Part 8

THE CONFEDERATE VETERAN

Let the autumn hoarfrost gather, Let the snows of winter drift, For there blooms a fruit of valor that The world may not forget. Fold your faded gray coat closer, for It was your country's gift, And it brings her holiest message-- There is glory in it yet. VIRGINIA FRAZER BOYLE

October Sixteenth

This button here upon my cuff is valueless, whether for use or for ornament, but you shall not tear it from me and spit in my face besides; no, not if it cost me my life. And if your time be passed in the attempt to so take it, then my time and my every thought shall be spent in preventing such outrage. Let alone, the Virginian would gladly have made an end of slavery, but, strange hap, malevolence and meddling bound it up with every interest that was dear to his heart.

GEORGE W. BAGBY (_Slavery_)

_John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, 1859_

October Seventeenth

JOHN BROWN'S RAID

Of course a transaction so flagitious with its attendant circumstances ... could but produce the profoundest impression upon the people of the South. Here was open and armed "aggression"; whether clearly understood and encouraged beforehand, certainly exulted in afterwards, by persons of a very different standing from that of the chief actor in this bloody incursion into a peaceful State.

GEORGE LUNT (Massachusetts)

"Saint John the Just" was the verdict of the Concord philosophers concerning John Brown. "The new Saint ... will make the gallows glorious like the Cross" was the sentiment of Emerson that drew applause from a vast assemblage in Boston.

HENRY A. WHITE

October Eighteenth

I address you on this occasion with a profound admiration for the great consideration which caused you to honor me by your votes with a seat in the Senate of Georgy. For two momentus and inspirin' weeks the Legislature has been in solemn session, one of whom I am proud to be which. For several days we were engaged as scouts, making a sorter reconysance to see whether Georgy were a State or a Injin territory, whether we were in the old Un-ion or out of it, whether me and my folks and you and your folks were somebody or no body, and lastly, but by no means leastly, whether our poor innocent children, born durin' the war, were all illegal and had to be born over agin or not. This last pint are much unsettled, but our women are advised to be calm and serene.

"BILL ARP" (_To His Constituents_)

October Nineteenth

Float out, oh flag, from Freedom's burnished lance. Float out, oh flag, in Red and White and Blue! The Union's colors and the hues of France Commingled on the view! JAMES BARRON HOPE

_Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, 1781_

_Burning of the "Peggy Stewart" at Annapolis, 1774_

October Twentieth

Her right to it rested upon as firm a basis as the right of any other Commonwealth to her own domain, and if there was any question of the Virginia title by charter, she could assert her right by conquest. The region had been wrested from the British by a Virginian commanding Virginian troops; the people had taken "the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia"; and her title to the entire territory was thus indisputable....

These rights she now abandoned; and her action was the result of an enlarged patriotism and devotion to the cause of union.

JOHN ESTEN COOKE

_Virginia cedes to the general government the territory north of the Ohio, 1783_

October Twenty-First

When social relations were resumed between the North and South--they followed slowly the resumption of business relations--what we should call the color-blindness of the other side often manifested itself in a delicate reticence on the part of our Northern friends; and as the war had by no means constituted their lives as it had constituted ours for four long years, the success in avoiding the disagreeable topic would have been considerable, if it had not been for awkward allusions on the part of the Southerners, who, having been shut out for all that time from the study of literature and art and other elegant and uncompromising subjects, could hardly keep from speaking of this and that incident of the war. Whereupon a discreet, or rather an embarrassed silence, as if a pardoned convict had playfully referred to the arson or burglary, not to say worse, that had been the cause of his seclusion.

BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE

October Twenty-Second

Oh, the rolling, rolling prairies, and the grasses waving, waving Like green billows 'neath the gulf breeze in the perfumed purple gloam! Oh, my heart is heavy, heavy, and my eyes are craving, craving For the fertile plains and forests of my far-off Texas home. JUDD MORTIMER LEWIS (_Longing for Texas_)

_Samuel Houston inaugurated President of Texas, 1836_

October Twenty-Third

BEARING THE NEWS FROM YORKTOWN TO PHILADELPHIA

All the night of the 22d he rode up the peninsula, not a sound disturbing the silence of the darkness except the beat of his horse's hoofs. Every three or four hours he would ride up to a lonely homestead, still and quiet and dark in the first slumbers of the night, and thunder on the door with his sword: "Cornwallis is taken: a fresh horse for the Congress!" Like an electric shock the house would flash with an instant light and echo with the pattering feet of women, and before a dozen greetings could be exchanged, and but a word given of the fate of the loved ones at York, Tilghman would vanish in the gloom, leaving a trail of glory and joy behind him.

BRADLEY T. JOHNSON

_Col. Tench Tilghman's ride, 1781_

October Twenty-Fourth

IMMORTALITY

Battles nor songs can from Oblivion save, But Fame upon a white deed loves to build; From out that cup of water Sidney gave, Not one drop has been spilled. LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE

October Twenty-Fifth

Supposing a disintegration of the Union, notwithstanding all efforts to prevent it, to be forced upon us by the obstinacy and impracticability of parties on each side--the case would still be far from hopeless. The Border States, in that event, would form, in self-defence, a Confederacy of their own, which would serve as a centre of reinforcement for the reconstruction of the Union.

JOHN P. KENNEDY (_In "The Border States--their Power and Duty in the Present Disordered Condition of the Country"_)

_John P. Kennedy born, 1795_

October Twenty-Sixth

Give us back the ties of Yorktown! Perish all the modern hates! Let us stand together, brothers, In defiance of the Fates; For the safety of the Union Is the safety of the States! JAMES BARRON HOPE (_Centennial Ode_)

October Twenty-Seventh

The attempt made to establish a separate and independent confederation has failed, but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully and to the end will in some measure repay for the hardships you have undergone. In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness.... I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command, whose zeal, fidelity, and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my past success in arms. I have never on the field of battle sent you where I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous.

N. B. FORREST (_Farewell Address to His Soldiers_)

October Twenty-Eighth

Whether in the thickest of the battle, where hundreds or thousands were rushing at each other in deadly combat, or on the lonely highway where he came face to face with a single adversary, or in the reconnoissance by day or night, when alone or attended by a single member of his staff he would ride into the enemy's lines and even into their camps, he was with pistol or sabre ever ready to assert his physical prowess. It is known that he placed _hors de combat_ thirty Federal officers or soldiers fighting hand-to-hand.

JOHN A. WYETH

October Twenty-Ninth

Swing, rustless blade, in the dauntless hand; Ride, soul of a god, through the deathless band, Through the low green mounds, or the breadth of the land, Wherever your legions dwell! VIRGINIA FRAZER BOYLE

_Gen. N. B. Forrest dies, 1877_

October Thirtieth

It will be difficult in all history to find a more varied career than his, a man who, from the greatest poverty, without any learning, and by sheer force of character alone became the great fighting leader of fighting men, a man in whom an extraordinary military instinct and sound common-sense supplied to a very large extent his unfortunate want of military education. His military career teaches us that the genius which makes men great soldiers is not art of war.

VISCOUNT WOLSELEY (England)

October Thirty-First

Rising from the position of a private soldier to wear the wreath and stars of a lieutenant-general, and that without education or influence to help him, wounded four times and having twenty-nine horses shot under him, capturing 31,000 prisoners, and cannon, flags, and stores of all kinds beyond computation, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a born genius for war, and his career is one of the most brilliant and romantic to be found in the pages of history.

