. In a very
few da3^s this garrison was removed. Two days
after the killing* of the nig^g-er soldier, Mr. Lindsay
g"ave Cooper $1,165.00 and mounted on the same fine
horse owned the year previous, he left just after
supper for Texas. A few daj^s after he left, the
United States Government offered a reward of
$2,000 for him. In June 1866, President Johnson
issued a general proclamation that in all cases where
crime was charg"ed ag^ainst anyone in the South, the
military authorities should have no jurisdiction pro-
vided the civil law took cog"nizance of the crime
charg^ed. I wrote to Cooper to come home. The
da3'' he arrived here I had him arrested under a
warrant charg"ed with murder; he was arraig'ned
before a magistrate who assessed a bond of $5,000.00
with approved security for his appearance before
the Grand Jury of the first Superior Court to meet
thereafter. The bond was made and approved and
should you ask me whether or not the Grand Jury
took any action in the matter, I would emphatically
answer "Damfino, and care less."

CHAPTER IV.

ON March 8, 1862, we left winter quarters at
Centre ville, Va., under General Johnston in
command and went to Yorktown and went into the
trenches several hundred yards in front of which
was the Federal line of entrenchments, and if ever a
head or hand on either side appeared above the
breastworks a shot would be fired at it, the canon-
ading- from Federal batteries was at times terrific,
particularly at night, but I soon became so accus-
tomed to it that it did not disturb my sweet slumbers
any more than the buzzing- of the g^nat.

On one side of us was the York River; on the
other the James, in each of which were Federal war
vessels, the distance between the two rivers being-
seven miles. We remained in this position and
under these circumstances for more than a month,
and on the night of May 4th we withdrew. The
withdrawal of General Johnston from General
McClellan's front with such great odds against him
was a great and grand feat of strategy and general-
ship. McClellan's army, in great numbers, followed
in pursuit and vigorously attacked us at Williams-
burg on the evening of May 5th, but was repulsed
with a greater loss than we had; his loss in killed,

4

34 REMINISCENCES.

wounded and prisoners amounting- to more than a
thousand besides several cannons.

We continued our advance towards Richmond with
little more interruption and loss.

On the evening of May the 31st, on the lines of the
Chickahominy River at Seven Pines, seven miles from
Richmond, Johnston in g-reat numbers most vigor-
ously attacked McClellan (who had great odds in his
favor) all along the lines. The battle raged with
terrific fury and destruction on both sides and night
closed the bloody contest. Just about dark, General
Johnston was very severely wounded in two places
and was borne from the field and but for that it was
said and believed that McClellan 's army would have
been annihilated and captured. The next morning
the battle was renewed with unabated fury and
destruction on both sides and when it closed victory
perched upon our banners and we held the battlefield.

The next morning our matchless Robert E. Lee
took command of the Army of Northern Virginia.

On the 24th of June, 1862, thirteen of the
Columbus Guards (of which I was one) were
transferred to the Nelson Rangers (T. M. Nelson,
captain) an independent cavalry company acting as
escort and couriers to General Kirby Smith
commanding the Department of East Tennessee.
We left Richmond on the evening of the above date
and came home to mount and soon reported to
Captain Nelson at Knoxville, Tenn.

REMINISCENCES. 35

On the 31st of Augfust we sig"nally defeated the
Federal Army at Richmond, Ky., killing-, wounding-
and capturing more than 9,000, a g-reater number
than our force numbered. At 9 o'clock on the nigfht
of September 3rd, tw^enty of my company and ten of
another were ordered to burn some railroad bridges
betw^een Lexington and Frankfort. We were in the
saddle all night and at 7 o'clock in the morning- we
had not reached the bridg-es and very unexpectedly
found the rear g-uard of the Federal Army and with
low-down cunning- and deep chicanery we captured
the whole business, 122 infantry and 58 cavalry,
without firing- a gun. We marched into Lexing-ton
at 9 o'clock with our prize and received the gfrandest
ovation I ever saw from any people during- the war.
We were literally pulled from our saddles and
carried into elegant homes and wined and dined
until we fain would have had our bread-baskets
made out of India rubber so that they could be
distended to take in more and more of the luxuries
and delicacies both liquid and solid. The first
house I entered w^as the Todd mansion (owned by a
man named Sheppard) in which Abe Lincoln was
married. Mrs. Lincoln at that time had one, if
not two, brothers in our SLvmy. I ate seven fair,
square meals before retiring that night and haven't
had a g-enuine case of hung-er since. We remained
here about a month and I did not draw a ration
from our commissar3^ while there and many of the

36 REMINISCENCES.

boys were in the same deligfhtful condition — at
peace with the whole world, as Bill Arp used to
say, except some.

We now leave Kentucky and reach Knoxville,
Tenn., without any stirring" events — the latter part
of October and two days thereafter I was ordered to
Columbus, Ga., on some government business, with
a week's furlough, when and where the winsome
sweetheart of my boyhood became the beautiful,
fascinating bride of my early manhood, the devoted
wife of the best years of my life. I married at 11
o'clock in the morning of November 3rd, and took a
train at 2 p. m., the same day for Knoxville, and
within the limit of my furlough arrived there and at
once informed the boys that I was a married man
and they immediately org'anized a court martial and
the charg"e preferred against me was "that any soldier
that would go home and marry and leave a sweet,
beautiful bride at home was too big" a fool to live
and ought to be shot the next morning at sunrise. ' ' I
demurred to the indictment and went to trial
without a witness, earnestly pleading" that he who
worshipped at the shrine of duty could never g"o
wrong"; that he who doubted at her call was a
dastard and that he who failed to obey her high
behests through fear of consequences was an arrant
coward and should be forever damned. After much
discussion of the court to combat the log'ic and
force of my argfument the court unanimously

REMINISCENCES. 37

decided that it would nol-pros tlie case provided
I would set it up to a g^allon of g"ood, red liquor,
which I accepted in final judg'ment, and when they
drained the jug" to the very last drop refused to let
me smell even the empty jug.

In March 1863, General Kirby Smith was ordered
to take command of the Trans-Mississippi Depart-
ment. He left at once and the company follow^ed
soon after, but the Mississippi River was so closely
g-uarded by the Federals that the company could
never cross the river and w^as soon assigned to
General Stephen D. Lee in the same relation it had
been to Kirby Smith.

CHAPTER V.

r\N the nig-ht of May 5, 1862, after the battle of
^^ Williamsburg', Va., an officer rode into our
camp and asked where General Benning- was: "In
that fence corner asleep," some one replied. "You
are a damn liar," roared the old lion: "I am never
asleep when there is anything: to do. What is it?"
In a battle in Virg-inia General Benning- was ordered
to reinforce General Anderson. Meeting- numbers of
Anderson's wounded before g-etting- into action one
of the wounded said to him: "Hurry up. Rock.
Tig-e's treed." In the battle of Chickamaug-a he had
two horses killed under him and just then his brig-ade
captured a Federal battery. He mounted an artillery
horse bare-back and thus rode until the battle ended.
In the battle of Sharpsburgf his brig-ade, on our
extreme rig-ht wing- at a bridg-e spanning- the Antie-
tam River, held at bay an entire Federal army corps
for twelve hours. His achievement in arms was as
brilliant as ever blazoned a warrior's crest or
adorned a nation's story. He was a friend without
treachery, a soldier without cruelty. He was a
private citizen without wrong-, a neig-hbor without
reproach, and a man without g-uile. He was as sub-
missive to law as Socrates, as g-rand in battle as
Achilles, and as just with his fellowman as Aristi-

REMINISCENCES. 39

des, and died meriting" those grand, beautiful words:
"An honest man is the noblest work of God."

In the early twilig"ht of a January evening-, 1863,
Dock Jones (one of my company) and I stopped at a
farm house in Hawkins County, East Tennessee,
where we were entertained until the next morning".
At supper our host, Mr. Young", asked our names. I
answered, Howard and Jones from Columbus, Ga.,
upon which the daug"hter inquired, "Do you know
Kate Lindsay?" and I answered, "I certainly do;
she is my wife." She hug^g-ed and kissed me as
though I were a long" absent brother. She and my
wife had been loving" friends and class-mates at a
nearby female colleg"e in Rog"ersville.

Later in the same month my company was or-
dered to report at Greene ville, Tenn., to Colonel
Allen of a North Carolina reg"iment. We went into
the mountains of Western North Carolina to kill or
capture a number of desperate bushwhackers who
plundered the home of Colonel Allen. They even
took the clothing" and shoes and stocking's from the
bodies and feet of the mother and children. Tw^o of
the children died within a few days. We captured
thirteen and returned to Greene ville, and about a
mile from where we started we were ordered to halt,
and here I witnessed the saddest scene I saw during"
the war. One of the prisoners was a boy only four-
teen years old. I made a strong" appeal to Colonel
Allen to spare the boy. His reply was, "Shoot him,

40 REMINISCENCES.

he can pull a trig-g^er as strong- as an5^ of them," and
with one volley their last and reddest blood crim-
soned the sod of that weird scene. And this was
war. One man kills another man; the State hang-s
him as a malefactor. "The kingf who can do no
wrong-," slays his countless thousands, and the
world croYv^ns him a g-rand, gflorious hero. And here
I recall to mind one stanza of a catchy little song- of
my school-boy days written by a French peasant g-irl
whose sweetheart had been conscripted into the army:

"If I were King of France or, still better, Pope of Rome,

I'd have no fighting men abroad, no weeping maids at home;

All the world should be at peace, or if kings must show
their might,

Let those who make the quarrel be the only ones to
fight."

Dock Jones, Judg-e Banks and Frank Ellis found
on the battlefield of Richmond, Ky., the carpet-bag-
of a sutler of an Ohio reg-iment containing- $3,000.00
in g-reenbacks. Dock g-ave me §300.00. On reach-
ing- Lexing-ton with the captured rear g^uard of the
Federal Army that had evacuated Lexing-ton the
nig-ht before, I g-ave a Federal officer ten dollars
for his overcoat, and five dollars each to two others
to help them on their way home, telling- them if I
ever caug-ht them ag^ain I'd g-ive them bullets instead
of dollars. Each g-ave me his name and home ad-
dress, telling- me that if I ever landed in a Yankee
prison to write to them, and I should never suffer
for anything-. One of them prevailed on me to

REMINISCENCES. 41

accept a g-ood silver watch. "One touch of na-
ture makes the whole world kin." I here paid a
jeweler (Clark by name) fifty dollars for a beautiful
opal ring- for my winsome prisoner at home whom
I had paroled on honor that she would never take
up arms agfainst me in favor of any man or
being- on earth, and as true as the needle is to
the pole, so true was she to her plighted faith.
My oldest grand-daug^hter, Catharine, is the proud
owner of the ring- above alluded to.

When I was at Spartanburg-, S. C, en route to join
Johnston's army, I spent the nig-ht at the home of
Mrs. Mary Alef Smith, the aunt of my sometime
fiancee, and for whose name, Alef, she was called.
This aunt of hers had, to my knowledg-e, the beau-
tiful ambrotype which, on the breaking- of our en-
g-ag-ement, my beloved had taken from me and g-iven
to her. I offered a faithful colored woman servant
of hers, Lide, one hundred dollars to steal this am-
brotype from my hostess for me, but she refused to
do so. I g-ave her ten dollars, however, as a reward
for her faithfulness and honesty. This beautiful
ambrotype of the once brig-ht lig-ht of my life I wore
as a sweet, cherished amulet next to my heart both
day and night from July 1862, until the war ended,
and many a time since her death when g-azing- on
this picture a flood of sweet, tender memories forces
a flow of tears that dim the features of the beauti-
ful face before me.

42 REMINISCENCES.

"All day like some sweet bird content to sing
In Us small cage, she moveth to and fro,
And ever and anon will upward spring
To her sweet lips, fresh from the fount below,
The murmer'd melody of pleasant thought,
Light household duties, evermore inwrought
With pleasant fancies of one trusting heart.
That lives but in her smile, and ever turns
To be refreshed, where one pure altar burns,
Shut out from hence the mockery of life;
Thus liveth she, content, the meek, fond, trusting wife."

The Seven Days' Battles around. Richmond com-
menced on the evening" of June 26, 1862, at Mechanics-
ville. Some distance in the rear, McClellan with
his staff and ranking" officers, was discussing" the
result of the battle, some one saying": "We have g"ot
Lee at last; we will capture his army and enter
Richmond; Stonewall Jackson is in the Shenandoah
Valley and cannot reach Lee in time to save him
and Richmond." "The wish was father to the
thought." Hark! there comes a sound, a deep
sound, wafted on the breezes of that eventful even-
ing", carrying" dismay and consternation to the
mig"hty contending" hosts in front. What is it? 'Tis
the cannon's opening roar from g"rand, g"lorious
Stonewall Jackson, saying" to McClellan in thunder
tones: "I have come as your unbidden g"uest to
welcome you with hospitable hands to bloody
g"raves."

"Oh, that night or Blucher would come!" ex-
claimed Welling"ton in the g"reat battle of Waterloo,

REMINISCENCES. 43

June 18, 1815, when victory trembled in the balance
as Napoleon's Imperial Guard, time and ag^ain,
hurled back in confusion and defeat the mig"hty
onslaug^ht of Welling'ton's fearless and intrepid
troops. Well may Pig^htingf Joe Hooker have
exclaimed at the battle of Chancellors ville, Va.,
May 3, 1862, with his "Finest Army on the Planet"
of 92,000 well equipped Federal soldiers, confronted
by the matchless Lee with 14,000 of his unterrified,
unwhipped braves and the immortal Stonewall
Jackson with his "webfoot cavalry" in his rear.
"01 that I had the wing's of a dove to fly away and
be at rest from this ever present, aveng'ing' Nemesis
with her death-g"rip g^nawing" at my very vitals."

The day that I left Richmond in June 1862, for
Columbus, I met a class-mate I left at Marietta
in July 1853 (T. C. Johnson, of Palmetto, Georg-ia,
Lieutenant Colonel of the Nineteenth Georg^ia Reg^i-
ment). His wife was with him. She had been wait-
ing" several days to meet some friend g'oing" South
with whom she could return to her home (her
husband informing" me that a friend would meet our
train on its arrival at Macon). Of course I was g"lad
to take charg-e of her. On being" seated with her I
noticed at once that she was very dejected, and in
tears she said to me that she had a presentiment that
she would never see her husband ag"ain. I did my
utmost to disabuse her troubled mind of such g"loomy
foreboding's, but all to no avail. After a long" and

44 REMINISCENCES.

tedious trip we arrived at Macon in the nig^ht and
the expected friend met us in the car with a tele-
g^ram informing" her that her husband had been
killed in battle that evening'. That was one of the
saddest, most heartrending- scenes I witnessed
during" the war.

The battle of Richmond, Ky. (Aug-ust 31, 1862),
was an all-day running- fig-ht, ending among- the
monuments and tombstones in the cemetery of Rich-
mond. During- the day I saw a Federal surg-eon
take from the pocket of a Federal whose brains
were flowing- from a mortal wound and the death-
rattle in his throat rapidly announcing the end, a
letter about as follows:

"Big Hill, Ky., Aug. 31, 1862.

7 o'clock A.M.
My dear wife:

The Rebels are coming: and we will have a

battle to-day and I have a presentiment I will be killed.

I mail with this §20.00. God bless you and the children."

I have forg-otten the name sig-ned. The surg-eon
offered me the $20.00 bill, saying-: "I presume you
claim this." "By no means," I replied. "What
must I do with it?" he asked. I replied: "Mail it
to the poor fellow's wife." I'll bet a dollar to a
notch on a jay bird's tail that the wife never g-ot the
letter, and if she did that $20.00 bill was very con-
spicuous for its entire absence.

At one of the many places where the Yankees
made a stand and scattered like a covey of flushed

REMINISCENCES. 45

birds from the first volley of our cannon and double-
barrel shotgnns, Parson Owens, Andrew Weems
and I made a dash to capture quite a number of
Yanks who just crossed the crest of a hill. As we
turned the crest, a regfiment of cavalry not more
than fifty yards in front of us, behind a fence in a
thick woodland fired upon us a volley that sounded
like it came from thousands of guns. Knowing" that
we could not surround them in that thicket a^nd
demand a surrender, we at once decided we had
some important business on the other side of the
hill, which we executed by ridingf at breakneck
speed to a larg^e two story brick farm house about
four hundred yards from where we recrossed the
hill, and here we captured forty-seven Yanks fully
armed and equipped with their weapons of death
and destruction. They were badly sheared and would
have g'ladly surrendered to a cock robin or jenny
wren. ''O, that my enemy would write a book," and
try to prove me a liar.

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers,
But error wounded writhes in pain,
And dies among its worshippers."'

In the summer of 1864, Dud Gary and I dined with
a farmer in Sumter County, Ala. He asked our
names and where we were from. I answered: "My
name is Howard and this is Gary — both from Go-
lumbus, Ga.;" to which he replied: "My name is

46 REMINISCENCES.

Vivian and. I am a first cousin of your father and of
his mother." We had an eleg"ant dinner and he
filled our haversacks to their utmost capacity with
many substantials and delicacies. When we went
to the barn to saddle up, Vivian told Dud that as
his horse was pretty well fag"g"ed out he had better
leave him there to recruit up and mount one of
several fine mules he had, and it would make no
difference if he never returned the mule. Dud g^ladly
made the exchang-e. Whenever he was detailed for
courier duty he successfully played old soldier by
claiming- that his mule was lame. The boys g-uyed
him a g^ood deal by telling- him that he had stolen a
mule that could outrun any horse in the company.

On the nig-ht of December 16, 1864, when Hood's
army was utterly routed in the battle of Nashville, a
reg-iment of Yankee cavalry dashed into the rear of
our company and at once there was a g-eneral mix
up of both friends and foe. The next morning, Hub
Walker, a g-allant, fearless soldier, a unique Sui
Generi.i amused the boys very much as he told the
tale of Dud's woe of the nig"ht before about as
follows: "Gentlemen, it was a rupturous and terri-
ble nig-ht and a scandalous shame the way the damn
Yankees beat up old man Dud Gary on his bald head
with their sabres, and every lick they hit him he'd
holler, 'I surrender, I'm already wounded,' and
gfentlemen, old Dud's lame mule with his head up
and his tail in the bushes sure did outrun everything-

REMINISCENCES. 47

on the pike." In the fall of 1865 Dud went with the
wife of his brother Joe to visit some relatives in
Columbus, Miss. A few days after reaching^ there a
policeman met him on the street and showed him the
cut of a stolen mule, offerin<^ a reward for the mule
and thief. Without seeing his sister or anyone else
he left immediately on foot and tramped the entire
distance until he reached my home on the Talbotton
Road about twiligfht one evening". I asked him what
was the matter. He replied, "I came from Columbus,
Miss., to keep a damn policeman from arresting^ me
for stealing" Vivian's mule, and you know I didn't
steal that mule." I never saw before or since a
more t^^pical tramp; seven years later he appeared
at my home agfain under the same mental halluci-
nation.

The morningf after General Hood's crushing" defeat
at Nashville General Clayton's division covered our
rear. Just before reaching" Franklin, he formed in
line of battle on both sides of the pike with one
cannon on each side. There was an excavation
throug"li the hill from two to three hundred j^ards
long" and about twenty feet deep, and into this
death-trap soon rode a reg"iment of Federal cavalry
at full speed. An instantaneous volley from both
sides of the pike emptied many saddles. The entire
command surrendered at once; upon which Bill
Ferg"uson, of our company, rushed in amongf them
a-nd had just unbuckled the belt of a Yankee captain

48 REMINISCENCES.

and taken from him two fine navy sixes. Just then
a cannon shot the captain's head off; a just retri-
bution for being" a busy-body and meddling" with
other people's business.

Just after passing Franklin our rear was ag"ain
attacked by a very large force and here our g"rand
old hero, fig"hting like a lion aroused from his lair,
actually saved the remnant of Hood's once grand
and invincible arm^^ from ca.pture. Marshall Ney,
"the bravest of the brave" of Napoleon's mighty
host, never fought against greater odds or with more
conspicuous g"allantry and courage than did this
Christian soldier as he dared to do all that a true
patriot could do for his bleeding" country. Grand,
glorious old Henry D. Clayton, true to his God, true
to his country, true to his fellowman! He was an
incorruptible public official; a private citizen in
whose spirit there was neither guile nor hypocrisy-
His spotless life and blameless record will ever be a
sweet benediction and bright inspiration to all who
knew his hig-h standard of true manhood!

"Let laurels, drenched in pure Parnassian dews,
Reward his memory, dear to every muse;
Who with a courage of unshaken root,
In honor's field advancing his firm foot.
Plants it upon the line that justice draws.
And will prevail or perish in the cause."

The morning after the battle of Nashville, just
after passing Franklin, I saw five wounded Con-

REMINISCENCES. 49

federates on crutches making- their way throug-h the
snow several inches deep rather than become
prisoners. I, with four more of the company, dis-
mounted and carried them to the Tennessee River
before we could g-et them into a wagon. The one I
mounted was born and raised in Illinois and entered
service in Pat Cleburne's company from Arkansas.

CHAPTER VI.

IN July 1864, General S. D. Lee was appointed lieu-
tenant g-eneral of infantry and was ordered to
Atlanta to take command of an infantry corps. Our
company followed him and reached there in Aug-ust
and remained there until the evacuation of the city
by General Hood, September 3rd. General Hood
retired to Lovejo3^ after having* foug"ht a very spirited
and rather disastrous battle at Jonesboro, August
31st, on the railroad between Atlanta and Macon.
Prom Lovejoy we soon moved to Newnan (on the
railroad between Atlanta and West Point) and
from there early in October General Hood started on
his Tennessee campaig'n; before reaching- the Ten-
nessee line we had a few spirited eng^ag^ements,
notably one at Resaca, Ga., on the Western & At-
lantic Railroad. On the evening- of November 29th,
we arrived at Columbia, Tenn., on the Duck River, on
the opposite bank of which was a very larg-e Federal
force commanded by General Schofield. Late in
the evening- General Hood, with Stewart's and
Cheatham's corps made a complete detour around
the Federals leaving- Lee's corps facing- Schofield
across Duck River.

Hood struck the pike leading" from Columbia to
Nashville several hours before day, a corps on each

REMINISCENCES. 51

side of the pike a space of four hundred y£irds inter-
vening' between the two bodies of forces; in the
meantime Schoiield made a hasty and disorderly
retreat from his line on the river closely pursued by
Lee and about 4 o'clock in the morning passed
through that gap at Spring* Hill and not even one
g"un was fired. A volley of twenty-five muskets
would have undoubtedly caused an immediate sur-
render. Hundreds of men cried and beg'g'ed to be
allowed to shoot; and who should be held responsible
for this greatest blunder of criminal negligence of
the war on either side will probably never be known
until the secrets of all hearts are revealed in the
g"reat and final judg'ment.

We now advanced and about 4 o'clock, p. m.,
formed in line of battle upon the summit of a very
hig"h range of hills. From the base of the hills was
the level valley from one to two miles wide resting"
on the south banks of Harpeth River where spread
out in its beauty was the town of Franklin, Tenn.
In this open plain were three lines of Federal breast-
works, the one nearest the town beingf much the
strong^est and most formidable of the three.

And now with their torn and tattered banners
sweetly kissing the breezes of heaven, under the
soul-stirring strains of Dixie and the Rebel yell
rending the air as thoug"h it heard its echo from the
very portals of heaven, these g"lorious, courageous
heroes moved forward to a storm of shot and shell.

52 REMINISCENCES.

Over the two first lines of works they leap like deer
in a g^allop, but when they charged the last line beg"an
the g^reatest human slaug-hter of the war considering"
the time and numbers eng'ag'ed. Verily it w^as a
butcher pen in which human blood and human brains
crimsoned the sod of that historic g*round. Nig^ht
did not end the terrible slaug-hter. They foug-ht
hand to hand in and across breastworks on several
hundred yards and the blood ceased to flow only
when hearts ceased to throb. We had five g'enerals
killed on the field. General Cleburne and his horse
were killed on the very top of the works; some com-
panies had scarcely a corporal's gfuard left alive.

After 12 o'clock I heard General Hood order his
corps commanders to put every cannon they had in
position, fire one hundred rounds to each piece at
break of day and then move forward; that he
intended to take the place if it cost his own life and
that of every man in the army.

Schofield retreated before daylig"ht and after bury-
ing" the dead of both armies we advanced upon Nash-
ville and stopped within a few miles of the city
limits and made a strong" line of breastworks.

On the morning" of December 15th, Schofield hav-
ing" been heavily reinforced (I believe by Thomas,
their combined forces at the time said to be 75,000),
attacked us in g"reat force. We held our lines
unbroken througfhout the day; time and ag"ain hurl-
ing" back the overwhelming" numbers with g"reat

REMINISCENCES. 53

slaugfhter. Nig-ht ended the battle and we withdrew
about a mile and made another line of breastworks.
At 9 o'clock, the 16th, Thomas attacked again, ap-
parently with greater numbers than the day before,
with seven lines of battle deep at some places, only
to be driven back. About sunset countless thousands
massed in front of Bates' position, broke his line
and in the twinkling- of an eye Hood's army melted
away like mist before the morning^ sun and had "g^one
g*limmering- throug^h the dream of thingfs that w^ere, —
the school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour."

Soon after this crushing defeat. General Joseph E.
Johnston was again in command of the Army of Ten-
nessee and reorg-anizing- the remnant left from
Hood's defeat was ordered to North Carolina to
meet and combat Tecumseh Sherman to whom he
surrendered at Greensboro, N. C, April 26, 1865. A
few days before the surrender, one of our company
who went with General Stephen D. Lee to Sherman's
headquarters (then capitulating for a surrender)
brought the news of Lincoln's assassination. I bet
him $500 to $20 that it was a lie. We put up the
money and he took it down and it was the only bet I
ever made that I was g-lad I lost.

A very short time after Johnston's surrender, our
entire forces west of the Mississippi surrendered,
and thus ended the civil war between the South
and North — the g-randest drama of the countless
ages — the w^onder and admiration of the civilized

54 REMINISCENCES.

world, and the last g-un fired in the Civil War east of
the Mississippi River was fired in Columbus, Ga.,
April 16, 1865, where it caug-ht the sweet music of
the roaring- waters of our beautiful, majestic Chatta-
hoochee River.

"Let the Conquered Banner Wave."

The following- poem, "Let the Conquered Banner
Wave," was written by James Anderson, of Holyoke,
Mass., who was so much interested in the Confed-
erate memorial calendar published by Whitlock's
that he wrote for several copies and it is said that the
poem was larg-ely inspired by the memorial itself.

"Let the Conquered Banner Wave," written by a
Northerner, was read by him before a Confederate
Veterans' Reunion at Petersburg-, Va., and was
published in the Confederate Veteran, of Nashville,
Tenn., and has excited much favorable comment
throug-hout the South.

The poem follows:

Why furl it and fold it and put it away,

The Banner that proudly waved over the Gray?

It has not a blemish, it shows not a stain,

Though it waved over fields where thousands were slain.

O, why should we furl it and put it away?

It's loved and respected by the Blue and the Gray.

They fought for a cause they thought was just,
And this Banner they loved was trailed In the dust.
Their fight was lost and their hopes are dead,
And another flag waves proud o'er their head;
But still in their memory without boast or brag.
Wound around their hearts is this bonnie blue flag.

REMINISCENCES. 55

So unfurl that Banner; don't lay It away.
There is but one country— it's both Blue and Gray-
Just one united land for us all.
Each willing and ready to answer the call;
But no land on earth, no history can say
That braver men lived than those of the Gray.

Uon't furl it and fold it and put it away.

Let our sons and daughters gaze on it and say:

'» 'Twill live on forever in story and song.

Brave men fought for it; they may have been wrong;

But they fought for it gladly, heroes and brave,

And the bonnie blue flag waves over their grave."

So unfurl the old Banner; let it float in the air;

Let all the old veterans salute it up there.

Though their cause it was lost, they were men tried and true,

And they loved their old Banner so bonnie and blue.

Now here's to old Dixie, the land of the brave:

"All hail to the bonnie blue flag; let it wave!"

On the nig-ht of April 24, 1865, Gunby Jordan,
Ches Howard and I, and several more of the Nelson
Rang-ers, left Greensboro, N. C, intending- to join
General Kirby Smith's army west of the Mississippi
River. Within a few days he surrendered, and with
his surrender the war ended. I have never surren-
dered, been paroled or taken any oath of alleg-iance
to this Yankee Doodle-ized U. S. Government. Except
myself, I have never known or heard of anyone in
either army who is entitled to a pension and has
never drawn it, and did that pension of sixty dollars
annually amount to thousands of dollars I would still
dedicate it to the deathless love and sweet memories
of the hallowed and rig-hteous cause for which dear
old Dixie heroically foug-ht and g-loriously died.

56 REMINISCENCES.

I arrived home May 6, 1865, having" swum nearly
every river from Greensboro, N. C, to Columbus, Ga.
As I reached the g'ate beyond which stood the beau-
tiful home, a flood of sweet, fond, tender memories
swept over me. In a few minutes I clasped my dear
wife in loving" embrace as she "sobbed aloud in the
fullness of her heart" and with many a fond kiss, I
knew that brig"ht beautiful May morn g"reeted no
two mortals on earth with more pure joy and true,
unalloyed happiness than it g"reeted that husband
and wife. Yes, "She is mine own, and I am as rich
in having" such a jewel, as twenty seas, if all their
sand were pearls, the water nectar, and the rocks
pure g"old."

"Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile for those who hate,
And whatever sky's above me.
Here's a heart for every fate;
Though the ocean roar around me,
"iet It still shall bear me on;
Though a desert should surround me,
It hath springs that may be won."

In Aug"ust 1865, my wife and I moved into a home
on the Talbotton Road about five miles east of the
city where I conducted a dairy and veg"etable farm
until the fall of 1869. In 1866 I was appointed dep-
uty sheriff of Muscog"ee County. At that time a
non-resident of Georg"ia, owing" money to a resident
of this State, could be arrested under a bail writ
and required to make bond with security for the

REMINISCENCES. 57

payment of the money, upon failure of which, he
was confined in the County jail. Under the law,
any officer after making- an arrest and who failed to
g-et the money or bond with security for the pay-
ment of the money due by the defendant, or who
failed to confine the defendant in jail, became indi-
vidually responsible for payment in full of the
money due by the defendant. A short time after
my appointment, I arrested in Columbus one Egg-en-
weiler, a citizen of Girard, Ala., under a bail writ
for $500.00 due a citizen of Columbus. Upon serv-
ing" the writ, Eg-g^enweiler asked me what he had to
do, to which I replied: "Pay the money or make
bond with security or g-o to jail," and he replied, "I
no pay de money, I no g-o to jail, but I send for mine
vife and we see about dot udder bisness." Pretty
soon his wife came; they asked for a private chat,
which I readily g-ranted, suspecting- nothing-. They
retired to the rear room, closing- the door behind
them. After waiting- for sometime I opened the
door, and there alone in her g-lory sat the wife, the
husband was very conspicuous for his, to me, very
painful absence. I asked her where her husband
was, and she said, "O, he g-one home." I then said
to her, "You tell him that if he does not bring- me
an approved bond this evening-, I will come for him
to-morrow morning-." "Yes, I tell him," she said,
"but I know he no come." The next mornings I g-ot
a hack, and with two friends to assist me, I went to

58 REMINISCENCES.

his brewery, took him and locked him up in our jail.
Not long- after a lawj^er met me and thusly
accosted me: "Howard, do 3^ou know you have
committed the very serious crime of kidnapping-,
the penalty for which is a long- sentence in the
Alabama State Penitentiary?" "I recog-nize the
fact," I answered, and upon which he said: "I
don't want to be hard on you, and make you this
proposition; you pay the $500.00 and that will satis-
factorily end the matter." I replied, "To hell with
your proposition; I wouldn't g-ive you a sing-le
penny." A short time after that the sheriff of
Russell County, Ala., J. T. Holland, served me with
a leg-al requisition, from the Governor of Alabama,
upon the Governor of Georg-ia, to be tried in Ala-
bama under the charg-e of kidnapping-. Sheriff
Holland required no bond of me, telling me to
report to him at Crawford, County seat of Russell
County, upon the assembling- of the first session of
Court thereafter, which I did. When the case was
called the State announced "Ready," and without
lawyer or witness, I announced "Ready," upon
which Judg-e Robert Doug-herty instructed the
Solicitor, or Judge J. H. McDonald, to nol-pro.^ the
case. So much for being arraig-ned before a just,
uprig-ht judg-e, who rebuked the would-be thief, and
the Dutchman paid the $500.00 and I never
answered "Here" at the roll-call of the Alabama
Penitentiary.

REMINISCENCES. 59

My father died February 1, 1867, admired,
respected and loved by everyone who knew him
and I know of no hig-her compliment ever paid truer
manhood than paid by a Judg-e of the Superior Court
in Houston County, Ga., in a case tried before a jury
in his Court, in which the testimony on both sides
considerably conflicted. A w^itness on the stand was
asked by the Judg-e what he knew of the case, and
replied: "All that I know of the case is that I heard
Aug-ustus Howard say that he would swear to such
and such facts bearing- on the case (repeating- the
words). The Judg-e allowed what my father w^ould
have sworn to, had he been present to go before the
jury, as evidence and it made the verdict. Of course,
no such testimony would be admitted in these days
to g-o to a jury. The above facts were g-iven to me
many years ag-o by my uncle, Joseph W. Wimberly
(a brother of my mother), who died several years ag-o
in Houston County.

When General John B. Hood and his wife died in
New Orleans, leaving- eleven children, friends of the
family selected a committee of friends to find homes
with g-ood people for these fatherless and motherless
children. One of this committee was John A. Camp-
bell, a former Associate Justice of the United States
Supreme Court. He and my father had been true
friends in their early manhood. My sister, Mrs. M.
E. Joseph, of this city, went to New Orleans and ap-
plied for the tender babe. On being- presented to

60 REMINISCENCES.

Judg^e Campbell, he told her he would require un-
doubted reference before he would g^ive any of the
children to anyone. He then asked her where she
lived. Being" answered "Columbus, Ga.," the next
question was: "What was your maiden nameV" My
sister replied " Howard . " " Any relation, to Aug-ustus
Howard?" "A daugfhter," was the reply; upon
which he said: "Mrs. Joseph, I require no other
reference; the baby is yours." She broug"ht the
dear baby home with her and ere many moons
had waxed and waned the sweet tender bud was
blig"hted to blossom in a purer clime, and on the
marble slab that marks its last place of rest in
the silent city of the dead, where sleep six g^ene-
rations of my family, is inscribed "Gertrude
Hood Joseph — adopted daug"hter of M. and M. E.
Joseph."

Now and then the far distant future reveals actual
realities never thoug^ht or dreamed of in the misty
past. For instance, when the g-allant Hood with
one leg" buried in Virg"inia, one arm hang^ing" useless
at his side, g"randly g-raced the saddle on his war
steed and fearlessly faced Sherman in Atlanta
(July 1864), when he with 100,000 Federal soldiers
and 300 cannon was thundering" at her g"ates, there
in the ranks was a private soldier, brother of the
g"rand, g"lorious woman who afterwards became the
foster mother of this beautiful, fatherless, mother-
less babe.

REMINISCENCES. 61

"Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate;
All but page prescribed their present state
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know;
Or who could suffer here below;
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-daj-,
Had he thy reason would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food.
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given.
That each man lill the circle marked by Heaven;
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled.
And a bubble burst and now a world!"

In October 1869, I boug-ht a farm near what is
now known as Wende, in Russell County, Ala. On
account of my wife's health I moved back to Colum-
bus in 1874. I distributed tickets at every polling-
place in the County in 1876, with the name of
R. B. Hayes for President and Wheeler for Vice-
President at the head of the ticket, the names of
Seymour and Blair electors immediately under.
The monumental theft and g-ig-antic fraud of that
election has its place in the infamous history of this
Government.

In 1877, I moved to Apalachicola, Fla., but on
account of the continued ill health of my wife I
moved, in 1878, to Boone County, Ky., and taug-ht
school there until October 1880, and there my wife
and I took from the cradle a beautiful motherless
g-irl babe, whose father was a gallant Confederate
soldier, and leg"ally adopted her as our own daug-hter.

62 REMINISCENCES.

I have never regretted the act. That babe devel-
oped into a true type of noble womanhood; the
mother of five beautiful daug^hters. A father never
loved an own child more fondly than I have loved
her; a child never loved an own father more than
she has loved me. Verily she has ever been a brig"ht
sparkling- sunbeam in my life and has never cast one
dark shadow on my pathway of life.

With a party of about thirty from Columbus, I
left Louisville, Ky., June 6, 1877, on the steamer
G. Gunby Jordan, bound for Columbus. We had the
trip of our lives; played Bunco and Pedro da3^ and
nig-ht during- the entire trip. We adopted the rule
that the only betting- done should be for drinks and
those drinks should be neither river or sea water.
Before reaching- New Orleans, we decided that we
w^ould administer "17 et Anni--<,'^ a concoction of
Kentucky Mountain Dew, to the only teetotaler of
the party, I. L. Pollard, so that he could properly
combobulate on his complivity, so we held him and
with a funnel g-ave the prescription, upon wiiich the
teetotaler said the remed3^ was worse than the
disease and declared "war to the knife" and the
knife to the hilt ag-ainst the partj^; liowever, believ-
ing- that discretion was the better part of valor,
knowing- that he could not successfully cope with
twenty-nine brave, courag-eous spirits, decided that
of the two evils, wisdom demanded that he should
choose the least, made peace, publiclj^ announcing-

REMINISCENCES. 63

that "All's well that ends well." Upon arrival at
New Orleans, about half the party took the train to
Columbus. We remained in Santa Rosa Sound near
Pensacola, Fla., eigfht da3^s for favorable winds and
tides to reach Apalachicola. Near Pensacola, Bill
Martiniere shaved me and made a miscue with
malace-aforethoug"ht and cut me so I bled quite
freelj^ and soon there was found in a pool of my
blood a hug-e dead mosquito with his feet pointing-
upward and under his wingfs a piece of brickbat
with which to whet his William, and it was a much
discussed and mooted question among* the boys
whether that mosquito was drowned in my blood or
died from smelling- Mart's breath; — you pay your
money and take your choice. Dear old Mart, gen-
erous to a fault, he carried his heart in one hand
and his purse in the other and lived and died with
"Love for all and malice for none."

"Green be the turf above hiin,
Friend of my early days;
None knew hlin but to love him,
None spoke of hlni but to praise/'

We arrived at Columbus July 4th, and at least
half of the party have passed to "that bourne from
whence no traveler returneth."

A few days before the presidential election be-
tween Hancock and Garfield, November 1880, I
bought a farm near Loveland, Ohio, twenty miles
from Cincinnati. I boarded for a short time in a

64 REMINISCENCES.

larg-e hotel filled with Republicans, both men and
women, some of them very clever and conservative;
others bitter haters and vile traducers of the South.
Among" the latter was a school-marm, Miss Williams.
Within a few days I met her on the street on her
way home; it w^as raining" and I handed her my
umbrella. She accepted it and said, "Mr. Howard,
you are the onlj^ g"entleman who has ever taken the
umbrella from over his own head in the rain and put
it over mine, but I suppose I must attribute it to
your extreme Southern chivalry;" to which I replied,
"Miss Williams, you maj^ attribute it to whatsoever
you please, but your men in this section have no
conception of what is due woman." I then told her
that during the entire war, whenever I was in
Yankee territorj^, I would take my hat off, throw it
on the g"round and make my horse step on it, if I
saw a Yankee woman's petticoat hanging" on a
clothes line a mile from the road. That very morn-
ing" she told me, at a full breakfast table, that she
hated me and everybody and everything" in the
South, that they killed her two brothers in the same
battlp. Asking" what battle, she told me, and having"
been in the same battle I was just mean enough to
tell her that I mig"ht have killed one or both of her
brothers; that I was there, shooting" to kill, as fast
as I could load. Doubtless her innermost thoug"ht
was, "Too much South has made you mad and you
persuade me to believe that you are a devil."

REMINISCENCES. 65

Garfield was elected, and if the Republicans could
have crowed me to death that morning they would
have had me barbecued for dinner. I told them I
had just moved from the South to Christianize
the heathen of Doodledom; that "he laug-hs best
who laug-hs last;" that four years from that very
morninof the laugh would be on my side. A prophet
sometimes has honor in his own country. And sure
enough, in 1884, I sent the Columbus Enquirer-Sun
the following telegram for which I paid $7.50:

(From Columbus FM(ndrer-Sun^ Sunday morning,
November 9, 1884.)

PAINTING OHIO RED.

LovELAND, O., Nov. 8, "Keno:" The cat has

jumped our way at last, giving us high, low, gift, jack
and the game. Everything is lovely; the goose hangs
high; the bottom rail is on top; wings seven feet long
and sailing In regions of Democratic bliss. We "paint
Ohio red" to-night. I am feeling so good I just taste
myself sweeter than sugar. The Democratic pro-
cession has assumed enormous proportions and will
reach Washington March 4th and keep marching on
through four years of honest government and lower
taxation. The bloody shirt is buried forever. There
is DO use moralizing, the bold facts are that not even
the highly moral Republican Party can shake his im-
maculate shirts at immorality and behind them elect
a white-headed old thief. The Republicans now have
time to read over what thej^ intended to do and reflect

on how they did it.

R. M. Howard.

I lived in Ohio nine years, made many true friends
(both men and women), and was prevailed on by
friends during the last year of my residence there to

6

66 REMINISCENCES.

offer for school trustee of my township. A near-by
neig"hbor and Federal soldier opposed me on the plea
that I was a Rebel soldier. I did not ask a man in
the township to vote for me, did not g"o to the polls
the day of the election, and defeated my opponent
by a lar^e majority. I won $30.00 from a rantank-
erous Republican named Eveland on Cleveland's
election for President in 1884, offered to double the
bet with him on Cleveland when Harrison defeated
him in 1888. I left Ohio in 1889 and Eveland was
sick and sore over the $30.00 I did win and the $60.00
he didn't win.

I left Cincinnati the nig-ht of October 14, 1889, for
Columbus, Ga., with the dead body of my wife. At
the same time another casket was placed in the same
car. The next morning* about sun-up our train was
flagfg"ed down on account of a wrecked freight train
just ahead of us. Pretty soon a g^entleman ap-
proached me and said: "I want to tell 5"ou the
strang^est coincidence you ever heard of. I am a
major in the United States Army, stationed in the
far Northwest. My family live in Macon, Ga. One
year ag"o I visited there, and on reaching" them I
found my wife rapidly sinking- from consumption. I
took her to Savannah at once, and from there to
New York on steamer, visiting* several large Eastern
cities and then took her to my post on the frontier.
After the lapse of four months from the time I left
Macon, I realized she was rapidly approaching the

REMINISCENCES. 67

end and left for home immediately. On reaching-
Cincinnati I stopped at the Grand Hotel; had a
physician summoned and five minutes after reaching-
the room she was dead. I had her body prepared
for burial by our undertaker and left Cincinnati on
the 8:30 p. m. train for Macon. About sun-up the
next morning- the train was flagrgfed dowm. Now,
that is the one part of the coincidence. Four
months ago on visiting my family ag-ain I found my
oldest daug-hter in the same condition of her mother
of the previous year; took her on the identical trip
of her mother. On reaching Cincinnati I took her
to the same hotel, same room occupied by her
mother, summoned the same physician, and w^hen he
reached the room she was dead. I had the body
prepared for burial by the same undertaker, left
Cincinnati on the 8:30 p. m. train, for Macon and
w^e are flagged down at the very same spot and at
the very same hour in which the train was flag-g-ed
dow^n on account of a wrecked freight train just one
year ago."

"Too curious niau, why does thou seek to know
Events, which good or ill, foreknown are woe;
The allseeing power that made thee mortal gave
Thee everything a mortal state should have;
Foreknowledge only is enjoyed by heaven;
And for his peace of mind, to man forbidden;
Wretched were life, if he foreknew his doom;
Even joys foreseen give pleasing hope no room,
And griefs assured are felt before they come."

68 REMINISCENCES.

Should you ask me why these coincidences as
above related, I reply truly: "God moves in a mys-
terious way His wonders to perform."

A few days after the death of President Jefferson
Davis in December, 1889, Col. Shepherd and I raised
in dollar subscriptions for his family more than six
hundred dollars. Ever since then I have been on
many different committees to solicit money for
various purposes. On all such occasions, my old
friend J. Rhodes Browme was my man Friday, and
whenever I asked him for a contribution he would
ask how^ much I wanted from him. Whatever
amount I named he alw^ays doubled, telling- me when
I g-ot throug-h soliciting- for that particular object
and needed more, to call ag-ain and he would
respond. In the municipal election in 1897 there
was a political ring- that had dominated city politics
for quite a number of years to such an extent that
they had the city g-overnment entirely in their own
control. The people demanded a change; rose in
their might and power, and after the most intense
and heated municipal election I ever knew in Colum-
bus, the ring- was most sig-nally defeated by the
election of L. H. Chappell for Mayor with eig-ht true,
and equally g-ood, progressive, conservative, prac-
tical aldermen. The former was honored with live
consecutive terms for Mayor, amounting- to ten years
and voluntarily retired from office with the worthily
earned plaudit: "Well done thou g-ood and faithful

REMINISCENCES. 69

servant." I was one of a committee that raised five
thousand dollars with which to clean out the Aug-ean
stable of municipal politics in this fair city of
Columbus. As on all former occasions of similar
import I called on my old friend Browne and asked
for one hundred dollars. He g"ave me two Ijundred
and fiftj^ dollars, saying-, "If that is not enou-;li, come
back ag-ain." In striking- contrast was this with
another wealthy man that I approached for the same
object, who offered me one dollar. I told him to
keep it as he needed it more than the committee did.

"O, cursed lust of gold; when for thy sake
The fool throws up his Interest in both worlds;
First starved in this, then damned in that to come."

CHAPTER VII.

Annual Oration Delivered to the United
Confederate Veterans at the Reunion
Held in Little Rock, Arkansas, in May,
1911, BY Dr. R. C. Cave, of St. Louis, Mo.

WHEN I was honored with the invitation to
address the United Confederate Veterans to-
day, I felt that, althoug-h sensible of the weig-ht of
years and distrustful of my ability, I could not refuse
to do so, lest my refusal mig^ht seem to indicate a lack
of sympathy with, and admiration for, the men who,
in my estimation, rank with the bravest and best of
those whose achievements have illumined the pag-es
of history. I am g-lad that I have the privileg-e and
honor of speaking- to so many g-ray-haired men who,
half a century ag-o, marched forth to battle in re-
sponse to the call of the Confederacy; to so many of
the Sons of Veterans, to whom the recollection of the
deeds of their fathers should ever be an inspiration;
and to so many of the fair daug-hters of Dixie, whose
presence in this g-athering- reminds us of the beauty,
the devotion and the splendid heroism of the women
of the South.

Fellow- Veterans, the sun of our day is far past the
zenith, and rapidly nearingf the western horizon. In
a few years at most we must " cross over the river "

REMINISCENCES. 71

and join the comrades who have pitched their tents
in "the undiscovered country." But, while waiting"
for the summons to the reunion "over there," it is
both pleasant and profitable to meet here, from time
to time, and revive memories of the days when
we foug^ht under the loved banner which is

'* * * * wreathed around with glory
And will live In song and story,
Though its folds are in the dust."

