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Confederate Veteran
1893
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A SURGEON'S STORY.
If all the striking incidents that occurred to surgeons engaged with the armies in our late war were published the book would contain some of the most interesting incidents of that awful conflict. I write of one that happened near Dumfries, Va., in the winter of 1861 2. I was surgeon of the 11th Mississippi Regiment, and Dr. Estell of the 1st Tennessee Regiment. One morning we were both ordered to report at the quarters (two miles distant) of a captain of artillery for some professional service, the nature of which was not revealed. Dismounting near his tent, we observed the Captain sitting a few paces from the front of the tent, in company with a lady dressed in deep mourning, a black veil falling over her face. The Captain arose and met us, remarking that a youth was in the tent whom he wished us to examine in order to ascertain if he was diseased, and if so, whether it was organic and likely to have existed long, and then pointed us to the closed door. We entered and found a young man lying on a stretcher, with two soldiers armed and sitting on camp stools at his feet. The youth was quite delicate, well dressed and comely. After conversing with him in regard to his age, health, the origin and duration of his complaint, we made a careful physical examination. We found palpable organic affection of the heart, which had existed since his access to puberty, four years before that time. It was one of the clearest cases we had ever seen. Then approaching the couple as they sat in silence, I said, "Captain, the young man is certainly afflicted with organic disease of the heart of long duration, and he ought never to have been enlisted as a soldier." Instantly the lady sprang to her feet, screaming out, "God bless you, you have saved my only child!" and throwing her arms around me she wept for joy. Soon she rushed to the tent where her son lay.
It was a startling mystery to us, but the Captain explained: The boy had enlisted in '61, and from. the battle field at Manassas he had deserted and fled to his home. Late in the fall he had been arrested and returned to his command at Dumfries, where he had been tried and was condemned to be shot on the next day after our examination. In the meantime his mother, hearing the news, hastened to the army, and had arrived in time to plead for an examination to prove her son's real condition. The Captain showed us the general's order, which was, " Arrest the sentence and discharge him if the surgeons confirm the mother's statement."
HERE'S YOUR MULE
Much has been said and written of the horse the war horse but the mule is rarely if ever mentioned except in ridicule.
After some months in the Confederate service we were encamped at Columbus, Ky., where the teamster of our regiment was given a beautiful team of iron gray mules. One of these was
Honest John." After some service here Honest John goes to Shiloh and takes part in the conflict by pulling amunition to the front. After the battle we go to Corinth, and then via Mobile we go to Chattanooga, Honest John goes through the country, we meet again. After a short rest the long road to Perryville is traversed and a battle is fought.
We find him. again at Knoxville in October, and the snow is falling thick and fast on the old servant's back. By rail we go to Murfreesboro, John gets there too. Murfreesboro is a record of the past, and Honest John rests at Shelbyville. After a long, weary midsummer haul he is at Chickamauga. The storm of battle being over, he rests again on the heights of Missionary Ridge. John winters at Dalton. Spring opens, and with it orders to climb Rocky face Ridge, John climbs it too. Dalton, Resaca, Adairsville, .New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, Chattahoochee River, Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, Jonesboro, Lovejoy are reached. Then we about face northward and go back almost the same route. Many hills and mountains are pulled over, and Honest John does his part. After bloody Franklin John goes on, having survived one companion and another.
Nashville and that terrible winter march to Corinth again, time is rapidly passing. Nearing the Atlantic, he is moved to a quick step. Raleigh, Hillsboro, Haw River is crossed, and this faithful old friend is still on duty. Four years have gone. " Whoa, John," is called in the piney woods near Greensboro, the ordnance is unloaded, guns are stacked, wagon scantily filled with commissary stores, and westward John starts, with weary limbs, downcast head and drooping ears. The Cumberland is crossed, the last long pull to Greenville, Tenn., is made, and from the car window we take a last sympathetic look on the scar worn and almost flesh less frame of poor old Honest John as he bathes his long bony sides in the May day sun mid the mountains of Tennessee.
HERE WAS YOUR MULE.
A note from R. J, Dew, of Trenton, Tenn., who sends the above and asserts its accuracy, concludes as follows: "Am well pleased with the VETERAN. Your experience at Franklin vividly reminds me of mine. I was about 50 yards north of the pike when we reached their works. It almost makes me shudder to think of that evening and night." Mr. Dew served in the 9th Tennessee with Maury's Brigade, Cheatham's Division.
A special from Fredericksburg, Va., May 20, says: Mr. Philip S. Honey, a farmer who lives a few miles from this city, in Stafford County, is an ardent Confederate, and still the proud owner of the mule, now thirty eight years old, which he rode all through the war as a member of the 9th Virginia Cavalry. They were together at the battles of Gettysburg, Cedar Mountain, Brandy Station, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Richmond, Petersburg, Stony Creek, and surrendered at Appomatox. The mule shows the marks of time, but notwithstanding her a.dvanced age is still strong. She does light work regularly, but is blind in one eye, and some of her teeth are gone.
An effort is being made to induce Mr. Honey to take the mule to Richmond by rail and ride her in the parade when the remains of Jefferson Davis will be re interred.
The volunteer mention of the VETERAN in the first issue of the new daily Hotel Reporter for Nashville is appreciated. It is published by Jas. A. Phirl and Jeff D. Kelley. A facetious editorial note is copied, with the preface that the VETERAN does not mean to be sensational, it hopes by occasional production of "dark and bloody scenes" to show the growing generation what their fathers endured for principle : " Is life worth living? Well I should say so. You will agree when you attend Sam Jones' meetings, and if you want your hair to fairly rise on your old gray pate just read S. A. Cunningham's CONFEDERATE VETERAN portraying those dark and bloody scenes of over thirty years ago. The VETERAN is far better than its price, and 'Mars' Frank's followers should every one subscribe for that superb magazine."
U. J. Owen, Allisona, Tenn.: "The VETERAN is an ever welcome visitor at my home, and sometimes its visits seem too long delayed. We are always anxious for the VETERAN to come, and when it does I read it through and through again. It seems new to me every time I read it. I was not old enough myself to take part in the great struggle of our people in 1861 5, but my father spent four years in defense of the principles we loved so dearly, seventeen months of the time he was confined in prison at Rock Island, III. I send you four subscriptions, and will send others later on, as I expect to do all I can for the VETERAN."
Confederate Veteran June 1893.
WANTS HIS OLD FLAG LIKES THE VETERAN.
Through the advice of my friend, Dahlgren, of Atlanta, Ga., I was induced to send for a copy of the CONFEDERATE VETERAN, and I am glad I did. Among all my reading since the war, the VETERAN catches my old Confederate heart and holds it closer and thrills it deeper than any thing I've met with yet. I feel it a duty of every old Confederate, of every old Confederate's wife, boy, and daughter to give it their earnest support, for we need to be honestly represented, and who is so eminently fitted for such a task as we who stood with our old muskets offering, as it were, our own lives for the cause of our " Southland." These are the men I most want to hear from. Common men, men like myself, men who fought in the ranks and stood at the front watching when the historian slept. In our recitals we deal in personalities and write of that of which the historian knows nothing. I like to read of those things.
I was a member of the Fifth Alabama Battalion, Gen. Archer's brigade, and many of the Tennessee boys can remember me, especially when I call to their memory their old Color Bearer at Gaines' Mill, July 27, 1862, where I and four of my color guards were shot down in front of the enemy's triple line of breast works. I was shot in three different places, and left at the field hospital till Sunday night. All this I propose to give to the boys in a future letter.
Just now I am diligently hunting my old flag, captured at that time. The boys of the Second Maine, who captured it, have treated my inquiries with uniform courtesy and kindness. They have given me all the information they can, but I have not found the flag. I traced it to Bangor, Maine, through Gen. Roberts' aid, but there I lost it, although I hope yet to succeed. I did hope to carry this flag on July 18 20 at the head of the old brigade at Birmingham. If any of you, dear readers, can give me any information touching the matter I will thank you heartily.
I herewith inclose you the names of seven subscribers, and have more to come. Put me down a life time subscriber. I have already given my boys instruction to continue the subscription after me. I want it perpetuated.
M. T. LEDBETTER. Piedmont, Ala., June 2, 1893.
Confederate Veteran June 1893.
LOVE AND REBELLION.
BY MISS KELLER,
The story of Pickett's men in this VETERAN, by the author of "Love and Rebellion," will be read with moistened eyes. The writer, Miss M. C. Keller, of Leesburg, Fla., has created a fine sensation with the book. Write to the VETERAN for special rates. As judged by our enemies, the story is thrilling:
What a grand, noble womanhood and moral worth are found in the heroism of mother and daughter, and the faithful slave in his devotion to "missis an' chillun." I am a Northerner, and know nothing of the South, its customs, charities, its women and its negroes, but if the mother and daughter in " Love and Rebellion" represent the Southern women, they are the noblest under the sun. If Martha Caroline Keller has drawn a true picture of the Southern women during the stormy days of the reconstruction era and the civil war, those same women should give that writer unequaled gratitude. Every woman in the South should read the book. "Love and Rebellion" will become a standard, and will live after thousands of the books of today will have perished. Were I asked to class it I would unhesitatingly place it with "Looking Backward," "The Parisian," by Bulwer, "Main Traveled Roads," by Hamlin Garland, " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Zumbaloff's great book. In its soberness it resembles "Robert Elsmere," while it contains etchings of fancy and comedy that resemble "Tom Sawyer." Years ago Harriett Beecher Stowe wrote " Uncle Tom's Cabin" to correct the errors of a wrong, to day Martha Caroline Keller has written " Love and Rebellion " to establish the truth of a right. To none but the partial, sectional, and incapable can either at this day be offensive. The purpose of one has been accomplished, while the other is at the beginning of the end. Though the first in a new departure, "Love and Rebellion " will eventually prove to have been the initial of a series. Other writers will contribute to the work begun. She takes the race question and handles it with the brain of a statesman, the reasoning of a philosopher, and the profundity of a master mind. As a political argument, it kills Force Bill forever.
Another Northern writer says: "Love and Rebellion" appeals strongly to our sense of justice. Its pages describing the seige of Vicksburg are sad and terrible, while they read like leaves from a nation's history. The work contains no bitterness. It is a sad, heroic, deep story, and tells of a people, especially the Southern women, who were grand in their heroism. The book will become a standard, and for the truth it contains it should be widely read by men and women in the North. It is interesting to intensity.
R. T. Flournoy, St. Paul, Minn.: "Kindly send the CONFEDERATE VETERAN for two years to me. Inclosed find one dollar for the subscription,"
THE SOUTHERN CROSS.