REV. J. WILLIAM JONES

November

FALL

Sad-hearted Spirit of the solitudes, Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods! Gray-gowned in fog, gold-girdled with the gloom Of tawny sunsets; burdened with perfume Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist; And all the beauty of the fire-kissed Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way, Odorous of death and drowsy with decay. I think of thee as seated 'mid the showers Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers-- The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune A singer gives her soul's wild melody-- Watching the squirrel store his granary. Or, 'mid old orchards, I have pictured thee: Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back; One lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black; Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweet The rosy russets tumbled at thy feet. Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers? Or heart-sick bird that sang of happier hours? A cricket dirging days that soon must die? Or did the ghost of Summer wander by? MADISON CAWEIN

November First

The white people owe a high duty to the negro. It was necessary to the safety of the State to base suffrage on the capacity to exercise it wisely. This results in excluding a great number of negroes from the ballot, but their right to life, liberty, property, and justice must be even more carefully safeguarded than ever. It is true that a superior race cannot submit to the rule of a weaker race without injury; it is also true in the long years of God that the strong cannot oppress the weak without destruction.

CHARLES B. AYCOCK

_The New Constitution of Mississippi adopted, 1890_

November Second

It becomes the duty of all States, and especially of those whose constitutions recognize the existence of domestic slavery, to look with watchfulness to the attempts which have been recently made to disturb the rights secured to them by the Constitution of the United States.

JAMES KNOX POLK

_James Knox Polk born, 1795_

November Third

FROM THE LAST-KNOWN DECLARATION OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS OF MAN! VIRGINIA, 1687

Man in marriage is said to repair his maimed side, and to regain his own rib. And the woman is then and thereby reduced to her first place.... From a rib to a helper was a happy change.

COL. JOHN PAGE (_In "A Deed of Gift"_)

November Fourth

NOVEMBER

'Neath naked boughs, and sitting in the sun, With idle hands, because her work is done, I mark how smiles the lovely, fading year, Crowned with chrysanthemums and berries bright, And in her eyes the shimmer of a tear. DANSKE DANDRIDGE

November Fifth

It came to pass that I was one of the few who witnessed the last descending glory of this attempted Republic, projected by men who considered that the only true and natural foundation of society was "the wants and fears of individuals," but which was decided adversely to _their_ interpretation of that natural law, by the God of battles.

CORNELIUS E. HUNT (_Of "The Shenandoah"_)

[Learning Aug. 2, 1865, in the course of her cruising in the Pacific, that the Confederate government no longer existed, and knowing that they had been rated as "pirates" by Federal officials, the captain and crew determined to surrender their flag and commission in a foreign port, setting out forthwith for Liverpool, England.--Editor]

November Sixth

The First Lieutenant stood ... gazing at the flag under which he had so long done battle, and then turned away with tears coursing down his bronzed cheeks.

He was not alone in this exhibition of weakness, if such it was, for more than one eye, unaccustomed to weep, turned aside to conceal the unwonted drops, as at a silent signal, the quartermaster hauled down the Stars and Bars, thereby surrendering the Shenandoah to the British authorities.

CORNELIUS E. HUNT (_Of "The Shenandoah"_)

_The "Shenandoah" furls the last Confederate battle flag, 1865_

November Seventh

A very shy fellow was dusky Sam, As slow of speech as the typical clam. He couldn't make love to his Angeline Though his love grew like the Great Gourd Vine; So he brought the telephone to his aid To assist in wooing the chosen maid: "Miss Angeline? Dat you?" called he. "Yas.--Dis Angeline--Dis me--" "I--des wanter say--dat I does--love you-- Miss Angeline--does you love me, too--?" "Why--yas--Of course I loves my beau-- Say what's de reason you wants to know?" "Miss--hold de wire--Will you marry me? True--?" "Yas. Course I will----Say. Who is you?" MARTHA YOUNG

November Eighth

History will record the events attending this capture as a most extraordinary lapse in the career of a civilized nation--an instance where statesmen and _Jurisconsults_ betrayed their country to administer to the passions of a mob. Edward Everett ... wrote for the newspapers, vindicating on principles of public law, the act of Captain Wilkes.