The revival of such memories is, in a way, a renewal
of our youth. It is like strong" wine to the slug"gish
currents of our blood. It exhilarates us ; and, in our
exhilaration, we forget for a moment that time, with
its toils and cares and disappointments and heart-
aches, has robbed us of youthful vig"or and activity.
In fancy the fetters of age fall from us, and we are
again young and strong, g"allantly stepping to the
strains of " Dixie, " patiently and cheerfully enduring"
the hardships of the camp and the march, bravely
facing the dang"ers of the field, and valiantly fighting"
for home and country and the right of self-govern-
ment inherited from our fathers. And when we awake
from this momentary fancy to face the stern realities
of life, the memory of those days, refreshed and
streng"thened, ling"ers with us as an incentive to more
courag"eous endeavor.

Those were days of brave men and brave deeds;
men and deeds that crowned the South with g'lory,
and that her people should ever hold among their

72 REMINISCENCES.

most sacred and cherished memories ; men of heroic
mold, actuated by the purest and loftiest patriotism
and the most unselfish devotion to duty, who per-
formed deeds of endurance and valor, such as thrill
the heart of mankind with admJration.

To admire courag-e is a hum.an instinct. Whether
displayed where ' ' the pestilence walketh in dark-
ness " or where " the destruction wasteth at noon-
day;" whether expressed in g-entle ministrations of
mercy where deadly and contagious fevers rag'e, or
in deeds of daring- done where contending- armies
meet in the rush and roar and shock of battle, daunt-
less courag-e touches an answering- chord in all manly
hearts, and true men everj^where bestow on it the
meed of praise. It commands our respect and admi-
ration, even when shown b}^ those who are hostile to
us. The heroic soul g-reets all heroes as kindred
spirits, whether thej^ fig"ht by its side or level lance
ag-ainst it. Hence, the true and brave everywhere
pay tribute to the valor of the soldiers of the Confed-
eracy. The men who, for four years, unquailing-ly
faced the mig-ht of the puissant North, and hurled
back in defeat the splendidly-equipped and powerful
armies sent to overwhelm them, challeng-e the admi-
ration of mankind, and deserve to stand on a pedestal
of renown side by side with the famed knig-hts of
.story whose valorous deeds amazed the world.

But we should not forg-et that their valor alone
cannot win for them the hig-hest and fullest praise.

REMINISCENCES. 73

While the admiration of courag"e is instinctive, the
condemnation of its displaj^ in support of injustice,
oppression and wrong- is also instinctive. The world
esteems men, not only accordinof to their courag-e,
but also according to the cause in which it is exhib-
ited. Mankind will not continue to hold even the
bravest in honorable and loving remembrance if their
bravery is tainted with disloj^alty and treason.

Hence, if we w^ould hand the memor^^ of the soldiers
of the Confederacy down to posterity/, so that their
descendants ma}^ think of them without a tinge of
shame — if we would have future generations give
them praise unmixed w^ith blame, instead of acciui-
escing- in misrepresentations of their motives and
actions — we must maintain, and teach our children
to maintain, that they were not only courageous, but
courag-eous in a just and righteous cause.

They failed ; but I do not, like man3^ accept their
failure as proof of the unrig-hteousness of the cause
for which they fought. 'Tis said, ''Thrice armed is he
who hath his quarrel just; " and, had the odds against
them been only three to one, I have not a doubt that
the Stars and Stripes, instead of the Stars and Bars,
v/ould have g^one down in defeat. But the odds
ag-ainst them were more than four to one in men, and
incalculably great in all the means of waging* war;
and the fact that they could not prevail against such
odds is no sig"n that the3'' w^ere fighting- against God
xind the risfht. We read in the Book of Judges that

74 REMINISCENCES.

"the Lord was with Judah," but he "could not drive
out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had
chariots of iron;" and we thus have Scriptural
authority for saying- that, with overwhelming- odds
arrayed ag-ainst them, men may fail, even w^hen the
Lord is with them and the right is on their side.

As I said on a former occasion, " I am not one of
those who, clinging- to the old superstition that the
will of Heaven is revealed in the immediate results
of trial by combat, fancy that right must always be
on the side of the conqueror, and speak of Appomat-
tox as a judg-ment of God. I do not forg-et that a
Suwaroff triumphed and a Kosciusko fell ; that a
Nero wielded the scepter of empire and a Paul was
beheaded ; that a Herod was crowned and a Christ
was crucified; and, instead of accepting- the defeat of
the South as a Divine verdict against her, I regard
it as but another instance of truth on the scaffold
and w^rong on the throne."

In the nature of things, the arbitrament of w^ar can
not determine the rig-hteousness of any cause. Vic-
tory can not change wrong into rig-lit, and defeat can
not change right into wrong-. War changes condi-
tions; it can not possibly chang-e principles. And
while I accept the changed conditions broug-ht about
by the war between the sections, I hold that, as to
the principles involved in that war,

" Blue is blue and Gray is gray,
And will be so till the judgment day;"

REMINISCENCES. 75

and that the Gray represented the principles on which
the Union, as formed by the fathers, was founded.

I am aware that many think this sliould be said, if
said at all, with bated breath and in the softest of
whispers. Some of them tell us that all discussion
of matters pertaining,'" to the war should be avoided
as wicked, because it may excite sectional bitterness
and hate. If any embers of sectional hate and bitter-
ness, which the breath of free discussion can fan into
a flame, still smolder in the hearts of either North-
erners or Southerners, I sincerely deplore it. I most
earnestly desire to see the people of both sections
ruled by the spirit of fraternitj^ and harmoniously
working- togfether for the welfare of our comm.on
country; but I do not think the men of the South
should be asked, or expected, to sacrifice the truth of
history, and g^o down to posterity branded as rebels
and traitors to secure that end.

Others tell us that any reference to these old ques-
tions is inexpedient, because it may prevent Northern
capitalists from investing" in the South, and prove
detrimental to business. To my mind this is absurd.
As a rule, the investments of Northern capital never
have been, are not, and never will be, influenced by
sentiment. The men of the North, as a class, put
their money where they think it wnll yield them the
surest and larg^est profits. In the w^ar of 1812, the
people of New Eng^land loaned their money to Great
Britain rather than to their own Government, which

76 REMINISCENCES.

was sorely in need of financial aid. If the South can
offer to Northern capitalists investments which they
think will jdeld theiii larg-er returns than they can
g"et elsewhere, she will g"et their money, reg^ardless
of what her people may think or sslj about the war.
But, even if this were not so, I think we must have
lost the manhood which made the Old South g-lorious,
if we are willing" to suppress the truth necessary to
our vindication for the sake of g"ain, and are ready to

"* * * bend the pliant hinges of the knee,
That thrift niaj' follow fawning."

But it is said that questions pertaining" to the war
belong* to the past, and we should give our attention
to thing's of the present — that " we have no Divine
call to stand g'uard over the g"rave of dead issues."
On this point let me sdij that, while those old issues
may be dead politically, they are not 3^et quite dead
historically, and we are called by all the promptings
of honor to see to it that they shall not die and be
■buried historically until the}^ can be entombed con-
sistently with truth, and with the fair fame of the
land we love.

And, if these questions really belong- to the past,
why may they not be discussed as freelj^ as we discuss
other past events ? Since the beg-inning" of the war
between the sections fifty j^ears have come and g^one,
bringfing with them new issues and new interests,
cooling" the fires of sectional passion, healing" sec-
tional dissensions, and tending" to restore peace and

REMINISCENCES. 77

fraternity between the people of the North and the
people of the South. Since then men who wore the
Gray have stood in line of battle shoulder to shoulder
with those who wore the Blue, and fought under the
Stars and Stripes as bravely as they did under the
Starry Cross. Of those who marched to battle then,
whether wearing- Blue or Gray, all, save an age-
enfeebled remnant, are sleeping the sleep from which
"no sound can awake them to glory again." New
men, most of them too young to have taken part in
the war, and many of them unborn when it closed,
have come to the front, and are directing the alTairs
of the nation. And surely now, half a century after-
wards, when all the bitter animosities engendered by
what was then said and done have been, or ought to
have been, long since buried, there can be no impro-
priety in recalling some of the events of that time,
and stating facts which bring into prominence the
real cause of the South 's withdrawal from the Union,
and justify the action of her people.

And I believe it to be the duty of every Southern
man to do what he can to set forth these facts, and
impress them on the minds of the new generation.

We stand charged at the ba,r of History with the
crime of treasonably attempting to overthrow the
best Government that the world ever saw in order to
perpetuate human slavery; and if we refuse to make
any defense the future w^ill adjudge us guilty and
consign us to infamy. The South can not refuse to

78 REMINISCENCES.

j)lead her cause — can not acquiesce in the misrepre-
sentations of so-called history, written by men who
have either misunderstood or wilfully defamed her —
without proving" false to herself, false to the g^reat
statesmen and military leaders who guided her to
glor3^ in the past, and false to those indomitable heroes
who, with no hope of reward save such as mig-ht be
found in the consciousness of duty well and faithfully
done, shouldered their muskets in answer to her call,
and, on the field of battle, sealed their devotion to
her cause with their blood.

Bear with me, then, while, in justification of the
action of the men of the South, I endeavor to briefly
indicate the real issue in controversy which led to
secession imd w^ar.

However it may have been overshadow^ed and
obscured by subordinate matters, the real question
in that controversy was : Shall this country be g"ov-
erned by the Constitution as construed by the men
who framed it, by the States that ratified it, by the
ablest jurists in the country, both North and South,
and by the highest judicial tribunal in the land ?
The notion that the Southern States seceded and
foug-ht for the extension and perpetuation of slavery
has no foundation in fact. " This whole subject of
slavery, in any and every view of it," said Mr. Ste-
phens, " w^as, to the seceding" States, but a drop in
the ocean compared with other considerations in-
volved in the issue." Slavery was a matter of com-

REMINISCENCES. 79

paratively minor importance, the controversy about
which broug"ht to the front the far more important
question of tideliti^ to the Constitution. In t!ie debate
on the Nebraska Bill, Senator Doug-las, speaking- of
the slavery ag-itation, said : "It has always arisen
from one and the same cause. Whenever that cause
has been removed, the ag-itation has ceased; and when-
ever that cause has been renewed, the ag-itation has
sprung- into existence. That cause is, and ever has
been, the attempt on the part of Cong-ress to inter-
fere with the question of slavery in the Territories
and new States formed therefrom. Is it not wise,
tlien, to confine our action within the sphere of our
leg-itimate duties, and leave this vexed question to
take care of itself in each State and Territory in con-
formity to the forms and in subjection to the pro-
visions of the Constitution ?"

Mr. Doug-las stated the case truly. The sole cause
of the controversy about slaver3% in the councils of
the nation, was the attempt of Cong-ress to g-o beyond
the sphere of its leg'itimate duties and interfere with
the question. The controversy was not about slavery
itself — not whether it was rig-ht or wrong", not
whether it oug-ht or oug-ht not to be abolished or
restricted — but about whether Cong-ress should ex-
ceed the powers which the Constitution g-ranted to
that body, and leg-islate ag^ainst it.

As the Constitution did not g"ive Cong-ress the
authority to leg-islate ag-ainst slavery, the anti-

80 REMINISCENCES.

slavery party, throug"h its representative men,
decried that instrument as an immoral and pro-
slavery compact, and declared the purpose to be
g-overned by a so-called " hig:her law."

" The anti-slavery faction in the North," says Mr.
Lunt, in his Origin of the Late War, " led by members
of Cong'ress from that quarter, by political and lit-
erary orators of every g"rade, and by the reverend
clerg'y of most religious denominations, were deter-
mined that there should be no more slavery territory,
— law or no law."

The chief exponent of that party's principles and
purposes, said: " Tliere is a law hig"her than the
Constitution which reg'ulates our authority over the
domain. Slavery must be abolished, and we must do
it." This was not merely a declaration of war
ag^ainst slavery ; it w^as a declaration of war against
Constitutional Government. It w^as a bold avow^al
of the purpose to set at naught the provisions of the
Constitution, and run the Government according" to
that party's judgment of what ought to be done,
which was presumptuously called "a law hig^her than
the Constitution."

This hig"her-law doctrine of Mr. Seward, as an
eminent Northern jurist testifies, "was adopted,
avowed and acted upon by his party with almost
entire unanimitj^, whenever and wherever they
found their wishes opposed by a Constitutional
interdict. By him and b^^ them the old notion

REMINISCENCES. 81

that the law of the land oug-ht to be obeyed was
scoffed at." •

Tlie part3^'s candidate for the Presidency was com-
mitted to this doctrine. In a speech made in Boston
in the summer of 1860, Mr. Sew^ard declared that
"the people's stand^ird-bearer, Abraham Lincoln,
confessed the oblig-ations of the hig-her law;" and
predicted the speedy and " triumphant ineiug-uration
of this policy into the Government of the United
States."

In the North the provision of the Constitution for
the rendition of fugitive slaves was indignantly repu-
diated, not only by public gathering's wrought up to
a high pitch of excitement by the appeeils of impas-
sioned orators, but by deliberative bodies assembled
to calmly leg-islate for the people. The legislatures
of a majority of the Northern States enacted law^s to
prevent the execution of measures adopted by Con-
g^ress to make that clause of the Constitution more
effective, and thus deliberately violated the compact
of Union, and set their judgment above the fun-
damental law. " It is a singular i^olitical Nemesis,"
says Dr. Curry, "that Nullification and Rebellion, as
terms of reproach, should attach to the South, while
the North has escaped any odium attaching- to the
terms, althougfh she openly and successfully nullified
the Constitution, and the fiag- of rebellion against
the Federal Compact and Federal laws floated over
half her capitols."

»7)

82 REMINISCENCES.

While the North thus flagrantly repudiated the
Constitution, the men of the South were unswerv-
ing^ly loyal to it. They opposed its violation even to
serve their own interests. This was illustrated in the
United States Senate when Jefferson Davis opposed
a resolution looking" to the establishment of an armed
force along" the line separating" the free and the slave
States, to prevent any invasion of the latter by men
from the former, and to make more effective the
execution of the Fugitive Slave Laws. Mr. Davis
firmly opposed this measure, which was intended to
protect Southern interests and secure Southern
rig"hts, on the ground that it tended to confer on the
Federal Government the power to compel the North-
ern States to fulfill their Constitutional oblig"ations.

He said : " It is providing" to carr}^ on war ag"ainst
States ; and, whether it be ag"ainst Massachusetts or
Missouri, it is equally objectionable to me ; and I
will resist it alike in the one case and in the other as
subversive of the great principle on which our Gov-
ernment rests." The men of the South upheld the
Constitution as the instrument in which the States
had solemnly plighted their faith, each to the others,
and the provisions of which could not be violated in
any manner or degree without dishonor. They were
called " Strict Constructionists," because they pro-
tested against any loose interpretation of it to justify
party policies and expedient measures. They faith-
fully fulfilled every obligation which it imposed on

REMINISCENCES. 83

them, and urg-ed its faithful observance by others as
essential to the peace and prosperity of the country.
When the anti-slavery party had elected to the
Presidency a man avowedly hostile to her interests,
all that the South asked was to be assured that the
authorit}^ of the Constitution would continue to be
reco^rnized, and that the Government would continue
to be administered according- to its provisions. This
assurance she could not g-et. On this point the testi-
mony^ of Judg-e Black, of Pennsylvania, in reg-ard to
an interview which he had wnth Mr. Seward, is con-
clusive, Mr. Seward was the recog"nized leader of
his party, w^as slated for the head of the State
Department under its rule, and was gfenerally sup-
posed to be the man who, " with law in his voice and
honor in his hand," w^ould shape its policy. To him
Judg-e Black w^ent, at the request of Southern men,
to see if he w^ould not g"ive them some g-round on
which the^^ could stand in the Union with safety. An
account of their interview is g-iven by Judg:e Black
in an open letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams, pub-
lished in 1874. He says:

"Many propositions were discussed, and rejected
as being- either impracticable or likely to prove use-
less, before I told him what I felt perfectly sure
would stop all controversy at once and forever. I
proposed that he should simply pledg-e himself and
the incoming- administration to gfovern according- to
the Constitution, and upon every disputed point of

84 REMINISCENCES.

Constitutional law to accept that exposition of it
which had been, or mig^ht be, g^iven by the judicial
autliorities. He started at this, became excited, and
violently declared he would do no such thing-."

This was the real issue, clearly and sharply
defined — the issue to which slavery, and every other
question, was subordinate. The South only asked to
be assured that the country would be g-overned
according" to the Constitution as expounded by the
judicial authorities ; the chief exponent of the pur-
poses of the party about to take the reins of g^overn-
ment refused to pledg^e himself and the incoming-
administration to so g-overn, even when assured that
such a pledgfe would settle all trouble at once and
forever.

The South was dominated by the principle of law
and order — the principle of conformity to the law-
fully-established order, and the remedy of wrong^s in
a lawful way ; the North w^as dominated b^^ what
Wendell Phillips called the "Puritan Principle" —
the principle of which he saw a g^lorious exemplar in
the "hero-saint" who, at Harper's Perry, "flung-
himself ag-ainst the law and order of his time," and
attempted to carry insurrection, outrag*e and murder
into the peaceful homes of Virg-inia — the principle
of those whose motto, as Mr. Phillips declared, was
not "Law and Order," but "God and Justice," and
who, in all their history, never hesitated to trample
law and order in the dust to compel others to con-

REMINISCENCES. 85

form to their notions of God and justice. The claim
of the South was : The Constitution must be obeyed.
Wherein it may be found wrong", amend it in the law-
fully-prescribed way ; but, until it is thus amended,
its provisions, as they stand, must be faithfully car-
ried out. The claim of the dominant party in the
North, as voiced by Mr. Seward, was : "There is a
law hig-her than the Constitution;" and, wherein the
Constitution conflicts with that higher law, its pro-
visions must be set at naught.

The statesmen of the South reasoned that, if the
provision of the Constitution in reg-ard to slavery
could be rightly violated on the ground of a so-called
higher law, its other provisions could, with equal
right, be violated on the same ground; that all Con-
stitutional guaranties and safeguards would thus be
rendered worthless ; and that, instead of a Govern-
ment acting as the agent of sovereign States, and
having its powers clearly defined by the Constitution,
we would thus come to have a Government defining
its own powers, exercising sovereignty over the
States, and doing- whatever it might judge to be
necessary, expedient or right.

Hence, when it became clearly evident that the
party elected to power intended to administer the
Government on this higher-law theory, the Southern
people felt that, in order to preserve the Constitu-
tional Government inherited from their fathers, and
hand it down unimpaired as a heritag-e to their chil-

86 REMINISCENCES.

dren, they must, in their capacity- as sovereigri
States, resume the powers delegated to the Federal
Government, and form a new Union with the old
Constitution as its org'anic law.

My own State, the Old Dominion, cling-ing- to the
hope that, in spite of fanaticism, Constitutional Gov-
ernment mig'ht still be preserved in the old Union,
did not at first join the seceding- States ; but, when
the unlaw^f ul course pursued by the President showed
that this hope was vain, she, as an English w^riter
has said, "renounced her fellowship with the West,
which owed to her its being; wath the North, for
which she had done and suffered more than all the
Northern Colonies ; and calmly, legally, decisively
cast in her lot with the Southern Sisters, >i< ^i: *
because with them la3^ the right as everj^ man of
whom America was proud had laid it down — the right
defined by the pen of Jefferson, achieved by the
sword of Washington, and maintained by Madison,
Monroe, Randolph and Calhoun at the bar and in the
Senate."

Were these men disloyal ? Were they rebels and
traitors ? Verily, nay.

Bear in mind, if you please, that the issue thus
raised is politically^ as dead as the British tax on tea;
and, hence, can not possibly involve any question of
loyalty to the existing Government. When the men
of the South laid dowm their arms, they accepted the
results of the war in good faith. In good faith, some-

REMINISCENCES. 87

times under the most tr3dng- conditions, they have
abided by them from that hour to this. They intend
still to abide by them. The question, then, is not
whether they are disloyal to the Government as it
exists to-day, but whether they were disloyal to the
Government as it was established by our fathers, and
as it existed prior to 1861. It is a purelj' historical
question ; and I tliink the impartial historian must
say that, if the war between the sections may prop-
erly be termed a war of rebellion, the rebels lived
north of the Potomac. It was there that the doctrine
of a law hig"her than the Constitution w^as enunciated;
it was there that the Constitution was declared to be
' ' a covenant with death and an agfreement W' ith
hell;" it was there that fanatical reformers and
ambitious politicians preached "disobedience to the
Constitution as a duty, and contempt for it as a
patriotic sentiment;" it was there that the people,
in mass-meeting"s assembled, adopted resolutions
pledgfin^^ themselves to resist unto the uttermost
any attempt to carry out the plain Constitutional
provisions for the rendition of fug"itive slaves — reso-
lutions which their gfreatest statesman, Daniel Web-
ster, declared to be "distinctly treasonable," and
tantamount to " levying- war ag^ainst the Govern-
ment;" it was there that State leg"islatures enacted
laws to make that provision of the Constitution a
nullity — laws which the statesmen of the South
deemed important, not because they sheltered the

88 REMINISCENCES.

fu.i^itive, but because they rejected the authority of
the Constitution ; it was there that the country's
flag", when it stood for the carrying- out of that pro-
vision of the Constitution, was spurned as a "flaunt-
ing" lie " that should be torn down, and a "polluted
rag: " that should be permitted to insult no sunny
sky ; it was there, if anywhere, that the standard of
rebellion was raised. The men of the South were
absolutely loyal to the Government as it was org^an-
ized and had been administered from the beg'inning'.
The5^ were upholding" the fundamental law of the
land ag"ainst the advocates of a new nationalism,
who proposed to substitute their ideas of justice and
rig^ht for that law.

When the Southern people became convinced that
they must withdraw from the Union to preserve the
Constitutional Government inherited from their
fathers, they desired to do so peaceably ; but Presi-
dent Lincoln, introducing" the hig"her-law policy into
the Government of the United States, as Mr. Seward
had predicted that he would do, usurped the war-
making" power, and forced war upon them. That, in
sending" vessels of war to forcibly enter Charleston
Harbor, which led to the bombardment of Sumter,
and in afterwards callings out the militia, Mr. Lincoln
did exceed the authority vested in the President, did
usurp the war-making" power, and did set his judg"-
ment of the needs of the hour above the law of the
land, is unquestionable. On this point, permit me to

REMINISCENCES. 89

quote the testimony of two of the ablest and most
eminent statesmen of the North. In 1832, when it
was tliougfht by some that the President would
employ the military to enforce the laws in South
Carolina, Daniel Webster, in a speech at Worcester,
Massachusetts, said : " For one, sir, I raise my voice
beforehand agfainst the unauthorized employment of
the military, and ag"ainst superseding" the laws by an
armed force, under pretense of putting" down nullifi-
cation. The President has no authority to V>lockade
Charleston. The President has no authority to use
the military until he shall be duly required so to do
by law, and by the civil authorities. His duty is to
support the civil authority. His duty is, if the laws
be resisted, to employ the militarj^ force of the coun-
try, if necessary, for their support and execution;
but to do all this in compliance only with law, and
with decisions of the tribunals." In March, 1861,
Senator Doug"las, in a speech defining" the power of
the President to use the military to enforce the laws
of the United States, said : " The military can not
be used in any case whatever, except in aid of civil
process to assist the Marshal to execute a writ."

That Mr. Webster and Mr. Doug"las understood
and correctly stated the law in the case, can not be
denied. Yet, while the President had no lawful
authority to use the military except in "compliance
with decisions of the tribunals," as Mr. Webster
declared, and except " in aid of civil process to assist

90 REMINISCENCES.

the Marshal to execute a writ," as Mr. Doug-las
declared, President Lincoln, without waiting- for the
decision of any tribunal, without any civil process,
without any writ or any Marshal in all the South
to execute it, called for 75,000 men to invade the
South and put down an alleg-ed insurrection. He
thus violated the law which his oath of office required
him to support, and, assuming: the power of an auto-
crat, made his judg-ment and will the law of the land.

But for this unlawful procedure it is safe to say
there would have been no war. This, by placing: the
Southern people in a position in which they were
compelled to take up arms in self-defense, made war
inevitable ; and I hold that the responsibility for the
war, with all the blood and treasure that it cost, and
all the desolation and ruin that it wroug-ht, justly
rests upon Abraham Lincoln and his advisers.

That the men of the South, when w^ar was thus
forced upon them, foug-ht valiantly, no one will deny.
" Full in the front of war they stood," and displayed
a g-allantry so splendid — a courag-e so superb — that
it g-ave a new and brig-hter luster to the annals of
heroism. They were peerless soldiers — those poorly
equipped, half-clad and less than half-fed men in
g-ray, who so long- held aloft the battle -flag- of the
South ag-ainst such tremendous odds. Even Northern
historians, in describing- them, have been constrained
to use such adjectives as " mag-nificent " and "in-
comparable," and every paean to the Grand Army of

REMINISCENCES. 91

the Republic — evevy g-lorification of the two million
eigrht hundred thousand Northern soldiers who w^ere
mustered into service to overwiielm the South — indi-
rectly proclaims the g-reater glory of the six hundred
thousand Southern soldiers whom it took them four
years to overcome.

I do not mean to disparage the valor of the North-
ern soldiers. As an eye-witness I can testify to their
courage. I honor tlie valor of the men who so stub-
bornly resisted the onslaughts of Lee's legions in the
battles around Richmond ; who threw themselves,
with such reckless daring, ag:ainst the almost im-
pregnable Confederate position at Mar^^e's Hill ; who
fought so fiercely at Chickamauga, and who charg-ed
so g-allantly up the slope of Lookout Mountain. They
were foemen worthy of any army's steel. But the
fact remains that, in the war, the soldiers of the
South won the larger measure of glory.

But, notwithstanding- its justice and the valor of
its defenders, the cause for wiiich the South fought
was lost. When thousands of her bravest and best
had been swept dow^n by the red blasts of war ; when
her ranks were so depleted that she could no longer
muster men enough to form more than a skirmish
line along the extended and doubly- manned front of
the enemy ; when her resources were so exhausted
that she could no longer feed the remnant of her
brave defenders ; w^hen her powers of resistance w^ere
so weakened that to prolong the strug-gle could be

92 REMINISCENCES.

only a vain and criminal sacrifice of life, the flag"
which her sons had borne to victory on so many
fields, and wreathed with imperishable glory, was
lowered in surrender.

But, as Confederate Veterans, we may still lift our
heads and face the world without shame. We may
still be proud of "The Great Confederate South, '*
which we served, for —

" * * * her dead died bravely for the right.

The folded flag is stainless still ; the broken sword is bright ;
No blot is on her record found ; no treason soils her fame."

And when her story is truthfully written, it will

"* * * bear
This blazon to the last of times ;
No nation rose so white and fair,
Or fell so pure of crimes.''

When the Confederacy fell, the Republic formed
by the Fathers and composed of sovereign States in
Federation, perished. The States were robbed of
their independence. In fact, if not in name, they
ceased to be sovereign, and became subject provinces,
whose people owe their highest political allegiance,
not to them, but to a centralized national authority.
They tell us that it is best ; that the Government
established by the Fathers, under which the States
retained their sovereignty and were united by com-
pact, served well enough in the beginning, but could
not meet the demands of new conditions resulting"
from the country's growth ; and that it was neces-
sary to lose the sovereignty of the States in the

REMINISCENCES. 93

sovereigTity of the nation, in order that we mij^iit
become a g'reat world-power and successfully^ com-
pete with the king-doms of the earth for political and
commercial supremacy. It may be so; Vjut I beseech
you to pardon an old Confederate soldier, who is
perhaps blinded by memories that sometimes fill his
eyes with tears, if he cem not see it so ; and believ-
ing", as history teaches, that patriotism is most ar-
dent and freedom most secure in small communities,
would to-day rather have his own State as his
crowned queen, and ow^e to her his hig"hest political
allegfiance, than be a subject of the mig"htiest,
richest and most g"lorious Empire that ever was or
can be reared by the wisdom and power of man.

94 reminiscences.

Selections from "Some Truths of History" —
A Vindication of the South against the
Encyclopedia Britannica and Other Malign-

ERS, BY THADDEUS K. OgLESBY.

The Two Sides.

In 1861 the American Union was composed of
thirty-three States, joined in a voluntary political
association, partnership, or g-overnment, styled
"The United States of America." The people of
eleven of these States, numbering about 5,000,000,
havinjj: found that, under that g^overnment, their
safety and happiness, their peace and tranquility,
were constantly and seriously threatened, and dis-
turbed instead of being- secured, decided to institute
a new government, one that to them seemed more
likely than the existing one to effect their safetj' and
happiness. In accordance with the principle enun-
ciated by the Declaration of Lidependence, which I
have quoted, they instituted such new government,
which was styled "The Confederate States of
America;" and, in defiance and subversion of that
principle, tlie people of the other States of the
Union, numbering about 22,000,000, said that the
people of the eleven States did not have the right to
institute a new government to secure their happi-

REMINISCENCES. 95

ness, and made war ag^ainst the people of the eleven
States to compel them to renounce and abolish the
g"overnment of their choice and come back and re-
main under tlie g"overnment from which they had
withdrawn because it had ceased to secure to them
the ends for which it w^as instituted.

So it was that there came about the war between
the States; eleven on one side, with 5,000,000 people,
fighting- /or the principle of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence on which the g^overnment of the United
States was itself founded; and twenty-two on the
other side, with 22,000,000 people, fig-hting- against it.
The 22,000,000 overcame the 5,000,000, after four
years' fig"hting-, and the barbarous treatment of Jef-
ferson Davis was due, as I have said, to the fact
that he was the leader of the vanquished side. He
was charg-ed with having* committed treason ag"ainst
the twenty-two States in joining- the eleven States
in their strug-g-le to maintain the principle of the
Declaration of Independence, but as, in doing* so, he
acted in conformity to the will and in obedience to
the call of his own State, and as one State cannot
commit treason ag-ainst another State, the absurdity
of the charg-e is apparent. Every w^ell-informed
person knew that it had no foundation in law^ or in
fact. Unless the State of Mississippi could be law^-
fully convicted of treason ag-ainst coequal, associate
States, Jefferson Davis, a citizen of that State,
could not be lawfully convicted of treason for re-

96 REMINISCENCES.

mainiii^ loyal to Mississippi instead of transferring"
his allegiance to tlie States that were making war
on her.

WOULD NEVER TRY HIM.

At the end of an imprisonment of two years, Mr.
Davis was released on bail, the bond being $100,000,
and his bondsmen were Horace Greely, Gerrit
Smith and Cornelius Vanderbilt, all citizens of New
York. He was never brought to trial for "treason"
or anything" else, though he eag'erly wished and con-
stantly urged a trial. The United States govern-
ment would never put to the test of an investig"ation,
in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the
land, the question whether or not he had committed
treason against that government. It was a test he
gTeatly desired, and he was greatly disappointed at
the government's declining it. Had he been tried
for treason the issue presented to the Supreme
Court of the United States would have been pre-
cisely the same which was argued by Calhoun and
Webster, precisely the same which was fought by
Lee and Grant. That issue required an answer to
the question: Did the States have a right to secedeV
For if the States had no right to secede, Jefferson
Davis was a traitor. If they had a right to secede,
he was a patriot. This question the political heads
of the government feared to submit to its own
tribunal, well remembering" that in the Dred Scott

- REMINISCENCES. 97

decision that tribuncil itself had placed the seal of
constitutioimlity upon tlie principles for which the
Southern statesmen and people stood. By the re-
lease, without trial, of Mr. Davis, the world was
informed that the United States g-overnment feared
to imperil in the courts of reason what it had g-ained
on the field of battle, and the result was a judg;ment
by default, ag-ainst the United States, that whereas
the rig"ht of secession now no longer exists, never-
theless and notwithstanding-, the rig^ht of secession
did exist, and Mr. Davis was not a traitor, but a
patriot.

The following- extracts are from a pamphlet on
The Destruction of Columbia, South Carolina, w^rit-
ten and published in 1865, by the g-ifted and accom-
plished William Gilmore Simms, LL. D.:

The destruction of Atlanta, the pillag"ing" and
burning- of other towns of Georg-ia, and the subse-
quent devastation along- the march of the Federal
army throug-h Georg-ia, g-ave sufficient earnest of the
treatment to be anticipated by South Carolina
should the same commander be permitted to make
a like prog-ress in our State.

(8)

98 REMINISCENCES.

Half naked people cowered from the winter under
bush-tents in the thickets, under the eaves of houses,
under the railroad sheds, and in old cars left them
along- the route. All these repeated the same story
of suffering", violence, povertj^, and nakedness.
Habitation after habitation, villag^e after villag^e —
one sending- up its sig"nal flames to the other, pre-
saging* for it the same fate — lighted the winter and
midnight sky with crimson horrors.

No languag-e can describe, nor can any catalogue
furnish an adequate detail of the wide-spread de-
struction of homes and proper t5^ Granaries were
emptied, and where the grain was not carried off it
was strewn to waste under the feet of the cavalry
or consigned to the lire wiiich consumed the dwell-
ing. The negToes were robbed equally with the
whites of food and clothing. The roads were cov-
ered with butchered cattle, hogs, mules and the
costliest furniture. Valuable cabinets, rich pianos,
were not only hewn to pieces, but bottles of ink,
turpentine, oil, whatever could efface or destroy was
employed to delile and ruin. Horses were ridden
into tlie houses. People were forced from their beds
to permit the search after hidden treasures.

In a number of cases the guards provided for the
citizens were among the most active plunderers;
were quick to betray their trusts, abandon their

REMINISCENCES. 99

posts, and bring: their comrades in to join in the
g-eneral pillag"e. Tlie most dexterous and adroit of
these, it is the opinion of most persons, were chiefly
Eastern men, or men of immediate Eastern orig-in.

But the reig-n of terror did not fairly beg-in till
nig-ht. In some instances, where parties complained
of the misrule and robbery, their g-uards said to
them, with a chuckle: "This is nothing". Wait till
to-nig^ht and you'll see h — 1."

The pistol to the bosom or head of woman, the
patient mother, the trembling" daug-hter, was the
ordinary introduction to the demand: "Your g"old,
silver, w^atch, jewels!" They gfave no time, allowed
no pause or hesitation. It was in vain that the
woman offered her keys, or proceeded to open
drawer or wardrobe, or cabinet or trunk. It was
dashed to pieces by axe or g-un butt, with the cry,
"We have a shorter way than that!" It was in vain
that she pleaded to spare her furniture, and she
would g-ive up all its contents. All the precious
thing's of a family; such as the heart loves to pore on
in quiet hours when alone with memory — the dear
miniature, the photog^raph, the portrait — these were
dashed to pieces, crushed under foot, and the more
the trembler pleaded for the object so precious, the
more violent the rage which destroj^ed it.

351082B

CHAPTER VIII.

T ATTENDED the Confederate Reunion at Houston
•*• Texas, in 1895 (since then Richmond, Va.,
Nashville, Tenn., Charleston, S. C, Dallas, Tex.,
New Orleans, La., Birming-ham, Ala., Memphis,
Tenn,, and Mobile, Ala.) I never saw as g"rand an
ovation gfiven anyone on any occasion as was
accorded to Winnie Davis, Daug^hter of the Confed-
eracy, when presented on the stag"e by General
Gordon, who appointed a Sergeant at Arms from
each state to preserve order. I represented Georgfia.
The sig"ht of Winnie created g"reat enthusiasm and
inspiration of the occasion. General Gordon vainly
using- his g'avel and shouting' that the Serg^eants
at Arms must keep order, to which I replied:
"Nobody wants order as long" as Winnie Davis is in
sig^ht."

"Around her shone the light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,
And, oh, that eye was within itself a soul."

I was appointed by General S. D. Lee on his staff,
and have followed him and his successors ever since.
Bob Rutherford was at this reunion and owned the
solid g"old massive stirrups belong^ing" to General

REMINISCENCES. 101

Santa Anna when he surrendered at the battle of
San Jacinto in 1836, which g"ave to Texas her inde-
pendence.

At the Richmond Reunion, in 1896, I had two
charming" sisters from Suffolk, Va., with me at the
reception tendered the Veterans in an auditorium
seating- many thousands. On the stag^e was a choir
of five hundred singing" dear old familiar Southern
melodies. My g"irls were on the two seats in front
of me. When the band struck up "The Girl I Left
behind Me" they stood up and, as those soul-stirring"
strains swept that immense audience into a vast sea
of enthusiasm, one of the g"irls asked me the name of
the tune. I replied, " 'The Girl I Left behind Me,'
but she has g"ot before me." On the stag"e sat Cor-
poral Tanner, who had recently raised several
thousand dollars among" his Northern friends and
presented the entire amount to a Confederate
Orphans' Home. At the proper time he hobbled to
the front of the stag"e and delivered a g"rand address,
pleading that the North and South clasp hands
across the bloody chasm, forever burj^ the hatchet
in a common g"rave in Lethe's dark waters and with
one God, one country, one flag, live in love, peace
and harmony until rolling" years shall cease to move.
He closed by saying" that he thoug"ht he had the
rig"ht to preach the funeral of nearly half of his dead
body that was buried in the g"rand old State of
Virg"inia. That night I had with me at the Jeffer-

102 REMINISCENCES.

son Hotel the battle flag" of the Twelfth Georgfia
Reg"iment, under which seven color bearers were
killed in the battle of Sharpsburg. A striking-ly
handsome woman approached and asked what flag"
that was; I g"ave her its history, upon which she
said: "May I kiss it?" "Certainly," I replied, and
tore off a small piece and pinned it on her. Of
course that broug"ht on more talk. She then told
me she was Mrs. Spencer from South Carolina; that
she had but one brother and his name was Moultrie
Dwigfht and that he was severely wounded in the
first battle of Manassas. I told her I knew what
she said was true; that her brother was my file
leader and that as he fell I and another comrade
took him to the litter corps a short distance in the
rear — another strang"e incidence that proves the old
adag"e: "You can never tell what a day may bring"
forth" (as Mrs. Day said when she presented to her
husband twin daug"hters).

My daug-hter was married to J. D. Burts, of Rus-
sell County, Ala., February 18, 1896. On August
7, 1897, a brig"ht sunbeam cast its beautiful rays o'er
their pathway and revealed to their happy gfaze
a daug"hter, who of course called for roof and
rations. Her reasonable demands were immediately
complied with. I promised the mother that start-
ing" with her birth I would g"ive her a piece of silver
on every birthday and every Christmas. I made the
same promise for each of the four others that fol-

Grand Papa and his Bright Light No. 5.

REMINISCENCES. 103

lowed in succession. On the birth of the third
daug"hter, I received the following" teleg"ram from
Eufaula, Ala.:

( (

Spoons, spoons, spoons, spoons.

J. D. BUKTS."

That was all, and thusly I soliloquized: "Can it
be possible that I have a quartet of g^rand-daugfhters
in Eufaula all at one time?" There are now live of
these brigfht sunbeams of my life, with eig"hty-two
pieces of silver and it has well nig"h broke me.

I farmed with my son-in-law in Russell County in
1898, made a short crop and sold it for three or four
cents per pound and have been broke ever since.

I lived in Columbus the next two years, and my
chief occupation was making* love to my best g"irl
who g'ave me the g'oose and married another fellow.
How often it is the case that a woman surprises her-
self and her friends by making an unwise decision
on entering" the state of matrimony; often marrying*
in haste, seeking* to repent at leisure when it is too
late to remedy the mistake. "Nuff sed" on matri-
mony, specially when you ain't married.

CHAPTER IX.

[From Columbus, Ga., Enqmrer-SiiH, Maj' 2, 1897.]

Eloquent Memorial Address.

The Full Text of the Splendid Effort of

Mr. Robert Howard.

As Delivered at Springer Opera House.

The Gallant Old Confederate Veteran Makes
A Bold and Manly Defense of the Lost
Cause for Which the Southern Heroes
Died.

'X'HE memorial address for April 26th, 1897, was
■■• delivered at Springer Opera House, by Mr.
Robert Howard, himself a brave and gallant Confed-
erate Veteran. The exercises were beautiful and
imposing, and the opera house was filled to its
utmost capacity with interested spectators.

Hon. Thomas W. Grimes introduced the orator of
the day, in the following brief, but well chosen
remarks:

"Ladies of the Memorial Association, Ladies and
Gentlemen: As the years roll down the cycle of

REMINISCENCES. 105

time, let these memorial occasions be observed so
long" as the rivers run to the sea and the clouds
circle around our mountain tops. History furnishes
no g-rander army of heroes than the brave Confed-
erate soldiers who fougfht under the sacred folds of
yonder flag". God bless it! As the g-entle Cordelia
said to King- Lear, 'My love is more richer than my
tonofue.' They felt the shock of battle and clash of
arms while following- its fortunes, and when over-
powered by numbers, no true soldier 'crooked the
preg-nant hing-es of the knee that thrift mig-ht follow
fawning-.' They did more than this; they preserved
their civilization. Such a soldier as this 3^ou find in
the orator of this occasion, Mr. Robert Howard,
whom, in behalf of the ladies of the Memorial
Association, I now have the pleasure to introduce."
At the conclusion of Mr. Grimes' remarks Mr.
Howard stepped forward and proceeded with the
address as follows:

Ladies of the Memorial Association, Ladies and
Gentlemen: To the hallowed cause for which we
have assembled, without arrog-ating- anything^ to
myself, am I indebted for this mag"nificent audience
and its cordial g-reeting-, and to you, noble women of
the Ladies' Memorial Association of this city, I
tender my heartfelt thanks for the hig-h honor con-
ferred upon me as your orator for the day, and I

106 REMINISCENCES.

trust you may have no cause for regrret in your
selection.

"It is not that Nature has shed o'er the scene
Her purest crystal and brightest of green,

'Tls not the soft magic of streamlet or hill,
O! no — it is something more exquisite still.

'Tls that friends, the beloved of my bosom are near,
Who make everj' dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who feel how the best charms of Nature improve.
When we see them reflected from looks that we love."

Standing-, as it were, in the shadow of the home
where these lips first lisped the word mother, I can
truly say that for more than sixty years I have seen
my life reflected from looks that I have loved, and
still love, in Columbus. And now what means this
sea of upturned faces, all agflow with animation
and expectation, ag"e with his wrinkles, burdens
and cares; youth in her beauty, joys and smiles?
The answer is in yon silent city of the dead where
sleep the true, the brave. Time in his unerring'
flig-ht has brougfht to us another sad anniversary,
one commemorating" the downfall of a cause we held
nearer and dearer than life itself, and one for which
we freely sacrificed all save honor, true manhood
and noble womanhood. To-day we meet once more
at the shrine of hallowed love to the memory of our
dead heroes, the gfrandest, noblest army of martyrs
the world has ever produced.

"On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread.
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead."

REMINISCENCES. 107

My theme will be of a cause thoug-h lost, still
rig"hteous, of arms whose brilliant achievements
were and are yet the wonder and admiration of the
ag"e, of men, the Confederate dead and their surviv-
ing' comrades, whose deeds of valor, whose love of
country, whose devotion to duty, and whose daunt-
less couragfe find no parallel in the pag"es of history,
either ancient or modern, and last, but by no means
least, of the purest, noblest womanhood that ever
g"raced God's creation — Dixie's peerless daug"hters.

'Tis true tliat the war, that is, the real conflict of
arms, closed thirty-two years ag"o to-day, that the
dead past has in a measure buried its dead, but the
harrowing* memories of the unholy and damnable
crusade wag"ed ag'ainst us by a ruthless and implac-
able foe, the outrag'es and wrong's inflicted upon us
during the war, and yet many fold increased since,
still live, and I would not stultify myself by asking-
this audience to suffer these recollections to seek an
everlasting- burial in Lethe's dark waters with the
lapse of thirty -two years; to do so would make me
less than human and Divinity itself. The time has
come when we should speak out in meeting* and g'ive
in our experience among' the brethren and sisters
as they do in St. Luke* when they think the devil is
g'etting' the best of the fig'ht. Too long- have we re-
mained silent on such occasions as the present, and
apart from what they have been taugfht from histories
written by Northern partisans, the gfeneration that

*St. Luke Methodist Church In Columbus, Ga.

108 REMINISCENCES.

has come upon the scene since the conflict closed know
nothing-, comparativelj^ speaking", of the grandest
drama of modern times, the causes leading" thereto,
and what section of the country should be held re-
sponsible for the most unjust, most inhuman and
most diabolical war that has ever been wag"ed since
the dawn of creation. Cicero, in an ag^e longf since
past, wisely and truly said that "it is the first
and fundamental law of history that it should neither
dare to say anything- that is false, or fear to say
anything- that is true, nor gfive any just suspicion of
favor or disaffection." We of the South are willing-
to rest the merits of our case upon history in every
manner conforming; to this hig-h standard and we
say let the truth be told.

"Though the Heavens fall,
And one eternal ruin swallow all,
Vice for a time may shine and virtue sigh;
But truth, like Heaven's sun, plainly dolh reveal,
And scourge or crown what darkness did conceal."

In lifting the veil from the past that j^ou may
g-aze upon the dark and bloody pages, I do so in no
spirit of hostility to the g-eneral g-overnment of
which we are now a part, let it be understood from
necessity, and not from choice. I would re-open
no partially healed wounds to have them bleed
afresh, and thus bleeding- ag-ain become more painful,
but that this g-eneration may hear from an active
participant in that gig-antic strugg-le truths that

s
REMINISCENCES. 109

they have never as yet learned from the partial and
utterly false histories that have been published from
a Northern standpoint and taug^ht in our schools. I
shall "nothing" extenuate, or set down aug-ht in
malice," but will "hew to the line, let the chips fall
where they maj^" and in so doing- will state notliing"
but facts "as true as Holy Writ."

Before the first hostile g"un fired in old Virginia, I
was there at the front as a private Confederate
soldier, weiiting' the advance of the insolent foe.
When the last one fired in North Carolina I was
there, still a soldier, and had the war continued
until this present time and I had not been numbered
amongf the slain, I would have been to-day with
bared breast facing- a Yankee battery, instead of
standing- before this irresistible one of beautiful
sparkling- eyes, and while I proved invulnerable to
the former, a dart from the latter may yet pierce
the vital part. According- to Yankee parlance, I
am an unreconstructed Rebel. I trust I may some
day be resurrected and that in the beautiful Beyond
I can say "all is well," but should I live until recon-
structed as understood and enunciated by the masses
of the North, and the little two for five dema-
^og-ues and time serving- sycophantic politicians
of the South, seeking- office and notoriety at the
sacrifice of manhood by licking- the hand that smites
them, under the mock plea of policy, I will never
die. I thank them for the appellation, unrecon-

no REMINISCENCES.

structed Rebel! 'Tis sweet music to 1113^ ear, and
the epithet being" properly construed, means that
I am just as different from them as ligfht is from
darkness, for if there are any two thing's on
earth above all others that I would not be
likened unto, they are war Yankees and Southern
reneg"ades. And of eill stenches pollutingf creation,
that emanating' from a Southern reneg'ade is to me
the most loathsome. He stinks as he rots and he
stinks as he rises. Here let me say that in discuss-
ing' this subject my denunciations are intended and
applicable only to the war element of the North, for
there were during" the war thousands of g'ood men
and noble women in that section, and there are yet
equally as many. Ever and anon we see and hear
of some little scalawag" Uriah Heap, under the in-
spiration of mellow wine, prostituting' manhood —
someone else's, however, for he has none of his own
— by pandering' to Northern sentiment and fanati-
cism, actually humbling" himself in the dust, saying"
to the North: "O! we are so g"lad you whipped us;"
makes himself hoarse singling" the praises and g"lories
of the restored Union, loves the beauty and the
g"randeur of the stars and stripes that float "o'er the
land of the free and the home" of the demag"og"ue
and office seeker, and says to "Old Glory:" "O, just
let me touch your hem and I shall be saved — from
hard work and get a fat job from the gfovernment."
All that g"listers is not gold" nor is everything" that

( (

REMINISCENCES. Ill

wears breeches a man. I do really pity the little
pusillanimous g'oody-g'ood Uriah Heaps; they are so
very little that a whole team of them could play ball
in a mustard seed, yet they feel as if they were of
immense magnitude and hu^*e preponderosity. Dis-
turb not their sweet dreams lest you awaken them to
the full realization of their utter notliing"ness.
"Answer not a fool according* to his folly, lest he be
wise in his own conceit." "I would rather be a toad
and feed on the vapors of a dung^eon than such a
one." I would sooner be a dog" and bay the moon
than grow^ and fatten at the sacrifice of manhood.
From the bloodstained heig"hts of Gettysburg* on the
East to the rolling plains of the far West, from the
icicles of the Northern lakes to the orang-e blooms of
Florida, are the graves of countless thousands who,
wearing the gray, went early to their rest.

