This page is part of The Georgia GenWeb Project a AHGP Project and is hosted by USGENNET
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This page is part of The Georgia GenWeb Project a AHGP Project and is hosted by USGENNET |
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Confederate Veteran Misc Confederate Veteran, Vol. XI, No. 10 Nashville, Tenn., October, 1903. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BURNING OF CHAMBERSBURG Unknown No destruction of property by the Confederate armies during the War between the States has been condemned by the people of the North in such unmeasured terms as the burning of Chainbersburg, Pa., in 1864 by order of Gen. Early. While bitterly denouncing this as a wanton destruction of property, they applaud Sherman for permitting and encouraging his troops to commit daily the most unprovoked acts of incendiarism and theft upon the helpless citizens along his line of march from Dalton to Atlanta; and after the fall of the latter, with no army in his front to intercept his "famous"---infamous---march to the sea, the acts perpetrated upon the defenseless women and children, to say nothing of incendiarism, were as fiendish and brutal as ever marked the conquests of the Goths and Vandals in the days of barbarism. It may condone American soldiery to note that two-thirds of Sherman's army was made up of mercenary hirelings, foreigners whose brutal instincts made them fit tools to go beyond the merciless orders of their leader. They had no interest in the welfare of Americans. These Northern partisans, while applauding Sherman, also sang the praises of Sheridan, who had made the proud (?) boast in this day of civilized warfare that his ruthless marauders had with fire and sword so desolated the beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah, inhabited at that time only by homeless and helpless women and children, that a "crow would starve to death flying over it unless he carried his rations with him." And yet Sheridan's army was, as a whole, composed of less objectionable material than Sherman's. It is reported that quite a number of his subordinates resigned or were deprived of their commissions rather than execute the brutal orders issued them, but he found in one Hunter a creature not only willing but eager to carry out his orders. The following is a copy of a letter written Hunter by Mrs. Edmund I. Lee, one of his victims, which clearly expresses the estimate placed upon him by the unfortunate citizens of Virginia at that time: "SHEPHERDSTOWN, VA., July 20, 1864. " Gen. Hunter : Yesterday your underling, Capt. Martindale, of the First New York Veteran Cavalry, executed your infamous order and burned my house. You have had the satisfaction ere this of receiving from him the information that your orders were fulfilled to the letter, the dwelling and every outbuilding, seven in number, with their contents, being burned. I, therefore, a helpless woman, whom you have cruelly wronged, address you, a major general of the United States army, and demand why this was done? What was my offense? "My husband was absent, an exile. He has never been a politician, or in any way engaged in the struggle now going on, his age preventing. This fact David Strother, your chief of staff, could have told you. The house was built by my father, a revolutionary soldier, who served the whole seven years for your independence. There was I born; there the sacred dead repose; it was my house and my home; and there your niece, who lived among us all this horrid war, up to the present moment, met with all kindness and hospitality at my hands. "Was it for this that you turned me, my young daughter, and little son out upon the world without a shelter? Or was is because my husband is the grandson of the revolutionary patriot and Rebel, Richard Henry Lee, and the near kinsman of the noblest of Christian warriors, the greatest of generals, Robert E. Lee? Heaven's blessings be upon his head forever! You and your government have failed to conquer, subdue, or match him; and disappointed rage and malice find vent upon the helpless and inoffensive. "Hyena like, you have torn my heart to pieces; for all hallowed memories clustered around that homestead; and, demon-like, you have done it without even the pretext of revenge, for I never saw or harmed you. Your office is not to lead (like a brave man and soldier) your men to fight in the ranks of war, but your work has been to separate yourself from all danger, and, with your incendiary band, steal unawares upon helpless women and children, to insult and to destroy. Two fair homes did you yesterday ruthlessly lay in ashes, giving not a moment's warning to the startled inmates of your wicked purpose; turning mothers and children out of doors, your very name execrated by your own men for the cruel work you gave them to do. In the case of Mr. A. R. Boteler, both father and mother were far away. Any heart but that of Capt. Martindale (and yours) would have been touched by that little circle, comprising a widowed daughter, just risen from her bed of illness, her three little fatherless babes, the eldest not five years old, and her sick sister. I repeat, any man would have been touched at that sight but Capt. Martindale. One might as well hope to find mercy and feeling in the heart of a wolf, bent on its prey of young lambs, as to search for such qualities in his bosom. You have chosen well your man for such deeds; doubtless you will promote him. "A colonel of the Federal army has stated that you deprived forty of your officers of their commands because they refused to carry out your malignant mischief. All honor to their names for this, at least; they are men; they have human hearts and blush for such a commander. "I ask who that does not wish infamy and disgrace attached to him forever would serve under you? Your name will stand on history's page as the hunter of weak women and innocent children; the hunter to destroy defenseless villages and refined and beautiful homes, to torture afresh the agonized hearts of suffering widows; the hunter of Africa's poor sons and daughters, to lure them into ruin and death of soul and body; the hunter with the relentless heart of a wild beast, the face of a fiend, and the form of a man. O Earth, behold the monster! "Can I say, 'God forgive you?' No prayer can be offered for you. Were it possible for human lips to raise your name heavenward, angels would thrust the foul thing back again and demons claim their own. The curses of thousands, the scorn of the manly and upright, and the hatred of the true and honorable will follow you and yours through all time, and brand your name, Infamy! Infamy! "Again, I demand, why have you burned my house? Answer, as you must answer before the Searcher of all hearts. Why have you added this cruel, wicked deed to your many crimes?" The burning of Chambersburg was not an act of wanton destruction of property by marauding soldiers under irresponsible officers, but it was an act of retaliation for property destroyed by Gen. Hunter, and was so stated by Gen. Early when he issued the order. One of the houses above referred to as having been burned by Hunter had been taken by him for his headquarters. Only two ladies occupied the house, and he had promised them his protection, but immediately after his departure an officer and some soldiers returned with a written order from Hunter to burn and destroy everything about the premises. A few days later, as Gen. Hunter was passing another Virginia mansion, a lady asked him why he had destroyed the magnificent home of Col. Anderson. He replied that Virginia women were worse traitors than their husbands, and he would burn the houses over their heads in order to make them personally and immediately experience some punishment for their treason; and, on another occasion, he said to a Virginia lady that he would humble the Virginia women before he left the State. Many other acts could be mentioned of actual destruction, threats, and wanton violence on the part of Hunter, all of which make up public sentiment that prevailed at that time in Virginia, and which required steps on the part of the military authorities to prevent their recurrence in the future, as well as to stop the useless destruction then going on; but these are sufficient to explain the reason why the city of Chainbersburg, in Pennsylvania, was burned. Gen. John McCausland, tinder whose immediate orders the city was burned, gives the following account of it: "On July 28 1 received an order from Gen. Early to cross the Potomac with my brigade and one under Gen. Bradley T. Johnson and proceed to the city of Chambersburg. My orders were to capture the city and deliver to the proper authorities a proclamation which Gen. Early had issued calling upon them to furnish me with $100,000 in gold or $500,000 in greenbacks, and in case the money was not forthcoming I was instructed to burn the city and return to Virginia. The proclamation also stated that this course had been adopted in retaliation for the destruction of property in Virginia by orders of Gen. Hunter, and specified that the homes of Andrew Hunter, A. R. Boteler, E. J. Lee, Gov. Letcher, J. T. Anderson, the Virginia Military Institute, and others in Virginia had been burned by orders of D. Hunter, a Federal commander, and that this money demanded from Chambersburg was to be paid to the parties specified as compensation for their loss of property. It appears that Gen. Early adopted this policy after proper reflection; that his orders were distinct and final, and that what was done on this occasion by my command was not the result of inconsiderate action or want of proper authority, as was alleged by many parties at the North, both at the time and since the close of the war. "On the 29th of July the two cavalry brigades that were to make the dash into Pennsylvania, by turning the right of Hunter's army, were assembled at Hammond's Hill, in Berkeley County, W. Va. During the night the Federal pickets on the opposite side of the river were captured, and our troops crossed just at daylight on the morning of the 30th and moved out on the National road. At Clear Spring we left the National road and turned into the Mercersburg road to the north. We reached Mercersburg about dark, and stopped to feed our horses and give the stragglers time to catch up. After this stop the march was continued all night, notwithstanding the opposition made at every available point by a regiment of Federal cavalry. We reached Chambersburg at daylight on the 31st. The approach to the town was defended only by one piece of artillery and some irregular troops, who were soon driven off, and the advance of our force took possession of the town. The main part of our two brigades was formed on the high ground overlooking the town. "I at once went into the city with my staff and requested some of the citizens to inform the city authorities that I wanted to see them. I also sent my staff through the town to locate the proper officials and inform them that I had a proclamation for their consideration. Not one could be found. I then directed the proclamation to be read to as many citizens as were near me, and asked them to hunt up their town officers, informing them that I would wait until they could either find the proper authorities, or, by consultation among themselves, determine what they would do. Finally, I informed them that I would wait six hours, and if they would then comply with the requirements their town would be safe; but if not, it would be destroyed in accordance with my orders from Gen. Early. "After a few hours' delay, many citizens came to see me. Some were willing to pay the money; others were not. I urged them to comply, giving them such reason as occurred to me at the time, and told them plainly what they might expect in the event of their failure to pay the money demanded. I showed to my own officers, and to the citizens who came to see me, my written authority and orders of Gen. Early, and before a single house was burned both the citizens and the Confederate officers fully understood why it was done and by whose orders. "After waiting until the expiration of the six hours, and finding that the proclamation would not be complied with, the destruction was begun by firing the most central blocks first, and after the inhabitants had been removed from them. Thus the town was destroyed, and the citizens driven to the hills and fields adjacent thereto. No lives were lost among the citizens, and only one soldier was killed, he being killed after the troops had left the place. About noon the troops were re-formed on the high ground overlooking the town, where most of them had been posted in the early morning, and the return to the Potomac was begun. We reached the river the next day at or near Hancock, Md. "Gen. Early, in his 'Memoir,' page 57, says: 'A written demand was sent to the municipal authorities, and they were informed what would be the result of a failure or refusal to comply with it.' "In this expedition our troops passed through more than one hundred miles of hostile territory, executed all orders that were issued with promptness and regularity, and never have I heard of any complaint of acts unauthorized by their superior officers, of competent authority to order it, and, moreover, that it was an act of retaliation perfectly justified by the circumstances, and was at all times in keeping with the rules governing civilized warfare." Confederate Veteran, Vol. XII, No. 8 Nashville, Tenn., August, 1904. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FORTY HOURS IN A DUNGEON AT ROCK ISLAND B. M. Hord I was a member of Dobbins's Regiment, Walker's Brigade of Arkansas Cavalry, and a short time after our fiasco at Little Rock, where our army abandoned a strongly fortified position without firing a shot, except a little cavalry skirmish below the town, I was captured by the Eighth Missouri Federal Cavalry and, after spending a few days in the penitentiary at Little Rock, was sent with a batch of other prisoners to St. Louis and confined in McDowell's old Medical College, which had been converted into a Federal prison. Shortly after our arrival an unsuccessful attempt to escape was made by cutting through a partition wall that divided the college from a chapel or schoolroom. I was accused of being in the plot and, with a number of others, was promptly sent to Rock Island, some four hundred miles above. This prison, located on an island in the Mississippi River, was a square inclosure of some eight or ten acres, surrounded by a heavy plank fence twelve or fourteen feet high, with a parapet four feet from the top extending all around on the outside for the sentinels, and on the inside, ten or fifteen feet from the fence, there was a shallow ditch called the "dead line." Prisoners were not allowed nearer the fence than this ditch upon penalty of being shot without challenge by the sentinels. Several were killed while I was there who thoughtlessly stepped over the line. Two, I remember, were killed at different times who, in the excitement of a ball game, chased the ball across the ditch. The barracks were about ninety by twenty feet, built of rough upright boards, with a partition at one end for a kitchen, which was furnished with a forty-gallon kettle in which we did all of our cooking save the bread. The kitchen was presided over by a sergeant of the barracks and his cooks, who were also prisoners. Wooden bunks in three tiers, one above the other, in which we slept, extended the full length of the building on each side. The barracks were built in uniform rows across the inclosure, with a broad avenue beginning at the main entrance and running directly through the center of the prison. The houses were numbered consecutively from one up to eighty-four. I was in barrack twenty-four. When we arrived at Rock Island, early in December, 1863, Col. Rust was in command with a detachment of the Fourth Invalid Corps. He was a kind-hearted old fellow, and just to the prisoners; but unfortunately for us the old colonel was soon removed, and in his place came as inhuman a brute as ever disgraced the uniform of any country, one A. J. Johnson, with his regiment of negroes for guard duty, leaving the Fourth Invalid men, many of whom had grown to middle age in the service on the frontier, for light fatigue duty, such as calling the roll of prisoners morning and evening, inspecting the barracks, etc. Many of these old, battle-scarred veterans and their officers were kindly disposed toward us, but dared not show it beyond a word or look, for every devilish device that could be conjured up in the brain of a savage to make us suffer was put in force by Johnson. Men were brutally punished upon the slightest pretext. I saw prisoners tied up to the fence by their thumbs, their toes barely touching the ground, in the hot, broiling sun until they would faint, and when cut down by the guards fall limp and unconscious, while none of us dared approach; for they were next the fence, over the dead line, and grinning negro sentinels stood just above them with ready guns in hand. We were no longer allowed the privilege of buying provisions from the post sutler or to receive such things from home; at the same time our rations had been gradually reduced to less than half the amount issued to us when we first reached the Rock Island prison. Hunger began to develop the savage instincts that lie dormant in us all; men grew ugly in temper, quarrels and fights were frequent over their scant rations, yet this was but a foretaste of what was to come. In the summer of 1864 twelve barracks in the southeast corner of the inclosure, near the main entrance to the prison, were fenced off, the occupants transferred to other barracks; and at roll call one morning we were informed that the United States government had opened a recruiting office in our prison, and that all who would take the oath and join the United States army would be moved into the new pen---calf pen, we called it---furnished good clothing, bountiful rations, paid one hundred dollars bounty, the post sutler permitted to bring in whatever they wanted to eat, and that they would not be sent South to fight, but out on the frontier to hold the Indians in subjection. Never, since the Son of Man was tempted by the devil, was dishonor more cunningly devised or temptingly displayed. Quite a number jumped at the bait, mostly men who were willing, to take the oath under any circumstances; but after this came the heroic struggle between patriotism and starvation, for our rations had been still further reduced under the pretext of creating a "prisoners' fund" to pay for medicines, caring for our sick, and to pay for such clothing as the government issued us. (See "Record of Rebellion," Series II., Vol. 8.) But every few days starvation would claim a victory. It was pitiful. Gaunt forms with the glare of wolfish hunger in their eyes, the very pictures of famine, could be seen going up to take the oath, tears streaming down their faces and curses on the Yankees from their lips, their poor, shriveled flesh showing beneath fluttering rags, for when one of this kind was starved into submission, knowing he would soon he well supplied, he exchanged his clothes with some more needy comrade. Dart was the name of our post sutler. He was a kindhearted fellow, had made many friends among the prisoners before Johnson began his starving process and stopped us from trading with him, but he was now permitted to resume business with the recruits in the "calf pen." It was some fifty steps from the main entrance of the prison to the gate of the "calf pen," and frequently numbers of us would gather along this space, as near the dead line as we dared get, to await the arrival of Dart's wagon with supplies for the recruits just to catch a glimpse and get a whiff of the odor of fresh bread, meats, and pies as they passed from one gate to the other. Ah, the odor of those pies! I will carry to my grave their odor. Dart had a dog that would sometimes follow his wagon into the prison. We were assembled one evening, as usual, to smell the pies and things, when the front gate swung open and Dart drove in; the dog came in also. The best of us, man or beast, sometimes make mistakes. Dart and his dog were not exceptions. In allowing the dog to follow him was Dart's mistake. The wagon stopped a moment in our midst for the sentry to open the gate to the "calf pen" the dog took position midway beneath the wagon---wise dog; a wink, a significant nod at the dog, passed between a half dozen prisoners; two stepped around on the opposite side of the wagon and, unobserved, made a pass at the dog; the dog instinctively dodged to the other side---this was his mistake. He didn't understand the advantage of a flank movement. In an instant a bony, brown hand had him by the back of his neck and another clutched his throat; he was tucked under the skirt of a long-tailed coat, and a moment later three men, walking close together as if to conceal something from the crowd behind them, disappeared around the corner of the nearest barrack. I wish to state emphatically that I did not catch Dart's dog, neither did I tack the skin to the big oak tree in the main avenue that was found there the next morning with a note attached requesting some one to "send in another dog," but I've always conscientiously felt I was indebted to Dart for the hind quarter of a dog. My bunk mate, Charlie Goodwin, however, had no conscientious scruples about it. He thought the fruit was overripe---that if it had been pulled greener, say in the puppy stage, it would have been more palatable. But Charlie was a bit fastidious. He was head clerk in a swell confectionary establishment in Memphis, Tenn., when the war began, accustomed to selling bonbons, fancy candies, and cakes to ladies, and naturally his taste had become more or less vitiated for the substantials of life. Having sampled the regular prison fare for more than ten months, with such side dishes as I could get, as our rations contracted the price of rats expanded until one could not be had for love or money, I determined to make another effort to relieve Uncle Sam of any further expense on my account. I had been engaged in two unsuccessful attempts to tunnel out, and I knew a negro too well to trust him a bribe, for three comrades that I knew were shot and killed by the negro sentinels at night after the villains had accepted cash bribes, so I decided I would make the attempt disguised as a Yankee. Every morning after roll call a detail of six prisoners from each barrack was made to carry out the slop barrels through a little side gate, escorted by a Yankee guard, empty the barrels in the river, and return to the prison. My idea was, disguised in a Yankee uniform, with a citizen's suit underneath, to take charge of a detail, march out with it, discard my uniform as soon as possible when safely outside, and in citizen's clothes the greatest danger would be past. The prison was constantly searched for contraband articles, especially Yankee clothes. I had managed to keep concealed a Yankee blouse and cap, but had no pants, no pistol, and no scabbard. These last were as necessary as the pants, for the guards were required to wear pistols when they came in prison. I had on a Yankee belt when captured, which had not been taken from me, and the pistol and scabbard I soon provided. A thick piece of pine board furnished the material out of which I whittled a good imitation handle of a pistol, which I stained with ink and glazed over with a lead pencil to give it the appearance of steel. The scabbard I made from the knee flaps of my cavalry boots, a fine Yankee pair that my best girl had smuggled out of Helena, Ark., for me under her hoop skirt just before our fight there; but it was a month later before I secured the pants. I was standing one morning near the main entrance when a two-horse wagon, loaded with coal and driven by a green-looking Dutchman, came in. The driver's big blue Yankee overcoat was lying back on the coal, and I determined to have it. While he was fumbling in his pockets to find the ticket showing the number of barrack that had made requisition for the fuel, I advanced and roughly asked what had detained him, that I had been waiting an hour for the coal; taking his ticket and signing my sergeant s name to it, I mounted the wagon and directed him to my barrack, number twenty-four, on the far side of the prison. Throwing the coat on the wheel horse as I jumped down, I bade him wait and I would have his wagon unloaded. I went in, informed my sergeant, John Smith---John Rodgers was his real name, but he belonged to Quantrell's command, and had this been known his life would not have been worth a day's rations---of my intentions, and asked that he send out a detail to unload the coal. I then posted two or three of my friends, and, while the men were unloading the wagon, they were attracting the driver's attention on the far side from me by urging him to buy trinkets they had made out of shell, bone, etc. Unobserved I slipped the coat under my overcoat, carried it into my barrack, lifted up a loose plank in the floor, dropped it underneath, and went back to watch developments. Of course the Dutchman missed his coat when he started to drive away, and appealed to the sergeant, who called up the men; all declared there was no coat on the wagon---in truth, they had not noticed it. Then the Dutchman got mad, and they began to come hack at him with unbiblical language. Being in the midst of five or six thousand half-starved rebels, he curbed his tongue; but within twenty minutes after he drove out the bugle sounded the assembly, and the entire prison was searched, though without results. Two nights afterwards, when all was quiet, the coat was ripped up, washed in our cooking kettle, wrung out dry as possible, the pieces placed smoothly over the planks in the bottom of my bunk, my oilcloth over them, my blanket over that, and my bunk mate and I slept on them for a week (no patent for either washing or ironing on this plan was applied for). I took them out at night and, ripping up an old pair of my pants, placed the pieces over the blue cloth, on our kitchen table, cut out the pants with my pocket knife, and in three or four nights had them made. No slouch of a job was it, either, considering it was my first pair, made without thimble or scissors, and much of the thread