JAMES M. MASON

_The English Royal Mail steamer "Trent" held up by the Federal war-ship "San Jacinto" and the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, arrested, 1861_

November Ninth

I also propose that these surgeons shall act as commissaries, with power to receive and distribute such contributions of money, food, clothing, and medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of prisoners. I further propose that these surgeons be selected by their own Governments, and they shall have full liberty at any and all times, through the agents of exchange, to make reports, not only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of prisoners.

ROBERT OULD (_Agent of Exchange_)

This letter was ignored by the Federal Government, as were others of similar import, although receipt was acknowledged by the Agent of Exchange.

_R. R. Stevenson's Account_

I need not state how much suffering would have been prevented if this offer had been met in the spirit in which it was dictated. In addition, the world would have had truthful accounts of the treatment of prisoners on both sides, by officers of character, and thus much of that misrepresentation which has flooded the country would never have been poured forth.... The acceptance of the proposition made by me, on behalf of the Confederate Government, would not only have furnished to the sick, medicines and physicians, but to the well an abundance of food and clothing from the ample stores of the United States.

R. R. STEVENSON

_A. P. Hill born, 1825_

November Tenth

The verdict has been found, said they, and no appeal will be permitted. "Besides," said many, "why stir up these old matters? Let them be; they will be forgotten within a generation." But there are some yet living, in both the South and the North, who prefer truth to falsehood, even though the attainment of the former costs some trouble.

R. R. STEVENSON

_Major Henry Wirz, Commandant of Andersonville prison, hanged, 1865_

_Robert Young Hayne born, 1791_

November Eleventh

"The report of Mr. Stanton, as Secretary of War, on the 19th of July, 1866, exhibits the fact that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands during the war, 22,576 died; while of the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands 26,436 died."

[Since Dr. Stevenson wrote the above (1876), the figures on either side have been added to, but the proportion remains about the same. _If nothing more_, these figures of comparative mortality should be borne in mind in exoneration of Henry Wirz, and of those of greater responsibility who were accused with him, but who were neither executed nor even brought to trial. A number of gallant Federal officers, once prisoners at Andersonville, have in later years come forward to testify in book and monograph as to the true character of Major Wirz.--Editor]

November Twelfth

When it was ascertained that exchanges could not be made, either on the basis of the cartel, or officer for officer and man for man, I was instructed by the Confederate authorities to offer the United States Government their sick and wounded, _without requiring any equivalents_. Accordingly, in the summer of 1864, I did offer to deliver from ten to fifteen thousand of the sick and wounded at the mouth of the Savannah River, without requiring any equivalents, assuring, at the same time, the Agent of the United States, General Mulford, that if the number for which he might send transportation could not readily be made up from sick and wounded, I would supply the difference with well men. Although this offer was made in the summer of 1864, transportation was not sent to the Savannah River until about the middle or last of November.

R. R. STEVENSON

November Thirteenth

In the summer of 1864, in consequence of certain information communicated to me by the Surgeon-general of the Confederate States as to the deficiency of medicines, I offered to make purchases of medicines from the United States authorities, to be used exclusively for the relief of Federal prisoners. I offered to pay gold, cotton, or tobacco for them, and even two or three prices, if required. At the same time I gave assurances that the medicines would be used exclusively in the treatment of Federal prisoners; and moreover agreed, on behalf of the Confederate States, if it was insisted on, that such medicines might be brought into the Confederate lines by the United States surgeons, and dispensed by them.

R. R. STEVENSON

_Texas declares her independence of Mexico, 1835_

November Fourteenth

Were I to enter the Hall, at this remote period, and meet my associates who signed the instrument of our independence, I should know them all, from Hancock down to Stephen Hopkins.