"The cock's shriU clamor and the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lonely bed;
No children run to greet their sire's return,
Nor climb his knee the envied kiss to share."

And why these premature g*raves? Whj^ these
widow^s who for more than thirty long, weary,
dreary years have mourned for their loved ones who
proudly, g*randly, marched forth to battle to the
sw^eet, familiar old strain of "The Girl I Left behind
Me" and have never returned? Why these maimed,
decrepit old veterans of many battles, strug'g'ling' in
their decline of life upon the ruins of their once

112 REMINISCENCES.

prosperous and happj^ country for a bare existence?
Who is responsible for the blig'ht with which our
country has been cursed? "Shake not thy g"ory locks
at me. Thou can'st not say I did it." For the an-
swer go to Plymouth Rock where landed the old
Mayflower. She was the Iliad of all our woes, the
Pandora's box from which sprang" all the ills and
troubles with which this country has been affticted.
The seed there sown broug^ht forth and developed in
this country the same spirit that prompted the Puri-
tans to leave old England and seek a home in New
England. Their object in coming" here was to do as
they pleased and to make everybody else do the same.
In their g"reed for g"old in the course of time, agfainst
the wishes and earnest protest of the South they
introduced African slavery in this country, which is
well known was the primary cause of the late war
between the two sections. When the orig-inal thir-
teen colonies, each as a sovereigfn state, formed a
g"eneral g"overnment for mutual protection and bene-
fit, slavery was recog"nized by the different states
comprising" the confederation, and was protected by
each as well as by the general g"overnment. The
slave trade w^as carried on exclusively by Northern
men and Northern money. The very first vessel
fitted out for the purpose was from Boston. Finally
this trade by Southern votes in the National Con-
g^ress was abolished and these sturdy old Puritans,
being no longer able to steal with impunity their

REMINISCENCES. 118

brethren in Africa and sell them for shining" gfold to
the South, and experience liaving- convinced them
that this labor could not be made profitable to them,
concluded to quit the nig-g-er business, and did so by
selling out, "lock, stock and barrel, little, big-,
young and old," to the South. If there was ever one
freed by a Puritan or any of his race I've never as yet
heard of it. This "in a nutshell" is the history of
the North upon the nigger question, until the birth
of abolitionism, which was conceived of the devil,
brought forth in iniquity and nurtured upon sec-
tional hate and blind fanaticism. Upon this issue
the two sections widely differed, the South only con-
tending for and claiming that which' was guaranteed
to her under the original compact, the Constitution.
For forty 3^ears she had for the sake of peace and
harmony submitted to compromise after compromise
in each of which her rights and liV^erties were more
and more encroached upon. Beecher with his nigger
mock auctions in his church, Horace Greeley daily
thundering his Phillipics against the South, and her
institutions — Uncle Tonics Cabin^ Seward's Trrepressihle
Conflict^ Helper's Impending Crisis, the pulpit with
its false teachers and base preachers — all com-
bined in their mad, reckless warfare upon the
South, solidified the masses against her and made
them more and more exacting' in their fanatical
demands. In vain did the South plead for con-
ciliation and peace for the sake of the Union, to be

9

114 REMINISCENCES.

told that the "Union was worth nothing: without a
little blood letting-." Eloquently did she appeal for
the strict observance of the Constitution only to
be told that the Constitution was "a leagfue with
"death and a covenant with hell," that there was
a hig-her law which was that "mig-ht makes
rigflit." After forty years of ceaseless ag*itation
this party of bitter hatred and blind fanaticism
elected Lincoln as President upon a strictly sec-
tional platform pledgfed to legfislate ag"ainst the
interests, property, rigfhts and equality of the South
in the g"eneral g"overnment. The South having
exhausted every other remedy to maintain her
rig-hts and liberties in the Union, as defined by the
Constitution, as a last resort, exercised the inalien-
able rig-ht of secession — a right which up to that
time had never been disputed. Hence the Southern
States, each in its sovereign capacity, resumed the
powers and rights originally delegated to the
general government and formed a government of
her own. When Lincoln was inaugurated as Presi-
dent we had a government of our own in all of
its departments, and at once appointed commis-
sioners to confer with the Lincoln government
and settle all questions at issue upon the basis
of strict equity and exact justice; the chivalric
and beloved Martin J. Crawford, of this city,
being one of these commissioners. This com-
mission, of course, failed in the purpose for which it

REMINISCENCES. 115

was appointed, and the South accepted the grag-e of
battle thrown by Lincoln. To have acted otherwise
we would have been unworthy sons of noble sires.
He who worships at duty's shrine can ne'er go
wrong:; he who doubts at her call is a dastard,
and he who hesitates to obey her hig-h behests
throug-h fear of consequences is an arrant coward
and should be forever damned. The South did not
want war, but it was war or base submission, and as
true men, we accepted the former. We have no
apologfies to make, nothing- to retract; we foug-ht for
what we knew was rigfht at the time; we knew it
then, we know it now, and will know it forever.
And we feel that it was better by far to have foug-ht
and lost than never to have foug-ht at all. These
are our sentiments and we want the North and the
balance of mankind to know it. Who fired the first
g-un in this unjust war? John Brown, at Harper's
Ferry; he was but the advance g^uard of McDowell,
and his mig-hty host that following: two years later,
appeared upon the historic plains of Manassas — the
former met a rig-hteous retribution, as the State of
Virg-inia hung: him and his murderous free booters
hig-her than Mordecai hung: the infamous Haman,
and had the same justice been meted out to those of
the latter, captured at the first battle of Manassas,
the flag- before you would to-day have been proudly
and defiantly floating- upon every sea and to every
breeze under hig:h Heaven. Outlaws and murderers

116 REMINISCENCES.

are the same the world over, whether they come as
few or as thousands, and when captured should
summarily pay the penalty of their crimes. Apply-
ing- the rule of true analysis, wherein did the latter
diifer from the former? Who fired the second gnn?
Undoubtedly Lincoln, when he ordered Port Sumter
to be re-enforced after Seward, his Secretary of
State, had solemnly pledgfed his honor to our com-
missioners that it should be evacuated. "Faith as to
Fort Sumpter kept, wait and see," said this arch
fiend, and even at the very moment he was using" his
duplicity, he was doing his utmost to re-enforce the
fort, that he might have the city of Charleston at
his mercy. The midnig'ht burg-lar enters your house
to rob and to murder, if necessary, to attain his
object. Must you wait until he has plundered your
castle before you fire? The immutable law of God
and of man says no. "Self-preservation is the first
law of nature," and in self-defense we proceeded to
reduce the fort, to tear down the accursed emblem
of a despot and usurper and hoist instead the "Bon-
nie Blue Flag-," thus proclaiming- to the world the
birth of a new nation. Will anyone not blinded by
prejudice and partisanship dare say that we violated
any law, either divine or human? We struck for
the God-given rigfht of freedom and liberty, for the
sanctity of our homes, the purity of our firesides and
never since time beg-an has there been a more rig-ht-
eous g"un fired than that of gfrand old Edmund Ruflin,

REMINISCENCES. 117

of Virg^inia, at Charleston, which announced to the
world that we were men who would no long^er sub-
mit to wrong- and injustice. Where did Lincoln find
any law under the Constitution to call for seventy-
five thousand troops, arm and equip them to coerce
sovereig^n States? He was a perjurer, for he in-
tentionall3^ wilfully and maliciously violated his
oath of oftice when he solemnly swore to deftnd and
support the Constitution of the g-overnment and no
sane man will deny the fact of his being" a usurper
when he resorted to means that plungfed this country
into an internecine war. "Let no man trust the first
false step of guilt; it hangs upon a precipice, whose
steep descent in last perdition ends." Upon the
altar of this one first step of guilt were immolated
one million human lives, £ind the North should be
held responsible by the world for the sacrifice of
ever^^ one of these lives, and I believe a just God
will so judge them. The North flaunts her hostile
flag" of defiance in our face; she comes into our
country with a sword in one hand and a torch in the
other; she throws down the gauntlet of battle and
the South, preferring death to dishonor, girds her
loins, prepares as best she can for the inevitable
conflict, and calmly standing on the defensive,
awaits the advance of the ruthless invader. The
noble Curtius leaping into the yawning" abyss, that
his beloved Rome might be free, g"ave no g^rander
proof of sublime patriotism than did the sons of the

118 REMINISCENCES.

South when the loud tocsin of war summoned them
to arms in defense of all that free men hold dear.
Southern manhood, fully realizing- that life could
never be too short which broug-ht nothing- but wrong-,
injustice and oppression, that death could never
come too soon if necessary in defending: their lib-
erties and their firesides, at once respond to the
call and service of their country and speedily g-o to
the front, and alas, most of them are there yet in
warriors' g-raves.

"They left the ploughshares in the mold,
The flocks and herds without a fold;
The sickle In the unshorn grain,
The corn half garnered on the plain,
And mustered in their simple dress.
For wrongs to seek a strong redress,
To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe,
To perish — or o'ercome the foe."

The world has never seen the equal of this g-rand
army as it went forth from every section of the
South to battle for their rig-hts and their liberties.
Leonidas at Thermopylae, Caesar on the Rubicon, at
the head of his legions, whose eagles flashed in the
rising- and setting- sun; Bonaparte with the Imperial
Guard at Austerlitz; Welling-ton at Waterloo, never
commanded such troops as followed the matchless
Lee, the invincible Jackson, the intrepid Johnston.
"These are our jewels," said the Spartan mothers of
the long- ag-o, in presenting- their sons to their coun-
try's service and giving to each his shield with their

REMINISCENCES. 119

parting" blessing" "with or on it," sent them forth in
the defense of their homes.

The same spirit that prompted these ancient
matrons to place their all upon the altar of their
country found a responsive chord in the hearts of
the noble women of the South when the heel of the
despot polluted her sacred soil. Well do I remem-
ber being on the outposts at Fairfax Court House,
Virginia, thirty-six years ag'o, where I saw one of
earth's fairest, noblest daug"hters, upon foaming-
steed, with dispatches in her silken tresses, inform-
ing us of McDowell's advance from Washing-ton
with his mig-hty host, and I thoug^ht then, as I do
now, what were life without woman! 'Tis paradise
with her; 'twould be purgatory without her. For
weeks the press of the North had been daily thun-
dering- "On to Richmond" — "Crush the rebellion in
ninety days;" "What rigfht have Rebels and traitors
to live?" And now the g^rand army, numberingf
55,000, crossed the Potomac with banners streaming*
and arms g"listening-, joyfully singing-: "John
Brown's body lies mouldering" in the g-round; but his
soul g"oes marching- on," "We'll hang- Jeff Davis on
a sour apple tree," and interspersed now and then
with "Yankee Doodle." These fit representatives
of the so called "God and morality party" reached
the plains of Manassas, where they touched the
button and we did the rest. Here stood Johnston
with seventeen thousand of the flower and chivalry

120 REMINISCENCES.

of the South, on their own soil to defend their fire-
sides ag"ainst the advancing host of fifty-five thous-
and soldiers armed and equipped with everything-
pertaining" to modern warfare. A brig-ht and beau-
tiful Sabbath morn it was when the booming"
artillerj^ of the enemy announced that this mig-hty
host of the North proposed to g"ive the traitors and
Rebels of the South a Sunday morning- lesson on
civilization and Christianity, and if it be true that
"whom the gfods would destroy they first make
mad," the sequel on this occasion proved that there
was a powerful sight of mig'hty mad people who had
neglected to "keep holy the Sabbath day," and
when the da3^ closed, instead of having received a
lesson from them on civilization, we had taught
them one on the most improved art in scientific
running and miscellaneous skedaddling. History
has no record of so complete and so disgraceful a
rout and defeat as this grand army of civilizers who
boasted that they w^ould crush the rebellion in
ninety days and hang the leaders as Rebels and
traitors. The war is now on in earnest, and the
North bending every energy with her boundless re-
sources, both at home and abroad, takes all means
for its vigorous prosecution. The South, standing
strictly on the defensive, with no navy, her ports
blockaded, has to rely entirely on her own limited
resources. Nobly, grandly, did her people respond
to every demand upon their patriotism, and for four

REMINISCENCES. 121

years maintained the unequal contest with a
grandeur and sublimity the world never witnessed
before or since. No g^rander type of manhood ever
existed than that developed in the Southern soldier.
His love of country never g"rew less, defeat never
discourag^ed him, victory never rendered him over-
bearingf; in battle as fearless as a lion, the battle
ended, g"entle as a dove, ministering" to his wounded
enemy as thougfh he were a brother. In heat or in
cold, sunshine or storm, daj'' or nig"ht, bare-footed
and rag-g^ed, often with parched corn only as his
ration, whenever his name was called for duty he
answered "Here." True as he was to his country in
war, he is to-day as faithful to her traditions. As
immutably as has stood Gibraltar for ages, so
stands he, incorruptible, and is not for sale. In
vain will you search the pag"es of history for a
record as brilliant, as valiant as that of the South-
ern armies. Contending' ag^ainst odds, both in men
and resources, they achieved victory after victory
on many a hard foug^ht field that find no parallel in
w^arfare, with an enrollment of six hundred thou-
sand ag"ainst three millions on the part of the North,
victory perched upon our banner in every pitched
battle of the war where the odds were not over-
whelming"ly ag'ainst us. 'Tis literally true, as
General Toombs said, "we wore ourselves out
whipping" them." Put us in the field to-morrow on
the same issue, man for man, with equal arms, and

122 REMINISCENCES.

what we did not whip by dinner we would agree to eat
for supper. Yet we were traitors, says the immacu-
late North. Jefferson Davis, than whom a grander
man never lived, a traitor? As well say Heaven's
sparkling- dewdrop shall no more kiss the blushing-
rose to bring forth her spotless beauty and matchless
fragrance. Lee, the Christian soldier, a traitor?
Then let yonder god of the day withhold his life-
g'iving rays from creation. Stonewall Jackson a
traitor? Then the silver queen of the night will no
more revolve in her orbit. Our own "Old Rock,"*
as gallant a soldier as ever drew a blade, a traitor?
Then will God's midnight diamonds cease to
twinkle. That grand army of barefooted, ragged
heroes who went down to death amid the din
and carnage of battle, in defense of the right,
traitors? Then there were no patriots, were all
such traitors as these. Then earth were a para-
dise and "man's inhumanity to man would cease to
make countless thousands mourn," Deathless as
was the love of the Southern soldier for his country,
no less sublime was the devotion and fortitude with
which the women of the South sacrificed their all
upon the altar of their country, and the brightest
star that shines in the crown of the South receives
its brilliancy from her pure womanhood. History,
branding the South as "fit for strategems, treason
and spoils," does it tell you that the war was van-
dalism, outrag^e and robbery on the part of the

♦General Henry L. Benning.

REMINISCENCES. 123

North; that it basely violated all laws of civilized
warfare? No one will dispute the fact. A Yankee
bummer was never known to pass but one thing",
and that was a red hot stove, and his only object in
not appropriating- that was that it too forcibly re-
minded him of his home in the hereafter where ice is
unknown. Do you find in it Beast Butler's infamous
official order turning- over the pure women of New
Orleans, wliose protectors were at the front, to the
lust and outrages of his brutal hireling's? Does it
inform you that in Atlanta Sherman told her non-
combatants that "war was the science of barbar-
ism," and that he intended to wage it on that line,
and actually did by forcing the thousands of help-
less women and children from their homes into the
chilling blasts of November, with no shelter save
the blue canopy of Heaven above them, no bed be-
neath than mother earth, then firing- the city left it
in ashes? Do you read in it that his march from
there to North Carolina could be traced by the
houseless chimneys and smoking ruins of the de-
fenseless, and that in Columbia feeble mothers with
tender babes in their arms had to flee for their lives
from homes fired over their heads? Do you read the
fact that at Charleston unarmed, helpless prisoners
of war were used as breastworks by being placed on
their vessels under fire from our g-uns to protect
their cowardly carcasses? A fact that cannot be
denied, and gallant old Ed Johnson, the first colonel

124 REMINISCENCES.

of the immortal Twelfth Georg-ia Regfiment, of which
that was the flag",* was one of that human breast-
work. It beg'g'ars belief; it stagg'ers credulity and
yet is literally true; the picture is not overdrawn.
If this is Northern civilization then define heathenish
barbarism, Christians' preaching" "peace on earth,
g"ood will to men," and tell what are the fiends of
the damned. Tell me that I must "clasp hands across
the bloody chasm" and say to the North, "You were
rig-ht, we were wrong", please forg"ive," that I must
love the accursed flag under which their crimes and
outrag"es were committed and no reparation made
therefor? Then must the g"reat God above smile
away my human and crown me divine. And now,
with the lapse of four years of carnag"e and desola-
tion, the very fountain of nature fails, our heroic
armies having" foug"ht throug"h twenty-two hundred
combats and battles with a valor, courag"e and en-
durance unparalleled in the annals of time, succumb
to means and resources. They are no long"er physi-
cally able to combat. With less than one hundred
thousand men scattered throug"hout our entire terri-
tory, confronted on all sides by two million or more
of men, our cause became hopeless, long"er resistance
to the inevitable useless. With nothing left but
manhood and womanhood the South falls prone
upon her shield and all is lost, lost and g"one forever.
The battle scenes which the heroes of the South
have painted, the memories which Confederate

♦Pointing to the old flag on the stage.

REMINISCENCES. 126

valor, loyalty and endurance have bequeathed, the
blessed recollections which the pious labors, the
saintly ministrations and the more than Spartan in-
spiration of the women of the South have embalmed
will dig-nify for all time the annals of the civilized
world. We need not turn to Marathon nor Ther-
mopylse to find warriors who have wreathed their
brows with unfadingrchaplets, nor search the storied
arcliives of Spartan valor for names that were not
born to die. We need not rifle the mausoleums of
Athens nor decipher the moss-g-rown cenotaphs of
Rome to find the names of those who carved their
way to glory throug-h the fiery track of war and
went up from battle and burning- to their homes
among- the stars. In all the g-alaxy of fame there is
no brig-hter constellation than that of the "Heroes
of the Lost Cause."

"Nothing need cover their high fame but Heaven;
No pyramid set off their memories,
But the eternal substance of their greatness to which
I leave them."

Well ma3^ our matchless leaders have said to their
shattered ranks on disbanding- them:

"lu vain, alas, in vain ye gallant few,
From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew;
O, bloodiest picture In the book of time.
The South fell, unwept without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arm or mercy in her woe-
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye and curbed her high career;
Hope for a season bade the South farewell,
And Freedom shrieked as Richmond fell."

126 REMINISCENCES.

Fallen, yes, bleeding- at every pore, the South
furls her once triumphant banners o'er her deci-
mated legions.

"Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid,
And not a rose of the wilderness left on Its stalk
To tell where the garden had been."

The South, proud even in her desolation, noble in
her decline, venerable in the majesty of her religion,
calm as in the composure of death, with no tingfe of
shame resting" upon her fair brow, conscious of her
own rectitude, defiantly points to her record, as
white as the everlasting- snows on Alpine heig-hts
and says to hig-h Heaven "these hands are gfuiltless
of innocent blood," and the ang-elic hosts with loud
acclaim shout "Amen." And now" commences an era
in the history of this g"overnment which, for the
sake of American manhood, I fain would blot from
memory's page, but like Banquo's g^host, it will not
down. Conquered provinces, says the vindictive,
frenzied North, though the leopard has not chang-ed
his spots, 3^et with the blood of one million men,
we have washed the skin of the Ethiopian "whiter
than snow," now it shall be "black heels on white
necks," vice over virtue, ignorance over intelli-
gfence, and perfect pandemonium shall reig^n su-
preme. And well do they carry into effect their
accursed reconstruction upon a people utterly
powerless to resist. A click of the wire from
Washington abolishes State Governments and mili-

REMINISCENCES. 127

tary satraps, rulingf with an iron rod substituted in-
steiid, State Leg"islatures dispersed by Federal
bayonets, our entire countrj^ gfarrisoned by a brutal
soldiery, in many places bj^ nig-j^er soldiers, as was
the case in your fair city, our women forced from the
sidewalks into the mud of the streets, marched to
headquarters of the little despot at the point of the
bayonet for any complaint b}^ some worthless
niggfer. The slime, filth and vermin from the
gntters of doodledom with carpet-bag" in hand,
swarm down upon the South as the locusts of an-
cient Egfypt to become our law-makers and rulers,
backed by the United States Army, to enforce their
arbitrary, vindictive, usurpation. Thej^ at once
commence to plunder, rob and steal what little their
illustrious forerunners of the Yankee Army had
failed to find. They imagfined themselves lions,
when really they were not fourth-rate skunks. They
strutted the earth as lords of creation, boastingf that
they held the purse string-s of the conquered South,
with options on corner lots in Heaven. To vote we
had to have a certificate from regfistrars, many of
whom were ig^norant nig"g"ers, not knowing" a D from
a Dardar, who sig^ned his printed certificate with his
mark. Federal bayonets became a necessary con-
comitant at the ballot box in order to insure a "'free
ballot and a fair count." A three days' election is
ordered for g"overnor; we vote for our g'allant and
dauntless old soldier, Gordon, and the gfrand sachem

128 REMINISCENCES.

of scalawagfism, Bullock, heads the other ticket;
when the election ended and the ballots were counted,
Bullock had something* less than ten millions and
Gordon at least seventeen or thirty votes. This
gfrand apostle of reconstruction takes charg-e of the
State as g"Overnor, and with the pack of thieves and
plunderers at his beck and call, indeed rolled so hig"h
and in such corruption and rottenness, that he left
the State before his term of office expired to escape
impeachment. And now we elect as g"overnor that
"rock-ribbed" Democrat, the incorruptible white
man. James M. Smith — All honor to his spotless
memory! — and with his wise, just and honest ad-
ministration, reconstruction and carpet-bag"ism took
their flig'ht, and where they once roared as lions,
they do not even yelp as fices. There, you war
people of the North, is your record of blood, crime,
outrag"e and wrong", and until rolling" years shall
cease to move, until Heaven's archang^el, with
trumpet tong^ue, shall sound the end of time, it will
stand a monument of infamy, black, damnable in-
famy from Wiiich future g^enerations will g'ive the lie
to your boasted civilization, your hig"h culture and
your Pharisaical religion. So much of the past;
what of the future? Is there a silver lining" to the
cloud that has so long" overshadowed us? Will our
late foes ever have manhood to do even justice to us
as a people? Will wisdom, justice and moderation
so guide the "Old Ship of State" that she may be

REMINISCENCES. 129

safely and securely anchored to her mooring"s under
the Constitution, as established by its founders?
The answer is with the future. If yea, then in this
country

"Peace will hold her easy sway
And man forget his brother man to slay."

And thus proving- ourselves g"reater in peace than
in war, we will truly exclaim that this is still our
country. "Zealous, yet modest, innocent thougfh
free, patient of toil, serene amidst alarms; inflexible
in faith, invincible in arms." If m.j, then an
avengfing" Nemesis will haunt the footsteps of those
who would long-er prevent this from becoming- the
g-randest, g-reatest gfovernment on earth, for "curses,
like chickens, will come home to roost."

Guards, Fencibles,* God forbid you should ever be
called upon to face the fiery ordeal of war. If in the
future, however, duty shall call upon you as it did
upon us thirty-six years ag-o, forg-et not whose sons
you are, whose inheritance you possess, remember
that he who for his country dies, shall find an honored
grave . In peace or in war wear worthily the mantle
of Southern manhood — which now drapes your stal-
wart shoulders — the most precious leg-acy we can
bequeath you. We leave our record in your keeping^.
Guard it as you would your own spotless honor;
suffer neither falsehood or injustice to asperse our
memory, and perish the infamous, foul charg-e that
they who for Dixie died were either Rebels or

•The local military companies, the Columbus Guards and the Browne

Fencibles, present in the audience.
10

130 REMINISCENCES.

traitors. To the sainted spirits g-one to their reward
and few noble co-workers is due the orig-in of the
beautiful and appropriate service that is to-day be-
ing celebrated throug-hout the Southland. Thirty-
one years ag-o to-day it had its birth in your temple
of God, where the gfifted Ramsey in matchless elo-
quence painted the justice of the Southern cause
and unrigfhted wrong: from which we still suffer;
true then, true now. Mothers, a duty no less sub-
lime and gfrand now than in heroic past is yours still.
Teach your children, as they climb your knees and
hug- your bosoms, the blessing's of liberty; swear them
at the altar as with their baptismal vows to be true
to their country, and teach, O teach them, that in
the late war the South was rig-ht, first, last and all
the time, that she has lived rig-ht and will die rig-ht,
and I know of no more suitable object lesson to
inculcate this doctrine than to have the shadow of
these immortal heroes who went down to a gflorious
death in defense of liberty and self-g-overnment, in
every household in Columbus, and kindly ask of this
audience and entire community a liberal patronagfe
in the purchase of this picture* for the benefit of the
Ladies' Memorial Association of this city. Now,
noble matrons and maidens fair, wend your way to
* 'God's acre" and as you there wreathe these hal-
lowed graves with earth's fairest gfarlands, remem-
ber that not sweeter is their frag-rance than death-
less is the love of Dixie for its "Lost Cause," and

*A picture of the survivors of tlie Columbus ((Ja.) Guards at the close of
the war in 1865.

REMINISCENCES. 131

that nowhere is it more true than in the South that
"the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that
rules the world."

Grand old flag:; do I love it? Does the young-
mother love her blue-eyed babe? Does the smile
from its dimpled cheek, the first word, mamma, from
its cherry lips arouse within her emotions which she
cannot express? So does the sight of this flag: stir
my heart to its very depths; its life thougfh brief
was brilliant, and imperishable fame will ling-er
around its spotless folds as longf as true manhood
and noble womanhood shall dignify life. Full many
a time, 'mid bayonets thrust and sabre strokes with
countless minie-balls singling- high alto to the death-
making- bass of the booming- cannon have I seen it
carried to victory. As we furled it in honor thirty-
two years ago, so we again to-day fold it, stained
only by the blood of its martyrs who died to defend
it.

"Then let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy.
Bright scenes of the past, which she cannot destroy;
Which come in the night time of sorrow and care
And bring back the features that joy used to wear.

••Long, long be my heart with such memories filled.
Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled,
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will cling to it still."

And as a diamond whose brilliance neither time
nor age can dim is a diamond forever, so will this
flag and its hallowed memories live in this heart

132 REMINISCENCES.

until earth shall claim of me its dust, and "for Dixie,
dear old Dixie," God knows I yet would lay me down
and die.

Comrades, battle-scarred veterans of many a hard
fougfht field, standing- hard by the echoless shore of
time, we fully realize that with us the evening* shad-
ows of life are fast g^athering" in the West; with most
of us the frosts of more than three-score winters are
daily whitening- locks that were once browner than
the robin's breast, blacker than the raven's wing-s.
Thus are we admonished that ere long at best we
too shall join the silent majority of our comrades
true and tried who have g-one before. Soon the last
tattoo shall beat, the last reveille shall sound, duty
discharg-ed, life's burdens soon to end, calmly and
peacefully awaiting" the summons for the roll call in
the gfreat hereafter, we will trust that each and
every

••spirit will be winged by Heaven
To fly at Infinite and reap Its reward,
Where seraphs gather Immortality fast
around the throne of God."

And until then will we remember —

"Sweet vale of Columbus, how calm can we rest.
In thy bosom of shade with the friends we love best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world shall cease,
And our hearts like thy waters be mingled in peace."

CHAPTER X.

[The whole of this chapter Is taken from the little book "Memorial
Day" giving "A History of the Origin of Memorial Day." This History
was prepared and adopted by the Ladies' Memorial Association of
Columbus, Georgia, who presented it to the Lizzie Rutherford Chapter
of the Daughters of the Confederacy under whose direction it was
published in 1898].

PREFACE,

THE mission of the United Daug-hters of the
Confederacy is to record the deeds of the true
and the brave, who bore the star-g-emmed cross of
Dixie. It is therefore meet that the first work of the
Lizzie Rutherford Chapter be a g-ift to the world of
the story of the women who originated that Sabbath
of the South— Memorial Day— which the nation has
found so appropriate that it has incorporated it
with its holidays under the name "Decoration Day."
It was g-iven to this Chapter by the Ladies' Memor-
ial Association of Columbus, Ga.— the mother to
the thought,— on the thirty- second anniversary of
its initial observance; g-iven in the sig-ht and hearing-
of thousands who, before visiting- the soldiers'
g-raves on that day, had g-athered to listen to the
annual eulogy pronounced in honor of the Wearers
of the Gray; it was g-iven under the seals of the only
living- witnesses of its birth and sponsors for its

134 REMINISCENCES.

baptism; g-iven in the hallowed presence of the few
surviving- members of the Soldiers' Aid Society,
who had dressed the wounds, smoothed the pillows,
closed the eyes, and twined g-arlands for the martyrs
of the Lost Cause. It was theirs to strew flowers
for the soldiers; it is ours to strew immortelles for
them.

The Ladies' Memorial Association, like the
Phoenix, rose from the Soldiers' Aid Society, which
was consumed in the fires that burnt the Confed-
eracy. The parent organization was born under the
shadow of the altar in the Ba ptist Churchf of Colum-
bus, on May 21, 1861, and its object was to per-
form woman's part in the service of her country in
time of war.

The incomplete list, as shown on pag^e 19"^ of this
volume, admonishes us that the time to write the
record has already been too long" delayed, and we
now hasten to save the truth from oblivion. Note
well the few surviving* names from memory's tablet.
They have been admired in our country's historic
past. Younger g^enerations will adore them in new
strata as the River of Time wears down the valley
walls of the future. The land of these women was
neither a food- producing nor a manufacturing" one,
yet throug^h their pious ministrations and sacrificing"
devotion, the hung"ry soldiers were fed and the
destitute were clothed, thoug-h ag"ed loved ones and
helpless innocent children were often left in need.

fNow known as the First Baptist Church of Columbus, Ga.
♦Page 165 in this volume of "Keminiscences."

REMINISCENCES. 135

At first the sick and wounded were cared for in
the families of the members. As these multiplied,
hospitals were established and supported. The
ladies nursed the sick, fed the hungfry and buried
the dead. Day by day bad grew worse, food and
clothing- scarce and scarcer g-rew. General Sherman
was making his march throug^h the Southland to the
sea, leavingf behind a desert of ashes. With homes
devastated, hearts broken, hopes g"one, fathers, hus-
bands, brothers, sons and lovers killed, these
patriotic women, with lips compressed, forced back
their tears, g"ave away the bread they needed, wrote
letters to distant and sorrowing- soldier mothers,
sent locks of hair to far away sweethearts of those
whose dying" hours they soothed, and with all this
g"ave direction to the practical affairs of their home
life in absence of husband and father. Bearing"
alike the burden of woman's devotion and man's
care, they wrecked their health and died for their
country.

The last battle of the Civil War, east of the
Mississippi River, was foug"ht on the Alabama
heig-hts overlooking" Columbus, Ga., on the nig"ht of
April 16, 1865. The city was assaulted and, after
it fell, was sacked and burned. When the smoke of
war cleared away, where do we find these devoted
women? Where were Mary Mag"dalene and the
other Mary after the crucifixion? At the sepulcher
with sweet spices. So these women come to the

136 REMINISCENCES.

soldiers' graves with choice plants and brigfht flow-
ers. One day, after a g^roup of them had been
occupied in this loving service, one sug-gested the
adoption and dedication of a day, and of each recur-
ring" anniversary^, to the decoration of the soldiers'
g-raves. All were pleased with the thoug-ht, and at
the next meeting of the Soldiers' Aid Society it was
acted upon so quickly that it seemed a simultaneous
throb from the heart of each. The Soldiers' Aid
Society became the Ladies' Memorial Association.
The 26th of April, the anniversary of the surrender
of General Joseph E. Johnston, was chosen and an
order of ceremonies arranged. The eloquent pen of
the Secretary of the Memorial Association inspired
the press and touched the hearts of the people.
Like the hope that spread over the earth on the
morning of the Resurrection, so the soft light of
this sentiment shone over Dixie, and when April
came. Love wreathed her roses where the soldiers
sleep.

The North looked on, thought the custom good,
took it to herself and has hallowed it as she does
her Thanksgiving obligation. April was too early
for her flowers, hence she set apart May 30th. In
the Southwest the 26th of April finds Flora past
her bloom, so in that section the day is earlier.

Year by year the procession of Spring, marching
up from the Gulf, halts at every mountain side and
mead to salute the dead soldier with flowers.

REMINISCENCES. 137

That future gfenerations may know the truth as to
the orig-in of the beautiful custom, this volume,
under the auspices of this Chapter of the U. D. C,
is gfiven to the world.

Anna Caroline Benning,
President of Lizzie Ratherjord Chapter, U. D. C.

Columbus, Ga., July 1, 1898.

Introductory Speech of Mr. Robert Howard
ON Memorial Day, April 26, 1898, Presenting
THE Orator of the Day.

Ladies of the Memorial Association, Ladies and
Gentlemen: A fearless defender of, and a baptized
believer in, the rig-hteousness of our more than
rig'hteous Lost Cause, needs no introduction to a
Columbus audience, for nowhere in this broad, sunny
land of "Dear Old Dixie" does he more live in the
hearts of g"allant men and fair, pure women, than
here in the home of our gfrand, immortal "Old Rock"
(General Henry L. Benning"), and of those battle-
scarred and war-w^orn veterans of manj^ a hard
foug"ht field, and the home of our g^uardian ang^els,
Lizzie Rutherford Ellis, Mary Ann Williams, Evelyn
Carter, Martha Ann Patten, their noble and beloved
survivors and co-workers. Thoug^h there has been
a lapse of thirty-three years since the flag" of the
Confederacy went down, we turn to-day to the g^rand
old emblem, and the hallowed cause it represented,

138 REMINISCENCES.

with the same deathless love with which we hailed
its gflorious birth when we unfurled it to the breezes
of hig-h Heaven, and followed its spotless folds
througfh its brief and brilliant life. So longf as the
eagfle shall wingf its lofty flight to Alpine heigfhts; so
long- as the babbling^ brooks shall mingfle their crystal
waters with the mig"hty rivers, in their clear winding"
to the sea; so long" as the breeze shall beat the
billows' foam; so long" as true manhood and noble
womanhood shall inspire pure patriotism and exalted
citizenship — so long" will Dixie's brave sons and peer-
less daug"hters perpetuate and relig^iously observe
this, our Memorial Day, in everlasting" memory
and love of our Confederate dead. On each sad
anniversary, with earth's sweetest, fairest flowers we
will wreathe the g"raves of our immortal heroes,
who went down to g"lorious death amid the shock
and carnag"e of battle in the heroic discharg"e of
rig"hteous duty.

Such a defender and believer as already alluded
to, you have in your eloquent orator of the day, and
well do I know that, but for his youthful years at
the time, he too would have stood under the match-
less Lee, shoulder to shoulder with his two g"allant
brothers, who sealed their devotion to their country's
cause with their heart's last, best blood. And now,
ladies and g"entlemen, I have the pleasure of pre-
senting" to you our honored fellow-citizen, the orator
of the day, Mr. Henry R. Goetchius.

reminiscences. 139

The Memorial Oration

Delivered at Springer Opera House, Colum-
bus, Ga., April 26, 1898, by Hon.
Henry R. Goetchius.

Ladies and Gentlemen: On the 26th day of June,
1862, which was one of the famous days when there
was heavy lig^htingf about Richmond, the capital of
the Confederacy, a youngf soldier chargingf where the
fight was thickest, was struck by a minie ball. He
fell, and the Colonel of his regfiment being* near, ran
to him, asking: "Are you hurt?" He replied: "Yes,
through the heart. Tell my mother I have fallen in
the discharge of my duty, and I die happy." A
moment later his spirit lifted itself above the scene
of smoke and battle, and blood and carnage, and
took its flight to the Great Beyond. That young
soldier was a member of the Columbus Guards, of
your city.

Two years later, in the memorable siege of Peters-
burg, a line of Confederate troops of General Wright's
brigade was charging through a wooded space and
across an open field, for the purpose of forcing the
enemy, a part of Hancock's command, back to their
works. Just before this charge, and while the Con-
federates were calmly waiting, in order to give them
a close volley and then the charge, a young soldier,
gazing intently upon the advancing blue line,
remarked to his comrade, "Those men have nothing

140 REMINISCENCES.

at stake, while we have all to lose, and we must
drive them back." Hardly had he spoken when
there came a roar of musketry, the famous yell of
Southern soldiers and the wild rush which drove the
enemy out of the woods and back into their works
and then out of them. As the young- hero entered
the open, in this fatal charg-e, a rifle ball struck him
in the breast and his comrade, to whom he had just
before spoken, hearing" the dull, sickening" thud of
the bullet, had only time to turn and see the young-
soldier sink to his knees and then to the g^round —
dead, with a smile upon his face. That nig"ht he
was buried in the trenches. The young- soldier was
a member of the City Lig"ht Guards, of your city.
These two men were types of hundreds of thousands
of private Confederate soldiers who fell in defense
of the Lost Cause.

One month ag^o, in the cabin of the steamer
Olivette, in the port of Havana, just before the
vessel sailed for Key West, there was g^athered a
g"roup of Americans to say farewell and extend a
floral offering" to the brave commander of the ill fated
battleship Maine. Near the flowers stood the
Consul-General of the United States, who made the
speech of presentation. In response thereto the
commander spoke of the Consul-General as the per-
sonification of bravery and g"ood judgfment, and
added: "The United States has no better repre-
sentative abroad than g"allant Fitzhug"h Lee, its

REMINISCENCES. 141

Consul-General at Havana." The same man foug-ht
bravely for the South throug-h the great Civil War,
and was one of the most g"allant of her cavalry-
leaders. He is a type of the living- Confederate
Veteran.

All honor to such men, be they living" or be they
dead. The last g-eneration of the North called them
traitors and Rebels, and now seventy millions of
people, without regard to section or party, honor
the living traitors and are beginning" to do justice
to the heroic dead.

Surely "truth is omnipotent and public justice
certain?"

This leads us to enquire of the motive which, in
the g-reat War between the States, led the men of
the South to sacrifice their lives upon the altar of
their country, or, if happily they escape death, to
again be willing: to so ably and patriotically serve
the powers ag'ainst which they once had foug-ht.
That motive was patriotism, the loftiest sentiment
for which the human heart can beat, save love of
God and truth.

This is the sentiment which prompts to a love of
country, without which there can be no human hap-
piness. A man without a country to love is a man
without home and loved ones. A man without a
flag to which he can swear allegfiance as the emblem
of his country's protecting power, is a man without
safety to his life, his liberty and his property.

142 REMINISCENCES.

The love of country is an ennobling- sentiment.
It prompts to honor and to deeds of heroism and im-
perishable renown. "Happy are they who have for
the sublime and permanent basis of their g-lory the
love of country demonstrated by deeds." By this
noble sentiment the armies of Napoleon lifted the
eagfles of France to mingfle with the eagfles of the
Alps, and the French standards were made to flutter
in the shadow of the pyramids. By this sentiment
Nelson, throug-h the mere wave of a sig-nal banner,
inspired the British seamen with splendid courag-e
as they moved their battleships into line agfainst
the advancing: fleet of France and Spain. By this
sentiment Washingfton was led to take command of
the American Army at the call of the Continental
Cong-ress, when he said no pecuniary consideration
could induce him to accept such arduous labors.

The Spartans taugfht their youth that love of
countrj^ was a sentiment before which every private
and personal feeling should be constrained to bow.

When the .great statesman of Eng-land, William
Pitt, was on his death-bed, the news of the victories
of Bonaparte at Ulm and Austerlitz was whispered
to him. He lay in silence, and at last exclaimed in
feeble voice, "My country, O, my country!"
These were the last words which escaped the lips of
the dyingf patriot.

As Hampden fell before the onslaught of Prince
Rupert, in the opening- of the civil war against the

REMINISCENCES. 143

tyranny of Charles, he exclaimed: "O, God, save
my bleeding- country!"

But history furnishes no sublimer evidence of
patriotism and love of country than was exhibited
by the noble men of whom we would speak to-day.
The most execrated of all men, by his fellow-citizens
and by posterity, is he who betrays his country, and
the most honored of men is he who falls a blessed
martyr to his country's cause. It was a common
thing- for the enemies of the South to charg-e ag-ainst
Southern soldiers the infamous crime of rebellion,
and they were branded as traitors. At the close of
hostilities the President of the Confederacy was
thrown into chains and into prison, to be made a
vicarious sacrifice for the sins of his people, and it
was intended that he should be hung-. Similar steps
were taken, happily not consummated, to incarce-
rate the leader of the Confederate armies. Partak-
ing: of this bitter and reveng-eful feeling^, the histo-
rians of the North have written and printed and
have industriously circulated histories containingf
these charg-es. Their books are to-day sold in your
cities, admitted into your homes, and taug-ht in your
schools. In your own State of Georg-ia, and until
recently in this patriotic city, which has contributed
so much of blood and treasure and blessed memory
to the Southern cause, the children are being-
allowed to understand that the cause of the Con-
federacy was the cause of traitors, and that those

144 REMINISCENCES.

who fougfht for it were rebels. Can these thing's
be and we remain silent?

There are those in the South who say, "Let the
dead past bury the dead." Such are not worthy the
blood which courses throug"h their veins, and, thank
God, they are few. It should be the solemn duty of
every true son and daug^hter of the South to refute
the slander of "rebel and traitors." The cause of
the Southern States was a rig"hteous cause, and
those who foug^ht therefor and those who fell in its
defense were patriots. The people of this g"reat
section so felt when the alternative came to choose
between their native State and the Federal power.
Had they tamely and willing^ly submitted to the
assumption of power, our g^reat Republic would
to-day be a despotism compared to which Russia
would be a land of liberty. But they did not sub-
mit, and, deeming" their course a proper one, they
sealed their sincerity with the richest treasure ever
offered and the noblest holocaust ever consumed
upon the altar of country.

For what did the South fig*ht? It was not for the
institution of slavery. That was a mere incident in
the g"reat drama. Let the true answer ringf from the
lips of every Memorial orator for g'enerations to
come. Let it be burned into the pag'e of living"
history, and let the present and the future ever hold
it as a sacred truth. She foug"ht to avert encroach-
ments of usurped power, and to preserve the rights

REMINISCENCES. 145

of States and human liberty. She foug^ht for the
spirit of local self-grovernment, which is always the
life-blood of liberty. I know there are some who
tell us that we now have no States rigfhts. I will
admit that by reason of the chang*ed conditions of
the times, the methods of transportation and com-
munication, that g'eog'raphical State lines are
practically obliterated, but I assert that the rig-ht of
local self-gfovernment in and by the individual
States of this Union is not only more marked and
well defined than it was in 1860, but it is on founda-
tions as everlasting- as are the principles of which
our national and state Constitutions are formed.
The fig"ht was, therefore, not in vain. Was our
cause truly a Lost Cause? Let the answer come
even from the lips of the former enemies of the
South; an answer made to-day, after the fires of hate
have sunken to embers and the g^enerations which
forced this cruel wrong* have been called to another
world. Hear the answer from the learned and the
eloquent of the North.

A few weeks ag"o Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, presi-
dent of Brown University, a leading* institution of
learning* in a New Eng^land State, in a lecture de-
livered in the city of New Orleans upon the life and
character of the General of the Confederate armies,
uttered this lang-uag"e:

"People are prone to allude to all Lee foug-ht for

as the 'Lost Cause.' Yet, like Oliver Cromwell, Lee
n

146 REMINISCENCES.

has accomplished what he foug-ht for, and more than
could have been accomplished had he been vic-
torious. At the close of the war we find the
Supreme Court of the United States deciding* the
status of individual States, and the result is found
to be that while the Union is declared to be inde-
structible, each State is reg"arded as an indestruct-
ible unit of that nation. Who would dare to wipe
out to-day a State's individuality? And do we not
find to-day, instead of centralized power in Cong-ress
adjudicating* thing's pertainingf to the States, the
States themselves settlingf these matters?

"Inasmuch as the war broug'ht out these utter-
ances with reg"ard to the States of the Union upon
the matters then in question, who can say that
Lee foug"ht in vain?"

Had President Andrews thus spoken or written
within five years after the surrender of the Con-
federate armies at Appomattox, he would have im-
mediately been dischargfed as unfit to instruct
students of his University, and doubtless would
have been arrested and tried for sedition.

He speaks here, however, what time has forced
upon him as an acknowledg"ed truth. What the
civilized world has longf since accepted as true, and
what history will record as true. What a spectacle,
my countrymen! An instructor of New Eng"land
youth, at the head of one of the larg"est of New Engf-
land institutions of learning", preaching" to the world
that the principles for which Lee foug"ht are
essential to the welfare and existence of con-

REMINISCENCES. 147

stitutional g-overnment as established by the
fathers.

Surely, "truth is omnipotent and public justice
certain."

Let it be remembered that the spark of this g"reat
Civil War was kindled in the bosom of New Engf-
land, and from thence fanned into flame by the
political demagfogfues of the North.

But hear ag"ain what this man, the cultured and
thoug^htful New Eng-lander, says of the g"reat Con-
federate soldier who was but the type of the men
whom he led througfh the battles of Virgfinia. Says
Dr. Andrews in the same lecture, speaking: of Gen-
eral Lee:

''Great as were the achievements of this man as a
General, incomparably gfreater than his military
grenius was his grrand and almost unmatched moral
character. His unselfishness, his patience, his love
of justice, all his attributes conspired to make him
the embodiment of nobility. He held with Hamil-
ton that there was nothing: on earth gfreat but man,
and nothing- gfreater in man than mind, and, indeed,
he went further than the philosopher, holding: that
there was nothing- gfreat in mind except devotion to
trust and duty."

Thus comes the testimony and so g-rand was the
character here described, the matchless attributes
were reflected in the hearts and minds of the men
who followed him.