This little work, by a well known Southern writer. Lillian Rozell Messenger, has been pronounced a work of no ordinary genius. In the poem, from which the book takes its title, the poet holds high prophetic ground in regard to the old past institution of slavery. It starts with the fact that the Creator has power and dominion over the created the potter over the clay. Here is a characteristic passage near the close of the. poem:
Did God break Judah save to heal again
The crime made wound of stormy centuries?
Was Christ less God when on the cross men said,
Ay, let him save himself if he is divine,
Else perish neath our spears of vile defeat?
When follows the strong climax at the end:
Some pity, then, O brothers, O fair world
Seeing the curse, not yours, was lain
On the fair white shoulders of the maiden queen,
The swift young South, who, in the rush and heat
Of flying years, must meet the centuries
With banners furled, hut not her broken cross."
Every lover of literature and the South would prize. this book. It is beautifully bound and printed on exquisite paper. On the cover is a beautiful embellishment the picture of the Greek Maiden typifies the South in tender, sad repose. The price of the book. is $1, and is furnished with the VETERAN for $1.10.
Confederate Veteran July 1893.
RECOLLECTIONS OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.
I have so much love for this grand man, and the glorious cause he and his brave soldiers fought for, that I feel I must add my mite of praise to them, though they do not need it. The heroic struggle of these grand patriots will live in the heart of every true Southerner, and on the pages of the sublimest history ever penned by mortals. I was a resident of Cuba when the unrighteous civil war was forced upon the South, and my mind and strength went out, as it were, to the heroic, self sacrificing soldiers who were engaged in fighting for our rights with an untold energy, that surprised me. I watched closely the unequal contest, the suffering, the bravery of our people with a yearning sympathy and a fire in my soul that almost consumed me. England played her game of
hypocrisy with us, while the Continent, with irresponsible men, replenished the Northern army. Our soldiers on many fields were outnumbered three or four to one, but in their renewed endurance under the most terrible provocations illustrated a heroism that was never
equaled on the battle field. Again, I saw slain, defeated, taken prisoners, led away to suffer and die among their enemies, and the cross weighted me to the earth. At last the end came. Our hero, friend and President, Jefferson Davis, was taken prisoner, shackled and put in a Northern prison, to suffer indignities and slanders heaped on him in venomous hatred, and ridiculed with the most stupendous lies by his captors that the world ever heard. Bear with me, I must speak it out, age gives me the right to do so if not my patriotism.
While he was in prison, and indignities were so unjustly put upon our beloved President, I sat in my foreign home with bowed head and folded hands, brooding over the ruin that had been meted out to the Southland by her cruel victorious foes.
After Mr. Davis' release from prison and thanks to General Grant we owe for his life he went with his wife to my home in Havana. Worn and pale from prison trials, he was hardly recognizable as the grand, heroic, eagle eyed leader of forces. With the beautiful climate, the close attention of his charming wife and the many devoted friends that surrounded him, he began slowly to rally to better health, giving us supreme pleasure.
Bear with me a little longer. It is to be expected that old people will take license in speech, and I beg pardon if I have trespassed on forbidden ground, but it is of our " Winnie " I would write. I never believed that she would wed a man from among her father's enemies. She is held so high in our hearts, so honored, so beloved, and I believe in the eternal fitness of things.
In my Havana home I had the pleasure of entertaining many eminent Southerners Mason, Slidell, Beverly Tucker, E. Kirby Smith, and others less noted but equally true and brave to the cause we espoused.
Our Southland blooms again with thrift and beauty, the same old Southland with its chivalry. Phoenix like she has risen from her desolation and her ashes without other aid than from her own sons' unflinching, indomitable will and energy. There is no " new " South. The very term is repugnant. Away with it. We are the same people, have the same interests, the same chivalry and the same patriotism.
We are determined by our united efforts to build a monument worthy of our beloved leader, our President, that will tower above all others ever built to the memory of man, that coming ages may see how we honored and loved the man who gave his all to establish our Southern Confederacy. May the angels keep watch above his ashes.
Gen. Stephen D. Lee, Agricultural College, Miss.: "I like the VETERAN. The lack of such a journal has been long felt among old Confederates. Such a means of communication is absolutely necessary. I inclose my subscription, and whenever I can will help you all in my power."
GEN. E. KIRBY SMITH'S DEBTS PAID.
NASHVILLE, TENN., July 9, 1893. S. A. Cunningham
Dear Sir: Mrs. E. Kirby Smith writes to me and expresses her very grateful sense of the generous aid which sympathizing friends through me have tendered to her, whereby she is secured & "home," and can say, "I owe nothing for debts." Tennessee God bless her never fails when called upon. She contributed to this fund all but $45 out of $1,146. W. A. Pacy, for the Camp, Glreenville, Miss., sent $10, John Harrison. for the Camp, Columbus, Miss., $20, Dr. E. A. Banks, New York, $10, and a lady friend $5 through him.
Very respectfully, THOS. CLAIBORNE, Trustee.
Since the above was in type Colonel Claiborne called with good news, saying, " I had closed up the account, but gladly open it for such a juicy thing as this." The letter was to Gen. W. H. Jackson, but was turned over to Colonel Claiborne:
THE CAUSES OF THE WAR.
An address by Col. Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, at the dedication of the Confederate monument at Old Chapel, in Clarke County, is given herewith, The facts set forth will give comfort to many a veteran who fought even more wisely than he knew. It demonstrates that the war was maintained by the defense upon principle, and that the sagacious leaders were not " fire eaters," as has been basely represented, but patriots who exercised patient intelligence until compelled to use sword and bayonet :
We are met in this place to look for the first time on a monument erected by loving hearts in honor, first, of the Confederate dead from this county, whose names adorn yon monument, second, of all Confederate dead, no matter who they are, who have been committed in this county to the keeping of their mother earth.
No more appropriate place for a Confederate monument could have been selected within the valley of Virginia. Situated in one of the most beautiful of the counties of Virginia one that, in proportion to her population and ability, contributed as much of men and means as any other within her confines to the Confederate cause, whose sons attested their valor from Manassas to Appomattox, which, during four years of strife, was the marching ground of friends and foes, and which witnessed "grim visaged war" in all of its glory and in all of its shame.
It was in this county, too, that the great rebel of America, George Washington, developed his young manhood. Over her hills and valleys Daniel Morgan,. of our Revolution, strove and roamed. Within this. cemetery repose the remains of Edmund Randolph, one of the authors and defenders of the Constitution of the United States, in defense of which those in whose memory yon monument has been erected died. Within the chapel in this
enclosure that great man.. Christian and Bishop, William Meade, who loved his State, and all that was true, lovely and honest, and who taught our Robert E. Lee his catechism, reasoned. of righteousness) temperance and judgment to come. Around us arc the graves of pious fathers and mothers, of idolized wives) devoted brothers and sisters, and precious children, over which have been placed the monuments of love and sorrow. Many of those dead were with us in heart and soul in our conflict, praying for us as we marched through the cold of winter, the heat of summer, and engaged in the strife of battle, and who, when we returned after these four years of struggle, without banners and with crushed hearts by reason of the prostration of the hopes in which we trusted, and the loss of the cause we loved, kept us true to the belief that the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, and doeth all things well, and taught us to look upward and onward.
The soldiers in whose honor yon monument was erected were chiefly Virginians but not all. Some were from the Old North State, some from our sister, Tennessee, and some from the land of the cotton plant. Some were dear friends, with whom we of the Second Virginia Infantry and the Clarke Cavalry marched and fought. Mothers, some of them were your sons. Daughters, some of them were your brothers. Comrades, all of them were your fellow soldiers. No matter where they were born they were with you in heart
and soul, and marched under the flag you and they loved,
Twenty eight years have passed since the close of our civil war. Since then a majority of the adults living in those years have been called home, and almost a new generation has taken their places on the farm and plantation, and in the counting room, shop and office. Time, I trust, has healed the wounds of war, but with the revolving years the causes and events of that terrible struggle seem to be forgotten, or if not forgotten, considered as unimportant events of history. And even the history of those events, and the causes that led to that struggle, are not set forth fairly and truthfully. It is stated in books and papers that Southern children read and study that all the blood shedding and destruction of property of that conflict was because the South rebelled without cause against the best government the world ever saw, that although the Southern soldiers were heroes in the field, skillfully massed and led, they and their leaders were rebels and traitors, who fought to overthrow the Union, and to preserve human slavery, and that their defeat was necessary for free government and the welfare of the human family.
As a confederate soldier and as a citizen of Virginia I deny the charge, and denounce it as a calumny. We were not rebels, we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes. The South loved the Union. Her interests were identified with it. Her statesmen had aided in its creation and development. Her warriors had fought under its flag, by sea and by land, and shed their blood in its defense. To the South the Union was a temple dedicated to American constitutional liberty to the principles of a liberty approved by great thinkers and consecrated by the blood of martyrs, a liberty that was designed to protect the individual man in all that was right, and to prohibit him from doing that which was wrong. Not a liberty for one class of people or section of country to prey on any other people or other section. Not a liberty for the majority to invade the rights of the minority, and to use the powers of the government to the aggrandizement of the former and the injury of the latter, but a liberty guaranteeing equality of right and privileges to each section and each State. But when the priests that ministered at the altars of this temple sought to teach new theories of liberty, such as had not been taught by the fathers, and which were destructive of the principles of the Constitution, and fatally injurious to the rights of the States, and especially to the Southern States, then the cotton and sugar Southern States determined to abandon the temple and erect one, where they could worship according to what they understood to be the faith delivered by the fathers, who in the belief of man's capacity for self government, and in prayer to God, had built our political temple.
In determining to separate, those States thought they were sustained by the teachings of the Declaration of Independence, which declared in immortal words that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," that when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers as to them shall seem. most likely to effect their safety and happiness. They also thought that the powers granted to the general government, by virtue of which it alone controlled the States, were delegated powers, which could be revoked at any time by the party delegating. They read in the resolutions of some of the States adopting the Constitution of the United States an express reservation of this power. Our own State, especially when she adopted the Constitution of the United States, declared that the powers granted to the United States could be resumed when perverted to her injury or oppression.
Those Southern States believed that the powers granted to the Federal government had been used to their injury and oppression, and therefore they decided to abandon the Union. In taking this step, slavery was not the cause, but the occasion of the separation. It might as well be said that tea was the cause of our separation from the government of Great Britain in 1776. The government of Great Britain, prior to that date, claimed the power to tax the colonies, although they were not represented in the parliament. That power the colonies denied, they claimed they were British citizens, and as such were entitled to all the rights of every other citizen of that kingdom, that because separated from the island that contained the capital, they were not less citizens of that kingdom, that it was a principle dear to a Britain that no money should be taken from him in the form of taxes except by consent of his representatives, and as they were not represented in parliament England had no right to tax America. Notwithstanding the protests of the people of this country, England taxed America by putting a tax on tea. Hence the Boston tea party, the war of the revolution of 1776 and its results.
