Part 23

Perhaps he was more thoroughly versed in biography than any man who has ever lived in America; certainly North Carolina never produced his equal in this respect. His wonderful memory, combined with great industry, was stimulated by a genuine love of genealogical studies. Almost the first question he would ask a student on meeting him, if indeed he did not already know, was, "Who is your father?" On being told, by a few quick questions he would possess himself of the boy's lineage, and would never forget it. Generally, however, the boys would be utterly astounded on presenting themselves, to find that the Governor knew more of them and their families than they did themselves. It was equally so with all strangers whom he met, and frequently ludicrous scenes resulted from his insatiable desire to trace pedigree. Whilst a delegate from this State to the Montgomery Convention, which organized the Confederacy in 1861, he was introduced to a distinguished gentleman, and without letting go his hand, which he took to shake, he stopped in the midst of the flow of ceremonious speech, and, to the no small amusement of the bystanders, said: "Sir, was not your mother's maiden name Jones?" I doubt if there is a single family on the Atlantic coast, whose members have borne any prominent part in the affairs of the country, in regard to which he did not have more or less of information--at least, he could have told all about its leading representatives. With a very little help indeed he could have supplied a "Doomsday Book" of North Carolina, more accurate by far than that of the Conqueror. It was generally understood at Chapel Hill that if you wanted to know _what anything was_, you went to Dr. Mitchell; if you wanted to know _who anybody was_, you went to Governor Swain.

And as he never forgot face, or name, or lineage of the man once known to him, so he never forgot a kindness or a favor once done to him or his, and loved to continue such memories, and extend the chain of friendship to second and third generations. "Thine own, and thy father's friend forsake not," was one of his favorite maxims. He was utterly incapable of resisting an appeal for mercy, or a tale of distress. This was, I believe, the only objection urged against his conduct on the bench--his leniency to criminals. So too arose the only serious trouble he ever had with the Trustees of the University. Stringent measures had been resolved upon by the Board towards dissipation and insubordination among the students, which were not rigidly enforced by Governor Swain. So great was his forbearance with the hot blood of youth, and so strong his faith that time would cure these early follies, and enable the better natures of the young men to assert themselves, that he suffered the Draconian code of the Trustees to lie dormant, whilst he lectured, reproved, and exhorted. He shrank from branding the opening years of a young life with sentence of dismission or expulsion, and would condescend to an erring boy while there remained the last hope of reform. In such cases his judgment not unfrequently came into conflict with the opinions of other members of the faculty, and finally so irritated the Trustees that they passed a resolution of censure upon him, which was publicly read from the platform of the chapel by no less a personage than Governor Iredell. Quite a scene was excited on this occasion, and when Governor Swain arose and replied in his own vindication, it was with much emotion, not unmingled with indignation; "More," says Mr. Cameron, who was present, "than I ever knew him to exhibit on any occasion, before or since."

The lapse of time has shown this policy to have been the best and wisest not only for the young men themselves, but for the institution, and for his own fame. Who of all the hundreds to whom he thus stood in the attitude of a father, kind, and long-suffering, and hopeful, but now recalls him with affection and gratitude; how many a one remembers his college-life at Chapel Hill as the turning point of his career, where he was won by undeserved kindness to paths of honor, not repelled by judicial severity, and feels in his heart that under God he owes all that he has of fortune, friends or fame to the University and its wise head!

While the Governor remained in political life his extraordinary memory of persons and names and events gave him a wonderful advantage. There is no more successful way of making one's self agreeable to the multitude than by knowing men when you meet them, and calling them by name. Not to recognize a man who has stood your friend, and fought your battles at the polls, is always an omission of evil omen in his eyes, and a bad memory for names will not always apologize for what seems to be neglect. Many and many are the shifts of the politician to avoid this fatal predicament. But I venture to say that Governor Swain was never caught in such a way. Once being introduced, he never forgot his man, nor his family connections. After the surrender of General Lee in 1865, when General Sherman had begun his march upon Raleigh, at the earnest request of Mr. B.F. Moore and Mr. Kenneth Rayner, I sent an embassy to meet the federal commander, and obtain what terms were possible for the surrender of the capital of the State.

Having confidence in their firmness and discretion, I selected Governors Swain and Graham, who left in a few moments after their appointment, on a special train, accompanied by Dr. Edward Warren, Surgeon-General of the State. I remarked, after their departure with my letter, as one reason for selecting him, that I had no doubt Governor Swain would find plenty of acquaintances in the enemy's camp, or at least would prove that he knew the fathers of many of the officers. And so it was; on his arrival at headquarters, he not only claimed General Sherman as an old correspondent, and fellow-college-president, but immediately seized upon two or three members of the staff whose parents and pedigree he knew, and was soon at home among them.