drawn from my old pants. All the work had to be done secretly with a shaded light at night, for the prison was full of spies, but at last I was ready for business. Next morning at roll call my sergeant reported me sick; and when the Yankee sergeant came in to verify the report, he found me in my bunk with a blanket drawn close up under my chin, suffering from a severe chill (?), but a moment later when the bugle sounded break ranks I threw off the blanket, sprang out of my bunk in Yankee uniform, the butt of my pistol showing bravely in the scabbard belted under my blouse---all of which I expected to discard as soon as I was at a safe distance outside, for the citizen suit I had on underneath. Passing out the back door of our barrack as the men came in the front, I soon found a squad (six men with three barrels) waiting for a Federal guard to escort them out. Assuming authority, I ordered them to take up the barrels and move forward. We had to march to the far side of the prison, and when we arrived at the little side gate found all the scavenger force in line, the first squad standing at the edge of the dead line, the others extending back in the prison probably a hundred yards. Glancing from under the visor of my cap, I saw the officer of the day on the parapet directly over the gate, a negro sentinel on either side, watching the line form. He called to me as I came up, asking if I was the last. Replying that I was, he ordered the guard below to open the gate, and we began to pass out. Up to this time it had been nothing but pure bluff on my part, but as we moved toward the dead line my nerve began to leave me. From the furtive glances I gave from time to time at the officer and sentinels I imagined they were giving me special attention,. and the nearer I approached the greater became my fear that I had been betrayed or they had penetrated my disguise and were only waiting, for me to step over the dead line to shoot. Had it been a dash or rush with other comrades, I could have taken my chance with the bunch, but only one at a time could pass out of the narrow gate, and to be slowly moving up foot by foot to a line that I knew was certain death to cross, with two negro guards watching me and anxious to shoot, sent a tingling sensation down my back and a sharp pain in my jaws, as if I had bitten a sour pickle. A dozen times I was tempted to spring behind a barrack before they could shoot, and give up the attempt, but it was too late now. I was within ten feet of the line, and the least wavering or false step would confirm their suspicions, if they had any, and certainly draw their fire; so, pulling myself together as best I could, I stepped over with my men, marched them out the gate, and saw, for the first time in ten months outside of a prison wall, the broad Mississippi and the city of Davenport beyond. We had gone a hundred yards down the river bank when I felt a hand on my shoulder and some one asked, "What company do you belong to?" Looking up, I saw it was the officer from the parapet. "Capt. Ameron's," I replied promptly, at the same time ordering my squad to "close up." He walked with me a little distance, and when not more than fifty feet from where they were mounting guard for the day he halted me, called to the sergeant of the guard and asked if the detail from Ameron's company had reported. They had. Facing me squarely to them, he asked if I belonged to their company. The play was over. The Yanks gave a knowing grin and, shaking their heads, pronounced me a "counterfeit." Calling a sergeant to take charge of my detail of Rebs, who were as much surprised as the Yankees, I was marched up to the officers' quarters, stripped of all my clothing, and after failing to find any money or papers---I had a $10 bill rolled in a small ball and glued to my head under the hair back of my ear---I was furnished a pair of old second-hand brown jeans pants, a woolen shirt, and a pair of russet shoes, without socks. The officers, several of whom had collected, evidently intended to make me look as ridiculous as possible, for while I was small, even for my age, the things furnished me would have been rather large for a six-foot, two hundred and fifty pound man. Then they began to question me as to where I procured my Yankee uniform. They could see I had designed the pistol and scabbard---but the clothes? I knew I would be punished severely if I told them I stole the coat to make the pants, so I decided to saddle the whole thing on a Yankee. The recruits in the "calf pen" were permitted to come out in detachments, accompanied by a guard, morning and evening to get water at the well in our prison, and I told my captors that I had bought the clothes late one evening from one of these guards; did not know his name and would not recognize his face. They refused to accept the statement; but no coaxing, bribes, or threats could make me deviate from the truth ( ?) of this story, so they ordered the sergeant to take me to the guardhouse, put me in irons, and drop me in the dungeon until my memory improved. The guardhouse was like our barracks except it was better built, had no bunks in it, was celled and made comfortable inside. Underneath the room which we used as a kitchen an excavation probably twelve by fourteen feet and eight or ten feet deep had been made, which was used for a dungeon. The entrance to it was through a trapdoor in the middle of the floor, secured by a bolt on the upper side. The door was lifted up, a ladder thrust down in the hole, the prisoner descended, the ladder was withdrawn, the door dropped back, the bolt shot, and there you were in darkness absolutely black. A thirty-two pound shot on a four-foot chain, with an ordinary spring lock cuff at the other end, was fastened around my ankle and I was marched to the trapdoor. When it was opened and I started down the ladder a horrible, loathsome odor from the fetid atmosphere below almost caused me to fall, but, gripping the chain in one hand and the rungs of the ladder with the other, I was carefully feeling my way down with my long russet shoes when the old, familiar challenge of "Who comes there?" sounded in the darkness below. There was a devil may-care tone in the voice that prompted me to answer: "A friend without the countersign." "Advance, friend! The rattle of that chain is countersign enough," he answered back. "Are you down?" the guard called to me from above. "Don't know, but I am at the end of the ladder," I replied. When the ladder was drawn up and the door closed, I saw there was a faint, flickering ray of light near my feet that I discovered came from the open door of a small stove. "What's your name, and what barrack are you from?" asked the voice that had challenged me. I told him, and he in turn informed me that he was the unfortunate prisoner who, a short time before, in a fight with a comrade had killed him by striking him in the head with the footboard of his bunk. The Yankees had taken him out of prison and given him the choice of either joining the Yankee army or be hung for murder, and he had told them to "hang and be damned," so they put him in the dungeon to give him time to reconsider. By his side on the edge of the ray of light I thought I saw something move, and I inquired if he was alone. "O, no; you are in select company down here," he replied. "There are two Yankee deserters condemned to be shot and a crazy nigger that stands a good chance of going the same way." He then told me the negro had gone suddenly crazy while on post, and when the relief guard came around had fired into the squad, mortally wounding one of them. He was in the dungeon waiting the decision of a court-martial. We had heard of the incident in prison at the time it occurred, and there are doubtless many old Rock Islanders yet living who will recall it, although we attached no importance to it at the time. But it came back to me then with a shudder of horror, for when a very small child I had been badly frightened by a harmless imbecile, and ever afterwards the only argument my old nurse needed to make me submissive and obedient was to threaten me with "a crazy man." It was a childish fear, but one I've never outgrown, and to-day I am more afraid of a lunatic than anything living. It was but small comfort to me when my friend told me the negro was his "bodyguard," and that he was big enough and strong enough to whip the two deserters with one hand. The last vestige of nerve was oozing out of me in a cold perspiration as I realized the situation---chained and in a twelve-foot dungeon with a powerful, crazy negro. I dropped my ball, and the rattle of the chain emphasized the horror of my situation. My knees began to shake beneath me, and as soon as I could speak without betraying my fear I told my friend that I would sit down, that I was rather tired from my morning's experience. "Sorry I can't offer you a chair," he replied. "We recline here mostly, and, as they have not sent your bed down, you will have to use one of the Yank's. "Nig, get the gentleman a bed." There was a commotion in the dark then the light shone on two long, powerful forearms and hands that were holding toward me a plank, some six feet long and twelve or fourteen inches wide. I could see nothing more, but knew instinctively to whom the arms and hands belonged, and shuddered as I took the board. Placing it directly in front of the stove under the ray of light, I stretched myself out on my back, my ball at my feet, and hands clasped under my head. I have no idea how long I remained in this position, for there is no record of time in a dungeon, day or night is all alike---black, blacker, blackest---but from excitement, fatigue, and fear I must have fallen asleep, for I was aroused to consciousness by something pulling on my chain, pressing the cold iron against my naked ankle, and I opened my eyes. On his knees bending over me, his face directly in the beam of light from the stove, and so close to mine I could feel his breath on my face, with a maniac's gleam in his bulging eyes, was the hideous face of the negro; in the shadowy light I could see my thirty-two pound shot resting in the upturned palm of his right hand near his shoulder while his left grasped the chain lower down which he was pulling to give him more purchase to dash the ball on my head. An electric flash was not quicker than I took in the situation or a clap of thunder louder than my scream of mortal terror. He dropped the ball and, with a maniac's cunning on being discovered, glided like a snake off in the darkness. My comrade was on his feet almost as quick and when I explained that the negro was about to dash my brains out with my ball, he gave him a scientific cursing, and I heard him kicking him vigorously in the dark, at the same time ordering him to "go up in the corner." In a few moments he came back, told me the negro would not again disturb me, and to lie down and finish my nap, which I declined with the truthful asstrance that I was not a bit sleepy. The absolute control this Southern boy had over this negro was so incomprehensible to me that many years af.terwards I mentioned the fact to my friend, the late Dr. J. H. Callender, for many years Superintendent of the Insane Asylum for Tennessee, and a man of national reputation as an expert on insanity, and he informed me that the case was by no means extraordinary; that the negro was a weak minded creature to start with, that the violent and sudden change from slavery to a United States soldier, the change of climate, habits, etc., had evidently deranged his feeble mind, that it was a perfect blank as to his surroundings, but when thrown in contact with a Southern man, hearing the Southern dialect, the authoritative tone, and the rough treatment revived in a feeble way his memory of slavery, which made him docile and obedient to the Southerner, for he only remembered himself as a slave. It seemed as if I had been confined in darkness an eternity when the trapdoor was opened, the ladder lowered, and, instead of calling for one of us to come up and get our bread and canteens of water, which were our only rations, I was ordered to come up. It was a moment or two before my eyes became accustomed to the glare of the light; then I realized from the lantern in the orderly's hand that it was night. The guard was drawn up in open order at a "shoulder," and the officer of the day standing in the open door. "How is your memory now about your clothes?" he asked, as I halted in front of him. It occurred to me he would believe one story as readily as another, so I concluded to stick to the original text. "Very well," he replied; "if we can't starve it out of you, maybe we can shoot it out. Muster the guard outside, orderly." If I had been at myself, I would have known at once this was all bluff to bully me into a confession, but I was weak, sick, and frazzled out generally; and when I heard the negroes close up and come tramping out behind me, while the officer marched me in front, it made me wish I was safely back in the prison once more. The guard was drawn up outside, and I was left standing some ten or fifteen steps in front of them. The officer again questioned me about the uniform, and I again gave him the same old story. After