The Southern States claimed they had exactly the same right in the Union as the Northern States, that her soldiers had fought in the war for independence, in that of 1812, in the Indian wars and in the Mexican war, that her statesmen had contributed to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the development of American institutions and the enlargement of the territory of the Union, that the common government should be administered for the benefit of all the people, and not to develop one section to the injury of the other sections, not to tend the social and moral views of one part of the country to the disadvantage of another part of it. They claimed that when the Union was formed slavery existed in all of the States, that it was recognized in the Constitution of the United States, and because it had become unprofitable in one portion of a common country, and therefore had ceased to exist in that section, the slaves of the North having been sold South, the powers of the general government should not be used to the injury of the South.
I would not do justice if I did not state just here that there was a section of people at the South and at the North in the early days of the republic and since opposed to slavery on moral and economic grounds. Perhaps at our revolutionary period the anti slavery sentiment was stronger in Virginia than in New England. Massachusetts was at that time engaged in the slave trade, deriving profit from the use of her ships in that traffic. It was not until after the great difference of opinion between the statesmen of the country as to the powers of the general government that the
sectional differences on the subject of slavery became so decided and marked. With the increase of this difference of sentiment as to governmental powers grew the difference on the subject of slavery. In this State, about 1832, there was a most powerful anti slavery party, beaded by such men as James McDowell, one of the most eloquent and cultured of our Governors, and by Charles J. Faulkner, father of the distinguished United States Senator of that name from West Virginia.
But it was not until the failure of those who claimed large powers for the general government on the subject of a national bank, international improvements and a protective tariff, to obtain control of the government, that the anti slavery party assumed any considerable importance. A combination was made in the North and Northwest by those who claimed the aforementioned powers for the general government with the anti slavery men. The combination claimed for the general government, on the subject of slavery
1. Power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
2. Under the power to regulate commerce, the power to prohibit the carrying of slaves from one slave State to another slave State.
3. The right to prohibit slavery in the territory of the United States.
You will observe, first, that all of these matters related to slavery, but the principle, under all this claim for power, like that in regard to the taxation of tea, was far deeper than appeared on the surface. It involved the integrity of the Constitution of the United States and the equality of the people of the Southern States. The District of Columbia contained the capital of the United States. Southern members of Congress came to Washington to discharge their duties, bringing with them their wives and children, and if by hostile legislation their servants the maids of their wives and the nurses of their children were to be liberated by act of Congress as soon as they trod the soil of the District, that city was no place for Southern Senators and Representatives.
2. As to the commerce between the States, as stated before, slaves were recognized as property when the Constitution was adopted. The Constitution of the United States contained a provision for their rendition when they escaped from one State to another, also, for the continuance of the slave trade until 1808. To interdict the selling of slaves from one State to another would have been, in effect, to deprive the citizens of our Southern States of the right to migrate to another. Also to deprive him of the use of what had been considered property from the foundation of the government.
3. To prohibit slavery in the territory of the United States would virtually exclude the Southern citizen of the United States from the common territory. The territory of the United States, about the settlement of which this controversy culminated, was obtained as the result of the war with Mexico, and to exclude the citizen with his slaves was, in fact, to deliver the territory purchased by the money and by the blood of all to one section of the country, to be organized into such political form as to give political power to one section of the country, and thereby give effect in legislation to all the views of the North on the subject of governmental powers. The South claimed an equality of right in all the territories, in the District of Columbia, and in the trade and commerce of the country, and to deny her rights was practically to make her people hewers of wood and drawers of water to the more prosperous and populous section. Notwithstanding the objections and even protests of her statesmen and people, the territory acquired from Mexico was organized so as to exclude slavery, and therefore the South from settlement therein. Not only was this done, but a sectional President was elected by a sectional majority on a sectional platform of party principles.
The South then seceded, not in a body, but separately. The Constitution of the United States had been adopted by States, each State acting by itself and for itself. Our own State, Virginia, seceded in April, 1861. I would like to tell about the action of the Gulf States, and of the views of their great thinkers and statesmen, but I have not time to do so. I am sure, however, you will indulge me for a short time, while I recall some things about Virginia, even if I repeat myself, connected with the part she took in the transactions of that period, and in those of our revolutionary days and since, which will present her to you as the grandest figure of any State in the records of time.
In every period of her history Virginia has stood up for the right, as she understood it, against her seeming interest and against power. Settled by English speaking people, she inherited from them the love of truth and liberty, and devotion to right, that has distinguished the inhabitants of Great Britain from the days of her Alfred to our revolution. When the clash of opinion arose as to the rights.of the British colonies in America, Virginia, against the seeming interest of her people certainly against that of her leaders took the side of the weak in favor of the right, and against the strong and wrong. Her Patrick Henry, by his Demosthenean eloquence, moved the hearts of his countrymen to resistance, a.s the storm moves the sea. Her George Mason, amid the throes of revolution, gave to his State and the world Virginia's great bill of rights and her first constitution the first written constitution the world ever saw. Her Jefferson, with his pen, recorded in memorable words the rights of a free people and the wrongs of America. Her Washington led the armies of the rebellious colonies to victory, peace and independence. The war over, the colonies that had been united in defense against Great Britain formed a Union, under what are known as the Articles of Confederation. Then, in order to strengthen that Confederation and promote the common welfare, Virginia ceded to the Confederacy all of her magnificent territory northwest of the Ohio River, now the abode of a great population and the center of wealth and political power.
The Articles of Confederation proving inadequate, a convention of the States was called, and that body gave to the world the Constitution of the United States. That instrument was largely the work of Virginia. The convention that formed it was called chiefly through Washington. Her Madison and Edmund Randolph and Henry Lee, its chief defenders in Virginia, against the opposition of such men as Patrick Henry, George Mason, Thomas Nelson, Jr., and Richard Henry Lee, who opposed its adoption by their State without amendment, for reasons which, had they been heeded then, would in all probability have averted our civil war. Some of the writings and
utterances of these distinguished objectors, in the light of recent events, seem to be as prophetic as the words of the great Jewish prophet, Isaiah.
The Constitution was adopted, George Washington was made the President of the United States. He put the Federal government in operation, organized the great departments of the government, recommended and approved appropriate legislation, and laid the foundation upon which has been built this great republic. The third President was Thomas Jefferson. Under his administration we obtained from the great Napoleon for $15,000,000 title to the territory known as Louisiana, which comprised not only the State of Louisiana, but Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, and parts of Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, and the Indian Territory. Jefferson was succeeded by another Virginian, James Madison. Under his administration war was declared against Great Britain, which brought that power to respect our flag and the rights of our sailors. To another Virginia President, John Tyler, are we chiefly indebted for the State of Texas. Although it was annexed during the administration of James K. Polk, yet the credit of its aquisition is due to John Tyler's administration.
After this came another war, in which our Winfield Scott planted the flag of the United States on the halls of the Montezurnas, in the city of Mexico, and thereby obtained peace between this country and Mexico, and as a result of that peace all the territory of the United States, bounded by the Mexican frontier on the south, and the Louisiana purchase on the east and north and northwest, and by the Pacific on the west, was added to this country. In the Mexican battles Virginia and the South bore their full part. No sooner was the territory acquired than the controversy arose as to its settlement between the sections of our country, one claiming that it should be kept open and free to the people of all the country, whether the North or the South, the other that it should be dedicated to freedom, that the national soil should be like the enchanted ground of an Eastern story, upon which all that entered, no matter how clad, were immediately arrayed in garments of light and beauty so every slave, as soon as he trod the national soil with his master, should stand clothed in the robes of freedom. Apparently this seemed like the earnest protest of the lovers of freedom against slavery, but in reality it was but a scheme to exclude the South from. the occupancy of the newly acquired territory. The student of the political history of the period will discover that it was not so much opposition, in the decade of 1850 60, to slavery as the desire to get political control of the country, in order that the vast powers of the general government might be yielded to aggrandize one section at the expense of the other. In the furtherance of that scheme it was important to exclude from the newly acquired territory Southern men and their influence in order that the views of the opposite school might take root and obtain power and control. No more effectual method than the exclusion of slavery, and thereby the Southern slaveholder, could have been devised. The Southerner was accustomed to slavery and slave institutions in his home and on his farm and plantation, and if prevented by law from taking his slaves to the territory of the United States he therefore was virtually excluded. He would either have to forego the advantages of purchasing cheap lands or leave his labor and his
domestic habits behind him. Therefore this scheme, however fair to the eye, was in effect a denial to the Southern slaveholder of any participation in the common territory, and was equal to a deed of cession of all that territory to the Northern States. It was the determination of the Northern States to adhere to that policy, by the election of a President pledged to such views, that caused, as heretofore stated, the separation of the Gulf States from the Union. Virginia, however, did not then secede. Her patriotic Governor, Johh Letcher, called an extra session of the Legislature to meet January 7th, 1861. That Legislature convened a delegated convention of the people of the State, which assembled at Richmond on the 13th of February, 1861. That convention was composed of some of the most distinguished, conservative and patriotic citizens of Virginia. Among them A. H. H. Stewart, John Janney, Robt. E. Scott, John B. Baldwin, Geo. W. Summers, and your fellow citizen, Hugh M. Nelson, whose name graces yon monumentall Union men, as were the majority of that body. That convention chose for its president that eminent citizen of London, John Janney. He belonged to a Quaker family, loved peace and the ways of peace. I doubt not that this had something to do with his selection. It was designed to show that Virginia was for peace, and not for war. Previous to that her Legislature had sent a commission, composed of four of Virginia's distinguished sons, viz.: John Tyler, Geo. W. Summers, William C. Rives and James A. Seddon, to Washington to attend what was called a Peace Congress, that convened upon her invitation or suggestion. That Congress failed to accomplish any good results. On the 8th of April, 1861, the Virginia convention sent a commission, consisting of William Ballard Preston, A. H. H. Stuart and Geo. W. Randolph, to see President Lincoln and obtain information as to his views, purposes and policy in regard to the seceded States. The report of that committee was not satisfactory. After this the affair of Fort Sumpter took place. It fired the Northern heart. President Lincoln called for his army of 75,000 men, and on Virginia for her quota. After this Virginia seceded. she did this chiefly because she was called upon to contribute her share of force to coerce the seceding States. As valuable as the Union was to her, as much as she loved it because of her part in its construction and maintenance, she held it was not an end, but the means to an end personal and political liberty, State equality and sovereignty, that the Union established by the fathers was one of consent, love and affection, and not of force, that whether it was wise on the part of the Gulf States to separate was not a matter for her to determine, because in her judgment they clearly had the right to separate, and those wielding the powers of the government of the United States had not the right to force them back into the Union, and that to force them back into the union, and that to compel them by force to return, would be to trample under foot the teachings and principles of the fathers, therefore, with sad heart and tearful eyes, she passed, in April, 1861, her ordinance of secession.