148 REMINISCENCES.

Young- men and women of Columbus, let me say
to you and throug-h you to all young: men and women
of our Southern country, to blot out from your
minds the base teaching's that the blood which begfot
you was false to its country. And to you few who
remain of the older g-eneration, who saw this de-
votion to duty, let me say to you to honor the dead
as an incentive to yourselves and to your children.
You, who had the honor of participating in the
history of that period, prove yourselves worthy of
that honor by teaching- such history to those who
are to come after you. Let there be reform in your
school histories. Permit no compromise of the
truth, but let the statement of the facts be manly
and fearless. Beyond what has been said, I will not
endeavor on this occasion to speak in detail of the
causes of the war between the states; nor shall I
enter into an historical discussion of the g-reat
events which led up to the struggfle: neither is it my
purpose to portray the movements of contending:
armies and an embattled field; nor shall I speak of
those terrible days in which reason was affrig-hted
from her seat and g-iddy prejudice took the rein:
when the wheels of society were set in conflagration
by their own motion: when many of our people were
tried and condemned without being- judicially heard,
and when conclusions were drawn from passion that
should have been founded in proof. Let us not draw
the veil which hides from view those terrible years

REMINISCENCES. 149

of war and desolation. Many in the sound of my
voice will remember them. Then we could have
exclaimed in the voice of the prophet of old:

"We are orphans and fatherless and our mothers are widows.

"Our necks are under persecution.

"We labor and have no rest.

"Servants have ruled over us. There Is none to deliver us out of
their hands."

We are not here to-day to recall these sad scenes,
but only to speak in honor of the dead, to point to the
truth and justice of their cause and our cause, and
to lay brigfht and tender Howers upon their g^raves.

Thirty-two years ag'o, when the noble women of
this city realized that the cause for which their
loved ones had fought and died, and for which they
had suffered, was but a "pathetic inheritance, in
which all the g"randeur and the g'lory of the dead
and the living-, who survived, was to become only a
sorrowing" memory," they established this beautiful
custom of Memorial Day, this annual tribute of
eulog"y and flowers. Eulog"y and flowers for g^reat
deeds which cannot die, but which with sun and
moon renew their youth.

The eulog-y was an inspiration from the cultivated
and patriotic Greek, for it was a law of the Athen-
ians, that he who received his death while fig'hting'
with undaunted couragfe in the front of the battle,
should have an annual oration spoken in his honor.
The bringfing- of the flowers was an inspiration
which came into the heart of a daughter of Colum-

I

150 REMINISCENCES.

bus, and was sug^gfested to her from the custom
eatablished more than a thousand years ag-o by the
head of the Roman Catholic Church, the custom of
annually decorating" with flowers the gfraves of de-
parted loved ones.

This day, with its eulog-y and its flowers, is the
monument which the daug-hters of the South have
established in remembrance of Southern valor and
patriotism; a monument which will endure so long-
as Southern womanhood is pure and Southern man-
hood is strong; a monument which tells that the
"mute tongfue of the g-ranite shaft is not left alone
to speak a tribute to their memory;" a monument
more enduring- than this g-ranite, for it is a monu-
ment of sig-hs from human hearts and flowers which
spring- from earth: sighs which link us with im-
mortality, and flowers —

"Those lights of God
That through the sod
Flash upward from the world beneath,
And tell us In each subtle hue
That life renewed Is passing through
Our world, again to seek the skies,
Its native realm of Paradise."

Sacred is the duty to which the women of the South
have consecrated their use, for they keep ever gfreen
in the hearts of all the memory of the departed.

"The people for whom they fought were crushed,
The hopes In which they trusted were shattered.
The flag they loved no more guides their charging lines.
But their fame, consigned to the keeping of that time which,
Happily is not so much the tomb of virtue as its shrine,
Shall in the years to come fire modest worth to noble ends."

REMINISCENCES. 151

And to you, Ladies of the Memorial Association,
you few survivors of that g-entle band who establish-
ed Memorial Day, not only for the South, but for all
this gfreat country (for the Northern States have
adopted the custom in imitation of the South), and
to you, daughters of these Memorial ladies, living-
and dead — daug-hters of mothers who were Trojans
in courag-e, Spartans in fortitude, and Romans in
faith and self-sacrifice — I commend the keeping- of
this custom. In this sacred duty you have a lofty
example. "It was the women of the Confederacy
whose pious ministrations to the wounded soldiers
soothed the last hours of those who died far from the
object of their tenderest love. It was the women of
the Confederacy whose domestic labors contributed
so much to supply the wants of their defenders in the
field, and whose faith in the Southern cause shone a
g-uiding- star undimmed by the darkest clouds of war
and whose fortitude sustained them under all the
privations to which they were subjected." Such is
the tribute of the first and only President of the
Confederacy. There is one of their number who now
sleeps in Linwood cemetery, in this city. Upon her
g-rave is this inscription, placed there by the ladies
of the Memorial Association of Columbus:

''The Soldiers' Friend."
"A loving: tribute to our co-worker."

"In her patriotic heart sprang- the thoug^ht of our

Memorial Day."

152 REMINISCENCES.

The leg-end tells what she was and what she did.
Who dare invade the sanctitj^ of the thoug-ht
conveyed by these words?

Ladies of the Columbus Chapter of the Georgia
Division of the Daug-hters of the Confederacy, you
have done me the honor to ask that I to-day conse-
crate your Chapter under the honorable name which
has been selected by you that it should bear. It is
the name inscribed with that leg^end. I am told
that the object of your Association is to collect
records and incidents of the Confederate War and
preserve the truth of its cause and history, perpetu-
ate the memories of the men who laid down their
lives in that strug"g"le, and lay before the rising-
g-eneration a fair, just and impartial account of
their deeds. To this patriotic undertaking-, in the
presence of this assembled company, I now dedicate
your order as "Lizzie Rutherford Chapter op
THE Daughters of the Confederacy." Guard
sacredly your trust, and under the inspiration of
that name, the origfinator of Memorial Day, preserve
the memory of the dead, for truly has it been said
that a land without memories is a land without
liberty. Let the mystic chords of memory, stretch-
ing from every battlefield and patriot g-rave to every
living- hearthstone all over our Southern land, bind
our hearts to loving- service in honor of the sainted
dead.

REMINISCENCES. 153

'Let not their glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps."

The following- is an extract from the Columbus
Enquirer-Sun of May 1, 1898, and g-ives an explana-
tion of the personal references made in the Memo-
rial Address of April 26, 1898:

Touching Reference to Two Gallant

Soldiers.

Columbus Young Men are Referred to by Mr.
GoETCHius — One was Lieut. James H. Ware,
OF the Columbus Guards, and the other
William E. Goetchius, of the City Light
Guards.

In his beautiful address on Memorial Day, Mr.
Henry R. Goetchius made reference in a very touch-
ing manner to the death of two youngf soldiers from
Columbus, while bravely charg-ing- the enemy — one
a member of the Columbus Guards and the other of
the City Lig-ht Guards. The Enquirer-San under-
stands that the member of the Columbus Guards
referred to was James H. Ware, while the 3^oung-
soldier from the City Lig-ht Guards was William
Edward Goetchius, a brother to Mr. Henry R.
Goetchius. The following- appeared in the Colum-
bus Times. June 28th:

154 REMINISCENCES.

( (f

The Sun, of yesterday, publishes the followingf
dispatch:

"Richmond, Va., June 27, 1862.— Z)r. R. A. Ware:

Your son James was killed last evening" in gfallantly

charging" the enemy's works. His body will be

recovered, if possible. His last words to his

Colonel were: 'Tell my mother I have fallen in the

discharg-e of my duty, and die happy.' Dr. Ellison

writes particulars to-day.

RoswELL Ellis."

Captain Roswell Ellis was in command of the
Columbus Guards, and was afterwards married to
Miss Lizzie Rutherford, who orig"inated Memorial
Day.

Adjutant Ware was slain near Richmond, Va. In
commenting" on the dispatch quoted above, the Times
says:

"Adjutant Ware was connected with the Thirty -
fifth Regiment, Georgia Volunteers. Mr. Ware was
a native of our city, and was greatly beloved by all
who knew him. In his death our community and
the army have lost a young" man of g"reat promise."

The young soldier in the City Light Guards,
William Edward Goetchius, of this city, left Ogle-
thorpe University, at Milledg-eville, Ga., to enter
the army as soon as the war opened, being" 18 years
of age. He served through the war until the date of
his death, and without a furlough, fighting in all the
heavy battles in Virginia and at Gettysburgf. At
this last battle he saw his oldest brother, John, left

REMINISCENCES. 155

on the field mortally wounded. He was instantly-
killed in a charg-e at Petersburg", June 22, 1864.
Mr. G.J. Peacock, of this city, who was a lieutenant
in the City Light Guards, saw him fall. His body
was buried in the trenches, and his remains were
never recovered. Mr. Peacock, in speaking of him,
says: "He combined the g^entleness of a woman with
the courag-e of a dauntless cavalier."

The first Memorial Address ever delivered in the
United States in honor of soldiers who fought in the
Civil War, was delivered in Columbus, Ga., on
April 26, 1866, by Hon. J. N. Ramsey, now deceased.
He was a prominent lawyer of the city, an eloquent
speaker, and had been a veteran of the war, with
the rank of Colonel. The address was delivered in
St. Luke Methodist Church, a historic building-,
which has recently been removed to give place to a
modern structure.

The Columbus Enquirer- San, on April 24, 1898,
published the following" list of orators of Memorial
Day:

Memorial Orators.

Names of Those Who Have Delivered

Addresses.

The first Memorial address delivered in Columbus
was by Col. J. N. Ramsey, in 1866, in St. Luke
M. E. Church.

156 REMINISCENCES.

The second address, the following- year, was by
Dr. E. F. Colze^' , and was delivered at Temperance
Hall. In 1868 and 1869, respectively, Maj. R. J.
Moses and Judg-e J. P. Pou delivered the address at
the old Cenotaph at the cemetery. This was a
building- constructed of wood, with a dome-like roof,
supported by six slender pillars, which rested on
hexagfonal posts, some five feet hig-h. The structure
was about thirty feet in heig-ht and painted white,
with an arched roof, on which was inscribed the
names of the officers and privates killed in the war.
On the dome, on a small gfilt circle, was the inscrip-
tion of "General Semmes." In 1870 Hon. Thomas
W. Grimes delivered the address at Temperance
Hall. After that date the addresses were delivered
at Spring-er Opera House. A complete list of the
Memorial orators since the inaugnration of the cus-
tom is as follows:

MEMORIAL ORATORS.

1866 Col. J. N. Ramsey.

1867 Dr. E. P. Colzey.

1868 Maj. R. J. Moses.

1869 • Judg-e Joseph F. Pou.

1870 T. W. Grimes.

1871 C. H. Williams.

1872 Judg-e Wm. A. Little.

1873 Capt. J.J. Slade.

1874 Ex-Mayor Sam Cleg-horn.

REMINISCENCES. 157

1875 Thomas H. Hardeman.

1876 Henry W. Hilliard.

1877 Capt. J. R. McCleskey.

1878 William H. Chambers.

1879 Gov. Alfred H.Colquitt.

1880 Lionel C. Levy.

1881 Capt. Reese Crawford.

1882 Rev. S. P. Calloway.

1883 G. E. Thomas, Jr.

1884 Maj. R. J. Moses.

1885 Henry R. Goetchius.

1886 T. J. Chappell.

1887 Charlton E. Battle.

1888 Capt. S. P. Gilbert.

1889 J. Harris Chappell.

1890 Hon. Fulton Colville.

1891 Capt. W. E. Wooten.

1892 . Capt. John D. Little.

1893 Hunt Chipley.

1894 Judg"e John Ross.

1895 Hon. Lionel C. Levy.

1896 Rev. W. A. Carter.

1897 Robert Howard.

1898 Henry R. Goetchius.

The Atlanta Constitution^ of April 27, 1898, g^ives
the following" account of the celebration of Memorial
Day in Columbus:

158 reminiscences.

Columbus Celebrates

The Origin of Decoration Day and Crowns
THE Memory of Mrs. Ellis. — Mrs. Williams'
Advocacy of Memorial Recorded.

Columbus, Ga., April 26. — (Special) — The celebra-
tion of Memorial Day in this city, where the idea
orig-inated, was notable in many respects.

To beg"in with, the celebration itself was as im-
posing- as any ever held in the histor^^ of the city,
and the ladies of the Memorial Association took
advantage of the occasion to settle authoritatively
the question as to whom belonged the credit of
inaugurating this beautiful custom.

THE ladies memorial ASSOCIATION.

In 1861, at the beginning of the war, there was
organized in Columbus the Soldiers' Aid Society.
At the close of the war this was merged into the
Ladies' Memorial Association, which organization
has existed ever since. The idea of decorating- the
gfraves of the soldiers originated with a Columbus
ladj^ Miss Lizzie Rutherford, afterwards Mrs. Liz-
zie Rutherford Ellis, the wife of Captain Roswell
Ellis, of the Columbus Guards. Mrs. Charles J.
Williams was another lady who took a very active
part in the organization of the Association, and it
was largely through her eiiorts that the idea gained
the publicity and popularity that it attained, and
for li time the name of Mrs. Ellis was overlooked.

REMINISCENCES. 159

In 1866, at the end of the war, there was a meet-
ing" of a small number of ladies, who formed the
Ladies' Memorial Association. Of the ladies who
attended that meeting" there are only two living.
They are Mrs. Clara M. Dexter and Mrs. William G.
Woolfolk. Shortly after the org"anization of the
Columbus Association the idea g'ained wide popular-
ity throug"hout the Soutli, and similar organizations
were perfected in numerous cities and towns, until
now every place has an org"anized body of noble
women whose duty and whose pleasure it is to see
that the memory of the South 's dead heroes is hon-
ored in a fitting" way by elaborate and interesting"
exercises on the 26th day of everj^ April.

AN INTERESTING OCCASION.

The celebration possessed unusual interest, Mr.
Henry R. Goetchius was orator of the diiy, and his
tribute to the Confederate dead was most eloquent.
The following was the programme carried out:

Music — "Funeral March," Chopin — Prof. J. Lewis

Browne .

Prayer — Rev. W. A. Carter, D. D.

Music— "Who Will Care for Mother Now?"
Octette.

Introduction of Speaker — By Mr. Robert Howard.

Memorial Address — Hon. Henry R. Goetchius.

Music — "The Vacant Chair."

History of Memorial Day — Presented to the Lizzie
Rutherford Chapter, Daughters of the Confederacy,
read by Mr. Frank Garrard.

160 REMINISCENCES.

Music — "The Conquered Banner." — Miss Mary
Kivlin.

Recitation — "Our Confederate Dead" — Miss Mag"-
g"ie Martin Harrison.

Music — "Let Us Pass Over the River," Stonewall
Jackson's last words — Chorus.
Piano — Miss Mary Kivlin.
Cornets — Clarence Gray and Mr. Berry.
Violin — Mr. Dreyspool.
Benediction — Rev. A. M. Wynn.

THE MILITARY FEATURE.

The Columbus Guards, the Browne Fencibles and
the Phenix City Rifles, the local military org-aniza-
tions, were out in full force. The two Albany
companies, Companies E and G of the Guards, were
present as gfuests of the Columbus military by
special invitation, and participated in the exercises,
thus making the military feature an imposing- one.
The Albany boys arrived in the city this morning",
and were met at the depot by the Guards and Fenc-
ibles, who escorted them to their armory. The
Columbus military is very appreciative of the hospi-
tality exhibited on the occasion of their recent
trip to Albany.

The line of march was as follows:

First, mounted policemen.

Fourth Regiment Band.

Five militar3^ companies: Columbus Guards,
Browne Fencibles, Companies E and G of the Al-
bany Guards, and the Phenix City Rifles.

REMINISCENCES. 161

The companies were formed in battalion, accord-
ing- to the rank of the officers.

Phenix City Brass Band.

The True Blues, small boys.

The Confederate Veterans of Camp Benning-.

Sons of Confederate Veterans, mounted.

Fire Department.

Orator of the day, in carriag^e.

Ladies' Memorial Association, in carriag^es.

Daug-hters of the Confederacy.

Citizens, in carriag"es.

At the cemetery the usual salutes were fired over
the graves of the soldiers. As usual, the g-raves
were beautifully decorated.

THE MEMORY OF MRS. ELLIS.

The notable feature of the day was the history of
the Association, prepared officially, wherein the full
credit is awarded Mrs. Ellis of havingf orig^inated
the idea of a floral remembrance, and to Mrs. Wil-
liams of having- taken it up and carried it to suc-
cess.

(Then followed a cop3^ of the history as heretofore
set out in these pag-es, embracing- the affidavits,
letter of Mrs. Williams, etc., etc. After reference
to the oration, the report concluded with the follow-
ing- list of ladies, w^hose portraits accompanied the
report:)

12

168 REMINISCENCES.

. . THE HONOR ROLL.

Mrs. Absalom H. (Loretta R. Lamar) Chappell
was first President of the Soldiers' Aid Society of
Columbus.

Mrs. Robert (Evelyn Pag"e Nelson) Carter was the
the second and only succeeding- President of the
Soldiers' Aid Society, and the first President of the
Memorial Association of Columbus. She was elect-
ed in 1866 and remained in office until the date of
her death, in January 1896.

Mrs. Louis P. (Annie Leonard) Garrard is now
President of the Memorial Association of Columbus,
having" succeeded Mrs. Carter.

Mrs. William G. (Maria Byrd Nelson) Woolfolk
and Mrs. Charles E. (Clara M. Hodges) Dexter are
the only surviving" ladies of the number which met
in 1866 to org"anize the Memorial Association.

Miss Anna C. Benningf is President of the Lizzie
Rutherford Chapter of the Daug"hters of the Con-
federacy at Columbus.

Mrs. Lizzie Rutherford Ellis is the lady in whose
patriotic heart orig"inated the idea of Memorial Day
and the orig"inator of the custom.

Mrs. Charles J. (Mary Ann Howard) Williams is
the Secretary of the Memorial Association whose
g"ifted pen wrote the letter which obtained from the
ladies of the South co-operation with the ladies of
Columbus in establishing Memorial Day.

REMINISCENCES. 163

Mrs. Peter (Jane E. Ware) Martin has been Sec-
retary of the Ladies' Memorial Association of
Columbus for the past 30 years.

THE TEXT OF MRS. WILLIAMS' LETTER.

The following^ is a copy of the original letter of
Mrs. Charles J. Williams, as Secretary of Columbus
Memorial Association, to the press and ladies of the
South reg-arding- Memorial Day, taken from the
Columbus (Ga.) Times:

"Columbus, Ga., March 12, ISQQ.— Messrs. Editors:
The ladies are now and have been for several days en-
g-ag-ed in the sad but pleasant duty of ornamenting: and
improving- that portion of the city cemetery sacred to
the memory of our g-allant Confederate dead, but we
feel it is an unfinished work unless a day be set
apart annually for its special attention. We cannot
raise monumental shafts and inscribe thereon their
many deeds of heroism, but we can keep alive the
memory of the debt we owe them by dedicating- at
least one day in each year, to embellishing: their
humble g-raves with flowers. Therefore, we beg- the
assistance of the press and the ladies throug-hout
the South to aid us in the effort to set apart a cer-
tain day to be observed from the Potomac to the
Rio Grande, and be handed down throug-h time as a
religious custom of the South, to wreathe the g-raves
of our martyred dead with flowers; and we propose the
26th day of April as the day. Let every city, town

164 REMINISCENCES.

and villagfe join in the pleasant duty. Let all alike
be remembered, from the heroes of Manassas to those
who expired amid the death throes of our hallowed
cause. We'll crown alike the honored resting-
places of the immortal Jackson in Virginia, Johns-
ton at Shiloh, Cleburne in Tennessee and the host of
gallant privates who adorned our ranks. All did
their duty, and to all we owe our g-ratitude. Let
the soldiers' g^raves, for that day at least, be the
Southern Mecca to whose shrine her sorrowing-
women, like pilg-rims, may annually bring- their
grateful hearts and floral offerings. And when we
remember the thousands who were buried 'with
their martial cloaks around them,' without Chris-
tian ceremony of interment, we would invoke the
aid of the most thrilling eloquence throughout the
land to inaugurate this custom by delivering, on the
appointed day this year, a eulogy on the unburied
dead of our glorious Southern army. They died for
their country. Whether their country had or had
not the right to demand the sacrifice, is no longer a
question of discussion. We leave that for nations
to decide in future. That it was demaneded — that
they fought nobly, and fell holy sacrifices upon their
country's altar, and are entitled to their country's
gratitude, none will deny.

"The proud banner under which they rallied in
defense of the holiest and noblest cause for which
heroes fought, or trusting women prayed, has been

REMINISCENCES. 165

furled forever. The country for which they suffered
and died has now no name or place among" the
nations of the earth. Legislative enactment may
not be made to do honor to their memories, but the
veriest radical that ever traced his g-enealog"y back
to the deck of the Mayflower, could not refuse us
the simple privilege of paying- honor to those who
died defending- the life, honor and happiness of the
Southern women."

Ladies' Memorial Association,
Columbus, Georgia.

PRESENT OFFICERS:
President, Mrs. Louis F. Garrard.

Vice-Presidents:

Mrs. W. G. Woolfolk,

Mrs. Reese Crawford,

Miss Anna Caroline Benning,

Mrs. O. S. Jordan,

Mrs. A. Dozier,

Treasurer, Mrs. Clara M. Dexter.

Secretary, Mrs. J. E. Martin.

Assistant Secretaries:
Mrs. Joseph S. Harrison,
Mrs. J. Norman Pease,

166 REMINISCENCES.

[This Is not a complete list. An earnest eflFort bas been made to
obtain the names of all the members, but this effort has not been
successful. The list Is arranged without reference to age or time.
Many have married and It was not possible In some Instances to as-
certain their present names. Some also are dead, but It was thought
best that all names obtainable should be here recorded.]

Adams, Miss Fannie,

Allen, Mrs. A. M.— Sallie Bellingfer,

Backus, Miss Annie J.,

Bailey, Miss Belle,

Bailey, Miss E. H.,

Banks, Miss Sue,

Bennett, Miss Anna,

Benning-, Mrs. Henry L. — Mary Howard Jones,

Benning', Miss Anna Caroline,

Benning-, Miss Mary Howard,

Blanchard, Mrs. McDuffie — Sarah J. W.,

Blanchard, Mrs. W. A. — Henrietta Seabrook,

Bradford, Miss Mary,

Brannon, Mrs. A. M. — Julia A. Fuller,

Brooks, Miss Josephine,

Browne, Mrs. J. Rhodes, Jr. — Nina Youngf,

Bruce, Mrs. Henry — (Deedee Patten),

Bruce, Miss Mary Louisa,

Bruce, Mrs. Wm. — Mary Louisa Jones,

Bullard, Mrs. W. L. — Mary Blackmar,

Burrus, Mrs. Lawrence M.,

Bussey, Mrs. Henry — Elizabeth Lucas,

Byingfton, Mrs. E. T.— Elia Goode,

Bynum, Mrs. Emma Tyler,

REMINISCENCES. 167

Camp, Mrs. L. A. — Annie Camp,
Cameron, Miss Emma,
Carter, Mrs. John D. — Zoonomia Hoxey,
Carter, Mrs. Robt. — Evelyn Pagfe Nelson,
Carter, Mrs. Robt. E.— Belle Powers,
Carter, Mrs. W. A. — Ag-nes Quigfley,

Chapman, Mrs. Breid. — Elizabeth

Chappell, Mrs. L. H. — Cynthia Kent Hart,
Clegfhorn, Miss Sallie,

Cody, Mrs. A. A. — Mary Roberta Williams,
Comer, Mrs. Laura Beecher,
Cook, Miss Mary Elvira,
Copeland, Mrs. — Mag-gfie Cook,
Chancellor, Mrs. A. C. — Carrie Wynne,
Carson, Mrs. Robt. — Ida Brannon,
Cowdery, Miss Eveline,
Cowdery, Miss Mattie,
Curtis, Mrs. N. N. — Patty Welborne,
Curtwrig-ht, Mrs. — Lizzie Murkenfuss,
Crawford, Mrs. Bennett — May Lowe,
Crawford, Mrs. Reese — Augnsta Jane Benning",
Dexter, Mrs. Chas. E. — Clara M. Hodg-es,
Dillingfham, Mrs. Geo. — Anna Hall,
Dismukes, Mrs. E. P. — Annie E. Porman,
Downing", Mrs. L. T. — Lucy Urquhart,
Dozier, Mrs. A. A. — Susie Moreland,
Dozier, Mrs. Albert — Mary Cook,
Ellis, Mrs. Roswell — Lizzie Rutherford,
Evans, Miss Eula,

168 REMINISCENCES.

Evans, Mrs. F. H.— Dillie Waddell,
Estes, Mrs. Marion — Mag"g"ie Kirven,
Parish, Mrs. Robert — Helen Slade,
Fogfle, Mrs. Wm. — Sallie Rutherford,
Fontaine, Mrs. Wm. — Laura Ynestrai,
Forsyth, Miss Anna,

Flewellen, Mrs. Abner C. — Sarah Porter Shep-
herd,

Gardiner, Miss Anna Byrd,
Gardiner, Miss Mollie,
Garrard, Miss Annie Leonard,
Garrard, Miss Helen Gertrude,
Garrard, Mrs. L. F. — Annie F. Leonard,

Garrett, Mrs. Joseph, Heard,

Gilbert, Mrs. S. P. —Mary Howard,

Goetchius, Mrs. H. R. — Mary Russell,

Goetchius, Mrs. R. R. — Mary Bennett,

Gordon, Mrs. Hug-h— Carrie Williams,

Gray, Mrs. M. E.— Alice Tyler,

Greene, Mrs. R. H.,

Griffin, Miss Anna Helena,

Hanserd, Mrs. Jos. — Mary Bethune,

Hanserd, Miss Mary L.,

Harrison, Mrs. J. S. — Sallie Martin,

Harden, Mrs. — Mary Tyler,

Hardeman, Mrs. Frank — Anne McDoug-ald,

Harrison, Mrs. W. P. — Mary F. Hodgfes,

Hatcher, Mrs. S. B. — Susie Madden,

Hill, Mrs. Joe Hill— Mary Helen Downing-,

REMINISCENCES. 169

Hines, Mrs. Thos.— Clothide DeLaunay,

Hirsch, Mrs. Herman, —Annie

Hodg-es, Mrs. M. E.— Elizabeth Smith,

Hopkins, Mrs. L. O.,

Howard, Miss Lila,

Howard, Mrs. Ralph O.— Willie Watt,

Howard, Miss Mary Jones,

Howard, Mrs. T. B., Jr.— Nettie Williams,

Howard, Mrs. Wm.— Fannie Anderson,

Hull, Mrs. H. L.— Sarah Jones Benning-,

Hudson, Mrs. David— Juliette M. Hall,

Hudson, Mrs. Benj.— Ellen Charlton,

Hurt, Mrs. Chas. D.,

Hurt, Mrs. Fannie,

Iverson, Miss Leona Hamilton,

Jenkins, Mrs. Felix— Ella Crawford,

Johnson, Mrs. Milton— Mary B. Jones,

Jones, Miss A. Katharine,

Jones, Mrs. Clifton — Annie Johnson,

Jones, Mrs. John A. — Mary Louisa Leonard,

Jones, Mrs. Mary Eliza Rutherford,

Jones, Mrs. Seaborn — Mary Howard,

Jordan, Mrs. O. S.— Bettie Blake Dexter,

Jordan, Miss Maud,

Kincaid, Miss Mary,

King, Miss Mattie,

Leitner, Mrs. John,

Levy, Miss Edna,

Levy, Miss Francis Marion,

170 REMINISCENCES.

Levy, Mrs. Lionel C. — Isabel Moses,

Lewis, Miss Alabama,

Lewis, Miss Annie Belle,

Lewis, Miss Leila,

Lewis, Miss Mary,

Lewis, Mrs. M. N.,

Little, Mrs. W. A. — Jennie Dozier,

MacAllister, Mrs. J. M.,

MacDoug-ald, Mrs. Emily Fitton,

Mathews, Mrs. John — Mary

Mitchell, Mrs. F.— Katherine T. Downing-,

Mott, Mrs. R. — Annie Battle,

Murdoch, Mrs. R. B. — Lydia Spencer,

Neill, Mrs. Geo. — Alabama Lindsay,

Osburn, Mrs. C. T. — Cornelia Bacon,

Paramore, Mrs. John,

Patten, Mrs. Richard — Martha Anna Hodgfes,

Patterson, Miss Mildred Lewis,

Pearce, Mrs. J. H.,

Pease, Mrs. J. Norman — Anna Vivian Jones,

Poe, Mrs. O. Mag^ruder,

Pond, Miss Callie,

Pope, Mrs. Wm, — Lizzie Patten,

Pou, Mrs. Joseph — Antoinette Dozier,

Redd, Mrs. C. A. — Eug-enia Weems,

Redd, Mrs. N. L. — Rebecca Ferg-erson,

Sarling, Mrs. Solomon,

Shepherd, Mrs Anne,

Smith, Mrs. Milton J. — Florida Welborne,

REMINISCENCES. 171

Spencer, Mrs. R. P.— Ida T. Speed,

Spencer, Mrs. Samuel— Louisa V. Benningf,

Stewart, Miss Catty,

Stewart, Mrs. J. M.,

Strupper, Mrs. I. G.-Mary Everett,

Ticknor, Mrs. Doug-las -Sarah D. Ticknor,

Ticknor, Mrs. P. O.— Rosa Nelson,

Ticknor, Mrs. Geo.— Nora Stewart,

Tig-ner, Mrs. W.F.,

Tig-ner, Mrs. G. Y.— Johnnie Lindsay,

Thomas, Miss Estelle,

Thomas, Mrs. G. E.,

Thomas, Miss Mary J.,

Torrence, Miss Harriet,

Torrence, Miss Matilda,

Tyler, Miss Anna,

Tyler, Mrs. John,

Tyler, Miss Rosa,

Waddell, Miss Bessie F.,

Waddell, Miss Sallie N.,

Ware, Mrs. R. A.— Margaret Ellison,

Warner, Mrs. Chas.— Susie Swift,

Watson, Mrs. H. L.— Annie Patten,

Weems, Miss Lottie,

Wells, Mrs. M. E. Birdsong-,

Williams, Mrs. Chas. J.— Mary Ann Howard,

Williams, Mrs. (Dr.) Chas. Beall,

Worrell, Miss Kate,

Worrell, Mrs. James— Emma Big:gers,

172 REMINISCENCES.

Worrell, Miss Josephine,
Woodruff, Mrs. Clias.— Mary Lou Mott,
Woodruff, Mrs. Geo. W. — Virgfinia Lindsay,
Woodruff, Mrs. Henr}^ — May Patten,
Woolfolk, Mrs. Wm. G. — Maria Byrd Nelson,
Wrig"ht, Mrs. — Mary Bridges Murdoch,
Yongfe, Mrs. Ed. — Lucy Banks,

CHAPTER XI.

SEVERAL years ag-o my brother Richard heard
that an ang-ry mob just outside of the city
limits on the Talbotton Road was about to lynch a
man charg-ed with a nameless crime. He hurried
out as fast as his horse could run. On reaching- the
scene he found a large crowd of highly excited men
with a halter around the neck of the man. I fol-
lowed Richard within a few minutes and found him
addressing the excited crowd, pleading- for time to
in ves tig-ate the charge. I asked the man his name.
He replied, "Bob Sykes, from Mississippi." He
was a class-mate of mine at Marietta, Ga., in 1853,
and I had never seen or heard of him from that time
until I met him under the terrible, heart-rending- cir-
cumstances. About this time dear old Bob Led-
singer, deputy sheriff, appeared, took charg-e of him
and carried him to jail. The next morning- he was
bound over by a magistrate under a bond of $1,000
for his appearance before the next grand jur5^ We
made the bond for him. When the g-rand jury met,
like a true man he appeared. The jury failed to in-
dict. He immediately^ found Dick and myself,
expressing his gratitude with all the feeling- and
words his tongue could express. If Bob Sykes is
alive to-day, he owes that life to the true heart and

174 REMINISCENCES.

fearless tong-ue of Dick Howard. Two minutes later
on the part of Dick, and innocent Bob Sykes would
have been a victim of mob law.

At the Memphis Reunion of the U. C. V., 1901, I
met Hilary Herbert (Secretary of the Navy during-
Cleveland's second administration). We were warm
friends during- our early manhood. Taking- his hand
I said: "I'll bet you $100 you can't tell who I am."
After thoroug-hly scanning- my face for some time,
he said: "From your face, I can't say who you are,
but your voice tells me you are Bob Howard."
Forty- two years had elapsed since we last met.
There was an exhibition at this reunion — the
sabre with which the world's wizard of the saddle,
N. B. Forrest, in personal combat killed thirty-one
Yankee soldiers. Sixteen horses were killed under
him in battle. He was severely wounded several
times. Truly he bore a charmed life. On a mag"-
nificent equestrian statue in Memphis is inscribed:

"His footprints die not on Fame's crimsoned sod,
But will ring tbrovigh lier song and her story;
He fought like a Titan and struck like a god,
His dust Is our ashes of glory."

After Memphis was occupied by the Yankees, his
mother, who was living- there, was refused bj^ the
provost g-uard a pass to g-o beyond the city limits,
and she said to the g-uard: "Bedford will make you
pay for this." A very short time after this, one
nig-ht about dark, Forrest with a few dare-devils

REMINISCENCES. 175

dashed into the rotunda of the Gayaso Hotel on
their horses and captured the commandant of the
post and several of his staff. This dear old mother
knew her son "as well as the g-al knows her
daddy."

CHAPTER XII.

From Columbus, Ga., Enqiiirer-Sun, April 26. 1903.

"Uncle Bob" Howard Made Speech of His
Life on Memorial Day.

Plain Pacts, in Plain English, in His Me-
morial Day Oration before Talbot
County People.

Col. Howard Told Them What He Thought

And Did Not Mince Matters in the Slight-
est. His Oration in Full. He Was
Given an Ovation.

•yALBOTTON, GA., April 25.— (Special.)— The
^ Memorial Day observance here was one of the
most notable in years.

Many eloquent Memorial addresses have been
delivered in Talbotton, but none more beautiful than
that of Colonel Robert M. Howard, of Columbus, to-
day.

A splendid progframme of exercises had been ar-
rang-ed by the Ladies' Memorial Association, and
was carried out in perfect manner.

REMINISCENCES. 177

The exercises were very lar^^ely attended, and the
Columbus orator was g-iven an ovation, his speech
bein^'- received with the greatest enthusiasm. In
popuhir parlance, it was the "warmest" address de-
livered here in many a day.

Colonel Howard was introduced very happily by
Captain J.J. Bull.

Colonel Howard's address follows:

Ladies of the Memorial Association, Ladies,
Comrades and Gentlemen: Words can but feebly
express the pride and pleasure with which I receive
the cordial g-reetingr of this magrnificent audience. I
accept it not as personal to myself, but as a tribute
at the shrine of sweet love to the memory of a cause
we" held nearer and dearer than life itself— a cause
for which we freely sacrificed all, save honor, true
manhood and noble womanhood. To you, dear
ladies of the Memorial Association, I tender my true
appreciation of the high honor you have conferred
upon me on this occasion and I trust you may have
no cause of reg-ret in your selection.

I shall speak to you of a cause which, though lost,
was, is and will be forever as righteous as any for
which freedom e'er unsheathed her sword; of arms,
whose brilliant achievements are the wonder and
admiration of the world; of men— the Confederate
dead and their surviving comrades — whose deeds of
valor, whose love of country, whose devotion to
duty, whose tireless endurance and whose dauntless

18

178 REMINISCENCES.

courage find no parallel on the pag'es of history,
either ancient or modern; and last, but by no means
least, of the fairest, purest, noblest tj^^pe of true
womanhood that ever g"raced and adorned God's per-
fect creation — Dixie's peerless daug^hters —"chaste
as morning dew, spring* has not flower more beauti-
ful; winter no snow-wreath more pure." It requires
no X-ray to locate and diagnose my case on this or
any other occasion. Go, see what I have seen; feel
what I have felt; suffer what I have suffered; go learn
what I know, of the injustice, outrages and perse-
cutions that have been forced upon us of the South
by the United States Government since the firing of
the first gun in the Civil War, to this very day, and
you will not wonder at the earnestness and depth of
feeling with which I shall address you. I shall
''nothing extenuate or set down aught in malice,"
but will "hew to the line, let the chips fall where
they may." I shall call a spade a spade because it
is a spade, and will not mince words in matters per-
taining to absolute, incontrovertible facts. And now
what means this sea of upturned faces; Age, with
his wrinkles, burdens and cares; Youth in her beauty,
joys and smiles? The answer is in your silent city
of the dead, w^here sleep the true, the brave.

"On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread
And glory guards with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead."

REMINISCENCES. 179

As woman was the last at the Cross of the blessed
Saviour of man and the tirst at his tomb, so was
woman a sweet guardian an^el during- the bloody
crucifixion of the South upon the altar of blind
fanaticism and sectional hate and was first at the
tomb of the Confederac3^ when the inspiration of
her pure love and chang"eless devotion g-ave birth to
the hallowed day which we now relig^iously observe
and reverently celebrate.

"As the sunflower turns on her god
when he sets
The same look which she gave
when he rose."

So to-da3' from the placid waters of the beautiful
Potomac to the turbid tides of the rag'ing' Rio Grande,
from the dew-kissed blue gfrass of Kentucky to the
frag"rant orang^e blooms of Florida, we turn to that
grand old flag", around wiiich lingfer so many sad,
sweet, tender memories, with the same deathless
love with which we hailed its g"lorious birth, when
we unfurled it to the propitious breezes of heaven
and followed its spotless folds throug^h its stormy,
bloody life in defense of constitutional liberty and
the rigfht of self-gfovernment. As long- as the lusty
eagle shall wing- his lofty flight to snow-capped
peaks; as long as the breeze shall bear the billow's
foam; as long as true manhood and noble woman-
hood shall inspire pure patriotism, so long will
Dixie's brave sons and Dixie's fair daughters meet

180 REMINISCENCES.

on this our annual Memorial Day, and with earth's
fairest, sweetest flowers pay their tribute of sweet
love to the memorj^ of our Confederate heroes— the
gfrandest army of martj^rs the world has ever pro-
duced; they went down to g^lorious death amid the
wreck and carnagfe of battle in the heroic dischargfe
of rigfhteous duty. "They sleep their last sleep,
they have fougfht their last battle; no sound can
awake them to g"lory ag"ain."

But we gflorify ourselves by remaining^ true to
their memory and changfeless in our loyalty to the
cause for which they freely gfave their hearts' last,
best and reddest blood. Caesar had his leg"ions;
Leonidas his Spartans; Washing"ton his Yorktown;
Bonaparte his Imperial Guard; Wellingfton his
Waterloo; Balaklava its Ligfht Brigade; Grant liis
three millions from the civilized world, with Africa
thrown in as a sweet-smelling" savor for g-ood meas-
ure, to be hurled agfainst Southern breastworks by
its white allies in the rear to shield their cowardly
carcasses; but the deeds of all these sink into utter
insigfnificance when compared to the manhood,
valor and couragfe of the boj^s who wore the gray,
and who for four years foug-ht the world until they
actually wore themselves out to a perfect frazzle by
fighting" and whipping the Federal armies. 'Tis said
that Alexander the Great conquered the world and
wept because there were no more worlds to conquer.
Could we have had man for man during the contest,

REMINISCENCES. 181

when the war ended we w^ould have been crying" be-
cause there was no more blue to shoot at save the
blue dome above. The United States pension roll
proclaims the fact that every soldier we had en-
rolled duringf the war killed, crippled, wounded or
scared to death a Yankee and a half, and we are to-
da3'' charg-ed by the United States with two billions,
eig^ht hundred millions of dollars for pensions paid
from the Treasury since the war ended. 'Tis true
that the Civil War — that is, the conflict of arms
closed thirty-eight years ago — that the deiid past
has in a measure buried its dead, but the harrowing-
memories of the unholy and damnable crusade wag^ed
ag"ainst us by a relentless foe, the crimes and out-
rages inflicted upon us during- the war and many
fold increased since still live and I would not stultify
myself by asking- this audience to suffer these recol-
lections to find an everlasting- burial in Lethe's
dark waters with the lapse of thirty-eig-ht years; on
the contrary, I would burn, as it were, with a seeth-
ing- red-hot iron on the tablet of your memory, these
recollections so deeply that time could never efface
them .

Were the climate and soil of New Eng-land
adapted to the cultivation of cane and cotton and to
the population of the nigfg-er race as it is in the
South, Boston to-da^^ \vould have been calling- the
roll of her slaves from Bunker Hill monument and
would have been headquarters for the slave trade of

182 REMINISCENCES.

North America, and whoever says to the contrary
should be bored for the simples.

Lincoln was the one and the only one who could
have prevented the firingf of a gun in the Civil War.
There can be no effect without a cause. The first gun
tired in the war was the effect and echoes of the
midnigfht gnins of John Brown and his murderous
freebooters at Harper's Ferry, Va., in 1859, when
peaceful citizens were aroused from their slumbers
and murdered without cause or provocation; Brown
proclaiming" that it was the beginning of a general
servile insurrection throughout the entire •South for
indiscriminate slaughter of its people regardless of
age or sex.

When Lincoln ordered General McDow^ell to cross
the Potomac River with 55,000 Federal soldiers to
shoot down Southern men who were defending" their
homes, violators of no law known to the Constitu-
tion, g"uilty of no crime, he was as much a violator
of law and as redhanded a murderer as was John
Brown. Applying" the rule of true analysis, wherein
did one differ from the other? Tell me not with fine
spun theories and false sentimental sophistry, what
Lincoln would have done for the South had he have
lived. I tell you what he had already done and that
nothing he could have done would have atoned for
and made right the ruthless slaughter of enough
Southern men, whose skeletons placed one upon the
other would have made a monument of human bones

REMINISCENCES. 183

whose capstone would have been more than 250
miles above its base, and there like Banquo's g"host
it will stand and will not down and if the Bible be
true, and who can doubt it, I believe in the final
judg'ment a just God will say to Lincoln and his
wicked abettors and instigfators : " Depart from me,
you accursed workers of iniquity; I know you not."
And in this I do not include the officers and rank
and tile of the Federal army.

This is the white man's gfovernment; no nig^gfer to
its sway; our white flag", the sceptre, all who meet
shall obey. O! my countrymen, let us have a gfov-
ernment, the laws of which shall be made and ad-
ministered exclusively^ by white men, and if per-
chance, by political corruption and the loss of
manhood, it should ever become otherwise, then
may God, in His mercy, have Heaven's Archang"el
with trumpet tong"ue sound the end of time. There
will never be real peace, harmony and security in
this g'overnment until the nig-ger is forever elimi-
nated as a political factor, both as voter and office-
holder. It is the paramount question that confronts
us. Upon the wise and proper solution of it depends,
the welfare of the entire people of both races, the
stability and perpetuity of the government. A nig*-
ger should hold no office in this g'overnment, except
chief engineer of a mule or director g^eneral of a steer,
and he had better steer clear of his psalm-sing'ing'
hypocritical friends in greneral of the North and the

184 REMINISCENCES.

State of Illinois in particular, the home of his patron
saint, Lincoln, where they mob and lynch niggers for
seeking" to make an honest living. ''Woe unto you,
Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; you strain at a
gnat" and swallow a nigger without a grunt. And
why? Not that you love the nigger less, but that
you hate the Southern people more and thus revel
in the enjoyment of your sweet odoriferous morsel
in venting your vindictive hatred and ceaseless per-
secution upon us. Whenever you hear a man either
North or South say there is perfect peace, harmony
and brotherly love between the two sections of this
government, he either speaks from policy, or is a
consummate fool, or a monumental liar, or else has
more pure, undefiled religion than I can ever attain
to. And now hear me, when I say without any
mental reservation or exception that any man who,
using his official power, appoints a nigger to office
over white people in any section of this government

is too low and too mean to even go to , well you

know where I mean, and if you don't, I'll tell you; it
is "that bourne from whence no traveler returns" —
down there where snowstorms are conspicuous for
their absence. Now this includes the whole business
from the blustering " Broncho Buster " of monstros-
ity, pomposity and strenuosity in Washington to his
political henchmen everywhere who basely "bend the
pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift may follow
fawning."

REMINISCENCES. 185

However, the Bible says, The ox knoweth his
owner and the ass his master's crib," and the Bible
don't lie and nowhere says tlieit a nig"g*er must be
placed over a white man and w^e defiantly say to the
United States Government that with all your
bristlingf bayonets and ten-inch columbiads on land
and your mig'hty navy afloat, you never can force
the nig^gfer on an equality with the white people of
the South; God Almigfhty didn't do it and you can't.
Now, these are my sentiments and I don't care the
snap of my fing^er who hears me avow them and not
more boldly do I announce them from the red old hills
of Geor^'-ia, than fearlessly w^ould I proclaim them
from the house-tops of New Engfland, where they
used to burn pure, innocent, helpless w^omen at tlie
stake for being* witches. And yet, forsooth, these
fanatics in their assumed self-rig^hteousness strut to
and fro as the g"iddy peacock in his g"audy plumag'e
and say: "Behold, we are the culture, civilization,
intellect and morality of the Government." God,
save the mark. In the long" ag"o, according* to
Aesop, a g"nat assuming* the responsibility of look-
ing* after the domestic affairs and home life of the
elephant, soug*ht temporary rest by alig*hting* on the
horn of an ox and feeling* that it was of immense
mag*nitude and hug*e preponderosity, remarked: "If
my gfreat weig*ht oppresses you, I'll move," to
which the ox replied, "Keep your seat, you sweet
little insig*niticant cuss, I didn't even know that you

186 REMINISCENCES.

were there." And so we say to the little Trays,
Blanches and Sweethearts of the North that are
continually yelping" on our tracks, "Lay on, McDuff,
and damned be he who tirst cries, 'Hold, enough.' "
Your raving, roaring, ranting: has no more effect on
us than a single dew drop has on the tides of
the Atlantic Ocean. The lion reg-ards not the loud
braying of a long eared donkey; the eag*le
scorns the vulture below him and disdains the hiss
of the vile serpent as it crawls through its filth
and slime.

Now and then we see a creature apparently soar-
ing- as an eag"le and in reality descending; in the filth
of the carrion; in illustration of which, cast your eye
to Washing-ton and then see Teddy Roosevelt, "the
roug-li rider," riding- roug-h shod over everything-
pure and decent; forcing- a devoted wife, a lovely
daugfhter, to meet upon terms of perfect social
equality in the sanctity and purity of their home a
nigger, Booker Washing-ton; still later, see him throw
wide open the doors of the White House, at a public
reception, and then receive and g^reet nig-g^ers with
the same g-raciousness and urbanity as shown white
people, thus publicly proclaiming- social equality
between the two races, sayingf to the negro, "Woo,
win and wear whom j^ou may, the only bar in mar-
riag-e is mutual consent." Deg-enerate son of a noble
Georgia woman, the very thougfht of him is a stench
in our nostrils; the pronunciation of his name, pollu-

REMINISCENCES. 187

tion to our lips — ig-noble villain, he stinks as he rots
and he stinks as he rises in his infamy.