bullying me for a time, and repeatedly informing me that I was not telling the truth, in a word of three letters, he ordered the sergeant to put me back in prison. I was put in the dungeon Wednesday morning about seven O'clock and was taken out Friday night about twelve. I wore the ball for nearly two months, when it was ordered off by Capt. Ameron himself. He was officer of the day, and was watching some prisoners clean up the grounds inside the prison. I walked up close to him and dropped my ball to attract his attention. He turned when he heard the chain rattle, looked me over, and asked why I was wearing the ball. I replied because I could not get it off which was a fib, as I could pick the lock with a small nail and stout cord as fast as it could be locked, and which I did every night afer getting into my bunk, but was afraid to go without it in day time for fear some spy would report me, then it would have been riveted on my leg. "What did they put it on you for?" he inquired. I stated the case, and told him it was a reflection on the standing of his company, that I had simply claimed to be a member of it when they immediately proceeded to iron me. I saw his eyes twinkle a little as he said, "So you are the little rascal who claimed to belong to my company, are you?" I confessed I was. In a few moments he turned to go and ordered me to follow. We had reached the big ditch that was being dug across the prison, when he suddenly stopped, looked me square in the face, and asked if my irons were riveted on. I told him they were not. Without removing his eyes, he asked me if I had been wearing the ball all the time. I assured him I had (with proper allowance for truth under the circumstances). "Now, see here, Johnny, I am going to have that ball taken off, but I have heard that you fellows can pick one of those locks in a flash. Let me see you do it," he said, looking around to see that no one was in hearing distance. After another assurance from him that the ball should come off, I took my little nail and string out of my pocket and in a twinkle had the shackle off. He examined the nail and the string, then told me to do it again, which I did. He only said: "Well, I'll be damned. Fasten it back and come along." Passing out the gate, he called a sergeant and told him to take my irons off and put me back in prison. I thought I detected a sly wink as he nodded his head to me and turned away. There is but a short span of life left me, hut I would give a good slice out of it to know if my comrade in the dungeon is living and to grasp his hand once more, or to meet some of the members of the detail that I marched out that morning with the slop barrels, none of whom I knew; but if any are living and read this article, they will certainly remember the circumstances of my arrest. Nearly forty years have passed since my dungeon experience, yet at times I can feel the hot breath of that burly negro on my cheek, can see his bulging eyes with a maniac's glare in them close to mine, and in the shadowy darkness see my ball in his uplifted hand ready to fall and crush my head; I scream in mortal terror, and---I feel some one shaking me and a voice sounding far away, saying, "Husband, husband, wake up! You have a nightmare. You must quit eating such heavy suppers;" and I wake up to thank God it is only a nightmare this time, and that it was not caused by overfeeding on Dart's dog. There are doubtless yet living many veterans who were prisoners at Rock Island in 1864-65, whose memories will be revived by the above emblematic caption. They will remember that secret oath-bound organization of prisoners formed at the darkest and most trying time of their prison life, a time when the United States government was using every means by starvation and bribery to induce the prisoners to join the United States army, for it was at this time the organization was formed and the members took a solemn oath to stand by each other under all circumstances and to die in prison rather than take the oath of allegiance or join the United States army so long as the Confederate government was in existence. Confederate Veteran, Vol. XII, No. 10 Nashville, Tenn., October, 1904. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SWIFT RETRIBUTION FOR HOUSE-BURNING W. W. Patteson The vandalism and ruthless destruction of property in the Valley of Virginia by the Federal army was greater perhaps than in any other section of the South. There were, no doubt, many individual incidents that occurred on Sherman's infamous march to the sea that equaled in barbarous cruelty those in Virginia, but certainly none that surpassed them. On the 20th of August, '64, a part of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry were sent to burn a number of handsome private dwellings in Clark County. It seemed to be providential that on that same day Companies C, D, and B (Forty-Third Battalion of Mosby's Command), under Capt. William H. Chapman (afterwards lieutenant colonel), were marching from Fauquier County over to the west side of the Blue Ridge. As soon as we reached the top of the ridge, we saw the smoke of the burning buildings, and at Once took in the situation. We quickened our pace, crossed the Shenandoah at Castleman's Ferry, and went in a gallop in the direction of the fires. We first came to the McCormack property, the fine dwelling now a mass of smoldering ruins. Hurrying on, we soon came in sight of Col. Morgan's residence, and near by the Souer homestead, both burning. The latter had been fired early in the morning as the Yankees were passing, but had been put out by Mrs. Shephard and her little children. Returning, the Yankees again fired it, and when we came up Mrs. Shephard and her little ones were clustered in one corner of the yard, watching the flames consume their house. Orders had been passed back from our officer in front to "wipe them from the face of the earth, neither asking nor giving quarter," and the sight of this helpless woman with her little children surrounded by a set of howling, plundering thieves served to emphasize the order, and we went at them with a yell. It was a sharp, quick, and clean little fight; no prisoners. The Yankees were handicapped with all kinds of plunder. They had pillaged all the houses of every movable article before burning them, but would not allow the owners to remove anything, not even clothing, except such as they had on. In going back over the ground to a place where I had persuaded one of the thieves with a shot through the head to stop early in the chase in order to get his horse and pistols, I found him lying with a lot of papers scattered around that fell from his pockets as he tumbled off of his horse. I got nearly a handful of jewelry of all kinds, tied on to his saddle, which I secured with his horse, also two rolls of goods, including lace curtains, ladies wearing apparel, blankets, sheets, etc., and two bottles of wine. Our command re-crossed the Shenandoah in the evening with quite a number of captured horses. In looking over the dead man's papers that night, I found one evidently from his best girl, asking him to send her some of the things captured (?) from the houses of the Rebels. This was but a sample of the many letters found on the bodies of the house burners that day by members of our command, and this was the kind of warfare waged by Sheridan and Hunter in the fair Valley of Virginia. Confederate Veteran, Vol. XII, No. 11 Nashville, Tenn., November, 1904.
ISSUES OF THE WAR DISCUSSED
John Sharp Williams [The following are extracts from a printed address by Hon. John Sharp Williams, Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Mississippi. The pamphlet is sent out with the compliments of Col. R. B. Snowden, from Memphis, Tenn.] One of the Ten Commandments delivered by Jehovah to Moses on Sinai, and not the least of the ten, is this: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Like all the other commandments of God to his children, this applies not only to the individual man, but to men in the aggregate---men in organized societies forming governments, constituting peoples. Just as the boy who does not honor his father and mother is apt to bring his own life to an untimely end, as a consequence of experimenting in new and foolish paths to the neglect of the advice, accumulated experience, and teaching of those who have seen the world before him, so a people who forget the history, despise the traditions, ignore the ideals, and fail to share the aspirations of their ancestry are a people not apt to conserve anything---neither their own power nor greatness, nor their very living in the land itself. We hear much about a "New South." There is no New South. What there is of change is a change in the direction of the energies of the people; and if there be anything great and good in the so-called "new" South, as far as I have been able to ascertain, it is always something whose growth has its roots in the soil of the Old South. Everything admirable in the so-called "new" South is built upon the old, as a house is builded upon flue rock of its foundation. We hear much of letting the "dead past bury its dead." No poet who was a philosopher, and perhaps no real poet, would ever have uttered that sentence. There is no such thing as a dead past. Ladies and gentlemen, thirty-nine years ago there occurred near the little village of Appomattox, in the State of Virginia, one of the most memorable and pathetic scenes in all history. A few ragged and half-starved men were surrendered, and with them there was seemingly surrendered a cause for which they had fought for four years. This seeming made it sadder. It is useless to picture the scene; Lee for the first time for many months in bright new uniform, with new sword; Grant, rough from the field, with his officers about him; the few brief words spoken around the table, where the terms were agreed to; the silence and sadness which pervaded the minds and marked the conduct even of the Federal officers and men; the scene a few minutes later when the Confederate chieftain was among his men; the tears coursing down rugged cheeks, that had perhaps never felt them before; men returning, with no vision of hope to cheer them, to lives of hardship and of labor; a despairing people and a desolate land! It is useless to picture all this, I say, because the imagination of each old veteran here pictures it all for himself, and every child has heard it told so often that it presents itself in vivid coloring even to his mind. This marked really the war-close of a great struggle, and when we gather, as we yearly do, upon the anniversary month of that event, on our decoration day, the celebration, in its beauty and in its sadness, is a fitting one. But in everything which rational men do, in which there is either beauty or pathos, there must also be a reason. What is it, then, which we celebrate on an occasion like this? Is it mere physical courage? If it were, the world in all of its history could not find a physical courage superior to that of the men who died or surrendered under Lee, Jackson, and the Johnstons. But mere physical courage is a thing too common amongst the men of the race to which we belong to be worthy of any sort of celebration for its own sake. Mere fighting is no virtue; far from it. Indeed, the man who is not great enough and brave enough not to fight when he ought not to is a poor excuse for a man. Speaking for myself, I have no admiration of the professional fighter, whether he be a Texas cowboy or a West Point graduate. Why do we meet? What is the purpose of our coming together? Is it to keep alive the memory of a "lost cause?" Is it the "lost cause" which we celebrate? Not a whit of it, for, if it is, we have no cause to celebrate. In the economy of God, there are no lost causes in this world, except wrong causes. II; every cause which has ever existed, whether it has apparently prevailed or apparently gone down, there have been some things---mere accompaniments, perhaps---which were wrong, but in every cause worthy of celebration there have been things which were not wrong but right, and which, being eternally right, have not gone down as lost forever, though, perhaps, temporarily eclipsed. We meet to celebrate the cause and the men of the sixties. What was the cause? Was it secession? Not a whit of it. Secession was merely the remedy which was invoked for the assertion of a right, for the maintenance of a cause. It had been twice before virtually invoked in these United States, though the sword had not been drawn to support its invocation---once by New Englanders. in opposition to what they considered the tyranny of the Embargo Laws, and once by the South Carolinians in denial of the constitutional. right of a government of all the people to levy tribute upon all the people in order to make the capital of a part of the people more profitable, or the labor of a part of the people better compensated. War determined that the remedy should fail, and I think we are all agreed that it is well that the remedy failed. I think we are all ready to go forward, marching shoulder to shoulder, with an eye to the possibilities of the future, rejoicing in the lusty strength of a great and reunited