I have made this brief reference to the foregoing facts in regard to Virginia's contributions to the cause of American liberty, and to the Union, and to her course in the early days of 1861, to show how dear to her was the Union, how she yearned for peace, and that it it was not slavery that induced her to separate
from the then government of the United States, but her love for the Constitution and the Union, as established by the fathers.
The record of our State from 1776 to April 17, 1861, is a glorious one. In the history of the States during the sad days between the election of President Lincoln and the war she stands as the sole champion of peace. Were I an artist, and wished to perpetuate on canvas some one scene in Virginia's great history, I would not select the great debate at Williarnsburg, when Patrick Henry uttered those memorable words, "Give me liberty or give me death," nor George Mason in the act of reporting his bill of rights, nor would I go to Philadelphia and paint the scene in the Old Independence Hall, when a Virginia deputy moved that Congress should declare that the united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, nor would I select Thomas Jefferson reporting the Declaration of Independence, nor George Washington receiving the sword of Cornwallis at Yorktown, nor the same great man attesting the Constitution of the United States, nor would I select the execution by Virginia of her deed ceding the northern territory, but I would go to Richmond in the sad days of 1861 and select as my subject John Tyler and his associate Peace Commissioners in the act of leaving for Washington, there, if possible, to effect a peaceful settlement of the pending difficulties, and under my picture I would inscribe the words of the Master: "Blessed are the peacemakers."
Failing in her efforts to secure a settlement of the difficulties, and having been called upon to aid in forcing her sisters of the South back into the Union, Virginia, as stated, seceded, and then joined the Southern Confederacy. Thereafter her territory became the Flanders of the war. Her ports were blockaded, her capital invested, her buildings were destroyed. Not only her mills that ground the grain for her people, the barns that protected the grain and sheltered her horses and cattle, but some of the very homes of non combatant citizens were destroyed by fire. During all these years of carnage, of suffering and distress, she maintained her ancient renown, and remained as true to her faith and her duty as the needle to the pole. Her loss was great. Among those that died on her battle fields was the world renowned soldier that man of genious, courage, faith and prayer Stonewall Jackson, the dashing Ashby, the knightly Stuart, and the gallant Hill. And then other gallant officers and brave men, who fell in the various battles, large and small, from Manassas to Appomattox.
But there were a host of others in that conflict whose names, although not on yon monument, are in our hearts.
Virginia's Southern sisters were with her. She stood by them and they by her, and they were worthy of her. I would like to tell, if I had time, of the gallant band from Maryland, who on every field sustained the name ana fame of old Maryland, of the Old North State God bless her and her Pender, Ramseur, Hoke and others her sons not only repose in this cemetery, but in every cemetery where the heroes of the Army of Northern Virginia rest, of Georgia and her gallant Gordon and his braves, who plucked safety from danger on many a battlefield, and won the admiration of all that love the true and the brave, of the troops from Louisiana under Taylor, Hays and Nichols, who won imperishable laurels at Port Republic, Winchester and Gettysburgmen without superiors in courage and dash in the ranks of either army in our war, of Barksdale's Mississippi men and their gallant deeds at Fredericksburg and elsewhere.
And then I should like to go to our Western armies and say something about that great man, Albert Sidney Johnston, who too soon for his country and her needs, on that woeful Sabbath day, May 6th, 1862, gave his life for our cause, and of that great Christian soldier, the friend of our William Meade, Leonidas Polk, and his soldiers and their great deeds, of the great Hardee, without fear and without ambition, of that thunderbolt of war and superb soldier, Forrest, of the gifted Breckenridge and his gallant Kentuckians, who illustrated by deeds on many a battle field their gallantry and devotion to the lost cause. Comrades and friends, the Southern army was a wonderful army, and not only in Virginia, but elsewhere, did deeds of valor worthy of comparison with any that history records, and justice will be done it by historians in the years to come, for
Thy scales, Mortality, are just
To all that pass away.
Our peculiar Southern institutions are now of the past, but those who lived under them can point with pride to the men and to the women that have been developed by them. Viewed from a material standpoint, the South was far inferior to its successful rival. No vast accumulation of material capital in corporate or in individual hands appear in her statistics. No great monuments of human art or human labor adorn her scenery. Her rivers, great and small, were allowed to flow in comparative peace to the ocean, and the solitude of her mountains has generally been undisturbed save by the woodsman's axe, the rifle of the hunter, the voice of the herdsman and the peaceful shepherd. And yet, notwithstanding all this comparative indifference to material development, she has produced, men, women and maidens, the peers of the greatest of the descendants of Adam, in the Senate, on the field or in the home circle. This statement as to her children is not to be confined to any period of the history of the South. It was illustrated in the war of the revolution and since, and especially during our late civil war. In the late war the Confederate generals achieved great reputation, but in front of them were brave soldiers supported and encouraged by the counsel, the prayers, sacrifices and example of self denying mothers, wives and sisters. It was the character, the courage and devotion to their flag of the soldiers of the armies of the South that enabled our generals to work such wonders. The names of these brave private soldiers are not mentioned in history, but they are embalmed in the hearts of their surviving comrades and friends. It was the men so educated, sustained and encouraged that followed Jackson from Manassas to Chancellorsville, that stormed under Early the forts and works of Winchester, that stormed the heights of Gettysburg, that fought and died at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Courthouse and Cold Harbor, that kept the hosts of Grant out of Petersburg from June, 1864, to April, 1865, that followed Albert Sidney Johnston from Kentucky to Shiloh, that fought under Bragg at Chickamauga, that fronted the armies of Sherman, and that stood
with their faces to the foe, often without food or shoes, and did not surrender the sword until it fell from their sides.
But neither patriotism nor courage availed. The cause we loved was lost. My friends, it was not lost because our quarrel was not just, not because our leaders were not skillful and our soldiers brave, but because he who rules above deemed it best it should fail. Said the gifted and eloquent W. C. P. Breckenridge: "He who has striven to discover the true secret of human history is often confused by the martyrdoms that seem to be in vain. Human hearts lie thickly strewn along the pathway of time, and brutal heels stain themselves with richest blood as they stride unfeelingly to power. The scaffold and the dungeon, the rack and the stake, the battle field and the hospital confuse the earnest student who loves God, and he cannot unravel the riddle why such costly sacrifices should be in vain. The mockings and the scourgings, the bonds and imprisonment, the hidings in dens and caves, the beheadings and burnings with which our human annals are tarnished, and yet glorified, are the mysteries of God's dealings with men. But this we know, that the loftiest of mankind, the most divine of mortals, have been the martyrs whose blood has enriched the world, and from whose graves the most precious harvest has been gathered, and that the seed sown with tears shall be reaped with rejoicing."
Beautiful and sad, but true words. My friends, as I look upon the graves around me, and yon monument, the most comforting thought to me is this: "The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." God is in history in all history, was in our history during our war, and although the final result was not according to our desires and hopes, sure am I that the time will come when we will acknowledge that he in mercy and not in wrath afflicted us. I do not know when or how this will appear. Who knows but that the devotion of the South to the true principles of the constitution may not in the future cause the fructification of those principles and their growth throughout the land? Who knows but that the example of courage and devotion to duty of our leaders and soldiers, our mothers, wives and sisters, may not hereafter influence the leaders of our whole people to put duty and honor before power and place, and to do and think only of the things that are true, honest and of good report? Who knows but that as a result of the knowledge which each section of our people acquired by the war, of the pluck of the other, and devotion to what each thought was duty, our whole people may be more closely bound together than at any former period of our history, and that hereafter Ephraim will not vex Judah, nor Judah Ephraim ?
Human institutions have their uses and their limitations. They are the scaffolding to the building, a means to an end. Although African slavery was not the cause, it was the occasion of our war. It was useful and valuable in its day. It lifted a people who, in the land of their nativity, were savages, out of barbarism and animalism to such a plane of Christian civilization as to qualify them, in the judgment of the conquerors of the South, to participate in the government of the great republic. What a tribute to the much abused South ! What a monument to Southern Christian men and women! Match me if you can out of the record of missions subsequent to the days of the Apostles and the early teachers of Christianity any work among the heathen that can compare with it in results, when viewed from the standpoint of those who have given the African the ballot.
But in the plan of the Great Ruler, doubtless the time had arrived for African slavery to pass away. So far as we can see, it could not have been gotten rid of in this country except by the means used. Mr. Lincoln did not by his war proclamation intend to destroy slavery in the States. Its destruction was an evolution of the war a war measure, consequent upon the events and results of war.
Moses, the world's great law giver, commanded his people to teach the laws he had been directed to give them unto their children, in the house and by the wayside, to bind them as a sign upon their hands, and as frontlets between their eyes. May we not, in imitation of the great law giver, tell our fathers, mothers, daughters and teachers to teach the children committed to their care and instruction the principles of American liberty, State and national, not as taught by the precept and example of the multitude, but as delivered by the fathers of the republic, and for which our comrades died that fell in battle. To tell and teach them that the dead, in honor of whom this monument has been erected, were not traitors, but true citizens, who gave their lives in defense of the truth, as they understood it, and of their altars and their homes, that Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Ashby and Hill, and their soldiers, were not rebels, nor traitors, but patriots, loving God and their fellow men, and that they did their duty to their country. Teach them also to look upward to the Great Ruler of all things, truth and untruth, and forward to the duties in life that may be before them, to do their duty as our brave soldier did, to do it under all circumstances to themselves, to their country and their God and then come what may, success or failure, they will receive the plaudits of good men, the approval of their own consciences and the approbation of their God.
THE Sunny South keeps the following strong appeal standing permanently on its "war" page:
TO SOUTHERN MEN AND WOMEN. To the generation of people who have sprung to maturity in the South since the war, we put this question, Are you indifferent toward or forgetful of the Confederate soldier? Search your hearts and answer! The mission of this page is to emphasize the importance of keeping alive in the southern breast the emotions of sympathy and gratitude due to the
veterans of the South." Is there a true southern man, woman or child who will not zealously aid this cause by increasing the circulation of the Sunny South? This page is designed, in addition, as a depository of detached historical incidents of the war between the States. It is a standing and one of the most highly valued departments of the Sunny South. Historians cannot spare space or time to record the minutia3 of marches, battles and sieges. They must be gathered and preserved in a fragmentary manner by the scattered survivors of the strife, or be lost to posterity forever. Therefore to all men and women who, from experience or recital of veterans, know of interesting happenings of the war, a cordial invitation, yea more, an earnest solicitation, is extended to contribute to The Gray and the Blue. Ex Federal veterans are included within the purview of this paragraph, and good short poems are desirable as well as prose sketches."
Confederate Veteran July 1893.
BARKSDALE HUMPHREYS MISSISSIPPI BRIGADE.
DEAR VETERAN I have just finished reading the June number, some of it twice over. It grows on me gets better and better each issue. It ought to be, and I trust soon will be, in the hands of every man who wore the gray, and thousands who didn't. I am surprised at seeing so little in it from my native State, Mississippi, and especially from members of my old brigade, for I know a few were left to tell the tale.
They carried this scribe to Johnson's Island a short time before the close, or it is just possible you would not now be troubled with this sketch. As your journal is such a happy medium through which to communicate with each other, and as you have so kindly thrown open your columns to us, here goes.
I call it the "Barksdale Humphreys" Brigade, not that it had no other commanders, and good ones, too, but because it was under those two generals it made most of its reputation.
Gen. Wm. E. Barksdale, of Columbus, Miss., came into the brigade as colonel of the 13th regiment just prior to the battle of Ball's Bluff. The brigade at that time consisted of the 13th, 17th and 18th Mississippi, and the 8th Virginia, commanded respectively by Cols. Barksdale, Featherstone, Burte, and Eppa Hunton. The first two became generals, the third was killed at Ball's Bluff, and the fourth went to Congress a number of years after the war.
Gen. Evans, of South Carolina, commanded us in that fight, and whether it was by accident or grit, or good generalship, or all three combined, I know not, but anyhow we wiped up things so clean, and got so many compliments, both from home and everywhere else, and were so feasted and toasted, and treated so kindly by the good people of Leesburg, we didn't care how long the war lasted.
So when the time came to reorganize at the end of our volunteer term, one year, and ex Gov. and ex Senator A. G. Brown, and ex Congressman O. R. Singleton, both captains of companies in my (the 18th) regiment, told us if we would reorganize immediately they would "wager their heads to brass pins the war would end in sixty days." (B.'s exact words.) They believed it and we believed it, and we " went in for durin' " almost to a man.
Alas, alas! vanity of vanities! Soon we were transferred on stock cars, reeking in mud, to Richmond, and, huddled on a steamer like cattle, took our way to the Peninsula. From the beautiful hills and fertile valleys, the crystal springs and clear, running streams, the fresh baker's bread and clover fed beef, and the milk and honey of old Louden, to the marshes and lagoons and brackish water of the Warwick! These, with the rancid bacon, the musty corn meal and rice, and the cool, damp atmosphere, made us realize what war was. About that time, March, 1862, the troops from the different States were brigaded together, and the 8th Virginia was exchanged for the 21st Mississippi, Colonel, afterward General, B. G. Humphreys, commanding.
During the Peninsula campaign, and up to the seven days' fight in front of Richmond, Gen. Griffith, of Jackson, Miss., commanded the brigade. On the morning of the battle of Savage Station, while we were driving the enemy before us along the railroad track, he was struck by a shell from one of the enemy's guns fell from his horse and died in a few hours. A good man, a true patriot, and a gallant officer.
Barksdale the ranking colonel, Featherstone, having been previously promoted and placed in command of another brigade took immediate command, was promoted to the rank of General in a few days, and continued in command till he fell, leading his men, at Gettysburg. The first verbal command that I recollect of his giving to the brigade as a body, and one that was characteristic of the man, was at Malvern Hill, two days after Savage Station. The enemy had stationed his artillery so as to sweep every spot of the open space, or farm. We had been moved up by a circuitous route into a dense wood bordering on the farm, concealed, as we thought, lying down, some crouched behind trees, all doing our best to keep out of danger till we should be called into action. Every old soldier knows the suspense of such a moment. The only available spot for our own artillery was a small elevated open space a little to our left, and every piece that attempted to unlimber there was knocked up almost before it could be fired, so perfect was their range, and so many were the guns bearing on it. I counted nineteen dead horses in that one place. Then when our artillery was silenced they began to feel for us. At first the shells bursted in the tops of the trees) then a little lower, and down came limbs mingled with pieces of shell. Then they began to burst in our midst, one shell killing and wounding seven men, setting the clothes of one of the latter on fire a most horrifying sight! It was at this crisis that Gen. B. mounted his horse and yelled, "Attention! This brigade must take that battery." He was a man of whom it could be truthfully said, " Bold as a lion, yet gentle as a lamb." He was not a military man, but was a pure type of genuine southern chivalry, a southern gentleman of the old school. Quick to resent and as quick to forgive, quick to punish disobedience in a subordinate, and as quick to ask forgiveness. Just as far removed from military hauteur as one could imagine. I cite one instance: We were in camp, it was one summer evening. Gen. Cobb, of Georgia, his old friend and former fellow Congressman, had dined with him. We were drilling, when the two Generals, arm in arm, coats off. came walking out to look on. It reminded me very forcibly of two farmers in antebellum days taking an afternoon stroll through the farm to look at the crop. We loved Gen. Barksdale, because we knew he was proud of us, and would do any thing in his power for our welfare. No truer patriot ever fell on the field of battle.
Gen. Humphreys was a West Pointer was there at the same time with Mr. Davis, but unlike him, he chose a more peaceful calling, that of a planter in the rich bottom lands of the Mississippi, where he could enjoy the peace and quiet of home life, and indulge in his favorite sport of hunting deer and bear. For the rank he held, and as a commander of infantry, I do not think he had a superior in either army. He possessed all the qualities, both natural and acquired. He won the love of both officers and men by his great kindness. He won their unbounded confidence by his coolness and ability under the most trying circumstances. He was approachable on
corps was twelve miles from the battle field. It was ordered to get there in the quickest time. We arrived on the ground about sunrise. It happened that our brigade was in front, our regiment leading. As we came up at a double quick, in marching order, on the plank road, there were in a group, sitting on their horses, the following Generals, Lee, Longstreet, Rhodes, Scales, Magowan, and, I think, A. P. Hill (am not certain as to the latter). It was an extremely critical moment. Hill's men, who had been engaged the evening before and a portion of the night, were exhausted and outnumbered) and were falling back. Something had to be done, and done quickly. Gen. Lee turned to Longstreet and said, "General, you had better form your line back a half mile and bring it up." Longstreet said, " I think we can form here." Turning to Humphreys he said, " Form your line. General." We had just halted, and were panting like lizzards, when Gen. H. straightened himself in his stirrups and said, "Battalion front. By company, right half wheel, double quick, march!" Wounded men and minnie balls were coming through our ranks before we got loaded. The enemy got within a few steps of us in the dense cedar thicket, but we stood it until they began to back, then it was our time to press. Our brigade had done good fighting before, but I thought it reached the climax on that occasion. My own company went in with two officers and thirty four men, and lost sixteen killed and wounded in a very few minutes.
W. GART JOHNSON, Orlando, Fla., June 26, 1893. Co. "C," 18th Miss.
Mr. Johnson, in a pencil note, says: " I am growing old now, and my hand trembles so it is a very difficult matter to write with a pen. I fear my article is too long. I did not so intend it, but having begun couldn't help it. I know the sketch will stir many a heart in Mississippi, and cause them to rally to the help of the glorious enterprise you have so nobly undertaken. May abundant success attend your efforts! Emphatically, No War Journal in mine!'"
J. L. COOK, merchandise broker, of Macon, Ga., kindly sends the VETERAN a batch of Confederate official papers, the sight of which revives pathetic memories. Conspicuous in the lot is Voucher No. 9, paid July 9, 1863. It is a regular muster roll of Company I, 19th Tennessee Regiment, and for two months previous to May 1st. It is on " Confederate " paper.
ELI PERKINS TALKS OF THE WAR.
Gen. Sherman, before he died, was a neighbor of mine. One night I took the General up to the Kilpatrick Grand Army Post. On the way back I asked him if he didn't think "Kil" was a good fighter.
Splendid,
said Sherman, and then he said, "but he was a great boaster, too.' Well, he had a right to boast, for he could never boast stronger than he fought."
One day,
continued the General, "Kilpatrick was recounting at Willard's Hotel in Washington his experience in driving back rebel reinforcements at Chancellorsville. Listening to him was a crowd of old soldiers, among whom was Moseby.
'"Why,' said Kilpatrick, 'the woods swarmed with rebels. I had two horses shot under me and ' "'What did you do then, Kil?' asked Custer. " ' Why, I jumped on to a Government mule, a ball knocked me off, but the mule charged right ahead into the rebel ranks. I never knew what became of that mule.'
'"Why, General,' said Moseby, 'I saw that mule. He came right into our lines.'
' Well, I'm glad to see my words confirmed,' said Kilpatrick, seriously. 'Then you really saw him?' '
Yes, sure.' "'Head shot off?' " ' No, died from mortification.' " Gen. Sherman always said with pride that the Army of the Tennessee never retreated. They started in at Memphis and came out at Charleston and Wilmington in a fourth of the time that it took the Army of the Potomac to see saw back and forth between Washington and Richmond. One day after the war the General said he was talking with a veteran from the Army of the Potomac. The soldier was describing the big fight of Hooker at Chancellorsville. "Did the rebels run?" asked Sherman. " Did they run ? " repeated the soldier. " Did the rebels run? Great Scott! I should say they did run. Why, General, they run so like thunder that we had to run three miles to keep out of their way, and if we hadn't thrown away our guns they'd run all over us, sure!"
J. M. Elizer, Goodlettsville, Tenn.: "Success to the CONFEDERATE VETERAN, honor and profit to yourself for starting a paper with such a noble title! I will give you an idea of Fort Donelson as I saw it several years ago, and I think it has not grown any better since. It would chill every true Confederate's blood to go to that now dreary place where so many of our noble Southerners lost their lives, and the picture is sad indeed. The eastern hill just across the hollow is beautifully decked with flowers, evergreens and forest trees. Underneath these the Federal soldiers sleep undisturbed unless perchance a bleached bone of some Confederate floats down through the gurgling gorges. Will our brothers in gray erect a monument, if only a single marble slab, to the memory of the valor and sacrifice of those that fell in what they deemed a just and noble cause. I hope some action will soon be taken to fence in, beautify the grounds and erect a suitable monument to the memory of those who perished at Fort Donelson." In conclusion, the writer suggests that the VETERAN appoint a committee to look after this, and names Mr. John C. Latham, of New York City, as a member.
Confederate Veteran July 1893.
Atlanta, the VETERAN possesses the last printed report of these flags that can be spared from the files at Washington. From that report the list of one hundred and seventy Confederate flags will appear in subsequent VETERANS, with what is known of their capture. In most cases the regiment from which the flag was captured is given. Concerted action in appeal might be effective in their return. Herewith is appended a report of the twenty two flags captured and given, by order of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, in nearly every instance, to their captors. Upon direct appeal of the veterans who surrendered them to their captors, it is probable that many may be secured. Let the application be made. Confederate battle flags, punctured by ball and blackened by the smoke of battle, are the most sacred things to the commands who bore them in existence, and they are very scarce. I have tried in vain for months to procure one for the Confederate Veteran Camp of New York. The language in the following report is as copied:
LIST OF CONFEDERATE FLAGS DELIVERED BY WAR DEPARTMENT TO CERTAIN PARTIES ON APPLICATION.
No. 5. Confederate battle flag. Captured at Sharpsburg, Md., September 17, 1862, by Sixty first New York Volunteers, Caldwell's brigade, Richardson's division, Sumner's corps. Delivered to Sixty first New York Volunteers December 30, 1863, by order of the Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 27. Confederate battle flag. Taken in action at Willis Church, Va., June 30, 1862, by Sixty first New York Volunteers, Col. Frank Barlow. Delivered to the Sixty first New York Volunteers December 30, 1863, by order of the Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 72. Confederate battle flag. Captured at the battle of New Market Cross Roads, June 30, 1863 (1862), by private William Gallagher, Company F, Ninth Regiment Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, Third brigade, McCall's division, from the
Tenth Alabama Infantry. Gallagher, having killed the original bearer of the colors, took prisoner a second, who attempted to recover and raise it. Delivered to Sixty first Regiment New York Volunteers December 30, 1863, by order of Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 271. Battle flag of the Twenty sixth Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, "Secessionville," June 16, 1862. April 26, 1865, loaned to W. H. Ryder by order of General Nichols, Assistant Adjutant General.
No. 7. Confederate battle flag. Captured at Rappahannock Station, November 7, 1863, by Philip Smith, Company E, One Hundred and Twenty first New York Volunteers. June 6, 1865, loaned to Col. E. Olcott, One Hundred and Twenty first New York Volunteers, by order of Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 148. One half Confederate battle flag. Captured from rebel infantry in an engagement near Malvern Hill, July 28, 1864, by private George Funk, Company K. Sixth New York Cavalry, Second brigade, First division, Army of the Potomac. June 26, 1865, loaned to W. H. Ryder, by order of the Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 324. Rebel battle flag. Captured by private Benjamin Gifford, Company A, One Hundred and Twenty first New York Volunteers, Second brigade, First division, Sixth corps, in battle of Little Sailor's Creek, April 6, 1865. June 26, 1865. loaned to Col. E. Olcott, One Hundred and Twenty first New York Volunteers, by order of the Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 293. Rebel battle flag. Captured in battle at Farm's Cross Roads, April 5, 1865, by Sergt. James P. Landis, chief bugler First Pennsylvania Cavalry, First brigade, Second Cavalry division, Brevet Major General Davies commanding. Loaned to Brevet Major General Davies, May , , by order of General Nichols, Assistant Adjutant General.
No. 20. United States flag, stars and stripes. Captured at battle of New Market Cross Roads, June 30, 1862, by Patrick Ryan, Company D, Fourth Regiment Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps, from Eleventh Alabama Regiment.
This flag was used by the rebels to deceive the United States troops. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 26. Confederate flag, inscribed "Williamsburg and Seven Pines." Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 58. Confederate battle flag of Virginia Twenty eighth Infantry. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 97. Confederate flag, stars and bars, of the Twenty sixth Tennessee Volunteers.
Captured on prize steamer "Cherokee," June, 1863. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 104. Confederate flag, stars and bars, of the Sixteenth Virginia Infantry. Captured by the Fourth Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers, at Crampton Pass, Md. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 112. Confederate flag. Captured at Rappahannock Station, November 17, 1863. The colors were stripped from the staff in order to be saved by the color bearer. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 119. Confederate battle flag. Captured by Lieut. Joseph C. Paradis, Company E, Fifth Maine Volunteers, May 10, 1864. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 168. Confederate colors. Captured by James H. Compston, Company D, Ninety first Ohio Regiment, Second brigade, Second division, Army of West Virginia. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 185. Confederate battle flag. Captured by Col. George M. Love, One Hundred and Sixteenth New York Volunteers, October 19, 1864, at Cedar Creek, Virginia. Supposed to have been loaned and never returned.
No. 443. Rebel flag. Captured at Columbus, Ga., April 16, 1865, by Corporal Richard H. Morgan, Company A, Fourth Iowa Cavalry, First brigade, Fourth division, cavalry corps, M, D. M., inside the line of works during the charge. The bearer contested with the corporal for its possession (Upton's division, Winslow's brigade). Sent to the State of Iowa by order of the Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 444. Rebel flag. Captured by private John M. Hays, Company F, Fourth Iowa Cavalry, First brigade, Fourth division, cavalry corps, M. D. M" at Columbus, Ga., April 16, 1865. Private Hays captured the standard and bearer, who tore it from the staff and tried to escape, firing his revolver and wounding one man belonging to the Fourth Iowa Cavalry. (Upton's division, Winslow's brigade.) Sent to the State of Iowa, by order of the Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 502. Rebel flag. Captured by Warren Dockum, private, Company H, One Hundred and Twenty first New York Volunteers, in the engagement at Sailor's Creek, April 6, 1865. Inscription, " For our Altars and our Hearths."
"Savannah Vols. Guards, 1862." Loaned to Col. E. Olcott, One Hundred and Twenty first New York Volunteers, by order of the Secretary of War, Stanton.
No. 543. Confederate battle flag. Captured from Seventeenth and Eighteenth Texas Troops
during the battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864, by the Fifteenth Michigan Infantry. Left at War Department by Hon. W. T. dark, August 27, 1875. Loaned to Gen. W. T. dark, for use of a panorama about to be exhibited, by authority of the Acting Secretary of War (General Benet). To be returned.
Total Confederate flags, 22.
Confederate Veteran July 1893.
OUR UNKNOWN DEAD.
ADDRESS OF GEN. S. G. FRENCH, MADE TO THE U. C. V. CAMP,
NO. 54, ORLANDO, FLA., JUNE 3, 1893.
COMRADES The solemn ceremony of Decoration Day has been performed. The few graves, alike of the Confederate and the Union soldiers that rest in our cemetery, have been decorated with floral offerings, and the cause that so few of Confederate dead sleep where loving kindred can care for them, inclines me to say a few words in regard to the unknown dead.
There is evidence that in the beginning of the late war it was the intention of the Federal Government to concentrate their forces and form two or more grand armies and wage war only on the enlisted troops of the Confederacy, and by sheer power of numbers overwhelm their opponents and end the war by a second Sadowa or Sedan victory. In this, however, they were not successful. McClellan, Pope, Burnside and Hooker unavailingly encountered Lee, and in the West no great victory was obtained.
During this time the Federal forces were largely increased, and a navy, which in the end numbered four hundred and seventy odd war steamers, was created, manned by thirty four thousand seamen, and carrying four thousand four hundred and forty guns. This armament was stationed along the Atlantic seaboard, the gulf coast and on the waters of navigable rivers, occupying sounds, inlets, bays and harbors, supporting and protecting, under cover of these guns, large detachments of their land forces, in numbers estimated nearly equal to a third of their troops in service. Now, whatever may primarily have been the object of these many isolated detachments, it soon developed into making raids in the adjacent country, and afforded opportunity to pillage when not met with opposing forces.
From Dalton down to Atlanta, and around that city, there was one continuous conflict for one hundred days, and not a day passed without some troops being engaged, and so the dead were left throughout an hundred miles on either side, resting where they fell.
If we turn to the East again we find that Grant crossed the Rapidan May 4, 1864, and taking the direct line to Richmond, immediately the battle of the Wilderness followed, and he announced that he was going "to fight it out on that line if it took all summer." A few days after came the battle of Spottsylvania, and June 1st that of Cold Harbor, where the Federal troops refused to make a second attack.
In these three great and sanguinary battles the commander of the Union forces did not meet with success, and so on the first day of summer he left that line and swung around, as McClellan did, to the James River. After Cold Harbor it seems as if there was no desire for another general engagement, and the hammering away mode of war commenced on Lee. On July 18, 1864, President Lincoln called for 500,000 more men, and so the detrition process went on for nine months, mainly on and near the picket line, being in all nearly eleven months and a half, that Lee confronted Grant's hosts of men, and over all this extent of country lay the blue and the gray side by side in death. Devastation, as in the Palatinate, had done its work.
Now, when the war ended the Federal Government, with commendable zeal, very humanely collected most of their dead and had their remains removed to their beautiful cemeteries, and there keep green the sod and fresh the flowers on their graves.
There was no Confederate Government to collect and care for the remains of the Confederate dead. Along the banks of the Father of Waters for more than a thousand miles the inhabitants tread unawares over the unknown graves of those who battled for the South. Along the shores of the Potomac, the Rappahannock and the James, wave the golden harvests on soil enriched by their blood and mouldering dust. From the capes of the Chesapeake adown the stormy Atlantic, and trending around the Gulf, rest thousands of our dead, or go to the heights of Allatoona, to Lookout's lofty peak, or Kennesaw Mountain's top, and you may seek in vain where the dead rest. Time, with the relentless forces of the elements, has obliterated all traces of their graves from human eye, they are known only to Him who can tell where Moses sleeps in '' a vale in the land of Moab." So the forgotten are not forgot, the hand that made the thunder's home comes down every spring and paints with bright colors the little wild flowers that grow over their resting places, and they are bright on decoration day. The rosy morn announces first to them that the night is gone, and when the day is past and the landscape veiled with evening's shade, high on the mountain's top the last rays of the setting sun lovingly lingers longest,
loath to leave the lonely place where the bright eyed children of the Confederacy rest in death. And wherefore did they die? They fell in defense of their homes, their families, their country, and those civil rights arising from that liberty God gave man as a heritage in the beginning. They furnished to their country much that will be noble in history, wonderful in story, tender in song, and a large share of that glory which will claim the admiration of mankind. We can today place no wreaths of immortelles on their unknown graves, yet we can rest assured the echoes of posterity will render their deeds illustrious.
And now, as I look back on the past and recall to mind your trials and sufferings which will be forgotten I am sure the world will not forget that your valor MERITED A SUCCESS which is better now than to have achieved it.
ABOUT RECONSTRUCTION TIMES.
HISTORY OF THE FIRST ACTION AGAINST CARPET BAG RULE IN GEORGIA.
Col. C. B. Howard has written of the time, in June, 1867, when the State of Georgia was under military rule and the citizens were being annoyed with all sorts of indignities. Judge W. W. Clayton, a prominent citizen, had just been turned out of house and home because his daughters refused to pass under the United States flag, and hid their faces from yankee officers with their parasols. It was a few days before Alexander H. Stephens wrote a letter to Col. R. A. Alston, saying he considered the country in articula mortis, that if the South resisted reconstruction would be forced, and if they accepted it they were disgraced, and that it was a choice between martyrdom and suicide, and for himself he preferred martyrdom.
The story of that meeting was told by Mr. S. A. Echols in a letter printed in the Sunny South during the summer of 1878, just after the controversy between Mr. Hill and Mr. Stephens over the question, " Who saved the State ? " In that article Mr. Echola gives a
ong interview with Col. Alston, who told how he, Dr. J. P. Hambleton and Mr. Eli Hulsey, in discussing the deplorable situation, decided to call a Democratic meeting. They did so, and wrote a letter to Col. T. C. Howard, at Kirkwood, asking him to attend and preside. The papers refused to print the call and the city hall was secured only by consent of Gen. Pope. When the time came for the meeting the house was partly filled with Pope's officers and civil staff, and many of the Democrats present opposed any demonstration.
Col. Howard walked into the room and looked around in astonishment. He had left the plow and walked into town. * * * Charlie Herbst called on him soon afterward for a speech. Col. Alston said of it: " I never shall forget the scene and solemn dignity with which he rose. Never shall I forget how he was dressed an old coat with the lining torn out and hanging in strings, an unbleached homespun shirt, no cravat, a pair of brogan shoes, without socks. His handsome, intelligent face contrasted strongly with his apparel, and even a stranger would not have been surprised to hear something good, even from such a poorly dressed speaker. His first words were:
' My fellow countrymen, when I am called upon on an occasion like this, surrounded by circumstances like these (pointing to the eager Democrats), and these (pointing to the soldiers), and these (pointing to the scalawags), I feel that deep solemnity which the man of God feels, or at least ought to feel, when he rises in the pulpit to talk to dying sinners about the salvation of their souls.' He then went on to trace the history of this country from the settlement of New England and Virginia down to the breaking out of the Confederate war. He demonstrated that three generations had raised up in these different latitudes two entirely different races of people, that the bloody war which had resulted had been brought on by the love of constitutional freedom on the part of the South, and a love for religion and law battling a.gainst a total disregard of all compacts on the part of the North, and an utter disregard of public morality, constitutional law and Bible religion on the part of the North. That while slavery may have embittered the contest it was not the cause, but only one of the incidents of the struggle. That the constant and persevering invasions of our rights had proceeded from envy, hatred and malice. 'Yea,' said he, 'my countrymen, from the day that old John Adams left the white house,' pointing his finger at the portrait of Washington and saying, ' You and your people did this, there began a struggle which never ceased until it left this whole continent with crutches and crape in every household, which drew one broad line of charcoal from Dalton to Charlotte, N. C., and brought delicate women to cooking, scrubbing and scouring, where Sherman had left them any thing to cook, to scrub or to scour.' Here he paid a glowing and beautiful tribute to the women of the South, and passing on he said, 'But when I come to speak of the 150,000 dead heroes that lie slumbering in our soil, what shall I say?' Here he burst into tears. * * * Soon rousing himself, with bitter scorn he addressed Pope's people and said: 'And do you call upon me to disgrace the fortitude of women like these? Do you call upon me to desecrate the memory of heroes like these? Never! never! And what for, what to gain to save what little we have left? No, my friends, this would be to lose our all) to surrender the only jewel that even tyranny cannot wrest from us our honor. Even Wendell Phillips says, a few years longer and a change of a few thousand votes will cause the shackles to fall from our limbs. Yes, Wendell Phillips, the worst man who has cursed God's footstool for the last thousand years, always excepting that fiend and scourge of hell, .'
When these words fell from his lips the consternation was painful. We all grasped arms and felt that the supreme moment had arrived. But Col. Howard thundered on and the crisis was passed. Turning to where we were standing he said: 'Go on, my little band of Democrats, bend your backs and take the blows, the anvil will yet wear out the hammer. Recollect that God has said in his word, "One man shall be equal to a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight," armed with the power of truth, therefore stand firm, and oh, when your hearts grow weary, when you are ready to exclaim, " How long, O Lord, how long," faint not, but look back more than 1800 years and behold the most sublime spectacle that assembled creations were ever called upon to witness. See the Son of God condescending to become man to save a sinful world, remembering that when he walked throughout Gallilee, armed with the power and majesty of God, distributing his loaves and fishes, whole multitudes followed him. But alas! when the day of his tribulation came, when he had no more loaves to divide, no more fishes to distribute, when we see him swinging upon the cross, whom do we see there then? One poor, lone, weeping woman! Ah, if you yankees had been there then, if you scalawags had been there then, if you timid Democrats bad been there then (the scorn dripping from his fingers), you would have gone to her and said: "Get up from here, Mary, never an office will you get for remaining here. The majority is against us. Let us yield." And this day you would have been peeping into the quivering guts of birds and animals to learn the will of God, and sacrificing to Jupiter, and we would have lost the Christian religion.'"
Confederate Veteran July 1893.
HUMORS OF THE MARCH.
W. A. CAMPBELL, COLUMBUS, MISS.
WANTED TO BE FLATTENED OUT. When a company of home guards on the Mississippi River had fired upon a gunboat the boat acknowledged by opening on them with shell. The guards immediately got down close to the ground, and one of them said, " Boys, if I aint flat enough won't one of you please get on me and mash me flatter?"
THE WRONG PLACE TO WEAR A " PLUG." As Ferguson's brigade of cavalry was marching through Mississippi in 1864, on a country road, we met an infantry Colonel in full uniform, with the exception that instead of the cap or soft hat usually worn he had on a silk hat, or, as the boys would say, a "stove pipe." You may imagine the result. One would ask if he had stoves to sell, another if he was moving his bees, or if he had honey to sell, and shouts of laughter would roll out all along the line. The Colonel was in a buggy with his wife, and had to leave the road and take to the woods to escape the fun.
MADE ONE OF 'EM HOLLER. In the Spring of 1868, at Cochran's Cross Roads, in North Mississippi, we engaged in a lively skirmish with Grierson's Federal cavalry. At first they gave way before us in a very satisfactory manner, but being reinforced they sent our boys back on the reserve after the latest improved double quick style. A red headed corporal named Tom Murray dashed by me, and as he halted exclaimed, " Well, Captain, we made one of 'em holler." "What did he say, Tom?" the Captain inquired. Tom looked up, squinted his gray eyes and replied, "He said, 'Forward, skirmishers."'
Too MUCH CROW. As my command, Perrin's regiment, Mississippi Cavalary, Ferguson's brigade, was moving from Mississippi to Georgia, spring of 1864, a soldier by the name of Crow had a pass to go by his home and join the command as it came by. Crow's house was immediately on the road by which the command marched, and he had his family and neighbors present to see the command, at this time a large one. As we passed in front of the house the boys of Company " D " recognized Crow, and they all began cawing, and you would have thought the crows of Mississippi had all gathered in council as the cawing passed from company to company of the regiment. Our comrade Crow wisely beat a retreat.
THE SIDE OF HIS HEAD SHOT OFF. (?) A company of cavalry of this section of Mississippi was on duty on the Tennessee River. Privates John W. T. and a man named Gamble were on out post picket, it was night, dark and wet, and the reserve picket were making themselves as comfortable as possible, when two shots rang out, and following closely after the shots they heard a horse coming rapidly down the road, and in & few moments G. came up and reported that John W. T. was shot and the enemy was advancing. But in a minute or two another horse and rider came tearing in, and John was the rider. He said, "Captain, I am shot." The Captain asked him where, and he said, "The side of my head is torn off." The Captain put his hand to John's head and felt it and said, " It is true, take him back to the hospital." But when day came the wound on the side of John's head proved to be mud and water. The facts, as developed afterward, were, that John and his friend had fired at a farmer's mule, and John's horse had thrown him, and as he went off his carbine had slapped him on the side of the head, and as he hit the ground his head went in the mud and water. Poor John has gone now, but he never relished this story, but it was true.
NOT A SENSATIONALIST. Here is a story of infantry to match the cavalry incident. Private H. was on picket when he saw what he thought was a battery moving up. He rushed back and said, "Captain, I am no sensationalist, but the enemy are planting a battery on the hill over there. The Captain immediately ordered out the company and advanced in skirmishing order, to attack the supposed battery. On getting in good view the battery proved to be an old fashioned cart which an old negro had driven up and turned around with the tail board toward the camp. Our friend to this good day does not like to hear any one say, " I am no sensationalist," as he thinks it is personal.
STAMPEDE AMONG TEXAS HORSES AT ROME, GA. A friend of mine, now living here in the drug business, was stationed during the war at Rome, Ga., and tells this incident: A Texas regiment of cavalry came in town and halted in front of the hotel, and the officers and many of the men scattered around town, but the majority of them remained mounted and took the easiest positions they could in their saddles, many of them sitting sideways with one leg thrown across the saddle. It was about dinner time, and the negro waiter came out with one of those Chinese copper gongs, and giving it one tremendous rap, made it rattle with that nerve shattering noise so well known to passengers at railway depots. The result was fearful. Horses reared, plunged, and, turning like goats, stampeded in all directions, leaving many riders on the ground, and creating more excitement than the fire of a Federal battery of six guns would have done. But after a few minutes the officers of the regiment came up to see what was the matter, and hearing the cause told the proprietor of the hotel to hide his negro out, as his men would surely kill him if they found him. And so sure enough, in a few moments they came on the hunt for him, but the negro had been safely hid away, and was not seen any more during the stay of that Texas command. Any soldier who met Texas cavalry during the war knew that they were superb riders, and to throw them was no easy matter, but this Chinese gong dismounted more of them than a charge on infantry would have done.
Dr. W. M. Yandell, El Paso, Tex.: "Cook, of Belton, strikes the key note to success in the monument affair. Money was subscribed here for the fund, but nobody knows anything about the amount on hand or anything about the status of the fund. Let us have an explanation in full in the VETERAN, and I shall then see that El Paso is given a chance to put up again."
Confederate Veteran July 1893.
FROM Nashville letter to Memphis Commercial: "Readers of this correspondence will no doubt be pleased to know that S. A. Cunningham's paper, the CONFEDERATE VETERAN, published in this city, is on the high road to prosperity. I guess Mr. Cunningham, or "S. A. C.," is better known in Tennessee and adjoining States than any other citizen. He started this little paper some months ago with practically no capital, but by energy, perseverance and fair dealing he has built it up to a circulation of about 5,000. It goes all over the South, and is a welcome visitor to the homes of thousands of the followers of the lost cause and their wives and children. Mr. Cunningham has a host of staunch friends wherever he is known. He was a brave Confederate soldier, and deserves the aid of every lover of the South in extending the circulation of this most meritorious and cheap publication.
Frank G. Browder, Sr., Montgomery, Ala., July 7 : " I received the first and only copy of your nice little magazine I ever saw a day or two ago, and I am highly pleased with it, the May number. I wish you godspeed in the good work you have commenced, and if you fail I am determined it shall not be my fault. I inclose you a list of twenty four subscribers, which I hope to increase to one hundred before I stop, and will only claim a year's subscription for my work. I inclose post office money order for $11.50. Will send you more soon."
Dr. W. M. Yandell, El Paso, Texas, July 4: "Two copies of the first number of the Confederate War Journal, so called, were sent me, and you will readily believe that a few years' work on newspapers, not long since, rendered the detection of the ass' ears protruding through the lion's skin an easy matter, even before, in endeavoring to imitate the roar of the king of beasts, he emitted (in the salutatory)his characteristic bray. I wrote at once to Gen. Marcus J. Wright, inclosing a clipping from the VETERAN, in which you spoke of the interest I had manifested in assisting you, and stating, in effect, that this interest in matters pertaining to the Confederacy was my warrant for writing to him, that I noticed in the salutatory of the War Journal, the late war between the States, or war of secession, was spoken of as the "rebellion,' 'great rebellion,' etc. (as I recollect, three times), that while none of us objected to being called rebels Geo. Washington having been one, though Robert E. Lee was not, I desired to know if, in his opinion, the truth would be advanced or correct ideas of the southern side of the contest formed by posterity, if southern war journals spoke of our war as the rebellion. Up to date Gen. Wright has not done me the honor to reply to my letter."
A prominent veteran, Washington City: "I read every word in the January number, and can only say if subsequent publications equal it the paper will succeed on its own merits. Individual canvassers will not be needed. I predict for it a successful future, and will give it a good word with Confederates here. I hope it will take and hold a high standard."
W. F. Jones, Lakeland, Fla.,.June 24: * * * "I requested Dr. Brooks and Rev. Boydston, two of our old comrades to make a club. I saw Dr. Brooks a few days ago and he told me he had ten subscribers. Boydston is working in another section, and I think is doing well. We will roll you up a good list during the summer."
Mrs. V. Laidly, San Diego, Cal.: " I have read your paper with very great pleasure, and hope the night of silence is passing away from southern history, and the dawn of truth will place us before the world in our true character of a long suffering Christian people. I have just read Confederate War Journal,and don't hesitate to say that to southern people the CONFEDERATE VETERAN will have their sympathy and confidence."
A letter from Fayetteville, Ark., July 1, 1893, says: "I am convinced that what you say about the War Journal is true. I take it for the historical documents published in it, as it is so hard to get history on the southern side. Those who made the history can do without documents, but those of us who are younger must try to get genuine history on our side where we can, and so I take the War Journal, but I never solicit subscribers for it. It is the VETERAN which wins the heart, because it is itself so emphatically southern."
In a letter inclosing subscription from Purdy, Mo., W. I. I. Morrow, who was a small boy then, states: " I furnished Mr. Hurst the list of gunboats and steamboats up the Tennessee river in 1862, that is printed in the June number of the CONFEDERATE VETERAN."
Gen. George Moorman, New Orleans: "You have greatly exceeded my expectations in the elegant and complete paper you have issued. So far it is the best Confederate paper I have seen since the war. It does great credit to your patience and ability, and I hope your efforts will be crowned with complete success."
Dr. J. Wrn. Jones, Atlanta, Ga.: " I have every reason to believe that you will make the CONFEDERATE VETERAN a valuable medium of communication between Confederate Camps, a pleasant reminder of old scenes and memories, a valuable historic record of the brave old days of '61 '65. Whatever I can do to help you shall be freely done." He sends check with several names.
W. G. EIlis, Fort Worth, Tex.: * * * "I take great interest in reading such a high class publication as yours, and can truly say it is absolutely the best, neatest and most truly Southern publication I have seen."
MRS. M. W. SNEAD, who advertises Soule College, Murfreesboro, Tenn., is the widow of a gallant Confederate, and she is ever zealous for our cause, while being eminently qualified for her important work. Her husband, Capt. Fletcher T. Snead, was a member of the Fourth Georgia Regiment, and one of its bravest soldiers. He was a staff officer of General Dole's brigade, afterward Gen. Phil Cook's,
PROF. A. M. BURNEY, of the Howard Female Institute, Gallatin, Tenn., inaugurated a splendid feature at his last commencement in assigning to the graduates sketches of prominent men. The "Galaxy of Great Men" has had much praise from those who heard the papers. The last of these in the series, that is being published in a local paper, is upon Jefferson Davis. It was delivered by Miss Willie Staley.
PROF. R. W. JENNJNGS, a liberal advertiser in the VETERAN, gave a scholarship at the Fourth of July Drill at Nashville, which was secured by Patton R., the youngest son of Gen. Frank Cheatham.
THE Cyclorama, representing the battle of Mission Ridge, on exhibition at Nashville, under the auspices of the Cheatham Bivouac, furnishes a scene that the young people ought to experience.
Confederate Veteran July 1893.
J. L. Turner, Fort White, Fla. : "I am a South Carolinian, and entered the service at the first call, was in the First South Carolina regiment, had no furlough during the whole time, and never missed a single battle in which my regiment was engaged up to Gettysburg, when I lost one leg and was taken prisoner. I would like to meet with the veterans in Birmingham in July, but am too poor." He is a veteran indeed.
N. A. Parker, attorney at law, Frankfort, Mich., June 19: "A copy of your publication has fallen into my hands, and I became considerably interested in it. As a member of the 20th Michigan Infantry, I became some years ago somewhat acquainted with the 'boys in gray,' notably at Fredericksburg, Va., Horse Shoe Bend (on Cumberland River), Ky,, Vicksburg and Jackson, Miss., Knoxville (Fort Saunders), Tenn., the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and so on to Petersburg, Va. On those occasions I learned to respect them, and have since often thought I would like to become better acquainted with them, to have an interview with some of them when they were not so much 'engaged' as on those occasions. I would be pleased, therefore, to have your publication, for which I inclose the price."
Miss Harriet R. Parkhill, Jacksonville, Fla. : " Having taught several years after the close of the war, I felt keenly how ignorant the children of the next generation would be of the true action of their forefathers, and instead of glorying in their bravery and the grandeur of their character and deeds, they would learn to be ashamed of them. This sheet will do a noble work in teaching the young people of the South and the whole world the true history of those sad but wonderful four years."
A. T. Gay, Graham, Texas: "Our reunion has been changed to the 26th, 27th and 28th of July. Come and see the people of the Lone Star State, a people intelligent and patriotic, and devoted to the cause of liberty, whose soldiers and statesmen are not surpassed by any State of this Union, nor does the past history of nations show a people surpassing Texas in her devotion to the right. How could it be otherwise, when Texas is filled with the chivalrous sons of the southland States who wore the gray. Let the East take care of her laurels. The Lone Star of the Southwest is destined to shine so brightly that the smaller stars of the East and North will shine as per borrowed light. Come and be with us, it will do your soul good and make us happy who love the CONFEDERATE VETERAN. "
Mrs. J. C. Kirkpatrick, Nashville, Tenn.: "My husband was killed at the battle of Cold Harbor, in Virginia. I have never had any knowledge of the place of: his burial. The VETERAN opens up so many channels of information that it may enable me to ascertain what I have so long sought something about him from his comrades."
Jos. H Burroughs, Jacksonville, Fla.: "An ex Confederate soldier at Jacksonville who is a subscriber suggests that you send a copy to the secretary of the various G. A. R. posts in the large cities, requesting that they subscribe and place it on file in their reading rooms." * * *
James G. Holmes, Charleston, S. C., July 5: "The four subscribers sent herewith puts your list for Charleston well on the way to your first hundred. If any one took the matter up as a business the list could easily be doubled, if not quadrupled."
THE ink to print this issue of the VETERAN comes with the compliments of George Mather's Sons, New York. In return mention is made that it is sold in 1/4 Ib. boxes and upward. Agents South are Parks Bros., Nashville, W.C.Dodson, Atlanta, L. Graham & Son, New Orleans, Mavrick Printing Co., San Antonio, and J. C. Parker & Co., Louisville.
THE most interesting and most pleasant trip out of Nashville is to go by Evansville to Chicago. It is but a night's run on the fast limited train, or those who prefer day travel can go through in a day.
Howard Female College, Gallatin, Tenn.
Before you decide on a school, address A. M. Burney, President of Howard Female College for catalogues and rates. Unsurpassed for health, medium climate, pure air, and good water, twenty six miles east of Nashville. All the departments of a finished education for young ladies,
POSITION IN A BANK.
The following letter explains itself: MERCHANT'S NATIONAL BANK, ROME. GA., April 27, 1893.Prof. R. W. Jennings, Nashville Dear Sir: No doubt you will be surprised to hear from me, but as I know you are always glad to hear from your " boys," I will tell you that, I have been elected bookkeeper in above named bank. I don't say it because I am writing to you, but I have said to many others that the three months I spent with you was worth as much to me as was the twelve years' schooling I had gotten previously. I have compared my books which I used at Jennings' Business College with the books of several other colleges, which other young men from this section attended, and they all acknowledged that your course is much more thorough and practical than the schools they attended. Yours truly, T. J. SIMPSON.
A SALARY OF $5,000.
Thomas E. Jennings Appointed National Bank Examiner for the Pacific Coast States.
Thomas E. Jennings, late of Nashville, has been appointed Bank Examiner for the States of California, Oregon, and Washington, at a salary of $5,000 per annum. He is a son of Prof. R. W. Jennings, of Jennings' Business College, Nashville, and this appointment can be largely attributed to the business training from his father, as well as to the latter's influence in securing positions.
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