The infamous doctrine he announces and which
he is endeavoring: to force upon the country, if not
effectually checked at once, will inevitably lead to
results in this country, the horrors of whicli com-
pared to those of the Civil War, would be as a mole
hill to a mountain. Read his published book in
which he compares Jefferson Davis to Benedict
Arnold, making- the latter the better, purer man of the
two; the one. President of the Confederate States,
a statesman, the peer of any man of this or any
other agre; as gallant, as knigfhtly a soldier as e'er
drew flashing- blade in defence of his country; a pa-
triot, true and tried, an incorruptible private citizen,
a consecrated Christian g-entleman, "who leaving:
behind him no blot on his name, looked proudly to
Heaven from his deathbed of fame," and went to his
honored g-rave amid the tears and with the love and
admiration of millions of his countrymen. The
other a miserable traitor to his countr3% receiving:
as the price of his treason ten thousand dollars in.
gfold and a commission in the British army, and died
a miserable outcast in a foreig-n country in abject
poverty in a hut, "unwept, unhonored and unsung","
and despised even b^^ the country to whom he sold
his manhood. "O! shame where is thy blush,"
when the president of this g-reat country could thus
stultify himself in venting- his sectional hate. Read

188 REMINISCENCES.

ag-ain in a recent speech at Arling-ton, Va., of the
"Broncho Buster" and you find he brands Confed-
erate soldiers as anarchists. Has he forg-otten that
the fatal bullet of the foul anarchist g-ave him the
exalted, responsible office he so basely prostitutes?
Is it not a fact that in an electric car accident in
which his secret service man was killed the accident
mis-carried and caug-ht the wrong- man? But enoug-h
of Teddy until 1904. Already the handwriting- is on
the wall, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," and Mark
Hanna will bury him in his political ofrave with ap-
propriate epitaph, "He was, but he is not; died from
g-allopingf consumption of nig-g-er on the brain."
And now leave the political monstrosity to the well
merited scorn and contempt of all pure decent
people, reg-ardless of sex or sections.

Social equality, snould it ever become an issue in
this g-overnment, to be decided by leg-islative enact-
ment or physical force, we of the South would meet
its advocates with a sword in one hand and a torch
in the other; we would dispute every inch of ground;
raze every house, burn everj^ blade of g-rass, and let
the last entrenchment of liberty be our bloody g-rave
of extinction rather than submit to such damnable
degfradation. We of the South are the only true
friends the nig-gfer has in this g-overnment. Let us
deal kindly, justly with him, g-uard him in person
and property by the strong- arm of the law, aid him
in every laudable and proper way conducive to his

REMINISCENCES. 189

welfare and advancement; if charg-ed with crime —
save for a nameless one— and violation of law, weig-h
and try him in the same scale of equal justice you
would the whitest man in the realm; if there is doubt
attached to his g"uilt, "temper justice with mercy"
and g-ive him the full benefit of the doubt; but, my
countrymen, forever withhold from him the ballot
and office, as you would the deadly viper from your
bosom, lest it sting" you to death. There are many
in each section of the country who contend that ed-
ucation is the solution of the nig-g-er problem and
millions of dollars are being: annually expended on
that line. Education for what? The chaing-ang-s,
penitentiaries, reg"ardless of section, nameless crimes
and shrieks of countless helpless women fully answer
the question. Prison statistics prove that more than
90 per cent, of the nigfg-er convicts of this country
have a smattering" of education; the tax dig"ests of
this State prove that 90 per cent, of the taxes paid
by them on property is paid by those who do not
know a letter of the alphabet.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring."

And the nig^gfer can never drink deep enoug^h of
that spring" to make him competent to discharg"e the
duties and responsibilities of white citizenship.

Equality of the South in the g"overnment. Of
what does it consist? Only as tax payers, we are in
the gfovernment, but not of it. How many names

190 REMINISCENCES.

from the South have been on the Presidential ticket
since the war ended? Blair, a major g"eneral in the
Federal Army, from Missouri, on the Democratic
ticket in 1868, for Vice-President; Brown, from
the same state, in 1872, for Vice-President, with
Horace Greely, for President, as a Democrat; these
two names complete the list. Of the thirtj^-eig-ht
years since the war closed, a Republican President,
with the exception of eig-ht years, has appointed
every Cabinet officer. How many from the South?
Grant appointed one, a scalawag" from Georg-ia;
Hayes selected one, a g'ood man from Tennessee; and
I dare say, he did it to ease in a measure a guilty con-
science that was smiting" him for being" the big"g"est
thief known in the world; he actually and literally
stole the whole United States Government and kept
it in possession four years, knowing" that he was a
thief, and if this is not a fact, "true as Holy Writ,"
then I am the big"g"est liar south of Boston, where
they keep the days of the week by codfish and
Irish potatoes. During" Cleveland's two terms as
President, he had six members of his Cabinet
from the South, made two Supreme Court Judg"es
from the same section, and if he ever appointed a
nig"g"er to office south of the Potomac River. I don't
know it.

Now, I stand upon facts, and these are the incon-
testible facts, which will forever perpetuate the
truth of my assertion that upon the Federal Govern-

REMINISCENCES. 191

ment rests the inaug-uration of the Civil War between
the two sections of this country. No part of its re-
sponsibility rests upon the Southern States. They
were not the ag-g-ressors in any sing-le instance.
They were ever true in their plig-hted faith under the
Constitution. No instance of a breach of its mutual
covenants can ever be laid to their chargfe. The
open and palpable breach was committed by their
Northern confederates. No one can deny this.
Those states of the North which were false to their
Constitutional oblig-ations claimed powers not del-
eg-ated and elected a President pledg'ed to carry out
principles openly in defiance of the decision of the
hig-hest tribunal known to the Constitution. Their
policy tended inevitably to a centralized despotism.
It was under these circumstances that secession was
resorted to; the war was beg-un and wag-ed by the
North to prevent the exercise of this rig-ht. All
that the South did was strictly in self-defense even
in their firing- the first gfun. The United States
Government, after keeping: Jefferson Davis in prison
two years (a portion of the time in manacles) libe-
rated him without trial. And why? Because it knew
a trial would result in acquittal, which would forever
prove and establish the rigrht of secession under the
Constitution and history will so record it. Every
decision of the United States Supreme Court from
its foundation down to the present time where
States' Rigfhts and States' Sovereigfnty were the

192 REMINISCENCES.

questions for adjudication, has sustained the princi-
ple and doctrine, and I challengfe denial and refu-
tation of this fact.

The so-called apostles of progress and commercial-
ism tell us that the war forever obliterated Mason
and Dixon's line, that there is now no North, no
South, no East, nor West, but one g'rand brotherhood
of peace, harmony and mutual g"ood will betw^een
all sections of the government. The assertion is an
infamous lie; bayonets don't make brothers. That
line was a geographical one marked by degrees and
minutes of the compass. It is now traced by a line
of innocent blood so wide and so deep that time can
never bridge it nor can all of ocean and mountain
billows ever submerge it. There is no new South as
claimed by those who fain would sacrifice our glorious
heroic past upon the altar of Mammon. The old
South still lives and will yet PhcBnix-like rise from
her ashes and become the greatest, best portion of
the Government, developing the highest, purest
civilization of the world. Grand, glorious old South;
God made your dirt, your men and your women! —
made 3^our history which will remain unsullied as
long as Heaven's glittering dewdrops shall kiss the
blushing rose to bring forth her spotless beauty and
matchless fragrance.

^k '^ ^f^ ^T^ ^^ ^^ '^

In many lands, O Freedom, are thy everlasting
springs. But upon no spot of earth — not on the

REMINISCENCES. 193

plains of Marathon, nor in the unconquerable Gulf of
Salamis, not at Bannockburn or Morg-anton, not at
Bunker Hill or at Yorktown, hast thou unsealed
fountains purer or more unfailing- than upon the
battlefields of the South from Manassas to Appoma-
tox and Greensboro, where g-athered around Lee and
Johnston the unterrified remnant of our loving-
braves. The g-randeur of Southern manhood will
emblazon the pag-es of history throug-h all ages yet
to come and in equally resplendent glory will the
record paint the sublimity of Southern womanhood.
Go with me now to Gettysburg-, fateful Gettys-
burg-, where in a field of blood and a baptism of fire
was sounded the death-knell of the Confederacy.
Here the inspiration of the artist has traced on can-
vas in fadeless colors the grrandest battle scene of
the world's history. There, hear the loud bugle
sound over the hill and join in the din of the morn:

"Till faint and more faint in the far solit'ide,

it dies on the portals of Heaven,
While echo springs up from her home in the

rock and seizes the perishing strain,
And sends the proud challenge from rock to

rock, from mountain to mountain again."

Throug-h an open field nearly a mile off is Cem-
etery Hill; upon its summit almost piercing- the
clouds is entrenched the Federal Army, with its
mig-hty arms of death and destruction. This is the
key to the battlefield; if captured and held it means

14

194 REMINISCENCES.

the destruction of the Federal Army and the capture
by our army of Washing-ton City and assuring" the
independence of the Confederacy. And now with its
shot and shell riddled banners of many a victorious
field this unterrified, un whipped army of the match-
less Lee forms in line of battle for the g-randest,
most heroic charg^e in the annals of war:

"Firm-paced— a soHd front they form,
Still as the breeze, yet dreadful as the storm;
Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly,
Victory or death— the watch-word and reply.
O! Heaven, they said, our bleeding country save;
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet though destruction sweep these plains,
Rise fellow men our country yet remains;
By that dread name we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live, with her to die."

And now ring^s out in clarion notes the loud com-
mand, "Fix bayonets, load and fire, load and fire,
charg-e;" and with torn and tattered banners sweetly
kissing" the breezes of hig"h Heaven, under the soul-
stirring" strains of Dixie and the Rebel yell rending"
the air, these immortal hordes move forward throug"h
a storm of shot and shell. As falls the ripe g"rain
before the sickle, so these heroes, ripe for duty, ripe
for Heaven, fall by sections; fall by platoons, but
undismayed on they g"o.

"The combat deepens, on ye braves!" and with
the Rebel yell risingf above the din of the battle, on
they go; they fall by companies; they fall by reg'i-

REMINISCENCES. 195

ments and on they g-o. On Cemetery Hill, the fires
of ruin glow; the blood-dyed waters murmuring" far
below, but on they g^o! The storm prevails — g"rows
more furious, earth shakes, "red meteors flash along"
the sky and conscious nature shudders at the cry,"
but on they g"o! And ag"ain the Rebel yell ring's out
a high alto above the booming" cannon sending" dis-
may and consternation to the enemy on the heights
above, but on they g"o! And now, with cannon to
rig"ht of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in
front of them, they climb the hill; they clear the
rifle-pits and leaping" on the breastworks plant with
exQltant shouts their g"lorious battle flag"s. For some
minutes, "like eag"les with bloody plumes" they
stand triumphant on the crest of battle; but alas!
the covering" and supporting" columns were not equal
to their heroic devotion and the only fruit of their
valor was a memory to their country, which throug"h
all the ag"es of time will never g"row dim. As melts
the mist before the morning" sun, so melted in blood
this heroic army and with it our brigfht star of hope
forever set in impenetrable and never ending" dark-
ness.

The g"randest tribute ever paid to these heroes
was by a wounded Confederate soldier when he said:

"They went up to Heaven In a plHow of fire,
In vain, alas! In vain, ye gallant few.
From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew;
O, bloodiest picture in the book of time.
The South fell, unwept, without a crime,

196 REMINISCENCES.

•'Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength In her arm or mercy in her woe-
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye and curbed her high career;
Hope, for a season, bade the South farewell.
And Freedom shrieked as Richmond fell.

••O, righteous Heaven! e'er Freedom found a grave.
Why slept the sword— omnipotent to save?
Where was thine, O, Vengeance, wbere thy rod.
That might have saved the South from her wicked
Crucifixion on the Altar of unrighteousness?"

What Eve was to Adam in caring* for and enhanc-
ing* the beauties of that perfect g"arden of Eden so
are you, Daug^hters of the Confederacy, to our "Lost
Cause;" upon you rests the sacred duty of keeping"
a correct record of that cause, of perpetuating* and
transmitting" to this and future g"enerations its truth,
its justice and the hallowed memories that so fondly
cluster around it. The "Old Guard" feels justified
in saying" that you will nurture the sweet, tender
plant of memory with such love that it will attain
to that g"rowth of perfection that Lethe's dark
waters will ne'er overflow or submerg^e it. You are
to us, as it were, balmy May, sweetly scattering" her
beautiful petals o'er dreary December's gflittering"
icicles ere they melt and vanish with the touch of
time.

There is more sweet music in the one word,
woman, than Orpheus ever piped on his tender flute
to his loved and lost Eurydice, and I can offer her
no greater, hig"her honor than to say she is the

REMINISCENCES. • 197

mag"ic key that unlocks the g-olden g^ates of the New
Jerusalem that erring: man may therein enter and
**bathe his weary soul in seas of heavenly rest, and
not a wave of trouble roll across his peaceful
breast."

The Cross of Honor is the emanation of your brain,
the inspiration of your heart; we prize it and wear
it as a g"rander, more g"lorious insignia of manhood
and honor than worn by any earthly monarch, under
his crown of sparklingf jewels; it has no g'littering'
g"ems to mark its intrinsic value or to dazzle the eye
with their brilliancy, but something- more exquisite,
sweeter, more precious, more priceless; 'tis stamped
with woman's deathless love for those who worthily
wore the g^ray.

•'Life may cease, but then to heaven
Will our pure affection soar;
And when freed from earthly leaven,
Dearest, then we'll love you more."

CHAPTER XIII.

1\ yiANY years ag^o I heard Evan Howell tell to
^^ ^ quite a crowd of friends in Atlanta that he
knew a soldier who had never been in a battle.
Several times when his command formed in line of
battle to g"o into action, he would take his place in
line, but when they had reached the enemy he had
skedaddled. Finally on the forming: for battle one
day, his captain told a lieutenant to take his
position in his rear and if he ran to shoot him on
the spot. True to his former record, with the first
volley he broke ranks and started off in a g^allop;
the lieutenant drew his pistol and told him if he
didn't return to the ranks he would have him shot
for cowardice, to which he replied: "You can shoot
me lieutenant, but no damn Yankee ever shall," and
Evan said the last they ever heard of him he was run-
ning- with the speed and bottom of a thoroug-h-bred
four-mile race horse. The spirit mig-ht have been
willing-, but doubtless the flesh was weak; which
reminds me that in a big- battle, before the opposing-
forces met, a rabbit was running- its level best — and
a soldier said at his hig-hest pitch — "Go it, Mollie
Cotton-tail and do your best, for if my reputation
were not at stake God knows I'd be with you." I
know that was a Confederate soldier, for a Yankee

REMINISCENCES. 199

soldier never considered reputation when the Rebel
yell informed him that hell was about to break loose
in his presence. General Cheatham once cursed a
teamster very bitterly for abusing- his team and the
driver told him he took advantag"e of his office. The
General pulled off his coat, threw it on the g^round,
and told him that was General Cheatham, but he
was old Frank and to sail in. The driver sailed in
at once and the General rode off a badly whipped
man and took it all rig*ht and never accepted another
challeng^e from a teamster.

I take the following- about the battle of Fred-
ericksburg- from "Four Years Under Marse Robert"
by Robert Stiles:

"The Twenty-first Mississippi was the last reg-i-
ment to leave the city. The last detachment was
under command of Lane Brandon, already mentioned
as my quandam class-mate at Yale, and son of old
Colonel Brandon of the Twenty-first, who behaved
so heroically at Malvern Hill. In skirmishing- with
the head of the Federal column — led, I believe, by
the Twentieth Massachusetts, Brandon captured a
few prisoners and learned that the advance com-
pany was commanded by Abbott, who had been his
chum at Harvard Law School when the war beg-an.
He lost his head completely. He refused to retire
before Abbott. He foug-ht him fiercely and w^as
actually driving- him back. In this he was violating-
orders and breaking- our plan of battle. He was put

200 REMINISCENCES.

under arrest and his subaltern broug"ht the command
out of town. Buck Denman, our old friend Buck of
Leesburg" and Fort Johnston fame, a Mississippi
bear hunter and a superb specimen of manhood, was
color serg"eant of the Twenty-first and a member of
Brandon's company. He was tall and straig"ht,
broad-shouldered and deep-chested, had an eye
like an eag:le and a voice like a bull of Bashan and
was full of pluck and power as a panther. He was
roug"h as a bear in manner, but withal a noble,
tender-hearted fellow, and a splendid soldier. The
enemy finding- the way now clear, were coming" up
the street, full company front, with flag's flying" and
bands playing" while the g^reat shells from the sieg"e
gfuns were bursting" over their heads and dashing"
their hurtling" fragfments after our retreating: skir-
mishers. Buck was behind the corner of a house
taking" sight for a last shot. Just as his fing"ers
trembled on the trig-ger, a little three year old, fair
haired baby gfirl toddled out of an alley, accom-
panied by a Newfoundland dog", gfave chase to a big"
shell that was rolling" lazily along" the pavement, she
clapping" her little hands and the dog" snapping" and
barking" at the shell. Buck's hand dropped from
the trig"g"er. He dashed it across his eyes to dispel
the mist and make sure he hadn't passed over the
river and wasn't seeing" his own baby g"irl in a
vision. No, there is. the baby amid the hell of shot
and shell and here come the enemy. A moment and

REMINISCENCES. 201

he has ground his gfun, dashed out into the storm,
swept his great rigrht arm around the baby, gained
cover again, and baby clasped to his breast and
musket trailed in his left hand, is trotting after the
boys up to Marye's Heig-hts. And there behind that
historic stone wall and in the lines hard by all those
hours and days of terror was that baby kept, her
fierce nurses taking turns, patting- her while the
storm of battle raged and shrieked, and at nig-ht
wrestling- with each other for the boon and bene-
diction of her quiet breathing under their blankets.
Never was a baby so cared for. They scoured the
country-side for milk and conjured up their best
skill to prepare dainty viands for her little lady-
ship. When the strugg-le was over and the enemy
had withdrawn to his strongholds across the river,
and Barksdale was ordered to reoccupy the town,
the Twenty-first Mississippi, having held the post
of dang-er in the rear, was g-iven the place of honor
in the van and led the column. There was a long-
halt, the brig-ade and regrimental staff hurrying to
and fro. The regimental colors could not be found.
Denman stood about the middle of the reg-iment,
baby in his arms. Suddenly he sprang- to the front,
swing-ing her aloft above his head, her little g-ar-
ments fluttering- like the folds of a banner, he
shouted, "Forward, Twenty-first, here are your
colors!" And without orders off started the brigade
toward the town, yelling- only as Barksdale 's men

202 REMINISCENCES.

could yell. They were passing" throug-h a street
fearfully shattered by the enemy's fire and were
shouting- their very souls out — but let Buck himself
describe the last scene in the drama: 'I was hold-
ing the baby high, Adjutant, with both arms, when
above all the racket I heard a woman's scream. The
next thing I knew I was covered with calico and she
fainted on my breast. I caught her before she fell
and laying her down gently put her baby on her
bosom. She was the prettiest thing I ever looked
at, and her eyes were shut, and I hope God '11 for-
give me, but I kissed her just once.' "

Has peace or war ever painted a picture more
beautifully blended with deep pathos, soul stirring*
heart throbs and sublimity? "Are not five sparrows
sold for two farthings and not one of them is for-
g-otten before God?"

CHAPTER XIV.

TWO days before moving- to Indian Territory,
from my home in Columbus, Ga., I was called
by telephone to the Rankin Hotel, where I met many
friends, who gave me a beautiful watch, chain and
locket, with the inscription: "Presented to Col. R.
M. Howard by his friends, Columbus, Ga., June 9th,
1906." I will ever cherish the sweet memories of
this manifestation of the love and esteem of these
friends.

A few days after reaching Ardmore, I saw
in the show window of a store a fish on which was
painted, "weighs 349 pounds;" I asked the proprie-
tor what kind of fish it was. "Just a minnow we
use in fishing for trout," he replied. I whittled
and thought of my old friend Punch Doughtie, of
Columbus. "Where are you from?" the proprietor
asked. "Georgia," I replied. "I knew you were a
tender-foot," he replied, and I said: "I am not a
tender-foot, but a true heart of the 600,000 who
fought the world for four years and wore them-
selves out whipping the Yankee Doodles." I then
told him Georgia had more beautiful, fascinating-
women to the square foot than any place on earth.
"Who'll you prove it by?" he asked. "God," I
replied.

204 REMINISCENCES.

I returned to Columbus in 1907, knowing" that all
the sweet, hallowed memories of my life cluster
around the red old hills and fertile, beautiful valleys
of Georg-ia, and as Ruth said to Naomi, so say I to
dear old Georg-ia: "Thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die,
and there will I be buried." Yes, indeed, the
dearest spot on earth to me is "Home, sweet Home!"

The following" is a copj'^ of the letter I received

from my friends:

''Columbus, Ga., June 2, 1906.

"Col. R. M. Howard,

Columbus, Ga.,
"Dear Sir:

We, the undersig"ned citizens of Columbus, Geor-
g"ia, among" whom you have spent many years of
usefulness and earnestness, learn with reg"ret that
you now propose to transfer your residence to a dis-
tant State.

"Mere words will not convey a full expression of
the tender sentiment, which moves our hearts, when
we reflect upon the valiant service which you have
rendered to the Southern States during" the Confed-
eracy; to the people of Columbus and vicinity during"
the dark days of reconstruction, and to the young",
old, rich and poor, to whom your life and character
have ever been an inspiration. We desire however,
tog"ether with thousands of others of your neigfhbors
and fellow citizens, who have not had the opportunity

REMINISCENCES.

205

of attaching- their signatures, to take this method of
testifying in a feeble way the affection and admir-
ation which has been kindled, and kept ever alive, by
your exalted character, sympathetic heart and devo-
tion to all that is grand and lovely in Southern
womanhood and Southern manhood.

"We earnestly hope that prosperity and happiness
will follow you through life, and that wherever you
may be, you will consider that your real home is in
the hearts of your friends in Columbus, Georgia.

"Sincerely your friends.

L. A. Camp,

L. A. Scarbroug-h,

Felder Pou,

Douglas Neill,

J. D. Smith,

O. C. Bullock,

C. E. Battle,

L. H. Chappell,

Wm. L. Lott,

L. Loewenherz,

J. H. Martin,

F. G. Lumpkin,

L. F. Garrard,

A. W. Shepherd,

Sol Sarling-, by R. C.

Chas. A. Morg-an,

J. A. Kirven Co.,

J. Norman Pease,

Rob't Reid,

T. Jeff. Bates,

Wiley Williams,

R. W. Ledsing^er,

C. M. Couch,

A. C. Chancellor,

L. P. Weathers,

Rhodes Browne,
Frank U. Garrard,
M. Ashby Jones,
R. J. Hunter,
Hockley C. McKee,
I. S. McElroy,
C. E. Porter,
W. C. Woodall,
G. Gunb3^ Jordan,
Wm. Redd, Jr.,
Wm. A. Little,
R. C. Jordan,
J. S. Matthews,
M. M. Moore,
R. W. Page,
E. S. McEachern,
T. E. Blanchard,
Jno. T. Davis, Jr.,
W. R. Blanchard,
C. E. Porter,
E. J. Bradley,
E. J. Rankin,
Cliff. B. Grimes,
H. Sternberg:,
S.Lindsay Neill."

206 REMINISCENCES.

3213 Washington Boulevard,
Chicago, III., Feb. 2, 1910.

Col. Robert M. Howard,

AND

Members of 'Camp Benning' U. C. V.,
Columbus, Ga.

"Respected Veterans:

The surprise of my life occurred to-day, when I
received your very unexpected gift of a beautiful
'Loving" Cup.' A gift all the more appreciated, as
it comes from those who once, in serried ranks,
glistening with bayonets, welcomed me to Georgia.
The little I did to merit your approbation is greatly
overrated. It was simply an impromptu, earnest
protest against 'stirring up strife.' In the spirit in
which it is given I accept your generous gift, and
will cherish it 'till, for me, sounds final 'taps,'
when it shall be handed down to my children
(already each one is laying claim to it) and their
children, a valued tribute of the 'Gray' to the 'Blue.'
Thank God those fratricidal days are over, their
memories alone remain. If our great leader 'Grant'
could return to your great leader 'Lee' his sword,
and extend to him the hand of friendship, and could
say 'Let us have Peace,' it ill behooves me, at this
late day, to approve and join in an attack upon the
character of Robert E. Lee.

REMINISCENCES. 2(yr

"Not without his wondrous storj', could be writ our Nation's
glory,"

"On fame's eternal camping ground, his silent tent Is spread,

While glory guards with solemn round, the bivouac of the
dead,"

"Lee's record of deeds Illumes history's page,

Bard, poet and singer, acclaim his great name,

Typical 'American'— Leader and sage.

His 'Statue' would grace the great 'Hall of Fame.' "

"I have not visited the 'South' since the late
'unpleasantness,' and thoug-h I may never visit you,
I none the less appreciate your cordial invitation to
visit your proud city, g-reet you 'old boys' (as we
did of yore between the skirmish lines), witness
your thriving- industries, and last but not least,
make the acquaintance of 'the most lovely women
on God's g-reen earth' (according to Col. Howard).
But if the unexpected should come to pass, and
I should come anywhere near your 'outposts' I'll
holler 'Hello Johnnie!' and await the old response,
'Hello Yank!' Then in friendship we'll shake
hands, and drink from the same 'loving cup.'

"Wishing you one and all a full measure of pros-
perity, peace and happiness,

I am j^ours sincerely,

Allen W. Gray,
Late LieiLtennnt and Adjutant 51st Regiment Illinois
Veteran Volunteer Infantry. Post Commander U. S. Grant
Post, Department of Illinois, G. A R.''

On the cup above alluded to is inscribed: "Pre-
sented by the Veterans of Camp Benning- and

208 REMINISCENCES.

citizens of Columbus, Georg-ia, January 19, 1910, to
Dr. Allen W. Gray, of the G. A. R., of Chicag-o, 111.,
in honor of his true manhood."

Did Sherman Love" Southerners?

To the Editor oi The Telegraph: Quite a leng-thy
paper from the pen of Capt. D. F. Boyd appears
in the Confederate Veteran for September on Gen.
William T. Sherman.

Capt. Boyd was professor of ancient langnag"es
in the Louisiana Military Academy at its org'aniza-
tion in 1859. Gen. William T. Sherman was its
first superintendent and conducted successfully the
operations of this State institution until the seces-
sion of the "Pelican State."

Capt. Boyd has an exalted opinion of Gen. Sher-
man, and in considerable detail g"oes into particulars
of his career, and shows the Southern people what
an extremely erroneous opinion they had formed
of the character of the celebrated actor in the g"reat
trag"edy of the early sixties.

For his spectacular march from Chattanooga
through Atlanta to Savannah and thence to Colum-
bia and on to Greensboro, N. C, our people had
viewed Gen. Sherman as a satellite of his majesty
who presides where Sherman places war. The
Southern people for forty-six years have been under

REMINISCENCES. 209

the delusion that he was the special messengfer of
his Satanic majesty, whose mission it was to illus-
trate most conclusively the proper definition of that
small but forcible word war! But it remains for
Capt. Boyd to remove this wrong- impression. He
shows Gen. Sherman as the personification of love.
Gen. Sherman had spent the greater part of his
manhood years with the Southern people, had
absorbed much of their ideas and endeared himself
to them, especially in and around Alexandria, La.
We have been under the delusion that Gen. Sherman
was brutal. Capt. Boyd drops the scales from our
eyes, and in graceful and glowing language shows
him a loving and gentle friend of the South.

But Capt. Boyd refrains from explaining the
method of love(?) as evinced in that spectacular
torchlight procession from Chattanooga to Greens-
boro, via Atlanta, Savannah and Columbia. He
somehow evades this little episode in Gen. Sher-
man's career. Perhaps the dead languag-es of which
Capt. Boyd was professor and master at the mili-
tary academy prompted him to let that dead past
bury its dead. If Capt. Boyd had been professor of
rhetoric, perhaps that science would have given him
the power to forge the language necessary to
explain Gen. Sherman's love(?) for the Southern
people.

To the survivors of his torchlight procession

those survivors whose homes came in the line of his

15

210 REMINISCENCES.

march — that remarkable paper of Capt. Boyd's will
be a wonderful revelation. It is to be feared this
longf-delayed interpretation of that divine character-
istic of the Federal captain comes too late to win
disciples to that faith.

And this remarkable eulog"y of Gen. Sherman is
penned by one claiming- to be a Virg-inian — a Calhoun
Democrat and a Confederate officer.

Sumter Cunning-ham, in his editorial qualifying-
the space g-iven and comments made on Capt.
Boyd's paper, is charitable enoug-h to credit the
effusion to hypnotism. Certainly that is a mild
word in this connection. How a Southern man who
had given his services to the Confederate cause can
find anything- excusable in the character of Gen.
Sherman, as evidenced in his manner of conducting-
warfare, is passing- strang-e. The effusive paper
oug-ht to be read by every living- sufferer from
Sherman's loving-(?) method of making- warfare.

Classed with Butler the beast, Miles the malic-
ious, Neal the outlaw, and Pope the pestiferious,
Sherman the savag-e gfoes down into that infamy
that must halo his memory as longf as the pag-es of
history tell the truth of the g-reat trag-edy of 1864
and 1865.

G. N. Saussy.

REMINISCENCES. 211

A Touching Tribute to the Memory of the
Late General Sherman by "Uncle Bob"
Howard.

Editor Enquirer-Sun: For what purpose does this
second edition of the Sherman family make its
appearance "Marching: througfh Georgfia," heralded
by an escort of United States soldiers to announce its
augfust appearance as thougfh it were a conquering-
hero on a triumphal march from fields of gfore and
g-lory to receive the plaudits and exultant shouts of
countless thousands? It may be that the Reverend
Father comes to say final mass o'er the shades of his
daddy in expiation for the countless and heinous
crimes he had committed in Georgfia when he publicly
proclaimed that "war is hell," and that he would
prosecute it on that basis, and verily proved his
assertion. It may be that the son wishes to see with
his own eyes the monument of damnable infamy
erected by his father on a base forty miles wide, ex-
tending- from Dalton, Ga., to Greensboro, N. C. Will
Atlanta throw wide open her g-ates, receive, wine,
dine and lick all the dust from his boots, as she did
when she entertained the General after the war
ended?

There are times when Atlanta is a mig^hty sweet,
pretty g-irl; then ag-ain, she is powerful naug-hty.
It may be that the young- man is lookingf for his
daddy amongf the scenes where he acted so base a

212 REMINISCENCES.

part; however, he will not find him here, but if he will
changfe his line of march from a horizontal line to a
vertical one and follow it far enough he can locate
Tecumseh Sherman, the modern Draco of the world's
history. "It will be more tolerable for Tyre and
Sidon at the judgfrnent" than for him.

R. M. Hov^ARD.

CHAPTER XV.

Appropriate Exercises Held at the Chase
Auditorium Last Night.

((

Uncle Bob" Howard Thrilled Audience.

Program Was Short and Simple, but None
THE Less Interesting and Enjoyable
TO Those Present.

The 104th anniversary of the birth of General
Robert Edward Lee, the South 's greatest chieftain,
was fitting"ly and impressively celebrated at the
Chase Auditorium last evening", the exercises being
held under the auspices of Camp Benning, United
Confederate Veterans.

The attendance upon the exercises was very good,
though the scant number of old veterans who were
honored with the front rows of seats clearly im-
pressed the observer that the heroes of the Lost
Cause are annually growing fewer and fewer. As is
usually the case in such an assembly, the appearance
of these old soldiers was very pathetic and touching.
As stated yesterday, the members of the camp as-

214 REMINISCENCES.

sembled at their bivouac in the court house and
marched to the auditorium in a body, thougfh some
went direct to the scene of the exercises.

The eveningf's progfram was begnn with an earnest
invocation by Rev. Bascom Anthony, the beloved
pastor of St. Luke Church, and then Miss Lucile
Harrison sweetly sangf a beautiful solo, entitled "A
Dream," which was g-reatly enjoyed by those present.

After Miss Harrison's song-. Col. Robert M. How-
ard— "Uncle Bob" — was presented by Commander
Wm. Shepherd, of Camp Benning-, who was master
of ceremonies, and as "Uncle Bob" ascended the
rostrum to make his address as orator of the
occasion, he was g-reeted with a hearty cheer by his
comrades. "Uncle Bob" appeared at his best, and
his address was listened to with close and rapturous
attention throug^hout.

THE ADDRESS.

The address by Colonel Howard was as follows:
Ladies, Comrades and Gentleman: As long- as
the lusty eagfle shall wing- his lofty flig-ht to snow-
capped peaks; as long- as the breeze shall bear the
billow's foam, so long will Dixie's brave sons and
Dixie's peerless daug-hters annually meet and pay
their tribute of sweet love to the memory of the
South 's matchless chieftain, Robert Edward Lee.
No one people can claim, no one country appropriate
a man whose g-randeur stands before the world

REMINISCENCES. 216

without spot or blemish, a boon of Providence to
the human race; his fame is eternal and his resi-
dence creation.

Our own gifted Ben Hill paid this beautiful
tribute: "When the future historian comes to sur-
vey the character of Lee he will find it rising" like a
hug-e mountain above the undulating" plain of
humanity, and will have to lift his eyes toward
Heaven to catch its summit. He possessed every
virtue of the other great commanders without their
vices. He was a foe without hate, a friend without
treachery, a soldier without cruelty, a victim with-
out murmuring". He was a public officer without
vices, a private citizen without wrong", a neighbor
without reproach, a Christian without hypocrisy, a
man without guile. He was a Caesar without his am-
bition, a Frederick without his tyranny, a Napoleon
without his selfishness, and a Washington without his
reward. He was as obedient to authority as a true
king. He was as gentle as a woman in life, pure
and modest as a virgin in thought, watchful as a
Roman vestal in duty, submissive to law as a Soc-
rates, and grand in battle as Achilles."

When General Lee died a great life closed, a life
upon which the longer we linger, the more we shall
find to love and revere, for it was one over which
virtue will scarce breathe a sigh and to which fame
could hardly add a chaplet. It was a life which in
every season, relation and employment was crowned

216 REMINISCENCES.

with all that wins the affection and commands the
homagfe of mankind. It was a life in which the hero
of a Lost Cause became the centre of that admiring"
contemplation which is wont to follow the conquerer
in his ovations, and in which achievements of arms
as brilliant as ever blazoned a warrior's crest or
adorned a nation's story were so ennobled by the
exhibition of the nobility of soul with which they
were associated, that we almost lose sig'ht of the
soldier in gfazing" on the imag'e of the gfrander man.
It was a life which spanned the extremes of triumph
and of calamity, but which was so transfigfured by
faith, hope and charity that its lines of suffering- are
even more lustrous than its lines of g^lory. If other
lives have been sown more thickly with the g"litter-
ing" stars of human honor, or have rejoiced more
abundantly in the gfifts of earthly fortune, none have
been more richly dowered with the love of man or
more divinely radiant with the beatitudes of God.
Death which withers the roses and flowers of king's
and lays in dust the pride and pomp of ambition has
no power over such a life, but to touch it with lines
of Heaven and seal it for immortality.

On you, my countrymen, has descended with a
solemn emphasis of oblig^ation its sacred charg-e of
fame. On our children and our children's children,
on distant nations and remote ag^es, on that col-
lective humanity which it has elevated and adorned,
let the gfrand example shine. I know not how long

REMINISCENCES. 217

men may be found who refuse reverence to the great
character of Robert E. Lee in consequence of partic-
ipation in our strug^gfle for independence, but I do
know that no calumny can darken his fame, for
history has ligfhted up his imag"e with her everlast-
ing lamp; that no malice can profane his tomb, for
the whole earth has become his sepulchre, and that
no power can hush theit funeral-march which followed
him to the g'rave and yet fills the world with the
music of sorrow, for it is beaten by the loving" pulses
of the stricken hearts of his countrymen.

Our g"rand old mountains throughout this entire
Southland will ever stand fitting- monuments to the
everlasting^ memory of Robert E. Lee; and as long"
as their g"ray summits shall catch the early rays of
morning or hold lovingfly the last, ling^ering- flush of
the setting day; as long- as the crystal streams,
grushing- from their rocky sides, shall flow onward to
the sea, so longf will every wind that wakes the
moaning" of the mountain pines, and every breeze
that stirs the echoes of the valley continue to
prolong- the mighty dirge of the South 's woe for the
immortal name of Robert E. Lee,

"Who fell devoted but undying:
The very gale his name Is sighing;
The silent pillar, cold and gray,
Claims kindred with his sacred clay;
His spirit wraps the dusky mountain;
His memory sparkles o'er the fountain,
Our smallest rill, our mightiest river,
Roll mingling with his fame forever."

218 REMINISCENCES.

History will inscribe his fame on fadeless scrolls,
poetry will embalm it in imperishable songfs, sculp-
ture and painting" will pour around it their brig^htest
inspiration, eloquence on its successive anniversaries
will awaken it as with a trumpet of resurrection to
g"lory ag"ain and on the undying" echoes of tradition
"it will roll from soul to soul and g^row forever and
forever."

With what agony duty shook his soul when, with
8,000 of his un whipped braves, surrounded on all
sides by Grant and his countless thousands to which
humanity demanded that he should surrender, may
be inferred from the exclamation, "I would rather
die a thousand deaths." Indeed the temptation
seems most powerfully to have assailed his heroic
spirit to ride along* the lines to find a soldier's
grave.

"But, then," as he said to General Gordon,
"what will become of the women and children of
the South?"

"Yes, by a sacrifice nobler than death, live — live
to pour into the bosoms of your countrymen a
reviving" tide of hope; live to illustrate to the world
the g"lory of mag'nanimous suffering"; live to exhibit
the immortal sentiment that 'human virtue should
be equal to human calamity.' "

Over the mournful incidents of that closing" scene,
incidents which our people will never read except
througfh dimming" tears, I drop the veil. But none

REMINISCENCES. 219

could have been brought in contact with him in that
dark hour of the soul's crucifixion without behold-
ing- the majesty with which his soul rose triumphant
above the weakness of the flesh, the steadiness with
which his gaze was bent through all the spectral
gloom which enveloped the path of duty, and the
fixed purpose which he manifested to follow it
"through the long gorge to the far light."

In all the galaxy of Fame the brightest star
receives its crowning brilliancy from the spotless life
and blameless character of Robert Edward Lee,
who was greatest in war and grandest in peace.

"His footprints die not on Fame's crimsoned sod,
But will ring through her song and her story;
He fought like a Titan and struck like a god,
And his dust Is our ashes of glory."

I also delivered the above address to the pupils
and patrons of the Columbus Female Seminary (con-
ducted by Misses Snyder), on Gen. Lee's birthday,
January 19th, 1910, and was introduced by my
sweet, charming little friend, Loretto Lamar Chap-
pell as follows:

"Ladies and Gentlemen: I hope you know that I
know that I could not introduce 'Uncle Bob Howard'
to any man, woman or child in Columbus, or Georgia,
or all the Southern States. He is an institution, and
we are too proud of him and what he stands for to

220 REMINISCENCES.

suffer any strangfer to leave our grates not knowing"
him. In all the land there was only one man so
benigfhted as to ask, 'Who is Colonel Robert
Howard?' And he was told, 'He is a Confederate
soldier, an unreconstructed Rebel who g"ave four
years of his youngf manhood to active fighting- for
the principles of the Confederacy and is ready, now
and always, 'for Dixie, dear old Dixie, to lay him
down and die.'

"It is our privileg-e to-day to hear from such a
soldier of 'Marse Robert' Lee."

CHAPTER XVI

Several years ag-o Atlanta held a Re-union of the
Blue and the Gray (a mig-hty naug-hty g-irl she was,
too, and needed a g-enteel spanking- — however, "To
err is human, to forg-ive Divine") at which General
Shaw, Commander of the G. A. R., thus spoke on the
stag-e : "I stand before you, a representative of the
G. A. R., and I am proud to say that G. A. R. men
have done much to teach the South what courag-e and
true manhood is." I replied to him in the papers.
I told many men that I would think him to death in
six months ; in just six months and two weeks hell
received another deleg"ate from Boston. Truly, "the
prayers of the rig^hteous availeth much."

In 1839, 1 visited Atlanta (then known as Marthas-
ville), and started her on a boom, and from that g^ood
day to this, her prog^ress has been rapidly upward
and onward ; and when a Southern Democrat shall
become President of this g-lorious Government, where
"the days in the West are so long" the clocks run
down at noon, and always twice in every month we
have a most g-lorious full moon," then will Atlanta
point with pride to New York City as her beautiful
Northern suburb, and to New Orleans as her g-rand
Southern vicinag-e, and defiantly say to her dear old

222 REMINISCENCES.

Uncle Sam, "You can't keep a gfood man down, nor
a squirrel on the ground."

"Of all the mighty nations in the East or in the West,
This glorious Yankee nation is the greatest and the best;
We have room for all creation and our banner is unfurled ;
Here's a general invitation to the people of the world,
Then come along, come from every nation, come from every way.
Our lands are broad enough, and don't you be alarmed.
For Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.
While the South will raise the cotton and the West the corn and

pork,
New England manufactories will do up the finer work,
For the great and mighty water-falls that course along our hills
Are just the things for washing sheep and turning cotton mills."

Thirty years ago I heard a noted Baptist minister
in Boone County, Ky., preach from the text: "What-
soever ye sow, that ye shall reap." He related the
following- incident, which he knew was literally true:
In a battle in Virginia during the Civil War the
Federal Army was repulsed with great slaughter as
it heroically charged our breastworks; as it retired
a short distance and began to reform for another
charge, a wounded Federal but a few paces in front
of our lines was piteously begging for water; a
private Confederate asked his captain's permission
to carry his canteen of water to the wounded enemy;
the captain replied that it would be instant death
to him but that he would not forbid him doing
so magnanimous a deed, upon which this glorious
hero leaped over the works, rushed to his enemy

REMINISCENCES. 223

and grave him his canteen; the Federal asked his
friend his name and postoffice at home, which he
wrote on a piece of paper. The war produced no
g-rander, more g-lorious hero in either army than
this private Confederate soldier, who so fearlessly
faced dangler and death in ministering- to his
wounded enemy whose life blood was fast ebbing-
away for want of w^ater. A short time after the war
ended this true Christian, who loved his fellow man
as he loved himself, received through the mail a
draft for $5,000.00 from the wounded enemy whose
life he had more than probably saved."

"When gratitude o'erflows the swelling heart,
And breathes in free and uncorrupted praise
For benefits received; propitious heaven
Takes such acknowledgement as fragrant Incense
And doubles all its blessings."

A short time since, I read a glorious tribute from
a Federal soldier to the great gallantry and daunt-
less courage of a Confederate colonel in a most for-
lorn and desperate charge made against the Federal
breastworks at Malvern Hill in 1862. He said after
the regiment had been almost completely annihi-
lated, the small remnant momentarily wavered,
upon which the fearless Colonel in front of his
gallant few shouted out at the top of his voice:
"Come on men; do you want to live forever?"

Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War in the
Cabinet of Franklin Pierce, of New^ Hampshire, who

224 REMINISCENCES.

was elected President in 1852. U. S. Grant, with a
commission in the United States Army, had been a
gallant officer in our war with Mexico; chargfes of
drunkenness and conduct unbecoming" an officer and
a g^entleman were preferred against Grant; Davis
(rather than have him court-martialed and cash-
iered, which would have forever prevented him from
holding" any office, either civil or military, in the
Government) allowed him to resig"n and, but for the
nobility of heart of Jefferson Davis, the name of
U. S. Grant would nowhere emblazon the pag"es of
historj' in this or any other g"overnment on earth.
However, be it said to the g"reat credit of Grant that
he never made war on helpless women and children;
he warred onl}^ ag"ainst armed soldiers facing" him
in battle.

A short time after General Lee's surrender, the
infamous Stanton, Lincoln's Secretar^^ of War,
ordered the arrest and confinement in prison of Gen.
Lee. As soon as Grant heard of this order, he told
Stanton, in langfuag^e that no preacher even would
think, to rescind that order, and that he would use
the entire United States Army to prevent the arrest
or confinement of General Lee. General Lee was
never arrested. And here we of the South can
afford to drop a tear to the memory of the departed
g"reatness (which he never had) of Teddy Roosevelt,
the wild man of Borneo. One of his last official acts
before retiring" from the presidency was to have the

REMINISCENCES. 225

honored name of Jefferson Davis restored to its
place on Cabin John Bridg'e, which had been removed
by Stanton during^ tlie Civil War. Let us "g"ive the
devil his due" and remember that while none are all
g"ood, none are all bad, and that "All that g^listers
is not g-old," nor is everything- that wears a coat and
pair of breeches a real true man. Teddy sometimes
reminds me of my dear old friend, Bob Thweatt,
who some years ag^o gfave his entire dray line, mules
and all, to his drivers upon receipt of a bog*us tel-
eg-ram, played on him by the boys, informing- him
that he had just drawn the capital prize of $150,000
in the Havana Lottery. Yes, Teddy and Bob are a
pair of "Sui Generis." There is no connection be-
tween their brains and their tong-ues. The former
utterly ig-nores the beautiful precept, "Silence is
g-olden;" and Bob, the same true loving- friend that
he was twenty-one years agfo when he stuck to me
like a brother throug-h thick and thin, as I lang-uish-
ed in your dingy prison walls — but it is nevertheless
a fact that he played "Injun-g-iver" with Manuel,
who is still his man "Friday," and Bob yet owns
the dray line.

I have delivered Memorial Addresses as follows:

Columbus, 1897; Talbotton, 1903; Hawkinsville,

1904 (where the old boys told me they would make me

the next Governor of Georg-ia; I informed them that

I was a candidate for onlj^ one thing-, and that was a

16

226 REMINISCENCES.

candidate for heaven, to which they promptly
replied, "You are already unanimously elected");
Barnesville, 1906; Albany, 1907; Hamilton, 1908;
Cuthbert, 1909; Pensacola, Fla., 1910, and Dawson,
1911. I made the first Lee Memorial Address in
Columbus and have made three since then.

By the way, I recently heard of a nig-g-er preacher,
preaching- on the Creation, who said that Adam was
reclining- on the bank of a beautiful river, surrounded
on all sides by mag-nificent flowers, enchanting
scenery, and everything- that was lovely ; that God
found him in this ideal place of peace and rest, and
Adam said : "God, I'm mig-hty lonesome here," and
that God took Adam's brains and made Eve. Fol-
lowing- this theory to its log-ical results proves con-
clusively that woman has the wisdom and virtues of
the world — man. its follies and vices.

I came from Indian Territory in 1906 in the interest
of Hoke Smith for Governor. He was elected. The
day Joe Brown announced for Governor in 1908 (Hoke
Smith being- a candidate for re-election), I wrote
Hoke as follows : "If you don't beat Little Joe for
Governor, you or I will have to leave the State, as I
cannot breathe the same atmosphere in the State
with a man w^ho can't beat Little Joe for anj'thing-."
A few days thereafter, I received the following- :

REMINISCENCES. 227

( (

Dear Uncle Bob: Your brief letter received, duly
appreciated, and contents noted. I take great 'pleasure
in saying that neither one of us ivill have to leave Georgia.

"Sincerely yours,

Hoke Smith."

The primary was held, the ballots counted, and
Hoke Smith was completely snowed out of sig"ht by
an avalanche of Brown ballots, upon which I wrote
thusly:

"Dear Governor:— According- to mutual ag^ree-
ment, moving- time has come, which shall it be, you
or I ? Pick 37'our flint and come ag"ain.

"Very sincerely,

Uncle Bob."