people. What was the cause, then? Was it slavery? Not a whit of it. Slavery was undoubtedly the occasion of the quarrel and of the fight; but had the South been attacked in any of her other property or civil rights, she would have defended them just as readily; in fact, more readily than she did in this case. It was merely upon the side of slavery that our right to local self-government was attacked. But there was something else, and even a greater cause than local self-government, for which we fought. Local self government temporarily destroyed may be recovered and ultimately retained. The other thing for which we fought is so complex in its composition, so delicate in its breath, so incomparable in its symmetry, that, being once destroyed, it is forever destroyed. This other thing for which we fought was the supremacy of the white man's civilization in the country which he proudly claimed his own; "in the land which the Lord his God had given him;" founded upon the white man's code of ethics, in sympathy with the white man's traditions and ideals. Our forefathers of the forties and fifties and sixties believed that if slavery were abolished, unless the black race were deported from the American States, there would result in the Southern States just such a condition of things as had resulted in San Domingo, in the other West Indies Islands, and in the so-called republics of Central and South America---namely, a hybridization of races, a lowering of the ethical standard, and a degradation, if not loss, of civilization. Slavery is lost, and it is certainly well for us and the public---perhaps for the negro---that it has been lost. But the real cause for which our ancestors fought back of slavery, and deemed by them to be bound up in the maintenance of slavery---to wit, the supremacy of the white man's civilization, the supremacy of the ethical culture, which had been gradually built up through countless generations---has not been lost. We have not had the experience of the countries to the south of us; but I ask you, my friends, in all soberness and candor, to ask yourselves how and why we escaped the evils which befell others from identical causes, under similar, though not identical, conditions? What prevented the Africanization of the South? We escaped, but those of you, even no older than I am, will remember by what a slender thread we held to safety. You will remember the ten long years of so-called reconstruction which made the four long years of war itself seem tolerable by comparison, the ten long years during every day and every night of which Southern womanhood was menaced and Southern manhood humiliated. The brethren of our own race, in our own country---the country whose pen had been Jefferson, whose tongue had been Patrick Henry, and whose sword had been Washington---were against not only us but the race itself---its past, its future---were seemingly bent only on two things---our humiliation as a race in the present, our subordination as a race in the future. There is no grander, no more superb spectacle than that of the white men of the South standing from '65 to '74 and quietly, determinedly, solidly, shoulder to shoulder in phalanx, as if the entire race were one man, unintimidated by defeat in war, unawed by adverse power, unbribed by patronage, unbought by the prospect of present material prosperity, waiting and hoping and praying for the opportunity which, in the providence of God, must come to overthrow the supremacy of "veneered savages," superficially "Americanized Africans" waiting to reassert politically and socially the supremacy of the civilization of the English-speaking white race. But what gave them the capacity to do this sublime thing, to conceive it and to persevere in it to the end? to wait like hounds in the leash---impatient, yet obedient to the call of the huntsman's horn---which came upon the heels of the autumn elections in the Northwestern States in 1874? What gave this capacity to the "easy-going, indolent, life-enjoying" Southerner? What if not four years of discipline, training, hardship? Four years which taught the consciousness of strength and mutual courage, the consciousness of capacity for working together, the power and the desire of organization, and which gave them, with it all, a capacity for stern action when required by stern events? But for the war---the lessons which it taught, the discipline which it enforced, the capacity for racial organization which was born with it---I, for one, do not believe that conditions in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi to-day would be very far different from what they are in Hayti, Cuba, or Martinique. Neither of these causes is a lost cause. The very men who told us in the sixties and the seventies that one man was as good as another, no matter what the state of his civilization, no matter what his race traits and tendencies, are the very men who now, in establishing new governments in the new insular possessions, not only admit, hut strenuously contend for the necessity of making such provisions of law as will prevent the white men in those possessions from being ruled by other races. The act of Congress for the government of the islands of Hawaii is almost identically the Mississippi Constitution reenacted, and the reason for its passage was the same---namely, to secure, as far as possible, without violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the white man's supremacy there, and this, too, although the native Kanakas in the Hawaiian Islands have a percentage of illiteracy less than that of any State in the Union except one, and although the white men in the islands do not constitute one-fifth of the population. My friends, there is no other instance that I know of where men having apparently lost a cause by four years of fighting subsequently preserved it by ten years of un-terrified solidarity, superb patience, and magnificent common sense. I believe the world knows about us now these two things: First, that we have the strength of a giant; and, secondly, that we can be trusted not to use it like a giant---brutally and irrationally. So much for the cause of the sixties. And yet, my friends, there are people who say that all this sort of talk is "sentiment;" that what we want to do is to "come down to cotton and corn and pork;" buying and selling, negotiating bank exchange; that everything else is "sentiment," and that sentiment is "rot." Let it be a point with you, young boys and girls, to remember that the only thing in this world which is not "rot" is sentiment. That thing is rot which can last a man only a lifetime---which rusts and corrupts and decays---that thing, in other words, which can rot. Your cotton and produce are "rot;" your bank exchange is "rot;" your talk about mere material prosperity, as the chief aim and object and existence of man, is "rot," because when you come to lie down and die and be placed within your narrow habitation, six or seven feet by three or four, not one of these things, nor things gained in this way, can you carry with you, nor present as a part of yourself at the chance of God. They are well enough---we want them, and plenty of them---but they are of the earth earthy and exceedingly temporal. It is only your sentiments and the principles upon which they are based, as a house founded upon a rock, and the purposes, aspirations, and ideals which grow out from them, as a tree does from its sub-soil roots, that you can carry with you, because they have become a part of your immortal souls. Business is all right, so is moneymaking. Every man should be diligent in business. We have apostolic authority for that. Every man should want to make money, in order that he may look all other men straight in the eye, with the independence of a true manhood, owing no man anything, saying with poor Bobbie Burns: "Not for to hide it in a hedge, But the man who subordinates his nature, who prostitutes his chief energies, to the business of piling one dollar upon another, who forgets that there are flowers and poetry, a past and a present for himself and for his race, on earth and in heaven, who has narrowed himself to the point where everything but money-making and so-called business has become "rot," would be bored to death in the kingdom of heaven in twenty-four hours. A country without memories is without history, a country without history is without traditions, and a country without traditions is without ideals and community aspirations, and a country without these is without sentiment, and a country without sentiment is without capacity for achieving noble purposes, developing right manhood, or taking any truly great place in the history of the world. I have talked about your leaders, but, my friends, what makes leaders? The greatest leaders must have followers worthy of them. I have mentioned some of the great leaders on land and at sea of the great army of the Confederacy, but have failed as yet to mention its crowning glory, which was the private soldier. Taken all in all, no body of private soldiers like that of the Confederacy has ever existed or fought under any leadership. They were equally great on the march; on the defensive; on the attack, when the order to charge came; in prison, where "durance vile" and suffering for food on the one hand, and the temptation of offered freedom on the other, were equal inducements to desertion. I remember the Confederate soldier best of all when he was on the march. I can see him now winding his way through the dust, shoe-mouth deep, unwashed, unkempt, but jovial still. I can hear his voice as he passes the big gate: "Buddy, does your grandma know you are out?" "Sissy, who painted your lips so red?" No wonder that, with all the raiding and counter-raiding, passing and counter-passing of war, the boys of my age---nine, ten, or eleven years---thought that the jolliest life in the world must be that of a soldier, and looked forward to the time when they might be permitted to participate in it; not as a day of great responsibility, inaugurating a life of much danger, but as a sort of holiday, when fun would be unending and jokes ever recurrent. There existed once a man by the name of Hannibal; later a Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte by name; earlier another Italian from Rome, of the genus Julius, surnamed Caesar---all of whom thought they knew something about the importance of time in military operations, something about marching infantry, so as to be "at the point of crisis with the largest numbers first;" but one Thomas Jonathan Jackson, surnamed "Stonewall," because he could, when that was the thing to do, stand still like a stone wall, might, in this game of marching, have given either of these world captains an advantage of three out of five and beaten them to the goal; and an unlettered man, guiltless of military training, untutored in the science of war, half West Tennesseean and half North Mississippian, by name Bedford Forrest, could not only have taught them how to move cavalry quicker than they knew, but could have revolutionized for them, as he did for the modern world, the art of war by changing cavalry into "mounted infantry," with all the advantage of cavalry on the march, and all the advantage of infantry in the fight. One of the inexplicable things to me about the Southern soldier is this, that he seemed to have been, for the most part, without a sufficiency of anything in the world except guns and ammunition. He developed a marvelous and unparalleled capacity for starving and going naked, but somehow he seems never to have been without guns and ammunition, at least enough to start a battle on. I have said the Southern soldier was great on the march, but marching, after all, is only "getting there." Critics were right when they said the Southerner would be great on the charge. The world has witnessed some great charges in its day. But where, in all the history of all the charges, do you find exploits comparable to that beginning at Savage Station and continuing on through the seven days and ending at Malvern Hill? to that of the Texans, when they told Lee to go to the rear, in the Wilderness? to that suicidal, murderous, and unavailing onslaught of the Confederate infantry upon the breastworks of Franklin? and, above all, to that of Pickett and his men at Gettysburg? I can see them now, the reluctantly obedient and sullen corps commander sitting upon the fence, Pickett saluting and asking: "General, shall I carry my men in?" Longstreet's bowing without a word. I can hear the Virginian giving his orders, see him in his place with head bared, see the sweep of the line without a break, as it goes across and up the long slope, the orders almost noiselessly passed to close up as the artillery, and later the musketry, tear the ranks to pieces; I can see the long slope from one end of that gray line to the other, in the course of its march by the dead and dying; I can see the few who attained the height vaulting, sword in hand, or with clubbed musket, into the enemy's intrenchment. I can see them looking about to find themselves surrounded by blue-coated soldiers---more than enough without arms to have tied them with pocket handkerchiefs. I can