And here perhaps it is not improper in me to correct a statement made by General Sherman in his memoirs in relation to this embassy. Referring to it, that General says: "They had come with a flag of truce, to which they were not entitled; still, in the interests of peace, I respected it, and permitted them to return to Raleigh with their locomotive, to assure the Governor of the State and the people, that the war was substantially over, and that I wanted the civil authorities to remain in the execution of their office till the pleasure of the President could be ascertained. On reaching Raleigh I found these same gentlemen with Messrs. Bragg, Badger, Holden and others, but Governor Vance had fled, and could not be prevailed on to return, because he feared arrest and imprisonment." This statement is uncandid, not to say untruthful, by implication at least. These gentlemen _had_ a right to the flag of truce, for it was sent with the consent and by permission of General Hardee, commanding the Confederate forces in the absence of General Johnston, and should not have been permitted to enter the enemy's lines if the bearers were not entitled to carry it. It was _not_ respected, for it was fired upon by Kilpatrick's men, and "captured," as they claimed, and the gentlemen composing the embassy were promptly and skillfully robbed of their surplus personalty, and were conducted as "_prisoners_" to General Sherman's headquarters. They were _not_ permitted promptly, as the statement implies, to return with their locomotive, with assurances of peace and protection, but were detained there the entire day and night after their arrival within Sherman's lines, until he no doubt knew that Raleigh was entirely uncovered by Johnston's troops. Of course, all the officers of the State government who did not wish to surrender at discretion, left with the Confederate troops, for, the embassy not returning, and no news of its fate, except that it had been captured, and no reply to my letter being received, they had no assurance of protection. Governor Swain states in his address at the opening of Tucker Hall that on the return of the embassy that memorable morning, but a few minutes in advance of the Federal troops, the city was shrouded in silence and gloom, except for the presence of a few marauding stragglers from Wheeler's cavalry, showing conclusively that the city was uncovered when he arrived with Sherman's message. It was some days afterwards, and at Hillsborough, when I learned from Governor Graham the result of his mission, and it was then far too late for me, consistently with other duties, to accept of Sherman's offer of protection, had any one convinced me that it was best to do so, which indeed no one did. My inclinations, I confess, were to be with that little army, fully one-third of whom were North Carolinians, until they laid down their arms. I am happy to reflect that I shared their fate to the last.

This much to vindicate the truth of history. Throughout this whole transaction, as many gentlemen have testified to me, Governor Swain's bearing was, in the highest degree, courageous, discreet, and manly.

During the war his efforts had mainly been directed to keeping the college alive, for such was the impetuosity with which the call to arms was obeyed, that of the eighty members, of which the freshman class consisted in 1860, but _one_ (in delicate health) remained to pursue his studies. (Of the senior class of that date not one had remained out of the army, and fully one-fourth of them fell in battle.) Seven members of the faculty volunteered, and of them _five_ returned no more.

Governor Swain appealed to the Confederate Government more than once to prevent the handful of college boys left from being drafted. President Davis himself seconded these efforts in the earlier years of the war, declaring that "the _seed-corn_ should not be ground up." But as the exigencies of the country increased, this wisdom was lost sight of, the collegians were again and again called upon, till at the time of Lee's surrender there were but about a dozen here, still keeping up the name and forms of a college. But even while the village and University were occupied by four thousand Michigan cavalry, the old bell was rung daily, prayers were held, and the University was _kept going_. The Governor took a pride in this, and hoped that he was to tell it many years after. But this long and useful life, devoted to the best interests of his country and his age, was nearing its close. Only three years yet remained to him, and these were devoted by him to earnest, unceasing endeavors to reinstate the University pecuniarily, and to recall its former patronage. Darker days, however, were in store for it, which he in the good providence of God was not to be permitted to see.

In the summer of 1868, the State passing under a new Constitution, and an entire change of government, the University also fell into new hands, whose first action was to request the resignation of the president and faculty, most of whom had grown grey in service to the State. A guard of negroes were sent to take possession, and these halls were closed. Governor Swain was then preparing for a visit to Buncombe. On the 11th day of August, while driving in the neighborhood of Chapel Hill, with Professor Fetter, he was thrown from the buggy, and brought home painfully, but as was then supposed, not seriously injured. Confined to his bed for about two weeks, he appeared to be recovering, when on the morning of the 27th he suddenly fainted, and expired without pain.