He was suddenly attacked with a severe spell of
gone-hurrahs and never deigned to answer my letter.
But Hoke did come ag^ain and, playing- "Tit for
tat," caused Little Joe to say: "Where w^as Moses
when the lig^lit went out?" The peer of any man in
the Government, Hoke Smith has now been elected
United States Senator from Georg-ia, and will
certainly tell the Yankee Doodles "where Tony hid
the wedg-e." Should the Democratic party, with
"Wisdom, Justice and Moderation," use the political
power it now has and safely anchor the old ship of
State to her moorings under the Constitution, as
established by its fathers, Hoke Smith may be
elected President of this g-reat Government in 1916;

228 REMINISCENCES.

if SO, and I am still living", then, with dear old
Simeon of the days of the blessed Savior of man, I
will say: "And now Lord lettest Thy servant
depart in peace.

5 5

The following" are copies of clipping"s from our
daily papers:

'()

'She Plays a Joke on 'Uncle Bob.'

His Best Girl Drops Him a Postal Card from
Atlanta about Politics.

" 'Uncle Bob' Howard's 'best g"irl' has the joke on
him. She has written him from Atlanta, and he is
at a loss to know what her real name and address is.
'Uncle Bob' received the following" post card througfh
the mail from the Capital City yesterday:

" 'Uncle Bob:' You are snowed under, but Little
Joe will 'come back.' Can you carry Muscog"ee for
Brown?

Your Best Girl."

This appears on the address side of the card. On
the reverse side are pictures of the State Capitol, of
Governor Hoke Smith, and the stamp of the seal of
the State. The following" is written:

"Your telegram received, but I prefer the Senate
to the Capitol."

REMINISCENCES. 229

There is no sig^nature to this, but it is assumed
that it is in reply to the telegram sent to Governor
Smith by "Uncle Bob" on Monday last, reading" as
follows:

"Caesar plung^ed the Rubicon, emd Rome was no
longfer free. Beware of July 11, 1911, and remain
Governor of Georgia."

"Uncle Bob" has not replied to the card received
yesterday. He stated last nig^ht that he wanted his
best gfirl to send her real name and address, so he
can do so. He stated to a reporter of the Enquirer-
Sun what his answer would be. It is as follows:

"Yes, I can carry Muscog"ee for Brown,, but it will
be Pope Brown and not Little Joe."

How My Friend, Dr. Gordy, Saved My Life.

The day before Dr. Gordy left Columbus for the
meeting" of the last session of the Leg"islature, of
which he was a member, he asked me if there was
any special bill I would like to have passed. I
replied: "Have a new officer appointed, or elected,
whose official duty shall be to shoot all the P. D.
Phools in Georgia, and particularly in Muscogfee
County, and that I wanted the appointment as chief
shooter."

On the adjournment of the Leg-islature I tackled my
g"ood friend on failing to make g"ood his promise to
me. He replied that he could have easily passed the

230 REMINISCENCES.

bill, but that he knew Governor Brown would not
have appointed me, and that, whoever he did
appoint, I would have been the first P. D. P. shot
in Georgfia under the new law. Should I aspire
to another State appointment I will certainly file
my application with Governor Pope Brown and
''^Little Joe^'' will have no authority to have me shot.
I hear that my best g"irls will soon present to my
g"ood friend. Dr. Gordy, a beautiful chromo with
proper inscription, for saving" my life, so that I
may continue to make sweet love to them.

" 'Uncle Bob' after Senatorial Honors.
Thinks Gov. Smith Should Appoint Him to
Fill Out Unexpired Term of Senator Ter-
rell.

'Uncle Bob' Howard, whom everybody knows to
be a warm admirer of Governor Hoke Smith, came
to the Ledger office to-day and stated that he had
reached the point where he could offer a happy
solution to the present Senatorial muddle in Georgfia.

"The solution which he thinks would be a most
admirable one, is nothing more or less than having
Gov. Smith appoint himself ('Uncle Bob') to fill out
the unexpired term of Senator Terrell in the United
States Senate, to last until December first.

"Should Gov. Smith adopt 'Uncle Bob's' sugges-
tion, it would mean that the latter would have a

REMINISCENCES. 231

salary of about three thousand plunks coming- to him
during- the summer season, and there would be but
very little work for him to do while drawing- the coin
of the realm. Then, too, 'Uncle Bob' believes that
he could harmonize the warring factions in Georg-ia
politics, for if he were to get the Senatorial tog-a,
he could use his 'big stick' on the unwary heads of
the beligerents and make them toe the line whether
they wanted to or not."

(Copy of letter received.)

((

'Atlanta, Georgia, July 17, 1911.

"Col. R. M. Hov^ard,

Columbus, Georgia.

"My Dear Col. Howard: —

"You will please accept my sincere thanks for
yours of the 14th instant. I certainly appreciate
your kind letter. In case I come to Columbus, it will
give me great pleasure to see and have a talk with
you. Your clipping- is very interesting-, and such
little episodes add to the spice of life. I will send
this to my home papers and it will interest many of
your good friends there.

'Ag-ain thanking- you, I remain,

'Yours very truly.

Pope Brown."

"/ig"ain inauKing" you, j

CHAPTER XVII.

"Uncle Bob" Howard's First and Last Epistle
TO THE Yankee Doodles of Doodledom.

TT fOE unto 3^ou, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
^^ you strain at a g"nat, and bodaciously swallow a
nig"g"er without grease or grunt, and why? Not that
you love the nigger less but that you hate the
Southern people more, and thus strive to force your
odoriferous pets and pests upon us that j^ou may
humiliate and degrade us. You landed your old
Maj^flower at Plymouth Rock, Mass., in 1620, and
opened the Pandora Box that gave birth to all the
ills, isms and troubles with which this country has
been cursed. You went to the jungles of Africa and
brought into this country countless thousands of
vicious wild beasts that were nothing more or less
than monke3''s that had shed their tails and got upon
their hind feet. In your greed for gold, and against
the wishes and earnest protest of the South, you
established African slavery in this country; the slave
trade was carried on exclusively bj^ Northern men and
Northern money. In the early historj^ of the slave
trade, no slave could be landed on Georgia soil with-
out having first paid a per capita tax of $100 in gold.
In South Carolina it was $75. In 1788, the slave trade

REMINISCENCES. 2'd'6

was abolished by the Federal Government and the
Act abolishing: it was so framed and passed that it
could not gfo into effect until the expiration of the
year 1808, and these g-ood^^ g-oody hypocrites,
South-haters, no long-er able to steal with impunity
nig-g-ers in Africa and sell them for g-old with which
to fill their yawning- pockets, quit the nig-gfer busi-
ness by selling- out to the South, little, big-, young-
and old. If a Puritan ever freed a nigfg-er, it was
after the nig-g-er was dead. You produced the arch-
traitor and fiend, Benedict Arnold, who for $10,000.
in g"old, and a commission in the British Army,
basely betrayed his country to its enemies. In the
war with Eng-land of 1812 many of you were Tories,
aiding- and abetting- the enemy with blue lig-hts to
warn them of dang-er. Upon the admission of Texas
as a State of the Federal Union, in 1814, you seri-
ously threatened to secede from the Union. The
South said: "Joy g-o with you and peace behind you;
you have a rig-ht to secede." For many years be-
fore the Civil War the cadets of the U. S. Military
Academy at West Point, N. Y., were daily taug-ht
from text books, adopted by the Government, that
any State or number of States had a perfect rig'ht to
secede whenever they so decided. You have long-
boasted that you were the civilization, culture, in-
tellect and morality of this Government. Have you
forg-otten the burning- fag-ots you piled hig-h over the
bodies of innocent, pure, helpless women, chained to

234 REMINISCENCES.

the stakes, and their agfonizing" shrieks, dying" on the
very portals of Heaven, as they were burnt for
being" witches? Do you see the innocent blood as it
crimsons the sod of that land of fanatics and hypo-
crites, as they worship at the altar of Baal? Do
you hear the wails of husbands and fathers as they
are being" punished for kissing" their wives and chil-
dren on Sunday? Do you remember canonizing"
Henry W. Beecher as a saint and afterward arraig"n-
ing" him in court for many weeks for nest-hiding with
his fascinating affinity, Elizabeth Tilton? Do you
remember the more you stirred this black pool of
filth and slime, the more glaring" became the clerical
apostasy of this base wolf, as he posed in the wool
of an innocent lamb, and that the best you could do
for him was to ivhitewash him with tar? Did you read
some statistics published not long" since stating" that
there were more than ten thousand illeg"itimate
children living" in the City of Boston, the Paris of
America? Have you forg"otten that the Act passed
by the Federal Cong"ress and declared Constitutional
by the United States Supreme Court, known as the
Fugitive Slave Law, was that any slave escaping"
from his owner into another State should be delivered
to his owner when captured? Do you know that most
of your State Leg"islatures nullified this law and
had what was known as an underg"round railway to
aid slaves to escape into Northern States? Upon a
strictlj^ sectional platform, pledg"ed to legislate

REMINISCENCES. 235

agfainst the rig"hts and property of the South in the
Union, you elected Lincoln President in 1860 with a
majority of more than eight hundred thousand of
the popular vote agfainst him. Lincoln was a despot
and usurper, a base perjurer; he maliciously and
intentionally violated his sacred oath of office after
having- solemnly sworn to enforce the Constitution.
Lincoln, and he alone, could have prevented the
firing- of a sing-le gun. The assertion that the Civil
War was wag^ed by the North for the preservation
and perpetuity of the Union is a most infamous and
damnable lie. Envy and jealousy on account of the
prosperity and political power of the South in the
Union gave birth to civil war between the two sec-
tions, and whoever says to the contrary should be
deeply bored for the simples. You slaug^htered one
million human lives on the altar of sectional hatred
and blind fanaticism, and for what? That you fain
would accept and put into effect your most damnable
dog-ma: "That the nig-g-er is the equal of and as
gfood as a white man."

"Consider all thy actions and take heed,
On stolen bread, though It is sweet to feed,
Sin, like a bee, unto thy hive may bring
A little honey, but expect the sting.

"Thou may'st conceal thy sin by cunning art.
But conscience sits a witness in thy guilty heart.
Which will disturb thy peace, thy rest undo.
For that Is witness, judge and prison too."

Was it in the South or in the North that a law
was passed prescribing" that a person, if once con-

236 REMINISCENCES.

victed of being' a Quaker, should lose one ear; if twice
convicted, should lose another ear ; and if convicted
the third time of the diabolical crime of Quakerism,
was to be bored througfh the tongue with a red hot
iron? Was it in the South or in the North that a
penalty was inflicted on any one who entertained a
Quaker, and men and women were banished on pain
of death and hung- for being" Quakers? Was it in the
South or in the North that decrepit old men were
hung" and pressed to death and pure women were torn
from their children and jailed and hung" as witches ?
Was it in the South or in the North that children were
tied neck and heels tog"ether till the blood was ready
to g"ush from them to make them swear falsely
ag"ainst their own mother, accused of being" a witch?
Was it in the Carolinas or Massachusetts, that men
were hung" for denying" the existence of witchcraft ?
And were they of the South or the North, the
preachers and judg^es who incited and applauded
jailing" and banishing" and torturing" and slaug"hter-
ing" of Quakers, and where were they who were wont
to g"o from church, from the altar of God, to the
whipping" post to see women whipped on the bare
back? And where was it that neg"ro children were
sold by the pound, like so much beef or bacon, and
what Colony w^as it that passed a statute offering"
£100 per scalp for the scalps of twelve - year - old
Indian boys, and that, too, at a time when no Indian
war was g"oing" on there? To each and all of these

REMINISCENCES. 237

questions history with its inexorable, unerring- pen
answers "Massachusetts." And where was it that
a few years ag"o the skin of persons who had died as
paupers of an ahnshouse was tanned and made into
articles of merchandise? And what of Beast Butler,
the devil's vicegerent of damnable infamy, who
was Governor of Massachusetts after the Civil War
ended, who says that this is an absolute fact, that
human skins were used as merchandise in Massachu-
setts. But enougfh, what more need be said of a
people who boast that they are the civilization, cul-
ture, intellect and morality of this civilized world?
God save the mark I

And now, dear, sweet, delig^htful Yankee Doodle
Dandies, who flourish on wooden nutmegfs and fatten
on wooden hams, I bid you a sweet "au revoir," and
when God in His great love and merc^^ shall have par-
doned you for your manj' great sins of general cuss-
edness, then we of the dear old Land of Dixie will be
willing to discuss the question of forgetfulness and
seek to bury the dark past in Lethe's seething waters
of oblivion, and fondly clasping loving hands across
the deep, bloody chasm, say each to the other :

"This is still our country, zealous yet modest,
Innocent though free, patient of toil, serene amid alarms,
Inflexible in faith, Invincible In arms."

And with the same God, the same country, the
same flag defiantly floating to the propitious breezes
of Heaven on every land and every sea, proudly say

238 REMINISCENCES.

to the world that this is the best, grandest and most
gflorious Government on God's green earth.

"A VOICE FROM THE CORN."

"I come as a blessing

When put into the mill;
As a blight and a curse
When run through a still.

"Make me up Into loaves,
And your children are fed;
But into a drink,
And I starve them instead.

"In bread I'm a servant,
The eater shall rule;
In drink I'm a master;
The drinker's a fool.

"Then remember my warning —

My strength I'll employ;

If eaten, to strengthen.

If drunken, to destroy."

— Sundny-School Times.

They Were Bred in Old Kentucky.

A lady friend of "Uncle Bob" Howard sent him
the following" from the New York Herald :

"Kentuckj^ has long- been known for the mother of
wit and eloquence as well as the State of feuds.
This State produced her Henry Clay, her Breckin-
ridg-es, her Wattersons, her Crittendens, her Cal-

REMINISCENCES. 239

houns, and now she is coming- forward with a new
school of orators, scholars and poets.

"W. B. Kimball, formerly Representative, easily
heads the list as an after-dinner speaker and has a
close second in Colonel Georg-e Bain, the well-known
temperance lecturer, while Judgfe James Mullig-an
is a real wit and poet.

"It was while in Boston delivering- a lecture to a
choice crowd of blue stocking- temperance people
that Colonel Bain was accosted with the question:

" 'How is it, Colonel Bain, that j^ou have the
nerve to preach temperance when you come from
Kentucky, the State that has more distilleries than
any other State in the Union?'

"For a moment, and only for a moment. Colonel
Bain was embarrassed. Then came the reply with-
out any hesitancy: —

'Oh yes! Kentucky — Kentucky, the State where
I was born;

'Where the corn is full of kernels and the
Colonels full of corn.'

"Returning- home from Washing-ton after serving-
his term in Cong-ress, a banquet was tendered to Mr.
Kimball. He had expected to make a speech in
which he would review his Cong-ressional career.
To his surprise, the toastmaster did not call for this,
but asked Mr. Kimball to respond to the toast,
'Kentucky.' The Cong-ressman was clearly at a loss,
and in sheer desperation he blurted out: —

240 REMINISCENCES.

" 'Kentucky — f-a-i-r Kentucky!' Here he stopped
to sip a drink of water. When he resumed there was
no hint of hesitancy.

" 'Kentucky — the g-randest State in all the Union
— the State where the ground is so mellow that all
5^ou have to do is to tickle its sides and it yields
abundant crops. Kentucky, O Kentucky! where the
g-rass is greener, where the sky is bluer, where the
whiskey is better, where the women are more
beautiful, where the horses are faster, where politics
is rottener, where the feuds are thicker, where the
mountains are higher and where the valleys are
lower than in any other State in the Union!

" 'Why, mj^ God, gentlemen, believe me, the
mountains are so damned high in Kentucky that
from the topmost mountain peak you may reach up
and tickle the feet of sainted Democrats who have
gone before.

" 'And, gentlemen," here Kimball's voice dropped
to almost a whisper, 'the valleys are so infernally
low that you may reach down and hand ice-water to
the Republicans who have gone below:-—'

"But it remains for Judge James Mulligan to reel
off poetr^^ extemporaneously by the foot, yard or
mile.

"Recently the Democrats of Kentucky suffered a
crushing defeat and commiserated one another at a
spread. One of the speakers had declared that in
his opinion Democracy was dead. Judge Mulligan

REMINISCENCES. 241

followed him with what was considered by those
present as a fitting rebuke. Here it is: —

WHEN DEMOCRACY WILT. DIE.

"When the lion eats grass like an ox

And the flvShworin swallows the whale,
When the terrapin knits wool socks,

When the hare is outrun by the snail,
When serpents walk upright like men

And doodle bugs travel like frogs,
When the grasshopper feeds on the hen

And feathers are found on hogs;
When Thomas cats swim in the air

And elephants roost upon trees,
\V' hen insects in summer are rare

And snutf never makes people sneeze,
When the lish creep over dry land

And mules on velocipedes ride.
When foxes lay eggs in the sand

And women in dress take no pride,
When Dutchmen no longer drink beer

And girls gei to preaching on time,
When the billygoat butts from the rear

And treason no longer is crime,
When the humming bird brays like an ass

And Limburger smells like cologne,
When ploughshares are made out of glass

And hearts of Kentuckians are stone.
When sense grows in Republican heads

And wool on the hydraulic ram.
Then the Democratic party will be dead

And this country not worth a d n."

Not longf since at a concert by Al Fields in the
Opera House in Columbus, Ga., I asked the audience
to g-ive Fields a rising- vote of thanks for a recent

17

242 REMINISCENCES.

contribution of $100.00 with which to purchase flow-
ers to decorate the g-raves of 2,250 of our immortal
heroes buried at Camp Chase, Ohio, closing- as fol-
lows:

"There are fields of cotton and fields of grain,
fields of g-rass and fields of cane, but none of these
produce a sweeter, more bountiful harvest than does
Al Fields, who from Columbus, Ohio, to Columbus,
Georgia, takes the cake for pure unadulterated
sweetness; and when the Doctor says I am dead,
play Dixie, and if I don't squall, bury me, for I'll be
dead sure enough."

About this time, a Divine Healer, professing to
cure all ills to which flesh is heir by merely the lay-
ing- on of hands, gave an exhibition of his power in
this Opera House. Quite a number suffering from
different ailments were treated and "cured;" finally
an old man on crutches, requiring three men to get
him on the stage (he had been ' ' paralyzed for fifteen
years and deaf for fourteen") was carried up. In
less than three minutes he was prancing on the stage
as frisky as a buck rabbit and could hear a flea hop
across the street. I then read the following wire-
less telegram: "R. M. Howard, Columbus, Georgia,
I can no longer conscientiously wear the champion
belt for being the biggest humbug of the world, and
willingly surrender it to the faker who is robbing"
the people of your city, [Signed] P. T. Barnum."

"Uncle Bob" and his great nephew Augustus Howard Bickerstaff, Jr.,

age eight months-Mascot of Camp Benning-l. C. V. Reunion

at Columbus. Ga.. October 19-20, 1910.

REMINISCENCES. 243

The telegram broke up the meeting-, but the healer,
within the next few days, in his room at the Racine
Hotel, robbed quite a number of the innocent and
credulous of considerable money and mig^rated to
other pastures g^reen.

At the State Reunion of the United Confederate
Veterans in Columbus, Ga., October, 1910, I pre-
sented my g"reat nephew, eig^ht months old, in a suit
of Confederate Gray, on the stag"e of the Opera
House, as follows:

"I have the honor of presenting- to you the Mascot
of Camp Benning-, Aug-ustus Howard Bickerstaft",
Jr., and christen him in the everlasting- faith of the
rig"hteous cause for which Dixie fought the civilized
world for four years and died."

( (

((

(Special.)

Chicago, III., July 17, 1909.

( ( I

Startling- charg-es were laid before the Southside
Association of G. A. R. this afternoon, when Mrs.
Myrtle McGowan, National Patriotic Instructor of
the Woman's Relief Corps, stated to the veterans
at a picnic held in Jackson Park that there were
many schools in the South where the American flag-
is not allowed to ^y over the public schools. She

244 REMINISCENCES.

said she had just returned from a trip to Anderson-
ville, Georg-ia, and that the principal of the school
at Bainbridg-e, Georgfia, not only refused the g-ift of
a tiagf to his school, but had vehemently declared that
not so long- as he should be principal of the school
would he allow the Stars and Stripes to be flown from
the school mast. But this is not the only schoolhouse
in the South that has refused to fly the American flag-,
declared Mrs. McGowan. Time and time ag-ain we
have offered flag's to the schools in the Southern
States and have been told our fla^s are not wanted,
that their .school-s do not a.^e fla(j.^. It is my duty to
promote patriotic education, of course. It came
into my province to inquire into these thing's. You
would be surprised at the hostile spirit felt toward
the North in some of their hot- blood districts; I
must confess that this unkind feeling- is felt more
among- the women than it is among- even the old
Confederate veterans themselves. These old vete-
rans have passed upon old scores and are true and
loyal citizens. It is the daug-hters and grand-
daug-hters of the veterans who stir up thing-s and
hold resentment still ag-ainst the North. This was
certainly mainfested by the unveiling- of a statue of
Wirz, the Confederate butcher, who was executed
by the order of the Governor of his State for
his inhuman treatment of American prisoners in
the horrible prison. The veterans and many of the
best citizens of the South have been shocked and

REMINISCENCES. 245

grieved at the work of these women, who were re-
sponsible for the unveiling of that statue. When
we went down there as representatives of the North,
we received threats from these women that if our
trains were not blown up sky-high they would tear
away the tracks so that we would have to walk. I
have also been looking over school books they are
issuing down there- Among other things I have
found a great many new incidents of American
history that I never had heard of before. These
spectacular histories were found in Houston, Texas,
and it was near there also they declared against
flying the American flag over the schools. Mrs.
McGowan said she had an annual fund of $500.00 to
be expended solelj^ for flags. It was in her distri-
bution of flags, she said, that she had discovered the
conditions which she alleges exist in certain locali-
ties of the South. She said that in some of the
schools where she had oflered flags Southern
courtesy had in a measure taken the place of gruff
refusal. This courtesy, she said, did not consist of
politely declining the olTer of the Woman's Relief
Corps, but simpl3^ in ignoring the communication
addressed to the board. It had been her experience,
she said, that when no reply was received to the
letters sent out by her department, the school board
to whom the letters were addressed simply did not
want the flags and trusted that a neglect of an
answer would end the matter."

246 REMINISCENCES.

A friend sent "Uncle Bob" Howard the above
clipping-, and the following- is the reply to it:

Except to woo, w^in and wear the true heart of
fair woman, man is rarely justified in taking- issue
with her, and I do no violence to the beautiful pre-
cept, "Silence is g-olden," when I reply to the above
communication emanating- from Mrs. Myrtle Mc-
Gowan on her unwarranted attack on the United
Daug-hters of the Confederacy in particlar and the
South in g-eneral.

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers,
But error wounded writhes in pain
And dies among Its worshippers."

"Vice for a time may shine and virtue sigh;
But truth like Heaven's sun doth plainly reveal
And scourge or crown what darkness did conceal."

Next to the Church of God, the U. D. C. is the
g-randest, most g"lorious org-anization in the South,
and as long- as Heaven's glittering" dew drops shall
kiss the blushing- rose to bring- forth her spotless
beauty and matchless frag-rance, so long- will the
South 's peerless women perpetuate and transmit to
this and to future g-enerations the truth and justice
of the hallowed cause for which we for four 5^ears
heroically foug-ht the civilized world and g-loriously
died, and will ever teach their children and their
children's children that thej' may proudly, defiantly

REMINISCENCES. 247

point to the South 's record, as white as the everlast-
ing" snows on the mountain's peak, and say to their
God on His throne: "The South's hands are g-uiltless
of innocent blood during- the Civil War." And why
this unjust attack of Mrs. McGowan? Because the
U. D. C, in their deathless love for the heroes of the
South, have erected a monument of sweet love to the
memory of the great martyr and grand hero, Captain
Wirz, who was commander of the prison at Anderson-
ville, Ga., where many thousand prisoners were con-
fined during the war. Figuratively speaking, Mrs.
McGow^an must have strained at a gnat and boda-
ciously swallowed, without grease or grunt, a whole
g-reat big lot of U. S. flags which she had been unable
to unload on school-houses in the South, where they
should have been unfurled to the breezes of Heaven
that they might promote patriotic education to the
barbaric and benighted heathen of Dixie. Seriously
and all joking aside, I fear Mrs. McGowan has an
acute attack of Phantasmasmagraphical Aldabaron-
deos-tafusticabilit^^ all of w^hich will readily yeild to
broken doses of elixir of common sense, mixed with
numbers of doses of due regard for history and incon-
trovertible facts, and as an expert in the terrible ail-
ment that now prevents her from combobulating on
her complivity in her exalted position of teaching
patriotic education with the Stars and Stripes of this
glorious Yankee Doodle Government, I guarantee a
sure cure; no cure, no pay.

248 REMINISCENCES.

Will Mrs. McGowan please ^ixe me name of the
Governor and State by whom and b3' which Captain
Wirz was liun^ ?

Is it not a fact, my dear sister (to whom upon win^s
of love, as an unreconstructed Rebel, I waft you
kind gfreeting"s), that Captain Wirz, then a paroled
prisoner of war, was carried to Washing^ton City soon
after the war ended and tried bj^ a military com-
mission, org^anized to convict? Do 3"ou know, Mrs.
McGowan, that after the conviction and sentence of
Captain Wirz to death on the g'allows by this drum-
head commission; he was offered his freedom if he
would say that Jefferson Davis was responsible for
the cruelties and barbarities char^fed by the United
States Government as having" been inflicted on the
Federal prisoners? Grand martyr and g"lorious hero !
Wirz proudly and detiantl}' spurned the base otter
and now doubtless wears a crown of fadeless g"lory
in the beautiful Bej^ond. Does Mrs. McGowan
know that the Federal Government was responsible
for the death of every soldier buried at Anderson-
ville by not exchang^ing- prisoners? Is it not a fact
that the Confederate Government offered to deliver
every prisoner at Andersonville to the Federals at
Savannah without demanding" any Confederates in
return? If our treatment of prisoners caused the
death of so manj' of them, many times more g"uilty is
the North of the crimes charg"ed ag"ainst us when
twelve per cent, more of our prisoners died in

REMINISCENCES. 249

Federal prisons than Federals died in Southern
prisons. Will Mrs. McGowan please g^ive me the
names of the U. D. C. at Andersonville who threat-
ened that if the trains were not blown up skj^-hig^h
the3^ would tear up the track? Mrs. McGowan can
rest assured that she and all her ilk can visit any
part of the South and receive all the courtesy and
respect due womanhood and particularly Anderson-
ville where in the cemeterj^ they cem read on those
mag'niticent monuments the names of 18,000 Yankee
murderers and bummers who left their homes in
the North and came into our countrj^ with a sword
in one hand and a torch in the other, with the
avowed intention of putting* black heels on white
necks, vice over virtue, barbarism over civili-
zation, and committing" all the crimes and outrages
known to the decalog'ue, at which the civilized
w^orld stands ag"hast. And now in conclusion, my
dear Mrs. McGowan, doubtless the possession of
golden tresses, beautiful sparkling- eyes and a voice
that trills soul inspiring* music, sweeter by far than
Orpheus ever piped on his tender lute to his loved
and lost Eurydice, I say to 3?^ou in all kindness and
love, at this time we need no long^er as promoters of
patriotic education your flag's in our schools, and I
sug-g-est that you use your $500.00 annual appropria-
tion for a scientitic course and masterj^ of history,
the fundamental law of which, according- to the
g-reat and wise Cicero, is "That it should neither

250 REMINISCENCES.

dare to say anything" that is false, or fear to say
anything- that is true," and now, I waft you a sweet,
loving" g"oodbye, trusting" that no one can say of you,
"Ephraimess is joined to her idols, let her alone."
"Ne sutor ultra crepidam." And, "whoever bloweth
not his or her own horn, the same shall not be
blown at all." "Words fitly spoken are like apples
of gold in pictures of silver." Nuff Ced.

R. M. Howard.

Had I Aladdin's lamp of old, by which I could
chang"e immaterial thing's into g"old, I would buj^
Anderson ville Cemetery as it now stands; not to dis-
turb the rest of the dead there sleeping" or to mar or
deface the beauty of it's mag-nificent monuments, but
I would dedicate it as a perpetual Mecca that future
g-enerations of the South mig"ht make annual pilg"rim-
ag"es thereto and see the tribute of sweet love erected
there by the U. D. C. of Georgia to the memory of
the g-rand martyr and immortal hero, Maj. Wirz, who
willing"ly g"ave his noble, unselfish life rather than
say that Jefferson Davis, "the noblest Roman
of them all," was responsible for the cruelties and
barbarities said by the North to have been used on
the Federal prisoners, and fain would I have these
Southern pilg-rims read from those towering" shafts
of the merited fate of those ruthless invaders and
murderous free-booters.

REMINISCENCES. 251

DoTHAN, Ala., Jan. 18, 1911.

Mr. Robert Howard,

Columbus, Ga.

Dear Mr. Howard:

Last ni^ht, I read your poem in the Enquirer to my
father-in-law, Mr. A. J. Renfroe. We enjoyed every
line of it.

Under separate cover, I send you a box of violets,
gfrown in my own yard, and every one of them picked
with a thoug-ht of you.

No doubt, bj^ this time you are wondering" who I
am. Well, I will tell you. I am the little Yankee
who married Wellborn J. Renfroe, of Columbus, Ga.
We have been married five years the fourteenth day
of February.

Do you remember the day you met us on Broad
Street and kissed my hand as a token of respect?

I have never forg-otten you, and admire your
loyaltj' to the South.

This little box of violets is a token of my appreci-
ation for 3^ou.

May your remaining days be as happy as you
wish.

Your little "Yankee" friend,

Helen (Trisler) Renfroe.
211 W. Troy St., Dothan, Ala.

252 reminiscences.

Replies to Editor Hemphill.

"Uncle Bob" Howard Turns His Guns on the
Charleston News and Courier.

Replies to Recently Published Editorial.
Columbus Confederate Veteran Says He
Says What He Pleases, Where He Pleases,
Without Asking Permission of Editors in
South Carolina or Elsewhere.

Editor Enquirer. San: I would saj^ to the brig"ht and
brilliant editor of "FJie ChurlesUm News and Courier that
I have never retired under fire, nor will I retire from
fire on this occasion until I reply to his answer in
m3^ reply to Mrs. M^-rtle McGowan, of Chicago, in
her recent attack on the U. D. C.

As long- as this heart of mine shall throb and this
tongfue of mine can speak, I will resent to the best
of my abilitj^ any attack made upon my people in
this dear old land of Dixie, emanating- either from
the loud braying- of long- eared asses or the g'entle
whinnies of short-haired jennets.

I do not exag-g-erate in the least when I say that I
have been heartil3^ commended in person by hundreds
of men and women in this city and elsewhere on my
recent reply to Mrs. McGowan, of Chicag-o, and why
The Charleston. News and Courier only should have un-
favorably criticized me, is beyond my comprehension,

REMINISCENCES. 253

said criticism confined to two words only in my reply
— "phan-tas-mas-mii-jL^raph-i-cal, al-da-ba-ron-de-os-
ta-fus-ti-ca-bil-i-t}' . "

••A little learning Is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

And if the g"reat editor has not quaffed sufficiently
of the limpid waters of this inspiring" springy to
learn the true Engflish of the two words, I am not
responsible for the fact that I am wiser than he.
*'Answ^er not a fool according- to his folly, lest thou
be also like unto him." And ag'ain, "Answer a fool
according- to his folly, lest he be wise in his own
conceit." Take either horn of the dilemma and
draw^ 3^our own conclusions.

"Our fig-ht is with the Georg-ia Colonel." says
Editor Hemphill, and why should he figflit me for
publishing- truths of history which are incontroverti-
ble? Can it be that this g-reat editor w^ould have
Lethe's dark waters bury in oblivion the g-lorious
and heroic past of the South, and licking the foul
hand that smites us, that thrift may follow fawning",
say to tlie North: "You were rig-ht, we were wrong",
please forgive ?" God forbid.

I can never forg-ive tliis editor for mentioning" my
name in connection with W. J. Bryan, for whom
"Militant Democracy" three times stultified itself by
accepting" him as a true exponent of Jeffersonian De-
mocracy, and equally g"alling" would it be to me were
I in the Georg"ia Leg-islature. If I owed the devil a

254 REMINISCENCES.

complete MUNDANE NONENTITY, and he would
not accept the present State Leg"islature in full pay-
ment, I would claim exemption from further payment
by pleading" leg"al tender. I am not a candidate for
office, Mr. Editor, and would not accept one were it
tendered on a platter set with diamonds. The only
office I ever held was Fourth Corporal in Company
G. (Governor's Guards, Columbia, S. C), Second
South Carolina Reg-iment, in Virginia in 1861, before
the first hostile g"un was fired.

"But who is Colonel Robert M. Howard an^^how,
to be parading" himself thus before the electorate?"
I am just one of that g"rand arm}^ of private Con-
federate soldiers, who, for four years fought the
world and followed our flag" from Manassas to Ap-
pomattox, and Greensboro, in defense of constitu-
tional libert3^ and the rig'ht of self-g"overnment and I
do not have to g'et an "Ipse dixit" from newspaper
editors (some of whom actually know less than I
have forg"otten long" ag"o) as to what, when and where
to say anything" I please in vindication of the South
in perpetuating" and tr^msmitting" to this and to
future g"enerations the facts and justice of as
rig'hteous a cause as any for which Freedom ever
unsheathed her sword; and least of all should I ask
a permit from the brilliant editor (of g"rand historic
old Charleston, where "The Lost Cause," more than
48 years ag"o, forced the United States to lower her
colors to General Beauregard) who for aught I know

REMINISCENCES. 255

to the contrary believes the sun, moon and stars
receive their brilliancy from tlie g'littering" ^ems as
they drop and fly from the diamond point of the
g'olden pen gfuided by the nimble hand of Charles-
ton's truly g^reat editor.

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste Its sweetness on the desert air."

And now to Editor Hemphill I bow respectful,
"Au Revoir." An old man? Yes, I have nearly
reached the eig-htieth milepost on life's journey in
this vale of tears, and as I daily approach the final
g^oal, I have an abiding- faith that when summoned
from hence to g"ive an account of my stewardship in
this life, "The sig^hs and tears I've wept o'er here
may turn to smiles in Heaven."

And for Dixie, dear old Dixie, God knows I yet
would lay me down and die.

R. M. Howard.

There is in the colored cemetery in Columbus, Ga.,
a pure white marble monument with the following-
inscription: "Erected by the City of Columbus, to
mark the last resting- place of Brag-g- Smith, who
died September 30, 1903, at the ag-e of 32 in the
heroic, but fruitless effort to rescue the City
Eng-ineer from a caving- excavation on Eleventh
Street," "Greater love hath no man than this,

256 REMINISCENCES.

that a man lay down his life for his friends." Truly
was Brag"g Smith a g^lorious hero. Can any other
City in the Government show a monument erected
to the memorj^ of a negro?

Had Bishop Galloway lived a few months long'er
he would have seen his wish attained, and after the
lapse of nearlj^ half a century, the statue of the most
heroic, knig^htliest, kindest, g^entlest of g:entlemen,
the world's g'reatest soldier, standing- by that of
Washing-ton in the Hall of Fame. And he would
have heard The Record Herald^ a Northern paper,
commending^ Virgfinians for choosing- Washingfton
and Lee to represent their State, and saying* "two
nobler men could not be jointly honored." And he
would have heard the New York Evening Sun^
saying-. "His statue may well stand in the Capitol
of the Nation as he may ultimately take rank as our
g-reatest g-eneral." It is true, as has been said,
"The absence of Lee's statue from this hall could
take nothing- from his fame, but without Lee, this
American Hall of Fame would be very like tlie
Poet's Corner in Westminster without Shakespeare,
or Les Invalides without Napoleon." Certainly in
this presence we shall all ag-ree, tliat the Hall of
Fame can never claim

"A nobler than he,
Nor nobler man have less of blame.
Nor blameless man have purer name.
Nor purer name have grander fame,
Nor fame— another Lee."

REMINISCENCES. 257

This g"alaxy of heroes might well be named the
Southern Cross," the most conspicuous constel-
lation of the Confederacy, and the vicarious sacrifice
of the South.

But around these brilliant leaders there were a
myriad burning'" hearts that loved their country none
the less, who fougfht as bravely, died as gloriously,
and come back to-daj^ to stand with the rest as each
heart calls for its hero g"rand, — the men of the ranks
whom "no man can number," whose names are
lost like the petals that fall from the wreath your
lingfers twine above the tomb where the mig'hty are
fallen asleep. When the Howers of chivalry are
shattered and fall as thick as the leaves of Valomb-
rosa who can remember them all but God, who
thoug-h He is Love, yet of Himself hath said,
"Jehovah is a man of war." He remembers them
all— your hero aud mine. Ah, those dear lips that
sang- so oft the praises of the South, that loved her
loyal sons with a love passing- that of woman,
smiled upon her daug^hters as the fairest the sun
shone on, and thoug^ht it a worthy thin^ in death to
reiterate the conviction that continued from manhood
to old a.<je, that the South was rig-ht in her con-
tentions and in all her strug-g-les g-loriously brave.
Thej^come back^they come back to-dayl And mine
own arms feel that it were not far to lift Time's veil
from the dear, devoted dead, and brushing- back the
flowers the j^ears have let so g-ently fall, kiss once

18

258 REMINISCENCES.

more the cold cheek, the silvered heiir, the noble
brow of my Confederate soldier.

The common soldier of the Confederacy is not
ashamed of his record; every one of whom believed
in iiis cause and himself so thoroug-hly that he
thoug-ht he was equal to about five Union men, and
history says he proved his faith by his works.

At Manassas six thousand men of the army of
the Shenandoah, with 16 g"uns, and less than two
thousand of that of the Potomac with 6 g'uns,
successfully resisted for full five hours 35,000 United
States troops, with a powerful artillery and a
superior force of regfular cavalry. And the end of
the conflict was so gfeneral a rout that, as the
scattered and terror-stricken troops fled toward
Washing"ton, Jeb Stuart divided his g"ay cavaliers of
Virgfinia aristocracy into squads of ten, with the
order to "attack any force you find," and this was
literally carried out ag"ain and ag"ain, as a little
squad of ten would cry to 80 or 100 fully armed men,
"Throw down your arms!" And the panic-stricken
soldiers obeyed. A Southern soldier heard General
Sherman say soon after the war: "It took us four
years with all our enormous superiority in resources,
to overcome the stubborn resistance of those men."
But as a matter of fact in counting* the odds the
Union soldier has never had his deserts; for back
of the Confederate soldiery was a line of mothers
and wives and sisters and sweethearts, who were

REMINISCENCES. 259

the inspiration of every man at the front. The
Federals had to overcome the man behind the g-un,
and the woman behind the man. The men at Ap-
pomattox surrendered; the women never did.

This earth has had g^reat women now and then;
history will tell of a Deborah, a Joan of Arc, an
Elizabeth here and a Victoria there, a Susannah
Wesley, a Florence Niofhting-ale, a Maud Balling-ton
Booth, a Clara Barton — you can count them on your
fing-ers. But was there ever a time when the world
saw so beautiful a sig-ht? — every woman a heroine! —
as the Southern women "during- the w^ar," and, you
know, it isn't necessar3^ to particularize about the
"Civil War," or the "War between the States," this
country has never seen, but one g-enuine war.

And in that fearful strug-g-le, womanhood was im-
mortalized by Southern w^omanhood. Their deeds
of mercy, their sublime sacrifice and uncomplaining-
patience, their faith and fervor and fortitude will
never be adequately recorded till the ang-els report.
That history has never been written because those
women were unconscious of any gTeatness in w^hat
they did — and however much a woman may adorn
her person, she has never been wont to paint her
deeds; and the men, iilas! there was not a man left
at home to see and write it down. Every man who
could weild a pen had exchanged it for a sword, and
was at the front.

260 REMINISCENCES.

Away back in the "60's" a youngf girl of great
heart bids her brothers g^o fig"ht for the land of their
love. "Who is to tend the farm and care for the
widowed mother and the sister four years younger?"
"I" she said. They went; they wore the grray. Do-
ing" a hero's work with her hands, an angel's work
with her heart, toiling and suffering through four
long years, she laid strength, health and happiness
on the altar of her country.

At length one day the silver cord was broken, and
the tired soul was laid to rest. But listen I Her
dying instructions, literally carried out, were that
there should be no mourning colors there; as far as
possible all to be in gray; her casket was graj'', she
weis buried in the dress her own hands had made of
Confederate gray; her pallbearers were dressed in
gray; sons of Southern soldiers placed her gently on
the bosom of the kind old earth, and it seemed to me
that day it too was dressed in gray. I am not draw-
ing the lines too strong when I say that c^iuse was
their idol, and they loved it as a woman loves her
God. They never regarded it as a "lost cause,"
they never surrendered; and every woman of the
South is flying her colors to-da3^

To-day the soldiers have marched once more to the
tune of Dixie in the balmj'^ Southern air; comrades
have grasped once more the comrade's hand; all day
the past has been striking ha,nds with the present.
"All this for love of a cause that is lost, of a flag

REMINISCENCES. 261

that is but a memory, of a nation whose only terri-
tory is but a name." But raethinks in gflory to-day
the ang-els who hear us call it LOST do wisely
smile. It is not lost! It can never be lost so longf
as men preach patriotism, love, valour, and -worship
heroes.

"Long, long centuries
Ajione one walked the earth, His life
A seeming failure,
Dying, He gave the world a gift
That will outlast eternities:"

home-coming
Op the Soldiers Back Yonder in the Sixties.

From the New York Tivies.

At a dinner party upto^vn the other nig"ht several
former Union soldiers and an ex-Confederate sat
down. The latter had ridden with J. E. B. Stuart.
He is now ridingf about for a northern concern. The
talk turned on the home-coming- of the military
heroes, and the Southern man said:

"I was asked the other day in Pittsburg", as we
watched the w^elcome of the people to the Tenth
Pennsylvania back from the Philippines, what sort
of reception w^e Johnny Rebs got when we w^ent home
after the Civil War. Whipped soldiers are not often
required to march in bodies when they g"o home.
The Confederates did not, as a whole. They did
not in any way so far as I ever heard. They went

262 REMINISCENCES.

back in twos or threes, but ofteiier one at a time.
You will know some day that the Civil War w^as
unlike any other war of history. When the Con-
federates realized they were wiiipped they were
heart-broken. I am not making- any argnraent for
the cause. But 3^ou must consider the temperament
of a Southern man to understand what defeat meant
to him.

"You people of the North would have been recov-
ered if the North liad been whipped. You would
have been at Richmond, if we had succeeded, with
your Yankee inventions and schemes. You would
have o-ot the contract for the Confederate States
public works. You would have had the contracts
for building- our navy, for making- our g-uns. You
would have built our railroads. You would have
revived your industries from our coffers. You would
have become partners in our commerce, All this
would have been characteristic of 5^ou.

"With the Southern man it w^as different. He was
whipped but he was sullen. He moped and would
not play. You people had the advantag"e in the
play, of course, but you mig-ht have g"iven the sulker
a show for Jiis white alley if he had showm a dis-
position to let you inside his yard. But he barred
the g-ate and scowled at j^ou through a knothole.
And this strain clung- to him for years, and he awoke
one morning- to find some of you folks in his field
and on his plantation working" his soil while he was

REMINISCENCES. 263

starving". Then he quit looking' back and went to
work. And now when you have a trade with a
Southern man you do not take advantage of him as
you did.

"But just after the surrender he was in no mood
to be received. The town from which he had en-
listed was in no condition to turn out in welcome
and hurrah, even if a reg"iment had returned or any
body of men. Gentlemen, believe me, there was not
a healthy hurrah in the whole South after Lee's sur-
render. It was nothing' to brag' about for some time
before that. Some of us saw the handwriting six
months before the meeting" of Grant and Lee at
Appomattox.

"Your soldiers returned home in companies, bat-
talions and regiments. They were received by the
populace as we are now receiving" our returning'
soldiers from the Philippines and as we 'recently re-
ceived them from Cuba. But the Confederate
soldier sneaked back, not bec^iuse he was ashamed
of what he had done, for to this day we are mig^hty
sensitive on that point, but because he had been
whipped. It takes a brave man to acknowledge a
licking" such as you g-ave us. We acknowledged it
all rig-ht to you and at home, but we did not want
any hurrah made about it. Our people were in no
mood to ring- the bells or fire the guns when we went
home. A man g'oing' into his old home in the nigfht,
climbing" the back fence and g'oing- throug"h the gar-

264 REMINISCENCES.

den, makingf peace with the dog", knocking- at the
kitchen door, is not an inspiring" spectacle. That is
the way most of us went back.

"Very often there were no bells to the church
steeples, for our people had to melt them for ammu-
nition. We w^ere mig^hty short toward the last.
There were few house g^uns during- the war.

"Occasionally a Confederate returned to find his
town so battered that he did not know it. He met
strange faces in the streets. Familiar landmarks
had disappeared. Sometimes he found the founda-
tion of his old home and it w^as overg-rown with
grass. Whole tow^ns disappeared and the communi-
ties moved in some sections of the South during- the

war

'I know many ex-Confederates to-day who were
never mustered out. They bunched us and told us
to g-o and we scattered in every direction. I know
a man in my state who is holding- a Federal office
who never surrendered and who was never dis-
charg-ed from the Confederate service. No war ever
had as many strang-e situations, as manj^ curious
results as that war."

CHAPTER XVIII.

Memorial Oration April 26th, 1911, by Mr,

W. C. Pease.

JUDGE S. P. GILBERT, in a very happy and
pleasing- manner, presented Mr. William C.
Pease, Memorial Day orator, to tlie audience at the
Springfer Opera House Wednesday afternoon, and
Mr. Pease spoke as follows:

The inexorable recorder of the passin^i^- years
stands before the g-reat shield of time and with his
ponderous hammer of brass strikes the funeral dirg-e
of each departed day. Since last we assembled in
memorial service, 364 days have thus been consig-ned
to that past which remains to us only as precious
memories of days in which the chalice of life, filled
to overflowing- with the very joy of living-, has been
pressed to our thirsty- lips, or, as they pass we can
hear the clanking of broken fetters which have lield
us in spiritual, social or political bondag'e, and as
the hateful sound g-rows fainter and fainter with
each departing- day, we ''lift our eyes to the hills
from whence cometh our streng-th" and looking-, be-
hold the exquisite dawn of a new day which bring-s
to us a deeper and truer meaning- of the life which
God has g-iven us.

266 REMINISCENCES.

And now assembled, as our custom is once each
year, to pay tribute to the memory of our Confed-
erate dead, this same guardian of the shield of time
stands with uplifted arm ready to strike the death
knell of another day, as he has ever stood and ever
will stand until "the angfel standing" upon the sea
and upon the earth shall lift up his hand to Heaven,
and swear by Him that liveth forever and ever, who
created Heaven and the thing's that therein are, and
the earth, and the things that therein are, and the
sea, and the things which are there, that there shall
be no more time"— and we, g"athered in the length-
ening shadows of this departing" day with bated
breath and listening ears can hear the tramp, tramp
of the departing hosts as they move onward from
time into eternity.

Standings in the sun-lit dawn of the twentietli cen-
tury listening" to the reverberations of the past tifty
years, as they roll backward into the abyss of time,
we hear the roll of drums, the blare of trumpets, the
shriek of steeds, the rattle of musketry, the thunder
of cannon and the crash of contending hosts, all
coming" to us as echoes of a fratricidal war — the
bloodiest in the annals of history — as reminders of
the most galkint strugg"le for liberty of which the
world has any record.

It is not my purpose to-day to wring your hearts
with a tale of the horrors of that terrific struggle,
nor to stir up your souls to a state of rebellion

REMINISCENCES. 267

ag"ainst the lixecl order of thing's by telling' you a
story of tyranny and injustice. Neither shall I try
to establish the rig-hteousness of the cause of the
Confederacy, nor shall I eulog"ize the Confederate
soldier, for history and the man^^ gifted speakers
who have g"one before me have done all these things.
And we Southern people are to-day in the eyes of
the civilized world, the bravest, most loyal, most
liberty loving" people upon the face of the earth. No
country, North, South, East or West, can show
gfrander specimens of Christian manhood than our
immortal Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson,
the coming" in touch with whose gfreatness made
others g*reat.

Veterans, you, and your comrades who have g"one
before you in answer to the last bug'le call, acted
your part in that awful strugg"le "not like dumb,
driven cattle, but like heroes in the strife" and shall
we as a people be satisfied to memorialize your g"al-
lantry by a white shaft, which liftingf its head
heavenward, bears the leg^end, "To the Confederate
dead," or by some service like this in which the
speaker tries to tell you of your bravery on the field
of battle while you could tell him of privations, of
daring deeds and lofty courag"e of which he has never
dreamed. No! Ten thousand times, no! Your im-
mortal memorial is written in the history of this
nation by none other hand than that of God. For
centuries while he was opening" up the great eastern

268 REMINISCENCES.

hemisphere to the onward march of civilization,
God's hand seemed to hang" like a dark curtain
between the two hemispheres, until in the fulness of
time Columbus lured on by the charm of the impos-
sible manned his caravels and ventured forth.

See j^onder Pinta passing- throug^h the "Pillars of
Hercules" as

"Westward the course of empire takes Us way:
The first for four acts already past,
The fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring: is the last."

It is true of nations as of men, "There's a Divinity
that shapes our ends, roug^h hew them as we will."
God lifted his shadowing" hand and revealed to this
adventurous mariner the mag"niiicent empire of the
West, which was destined by its Creator to become
the mistress of the world both on land and sea. In
this new empire, the North and the East by
reason of peculiar conditions became the g"reat com-
mercial center, while the South, the fairest most
beautiful land that ever came forth from God's
creative powder, w^as a veritable "Garden of Eden,"
carpeted with her g"org"eous flora, and the very
atmosphere filled with the songf of her beautiful
birds: her g"ranite hills bursting" wath coal and
minerals more valuable than the wealth of the
Indies, and her soil productive of every g^ood thing"
for the sustenance of man and beast. The people
holding" this fair heritagre were and are, the

REMINISCENCES. 269

proudest, bravest, bluest blooded aristocrats the sun
ever shone upon; jealous of their rig-hts and quick to
resent any trespass upon their possessions. Sud-
denly these easy going, liberty loving- people were
awakened from their dreaming: under the sunny,
southern skies by the Emancipation Proclamation,
followed quickly by the cry to arms! and then fol-
lowed four years of the bloodiest w^ar the world has
ever witnessed — years in which our beautiful South-
land was crimsoned with the blood of her noble sons
and watered with the tears of her queenly, heroic,
suffering- daug-hters, who, even w^hile receiving- the
news of a husband's death bade her boy, the joy of
her heart, go to the front and take his father's place
in resisting the invasion of the foe.

The war ceased. It was fearful wiiile it lasted,
but it was tlie Lord's doing- and marvelous in our
eyes. It is for us to say what the result shall be.
"God moves in a mysterious way His w^onders to
perform." That this mag-nificent land of America
might become the wonderful "land of the free and
home of the brave," the g-reatest nation upon tlie
earth, it was necessary that every part antagonistic,
or at variance should be welded into one g-rand and
beautiful whole, even though the fusion require the
intense heat of an awful w^ar, a trag-edy of the
nations.

To-day as w^e stand upon the threshold of a new
and g-lorious era, and look back upon the cruel war

270 REMINISCENCES.

of fifty years ag-o, we see the South, the North, the
East and the West all working- tog^ether for the.
buildingf of a nation, which is at once the wonder
and g"lory of the world, while all eyes are centered
upon our beautiful Southland, a veritable g^em gf low-
ing- under the lig-ht of an all wise Creator, the most
beautiful and most to be desired of lands.

Veterans, come with me to-day and ascending- the
Nebo of this g-lorious twentieth century, let us by
God's help view the land which He has g-iven us for
an inheritance. Look! and from Maine to Cali-
fornia, from Canada to the Gulf, we can see smoke
rising- from thousands of cities and thank God that
it is not the smoke of battle, but the evidence of
commercial and industrial activities. Away down
yonder in the valleys, and even climbing- up the
mountain sides, we see things in motion, and ag-ain
we thank God that it is the onward rush of trains
bearing- the commerce of the world and of our own
land to every part of this g-reat continent, and not
the movement of contending hosts rushing on to
war; listen to the echoes reverberating through the
land, and realize that they are not the sounds of
bloody battles, but the stirring of a giant among the
nations awakening to the day of g-lorious possibili-
ties and achievements. Men, see these things as
they eire to-dajs and then with prophetic vision see
the wonders which God hath planned, and which it
hath not entered into the mind of man to conceive

REMINISCENCES. 271

of. Men of the Confederacy, we are here to-day not
simply to memorialize you and your companions who
have gfone on before you, because of the g-allant
deeds which you performed in that bloody war, but
to pay tribute to you as men chosen by God to help
in laying" the foundations of this wonderful land as
it is to-day.

We liear some one siiy every little while with
great boasting", "I am an unreconstructed Rebel."
Listen! "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. For
he hath founded it upon the seas, an<i established it
upon the floods." Washing-ton was right when he
declared "a man must be worse than an intidel who
does not see the divine g'oodness in our national
affairs, or has not the g"ratitude to acknowledg"e it.
No people can be more bound than we to acknowl-
edg"e and adore the invisible hand which conducts
the affairs of men." If this is true, then Unrecon-
structed Rebels, you are in rebellion ag"ainst God.
Banish from your hearts every feeling" of bitterness
and fail into line with a reconstructed nation march-
ing" onward to the fulfillment of its magnificent
destiny.

Confederate veterans, the cause you loved so well
is resting" quietly in the mausoleum of the past; the
flag" you hailed with shouts of devotion and which
was never lowered in dishonor shall never more be
lifted among" the flag"s of the nations, but we love it

272 REMINISCENCES.

still, and when at 3^our reunions it lifts its battle
scarred face, we bow our heads in silent veneration
as the symbol of liberty passes by. Silently,
solemnly and with dimming- e3^es let us lay to rest
in the deep recesses of our hearts, this cause so dear
to us all, and then, liftinir our eyes to beliold the
g-lory of a new born nation, in which there is no
North, no South, but one America; let us stretch
forth our hands in fraternal gfreetingf to those who
come to us from over the Mason and Dixon line, and
thus united we shall work to^^ether not for temporal
supremac3- , but to make these United States a union
indeed in whicii there shall be so much strength that
none shall dare to molest us, and we shall be at
peace with the whole world.

But what constitutes an enduring- empire V Cer-
tainl3^ not riches, nor war-like equipment; not
intellectual supremac3% not art nor scientific attain-
ment; for the g-reat empires of the East possessed
all these elements of .s^reatness and 3^et they have
all passed awa3^ See how, with majestic steps, the
g-reat God of all the earth has swept throug-h all the
ag'es, irresistible in His power, and accomplishing-
His purposes despite the pig-m3^ efforts of man to
stay him.

Read the simple story of the Tower of Babel, and
and you will be forced to recog-nize the presence of a
power which alone controls. In Abyssinia-Ethiopia
long- before the time of Solomon there were mag"nifi-

REMINISCENCES. 273

cent piles of masonry, the splendors of which have
never been surpassed, and forming- g-reat centers of
population to which flocked men and women from
every quarter of the then known world —

Kings of a hundred Dreadnaughts, ruling the seven seas-
Parked ai tiller J, powder and steel— shall ye endure by
these

Keeping an armed lordship of earth whereso your sentries
stand?

What are Akkad and Assur now? Shards In the drifting
sand.

Kings of a thousand forges, kings often thousand men,

Liner and limited, shuttlewise thrown, from port unto
seaport again,

Weaving a web of iafinite threads, giants of hand and of
brain —

Where are the galleys Phoenicia sailed? Ooze, in a deso-
late main.

Kings of the soul's out-searching, kings of tne far Ideal-
Poets, philosophers, prophets— the Christ-lifting men
nearer the Real—

Not unto dust as the war lords go, not as the lords of greed,

But rising forever from life to life- kings and Messiahs
indeed!

Veterans of tlie Confederacy, we memorialize your
suffering's and sacrifices because God was using- you
to establish this enduring kingdom of America; fair
women of the South, we reverence you as minister-
ing angels, and as vestals chosen by God to keep
the altar fires burning-. But men, your sacrifices
are wasted; women your ministrations are all for
naught, if you keep not before the rising- generations
the great truth that God, He is the Lord and His
commands must be obeyed. Let us as a Christian
nation show our gratitude by devotion to our

19

^4 REMINISCENCES.

father's God; for surely He has dealt with us as
with no other nation, and g"iven us a larg"e and
wealthy place among" the nations of the earth.

The messag"e of the Angels was "Peace on earth,"
therefore on such an occasion as this let us not dwell
upon those things which can only serve to keep us
in the gall of bitterness and rebellion, but rather let
us lift our souls to God in thanksg'iving" for His
wonderful goodness to us. Let us take from the
colossal Statue of Liberty the torch which she is
holding aloft and in its stead place the uplifted
cross; then shall we behold the mission of America
to the world. As Southerners who have passed
through the bitterness of defeat, and who can now
see the dawn of that glorious day when we shall
take our place in the councils of the nation, and all
bitterness and prejudice shall be so far removed
that one of our own shall become our chief ex-
ecutive, let us as a Christian people meet our
responsibilities and then shall the gfreat God lead
us into high and ever higher realms of peace and
usefulness, and the whole of America shall unite in
the grand old National song":

V

"Our father's God! to Thee
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King."

( (

CHAPTER XIX.

Uncle Bob" Has A Great Time,

nPHE indications are that Col. R. M. Howard, of
* this city, who went to Dawson yesterday to
deliver the Memorial Address, had a great time if
the following- dispatch may be taken as such:

Dawson, Ga., April 26th.
Editor Enquirer- Sun ,

Columbus, Ga.

The only gun fired at me to-day was a broadside
of sweet love from brave men and beautiful women
and children of this City of Dawson. I covered the
g-round with truth and reached the wire O. K., feel-
ing- like a thoroug-hbred two-j^ear-old, champing^ the
bit, ready for the word "g-o."

Weddingfs, likes measles, are contagfious, and I
am liable to leave here for New York with my
eigfhteen year old bride on my honeymoon.

Uncle Bob.

"One day the wasted body of a man, whose bril-
liant mind had been a wreck for many years, was
carried out from his asylum for burial. It had been
hard for him to bear, and for his friends to see such

276 REMINISCENCES.

a brilliant career as his end in years of mental
chaos, but it looked as if in these last days God
had made a rift in his darkened mind and through it
suffused upon his weary soul some of Heaven's own
radiance; for after they had borne his body away,
and went back to his room to take his little effects
home, they found penciled on the wall these remark-
able words:

"Could man with Ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the earth contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
1 have loved Thee with an everlasting love."

Has the consciousness of that ever thrilled you?
The love of God is an everlasting* love.

It is the most everlasting thing in all God's
universe. We sometimes speak of "the eternal
hills;" they do look everlasting in their age-long
shapes and granite hearts. But we know they are
not everlasting. Frost and rain are furrowing their
faces and seaming their sides, and now and then
great internal convulsions cleave them from crest to
base and leave them scattered about, the ruins of
their former majesty.

We walk out under the starry skies at night, and
as their golden radiance shimmers down upon us we
feel knit to generations far agone on whom their

REMINISCENCES. 277

night fell as it now falls on us. The ancient Chal-
dean astronomers and hoary Egyptians, long- before
Abraham's day, measured their flights and watched
for their coming. Tliey look everlasting, but they
are not. The words of the Psalmist are true, "Of
old hast Thou laid the foundations of the eartli, and
the heavens are the work of Thy hands." But they
are not eternal. What he adds is also true — "They
shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them
shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou
change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou
art the same, and Thy years shall have no end."

"Change and decay in all around I see," but the
love of God, like His mercy, which is born of His
love, is "from everlasting to everlasting."

THE SOUTHERN SOLDIERS' GRAVES.

*^Pulveri8 tria matnplia ad manes spargere.^''

"Beautiful feet! with maidenly tread,
Offerings bring to the gallant dead.
Footsteps light press the sacred sod
Of souls untimely ascended to God.
Bring Spring flowers in fragrant perfume,
And offer sweet prayers for a merciful doom.

"Beautiful hands! ye deck the graves
Above the dust of the Southern braves;
Here was extinguished their manly fire,
Rather than flinch from the Northman's ire.
Bring Spring flowers! the laurel and rose,
And deck your defenders' place of repose.

278 REMINISCENCES.

"Beautiful eyes! the tears ye shed
Are brighter than diamonds to those who bled.
Spurned Is the cause they fell to save,
But 'little they'll reck' if ye love their grave.
Bring Spring flowers! with tears and praise,
And chant o'er their tombs your grateful lays.

"Beautiful lips! ye tremble now,
Memory wakens the sleeping ones vow;
Mute are the lips and faded the forms

That never knelt down, save to God and your

charms.
Bring Spring flowers, all dewy with morn.
And think how they loved ye, whose graves ye

adorn.

"Beautiful hearts! of matron and maid,
Faithful were ye when apostles betrayed!
Here are your loved and cherished ones laid;
Peace to their ashes; the flowers ye strew
Are monuments worthy the faithful and true.
Bring Spring flowers, perfume their sod,
With ammal incense to glory and God.

"Beautiful tribute at Valor's shrine!

The wreaths that fond ones lovingly twine.

Let the whole world their ashes despise.

Those whom they cherished with heart, hands
and eyes.

Will bring Spring flowers and bow the head.

And pray for the noble Confederate Dead!"

REMINISCENCES. 279

Columbus, Ga., January 11th, 1911.

Editor Ledger:

Flowers from the Garden of My Heart.

Three score, ten and seven years of time crown me to-day.

R. M. Howard.

The fountalu in the desert of life springs from Hope.
Heaven is the bright goal, in the blissful Beyond we seek.
Rather one rose to-day, than many on the bier in death.
Every day is a fresh beginning.
Each morn brings its cross, Its crown.

Sincerity should prompt our every deed done.

Contentment with life is a jewel above price.

Over every dark cloud there Is a silver shade painted by Hope.

Restrain the tongue that it speak no wrong.

Experience wounded, teaches man wisdom.

Truth like Heaven's sun reveals and scourges or crowns what dark-
ness conceals.

"Error wounded writhes in pain and dies with its worshippers."

"Nothing extenuate or set down aught in malice," lest truth lose
her sway.

As man loves himself, so should he love his neighbor.

Never sacrifice principle on the altar of policy.

Duty, next to God, Is the grandest word known to man.

Silence is the temple of our purest thoughts.

Eden was a wild, and Adam sighed till Eve— his best rib— smiled.

Verily is the sacred dust of our Confederate dead the sweet ashes of
our glory.

Ever will live "the story of the glory of the men who wore the
gray."

Nothing need cover their high fame but Heaven, no pyramid mark
their memories.

Years In their flight scatter both sunshine and storm.
Examples hasten deeds to grood eflfects.
Appearances deceive, many are not what they seem.
Reputation without blemish Is a treasure without measure.
Sorrow lives with those, whose pleasures add to their sins.

280 REMINISCENCES.

"Old friends, like old swords are trusted best."
Friendship Is an abstract of love purged from all Its dross.

Time Is fleeting, and ever sounding funeral marches to the grave.
Improve each day, one lost Is lost for ever.

Man's definition of beauty and excellence is the woman he loves.
Every heart has Its own secret of pleasure and pain.

Charity is fed by the love that gave It birth.

Reminiscences recall both deep drawn sighs and loving smiles.

Oft in the silent night, fond memory communes with the past.

Wisdom and knowledge are beatitudes from God, which all should
seek.

No land ever gave birth to grander men or more peerless women
than Dixie.

Mercy and love are changeless attributes of God,
Even though man will ever sin.

The sighs and tears we weep o'er here may turn to smiles in Heaven.

Over man's imperfections, let charity spread her broad and loving
mantle.

"Divinity alone shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may,"

And when Heaven's Archangel shall sound the end of time

Years of eternity for weal or woe will be the everlasting doom of
man.

Revenge, though sweet at first Is bitter in the end.

Memory is the mirror with which we gaze upon the past.

Here are my kindred, my friends, my home, sweet home;

Of all my pleasures and treasures, the sweetest, best.

Woman Is the priceless pearl of countless worth to erring man.

"As a man thinketh, so is he;"

Rise then and think with God.

Duty is nearly discharged, and with me life's journey soon will end.

'Uncle Bob" and his grand-nephew Robert Ho\Aard Gatewood,

eleven months old.
(Born on "Uncle Bob's" Seventy-seventh Birthday.)

REMINISCENCES. 281

SAM DAVI8.

Tribute by J. Tkotwood Moore.

♦•Tell rae his name and you are free,"
The General said, while from the tree
The grim rope dangled threat'nlngly.

The birds ceased slnglug— happy birds,
That sang of home and mother words.
The sunshine kissed his cheek— dear sun,
It loves a life that's Just begun.
The very breezes held their breath
To watch the light 'twlxt life and death,
And O how calm and sweet and free
Smiled back the hills of Tennessee!
Smiled back the hills as If to say:
*'0 save your life for us to-day!"

•'Tell me his name and you are free,"
The General said, "and I shall see
You safe within the Rebel line—
I'd love to save such life as thine."

A tear gleamed down the ranks of blue

{The bayonets were lipped with dew);

Across the rugged cheek of war

God's angels rolled a teary star.

The boy looked up, and this they heard:

♦'And would you have me break my word?"

A tear stood in the General's eye:
"My boy, I hate to see thee die;
Give me the traitor's name and fly!"

Young Davis smiled as calm and free
As He who walked on Galilee:
"Had I a thousand lives to live,
Had I a thousand lives to give,
I'd lose them— nay, I'd gladly die
Before I'd live one life a lie!"
He turned for not a soldier stirred.
"Your duty, men; I gave my word."

282 REMINISCENCES.

The hills smiled back a farewell smile.
The breeze sobbed o'er his bier awhile,
The birds broke out in glad refrain,
The sunbeams kissed his cheek again.
Then gathering up their blazing bars.
They shook his name among the stars

O stars, that now his brothers are,
O sun, his sire in truth and light,

Go tell the listening worlds afar
Of him who died for truth and right.

For martyr of all martyrs he
Who died to save an enemy!

My dear beloved soldier friends.

We soon shall hear the last tattoo,
Which time shall beat as it descends

To liide us all from mortal view.
But there's a land I hope we'll see,

Where there's no sorrow and no wars,
Where there's an endless reveille

Which angels sing bej^ond the stars.

Good-by, beloved friends, good-by;

Our lives are passing fast away.
Like clouds that fleck the lilac sky

Or moths that round the candle play.
A few more years 'twill be at best

When all of us who wore the gray
Will have passed, let's hope, to rest.

Awaiting that last judgment day.

Good-by once more, a last good-by;

Together here no more we'll meet.
Our friendship, though, shall never die;

A soldier's love knows no deceit.
There is a bond as strong as steel

That binds us as the day to night—
That is, that we shall always feel

That what we did was for the right.

reminiscences. 283

Uncle Bob Howard Having Great Time

With Pace Shaven and Locks Closely Cropped
Friends Don't Know Him.

Uncle Bob Howard has had more fun than any-
body in Columbus during" the past week. Uncle
Bob takes life easy anyway, and is always read^^ to
enjoy a joke. Of course he enjoys one on his friends
just a shade better than if it be on himself, but when
his friends turn the table on him, he laug-hs with
them, and all have a good time.

During" the past week, however, Uncle Bob has
had it on his friends, and he has enjoyed it hugely.
He had quite a serious attack of erysipelas about
two weeks ago, and when his physician called to
attend him, the first thing he prescribed was the
services of a barber. Now, Uncle Bob, who has
enjoyed seventy-seven summers, and who has had
the frosts of about the same number of winters
thrust upon him, states that this is the first time he
has been clean shaven since he began to wear a
beard. He says he has shaved parts of his face
from time to time, but never before has he had all of
his beard and whiskers taken off.

When the order went forth that he must undergo
this tonsorial operation the old gentleman had

284 REMINISCENCES.

thoug-hts of his own, which he expressed quietly to
himself, but having-, during* four years of war,
learned to obey the orders of his superior officers,
he submitted as cheerfully as he could, and oft came
the beard.

A few afternoons ag^o he came out on the streets
for the first time since his recovery from his illness.
Without the beard and flowing; locks which so long"
adorned him, he presented an altog"ether different
appearance. Even those who know him most in-
timately did not recog"nize him, and he passed and
repassed many of his lifelong* friends without their
recogfnizing' him. Speaking- of the matter, Uncle
Bob says he is satisfied he met and talked with at
least three hundred of his friends, relatives and
acquaintances his first day out, and that only three
of them recog-nized him without difficulty.

One of the first men he met was Mr. Henry
Hunter. "I have known Henry ever since he g-ot
out of the cradle," said Uncle Bob. "I was in-
troduced to him as Mr. Somebody — I don't recall
the name — and stood and talked to him for five
minutes, and finally told him, and he had doubts
even then."

One of the most amusing" experiences Uncle Bob
had was with one of his former comrades in arms.
He was walking" down Broad Street when Judg-e
M. F. Hood recog"nized him, or rather asked him if
he were not Bob Howard. Uncle Bob readily ad-

REMINISCENCES. 286

mitted that it was he. About that time Judg-e Hood
saw Mr. Josiah Flournoy approaching- and told
Uncle Bob to wait a minute and they would have
some fun. As Mr. Flournoy passed without rec-
og-nizing- Uncle Bob, Judg-e Hood called to him:

"Joe, come here a minute."

Mr. Flournoy approached the two, and Judg-e
Hood said:

"I want to introduce you to Major Johnson, of
Tennessee, who is here for a short visit en route to
the reunion at Little Rock. He would like to meet
up with some of the old boys and g-o along- with
them. Can you tell him the name of one or more of
them?"

"Bob Howard," unhesitating-ly replied Mr, Flour-
noy. "He knows more about it than anyone else. If
you don't happen to meet him, call on or telephone
John Matthews at the court house and he can g-ive
you all the information you may desire."

Mr. Flournoy and Uncle Bob talked for several
minutes without the former having the sligfhtest sus-
picion as to the latter 's identity.

"Now^ there's a man I have been knowing all my
life," said Uncle Bob, talking about the incident.
We were in the same company in the war, and have
been associated with each other all our lives. But
he didn't know me. Finally I said:

" 'Joe, do you know you are talking to Bob How-
ard?'"

286 REMINISCENCES.

He g"ot no further. Mr. Flournoy exploded. He
t,Tabbed Uncle Bob by the hand and begfan to shake
him vigforously, and the first intelligfible words he
could utter, after recovering' from his laug^hter,
were:

"You ougfht to be killed before nig^ht."

These are but two of the many amusing" incidents
of which Uncle Bob, clean shaven and with locks
cropped close, has been the centre during" the past
week.

He has been having- the time of his life.

The following" recently appeared in the Eaqmrer-
Sun:

"Lost, strayed or stolen: One Uncle Bob How-
ard. Return with positive proof of identification to
his best g-irl for reward."

That Detestable Elson Book.

(A Virginia Woman In ttie Roanolce (Va.) Times.)

Mr. Thomas Cline, of Roanoke Colleg"e, in a re-
cent letter to the Culpeper Enterprise calls that
paper to account for something- it had said of the
colleg"e, and ends thus: "Roanoke Colleg"e has evi-
denced the true, g"enuine patriotism that the South
needs, and not the narrow spirit of sectionalism."

It is amazing" how all the defenders of said colleg"e
harp upon the much-frayed string" of "sectionalism."

REMINISCENCES. 28?

In fact, they have worn it to a frazzle; while it is very
clear that sectionalism has no part in the matter.

To repudiate and protest a^fainst falsehood and
slander is a recoifnized rig"ht of individuals, com-
munities and nations. Surely to be patriotic Amer-
icans it is not essential to heap insult and injury
upon our ancestors, immediate and remote, to
discredit the living- and the dead. Yet this appears
to be what Roanoke CoUeg-e and its defenders de-
mand of us, the collegfe itself setting- the example,
and Elson's history was dropped as a concession to
public sentiment, and for no other reason. Presi-
dent Morehead afiirms his symathy with the tradi-
tions and ideals of the South, deplores the section-
alism showm by the protestants ag-ainst false
statements, and speeiks of the "wider patriotism"
they would have shown by remaining- silent. I
utterlj^ fail to see the connection. In nowise can I
understand how national loyalty is to be promoted
by vilifying- any section of our common country or
by any section's accepting- as final an unjust and
outrag-eous verdict.

Statements reg-arding- occurrences must either be
true or untrue. "Academic freedom" does not
always discover the truth. One student of the col-
leg-e boldly declares that, "while it is toug-h on the
South, he believes all that Elson says on the
subject." Another, in a newspaper article, claims
to voice the student body and proceeds to deride

288 REMINISCENCES.

and sneer at our Virg-inia ancestry. The history of
the State from its inception at Jamestown is a
standing: refutation of his sneers. No one but a fool
tries to live upon his ancestry, and no one but an
ing^rate fails to acknowledg-e his oblig"ations to those
who have gfone before.

I fear that this sapient youth will not'measure up
even to the scant virtues of the "idle pleasure seek-
ers" who did nothing" for the advancement of their
State and "lived upon their ancestr3^"

If the above incidents indicate "the true, g^enuine
patriotism which the college has and the South
needs," may the good Lord deliver us!

INDORSING THE VIRGINIA WOMAN'S VIEWS.

TJie Roanoke Times states editorially on this
subject:

"Very cordially and heartily we indorse and ap-
prove the sentiments expressed by 'A Virginia
Woman' writing" from Culpeper reg"arding the po-
sition of the Roanoke College authorities in connec-
tion with the Elson history. We confess that that
position is mysterious to us and is past understand-
ing" by any code of ethics with which we are
familiar. The deepest damnation of all is the
evident effort of tlie authorities of Roanoke Colleg"e
to make this question appear sectional and narrow.

"Mr. Elson himself has confessed that in these
statements he was wrong", and he has promised to

REMINISCENCES. 289

correct them in his next edition. Yet Roanoke Col-
leg"e with this confessed falsehood in its accepted
books sets itself up as standing* for truth (?) and
'broad thougfht.'

"With all the power we have we resent the course
of the authorities of this colleg-e in first teaching-
false and slanderous assertions, confessed by the
author of them to be false, and then presentingf
themselves as teachers of 'broad thoug-ht,' denounc-
ing- those who oppose falsehood as narrow and
sectional and claiming- for themselves superiority to
sectionalism and narrowness, basing- this claim on
confessed and crumbling- falsehood.

"As we see it now, let the people who want their
sons taug-ht that before the war we were a popula-
tion of male prostitutes, reg-ardless of color or race
and of female accessories, and that the splendid old
men we see wearing- the crosses of honor and the
uniforms of the Confederate veterans, our own fath-
ers and g-randfathers, foug-ht and offered their lives
for the perpetuation of slavery — let these people
send their sons to Roanoke CoUeg-e under its present
manag-ement. * * * We had better have poison
put into the food of our sons than to have them
taug-ht that their forefathers were heads of harems,
with their g-randmothers conniving-, and that the
soldiers of the Confederacy fougfht to maintain
human slavery. ' '

20

290 reminiscences.

The Old South, the King Lear of Nations.

BY DR. P. D. STEPHENSON, BON AIR, VA.

Lying on a bed of weakness after a nig^ht of rest-
lessness, I have just read the June Veteran on the
Elson history scandal. The only fitting- comment
on the students' action in the matter is couched in
King" Lear's piercing" cry: "How sharper than a
serpent's tooth!"

But how much more sharp in the Old South 's case
than in that of old King" Lear! His angfuish was at
most but an episode of a few years after a long"
career of unsullied honor, prosperity and power;
while that of the Old South in this matter is the
concentrated deadly dreg's of a bitter, bitter cup
held by force to her lips for a whole g-eneration or
more — a cup whose ingredients were military op-
pression, confiscation and wholesale robbery, neg^ro
domination upheld by bayonets, a forced and uni-
versal poverty and igfnorance of her children, force
bills, steady, malig"n and tireless vilification, and
poisoning" of the public opinion and histories of the
whole world of that day ag"ainst the South. They
have stamped the brand of a criminal upon her brow
not only in sig^ht of the g^eneration of that day but
even in the pagfes of history.

Not until about twenty years ag"o did they take
from her lips that cup, held there until the fatal
virus was thoug-ht to have spread well throug"h the
veins of her uninformed, infected children. Now

REMINISCENCES. 291

their hope seems to have been realized. Despite the
magriificent uprising- to the rescue of her honor, her
record, and the well-established truths of the history
of the Old South through her noble U. C. V. and U.
D. C. org^anizations, the moment freedom of speech
was allowed her, despite the untiring" industry and
fidelit3^ shown since, this evil hope, it seems, must
prove well founded. The arms of the unshackled
and enfeebled old Mother South are thrown around
her offspring- too late. They have already drunk of
the cup; the poison is doing" its work. Under the
sounding" name of "academic freedom" they unwind
the arms of their dying" old mother from about them;
they turn with an air of lofty, superior scholarship
to her scurrilous enemies and calmly sit at their feet
instead.

What devil's broth must it be to make children do
such a thing" as that"? "Without natural affection!
Implacable, unmerciful!" Is it not so? Is anything"
more cruel than for a child to unwind the dying" old
mother's arms from about him, smite her on the lips
that are pleading", "Don't destroy my honor, my
son," and then kick her and turn his back upon her?

And what silly, shallow display of ig"norance of the
times! At the very moment when all throug"h the
North there is a renaissance of learning" as to the
Old South's position in the war and a g"reater and
g"reater respect for her views, her arg"uments, her
achievements!

292 REMINISCENCES.

( (-

'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is indeed
to have a thankless child!"

King- Lear's young-est daug-hter, Cordelia, re-
mained true to him. Is there not one loyal child
among the dying Old South's children? Yes, yes;
there must be, even among- those Roanoke students,
for I do not believe that all the students there indorsed
that unspeakable book.

Let, then. King Lear's young-est child, son or
daug-hter, be dedicated to the task of vindicating- the
name and fame and record of the dying- yet death-
less, the outrag-ed yet lofty and stately hig-h-souled
old mother of the New South!

[Dr. Stephenson is rigfht. Despite the boasts that
Confederate veterans indorse the book, there is no
fear that any of them who have not become rene-
g-ades will indorse the book or the faculty after they
have carefully investigfated the book and the status
of the faculty. The sophistry throug-hout the book
is its conspicuous feature, and no man or woman
who is truly devoted to the South will have patience
with that Roanoke Colleg-e "faculty" for a moment.
They can't do it. The Elson book infamy and the
insolence of the Virginia colleg-e faculty in an effort
to vindicate it are g-rievous. The men who were
leaders in restoring- the Union and who foug-ht only
for that are manif estingf nowadays a spirit that tends
to real peace and thoroug-h reconciliation. Leading-
Confederates, and the "old boys" too, are co-operat-

REMINISCENCES. 298

ing" unstintedly, and the complete restoration of con-
ditions that existed away back at the close of the
Revolution — before sectionalism did its unhappy
work — make a brig-ht prospect indeed. But the im-
perative demand for repudiatingf so vile a publica-
tion requires treatment that may mislead casual
readers of the Veteran and cause misconstruction of
its purposes. These occasional readers are im-
portuned to a patient consideration of the facts in
this controversy. Meanwhile the patriotic offices of
Union veterans in helping- to vindicate the Southern
people ag^ainst these aspersions are earnestly im-
plored. Confederates want fraternity, but will not
have it at the cost of shame to themselves and
deg"radation to the nation. These issues are of
concern to every American who is loyal to its
principles.]

ELSON'S HISTORY ON JOHN BROWN.

Elson describes John Brown at Harper's Ferry as
"an elderly man with long-, flowing" beard and with
a strange, unfathomable eye, and a descendant of
one of the Pilgrims who had come in the Mayflower
in 1620." [J. E. B. Stuart as the aid of Col. R. E.
Lee was the first person to detect and expose
Brown's identity, thoug^h he was under the assumed
name of I Smith. Jeb Stuart had been serving" in
Kansas.] Elson relates that Brown's father fur-
nished cattle for the army in 1812, and that John

294 REMINISCENCES.

stayed for a time with a slaveholder who owned a
negro about John's agfe, and that while "young* Brown
was treated with the utmost kindness, the black boy
was beaten and maltreated for little or no cause."
This incident fixed in the youthful soul of John Brown
hatred of slavery, etc. Elson states that when
Brown was advised not to attempt the capture of
Harper's Ferry "his iron will was unmoved," as
were also "his composure" and "his tranquility of
mind." He goes on to quote Northern authors'
eulog'ies upon Brown, and then comments upon "his
supreme self-command, his heroic courag*e, his
readiness to sacrifice his home (?) and his family for
a cause that must elicit our admiration."

This is a sample of the history that is indorsed by
the student body of Roanoke College, at Salem, Va.

In writing- of the Civil War it is apparent that
Elson is an intense partisan, and yet his sophistry
may be uncovered in every chapter wherein the
causes of the two sections are involved. Thorsten-
berg", the teacher of the book in Roanoke Colleg^e,
has shown the most creditable character of all who
are on the defensive in the controversy. His
promptness in discarding" the book, shows that he
realized its infamy.

reminiscences. 296

Peace Between the Sections.

By Miss Mary H. Stephenson, Petersburg, III.

Over fifty years have elapsed since Beauregfard
opened fire on Fort Sumter. The four years of
bloody war have long" since passed into history.
But the conflict has left its sig-n manual on the
sunny Southland in much bolder script than on the
Northland. In fact, it has been written over the
landscape of this sweet, winning, romantic section
of our great country in letters of blood.

The gfreat National and Confederate cemeteries
scattered over that reg-ion are visible sig^ns of the
throes of agony suffered by our nation in the sixties;
and as the warm sunshine lies softly on the g-reen
graves and flowers star them, looking up with dew-
spang-led petals toward the blue vault of heaven,
Dame Nature seems to say to us all: "All ye be
brethren, and it is no 'far cry' from North to
South." There are no Alps for a Caesar to cross
from any direction; only an invisible line, and on
either side of that line are hearts warm and true,
fired with a common love of our common country.
On either side are hearts long-ing" for a complete res-
toration of full amity and brotherhood — yea, much
fuller than we have had since the days of Washing"-
ton and Adams — and, please God, we think ere long"
we shall have it.

296 REMINISCENCES.

Peace hath her patriots no less than her stern
brother, War. On both sides we considered it a
duty to iig"ht for our convictions in the sixties. In
the second decade of the twentieth century it is no
less our duty to fill the chasm of our rent country
with the flowers of love — love toward "our fathers'
God," love toward our grreat common country, love
and forg-iveness one toward another.

Initiatory to this duty both North and South
should realize that no principle is compromised by
such an attitude. The veterans of the Confederate
Army and their sons are sincerely devoted to this
g-reat Union. They are g-lad that their section
of the country is under the protection of the Stars
and Stripes. They are g-lad that we are strong"
enougfh to enforce the Monroe Doctrine on this
continent, protecting- its weaker neig-hbors.

The question as to whether our Constitution per-
mitted a State or States to withdraw at option from
the Union was a much-mooted one for years before
the Civil War. At one time certain New Engfland
States strong-ly advocated the rig-ht of secession.
It was a constitutional question which had to be
fought out sooner or later. Better sooner than later.

At the time of the Civil War slavery was confined
to the Southern section of our country. But traders
of the North, particularly the Dutch traders of New
York, in the early days had imported the black man
and sold him as property.

REMINISCENCES. 297

The North should realize its sacred duty to do all
in its power to further this healing- of old wounds.
Never in the history of our country has there been
so g-reat a need of unity of heart and purpose among-
our citizenship. In unity of hearts and purpose to
preserve our free institutions, at whatever cost, lies
our strengfth.

WOMEN OF THE SOUTH.

Brown McMii.1.IN, in ^ashvMle Tennessean and American.

DEDICATED TO DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY.

Wives and daughters of those men who fought

And died before the belch of cannons' fire,
Whose hands when war was ended nobly wrought

Wreathes for the graves and for the funeral pyre;
Ye women of the South, whose gentle hands

Smoothed fevered pillows when the angel came,
Far off the clans of many alien lands

Bend knee in reverence to thy honored name.

When arms were stacked and desolation spread

Its tawny fingers round that lily's stem,
When hope, like Hector, in the dust lay dead,

And Greece arose translucent like a gem
Which gleams in some proud Pharaoh's shining crown-

'Twas then that ye, undaunted by the night,
Its blackness horror and its lerrored frown

Prayed to thy God for might, for light, for right.

We of that Athens of the South which rests

A new, a better, and wiser land
Upon the blue-grass hillocks' gentle breast;

Hold out to ye to-night a welcome hand.
Full, languorous, soft— outside a smiling moon

Speaks to the stars a whisper from its mouth;
The nightingale, alert, takes up the tune;

All sing a hymn of women of the South.

298 REMINISCENCES.

That hymn a prayer, an epic of the soul

To God for thanks for that soft, blushful land
Where e'en the brooks In silvered lyrics roll

And oaks chant forth proud anthems as they stand;
That South where beauty in a woman's face

Is glorified as was the Holy Grail,
Where men fought for their rights with grace,

And having lost took up again the trail.

God grant that ye, fair women of the land

Where courage dwells and beauty ever blooms.
Will bid us serve! Thy wish is our command;

Our fingers never weary at thy looms.
God grant thy days one gloried sunlight be,

One gentle spring without the summer's drought,
Thy nights one moonlight on a placid sea,

Queens of the world, fair women of the South!

TO AL G. FIELD.

By Db. H. M. Hamill, Nashville, Tknn.

When labor's done and life is past,
As comes to all of us at last.
And at the Judgment bar we stand,
The sheep and goats on either hand,
I think I know your final plea
And what your future fate shall be.

When Gabriel's trumpet thrice has pealed,
His cry rings forth: "Call Al G. Field!"
And bowing low before the book
Of fate, with kind but homely look.
The prince of modern minstrels stands.
An old-time banjo In his hands.

The angel speaks: "What is thy plea
Whereon must rest thy destiny?"
Then, lowly kneeling, Field doth say:
••Dear Lord, on this thy judgment day
I bring thy gift of minstrelsy.
Which long ago thou gavest me.

REMINISCENCES. 269

"I've tried to charm away men's fears,
And oft have dried the mourner's tears;
By song and laugh and merry Jest
Thy minstrel, Lord, hath done his best."
Then with a smile upon his face
The angel answers full of grace:

"Well done, good minstrel, though men carp.
Unstring thy banjo, take this harp;
And when the Pharisees shall frown,
Tune up thy harp and wear thy crown."

[The Impulse to write the foregoing came of Al Field's interest and
service at the Camp Chase memorial June 3.]

"HE'S THE OLD TIxME CONFEDERATE."
(Tune:— "The Old Time Religion.")

By Rev. J. B. K. Smith.

I

From Bull-Run to Appomattox,
From Belmont to Mobile harbor.
From Oak-Hill to far off Texas,
He's good enough for me.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate,
He's the old time Con federate,
He's the old time Confederate,
And He's good enough for me.

II

Lee and Johnston proud to lead him,
Stonewall Jackson had faith in him.
Hood and Cleburne fought beside him,
Oh, he's good enough for me.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

800 REMINISCENCES.

Ill

On the line or In the trenches,
Shorn of life by battles' wrenches,
Being carved on surgeon's benches.
He was good enough for me.

Chorus: —
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

IV

On the march or in the battle,
Mid the crash and roar and rattle,
Scatt'ring "Bank's and Burnside's" cattle,
He was good enough for me.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

V

On the plain where friends lay dying.
Thrice his strength of foe defying,
Pressing hard "Blue Columns" flying.
He was good enough for me.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

VI

Starving, weak, mid scenes of ruin.
Thoughts of freedom still pursuin'.
With rich blood all soil bedewin',
He was good enough for me.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

VII
Hurling rocks by Cleburne's orders.
Braving death on Dixie's borders,
Deaf to clang of wild disorders.
He was good enough for me.

Chorus: —
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

REMINISCENCES. 801

VIII
On the field where foemen slew him,
In rude grave where rough hands threw him,
BtUl fond mem'ry wlil cling to him,
And he's good enough for me.

Chorus: —
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

IX
Even down at "Santiago,"
Shinning up that ".Saw Palmetto,"
Hurling shot and shell at "Blanco,"
He's good enough for me.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

X

Home at last mid gloom and sorrow,
Cheered by hope of joy to-morrow,
Scorning still to beg or borrow,
He's good enough for me.

Chorus: —
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

XI
Standing midst wreck and desolation,
Building up the old plantation.
Giving help to this proud nation,
He's good enough for me.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate, etc.

XII
Fitting theme for song and story,
Shout it loud till heads grow hoary,
Tell the story of the glory,
Of the men who wore the gray.

Chorus:—
He's the old time Confederate,
He's the old time Confederate,
He's the old time Confederate,
And he's good enough for me.

802 • REMINISCENCES.

EuFAULA Has Made Good Preparation.

Old Fashioned Barbecue will be a Feature.
"Uncle Bob" Howard will Address Old
Soldiers.

EuPAULA, July 22. — (Special) — Every preparation
has been made for the Veterans' reunion to be held
here on the 25th inst. and thousands of visitors from
the surrounding- sections are expected to be in
attendance upon the occasion.

In addition to an old fashioned barbecue, which
will be free for all, to be spread under the shelter of
the cotton compress, some speech making' on the
proposed county hig^hway to be in touch with the
New York and Mobile thoroug^hfares will be an
interesting" and instructive feature.

Col. Robert M. Howard (better known as Uncle
Bob) of Columbus, Ga., who bears the title of being"
an Unreconstructed Confederate has also consented
to address the old soldiers on the occasion. Colonel
Howard served throug-hout the war and is now 78
years old but is still blessed with remarkable
activity for one of his years. He affirms that he
will call a spade a spade and a hat a hat and hew to
the line and let the chips fall where they may. He
is in many respects a versatile g^enius and a man of
hig"h literary attainments who will g'reatly entertain

REMINISCENCES. 803

the old soldiers on current topics pertaining- to the
bloody sixties and his address is being- contemplated
with especial interest and pleasure.

Barbour Veterans are Entertained.

Program of Exercises Enthusiasticalt^y En-
tered UPON. Col. Howard Addresses Old
Soldiers — News of City.

EuFAULA, July 26. — (Special)— Business was prac-
tically suspended in all lines yesterday and the
occasion of the reunion of the Confederate Veterans
and Public Hig-hway Booster was characterized by
instructive discourses, delig^htful music by the
Second Reg-iment Band, and a feast of g-ood thing-s
about the noon hour that begfg-ars description. The
prog-ram of exercises opened about 10 o'clock with
military manoeuvres by the Eufaula Rifles on Broad
Street, while the band played a delig-htful concert
from the band stand. Upon the conclusion of this
feature, a procession was formed, led by the band
with the Rifles following- close behind, that pro-
ceeded to the Court House where Col. Robert M.
Howard (Uncle Bob) delivered an address to the
old soldiers. Col. Howard spoke for fully an hour
to a very larg-e audience, composed of men and
women, that crowded the building- to standing- capac-

804 REMINISCENCES.

ity. He was briefly but eloquently introduced by
Capt. S. H. Dent, and at times he grew elo-
quent in defending" the South 's attitude in the
strug-gle. He went over the old battlefields, describ-
ing" in detail pleasing" incidents, many of which were
replete with wit, humor and pathos. He was at
times wildly cheered and paid beautiful and touching"
tributes to Southern women. Southern homes and
Southern chivalry. Colonel Howard is a man whose
information on this particular subject is broad and
liberal, much of which has been deduced from actual
experience in the ranks of the Southern Army, and
his audience was also intelligently enlightened upon
all points leading up to the great struggle in every
instance of which he took occasion to defend the
South 's attitude. Colonel Howard fully demon-
strated the correctness of his distinction in affirming
that he is an unreconstructed Confederate, and his
address was a particularly pleasing and instructive
one along secessional lines.

Additional Clippings in Regard to the
Address at Eufaula.

Colonel Howard talked to the Veterans on the
subject of "Howard's Yankee Doodle Dandy," and
the address was one of the most unique, interesting
and entertaining ever delivered in this city. At its

REMINISCENCES. 305

close the band played Dixie and "Uncle Bob" was
g"iven such an ovation as few men have ever received
in Eufaula. He was literally lifted from the gfround
by his old comrades in arms.

Hon. Charles S. McDowell stated that an address
of welcome was not necessary, but he made a few
introductory remarks relative to the speaker, Hon.
Robert M. Howard, of Columbus, Ga., (Uncle Bob)
that shook the court house with applause. He said
Eufaula 's latch string" always hangs on the outside
to the old soldiers.

The Second Regfiment Band played "Dixie."

Colonel Hiram Hawkins led the "rebel yell," that
rang" out from the Veterans as they waved their hats
and many wept.

Colonel Howard spoke two hours, his subject
being", "Howard's Yankee Doodle Dandy." His
address was unique, humorous and pathetic.

THE OLD "BLACK MAMMY."

By W. a. Clark, Augusta, Ga.

She bends beneath the weight of years

With feeble step and slow.
Yet in her heart there throbs and shines

The light of long ago;

Of days when on her dear old face
There played an angel smile,

As in her blessed arras she held
And crooned to sleep her "Chile."

21

W6 REMINISCENCES.

The color of a lowly race

Shone with its ebon glow,
And yet the old "Black Mammy's" soul

Was white as driven snow.

Her tollworn hands were kind and true,
Through all her bonded years.

To "Mistiss" and the little ones.
In gladness and in tears.

And through war's wearing agony.
Her heart was free from guile,

And loyal to the bitter end,
To "Mistiss" and her "Chile."

Her ranks are waning year by year,
On Southern hill and plain,

And when the last "Black Mammy's" gone,
She'll never come again.

Yet, somewhere on the radiant hills,
Beyond earth's woe and wile.

Her dear old arms will fold again,
"Old Mistiss" and her "Chile."

God bless her— till her weary feet
Shall touch the shining shore;

God keep her— 'mid the cherubim.
At rest, forevermore.

When the First Gun Sounded.

[The following is taken from "Lights and Shadows of a Soldier's
Life," by Robert J. Burdette, D. D.]

It was such a quiet, dreamy, peaceful July after-
noon. There was the sound of a g'entle wind in the
top of the cherry-tree, softly carrying" an aeolian ac-
companiment to my mother's sing'ing'. Once a robin

REMINISCENCES. 307

called. A bush of "old-fashioned roses" perfumed
the breath of the song:. A cricket chirped in the
gfrass.