CHARLES CARROLL (_Of Carrollton, at 90 years of age_)

_Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, dies, 1832_

November Fifteenth

In other words, a veteran of our civil strife, General Sherman advocated in an enemy's country the sixteenth century practices of Tilly, described by Schiller, and the later devastation of the Palatinate policy of Louis XIV, commemorated by Goethe. In the twenty-first century, perhaps, partisan feeling as regards the Civil War performances having by that time ceased to exist, American investigators, no longer regardful of a victor's self-complacency, may treat the episodes of our struggle with the same even-handed and out-spoken impartiality with which Englishmen now treat the revenges of the Restoration, or Frenchmen the dragonnades of the Grand Monarque. But when that time comes, the page relating to what occurred in 1864 in the Valley of the Shenandoah, in Georgia, and in the Carolinas,--a page which Mr. Rhodes somewhat lightly passes over--will probably be rewritten in characters of far more decided import.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS (Massachusetts)

_Sherman begins his march from Atlanta to the sea, 1864_

November Sixteenth

HENRY WIRZ, THE UNFORTUNATE SWISS-AMERICAN COMMANDANT AT ANDERSONVILLE

On the evening before the day of the execution of Major Wirz a man visited me, on the part of a Cabinet officer, to inform me that Major Wirz would be pardoned if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in the cruelties at Andersonville....

When I visited Major Wirz the next morning he told me that the same proposal had been made to him.

F. E. BOYLE (_Priest in attendance upon Major Wirz_)

Some parties came to the confessor of Wirz, Rev. Father Boyle, and also to me, one of them informing me that a high Cabinet officer wished to assure Wirz, that if he would implicate Jefferson Davis with the atrocities committed at Andersonville, his sentence would be commuted. He, the messenger, or whoever he was, requested me to inform Wirz of this.

LEWIS SCHADE (_German-American Attorney to Major Wirz_)

November Seventeenth

Sad spirit, swathed in brief mortality, Of Fate and fervid fantasies the prey, Till the remorseless demon of dismay O'erwhelmed thee--lo! thy doleful destiny Is chanted in the requiem of the sea And shadowed in the crumbling ruins gray That beetle o'er the tarn. Here all the day The Raven broods on solitude and thee: Here gloats the moon at midnight, while the Bells Tremble, but speak not lest thy Ulalume Should startle from her slumbers, or Lenore Hearken the love-forbidden tone that tells The shrouded legend of thine early doom And blast the bliss of heaven forevermore. JOHN B. TABB

_First American Monument erected to the memory of Edgar Allan Poe dedicated in Baltimore, 1875_

November Eighteenth

POE--He is the nightingale of our Southern poets--singing at night, singing on nocturnal themes, but with all the passionate tenderness and infinite pathos of his own angel Israfel, "whose heart-strings are a lute."

OLIVER HUCKEL (Pennsylvania)

November Nineteenth

The election of 1873 was the culmination of the evil effects of reconstruction. The rule of the alien and the negro was complete, with the latter holding the lion's share of the offices. The lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, superintendent of education, and commissioner of immigration and agriculture, all were negroes; both houses of the legislature had negro presiding officers; in the senate ten negroes held seats; of the seventy-seven Republicans in the house, fifty-five were negroes and fifteen were carpet-baggers; the majority of the county offices were filled by negroes, 90 per cent. of whom could neither read nor write.

DUNBAR ROWLAND (_Mississippi in "Reconstruction"_)

November Twentieth

Fleet on the tempest blown, Far from the mountain dell, Rose in their cloudy cone, Elfin and Spell; Woo'd by the spirit tone, Trembling and chill, Wandered a maiden lone, On the bleak hill: Mau-in-waun-du-me-nung, Trembling and chill. JOSEPH SALYARDS

November Twenty-First

Low in the moory dale, Green mossy waters flow, Under the drowsy gale, Moaning and slow; There in her snowy veil, Bleeding and bound, Lay the sweet damsel pale, On the cold ground, Mau-in-waun-du-me-nung, On the cold ground. JOSEPH SALYARDS