He was in the full possession of all his faculties up to the last moment, and died at peace with all the world; a fitting close to a life of beneficence and integrity. There is a melancholy coincidence in the manner of his death with that of his two oldest friends and colaborers in the faculty who had preceded him over the river, and were "resting under the shade of the trees." Dr. Elisha Mitchell perished by falling down a precipice in the cataracts of the Black Mountain, June 27, 1857. Dr. James Phillips sank down suddenly on the rostrum while in the act of conducting morning prayers, and died without a struggle, March 14, 1867. Thus all of these eminent men, worthy servants of Christianity and civilization, died suddenly, or with some degree of violence.

A just estimate of the talents and character of Governor Swain, for reasons already indicated, is not easily made plain to popular apprehension. By the world the term "great" is variously applied, and misapplied. It is often withheld when it is mostly richly deserved; not, because of the injustice of contemporaries, for personal prejudice rarely outlives a generation, but because men rarely appreciate the full extent and character of the labors of a lifetime. And especially is this true when that life has been mainly spent in the planting of moral seeds below the surface, which, perhaps for years, make no great show of the harvest which is sure to come. Generations are sometimes required to elapse before the world can see the golden sheaves which cover and adorn the landscape, the result of that patient and judicious planting.

They who in life are followed by the noisy plaudits of the crowd, who fill the largest space in the eyes of their contemporaries, and seem to tower far above their fellows, are not always found to have their reputation built on the securest foundations, nor to have left their mark on the age in which they lived. Erasmus was esteemed by his generation a much greater man than Luther. He was one of the most remarkable men of his century, few indeed have equaled him in keenness of intellect, and in depth and extent of learning. Yet, viewed now in the light of their labors, and the value and significance of their impression on the world, what a veritable shadow he was by the side of the plainer, less learned, but downright monk! Erasmus is known to the scholars who search for his name and works in the cyclopædias; the name and the spirit of Luther pervade and affect the civilization of the whole world.

On the 21st of February, 1677, there died in a small house in the Hague a man whose greatness could not be measured, says his biographer, until humanity had moved to the proper prospective point at the distance of more than a century. The view enlarged as time rolled on, as it does to men climbing high mountains; in 1877, the world agrees to number him among the undoubted sons of genius, and benefactors of mankind. His admirers erect a monument to his memory just two hundred years after his death in the same city where he was persecuted, excommunicated, and his works destroyed. His name was Spinoza. Modest, and pure, and upright, he had the misfortune to live two hundred years before his age, and to put forth fruits of genius which his fellows could not comprehend, and so they stamped him and them into dust as being unorthodox. Two centuries of progress have brought the world up to where Spinoza died, and it builds him a monument. At last, his work is seen.

The Earl of Murray, Lord Regent of Scotland, was not esteemed a great man in his day. His behavior was modest, his abilities were apparently but moderate, and for more than two hundred years he has figured in history as an ordinary man, overlaid by the more violent and intriguing spirits of his time, and his character obscured and distorted by the glamour which surrounds the name of his beauteous but abandoned sister and murderess, Queen Mary. And yet when two centuries afterwards the spirit of philosophic history comes to trace cause and effect, and to show the result of his life's work upon Protestant Christianity, and what he contributed to the domination of the English-speaking races, we agree at once with Mr. Froude that he was in truth one of the best and greatest of men, a benefactor of mankind.

And so it may be said of Bunyan, of Wesley, and of many more, whose beginnings were esteemed but of small account, but whose fame has continually grown brighter and brighter, as the world has been forced to see how wisely they builded.

In many senses of the term Governor Swain was not a great man. As an author, though a man of letters, he neither achieved nor attempted anything lasting. As a politician, though he rose rapidly to the highest honors of his native State, he did not strikingly impress himself upon his times by any great speech, nor by any grand stroke of policy. In this respect he was inferior to many of his contemporaries who constituted, perhaps, the brightest cluster of names in our annals. As a lawyer and a judge, he occupied comparatively about the same position; and as a scholar he was not to be distinguished, being inferior to several of his colaborers in the University. But in many things he was entitled to be called great, if we mean by that term that he so used the faculties he possessed that he raised himself beyond and above the great mass of his fellows. In him there was a rounded fullness of the qualities, intellectual and moral, which constitute the excellence of manhood, in a degree never excelled by any citizen of North Carolina whom I have personally known, except by William A. Graham. If there was in Swain no one grand quality of intellect which lifted him out of comparison with any but the demigods of our race, neither was there any element so wanting as to sink him into or below the common mass. If there were in him no Himalayan peaks of genius, piercing into the regions of everlasting frost and ice, neither were there any yawning chasms or slimy pools below the tide-waters of mediocrity. He rose from the plain of his fellow-men like the Alleghanies, in whose bosom he was born, by regular and easy gradations--so easy that you know not how high you are until you turn to gaze backward--every step surrounded by beauty and fertility--until he rested high over all the land. If there be those who singly tower above him in gifts, or attainments, or distinctions, there are none whom as a whole we can contemplate with more interest, affection, and admiration; none whose work for North Carolina will prove to be more valuable, or more lasting, or more important to future generations; none to whom, at the great final review, the greeting may be more heartily addressed: "_Servant of God, well done!_"