Boom ! A sieg-e-g-un fired away off down in
Charleston, and a shell burst above Fort Sumter,
wreathing: an angfry halo about the most beautiful
flag: the sunshine ever kissed. From ocean to ocean
the land quivered as with the shock of an earth-
quake. Far away, from the ramparts of Sumter, a
bugfle shrilled across the States as thoug-h it were the
voice of the trumpet of the ang-el calling: the sheeted
dead to rise. And close at hand the flam, flam, flam
of a drum broke into wild thrill of the long: roll, — the
fierce snarl of the dog's of war, awakened by that
sig:nal shot from Beaureg-ard's batteries.

I leaped to my feet, seized my cap, and ran to the
window to wind my arms around my mother's neck.

"Mother," I said, "I'm g-oing"!"

Her beautiful face went white. She held me close
to her heart a long:, silent, praying- time. Then she
held me off and kissed me — a kiss so tender that it
rests upon my lips to-day — and said:

"God bless my boy!"

And with my mother's blessing: I hurried down to
the recruiting- station, and soon I marched away
with a column of men and boys, still keeping- step to
the drum.

But in the long: years when the drum and bugle
made my only music, often I could hear the sob, sob

308 REMINISCENCES.

that broke from her heart when she bade me g"ood-
by, ming-lingf with the harsh flam, flam of the drum
that led me from her side. And at other times when
the bug"les sang" hig-h and clear, sounding- the charg^e
above the roar and crash of musketry and batteries,
even then, sometimes, I could hear her still softly
sing^ing", "All the world should be at peace." When
the storm of battle-passions lulled a little at times,
there would come stealing: into the drifting- clouds of
acrid powder-smoke sweet strains of the old song-s,
the tender, old-fashioned melodies about home, and
love, and peace, and the robin, and the carrier-dove.

I could see the window where she sat and sewed
and sang" on my birthday. I knew the song", and I
could see how g^ently she rocked, and could hear how
soft and low the voice fell at times. I knew that
once in a while the sewing" would fall from her
hands, and they would lie clasped in her lap, while
the song" ceased as it turned into a prayer. And I
knew for whom she was prayingf.

All the way from Peoria to Corinth, from Corinth
to Vicksburg", up the Red River country, down to
Mobile and Fort Blakely, and back to Tupelo and
Selma, the voice and the song" and the prayer fol-
lowed me, and at last led me back home.

I learned then, thoug"h I did not know it nearly so
well as I do now, that there is no place on earth
where a boy can g"et so far away from his mother
that her song" and her prayer and her love will not

REMINISCENCES. 809

follow him. There is only one love that will follow
him farther; that has sweeter patience to seek him;
that has surer wisdom to find him; that is mig"htier
to save him and bring- him back to home and love
and peace. What a Love that is which will endure
long"er and suffer more and do more than hers!
What a Love!

I once heard a man say, — he had never been a
soldier, — "If a woman is ever g-iven the ballot, like
a man, she should be compelled to shoulder a musket
and go to war, like the men."

Such a foolish, cowardly, brutal thing- to say!
Sometimes the g-overnment has to conscript men to
make them figfht for their country. When has
woman ever shrunk from gfoingf to war? "She risked
her life when the soldier was born." She wound her
arms around him throug-h all the years of his help-
lessness. Nig-ht after nig-ht, when fell disease
foug-ht for the little soldier's tender life, she robbed
her aching- eyes of sleep, a faithful sentinel over his
cradle. She nourished him on her own life, a foun-
tain drawn from her mother-breasts. She stood
guard over him, keeping- all the house quiet when he
would sleep in the noisy day-time. She stood on the
firing--line, battling- with the foes of uncleanness,
contag-ion, sudden heat and biting cold, protecting-
her little soldier in the clean, sweet fortress of his
home. She taught him his first cooing words that
some day he might have mighty voice and brave

310 REMINISCENCES.

words of defiance to shout ag^ainst his country's
foes. She taug-ht him his first step — such a waver-
ing-, uncertain little step — that some day he could
keep step to the drum-beat and march with the men
— a free, swingeing" stride — as they follow^ed the flag".
She trained him up to be a manly man, to hate a lie
and despise a mean action, to be noble and chivalrous.
She builded a strong- man out of her woman's soul.

THE WOMAN'S HARVEST.

And then one day, when the bug-les shrilled and
the drum beat, she kissed him and sent him forth at
the wheels of the g"uns — her beautiful boy — to be
food for the fire-breathing- maw of the black-lipped
cannon! Her boy! Heart of her heart! Life of her
life! Love of her soul!

The exultant news flashes over the wires. "Glor-
ious victory," shout the papers in crimson headlines,
"ten thousand killed!"

And in the long- list there is only one name she can
read. It stands out black as a pall upon the white
paper — characters of nig-ht ag-ainst the morning- sun-
shine— the name she g-ave her first-born.

And that is the end of it all. All the years of ten-
der nursing-; of tireless care; of patient training-; of
loving- teaching-; of sweet companionship; and of all
the little walks and talks; the tender confidences of
mother and son; the budding: days; the blossoming-
years — this is the harvest. This is war.

REMINISCENCES. 311

LORENA.

[This was the great sentimental song of the war period. It Is very
rare and a copy was secured only with the greatest difficulty.]

The years creep slowly by, Lorena;

The snow Is on the grass again;
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena;

The frost gleams where the flowers have been.
But the heart throbs on as warmly now

As when the summer days were nigh.
Oh, the sun can never dip so low

As down affection's cloudless sky,
Oh, the sun can never, etc.

A hundred months have passed, Lorena,

Since last 1 held that hand In mine,
And felt the pulse beat high, Lorena,

Though mine beat faster far than thine,
A hundred months, 'twas flowery May,

When up the hilly slope we climbed
To watch the dying of the day

And hear the distant church bells chime,
To watch the dying of the day, etc.

We loved each other then, Lorena,

More than we ever dared to tell:
And what we might have been, Lorena,

Had but our loving prospered well.
But then, 'tis past, the years have gone,

I'll not call up their shadowy forms,
I'll say to them, "Lost years, sleep on.

Sleep on, nor heed life's perilous storms."
I'll say to them, etc.

The story of the past, Lorena, '

Alas, I care not to repeat
The hopes that could not last, Lorena,

They lived, but only lived to cheat,
I would not cause e'en one regret

To rankle in your bosom now—
'•For If we try we may forget"

Were words of I bine years ago.
For If we try, etc.

312 REMINISCENCES.

Yes, these were words of thine, Lorena—

They are within my memory yet—
They touched some tender chords, Lorena,

Which thrill and tremble with regret.
•Twas not thy woman's heart which spoke-

Thy heart was always true to me.
A duty stern and piercing broke

The tie which linked my soul with thee.
A duty stern, etc.

It matters little now, Lorena,

The past is the eternal past;
Our hearts will soon lie low, Lorena,

Life's tide is ebbing out so fast.
There is a future, oh, thank God!

Of life this is so small a part—
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod.

But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart.
Of life this, etc.

MARYLAND.

[Written at Point Coupee, La., April 26, 1861, by James R. Randall.]

The despot's heel is on thy shore,

Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,

Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,

Maryland! My Maryland!

Hark! to the exiled son's appeal,

Maryland!
My mother State, to thee 1 kneel,

Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal.
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,

Maryland! My Maryland!

REMINISCENCES. 313

Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland!

Thy beaming sword shall never rust,

Maryland!
Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's war-like thrust,

And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland! My Maryland!

Come! 'Tls the red dawn of the day,
Maryland!

Come! With thy panoplied array,

Maryland!
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray,
With Watson's blood at Monterey,

With peerless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland! My Maryland!

Dear Mother, burst the Tyrant's chain,
Maryland!

Virginia should not call in vain,

Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain,
"Sic Semper"— 'tis the proud refrain,

That baffles minions back amain,
Maryland!

Arise in majesty again,

Maryland! My Maryland!

Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland!

Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland!

Come! thine own heroic throng,
Striding with liberty along,
And sing thy dauntless slogan song,
Maryland! My Maryland!

I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland!

For thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland!

But lo! there surges forth a shriek
From hill to hill, from creek to creek-
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,

Maryland! My Maryland!

314 REMINISCENCES.

Thou wilt not yield the vandal toll,

Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,

Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl.
Than crucifixion of the soul,

Maryland! My Maryland!

I hear the distant thunder hum,

Maryland!
The Old Line bugle, fife and drum,

Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf nor dumb.
Huzza! She spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! She turns! She'll come!
She'll come!

Maryland! My Maryland!

"Yankee Doodle drew his sword,
And practiced all the passes;
Come, boys, we'll take another drink
When we get to Manassas.

"Yankee Doodle, doodle-doo;

Yankee Doodle dandy
They never reached Manassas Plain,
And never got the brandy.

"Yankee Doodle, oh! for shame,
You're always Intermeddling:
Let guns alone, they are dangerous things,
You'd better stick to peddling.

"Yankee Doodle, doodle-doo,
Yankee Doodle dandy
When next you go to Bully Run
You'll throw away the brandy."

REMINISCENCES. 315

A PRAYER.

a mother for her son, aged fifteen. Written at Memphis, July
JM; 1864.]

God bless my darling venturous boy

Where'er his feet may stray;
God bless the sacred righteous cause

For which he went away;
God bless the little arm 'round which

My wristlet went not tight.
Strengthen it, Lord, till it become

A David's in the fight.

So young, so bright, so fair, so brave,

To Thee, oh God above
T leave the charge to shield and save

The idol of my love.
One more to battle for the right

Of free men to be free,
That hero's heart and child-like form,

1 dedicate to Thee.

ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC.

[The authorship of this poem has been disputed. It is ascribed to
Lamar Fontaine, Second Virginia Cavalry.]

"All quiet along the Potomac to-night,"
Except now and then a stray picket

Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro.
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.

'Tis nothing— a private or two now and then
Will not count in the news of the battle,

Not an ofllcer lost— only one of the men-
Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle.

"All quiet along the Potomac to-night,"

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
Their tents, in the rays of the clear autumn moon

Or the light of the watch fires are gleaming,
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind

Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping,
While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes,

Keep guard— for the army is sleeping.

816 REMINISCENCES.

There Is only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,

As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two in the low trundle bed.

Far away in the cot on the naountain.
His musket falls slack— his face, dark and grim,

Grows gentle with memories tender.
As he mutters a prayer for his children asleep —

For their mother, may heaven defend her!

The moon seems to shine as brightly as then,

That night, when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips, and when low-murmured vow*

Were pledged to be ever unbroken.
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes.

He dashes off tears that are welling.
And gathers his gun close up to its place,

As if to keep down the heart swelling.

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree—

The footstep is lagging and weary,
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,

Towards the shades of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leavest

Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle— ha! Mary, goodbye!

And the life blood is ebbing and splashing!

"All quiet along the Potomac to-night,"

No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead—

The picket's ofl"duty forever.

SOMEBODY'S DARLING.

Miss Maky La Coste, Georgia.

Into a ward of the M-hite-washed halls

Where the dead and dying lay -
Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls,

Somebody's darling was borne one day.
Somebody's darling so young and so brave!

Wearing yet on his sweet pale face —
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave—

The lingering light of his boyhood's grace.

REMINISCENCES. 817

Somebody's watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold hlra again to her heart;

And there he lies, with his blue eyes dim,
And his smiling, child-like lips apart.

Tenderly bury the fair young dead-
Pausing to drop o'er his grave a tear;

Carve on the wooden slab o'er his head,
"Somebody's darling slumbers here."

THEY SHOULD NOT REST APART.

Father Ryan.

Gather the sacred dust

Of the warriors tried and true,
Who bore the flag of our nation's trust
And fell In a cause as great as just.
And died for me and you.

Gather them, each and all.
From the private to the chief.

Come they from cabin or lordly hall;

Over their dust let the fresh tears fall
Of a nation's holy grief.

No matter whence they came.

Dear Is their lifeless clay;
Whether unknown or known to fame,
Their cause and country were the same-

They died— and they wore the gray.

O, I'M A GOOD OLD REBEL.

By Maj. Innis Randolph.

Oh, I'm a good old Rebel,

Now, that's just what I am;
For the "Fair Land of Freedom"

I do not care— at all;
I'm glad I fit against It,

I only wish we'd won;
And I don't want no pardon

For anything I done.

318 REMINISCENCES.

I hates the Constitution,

This Great Republic, too;
I hates the Freedman's Buro'

In uniforms of blue;
I hates the nasty eagle,

With all his brags and fuss;
The lyin', thievin' Yankees,

1 hates them wuss and wuss.

1 hates the Yankee Nation

And everything they do,
1 hates the Declaration

Of Independence, to;
I hates the glorious Union—

'Tis dripping with our blood—
I hate their striped banner,

I fit it all I could.

I followed old Mars' Robert

For four year, near about,
Got wounded in three places

And starved at Point Lookout.
I cotch the roomatism

A campin' in the snow.
I killed a chance o' Yankees,

I'd like to kill some mo'.

Three hundred thousand Yankees

Is stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand

Before they conquered us;
They died of Southern fever

And Southern steel and shot;
I wish they was three million

Instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket

And fight 'em now any more.
But I ain't going to love 'em.

Now that Is certain sure;
And I don't want no pardon

For what I was and am,
1 won't be reconstructed,

And I don't care a damn.

REMINISCENCES. 819

THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG.

(Written April, 1861, and Immensely popular.)

[The first flag of the South was of solid bine with one white star.]

We are a band of brothers
And native to the soil,
Fighting for the property
We gained by honest toll;
And when our rights were threatened,
The cry rose near and far—
'•Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears the single star!"

Chorus:

Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Southern rights, hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears the single star!

As long as e'er the Union

Was faithful to her trust.

Like friends and like brothers

Both kind were we and just;

But now, when Northern treachery

Attempts our rights to mar.

We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag

That bears the single star.

Chorus.

First gallant South Carolina

Nobly made the stand.

Then came Alabama,

Who took her by the hand;

Next quickly Mississippi,

Georgia and Florida

All raised on high the Bonnie Blue Flag

That bears the single star.

Chorus.

320 REMINISCENCES.

And here's to old Virginia—

The Old Dominion State—

With the young Confed'racy

At length has linked her fate;

Impelled by her example,

Now other States prepare

To hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag

That bears the single star.

Chorus.

Then here's to our Confederacy,

Strong are we and brave,

Like patriots of old will fight

Our heritage to save.

And rather than submit to shame,

To die we would prefer;

So cheer for the Bonnie Blue Flag

That bears the single star.

Chorus.

Then cheer, boys, cheer!

Raise the joyous shout.

For Arkansas and North Carolina

Now have both gone out;

And let another rousing cheer

For Tennessee be given.

The single star of the Bonnie BluelFlag

Has grown to be eleven!

Chorus.

A CONFEDERATE DITTY.

Wrap me in a Secesh flag,
Bury me by Jefl" Davis,
Give my love to General Lee,
And kiss all the Southern ladles.

REMINISCENCES. 821

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

By Captain Theodore O'Hara.

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat,
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance

Now sweeps upon the wind,

No troubled thought at midnight haunts

Of loved ones left behind.

No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;
Nor braying horn, nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed.
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral-tears have washed
The red stains from each brow;
And the proud forms by battle gashed,
Are freed from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast.
The charge, the dreadful cannonade.
The din and shout are past.

Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal,
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that never more may feel
The rapture of the fight.

23

822 REMINISCENCES.

LAMENT OF THE IRISH EMIGRANT.

By Lady Dufferin.

I'm sittln' on the stile, Mary,

Where we sat side by side
On a^brlght May mornin' long ago,

When first you were my bride,
The corn was springin' fresh and green,

And the lark sang loud and high
And the red was on your lip, Mary,

And the lovelight in your eye.

The place is little changed, Mary—

The day is bright as then;
The lark's loud song is in my ear.

And the corn is green again;
But I miss the soft clasp of your hand.

And your breath, warm on my cheek;
And I still keep list'nin' for the words

You never more will speak

'Tls but a step down yonder lane.

And the little church stands near—
The church where we were wed, Mary,

I see the spire from here.
But the graveyard lies between, Mary,
^ And my step might break your rest—
For I've laid you, darling, down to sleep,
With your baby on your breast.

I'm very lonely now, Mary,

For the poor make no new friends;
But, O, we love the better still

The few our Father sends;
And you were all I had, Mary,

My blessin' and my pride;
There's nothing left to care for now.

Since my poor Mary died.

REMINISCENCES. 823

Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary,

That still kept hoping on,
When the trust In God had left my soul.

And ray arm's young strength was gone;
There was comfort ever on your lip,

And the kind look on your brow—
I bless you, Mary, for that same,

Tho' you cannot hear me now.

I thank you for the patient smile.

When your heart was fit to break —
When the hunger pain was guawln' there

And you hid it for my sake;
I bless you for the pleasant word,

When your heart was sad and sore—
O, I'm thankful you are gone, Mary,

Where grief can't reach you more!

I'm bidding you a long farewell,

My Mary, kind and true!
But I'll not forget you, darling,

In the land I'm going to;
They say there's bread and work for all.

And the sun shines always there —
But I'll not forget old Ireland,

Were it fifty times as fair!

And often in those grand old woods

I'll sit and shut my eyes.
And my heart will travel back again

To the place where Mary lies
And I'll think I see the little stile

Where we sat side by side,
And the springin' corn and the bright May morn

When first you were my bride.

824 REMINISCENCES.

THE HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG.

By an Ex-Confederate Soldier.

A cloud possessed the hollow field,
The gathering battle's smoky shield,
Athwart the gloom the lightning flashed,
And through the cloud some horsemen dashed,
And from the heights the thunder pealed.

Then at the brief command of Lee
Moved out that matchless infantry,
With Pickett leading grandly down,
To rush against the roaring crown
Of those dread heights of destiny.

Far heard above the angry guns

A cry across the tumult runs—

The voice that rang through Shiloh's woods

And Chickamauga's solitudes.

The fierce South cheering on her sons!

Ah, how the withering tempest blew
Against the front of Pettigrew!
A Kamsin wind that scorched and singed
Like that infernal flame that fringed
The British squares at Waterloo!

A thousand fell where Kemper led;
A thousand died where Garnett bled;
In blinding flame and strangling smoke
The remnant through the batieries broke
And crossed the works with Armistead,

"Once more in Glory's van with me!"
Virginia cried to Tennessee;
"We two together, come what may.
Shall stand upon these works to-day!"
(The reddest day in history.)

Brave Tennessee! In reckless way
Virginia heard her comrade say:
"Close round this rent and riddled rag!"
What time she sets her battle-flag
Amid the guns of Doubleday.

REMINISCENCES. 825

But who bhall break the guards that wait
Before the awful face of Fate?
The tattered standards of the South
Were shriveled at the cannon's mouth,
And all her hopes were desolate.

In vain the Tennessean set
His bravest against the bayonet!
In vain Virginia charged and raged,
A tigress In her wrath uncaged.
Tin all the hill was red and wet!

Above the bayonets, mixed and crossed,
Men saw a gray, gigantic ghost
Receding through the battle-cloud,
And heard across the tempest loud
The death cry of a nation lost!

The brave went down! Without disgrace
They leaped to ruin's red embrace.
They only heard Fame's thunders wake.
And saw the dazzling sun-burst break
In smiles on Glory's bloody face!

They fell, who lifted up a hand
And bade the sun in heaven to stand!
They smote and fell, who set the bars
Against the progress of the stars.
And stayed the march of Motherland!

They stood, who saw the future come
On through the fight's delirium!
They smote and stood, who held the hope
Of nations on that slippery slope
Amid the cheers of Christendom!

God lives! He forged the Iron will
That clutched and held that trembling hill.
God lives and reigns! He built and lent
The heights for Freedom's battlement
Where floats her flag In triumph still!

328 REMINISCENCES.

Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules. Her gentler purpose runs.
The mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!

STONEWALL JACKSON'S WAY.

Des Livieres.

[We here reproduce a lyric which was extremely popular in many
parts of the South. The unknown author draws a picture which ad-
dresses Itself at once to the eye, and through the eye to the heart. The
poem deserves to be preserved among the literary relics of the times.
Every Southerner will read it with interest.]

Come! stack arms, men! Pile on the rails.

Stir up the camp fires bright.
No matter if the canteen fails.

We'll make a roaring night.
Here Shenandoah brawls along,
There lofty Blue Ridge echoes strong
To swell the brigade's rousing song

Of'StonewallJackson's Way."

We see him now— the old slouched hat

Cocked o'er his eye askew;
The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat,

So calm, so blunt, so true.
The "Blue Light Elder" knows them well;
Says he, "That's Banks— he's fond of shell;
Lord save his soul; we'll give him—" Well

That's "Stonewall Jackson's Way."

Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps oflF!

Old Blue Light's going to pray;
. Strangle the fool who dares to scoflf!

Attention! it's his way;
Appealing from his native sod.
In forma pauperis to God —
"Lay bare thine arm, stretch forth thy rod;

Amen!" That's "Stonewall Jackson's Way."

REMINISCENCES. 327

He's In the saddle now, "Fall in!

Steady! the whole brigade!
Hill's at the ford, cut off! We'll win

His way out ball and blade.
What matter If our shoes are worn?
What matter if our feet are torn?
Quick step! we're with him e'er theimorn."

That's ''Stonewall Jackson's Way."

The sun's bright glances rout the mists

Of morning— and, by George!
There's Longstreet struggling in the lists.

Hemmed in an ugly gorge.
Pope and his columns whipped before,
"Bay'nets and grape!" liear Stonewall roar;
"Charge Stuart! pay off Ashby's score!"

Is "Stonewall Jackson's Way."

Ah! maiden, wait and watch and yearn

For news of Stonewall's band;
Ah! widow, read with eyes that burn

That ring upon thy hand.
Ah! wife, sew on, pray on, hope on.
Thy life shall not be all forlorn;
The foe had better ne'er been born

Than get in "Stonewall's Way."

THE JACKET OF GRAY.

"Fold it up carefully, lay it aside,
Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride—
For dear must it be to our hearts evermore.
The Jacket of Gray our loved soldier boy wore.

"Ah! vain, all vain, were our prayers and our tears;
The glad shout of victory sang in our ears.
But our treasured one on the red battlefield lay.
While the life blood oozed out of the Jacket of Gray.

828 REMINISCENCES.

"His young comrades found him and tenderly bore
The cold, lifeless form to his home by the shore.
Oh! dark were our hearts on that terrible day,

"When we saw our dead boy in the Jacket of Gray.

"We laid him to rest In his cold, narrow bed.
And graved on the marble we placed o'er his head,
As the proudest of tributes our proud hearts could say,
'He never disgraced the Jacket of Gray.'

"Then fold It up carefully, lay it aside,
Tenderly touch it, look on It with pride—
For dear must it be to our hearts evermore,
The Jacket of Gray our soldier boy wore."

LITTLE GIFFEN.

By Dr. F. O. Ticknob.

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire;
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Spectre! such as you seldom see.
Little GIffen, of Tennessee!

"Take him and welcome!" the surgeons said;
"Little the doctor can help the dead!"
So we took him; and brought him where
The balm was sweet In the summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed-
Utter Lazarus, heel to head!

And we watched the war with abated breath-
Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death.
Months of torture, how many such?
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die,

REMINISCENCES. 829

And didn't. Nay, more! In death's despite
The crippled skeleton "learned to write."
"Dear Mother," at first, of course; and then
"Dear Captain," Inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer, "Of elghty-and-flve,
Giflen and I are left alive."

Word of gloom from the war, one day;

Johnston pressed at tlie front, they say.

Little Qlffen was up and away,

A tear— his first— as he bade good-by.

Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.

"I'll write, if spared!" There was news of the fight;

But none of Giffen. He did not write.

I sometimes fancy that, were I King

Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring,

With the song of the minstrel in mine ear,

And the tender legend that trembles here,

I'd give the best on his bended knee,

The whitest soul of my chivalry,

For "Little Giflfen, of Tennessee."

"OUR LEFT."

By Dr. F. O. Ticknok.

(Manassas)

From dawn to dark they stood
That long midsummer day,

While fierce and fast

The battle blast
Swept rank on rank away.

From dawn to dark they fought,
With legions torn and cleft;
And still the wide
Black battle-tide
Poured deadlier on "Our Left."

830 REMINISCENCES.

They closed each ghastly gap;
They dressed each shattered rank;
They knew— how well-
That freedom fell
With that exhausted flank.

"Oh, for a thousand men
Like these that melt away!"
And down they came,
With steel and flame,
Four thousand to the fray!

Right through the blackest cloud
Their lightning path they cleft;
And triumph came
With deathless fame
To our unconquered "Left."

Ye, of your sons secure.
Ye, of your dead bereft,
Honor the brave
Who died to save
Your all upon" Our Left."

Important Events and Battles of the

Civil War.

JANUARY, 186L

9th.— The "Star of the West." sent to reinforce Gen. Anderson and
his command at Fort Sumter, S. C, was fired upon from Morris Island,
and obliged to return to New York.

MARCH, 1861.

The Confederate Congress adopted for the flag of the Confederacy
the "stars and bars."

12th.— The President declined to receive the commissioners from the
Confederate States.

REMINISCENCES. 331

APRIL, 1861.
12th.— An attack was made on Fort Sumter, Charleston harbor.
19th.— The President declared the Southern ports blockaded.
19th.— The Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts, was mobbed in
Baltimore on Its passage toward Washington.

JUNE, 1861.
10th.— The battle of Big Bethel, Va.
17th.— The battle of Booneville, Mo.

JULY, 1861.
6th.— The battle of Carthage, Mo.
nth.— The battle of Rich Mountain, W. Va.
18th.— The battle of Centreville, Va.
21st.— The battle of Bull Run, Va.
21st.— The first battle of Manassas Junction, Va.^

AUGUST, 1861.
5th.— The battle of Athens, Mo.
10th.— The battle of Wilson's Creek, Mo.

SEPTEMBER, 1861.
10th.— The battle of Carnifex Ferry, W. Va.

OCTOBER, 1861.
8th.— Fort Pickens, Fla., was attacked by Confederates.
21st.— The battle of Ball's Bluff, Va.

NOVEMBER, 1861.

1st.— General Geo. B. McClellan was made commander-in-chief.

7th.— The battle of Belmont, Miss.

7th.— An expedition captured Fort Walker, on Hilton Head, S. C,
and Fort Beauregard on the Broad River.

19th.— The English mail-packet Trent was boarded by Captain
Wilkes, of the San Jacinto, and the Confederate commissioners. Mason
and Slidell, captured.

JANUARY, 1862.

1st.— Messrs. Mason and Slidell were surrendered on a demand of
the British government.

10th.— The battle of Middle Creek, Ky.

19th.— The battle of Mill Spring, Ky.

FEBRUARY, 1862.
6th.— Fort Henry, Tenn., surrendered to the Union forces.
8th.— The battle of Roanoke Island.
14th.— The battle of Newbern, N. C.

332 REMINISCENCES.

MARCH, 1862.

7th and 8th.— Battle of Pea Ridge, Ark.

8th. — The Confederate ram Merrlmac appeared at Hampton Roads.
She sank the warship Cumberland, captured the Congress, and forced
the Minnesota aground, and then returned to Norfolk.

9th.— The Merrlmac reappeared. The new Iron-clad Monitor, Lieu-
tenant Worden commander, had arrived the night before, and her
commander engaged the Merrlmac on her apperance, and forced her
back to Norfolk.

10th.— Manassas Junction, Va., was evacuated by the Confederates.

23rd.— The Battle at Winchester, Va.

APRIL, 1862.

6th and 7th.— The battle at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.
7th.— Island No. 10, in the Mississippi, surrendered.
9th.— The battle of Shlloh.

11th.— Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, surrendered.
12th.— Gold was first quoted at a premium.

MAY, 1862.

1st.— The Army captured New Orleans.

3rd.— The battle of Chancellorsville.

5th.— The battle of Williamsburg, Va.

25th.— The battle of Winchester, Va.

27th.— The battle of Hanover Court House, Va.

27th.— The assault on Port Hudson.

Slst.- The battle of Seven Pines, Va.

JUNE, 1862.

6th.— Memphis surrendered to the Union forces.
8th.— The battle of Cross Keys, Va.

25th.— The seven days' battle around Richmond began.
26th.— The battle of Mechanicsville, Va.
27th.— The battle of Cold Harbor, Va.

28th.— Commodore Farragut, who had run the blockade at Vicks-
burg, began to bombard the city.

John Morgan, with a Confederate force, raided through Ohio.
29th.— The battle of Savage's Station, Virginia.
30th.— The battle of Fraaier's Farm.

JULY, 1862.
1st.— The battle of Malvern Hill, Va.

REMINISCENCES. 333

AUGUST, 1862.
6th.— The battle of Baton Rouge, La.
6th.— Battle of Cedar Mountain, V^a.

2Srd.— A general battle with General Pope's forces took place.
29th.— The battle of Groveton, Va.
30th.— A battle at Manassas, Va.
30th.— The battle of Richmond, Ky.

SEPTEMBER, 1862.

1st.— The battle of Ox Hill, Va.

1st.— The battle of Chantllly, Va.

14th.— The battle of South Mountain, Md.

15th.— Harper's Ferry was captured by the Confederates.

17th.— The battle of Antletam, Md.

17th.— The garrison at Munfordsville, Ky., surrendered to the Con-
federates.

19th.— The Confederate forces were defeated at luka. Miss.

22d.— President Lincoln Issued the proclamation abolishing slavery
In the Southern States, unless they returned to the Union before
January 1, 1863.

OCTOBER, 1862.

3d.— Battle of Corinth, Miss.

8th.— The battle of Perryville, Ky.

10th.— A raid on Chambersburg, Penn., was made by a Confederate
force under General Stuart.

18th.— General Morgan made a raid In Kentucky.

DECEMBER. 1862.
7th.— The Confederates were defeated at Prairie Grove, Ark.
11th.— Fredericksburg, Va., was bombarded=by the Federals.
27th.— General Sherman was repulsed at Chickasaw Bayou, Miss.
29th.— Battle of Stone River, Tenn.

30th.— The siege of Vlcksburg, Miss., was abandoned by General
Sherman.

31st.— Second battle of Stone River, Tenn.

JANUARY, 1863.
ist.— The emanci; ation proclamation was Issued.
8th.— The battle of Springfield, Mo.

MARCH, 1863.
aist.— Battle of Cottage Grove, Tenn.
80th.— Battle near SomervlUe, Ky.

334 REMINISCENCES.

MAY, 1863.
2d.— The battle of Port Glbsou, Miss.
2d —The battle of Chancellorsville, Va.
12th.— Battle of Raymond, Miss.
16th.— The battle of Champion's Hill, Miss.
17th.— Battle of Big Black River, Miss.
18th.— VIcksburg, Miss., was Invested.
19th.— The first assault on Vicksburg was repulsed.
27th.— An unsuccessful attack was made on Port Hudson, La.

JUNE, 1863.

15th.— The Federals were defeated at Winchester, Va.

24th.— Morgan started upon another raid through Kentucky and
Ohio.

24lh and 2oth.— Charabersburg, Penn., was occupied by the Confed-
erates.

30th.— Battle of Hanover Junction, Va.

JULY, 1868.
2d.— The battle of Gettysburg, Penn.
4th.— Vicksburg, Miss., surrendered to General Grant.
9th.— Port Hudson surrendered.
10th.— An assault on Fort Wagner was repulsed.
18th.— The draft riots in New York.

AUGUST, 1868.
20th.— Lawrence, Kan., was burned.

NOVEMBER, 1863.
15th.— Battle of Campbells' Station.

24th.— Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge were
fought at Chattanooga, Tenn.

MAY, 1864.

4th.— The Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan, and encamped
in the "Wilderness."

6th and 6th.— Battles ol the Wilderness, Va.

6th.— General Sherman began his Atlanta campaign.

9th.— Battle of Spotlsylvania, Va.

14th.— Battle of Resaca, Ga.

25th. — Battle of New Hope Church Station, Ga.

26th.— The Confederates were repulsed in an attack on City Point,
Va.

REMINISCENCES. 335

JUNE, 1864.

Ist.— Battle of Cold Harbor, Va.

3d.— A battle was fought near Cold Harbor, Va.

16th.— Federals were defeated In attack on Petersburg, Va.

19th.— The Investment of Petersburg, Va., was begun.

19th.— The Alabama was sunk off Cherbourg, France, by the Kear-
sarge.

2l8t and 22d.— The Federals were repulsed in attacks upon the Wel-
don Railroad, Va.

27th.— Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

28th.— The Confederates moved on Washington by way of the
Bhenandoah Valley, Va.

JULY, 1864.
9th.— Battle of Monocacy River, Md.
20th.— Battle of Peach Tree Creek, Ga.
22d.— Battle of Decatur, Ga.

30th.— Another unsuccessful assault was made by the Federals upon
Petersburg, Va.

AUGUST, 1864.
6th.— Fort Gaines, in Mobile Bay, surrendered to Admiral Farragut.
21st.— The Weldon Railroad captured.
31st.— The battle of Jonesboro.

SEPTEMBER, 1864.
2d.— The Federals entered Atlanta.
19th. -The battle of Winchester, Va.
22d.— The battle of Fisher's Creek, Va.
30th.— Battle at Peebles Farm, Va.

OCTOBER, 1864.
2d.— Battle of Holston River, Va.
6th.— Battle of Allatoona Pass, Ga.
19th.— Battle of Cedar Creek, Va.
27th.— The Federals were repulsed at Hatcher's Run, Va.

NOVEMBER, 1864.
16th.— General Sherman began his march to the sea.

DECEMBER, 1864.
13th.— Fort McAllister was captured by the Federals.
15th.— Tha battle of Nashville, Tenn.
25th.— The Federals were repulsed in an attack upon Fort Fisher,

N. C.

338 REMINISCENCES.

JANUARY, 1865.
15th.— Fort Fisher, N. C, was captured by the Federals.

MARCH, 1865.
16th.— Battle of Averysborough, N, C.
18th.— Battle of Bentonville, N. C.

25th. -Fort Steadman, near Petersburg, was captured by the Con-
federates, and recaptured by the Federals.
31st.— The battle of Five Forks, Va.

APRIL, 1865.

2nd.— Richmond was evacuated by the Confederates.

6th.— Battle of Farmville, Va.

9th.— General Lee with his army surrendered to General Grant at
Appomattox Court House, Va.

13th.— Mobile surrendered to a combined army and naval attack.

14th.— The flag General Anderson had lowered at Fort Sumter was
restored to its position.

14th.— President Lincoln was assassinated at Washington. He was
shot in the back of the head at Ford's Theatre by Wilkes Booth, and
died next morning. The same evening an unsuccessful attempt was
made to assassinate the Secretary of State, William H. Seward.

15th.— Andrew Johnson, Vice-President, took the oath of office as
President.

26th.— General Johnston surrendered to General Sherman in North
Carolina.

MAY, 1865.

5th.— Galveston, Texas, surrendered to the Federals.

10th.— Jefferson Davis captured in Georgia.

13th.— A skirmish took place near Brazos, in eastern Texas.

26th.— The Confederates in Texas, under General Kirby Smith,
surrendered.

The Armies of the East and West were disbanded and returned home,
after a review at Washington.

JUNE, 1865.
6th.— An order was Issued for the release of all prisoners of war In
the depots of the North.

JULY, 1865.
4th.— The corner-stone of a monument was laid at Gettysburg, Penn.,
In memory of the soldiers who fell there.

REMINISCENCES.

337

MEN CALLED FOR BY PRESIDENT DURING THE WAR.

The total quotas called for and charged against the several States of
the Union, under all calls made by the President of the United States,
frona the loth day of April, 1861, to the 14th day of April, 1865, at which
time the recruiting was stopped, was 2,759,049.

The terms of service under the various calls varied from three
months to three yeai's

UNITED STATES SOLDIERS IN THE CIVIL WAR.

Aggregate.

Connecticut 52,270

Delaware 18.651

District of Columbia 16,872

Illinois 258.217

Indiana 195,147

Iowa 75,860

Kansas 20,097

Kentucky 78,540

Maine 71,745

Maryland 49,730

Massachusetts 151,785

Michigan 90,119

Aggregate.

Minnesota 25,084

Missouri 108,778

New Hampshire 84,605

New Jersey 79,511

New York 455,568

Ohio 317,183

Pennsylvania 366.326

Rhode Island ....„ 23,711

Vermont 85,256

West Virginia 80,003

Wisconsin 96,118

Total 2,653,062

COLORED TROOPS IN U. S. ARMY DURING THE WAR.

Arkansas 5,526

Alabama 4,969

Connecticut 1,764

Colorado Territory 95

Delaware 964

District of Columbia. 3,269

Florida 1,044

Georgia 3.486

Iowa 440

Indiana 1,597

Illinois 1,811

Kansas 2,080

Kentucky 23,703

Louisiana 24,052

Maryland 8,718

Massachusetts 3,966

Michigan 1,887

Mississippi 17,869

Missouri 8,344

Minnesota 104

23

Maine 104

New Hampshire 125

New York 4,125

New Jersey 1,185

North Carolina 5,035

Ohio 5,092

Pennsylvania 8,612

Rhode Island 1,837

South Carolina 5,462

Texas 47

Tennessee 20,133

Vermont 120

Virginia 5,723

West Virginia 196

Wisconsin 155

At large 733

Not accounted for 6,083

Officers 7,122

Total 186,017

338 REMINISCENCES.

CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS SURRENDERED AT END OF WAR.

Army of Northern Virginia, 27,805; Army of Tennessee, 31,243;
Army of Missouri, 7,978; Army of Alabama, 42,293; Army of Trans-
Mississippi, 17,686; at Nashville, and Chattanooga, 5,029; paroled in
Departments of Virginia, Cumberland, Maryland, Alabama, Florida,
Tennessee, Texas, etc., 42,189; Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons
at the close of the war, 98,802; total Confederate Army at close, 273,025.
A large but unknown numoer of Confederate soldiers were never
formally surrendered.

THE NEW DIXIE.

I

"O how I love the Land of Cotton.
Land of memories, ne'er forgotten.
Look away ! Look away ! Look away !

Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land where skies are bluer.
Friends are dearer, hearts are truer,
Look away ! Look away ! Look away !

Dixie Land.

Chorus.

"Oh, I love the Land of Dixie.
Hooray ! Hooray !
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand,
To live and die in Dixie.
Away, away, away down South in Dixie.
Away, away, away down South in Dixie.

II

"O Land of meadows fair and sunny.
Flowing o'er with milk and honey,

Look away, etc.
O hawthorn hedges, white and hoary,
Roses, full of Summer glory,
Look away, etc.
CHORU3— Oh, I love the Land, etc.

REMINISCENCES. 839

III

"Oh LaDd of heroes that we cherish,
Never shall their memory perish,

Look away, etc.
Remembered be their fame and glory.
Evermore In song and story.
Look away, etc.
Chorus— Oh, 1 love the Land, etc."

GATHER THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM IN THE DELL.

[Memorial Song Dedicated to the Children of the Confederacy, by

Mrs. Lula K. Rogers.]

(Air-Ben Bolt.) SOKo uU-^-'-

I

Oh gather the Roses that bloom in the dell

And weave into garlands to-day,

To place on the shrine where our soldiers repose

From the shout of the battle away.

On the mountain, in woodland and valley they lie

Unhonored, unwept and alone.

But we know that the angels are hovering nigh.

And tenderly watch o'er the stone.

II
Bring too the violets that bloom in the wood
Where they wandered in Jlfe's sunny day,
E're the loud thund'ring guns woke the stillness of night,
And blighted their homes far away.
Sweetly rest 'neath the garlands we tenderly weave,
Love's offering dear soldiers, we bear.
Foes may shadow the hope that illumined the heart
But Its memory will live ever there.

Ill
Oh, gather the lilies so pure and so fair
For the hearts that were noble aad true.
Whose life blood was shed for our dear, native land
The fairest the sun ever knew.
Ah give them the chaplets they won in the strife
And honor the gray that they wore.
For in memory shall linger the gallant and brave,
Though furled is their flag evermore.

340 REMINISCENCES.

«

Close of Memorial Address Delivered at

Dawson, Ga., April 26, 1911,

By R. M. Howard.

Sweetly in chime with the fitness of thing's it is
that this Memorial celebration is held at this season
of the year when the Eternal Artist is reddeningf the
heart of the rose and tinting" the cheek of the lily,
when rose and lily awakened from their icy sleep of
winter are telling: the logfic of life after death in
every petal that drinks the blood of its life from the
ardent kiss of the sun.

If to him who studies nature in her visible forms,
she speaks a varied lang'uag'e, surely there is a
sermon in every budding" tree and a song" in every
opening" flower. Spring symbolizes the dearest hope
that dwells in human hearts, the fulfillment of the
sweetest prophecy ever spoken to human ears, the
unfolding" of the deepest mystery that ever baffled
human thougfht. Strike from the contemplation of
mankind the idea of a resurrection and you darken
the perspective of life so that at the end, on every
g"rave is night and beyond every g"rave is naught.
The sting" of death in retroaction will poison every
life and the victory of the g"rave will drag" at its car
the trophied ashes of every human hope. Give back
the promise of a soul undying, and that Easter long"
ag"0 streaming" g"lory from the Cross will rout the
darkness of the earth, pour radiance upon the grioom

REMINISCENCES. 841

of the tomb and brig-hten and whiten the very valley
of the shadow of death.

Priceless is the faith that assures us as the g'ray
ranks are thinning' out here, where the twilight is
dropping-, the broken line is re-uniting* where the
bug-les are blowing- sweet reveille to the waking dawn
of the eternal morning-. Inspired by this thoug-ht,
I catch a vision of the spectral forms of our mig-hty
dead, and as fancy leng-thens out the vision, I seem
to see these majestic spirits forming- in a stupendous
circle. In the center stands the translig"ured and
g-lorified symbol of the conquered South— a vestal in
raiment of spotless white. Her snowy bosom is
bare and a death wound in her breast is pouring- its
red libation on Freedom's holy altar.

And then a voice seems to drift out on the hushed
and solemn air:

"My brow is bent beneath a heavy rod,

My face is wan and white with many woes;

But 1 will lift my poor, chained hands to God,

And for my children pray and for my foes.

"Beside the graves where countless thousands lowly lie^
I lineel and weeping for each slaughtered son
I turn my gaze to my own sunny sky,
And pray, 'O Father, let Thy will be done.' "

And now, dear friends, tendering- you my true ap-
preciation for 3^our patience, courtesy and attention,
I will conclude by saying-, as long- as I shall remain
in this vale of smiles and sig-hs, sunshine and storm,
I will ever waft you on wing-s of sweet love, fond,

842 REMINISCENCES.

fadeless memories of this hallowed Memorial Day.
"Farewell, farewell is a lonely sound, and always
bringfs a sigfh, but the heart feels most when the lips
move not and the eyes speak a g^entle g"ood-bye."
The old g'uard dies, but never surrenders; no^ never^
never^ and for Dixie, dear old Dixie, God knows we
yet would lay us down and die!

In the brilliant period beg-inning- in the year 1861
and ending" in 1865, the South g-ave to the world new
examples of patriotism, to the orator new topics of
eloquence, to the statesman new subjects of thoug-ht,
to the poet new themes of song", to the soldier new
models for imitation, to her sons and her daug^hters
a matchless *,*and imperishable roll of heroes and
heroines, and to her soil the blood of the very flower
of her chivalry ^that consecrated it and forever ren-
dered it sacred.

"Oh! If there be on this earthly sphere,
A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear,
'Tis the last libation Liberty draws
•From the heart that bleeds and breaks In her cause."

There is noldutyjmore binding- on a people than
that of preserving* and cherishing' the memory of
their patriotic dead. There is no trust more sacred
than that of g^uarding" and keeping" pure and un-
sullied the fame and honor of those who fell in the
defense of their country. The country that is in-
different to the fame and honor of its heroic dead
forfeits all claim to the devotion and loj'^alty of its

REMINISCENCES. 848

living- sons. The people who disreg-ard and forgfet
their patriotic martyrs will soon fail to have heroes
to honor and remember.

"No country ever had truer sons, no cause nobler
champions, no people braver defenders, no age more
valiant knig-hts, no principle purer victims" than
our immortal Confederate dead whose life blood en-
crimsoned the trenches around Petersburg- and
Vicksburg-, the hills and valleys around Richmond
and Franklin, the plains of Manassas, the wooded
knobs and dells around Atlanta, the shadowy forests
of Chickamaug-a and Chancellor sville, the dark
ravines of Shiloh and the Wilderness and the rock-
ribbed heigrhts of Sharpsburg- and Gettysburg-.

Ah! it is indeed sad to realize that the muffled
drum has beat their last tattoo, and that we shall
never ag"ain meet them on life's parade —

••On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead."

"How sleep the brave who sank to rest

By all their country's wishes blest;
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold.
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,

She then shall dress a sweeter sod

Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

"By fairy hands their knell is rung.

By forms unseen their dirge is sung,
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,

And Freedom shall awhile repair

To dwell a weeping hermit there."

844 REMINISCENCES.

The cause for which they foug-ht and fell was lost.
The hopes they so dearly cherished were crushed.
The Confederate battle flag, which they loved so
well, was furled with no stain or soil of dishonor
thereon, but around it was wreathed the glory of
hundreds of victorious battlefields, while its shell
and shot torn rents and remnants were undying: em-
blems of the heroic duty of the heroic men who
foug'ht beneath its folds and whose achievements
shall deathless be upon the scroll of history and
upon the lips of poetry.

Several years ago I became a member of the Pres-
byterian Church of this city, and as "hope spring-s
eternal in the human breast," I have an abiding*
faith and trust that both by example and precept
my last days in this vale of sighs and smiles may
prove to be my sweetest and best. The pessimist at
all times sing's:

'Ever thus from childhood's hour,

I've seen ray fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree nor flower,

But 'twas the first to fade away;
1 never nursed a dear gazelle

To glad me with its soft black eye
But when it first knew rae well

And loved me it was sure to die."

REMINISCENCES.

Now hear the melody of the happy optimist, as he
sweetly singfs:

"There Is a Jewel which no Indian mine can buy,
No chemlc art can counterfeit;
It makes men rich in greatest poverty,
Makes water wine, turns wooden cups to gold.
The horn whistle to sweet music's strain;
Seldom It comes, to few from Heaven sent,
That much Is little— all In naught— content."

Why pluck thistles, when earth teems with beauti-
ful thornless roses, whose every unfolding" petal
proclaims God's changeless attributes of infinite
love and boundless mercy?

"Life is but a strife, "tls a bubble, 'tis a dieam.
And man Is but the little boat that paddles down the stream."

And if man will only take Faith, Hope and Char-
ity (and the greatest of these is Charity) as his un-
erring" chart by which to steer his frail barque, he
will safel3^ and securely anchor his little craft in the
beautiful fadeless haven of Eternity "where the
wicked cease from troubling", and the weary are at
rest."

"And when he's been there ten thousand years.
Bright shining as the sun.
He will have no less days to sing his praise
Than when he first begun.

"Who, who would live always away from his God,
Away from yon Heaven, that blissful abode.
Where the rivers of pleasure flow o'er the bright plains
And the noontide of glory eternally reigns?

"So let my past stand, just as it stands.
And let me now, as I may grow old,
I am what I am, and my life for me
Is the best, or it had not been, I hold."

.^ REMINISCENCES.

FINIS.

"We buy ashes for bread,
We buy diluted wine;
Give me the tree—

Whose am pie leaves and tendrils curled
Among the silver hills of Heaven,
Draw everlasting dew."

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower Is born to blush unseen.
And waste Its sweetness on the desert air."

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave.
Await alike the Inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

"No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode;
There they alike, in trembling hope repose,
The bosom of his Father and his Qod."

Itlilllllil

illi