Part 4
GOVERNOR HARRIS (Tennessee)
I say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister States.
GOVERNOR MAGOFFIN (Kentucky)
April Nineteenth
Hark to an exiled son's appeal, Maryland! My mother State! to thee I kneel, Maryland! For life and death, for woe and weal, Thy peerless chivalry reveal, And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, Maryland! My Maryland!
Thou wilt not cower in the dust, Maryland! Thy beaming sword shall never rust, Maryland! Remember Carroll's sacred trust, Remember Howard's warlike thrust,-- And all thy slumberers with the just, Maryland! My Maryland! JAMES RYDER RANDALL
_Citizens of Baltimore, objecting to coercion of the seceded States, oppose the passing of the Sixth Massachusetts, their action resulting in the first bloodshed of the War, 1861_
April Twentieth
The tempting prize offered Lee in the shape of supreme command of the Army of the Union did not swerve him from his integrity for an instant. It was currently reported at the time that Gen. Winfield Scott implored him, "For God's sake, don't resign!" Every argument that power, luxury, limitless resources, and the untrammeled control of the situation could devise was brought to bear upon him.
HENRY E. SHEPHERD
_Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army, 1861_
April Twenty-First
From the date of its settlement, Maryland became the Land of Sanctuary--the only spot in the known world where the persecuted of all lands were at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of their own hearts. Freedom of conscience was offered by Lord Baltimore to the oppressed of the Old World, thus carrying into effect the original motive of Sir George Calvert's colonization scheme when seeking a charter from King Charles I.
HESTER DORSEY RICHARDSON
_Passage of the "Act Concerning Religion" by the Maryland Assembly, 1649, endorsing the principles of religious toleration promulgated by Cecilius Calvert in 1634_
_Independence of Texas established at San Jacinto, 1836_
April Twenty-Second
The dusk of the South is tender As the touch of a soft, soft hand; It comes between splendor and splendor, The sweetest of service to render, And gathers the cares of the land.
Above it the soft sky blushes And pales like an April rose; Within it the South wind hushes, And the Jessamine's heart outgushes, And earth like an emerald glows. JOHN P. SJOLANDER
_Capture of Plymouth, N. C., by Gen. R. D. Hoke, 1864_
April Twenty-Third
In seeds of laurel in the earth The blossom of your fame is blown; And somewhere, waiting for its birth, The shaft is in the stone! HENRY TIMROD
_Randall writes "My Maryland" at Pointe Coupee, La., 1861_
_Father Ryan dies, 1886_
April Twenty-Fourth
Apropos of this last, let me confess, Mr. President--before the praise of New England has died on my lips--that I believe the best product of her present life is the procession of 17,000 Vermont Democrats that for twenty-two years, undiminished by death, unrecruited by birth or conversion, have marched over their rugged hills, cast their Democratic ballots, and gone back home to pray for their unregenerate neighbors, and awoke to read the record of 26,000 Republican majority! May the God of the helpless and heroic help them!
HENRY W. GRADY
_Henry W. Grady born, 1851_
April Twenty-Fifth
Her lot may be hard, her skies may darken; To Dixie's voice we'll ever hearken; Look away, away, away down South in Dixie. The coward may shirk, the wretch go whining, But we'll be true till the sun stops shining, Look away, away, away down South in Dixie.
Chorus:
I wish I was in Dixie; Away, away; In Dixie's land I'll take my stand, And live and die in Dixie. Away, away, Away down South in Dixie. MARIE LOUISE EVE
April Twenty-Sixth
Homes without the means of support were no longer homes. With barns and mills and implements for tilling the soil all gone, with cattle, sheep, and every animal that furnished food to the helpless inmates carried off, they were dismal abodes of hunger, of hopelessness, and of almost measureless woe.
GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON
_Joseph E. Johnston surrenders at Greensboro, N. C., 1865_
April Twenty-Seventh
The twilight hours, like birds, flew by, As lightly and as free; Ten thousand stars were in the sky, Ten thousand in the sea; For every wave, with dimpled face, That leaped into the air, Had caught a star in its embrace And held it trembling there. AMELIA B. WELBY
April Twenty-Eighth
Too much roseate nonsense has been indulged about life on the plantation or in the city in the ante-bellum days. Neither the planter nor the factor nor the lawyer led a life of idle ease and pleasure; they were workers, whose energy built up the State; they lived often rather in rude profusion than in luxury.
PIERCE BUTLER
_James Monroe born, 1758_
April Twenty-Ninth
Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
April Thirtieth
To Jefferson's initiative and farsightedness we owe it that we secured without bloodshed, for a trifling sum of money, a territory which doubled our republic, assured its expansion to the Gulf of Mexico and to the Pacific, and thus lifted us, by a stroke of genius, into a world power of the first class.