see those few---O, so few---looking back over that long, long slope to find not one gray coat in sight for a support---Lee's orders not carried out. I see them then, despair of desperation settling upon them, some surrendered and some beginning to break back to the Confederate line; I can hear later the anguished and agonizing reproach of Pickett, when he states to Gen. Lee that his magnificent division has been swept out of existence, and I can hear Lee, with a greatness of soul, a magnanimity of which he alone was capable, saying, "Never mind, General, it has all been my fault," and to the men: "You must help me get out of this as best we can." In comparison with this demonstration of the courage of the soldier and the magnanimity of the leader, what could you quote from all history? . But if this Southerner were a great soldier, what made him so? There must be some reason for it, or else it cannot be true. What are the private soldiers of a volunteer army? They are simply the plain people in uniform. The soldiers of the Confederacy were great then, because they were a great people, because they were a free and equal people; an ultra democratic people. Free, proud of their liberties, proud of their determination to maintain them; equal, no man daring to assert, throughout all the Southern land, any inherited or acquired superiority over his fellows, except that given by character and knowledge. In the Confederate army there marched, shoulder to shoulder, men whose fathers owned their hundred negroes and their five thousand acres, and the sons of overseers or of poor yeomanry, who owned nothing except the crops they made each year. The Confederate soldier, when off duty, if intimacy in private life justifled it, as it nearly always did, called his colonel "Henry," his captain "Jim" or "Jack." I have frequently heard men, tip North especially, talking about "Southern aristocracy" Except in the early days upon the tide water of Virginia and in the low country of South Carolina, nobody in the South ever assumed to be an aristocrat, for if he did the balance "jes' laffed," and even in those localities the assumption owed its birth to colonial conditions and died out, or was dying out, with them. Talking once in the cloakroom at Washington to a gentleman from the North, who had said something about Southern aristocracy, I said: "It takes just two things to constitute an aristocrat down South: one is to be white and the other is to be decent." Being white costs nothingła man is born that way. Being decent is not expensivełwater is cheap, all that is necessarily added is to be clean in thought and speech, as well as in person. Thus, we can all be Southern aristocrats whenever we choose. Our people were always democratic; in fact, slavery had that effect in the South, which it has had in all countries where one race has held another in slavery. The line of demarcation between the slave and the free man was a line so broad and so marked that it virtually wiped out all other lines of demarcation in society. In enforcement of what I said to my Northern friend in the cloakroom, I added that in my own town I had seen a citizen paint the outside and paper the inside walls of a fellow-citizen and afterwards dined at that fellow-citizen's house, with the Governor of the State, and the bishop of the Episcopal Church, and that he dined there as the admitted equal of his host and of the guests, without condescension of any sort, simply because he was a good citizen and had been a good Confederate soldier. This plain people, such as I have described them, being put in uniform, constituted what a generous-minded Northern officer has called "the incomparable infantry of Northern Virginia, with bare feet and tattered uniforms, but bright muskets" Well might he use the word incomparable. What other soldiery in the history of the world, viewed solely in the cold, historical light of actual accomplishment, has been comparable to it? The "plain people in uniform," the private soldiers of the Confederacy, were great, because of their democracy, race pride, and environment. But in addition to environment there are other things which determine the character of a man or of a people. Heredity is one, perhaps the chief. Their ideal was all that was - highest and best and bravest and most chivalrous among the acquirements of the race to which they belongedłthe culmination of duty and personal honor. Men are made great soldiers by what they fight for as much as by what they are, and you veterans, growing daily older in years and fewer in numbers, do not imagine that you and those who fought with you deserve all of the credit for the magnificent courage, the superb fortitude, which you displayed. You showed the "mettle of your pasture. You ought to have fought better than anybody else. You fought for more than anybody else ever did. You had more to fight for. You not only fought for the right of local self-government, for the supremacy of the race, and for the very life of your civilization, but you went forth to fight for them at the bidding of a pure, home-keeping womenhood the very flower and fruit of it all; the sweetest, gentlest, purest womenhood that the world has ever seen, and, too, a womanhood which encouraged to action and pointed the finger of scorn at the laggard. You fought for all these and last but not least, for your laud. The land itself was and is a glorious thing. The land we live in! The land we love! God sunkisses the heights and throws shadows upon the valleys of no sweeter land in all this world. It is a land to live in, a land to die for. The Southern people present the unparalleled spectacle to the world of being the only people who, for four years, bore upon the points of their bayonets a cause which apparently they lost, and, coming forth from the struggle ruined and despairing, canue forth at least not discordant. They alone of all men under such circumstances have failed and refused to make a scapegoat of a single great man in their military or civil employ, who led them to the unsuccessful issue. They know, whatever the world may think, that it was they themselves who led themselves. They and their children will brook no word of reproach of Lee, of Jackson, of the Johnstons, of Hampton, of Stuart, and their paladins, nor upon their military leaders, nor of reproach or censure of "The Great Mississippian," who, in his person, bore the sufferings of us all, and who lived at the conclusion for only one purposełto draw up and give to the world a dispassionate and true account of the cause for which you fought and of the manner in which you fought it---Jefferson Davis. Once upon the floor of the House of Representatives, while paying but scant attention to the running debate, there fell upon my ears from the lips of a Northern Representative a contemptuous reference to the "poor white trash of the South." The remembrance of all they had been, and all that they were, was in my heart. I said, as I would have you all say: "We have poor men in the South, as you have in Massachusetts, but the poor men are not always, nor generally, trashy." We have "trashy" men in the South, as you have in New England, but some of the trashiest of them are the richest. They are the only body of so-called "common people, of whom it may, as a rule, be said that they can neither be bought nor can they be scared." I might have said that if the poor people of the white race in the South are to be designated as "poor white trash," the gentleman himself and all Northern men might find cause for serious reflection. If there was a class in the South to whom the application might have been applied, it was the class from which Abraham Lincoln sprang---the poorest of the poor, and the thriftless poor, at that. Bone of our bone and sinew of our sinew, he received from a Southem ancestry on both sides---and especially upon his mother's side---his patient courage, his imperturbable perseverance, his loyalty to his ideals, and, above all, the characteristic common sense and sense of humor of the Southerner. I might have told them that they got not only the head of their civil goveminent and the chief of their land captains from our blood or territory, not only Lincoln and Grant and the Rock of Chickamauga---George B. Thomas---but that when they wanted a sea captain worthy of the Vikings of the race they got him in the person of Farragut, of Tennessee, raised out near Knoxville, amidst and one of the class which they contemptuously call "poor white trash." This sentiment, which some people say is "rot," is the heritage which came with disaster and with many ruins. As a great orator has said: "A land without ruins is a land without memories, a land without memories is a land without history." Father Ryan has better expressed it, taking as his text the words of the orator whom I have quoted: " Yes! give me the land where the ruins are spread, The Confederacy had its poets, as it had its land captains and its sea captains---Timmod and Hayne and Thompson---but he who came nearest touching the very heart of the people was Father Ryan. Now, my friends, I have spent over an hour in trying to "utter the thoughts that arise in me," and yet I might have uttered them better in a much shorter time, without wearying your patience, had I quoted the words, rising to a climax, of one verse of that great poem which every Southern child should learn by heart, "The Sword of Robert E. Lee," written by this same "Priest-Poet" of the Confederacy, from whom I have read. Speaking of the sword of Lee, the very flash light of the cause, as its wearer was the very type of the men of the sixties, he says: "Never hand Confederate Veteran, Vol. XII, No. 11 Nashville, Tenn., November, 1904. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISSUES OF THE WAR DISCUSSED John Sharp Williams [The following are extracts from a printed address by Hon. John Sharp Williams, Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Mississippi. The pamphlet is sent out with the compliments of Col. R. B. Snowden, from Memphis, Tenn.] One of the Ten Commandments delivered by Jehovah to Moses on Sinai, and not the least of the ten, is this: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Like all the other commandments of God to his children, this applies not only to the individual man, but to men in the aggregate---men in organized societies forming governments, constituting peoples. Just as the boy who does not honor his father and mother is apt to bring his own life to an untimely end, as a consequence of experimenting in new and foolish paths to the neglect of the advice, accumulated experience, and teaching of those who have seen the world before him, so a people who forget the history, despise the traditions, ignore the ideals, and fail to share the aspirations of their ancestry are a people not apt to conserve anything---neither their own power nor greatness, nor their very living in the land itself. We hear much about a "New South." There is no New South. What there is of change is a change in the direction of the energies of the people; and if there be anything great and good in the so-called "new" South, as far as I have been able to ascertain, it is always something whose growth has its roots in the soil of the Old South. Everything admirable in the so-called "new" South is built upon the old, as a house is builded upon flue rock of its foundation. We hear much of letting the "dead past bury its dead." No poet who was a philosopher, and perhaps no real poet, would ever have uttered that sentence. There is no such thing as a dead past. Ladies and gentlemen, thirty-nine years ago there occurred near the little village of Appomattox, in the State of Virginia, one of the most memorable and pathetic scenes in all history. A few ragged and half-starved men were surrendered, and with them there was seemingly surrendered a cause for which they had fought for four years. This seeming made it sadder. It is useless to picture the scene; Lee for the first time for many months in bright new uniform, with new sword; Grant, rough from the field, with his officers about him; the few brief words spoken around the table, where the terms were agreed to; the silence and sadness which pervaded the minds and marked the conduct even of the Federal officers and men; the scene a few minutes later when the Confederate chieftain was among his men; the tears coursing down rugged cheeks, that had perhaps never felt them before; men returning, with no vision of hope to cheer them, to lives of hardship and of labor; a despairing people and a desolate land! It is useless to picture all this, I say, because the imagination of each old veteran here pictures it all for himself, and every child has heard it told so often that it presents itself in vivid coloring even to his mind. This marked really the war-close of a great struggle, and when we gather, as we yearly do, upon the anniversary month of that event, on our decoration day, the celebration, in its beauty and in its sadness, is a fitting one. But in everything which rational men do, in which there is either beauty or pathos, there must also be a reason. What is it, then, which we celebrate on an occasion like this? Is it