Chapter I: Part 1

The Dixie Book of Days

The Dixie Book of Days

MATTHEW PAGE ANDREWS

PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT CO.
1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.

Preface

In the preparation of this volume of quotations illustrative of the history and literature of the South, the editor wishes to acknowledge the kindness of publishers in granting permission to make selections. He desires especially to express his appreciation of the courtesy of the following firms: D. Appleton & Co.; Bobbs-Merrill Co.; The Century Co.; Doubleday, Page & Co.; Harper & Brothers; Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; B. F. Johnson Publishing Co.; P. J. Kenedy & Sons; J. B. Lippincott Co.; Longmans, Green & Co.; Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard Co.; The Macmillan Co.; Martin & Hoyt Co.; The Neale Publishing Co.; G. P. Putnam's Sons; Charles Scribner's Sons; Southern Historical Publication Society; Alfred M. Slocomb Co.; Small, Maynard & Co.; Stewart & Kidd Co.; F. A. Stokes Co.; State Company; Stone & Barringer Co.; and the Whitehall Publishing Co.

M. P. A.

Baltimore, Md., April 30, 1912.

Introduction

This volume of brief selections from a wide range of Southern expression in prose and verse leads into fields of American history and literature which, perhaps, are not well known to the general public. The reader is not offered stacks of straw to thresh over; on the contrary, it has been the aim of the compiler, in a most congenial and delightful task, to afford others easy access to grain that he has already garnered. Generally speaking, the genius of literary production in the Old South did not aspire to an outlet in the field of professional endeavor. There were, however, many gifted writers who regarded production in prose and verse as a pleasant recreation rather than an end, or as an accomplishment common to cultured minds, to be called forth as occasion offered, or when some emotion prompted expression.

By way of illustration, William Henry Timrod may be regarded as potentially a greater poet than his better-known son. Yet he was one of the occasional poets of the old régime. John Laurens composed a sonnet as he lay dying of wounds and fever incurred in defence of his country; and Stuart, in a later struggle, wrote verses while engaged in riding around McClellan's army. These and many others like them never seriously considered revising or publishing their work. They sang from time to time because to them "singing itself is so sweet." This peculiar diffidence is a relic of the past; and at the present time, one need but review the list of leading American novelists to find that a remarkably large proportion have come from the South and write on Southern themes.

Thus, while the very nature of the South lends itself to sentiment and romance, her history is yet to be written. This little volume attempts, therefore, with particular care, to treat of historical events as their anniversaries bring them to mind. Comparatively few are the enduring works of Southern historians; and yet from the beginning of colonization the South has thrilled with the record of daring achievement. In the work of her soldiers and statesmen, the South led in shaping the Republic out of rebellion, revolution, and jarring elements. During and after the struggle with the mother country, Jefferson, Henry, Clark, and Virginia gave to the Nation the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It was Jefferson who secured to the Republic peaceful possession of the vast original tract of Louisiana; and it was he, with Lewis and Clark, who made good the claim to the Oregon territory. Furthermore, the mighty empire of Texas and the far Southwest was brought in under the initiative of the South and the leadership of Polk and Tyler.

So did the South mightily assist in making a common government great and strong; but she was likewise building up a power which later overwhelmed her. In truth, she forged the fetters that for forty years chafed her people under an increasingly oppressive legislation; since it was a son of Carolina who first brought forward a tariff for protection, not for Carolina, but for New England and the Nation; and it was Clay of Kentucky who fostered the system until it involved the thirteen agricultural States of the South in an indirect taxation more burdensome than any direct impost ever proposed by Great Britain for the thirteen Colonies. In vain the South protested. Opposing majorities grew against her. And when a solidly sectional party became the dominant power, the Lower South attempted to exercise the hitherto generally conceded right of withdrawal, a right which had been particularly emphasized in New England when that section felt its interests to be in peril. The Upper South opposed coercion; and both prepared for the fight that followed. Such is the principle for which the South contended. She failed not in valor or in honor, but fell through exhaustion; yet glory stood beside her grief, and she endowed the Nation with the stainless names of Lee and Jackson.

With the failure of the South to establish her independence, there fell also, as an incident of the struggle, that which most made her a separate section, politically, economically, and socially--the tutelage, in the most beneficent form of servitude ever known, of a child-race. That race was largely thrust upon her; and yet she raised its people from cannibal savages to civilized beings, whose devotion and faithfulness became the marvel of invading armies. Rather than interpret such a record to her shame, as some would have us do, let it be proclaimed as an everlasting tribute to the lofty character of Anglo-Saxon Christianity.

The South, after fifty years, is more intimately a part of the Union than ever before. Her interests are national and her destiny great. In the youthful Bagley she was the first to give her blood in the war with Spain, therewith cementing the tie that now, without fetters, binds in a steadily growing amity and understanding. To-day, a true Southerner has an abiding love and loyalty for the section that has seen tears and grief, as well as sunshine and flowers, beyond the measure of any country of modern times; but he is also doubly true to, and proud of, the mighty progress of a reunited Republic. Surely it is due to the South and due to the Nation that the story of the South be told. And the highest aim of the compiler of these selections is that he may contribute something to promote that steadily expanding knowledge of historical truth which alone can fully allay the spirit of sectional strife, and from which alone we may look for perfect amity and understanding to ensue.

MATTHEW PAGE ANDREWS

January

TO TIME, THE OLD TRAVELER

They slander thee, Old Traveler,
Who say that thy delight
Is to scatter ruin, far and wide,
In thy wantonness of might:
For not a leaf that falleth
Before thy restless wings,
But in thy flight, thou changest it
To a thousand brighter things.

* * * *

'Tis true thy progress layeth
Full many a loved one low,
And for the brave and beautiful
Thou hast caused our tears to flow;
But always near the couch of death
Nor thou, nor we can stay;
_And the breath of thy departing wings
Dries all our tears away_!
WILLIAM HENRY TIMROD

January First

Some thunder on the heights of song, their race
Godlike in power, while others at their feet
Are breathing measures scarce less strong and sweet
Than those that peal from out that loftiest place;
Meantime, just midway on the mount, his face
Fairer than April heavens, when storms retreat,
And on their edges rain and sunshine meet,
Pipes the soft lyrist lays of tender grace,
But where the slopes of bright Parnassus sweep
Near to the common ground, a various throng
Chant lowlier measures--yet each tuneful strain
(The silvery minor of earth's perfect song)
Blends with that music of the topmost steep,
O'er whose vast realm the master minstrels reign!
PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

O'er those who lost and those who won,
Death holds no parley which was right--
JEHOVAH judges Arlington.
JAMES RYDER RANDALL

_Paul Hamilton Hayne born, 1830_

_James Ryder Randall, Laureate of the War between the States, born, 1839_

January Second

... In a word,
Mars and Minerva both in him concurred
For arts, for arms, whose pen and sword alike,
As Cato's did, may admiration strike
Into his foes; while they confess withal
It was their guilt styled him a criminal....
_From Epitaph by "His Man"_

In this epitaph we have what is in all probability the single poem in any true sense--the single product of sustained poetic art--that was written in America for a hundred and fifty years after the settlement of Jamestown.

WILLIAM P. TRENT

_Nathaniel Bacon, "The First American Rebel," born, 1647_

January Third

The only calendar
That marks my seasons,
Is that sweet face of hers,
Her moods and reasons,
Wherein no record is
Of winter seasons.
MADISON CAWEIN

_Alfred Mordecai born, 1804_

January Fourth

The strange and curious race madness of the American Republic will be a study for centuries to come. That madness took a child-race out of a warm cradle, threw it into the ocean of politics--the stormiest and most treacherous we have known--and bade it swim for its own and the life of the nation!

MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY

_The Social Equality Bill passed in Louisiana, 1869_

January Fifth

What the cloud doeth
The Lord knoweth,
The cloud knoweth not
What the artist doeth,
The Lord knoweth;
Knoweth the artist not?
SIDNEY LANIER

January Sixth

Few have equaled the old time negro at repartee, and a true Southerner heartily relished a clever rejoinder to his good natured raillery. The rejoinder was frequently overwhelming, always respectful, and generally worth an immediate acknowledgment in cash or old clothes.

"Is that you, Peter?" called an old Confederate to his former body-servant on the road.

Peter grinned broadly as he doffed his hat. "Yas, suh, dis yer me."

"Well, well!" laughed the other. "I see that all the old fools are not dead yet."

"Dat's so, Mars' Tom." Peter pulled his grizzly forelock appreciatively. "I's monsus glad to see dat you's in such good health, suh."

January Seventh

A WELL-KNOWN TYPE OF SOUTHERN MATRON BEFORE THE WAR

Full well she knew the seriousness of life. Over and over the cares and responsibilities of her station as the mother of so many children, the mistress of so many servants and the hostess of so many guests, had utterly overwhelmed her. * * * * * Into how many negro cabins had she not gone, when the night was far spent and the lamp of life flickered low in the breast of the dying slave! How often she ministered to him with her own hands! * * * * Nay, had she not knelt by his lowly bed and poured out her heart to God as his soul winged its flight, and closed his glazed and staring eyes as the day was dawning? Yet the morning meal found her at her accustomed seat, tranquil and helpful, and no one but her husband the wiser for her night's ministrations.

GEORGE W. BAGBY

_Fort Marion, Florida, seized by order of the Governor of Florida, 1861_

January Eighth

Jackson's line, extending about half a mile from the river to the swamp, was defended by a water-filled ditch and by a parapet of varying height and thickness. The idea that it was built of cotton bales is an absurd fiction that brings back the inspiring picture in Peter Parley's old history of our childhood days....

PIERCE BUTLER

"What stopped you?" General Pakenham asked of a regiment of Scotch Highlanders. To which their colonel replied: "Bullets, mon! bullets! Auld Julius Caesar himself wouldn't have charged those devils."

_The "Hunting Shirt Men" of the South versus Wellington's Peninsular veterans in the Battle of New Orleans, 1815; General Pakenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington killed_

_James Longstreet born, 1821_

January Ninth

Consider the lark! How he rises on wing,
And mounts to the sky through ethereal air!
He sings as he soars; 'tis his nature to sing,
To warble his notes though no listener be near.
I seek not for fortune, I sigh not for fame,
I follow my Muse into forest or street;
In sorrow, in gladness, I sing all the same,
I sing because singing itself is so sweet.

[These lines, typifying so much of the poetical expression of the old
South, were written by former Surgeon H. M. Clarkson, C. S. A., who,
on January 9, 1861, as a corporal of artillery, fired a single shot
from Fort Moultrie to challenge the _Star of the West_ in its attempt
to reinforce Fort Sumter. On the same occasion two other shots were
fired by the State cadets stationed on Morris Island, driving the
transport from the harbor. It is not improbable, therefore, that, as
the challenger of the hostile steamer, the writer of these verses
fired the first shot of the war between the States. Corporal Clarkson
was in charge of gun No. 13.--EDITOR]

_The United States transport "Star of the West" attempts to reinforce Fort Sumter, 1861_

_General John B. Gordon dies, 1904_

_Mississippi secedes, 1861_

January Tenth

SECESSION: A SOUTHERN VIEW, 1861

A State, finding herself in the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is--in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union--surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be many), deprives herself of the advantages (and they are known to be great), severs all the ties of affection (and they are close and enduring), which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit--taking upon herself every burden--she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.

JEFFERSON DAVIS
(_Farewell Address in United States Senate_)

SECESSION: FROM THE NORTHERN STANDPOINT, 1814

Whenever it shall appear that these causes are radical and permanent, a separation by equitable arrangement will be preferable to an alliance by constraint, among nominal friends, but real enemies, inflamed by mutual hatred and jealousy, and inviting, by intestine divisions, contempt and aggression from abroad.--_Journal of the Hartford Convention_

_Florida secedes, 1861_

_The "Bonnie Blue Flag" first sung in public at Jackson Mississippi, 1861_

January Eleventh

The States of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee were engaged in practical movements for the gradual emancipation of their slaves. This movement continued until it was arrested by the aggressions of the Abolitionists.

GEORGE LUNT
(Massachusetts)

And if the secrets of all hearts could have been revealed, our enemies would have been astounded to see how many thousands and tens of thousands in the Southern States felt the crushing burden and the awful responsibility of the institution which we were supposed to be defending with the melodramatic fury of pirate kings. We were born to this social order, we had to do our duty in it according to our lights, and this duty was made indefinitely more difficult by the interference of those who, as we thought, could not understand the conditions of the problem, and who did not have to bear the expense of the experiments they proposed.

BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE

_Thomas Jefferson Randolph's resolutions on the abolition of slavery introduced for extended debate in the Virginia Assembly, 1832_

_Alabama secedes, 1861_

January Twelfth

We are a band of brothers, and native to the soil,
Fighting for our liberty, with treasure, blood, and toil.
And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and far:
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!
HARRY MCCARTHY

January Thirteenth

FIFTY YEARS AFTER--THE VIEW OF A FEDERAL OFFICER OF '61-'65

In case of direct and insoluble issue between Sovereign State and Sovereign Nation, every man was not only free to decide, but had to decide the question of ultimate allegiance for himself; and whichever way he decided he was right.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
(Massachusetts)

January Fourteenth

LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE

Maury furnished the brains, England gave the money, and I did the work.

CYRUS W. FIELD
(_At a banquet in New York_)

After a little while
The cross will glisten and the thistles wave
Above my grave;
And planets smile.
Sweet Lord, then pillowed on thy gentle breast,
I fain would rest,
After a little while.
JAMES RYDER RANDALL

_Matthew Fontaine Maury born, 1806_

_James Ryder Randall dies, 1908_

January Fifteenth

A Northerner, who had purchased an estate in Virginia, noticed that smoke always emanated from the chimney of a cabin near his woods where an old negro lived. One day, on meeting the old colored man, he asked: "Where do you get your wood, Uncle?"

The latter eyed him with an expression of great reproach and replied: "My pa was coachman at the Gret House, and he pa, and he pa; 'whar I git my wood?' That ain't no question for one gen'l'man to ax an'er!"

_Fort Fisher, North Carolina, captured, 1865_

January Sixteenth

When wintry days are dark and drear
And all the forest ways grow still,
When gray snow-laden clouds appear
Along the bleak horizon hill,
When cattle all are snugly penned
And sheep go huddling close together,
When steady streams of smoke ascend
From farm-house chimneys--in such weather
Give me old Carolina's own,
A great log house, a great hearthstone,
A cheering pipe of cob or briar
And a red, leaping light'ood fire.
JOHN HENRY BONER
(_The Light'ood Fire_)

_Forcible resistance to British Stamp Act under Colonel Hugh Waddell, of Wilmington, N. C., 1766_

January Seventeenth

VALLEY FORGE EXCEEDED

Starvation, literal starvation, was doing its deadly work. So depleted and poisoned was the blood of many of Lee's men from insufficient and unsound food that a slight wound which would probably not have been reported at the beginning of the war would often cause blood-poison, gangrene, and death. Yet the spirits of these brave men seemed to rise as their condition grew more desperate.... It was a harrowing but not uncommon sight to see those hungry men gather the wasted corn from under the feet of half-fed horses, and wash and parch and eat it to satisfy in some measure their craving for food.

GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON

_Tarleton routed at the battle of the Cowpens, S. C., 1781_

January Eighteenth

While the Confederate soldiers were in the trenches, the ingenuity of the Southern women was taxed to the utmost to supply their household needs. Medicine had been declared contraband of war by the Federal Government, and salt works were made a special object for attack. Remedies were improvised from herbs of all kinds; the dirt floor of the meat house was boiled for the salt it contained; soap was made from china-berries and lye; candles out of resin or waxed rope wound around a corncob; thorns were used for pins; shoes were fashioned out of canvas, and supplied with wooden soles; buttons were made from persimmon seed; tumblers out of glass bottles; tea out of berry leaves; and coffee was made from sweet potatoes and dandelion seed.

[Condensed from accounts of war times--Ed.]

January Nineteenth

ENGLISH TRIBUTES TO AMERICAN GENIUS

LEE--One of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all the generals who have spoken the English tongue.

COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C.B.

POE--How can so strange and fine a genius and so sad a life be expressed and compressed in one line?

LORD TENNYSON
(_From letter in Poe Memorial Vol., 1877_)

_Robert Edward Lee born, 1807_

_Edgar Allan Poe born, 1809_

_Georgia secedes, 1861_

January Twentieth

No truth is lost for which the true are weeping,
Nor dead for which they died.
FRANCIS O. TICKNOR

January Twenty-First

The following lines are remarkable in that they represent a boy's estimate of Stonewall Jackson before the war between the States. They were written by William Fitzhugh Lee when a cadet under Jackson at the Virginia Military Institute:--

Like some rough brute that roams the forest wild,
So rude, uncouth, so purely Nature's child,
Is "Hickory," and yet methinks I see
The stamp of genius on his brow; and he,
With his mild glance and keen, but quiet eye,
Can draw forth from the secret recess where they lie
Those thoughts and feelings of the human heart
Most virtuous, good, and free from guilty art.
There's something in his very mode of life
So accurate, steady, void of care and strife,
That fills my heart with love for him who bears
His honors meekly and who wears
The laurels of a hero! This is a fact,
So here's a heart and hand for "Jack!"

_Stonewall Jackson born, 1824_

January Twenty-Second

Wherein, then, lay his strength, and what was the secret of his influence over all this land? I answer in one word--character. And what is meant by character? Courage? Yes; courage of his opinions, and physical courage as well; for he had a Briton's faith in pluck. Pride of race? In a limited sense, yes. Honesty? The question is almost an insult. Love of truth? Yes, undying love of it.

GEORGE W. BAGBY
("_The Old Virginia Gentleman_")

January Twenty-Third

I reckon hit's well we wuz all set free,
I s'pose dat's de way folks wuz meant ter be,
But I kain't see w'y dey's no manners lef'
Jes' kase dey happens ter own deyse'f.
I dunno rightly how ol' I is,
Hit mought be eighty, I reckon 'tis,
Yit I nuver gone now'ers, I tells you true,
But I tucken my manners an' breedin', too.
ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON

January Twenty-Fourth

Dem sassy young niggers, dey plum' disgrace
De res' uv de' 'spectable cullud race.
Dey got dey books, dey kin read an' write,
But dey dunno 'nough fer to be perlite.
I kain't see how dey gwine git erlong,
Hit seem lak sump'n have done gone wrong.
I gits wo' out wid'em, dat's de fac',
But I orter mek 'lowance fer how dey ac',
'Kase de times an' de doin's is changed a lot,
An' dey ain' had de raisin' dat I done got.
Dar's nuffin lef' me but lookin' on
Twel me an' de ol'-time ways is gone.
ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON

January Twenty-Fifth

Ah, only from his golden throne,
Upon his golden lute,
He touched the magic note; then Poe was known,
And so was quelled dispute.
Open thy portal, Fame! Let soar
That sombre bird, whose song is heard forevermore.
DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS
(_Referring to first publication of
Poe's Raven, 1845_)

_George E. Pickett born, 1825_

January Twenty-Sixth

THREE VIEWS OF SECESSION CONNECTED WITH LOUISIANA; 1803-1811-1861

Resolved, that the annexation of Louisiana to the Union transcends the Constitutional power of the Government of the United States. It formed a New Confederacy to which the States united by the former compact are not bound to adhere.

MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE
(_Upon Purchase of Louisiana Territory, 1803_)

_Louisiana secedes from the Union, 1861_

_Virginia readmitted to the Union, 1870_

January Twenty-Seventh

If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of this Union, that it will free the States from their moral obligations, and as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must.

JOSIAH QUINCY
(_Representative from Massachusetts in Congress, opposing statehood
for Louisiana Territory, 1811_)

_Richard Taylor born, 1826_

January Twenty-Eighth

The rights of Louisiana as a sovereign State are those of Virginia; no more, no less. Let those who deny her right to resume delegated powers successfully refute the claim of Virginia to the same right, in spite of her expressed reservation made and notified to her sister States when she consented to enter the Union.... For two-thirds of a century this right has been known by many of the States to be, at all times, within their power.

JUDAH P. BENJAMIN
(_Farewell Address in the United States Senate_)

January Twenty-Ninth

It was Lee who suggested the capture of Stony Point, and it was a band of North Carolinians who formed Wayne's head of column in the assault upon that fortress. Three hundred Virginians followed Lee in his successful dash against Paulus Hook on the Jersey coast, August, 1779.

HENRY A. WHITE

_Henry Lee ("Light Horse Harry") born, 1756_

January Thirtieth

UNCLE REMUS AT THE TELEPHONE

"Yer 'tis, Miss Sally," said Uncle Remus after listening a moment.

"Dey's a mighty zooin' gwine on in dar, en I dunner whe'er Mars John tryin' ter scramble out, er whe'er he des tryin' fer ter make hisself comfertuble in dar."

"What did he say, Remus?"

"He up en low'd dat one un us wus a vilyun but dey wuz such a buzzin' gwine on in dar dat I couldn't 'zactly ketch the rights un it."

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

January Thirty-first

I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom;
Look away, away, away down South in Dixie.
Her scenes shall fade from my memory never;
For Dixie's land hurrah forever!
Look away, away, away down South in Dixie.

Chorus:

I wish I was in Dixie;
Away, away;
In Dixie's land I'll take my stand,
And live and die in Dixie.
Away, away,
Away down South in Dixie.
Look away, away, away down South in Dixie.
MARIE LOUISE EVE
(_Version of "Dixie"_)

February

TAMPA ROBINS

The robin laughed in the orange-tree:
"Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:
While breasts are red and wings are bold
And green trees wave us globes of gold,
Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me--
Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree....

"I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime;
My wing is king of the summer-time;
My breast to the sun his torch shall hold;
And I'll call down through the green and gold
_Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me,
Bestir thee under the orange-tree_."
SIDNEY LANIER

February First

The Emperor of France made him Commander of the Legion of Honor; The Emperor of Russia, Knight of the Order of St. Ann; the King of Denmark, Knight of the Dannebrog; the King of Portugal, Knight of the Tower and Sword; the King of Belgium, Knight of the Order of St. Leopold; simultaneously with Tennyson, he was awarded an LL.D. by the University of Cambridge, England; he received honorary membership from a score of the world's leading societies of science and scholarship; the Pope conferred upon him a noteworthy testimonial; the Emperor of Mexico gave him a decoration; and Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Holland, Sardinia, Bremen, and France struck medals in his honor as the greatest scientist of the New World, and the peer of any in the Old.

The government of his own country, says Professor Francis H. Smith, has "carefully omitted his name in official records of the departments he created"; nor is it even given a place among the many inscribed in the mighty mosaic of our National Library.

_Matthew Fontaine Maury dies at Lexington, Va., 1873_

_Texas secedes, 1861_

February Second

MAURY'S LAST WISH

"Home--bear me home, at last," he said,
"And lay me where my dead are lying,
But not while skies are overspread,
And mournful wintry winds are sighing.

"When the sky, the air, the grass,
Sweet Nature all, is glad and tender,
Then bear me through 'The Goshen Pass'
Amid its flush of May-day splendor."
MARGARET J. PRESTON

February Third

Snow! Snow! Snow!
Do thy worst, Winter, but know, but know
That, when the Spring cometh, a blossom shall blow
From the heart of the Poet that sleeps below,
And his name to the ends of the earth shall go,
In spite of the snow!
JOHN B. TABB

(_In welcoming "The Forthcoming Volume" of the poems of his fellow soldier, fellow patriot, and fellow artist_,

SIDNEY LANIER)

_Sidney Lanier born, 1842_

_Albert Sidney Johnston born, 1803_

February Fourth

What a beneficent provision of the Creator it was, to roll our little planet but one side at a time next the sun, that while one half of the world fretted and stormed and sinned, the other half might repent and sleep.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER CARRUTHERS

February Fifth

MAURY

The stars had secrets for him; seas
Revealed the depths their waves were screening;
The winds gave up their mysteries;
The tidal flows confessed their meaning.

Of ocean paths, the tangled clew
He taught the nations to unravel;
And showed the track where safely through
The lightning-footed thought might travel.
MARGARET J. PRESTON

February Sixth

GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON

Patriot, soldier, statesman,
Prince of the race of men;
Cypress and rue for his passing,
Laurel for sword and pen.

Dust for the hand that wrought;
But for the lessons taught
Life without end.
IDA SLOCOMB MATTHEWS

_John B. Gordon born, 1832_

_John Pegram killed near Hatcher's Run, 1865_

February Seventh

And there's Joe--my bully Joe--wouldn't I walk ten miles of a rainy night to see them hazel eyes, and feel the grip of his soldier hand? Didn't my rooster always clap his wings and crow whenever he passed our quarters? "Instinct told him that he was the true prince," and it would make anybody brave to be nigh him.

MAJOR CHARLES H. SMITH
(_Bill Arp_)

_Joseph E. Johnston born, 1807_

February Eighth

Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And shall not the evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night,
To mark this day in Heaven? At last, we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port
Another flag unfurled!
HENRY TIMROD
(_Ethnogenesis_)

_Southern Confederacy begins to assume definite form in a league of seven Southern States, 1861_

February Ninth

The great change wrought by the States in resuming their sovereignty, and in forming the Confederate States Government, was attended by no anarchy, no rebellion, no suspension of authority, no social disorders, no lawless disturbances. Sovereignty was not, for one moment, in suspension. Conservatism marked every proceeding and public act. The object was to do what was necessary and no more; and to do that with the utmost temperance and prudence.

J. L. M. CURRY

_William H. Harrison born, 1773_

February Tenth

You say we shall submit to your construction. We shall do it, if you can make us; but not otherwise, or in any other manner. That is settled. You may call it secession, or you may call it revolution; but there is a big fact standing before you, ready to oppose you. That fact is freemen with arms in their hands. The cry of the Union will not disperse them; we have passed that point. They demand equal rights; you had better heed the demand.

ROBERT TOOMBS
(_Farewell Address in the United States Senate_)

February Eleventh

Equality does not exist between blacks and whites. The one race is inferior in many respects, physically and mentally, to the other. This should be received as a fixed invincible fact in all dealings with the subject.

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS
(_Vice-President of the Confederacy_)

I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(_President of the United States_)

_Alexander H. Stephens born in Georgia, 1812_

February Twelfth

Those who would shiver into fragments the Union of these States, tear to tatters its now venerated constitution, and even burn the last copy of the Bible, rather than slavery should continue a single hour, together with all their more halting sympathizers, have received, and are receiving their just execration; and the name and opinion and influence of Mr. Clay are fully and, as I trust, effectually and enduringly arrayed against them.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(_Eulogy on Clay, 1852_)

The abolitionists were always the fiercest opponents of colonization. The practical improvement of the negro, in his native country, did not suit them so well as the impracticable idea of equalizing black men with white in a strange land.

GEORGE LUNT
(Massachusetts)

_Abraham Lincoln born in Kentucky, 1809_

_Gradual emancipation of slaves discussed at Maysville, Ky., 1849_

February Thirteenth

SAINT VALENTINE'S EVE

Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not;
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love a simple duty.
EDGAR ALLAN POE

_Florida admitted to the Union, 1845_

February Fourteenth

A Northern Tribute to the College of Jefferson,
Monroe, Tyler, and Marshall

As a matter of comparison we have lately read that from William and Mary College, Virginia, thirty-two out of thirty-five professors and instructors abandoned the college work and joined the army in the field. Harvard College sent one professor from its large corps of professors and instructors.

GENERAL CHARLES A. WHITTIER
(Massachusetts)

_The charter of William and Mary College granted, 1693_

February Fifteenth

DETERMINING THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE NEW BOARDER

"I will illustrate by an incident," said Mrs. Paynter.

"As I say, this young man spends his entire time in his room, where he is, I believe, engaged in writing a book."

"Oh, me! Then he's penniless, depend upon it!"

HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON
(_Queed_)

_Cyrus Hall McCormick born, 1809_

February Sixteenth

A chicken that had done duty at a previous repast was set before the Rev. Scervant Jones, the first Baptist preacher of Williamsburg, Virginia, at the tavern of a Mr. Howl. Upon which the Reverend gentleman pronounced the following blessing:

"Good Lord of love
Look down from above,
And bless the 'Owl
Who ate this fowl
And left these bones
For Scervant Jones."

_Fort Donelson surrenders, 1862_

February Seventeenth

A NORTHERN VIEW

* * * It was the most monstrous barbarity of the barbarous march. There is no reason to think that General Sherman knew anything of the purpose to burn the city, which had been freely talked about among the soldiers through the afternoon. But there is reason to think that he knew well enough who did it, that he never rebuked it, and made no effort to punish it.

WHITELAW REID
(_Ohio_)

_Sherman burns Columbia, 1865_

February Eighteenth

We have changed the constituent parts, but not the system of our government. The Constitution formed by our fathers is that of the Confederate States, in their exposition of it; and, in the judicial construction it has received, we have a light which reveals its true meaning.

JEFFERSON DAVIS
(_Inaugural Address_)

_Jefferson Davis inaugurated, 1861_

_Federal forces enter Charleston, S. C., 1865_

February Nineteenth

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who has mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.
SIDNEY LANIER

February Twentieth

After the passage of the Anti-Ku Klux Statute by the State of Tennessee, several instances occurred of parties being arrested in Ku Klux disguises; but in every case they proved to be either negroes or "radical" Brownlow Republicans. This occurred so often that the statute was allowed by the party in power to become a dead letter before its repeal. It bore too hard on the "loyal" men when enforced.

J. C. LESTER and D. L. WILSON

As the young German patriots of 1812 organized their struggle for liberty under the noses of the garrisons of Napoleon, so these daring men, girt by thousands of bayonets, discussed and adopted under the cover of darkness the ritual of "The Invisible Empire."

THOMAS DIXON, JR.

_Governor Brownlow of Tennessee calls out the militia to suppress the Ku Klux Klan, 1869_

_Federal troops defeated at Olustee, Fla., 1864_

February Twenty-First

The Ku Klux Klan was a great Law and Order League of mounted night cavalrymen called into action by the intolerable conditions of a reign of terror.... It was the old answer of organized manhood to organized crime masquerading under the forms of government.... Women and children had eyes and saw not, ears and heard not. Over four hundred thousand disguises for men and horses were made by the women of the South, and not one secret ever passed their lips!

THOMAS DIXON, JR.

The View of a "Reconstructionist"

The Ku Klux Order was a daring conception for a conquered people. Only a race of warlike instincts and regal pride could have conceived or executed it. Men, women, and children must have, and be worthy of, implicit mutual trust. They must be trusted with the secrets of life and death without reserve and without fear.

JUDGE ALBION W. TOURGEE
(Ohio)

February Twenty-Second

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life; pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him, as were the effects of that example lasting.

HENRY LEE
(_Father of Robert E. Lee_)

_George Washington born, 1732_

February Twenty-Third

Won in the Name of Virginia; Governor Patrick Henry to Colonel George Rogers Clark:

"You are to retain the Command of the troops now at the several posts in the county of Illinois and on the Wabash, which fall within the limits of the County now erected and called Illinois County.... You are also to take the Command of five other Companies, raised under the act of Assembly which I send herewith, and which if completed, as I hope they will be speedily, will have orders to join you without loss of time, and are likewise to be under your command.... The honor and interest of the State are deeply concerned in this."

_George Rogers Clark appears before Vincennes, 1779_

_Battle of Buena Vista; Col. Jefferson Davis wounded, 1847_

_Mississippi readmitted to the Union, 1870_

February Twenty-Fourth

The importance of this brilliant exploit was destined to be far greater than even Clark foresaw, for when the treaty of peace was being negotiated at Paris in 1782, our allies, France and Spain, were both more than willing to sacrifice our interests in order to keep us out of the Mississippi Valley, and the western boundary of the United States would undoubtedly have been fixed at the Alleghanies instead of the Mississippi, but for the fact that this western region was actually occupied by Virginians.

S. C. MITCHELL

The vast Northwest had been thus won by a heroic band of volunteers, led by one of the most dauntless warriors that ever risked life for country.

THOMAS E. WATSON

_George Rogers Clark stipulates to Governor Hamilton the terms of surrender of the Northwestern territory, 1779_

February Twenty-Fifth

From Inscription on tablet in St. Michael's Church, Charleston, South Carolina.

"As a Statesman
he bequeathed to his country the sentiment,
'Millions for defence
not a cent for tribute.'"

_Charles Cotesworth Pinckney born, 1746_

February Twenty-Sixth

IN THE PETERSBURG TRENCHES

Winter poured down its snows and its sleets upon Lee's shelterless men in the trenches. Some of them burrowed into the earth. Most of them shivered over the feeble fires, kept burning along the lines. Scanty and thin were the garments of these heroes. Most of them were clad in mere rags. Gaunt famine oppressed them every hour. One quarter of a pound of bacon and a little meal was the daily portion assigned to each man by the rules of the War Department. But even this allowance failed when the railroads broke down and left the bacon and the flour piled up beside the tracks in Georgia and the Carolinas. One sixth of this daily ration was the allotment for a considerable time, and very often the supply of bacon failed entirely....

HENRY A. WHITE

February Twenty-Seventh

We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
We leave the swamp and cypress-tree,
Our spurs are in our coursers' sides,
And ready for the strife are we.
The Tory camp is now in sight,
And there he cowers within his den;
He hears our shouts, he dreads the fight,
He fears, and flies from Marion's men.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

_Francis Marion dies, 1795_

_Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, N. C., 1776_

February Twenty-Eighth

The war began, the war went on--this politicians' conspiracy, this slaveholders' rebellion, as it was variously called by those who sought its source, now in the disappointed ambition of the Southern leaders, now in the desperate determination of a slaveholding oligarchy to perpetuate their power, and to secure forever their proprietorship in their "human chattels." On this theory the mass of the Southern people were but puppets in the hands of political wirepullers, or blind followers of hectoring "patricians." To those who know the Southern people nothing can be more absurd; to those who know their personal independence, to those who know the deep interest which they have always taken in politics, the keen intelligence with which they have always followed the questions of the day.

BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE

February Twenty-Ninth

THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING

Fair were our nation's visions, and as grand
As ever floated out of fancy-land;
Children were we in simple faith,
But god-like children, whom nor death,
Nor threat of danger drove from honor's path--
In the land where we were dreaming!

* * * * *

A figure came among us as we slept--
At first he knelt, then slowly rose and wept;
Then gathering up a thousand spears,
He swept across the fields of Mars,
Then bowed farewell, and walked behind the stars,
From the land where we were dreaming!

* * * * *

As wakes the soldier when the alarum calls--
As wakes the mother when her infant falls--
As starts the traveler when around
His sleepy couch the fire-bells sound--
So woke our nation with a single bound--
In the land where we were dreaming!
DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS

March

I hear the bluebird's quaint soliloquy,--
A hesitating note upon the breeze,
Blown faintly from the tops of distant trees,
As though he were not sure that Spring is nigh,
But fed his hopes with bursts of melody.
I would I had a spirit-harp to seize
The bolder tenor of his rhapsodies
When apple-blossoms swing against the sky.
On every dark or blust'ring wintry day
That airy harp the bluebird's lilt should play;
And as I held my sighs and paused to hear,
The wand'ring message, with its full-fed cheer
And ripe contentment, to my life should bring
The essence and fruition of the Spring.
DANSKE DANDRIDGE

March First

In the deep heart of every forest tree
The blood is all aglee,
And there's a look about the leafless bowers
As if they dreamed of flowers.
HENRY TIMROD

March Second

At a garden party in Washington not long ago a Justice of the Supreme Court said in response to some question I put: "It would take the pen of a Zola to describe reconstruction in Louisiana. It is so dark a chapter in our national history. I do not like to think of it. A Zola might base a great novel on that life and death struggle between politicians and races in the land of cotton and sugar plantations, the swamps and bayous of the mighty Mississippi, where the Carpet-Bag Government had a standing army, of blacks, chiefly, and a navy of warships going up and down waterways."

MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY

_Reconstruction Act put into effect in Louisiana, 1866_

_Texas declares itself independent, 1836_

March Third

Women, the most refined, the noblest and best cultured in the land, left their homes, took up their residences adjacent to hospitals and became Florence Nightingales, daughters of the Red Cross, for all who needed care or comfort. It is reproachfully said by alien writers that the Southern women are more "unreconstructed rebels" than the men. It is certainly true that they did as much as the men in winning the battles, and they are now foremost in building monuments and preserving the records of immortal deeds.

J. L. M. CURRY

_First general convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, at Nashville, 1895_

March Fourth

Stephens' bodily infirmity did not sour his temper. On the contrary, it developed his capacity for human sympathy and strengthened his desire to help others to reach the happiness he seemed unable to secure for himself. After prosperity came to him, his works of philanthropy were constant and countless. He was lavish of hospitality and gave to all who asked such pity and sympathy as only a tried and travailing spirit could feel.

LOUIS PENDLETON

_Alexander H. Stephens dies, 1883_

March Fifth

From childhood I have nursed a faith
In bluebirds' songs and winds of Spring;
They tell me after frost and death
There comes a time of blossoming;
And after snow and cutting sleet,
The cold, stern mood of Nature yields
To tender warmth, when bare pink feet
Of children press her greening fields.
JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON

March Sixth

It is the spirit of the Alamo that moved above the Texas soldiers as they charged like demigods through a thousand battlefields, and it is the spirit of the Alamo that whispers from their graves held in every State of the Union, ennobling their dust, their soil, that was crimson with their blood.

HENRY W. GRADY

_Fall of the Alamo, 1836_

March Seventh

The opening of the University of Virginia was an event of prime importance for the higher education in the whole country, and really marks a new era. In the South this university completely dominated the situation down to the war and for some time afterwards, being the model for most that was best in the colleges everywhere, setting the standards to which they aspired, and being the source of constant stimulus and inspiration.

CHARLES F. SMITH
(_University of Wisconsin_)

_University of Virginia opened, 1825_

March Eighth

BROOKE'S "VIRGINIA," THE FIRST OF IRONCLADS; 10 GUNS VERSUS 268

... The _Virginia_, that iron diadem of the South, whose thunders in Hampton Roads consumed the _Cumberland_, overcame the _Congress_, put to flight the Federal Navy, and achieved a victory, the novelty and grandeur of which convulsed the maritime nations of the world.

CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR.

Confederate Tribute to the Commander and Men of the _Cumberland_: "No ship was ever better handled, or more bravely fought."

VIRGINIUS NEWTON, C. S. N.

On Boarding the _Congress_:

Confusion, death, and pitiable suffering reigned supreme; and the horrors of war quenched the passion and enmity of months.

VIRGINIUS NEWTON, C. S. N.

Confederate Tribute to the Commanders of the _Minnesota_, _St. Lawrence_, and _Roanoke_, which vessels ran aground in flight from the terrible _Virginia_:

I take occasion to say that their character as officers of skill, experience, and bravery was well established at the time, and suffered no diminution then or thereafter.

VIRGINIUS NEWTON, C. S. N.

_Battle between the "Virginia" ("Merrimac") and Federal men-of-war, 1862_

March Ninth

BROOKE

The men who manned the _Monitor_ made a grand fight, and her commander upheld the best traditions of the American navy; but history must bear witness to the fact that, if not overmatched or defeated, she at least withdrew to shallow water, where the _Virginia_ could not follow her; and later, under the guns of Ft. Monroe, she declined the subsequent battle challenges of the refitted _Virginia_.

All honor to Capt. Worden and the _Virginia-inspired_ invention of the Swede; but "America's glory for Americans." Let all Americans honor the name of JOHN MERCER BROOKE, the inventor and designer of the first armored war vessel of the world.--Ed.

_Battle between the "Virginia" and the "Monitor," 1862_

March Tenth

AN AFTERTHOUGHT

"Say, Judge, ain't you the same man that told us before the war that we could whip the Yankees with pop-guns?"

"Yes," replied the stump-orator, with great presence of mind, "and we could, but, confound 'em, they wouldn't fight us that way."

March Eleventh

TWO VIEWS OF VIRGINIA

(The latter is taken from a witty parody on the original poem. Presented to a Virginia girl, it was indignantly tossed into the wastebasket. Later, however, she copied it and sent it around for the amusement of many--_in the family_!)

I. The days are never quite so long
As in Virginia;
Nor quite so filled with happy song
As in Virginia;
And when my time has come to die
Just take me back and let me lie
Close where the James goes rolling by,
Down in Virginia.

II. Nowhere such storms obscure the sun
As in Virginia;
Nowhere so slow the railroads run,
As in Virginia;
And when my time has come to go
Just take me there, because, you know,
I'll longer live, I'll die so slow,
Down in Virginia.

March Twelfth

A HUMOROUS VIEW OF "THE HUB"

For the native Bostonian there are three paths to glory. If his name be Quincy or Adams, nothing more is expected of him. His blue blood carries him through life with glory, and straight to heaven when he dies. Failing in the happy accident of birth, the candidate for Beacon Hill honors must write a book. This is easy. The man who can breathe Boston air and not write a book is either a fool or a phenomenon. One course remains to him should he miss fame in these lines. He must be a reformer.

SHERWOOD BONNER
(_In Letters to Dixie_)

March Thirteenth

FIRST ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE NEW WORLD

Your gracious acceptance of the first fruits of my travels ... hath actuated both Will and Power to the finishing of this Peece: ... We had hoped, ere many years had turned about, to have presented you with a rich and wel-peopled Kingdom; from whence now, with my selfe, I onely bring this Composure, ... bred in the New-World, of the rudeness whereof it cannot but participate; especially having Warres and Tumults to bring it to light in stead of the Muses....

Your Majesties most humble Servant
GEORGE SANDYS

From Dedication of Ovids's _Metamorphoses_, "English by George Sandys"
at Henrico College, Virginia, 1621-1625. "Imprinted at London, 1626."

_George Sandys born at Bishopsthorpe, England, 1577_

March Fourteenth

Content to miss the prize of fame,
If he some true heart's praise can claim,
He lives in his own world of rhyme,
The great world's ways forsaking;
Cares not Parnassian heights to climb,
But valley bypaths taking,
Where even the daises in the sod,
Like stars, show him the living God.
CHARLES W. HUBNER
(_The Minor Poet_)

_Thomas Hart Benton born, 1782_

March Fifteenth

Abhorrence of debt, public and private; dislike of banks, and love of hard money--love of justice and love of country, were ruling passions with Jackson; and of these he gave constant evidence in all the situations of his life.

THOMAS HART BENTON

_Andrew Jackson born, 1767_

_Battle of Guilford Courthouse, 1871_

_Through Mr. Justice Campbell of the Supreme Court, Secretary Seward promises the Confederate Commissioners that Fort Sumter would be speedily evacuated, 1861_

March Sixteenth

The great mind of Madison was one of the first to entertain distinctly the noble conception of two kinds of government, operating at one and the same time, upon the same individuals, harmonious with each other, but each supreme in its own sphere. Such is the fundamental conception of our partly Federal, partly National Government, which appears throughout the Virginia plan, as well as in the Constitution which grew out of it.

JOHN FISKE
(Massachusetts)

_James Madison born, 1751_

March Seventeenth

"THE GALLANT PELHAM"--ROBERT E. LEE

Just as the Spring came laughing through the strife,
With all its gorgeous cheer;
In the bright April of historic life,
Fell the great cannoneer....

We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face,
While round the lips and eyes,
Couched in their marble slumber, flashed the grace
Of a divine surprise.
JAMES RYDER RANDALL

_Lieutenant-Colonel John Pelham killed at Kelly's Ford, Va., 1863_

_Roger Brooke Taney born, 1777_

March Eighteenth

John C. Calhoun, an honest man, the noblest work of God.

ANDREW JACKSON

He had the basis, the indispensable basis, of all high character, and that was unspotted integrity--unimpeached honor and character. If he had aspirations, they were high and honorable and noble. There was nothing grovelling or low, or meanly selfish that came near the head or the heart of Mr. Calhoun.

DANIEL WEBSTER
(Massachusetts)

_John Caldwell Calhoun born, 1782_

March Nineteenth

Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
SIDNEY LANIER
(_A Ballad of Trees and the Master_)

March Twentieth

Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him--last,
When out of the woods He came.
SIDNEY LANIER
(_A Ballad of Trees and the Master_)

March Twenty-First

Those who dominated were intelligent, masterful, patriotic, loving home, kindred, state and country, dispensing a prodigal hospitality, limited only by the respectability and behavior of guests. Among girls, refinement, culture, modesty, purity and a becoming behavior were the characteristic traits; among boys, courtesy, courage, chivalry, respect to age, devotion to the weaker sex, scorning meanness, regarding dishonor and cowardice as ineffaceable stains.

J. L. M. CURRY
(_The Old South_)

_General Joseph E. Johnston dies, 1891_

March Twenty-Second