THOMAS E. WATSON
_Jefferson acquires the Louisiana territory from France, 1803_
_Washington inaugurated first President of the United States, 1789_
May
AT ARLINGTON
The dead had rest; the Dove of Peace Brooded o'er both with equal wings; To both had come that great surcease. The last omnipotent release From all the world's delirious stings. To bugle deaf and signal-gun, They slept, like heroes of old Greece, Beneath the glebe at Arlington.
And in the Spring's benignant reign, The sweet May woke her harp of pines; Teaching her choir a thrilling strain Of jubilee to land and main. She danced in emerald down the lines; Denying largesse bright to none, She saw no difference in the signs That told who slept at Arlington.
She gave her grasses and her showers To all alike who dreamed in dust; Her song-birds wove their dainty bowers Amid the jasmine buds and flowers, And piped with an impartial trust-- Waifs of the air and liberal sun, Their guileless glees were kind and just To friend and foe at Arlington. JAMES RYDER RANDALL
May First
The linnet, the lark, and oriel Were chanting the loves they chant so well; It was blue all above, below all green, With the radiant glow of noon between. JOSEPH SALYARDS (_Idothea_; Idyl III)
May Second
A strange fatality attended us! Jackson killed in the zenith of his successful career; Longstreet wounded when in the act of striking a blow that would have rivalled Jackson's at Chancellorsville in its results; and in each case the fire was from our own men! A blunder! Call it so; the old deacon would say that God willed it thus.
COL. WALTER H. TAYLOR
_Stonewall Jackson wounded at Chancellorsville, 1863_
_Emma Sanson directs Forrest in pursuit of Streight, 1863_
May Third
Chancellorsville, where 130,000 men were defeated by 60,000, is up to a certain point as much the tactical masterpiece of the nineteenth century as was Leuthen of the eighteenth.
LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C.B.
General Pender, you must hold your ground, you must hold your ground.
JACKSON'S Last Command
May Fourth
The productions of nature soon became my playmates. I felt that an intimacy with them not consisting of friendship merely, but bordering on frenzy, must accompany my steps through life.
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
_John James Audubon born, 1780_
May Fifth
Lord of Hosts, that beholds us in battle, defending The homes of our sires 'gainst the hosts of the foe, Send us help on the wings of thy angels descending, And shield from his terrors and baffle his blow. Warm the faith of our sons, till they flame as the iron, Red glowing from the fire-forge, kindled by zeal; Make them forward to grapple the hordes that environ, In the storm-rush of battle, through forests of steel! From the Charleston _Mercury_
_Battle of the Wilderness; Lee, with 60,000 men, attacks Grant with 140,000, 1864_
May Sixth
It depends on the State itself, to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have, in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.
(Rawle's text-book on the Constitution, taught at West Point before the War between the States)
JUDAH P. BENJAMIN, AMERICAN DISRAELI
Who is the man, save this one, of whom it can be said that he held conspicuous leadership at the bar of two countries?
SIR HENRY JAMES (England)
_Tennessee and Arkansas secede, 1861_
_Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, dies, 1884_
May Seventh
The slaves who ran away from their masters were set to work at once by General Butler and made to keep at it, much to their annoyance. One of these, having been put to it rather strong, said: "Golly, Massa Butler, dis nigger nebber had to work so hard befo'; dis chile gwine secede once moah."
Ohio _Statesman_, 1861
May Eighth
Having completed our repairs on May 8th, and while returning to our old anchorage, we heard heavy firing, and, going down the harbor, found the _Monitor_, with the iron-clads _Galena_, _Naugatuck_, and a number of heavy ships, shelling our batteries at Sewell's Point. We stood directly for the _Monitor_, but as we approached they all ceased firing and retreated below the forts.
COL. JOHN TAYLOR WOOD
_The "Virginia" again challenges the "Monitor" to battle, 1862_
_Battle of Palo Alto, 1846_
May Ninth
MOTHERS' DAY
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother." EDGAR ALLAN POE
May Tenth
Fearless and strong, self-dependent and ambitious, he had within him the making of a Napoleon, and yet his name is without spot or blemish.
LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C.B.
... Ask the world-- The world has heard his story-- If all its annals can unfold A prouder tale of glory? If ever merely human life Hath taught diviner moral-- If ever round a worthier brow Was twined a purer laurel? MARGARET J. PRESTON
_Stonewall Jackson dies, 1863_
May Eleventh
The Spanish legend tells us of the Cid, That after death he rode erect, sedately Along his lines, even as in life he did, In presence yet more stately.
And thus our Stuart at this moment seems To ride out of our dark and troubled story Into the region of romance and dreams, A realm of light and glory. JOHN R. THOMPSON
_J. E. B. Stuart mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, 1864_
May Twelfth
General Lee, you shall not lead my men in a charge!