No estimate of Governor Swain's walk through life should omit the consideration of his Christian character. It was especially marked by catholicity of feeling towards all good men of whatever name. He was accustomed to refer this to the circumstances of his bringing up. He would say: "My father was a Presbyterian elder, and an Arminian; my mother was a Methodist and a Calvinist, who loved and studied Scott's commentary. Their house was the home for preachers of all sorts west of the Blue Ridge. Bishop Asbury blessed me when a child. Mr. Newton, a Presbyterian, taught me when a boy, and Humphrey Posey, a Baptist, used to pray for me when a youth. So I love all who show that they are Christians."

On his death-bed he spoke often of the communion of saints with, one another, and with their Head. He was a decided Presbyterian, however; he admired what he called "the symmetry" of the ecclesiastical system of his church; he dwelt on its history with great delight, and was accustomed to find support for his soul in times of deep distress in its interpretations of the Bible. He was a praying man, and not ashamed to be known as such. He first introduced the practice of opening the regular meetings of the faculty with prayer. The night before he died he said of the Lord's Prayer: "The oftener I use it the more precious it is to me; it contains a whole body of divinity."

In private life he was most upright, kind, social, and hospitable. An excellent financier, he left a handsome estate, even "after the war." He had a proper conception of the value of wealth, and all his life practiced a judicious economy, but he knew well both how to lend and how to give. His conversation was delightfully interesting and instructive, replete with anecdote, genial humor, historical incident, or literary quotation. Few men of his associates equaled him in these respects, even after the infirmity of deafness had cut him off from much social enjoyment.

His remains lie buried in Oakwood Cemetery, near Raleigh, and close beside the sleeping soldiers of the Confederacy. The soil of our State holds the dust of no son who loved her more or served her better. Peaceful be his rest, as he waits for the clear breaking of the day over the brow of the eternal hills.

The daisies prank thy grassy grave, Above, the dark pine branches wave; Sleep on. Below, the merry runnel sings, And swallows sweep with glancing wings; Sleep on, old friend, sleep on. Calm as a summer sea at rest, Thy meek hands folded on thy breast, Sleep on. Hushed into stillness life's sharp pain, Naught but the pattering of the rain; Sleep on, dear friend, sleep on.

EARLY TIMES IN RALEIGH.

ADDRESS BY D. L. SWAIN.

There were few more exciting topics in ante-revolutionary times than the location of the seat of government.

The first General Assembly, in relation to which we have much authentic information, met at the house of Captain Richard Sanderson, on Little River, in the county of Perquimans, in 1715, and revised the whole body of the public statute law.

The style of enactment is characteristic of the times and of the proprietary government: "Be it enacted by his Excellency the Palatine and the rest of the true and absolute Lords Proprietors of Carolina, by and with the advice and consent of this present General Assembly, now met at Little River, for the northeastern part of this province."

From Little River the seat of legislation was transferred in 1720 to the General Court House at Queen Anne's Creek, in Chowan Precinct, and in 1723 to Edenton.

In 1731 the Proprietary was succeeded by the Royal Government, and in 1734 the legislative will assumed a form of expression worthy of eastern despotism: "We pray that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by his Excellency, Gabriel Johnston, Esq., Governor, by and with the advice and consent of his Majesty's council in the General Assembly of this province."

In 1741 the General Assembly met at Wilmington, but returned the following year to Edenton. From 1745 to 1761, with the exception of a single session at Bath, it convened at New Bern. In 1761 it met again at Wilmington, and from that time keen rivalry was maintained between New Bern and Wilmington for metropolitan distinction, until quieted by the Act of 1766, authorizing the construction of Governor Tryon's viceregal palace at New Bern. This edifice, completed in 1770, dedicated to Sir William Draper--and the subject of his muse in an attempt at Roman versification--was pronounced on good authority, in 1783, superior to any structure of the kind in British or South America.

During the Revolution the General Assembly met somewhat in accordance with the exigencies of the times, at New Bern, Kinston, Halifax, Smithfield, Wake Court House, Hillsborough and Salem.

In 1782 and 1783 the Legislature convened at Hillsborough, and in 1784 and 1785 at New Bern, in 1786 at Fayetteville, in 1787 at Tarborough, and in 1788 returned to Fayetteville.

In 1787 the General Assembly had resolved that it "be recommended to the people of the State to authorize and direct their representatives in the convention called to consider the Federal Constitution to fix on the place for the unalterable seat of government."