mere physical courage? If it were, the world in all of its history could not find a physical courage superior to that of the men who died or surrendered under Lee, Jackson, and the Johnstons. But mere physical courage is a thing too common amongst the men of the race to which we belong to be worthy of any sort of celebration for its own sake. Mere fighting is no virtue; far from it. Indeed, the man who is not great enough and brave enough not to fight when he ought not to is a poor excuse for a man. Speaking for myself, I have no admiration of the professional fighter, whether he be a Texas cowboy or a West Point graduate. Why do we meet? What is the purpose of our coming together? Is it to keep alive the memory of a "lost cause?" Is it the "lost cause" which we celebrate? Not a whit of it, for, if it is, we have no cause to celebrate. In the economy of God, there are no lost causes in this world, except wrong causes. II; every cause which has ever existed, whether it has apparently prevailed or apparently gone down, there have been some things---mere accompaniments, perhaps---which were wrong, but in every cause worthy of celebration there have been things which were not wrong but right, and which, being eternally right, have not gone down as lost forever, though, perhaps, temporarily eclipsed. We meet to celebrate the cause and the men of the sixties. What was the cause? Was it secession? Not a whit of it. Secession was merely the remedy which was invoked for the assertion of a right, for the maintenance of a cause. It had been twice before virtually invoked in these United States, though the sword had not been drawn to support its invocation---once by New Englanders. in opposition to what they considered the tyranny of the Embargo Laws, and once by the South Carolinians in denial of the constitutional. right of a government of all the people to levy tribute upon all the people in order to make the capital of a part of the people more profitable, or the labor of a part of the people better compensated. War determined that the remedy should fail, and I think we are all agreed that it is well that the remedy failed. I think we are all ready to go forward, marching shoulder to shoulder, with an eye to the possibilities of the future, rejoicing in the lusty strength of a great and reunited people. What was the cause, then? Was it slavery? Not a whit of it. Slavery was undoubtedly the occasion of the quarrel and of the fight; but had the South been attacked in any of her other property or civil rights, she would have defended them just as readily; in fact, more readily than she did in this case. It was merely upon the side of slavery that our right to local self-government was attacked. But there was something else, and even a greater cause than local self-government, for which we fought. Local self government temporarily destroyed may be recovered and ultimately retained. The other thing for which we fought is so complex in its composition, so delicate in its breath, so incomparable in its symmetry, that, being once destroyed, it is forever destroyed. This other thing for which we fought was the supremacy of the white man's civilization in the country which he proudly claimed his own; "in the land which the Lord his God had given him;" founded upon the white man's code of ethics, in sympathy with the white man's traditions and ideals. Our forefathers of the forties and fifties and sixties believed that if slavery were abolished, unless the black race were deported from the American States, there would result in the Southern States just such a condition of things as had resulted in San Domingo, in the other West Indies Islands, and in the so-called republics of Central and South America---namely, a hybridization of races, a lowering of the ethical standard, and a degradation, if not loss, of civilization. Slavery is lost, and it is certainly well for us and the public---perhaps for the negro---that it has been lost. But the real cause for which our ancestors fought back of slavery, and deemed by them to be bound up in the maintenance of slavery---to wit, the supremacy of the white man's civilization, the supremacy of the ethical culture, which had been gradually built up through countless generations---has not been lost. We have not had the experience of the countries to the south of us; but I ask you, my friends, in all soberness and candor, to ask yourselves how and why we escaped the evils which befell others from identical causes, under similar, though not identical, conditions? What prevented the Africanization of the South? We escaped, but those of you, even no older than I am, will remember by what a slender thread we held to safety. You will remember the ten long years of so-called reconstruction which made the four long years of war itself seem tolerable by comparison, the ten long years during every day and every night of which Southern womanhood was menaced and Southern manhood humiliated. The brethren of our own race, in our own country---the country whose pen had been Jefferson, whose tongue had been Patrick Henry, and whose sword had been Washington---were against not only us but the race itself---its past, its future---were seemingly bent only on two things---our humiliation as a race in the present, our subordination as a race in the future. There is no grander, no more superb spectacle than that of the white men of the South standing from '65 to '74 and quietly, determinedly, solidly, shoulder to shoulder in phalanx, as if the entire race were one man, unintimidated by defeat in war, unawed by adverse power, unbribed by patronage, unbought by the prospect of present material prosperity, waiting and hoping and praying for the opportunity which, in the providence of God, must come to overthrow the supremacy of "veneered savages," superficially "Americanized Africans" waiting to reassert politically and socially the supremacy of the civilization of the English-speaking white race. But what gave them the capacity to do this sublime thing, to conceive it and to persevere in it to the end? to wait like hounds in the leash---impatient, yet obedient to the call of the huntsman's horn---which came upon the heels of the autumn elections in the Northwestern States in 1874? What gave this capacity to the "easy-going, indolent, life-enjoying" Southerner? What if not four years of discipline, training, hardship? Four years which taught the consciousness of strength and mutual courage, the consciousness of capacity for working together, the power and the desire of organization, and which gave them, with it all, a capacity for stern action when required by stern events? But for the war---the lessons which it taught, the discipline which it enforced, the capacity for racial organization which was born with it---I, for one, do not believe that conditions in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi to-day would be very far different from what they are in Hayti, Cuba, or Martinique. Neither of these causes is a lost cause. The very men who told us in the sixties and the seventies that one man was as good as another, no matter what the state of his civilization, no matter what his race traits and tendencies, are the very men who now, in establishing new governments in the new insular possessions, not only admit, hut strenuously contend for the necessity of making such provisions of law as will prevent the white men in those possessions from being ruled by other races. The act of Congress for the government of the islands of Hawaii is almost identically the Mississippi Constitution reenacted, and the reason for its passage was the same---namely, to secure, as far as possible, without violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the white man's supremacy there, and this, too, although the native Kanakas in the Hawaiian Islands have a percentage of illiteracy less than that of any State in the Union except one, and although the white men in the islands do not constitute one-fifth of the population. My friends, there is no other instance that I know of where men having apparently lost a cause by four years of fighting subsequently preserved it by ten years of un-terrified solidarity, superb patience, and magnificent common sense. I believe the world knows about us now these two things: First, that we have the strength of a giant; and, secondly, that we can be trusted not to use it like a giant---brutally and irrationally. So much for the cause of the sixties. And yet, my friends, there are people who say that all this sort of talk is "sentiment;" that what we want to do is to "come down to cotton and corn and pork;" buying and selling, negotiating bank exchange; that everything else is "sentiment," and that sentiment is "rot." Let it be a point with you, young boys and girls, to remember that the only thing in this world which is not "rot" is sentiment. That thing is rot which can last a man only a lifetime---which rusts and corrupts and decays---that thing, in other words, which can rot. Your cotton and produce are "rot;" your bank exchange is "rot;" your talk about mere material prosperity, as the chief aim and object and existence of man, is "rot," because when you come to lie down and die and be placed within your narrow habitation, six or seven feet by three or four, not one of these things, nor things gained in this way, can you carry with you, nor present as a part of yourself at the chance of God. They are well enough---we want them, and plenty of them---but they are of the earth earthy and exceedingly temporal. It is only your sentiments and the principles upon which they are based, as a house founded upon a rock, and the purposes, aspirations, and ideals which grow out from them, as a tree does from its sub-soil roots, that you can carry with you, because they have become a part of your immortal souls. Business is all right, so is moneymaking. Every man should be diligent in business. We have apostolic authority for that. Every man should want to make money, in order that he may look all other men straight in the eye, with the independence of a true manhood, owing no man anything, saying with poor Bobbie Burns: "Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for train attendant; But for the glorious privilege Of being independent." But the man who subordinates his nature, who prostitutes his chief energies, to the business of piling one dollar upon another, who forgets that there are flowers and poetry, a past and a present for himself and for his race, on earth and in heaven, who has narrowed himself to the point where everything but money-making and so-called business has become "rot," would be bored to death in the kingdom of heaven in twenty-four hours. A country without memories is without history, a country without history is without traditions, and a country without traditions is without ideals and community aspirations, and a country without these is without sentiment, and a country without sentiment is without capacity for achieving noble purposes, developing right manhood, or taking any truly great place in the history of the world. I have talked about your leaders, but, my friends, what makes leaders? The greatest leaders must have followers worthy of them. I have mentioned some of the great leaders on land and at sea of the great army of the Confederacy, but have failed as yet to mention its crowning glory, which was the private soldier. Taken all in all, no body of private soldiers like that of the Confederacy has ever existed or fought under any leadership. They were equally great on the march; on the defensive; on the attack, when the order to charge came; in prison, where "durance vile" and suffering for food on the one hand, and the temptation of offered freedom on the other, were equal inducements to desertion. I remember the Confederate soldier best of all when he was on the march. I can see him now winding his way through the dust, shoe-mouth deep, unwashed, unkempt, but jovial still. I can hear his voice as he passes the big gate: "Buddy, does your grandma know you are out?" "Sissy, who painted your lips so red?" No wonder that, with all the raiding and counter-raiding, passing and counter-passing of war, the boys of my age---nine, ten, or eleven years---thought that the jolliest life in the world must be that of a soldier, and looked forward to the time when they might be permitted to participate in it; not as a day of great responsibility, inaugurating a life of much danger, but as a sort of holiday, when fun would be unending and jokes ever recurrent. There existed once a man by the name of Hannibal; later a Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte by name; earlier another Italian from Rome, of the genus Julius, surnamed Caesar---all of whom thought they knew something about the importance of time in military operations, something about marching infantry, so as to be "at the point of crisis with the largest numbers first;" but one Thomas Jonathan Jackson, surnamed "Stonewall," because he could, when that was the thing to do, stand still like a stone wall, might, in this game of marching, have given either of these world captains an advantage of three out of five and beaten them to the goal; and an unlettered man, guiltless of military training, untutored in the science of war, half West Tennesseean and half North Mississippian, by name Bedford Forrest, could not only have taught them how to move cavalry quicker than they knew, but could have revolutionized for them, as he did for the modern world, the art of war by changing cavalry into "mounted infantry," with all the advantage of cavalry on the march, and all the advantage of infantry in the fight. One of the inexplicable things to me about the Southern soldier is this, that he seemed to have been, for the most part, without a sufficiency of anything in the world except guns and ammunition. He developed a marvelous and unparalleled capacity for starving and going naked, but somehow he seems never to have been without guns and ammunition, at least enough to start a battle on. I have said the Southern soldier was great on the march, but marching, after all, is only "getting there." Critics were right when they said the Southerner would be great on the charge. The world has witnessed some great charges in its day. But where, in all the history of all the charges, do you find exploits comparable to that beginning at Savage Station and continuing on through the seven days and ending at Malvern Hill? to that of the Texans, when they told Lee to go to the rear, in the Wilderness? to that suicidal, murderous, and unavailing onslaught of the Confederate infantry upon the breastworks of Franklin? and, above all, to that of Pickett and his men at Gettysburg? I can see them now, the reluctantly obedient and sullen corps commander sitting upon the fence, Pickett saluting and asking: "General, shall I carry my men in?" Longstreet's bowing without a word. I can hear the Virginian giving his orders, see him in his place with head bared, see the sweep of the line without a break, as it goes across and up the long slope, the orders almost noiselessly passed to close up as the artillery, and later the musketry, tear the ranks to pieces; I can see the long slope from one end of that gray line to the other, in the course of its march by the dead and dying; I can see the few who attained the height vaulting, sword in hand, or with clubbed musket, into the enemy's intrenchment. I can see them looking about to find themselves surrounded by blue-coated soldiers---more than enough without arms to have tied them with pocket handkerchiefs. I can see those few---O, so few---looking back over that long, long slope to find not one gray coat in sight for a support---Lee's orders not carried out. I see them then, despair of desperation settling upon them, some surrendered and some beginning to break back to the Confederate line; I can hear later the anguished and agonizing reproach of Pickett, when he states to Gen. Lee that his magnificent division has been swept out of existence, and I can hear Lee, with a greatness of soul, a magnanimity of which he alone was capable, saying, "Never mind, General, it has all been my fault," and to the men: "You must help me get out of this as best we can." In comparison with this demonstration of the courage of the soldier and the magnanimity of the leader, what could you quote from all history? . But if this Southerner were a great soldier, what made him so? There must be some reason for it, or else it cannot be true. What are the private soldiers of a volunteer army? They are simply the plain people in uniform. The soldiers of the Confederacy were great then, because they were a great people, because they were a free and equal people; an ultra democratic people. Free, proud of their liberties, proud of their determination to maintain them; equal, no man daring to assert, throughout all the Southern land, any inherited or acquired superiority over his fellows, except that given by character and knowledge. In the Confederate army there marched, shoulder to shoulder, men whose fathers owned their hundred negroes and their five thousand acres, and the sons of overseers or of poor yeomanry, who owned nothing except the crops they made each year. The Confederate soldier, when off duty, if intimacy in private life justifled it, as it nearly always did, called his colonel "Henry," his captain "Jim" or "Jack." I have frequently heard men, tip North especially, talking about "Southern aristocracy" Except in the early days upon the tide water of Virginia and in the low country of South Carolina, nobody in the South ever assumed to be an aristocrat, for if he did the balance "jes' laffed," and even in those localities the assumption owed its birth to colonial conditions and died out, or was dying out, with them. Talking once in the cloakroom at Washington to a gentleman from the North, who had said something about Southern aristocracy, I said: "It takes just two things to constitute an aristocrat down South: one is to be white and the other is to be decent." Being white costs nothingła man is born that way. Being decent is not expensivełwater is cheap, all that is necessarily added is to be clean in thought and speech, as well as in person. Thus, we can all be Southern aristocrats whenever we choose. Our people were always democratic; in fact, slavery had that effect in the South, which it has had in all countries where one race has held another in slavery. The line of demarcation between the slave and the free man was a line so broad and so marked that it virtually wiped out all other lines of demarcation in society. In enforcement of what I said to my Northern friend in the cloakroom, I added that in my own town I had seen a citizen paint the outside and paper the inside walls of a fellow-citizen and afterwards dined at that fellow-citizen's house, with the Governor of the State, and the bishop of the Episcopal Church, and that he dined there as the admitted equal of his host and of the guests, without condescension of any sort, simply because he was a good citizen and had been a good Confederate soldier. This plain people, such as I have described them, being put in uniform, constituted what a generous-minded Northern officer has called "the incomparable infantry of Northern Virginia, with bare feet and tattered uniforms, but bright muskets" Well might he use the word incomparable. What other soldiery in the history of the world, viewed solely in the cold, historical light of actual accomplishment, has been comparable to it? The "plain people in uniform," the private soldiers of the Confederacy, were great, because of their democracy, race pride, and environment. But in addition to environment there are other things which determine the character of a man or of a people. Heredity is one, perhaps the chief. Their ideal was all that was - highest and best and bravest and most chivalrous among the acquirements of the race to which they belongedłthe culmination of duty and personal honor. Men are made great soldiers by what they fight for as much as by what they are, and you veterans, growing daily older in years and fewer in numbers, do not imagine that you and those who fought with you deserve all of the credit for the magnificent courage, the superb fortitude, which you displayed. You showed the "mettle of your pasture. You ought to have fought better than anybody else. You fought for more than anybody else ever did. You had more to fight for. You not only fought for the right of local self-government, for the supremacy of the race, and for the very life of your civilization, but you went forth to fight for them at the bidding of a pure, home-keeping womenhood the very flower and fruit of it all; the sweetest, gentlest, purest womenhood that the world has ever seen, and, too, a womanhood which encouraged to action and pointed the finger of scorn at the laggard. You fought for all these and last but not least, for your laud. The land itself was and is a glorious thing. The land we live in! The land we love! God sunkisses the heights and throws shadows upon the valleys of no sweeter land in all this world. It is a land to live in, a land to die for. The Southern people present the unparalleled spectacle to the world of being the only people who, for four years, bore upon the points of their bayonets a cause which apparently they lost, and, coming forth from the struggle ruined and despairing, canue forth at least not discordant. They alone of all men under such circumstances have failed and refused to make a scapegoat of a single great man in their military or civil employ, who led them to the unsuccessful issue. They know, whatever the world may think, that it was they themselves who led themselves. They and their children will brook no word of reproach of Lee, of Jackson, of the Johnstons, of Hampton, of Stuart, and their paladins, nor upon their military leaders, nor of reproach or censure of "The Great Mississippian," who, in his person, bore the sufferings of us all, and who lived at the conclusion for only one purposełto draw up and give to the world a dispassionate and true account of the cause for which you fought and of the manner in which you fought it---Jefferson Davis. Once upon the floor of the House of Representatives, while paying but scant attention to the running debate, there fell upon my ears from the lips of a Northern Representative a contemptuous reference to the "poor white trash of the South." The remembrance of all they had been, and all that they were, was in my heart. I said, as I would have you all say: "We have poor men in the South, as you have in Massachusetts, but the poor men are not always, nor generally, trashy." We have "trashy" men in the South, as you have in New England, but some of the trashiest of them are the richest. They are the only body of so-called "common people, of whom it may, as a rule, be said that they can neither be bought nor can they be scared." I might have said that if the poor people of the white race in the South are to be designated as "poor white trash," the gentleman himself and all Northern men might find cause for serious reflection. If there was a class in the South to whom the application might have been applied, it was the class from which Abraham Lincoln sprang---the poorest of the poor, and the thriftless poor, at that. Bone of our bone and sinew of our sinew, he received from a Southem ancestry on both sides---and especially upon his mother's side---his patient courage, his imperturbable perseverance, his loyalty to his ideals, and, above all, the characteristic common sense and sense of humor of the Southerner. I might have told them that they got not only the head of their civil goveminent and the chief of their land captains from our blood or territory, not only Lincoln and Grant and the Rock of Chickamauga---George B. Thomas---but that when they wanted a sea captain worthy of the Vikings of the race they got him in the person of Farragut, of Tennessee, raised out near Knoxville, amidst and one of the class which they contemptuously call "poor white trash." This sentiment, which some people say is "rot," is the heritage which came with disaster and with many ruins. As a great orator has said: "A land without ruins is a land without memories, a land without memories is a land without history." Father Ryan has better expressed it, taking as his text the words of the orator whom I have quoted: " Yes! give me the land where the ruins are spread, And the living tread light on the hearts of the dead; Yes! give me a land that is blessed by the dust And bright with the deeds of the downtrodden just. Yes! give me the land where the battle's red blast Has flashed to the future the fame of the past; Yes! give me the land that hath legends and lays, That tell of the memory of long-vanished days; Yes! give me a land that bath story and song, Enshrining the strife of the might and the wrong; Yes! give me a land with a grave in each spot, And the names in the graves that shall not be forgot; Yes! give me the land of the wreck and the tomb, There is grandeur in graves---there is glory in gloom; For out of the gloom future brightness is born, And after the night comes the sunrise of morn; And the graves of the dead with grass overgrown May yet form the footstool of Liberty's throne, And each single wreck in the war-path of might Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right." The Confederacy had its poets, as it had its land captains and its sea captains---Timmod and Hayne and Thompson---but he who came nearest touching the very heart of the people was Father Ryan. Now, my friends, I have spent over an hour in trying to "utter the thoughts that arise in me," and yet I might have uttered them better in a much shorter time, without wearying your patience, had I quoted the words, rising to a climax, of one verse of that great poem which every Southern child should learn by heart, "The Sword of Robert E. Lee," written by this same "Priest-Poet" of the Confederacy, from whom I have read. Speaking of the sword of Lee, the very flash light of the cause, as its wearer was the very type of the men of the sixties, he says: "Never hand Waved sword from stain as free, Nor purer sword led braver band, Nor braver bled for a brighter land, Nor brighter land had a cause so grand, Nor cause a chief like Lee!"
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