GORDON
General Lee to the rear!--_His Soldiers._
I do wish somebody would tell me where my place is on the field of battle! Wherever I go to look after the fight, I am told, "This is no place for you; you must go away."
ROBERT E. LEE
_Lee, with 50,000 men, repulses Grant with 100,000, at Spottsylvania Court House; Lee "ordered" to the rear, 1864_
May Thirteenth
Good is the Saxon speech! clear, short, and strong, Its clean-cut words, fit both for prayer and song; Good is this tongue for all the needs of life; Good for sweet words with friend, or child, or wife.
* * * * *
'Tis good for laws; for vows of youth and maid; Good for the preacher; or shrewd folk in trade; Good for sea-calls when loud the rush of spray; Good for war-cries where men meet hilt to hilt, And man's best blood like new-trod wine is spilt,-- Good for all times, and good for what thou wilt! JAMES BARRON HOPE
_Landing at Jamestown, 1607_
_Texas troops, C. S. A., defeat Federals in last battle of the War, at Palmito Ranch, 1865, the victors learning from their prisoners that the Confederacy had fallen (Chas. Wm. Ramsdell)_
May Fourteenth
[This exploration] was undertaken at the instance of President Jefferson, and together with the voyage which Captain Gray of Boston had made to the Columbia, in 1792, gave the United States a claim to all the territory covered by the States of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
PHILIP ALEXANDER BRUCE
_Lewis and Clark start from St. Louis on northwestern expedition, 1804_
May Fifteenth
Throughout the events that led up to the Revolution, it seemed ordained that Massachusetts was to suffer and Virginia to sympathize. Until the outbreak of actual hostilities scarcely anything of moment occurred on the soil of Virginia to incite her sons to champion the cause of freedom. Indeed, from the beginning of the controversy between the colonies and the mother country, the British Ministry seemed to have avoided any special cause of irritation to the people of the Old Dominion. The part, therefore, which Virginia took in the events of those days must be attributed to her devotion to the principles of liberty, to her interest in the common cause of the colonies, and particularly to her sympathy with Massachusetts in the suffering which that province was called upon to endure. If we lose sight of these motives as the springs of Virginia's conduct in that struggle, we shall be unable to appreciate either the nobility of her spirit or the wisdom and energy which marked her initiative.
S. C. MITCHELL
_Virginia opposes Boston Port Bill, 1774_
May Sixteenth
I refuse to make any acknowledgments for what I have done. My blood will be as seed sown in good ground, which will produce a hundred fold.
JAMES PUGH
(_Before execution under Gov. Tryon, North Carolina, 1771_)
_Battle of Alamance Creek, 1771_
May Seventeenth
He came into military and political life like some blazing meteor, with exceeding brilliance and splendor speeding across the horizon of history. His activities in politics and war covered only a brief span of seventeen years, 1848 to 1865, and in so short a period but few men ever received more, maintained their parts better, were the recipients of greater honors, or bore themselves with nobler dignity, greater skill or more superb courage either in victory or defeat.
BENNETT H. YOUNG
_John C. Breckinridge dies, 1875_
May Eighteenth
Hushed is the roll of the rebel drum, The sabres are sheathed and the cannon are dumb; And Fate, with pitiless hand, has furled The flag that once challenged the gaze of the world. JOHN R. THOMPSON (_From "Lee to the Rear"_)
May Nineteenth
But the fame of the Wilderness fight abides, And down into history grandly rides Calm and unmoved as in battle he sat, The gray-bearded man in the black slouch hat. JOHN R. THOMPSON (_From "Lee to the Rear"_)
May Twentieth
You can get no troops from North Carolina.
GOV. ELLIS (_Reply to Washington administration, April 15, 1861_)
_North Carolina secedes from the Union, 1861_
May Twenty-First
The Dixie girls wear homespun cotton, But their winning smiles I've not forgotten; Look away, away, away down South in Dixie. They've won my heart and naught surpasses My love for the bright-eyed Dixie lasses; Look away, away, away down South in Dixie.
Chorus:
I'll give my life for Dixie; Away, away; In Dixie's land I'll take my stand, And live and die for Dixie. Away, away, Away down South in Dixie. MARIE LOUISE EVE
May Twenty-Second
How brilliant is the morning star; The evening star how tender; The light of both is in her eyes,-- Their softness and their splendor; But for the lash that shades their sight, They were too dazzling for the light, And when she shuts them all is night,-- The daughter of Mendoza. MIRABEAU B. LAMAR
May Twenty-Third
Great Chieftain of our choice, Albeit that people's voice No comfort speaks in thy lone granite keep; Through those harsh iron bars There come back from the stars Low echoes of the prayers they nightly weep. WILLIAM MUNFORD
_Jefferson Davis puts in irons at Fort Monroe, 1865_
May Twenty-Fourth
Yet to all Americans it must be a regrettable chapter in our history when it is remembered that this man was no common felon, but a prisoner of state, a distinguished Indian fighter, a Mexican veteran, a man who had held a seat in Congress, who had been Secretary of War of the United States, and who for four years had stood at the head of the Confederate States.
MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY (_Davis in chains_)
May Twenty-Fifth
A rich and well-stored mind is the only true philosopher's stone, extracting pure gold from all the base material around. It can create its own beauty, wealth, power, happiness. It has no dreary solitudes. The past ages are its possession, and the long line of the illustrious dead are all its friends.
GEORGE DAVIS
May Twenty-Sixth
Cease firing! There are here no foes to fight! Grim war is o'er and smiling peace now reigns; Cease useless strife--no matter who was right-- True magnanimity from hate abstains. Cease firing! MAJOR WILLIAM MEADE PEGRAM
_The last Confederate army, under General Kirby Smith, surrenders at Baton Rouge, 1865_
May Twenty-Seventh
Representing nothing on God's earth now, And naught in the water below it, As a pledge of a nation that's dead and gone, Keep it, dear Captain, and show it. Show it to those who will lend an ear To the tale this paper can tell Of liberty born, of the patriot's dream, Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.
Too poor to possess the precious ores, And too much of a stranger to borrow, We issued to-day our promise to pay, And hoped to repay on the morrow. MAJOR S. A. JONAS (_From "Lines on the back of a Confederate note"_)
May Twenty-Eighth
Old time negroes intuitively knew who "belonged" to them and who did not. The following incident is told of Senator Sumner's visit to friends at Gallatin, Tennessee, some years before the war; the colloquy is between the Senator and "Old Virginia Jeff:"
"Jeff, I hear you call all the white folks down here 'Marse'--'Marse Henry,' 'Marse John' or what not, isn't that true?"
"Yas, sah."
"And you always call me 'Mister Sumner.' Now, Jeff, here's a quarter. During the rest of my visit you call me Marse Charles, you hear?"
MAJOR JOHN C. WRENSHALL
_P. G. T. Beauregard born, 1818_
May Twenty-Ninth
If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
PATRICK HENRY
_Patrick Henry born, 1736_
May Thirtieth
Those who oppose slavery in Kansas do not base their opposition upon any philanthropic principles, or any sympathy for the African race. For, in their so-called Constitution, framed at Topeka, they deem that entire race so inferior and degraded as to exclude them all forever from Kansas, whether they be bond or free.
ROBERT J. WALKER
_Kansas given territorial rights by Congress, 1854_
May Thirty-First
SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE
... All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried _Abide, abide_, The wilful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said _Stay_. The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed _Abide, abide_, _Here in the hills of Habersham_, _Here in the valleys of Hall_. SIDNEY LANIER
_British Government declared suspended in North Carolina (Mecklenburg) 1775_
June
THE SLEEPER
At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; Wrapping the fog above its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. EDGAR ALLAN POE
June First
... The year, And all the gentle daughters in her train, March in our ranks, and in our service wield Long spears of golden grain! A yellow blossom as her fairy shield, June flings her azure banner to the wind, While in the order of their birth Her sisters pass, and many an ample field Grows white beneath their steps, till now, behold, Its endless sheets unfold The snow of Southern summers! HENRY TIMROD (_Ethnogenesis_)
_Kentucky admitted to the Union, 1792_
_Tennessee admitted to the Union, 1796_
_John H. Morgan born, 1825_
June Second
In regard to African Slavery, which has played so important a part in our political history, Randolph was an Emancipationist, as distinguished from an Abolitionist. This distinction was a very broad one; as broad as that between Algernon Sidney and Jack Cade; or between Charlemagne and Peter the Hermit--in fact, it was the difference between Reason and Fanaticism. On this subject Randolph and Clay concurred; both were Emancipationists, and both denounced the Abolitionists; as did also Webster, and all the best, wisest, and purest men of that day.
JUDGE DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS
_John Randolph born, 1773_
June Third
Other leaders have had their triumphs. Conquerors have won crowns, and honors have been piled on the victors of earth's great battles, but never, sir, came man to more loving people.
HENRY W. GRADY
_Jefferson Davis born in Kentucky, 1808_
June Fourth
In the hallowed stillness of your bridal eve, ere the guests have all assembled, lift up to yours the pale face, love's perfect image, and you shall see that vision to which God our Father vouchsafes no equal this side the jasper throne--you shall see the ineffable eyes of innocence entrusting to you, unworthy, oh! so unworthy, her destiny through time and eternity. Inhale the perfume of her breath and hair, that puts the violets of the wood to shame; press your first kiss (for now she is all your own), your first kiss upon the trembling petals of her lips, and you shall hear, with ears you knew not that you had, the silver chiming of your wedding bells far, far up in heaven.
GEORGE W. BAGBY
June Fifth
THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH