Chapter IV: Part 4

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

GEORGE W. BAGBY
(_Slavery_)

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

October Seventeenth

JOHN BROWN'S RAID

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

GEORGE LUNT
(Massachusetts)

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

HENRY A. WHITE

October Eighteenth

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

"BILL ARP"
(_To His Constituents_)

October Nineteenth

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

_Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, 1781_

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

October Twentieth

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

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

JOHN ESTEN COOKE

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

October Twenty-First

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

BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE

October Twenty-Second

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

_Samuel Houston inaugurated President of Texas, 1836_

October Twenty-Third

BEARING THE NEWS FROM YORKTOWN TO PHILADELPHIA

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

BRADLEY T. JOHNSON

_Col. Tench Tilghman's ride, 1781_

October Twenty-Fourth

IMMORTALITY

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

October Twenty-Fifth

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

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

_John P. Kennedy born, 1795_

October Twenty-Sixth

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

October Twenty-Seventh

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

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

October Twenty-Eighth

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

JOHN A. WYETH

October Twenty-Ninth

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

_Gen. N. B. Forrest dies, 1877_

October Thirtieth

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

VISCOUNT WOLSELEY
(England)

October Thirty-First

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

REV. J. WILLIAM JONES

November

FALL

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

November First

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

CHARLES B. AYCOCK

_The New Constitution of Mississippi adopted, 1890_

November Second

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

JAMES KNOX POLK

_James Knox Polk born, 1795_

November Third

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

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

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

November Fourth

NOVEMBER

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

November Fifth

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

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

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

November Sixth

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

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

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

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

November Seventh

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

November Eighth

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

JAMES M. MASON

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

November Ninth

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

ROBERT OULD
(_Agent of Exchange_)

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

_R. R. Stevenson's Account_

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

R. R. STEVENSON

_A. P. Hill born, 1825_

November Tenth

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

R. R. STEVENSON

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

_Robert Young Hayne born, 1791_

November Eleventh

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

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

November Twelfth

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

R. R. STEVENSON

November Thirteenth

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

R. R. STEVENSON

_Texas declares her independence of Mexico, 1835_

November Fourteenth

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

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

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

November Fifteenth

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

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
(Massachusetts)

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

November Sixteenth

HENRY WIRZ, THE UNFORTUNATE SWISS-AMERICAN COMMANDANT AT ANDERSONVILLE

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

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

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

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

LEWIS SCHADE
(_German-American Attorney to Major Wirz_)

November Seventeenth

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

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

November Eighteenth

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

OLIVER HUCKEL
(Pennsylvania)

November Nineteenth

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

DUNBAR ROWLAND
(_Mississippi in "Reconstruction"_)

November Twentieth

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

November Twenty-First

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

November Twenty-Second

The history of that period, of the reconstruction period of the South, has never been fully told. It is only beginning to be written.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

_Convention in Louisiana disfranchising ex-Confederates, 1867_

November Twenty-Third

But talkin' the way I see it, a big feller and a little feller, SO-CALLED, got into a fite, and they fout and fout a long time, and everybody all round kep' hollerin' hands off, but kep' helpin' the big feller, until finally the little feller caved in and hollered enuff. He made a bully fite, I tell you, Selah. Well, what did the big feller do? Take him by the hand and help him up and brush the dirt off his clothes? Nary time! No, sur! But he kicked him arter he was down, and throwed mud on him, and drug him about and rubbed sand in his eyes, and now he's gwine about hunting up his poor little property. Wants to confiscate is, SO-CALLED. Blame my jacket if it ain't enuff to make your head swim.

BILL ARP
(_To Artemus Ward_)

November Twenty-Fourth

PROTEST AGAINST THE TARIFF, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1832

The majority in Congress, in imposing protecting duties, which are utterly destructive of the interests of South Carolina, not only impose no burthens, but actually confer enriching bounties upon their constituents, proportioned to the burthens they impose upon us. Under these circumstances, the principle of representative responsibility is perverted into a principle of representative despotism. It is this very tie, binding the majority of Congress to execute the will of their constituents, which makes them our inexorable oppressors. They dare not open their hearts to the sentiments of human justice, or to the feelings of human sympathy. They are tyrants by the very necessity of their position, however elevated may be their principles in their individual capacities.

GEORGE MCDUFFIE
(_Address to the People of the United States_)

_Ordinance of Nullification passed by South Carolina, 1832_

_Battle of the Clouds, Lookout Mountain, 1863_

November Twenty-Fifth

PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR OF 1812, NEW ENGLAND

The call of the Secretary of War for the militia of the States met blunt refusal from the Governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The Assembly of the latter State sustained its Executive in a formal address which denounced the war and declared Connecticut to be a free, sovereign, and independent State, and that the United States was not a national but a confederated republic. President Madison was held up as an invader of the State's authority over her militia.

HENRY A. WHITE

_Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863_

November Twenty-Sixth

THE HOMESPUN DRESS

Oh, yes! I am a Southern girl,
And glory in the name,
And boast it with far greater pride
Than glittering wealth or fame.
I envy not the Northern girls
Their robes of beauty rare,
Though diamonds grace their snowy necks
And pearls bedeck their hair.

Hurrah, hurrah!
For the sunny South so dear.
Three cheers for the homespun dress
The Southern ladies wear.

November Twenty-Seventh

But know, 'twas mine the secret power
That waked thee at the midnight hour
In bleak November's reign:
'Twas I the spell around thee cast,
When thou didst hear the hollow blast
In murmurs tell of pleasures past,
That ne'er would come again.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON

November Twenty-Eighth

The cruel fire that singed her robe died out in rainbow flashes,
And bright her silvery sandals shone above the hissing ashes!

_Organization of Legislature in Carolina Hall after the election of General Hampton as Governor of South Carolina, 1876_

November Twenty-Ninth

My fellow-people, let me, in conclusion, congratulate you on having a Governor once more as is a Governor. Oh, there is life in the old land yet, and by and by we'll transport them black Republicans into the African desert, and put 'em to teaching Hottentots the right of suffrage. Winter Davis could then find a field of labor sufficient for the miserable remnant of his declining years. He is the winter of our discontent, and we want to get rid of him.

BILL ARP
(_On Hampton's Election_)

November Thirtieth

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb.
THEODORE O'HARA
(_From "The Bivouac of the Dead"_)

_General Patrick R. Cleburne killed at Franklin, Tenn., 1864_

December

ICICLES AT THE SOUTH

The rain on the trees has ceased to freeze;
('Twas molded with quaint device)
The bent boughs lean, like cimeters keen,
In scabbards of shining ice.

'Neath frozen cloaks the pines and oaks
Are stooping like Druids old,--
And the cedars stand--an arctic band--
Held in the clutch of cold.

Through the outer gloom the japonicas bloom,
With the lustre of rubies bright--
Like blossoms blown from a tropic zone,--
A marvellous land of light!
WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE

December First

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL

The Fir-tree felt it with a thrill
And murmur of content;
The last dead Leaf its cable slipt
And from its moorings went;

The selfsame silent messenger,
To one that shibboleth
Of Life imparting, and to one,
The countersign of Death.
JOHN B. TABB

December Second

The avengers whose lives he had attempted, whose wives and children he had devoted to the hideous brutality of insurgent Africans, spared him all indignities, even moral torture.

PERCY GREG
(England)

_John Brown hanged, 1859_

December Third

The Black and Tan Convention met December 3, 1867, in our venerable and historic capital to frame a new constitution for the Old Dominion. In this body were members from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, District of Columbia, Ireland, Scotland, Nova Scotia, Canada, England; scalawags, or turn-coats, by Southerners most hated of all; twenty-four negroes; and in the total of 105, thirty-five white Virginians, from counties of excess white population, who might be considered representative of the State's culture and intelligence.

MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY

_James Rumsey (1787) makes successful trial trip of the steamboat designed after the model of 1784, then witnessed by George Washington and others_

December Fourth

A BIT OF RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY

"Mistah President, de real flatform, suh. I'll sw'ar tuh high Heaven. Yas, I'll sw'ar higher dan dat. I'll go down an' de uth shall crumble intuh dus' befor' dee shall amalgamise my rights. 'Bout dis question uh cyarpet-bags. Ef you cyarpet-baggers does go back on us, woes be unto you! You better take yo cyarpet-bags and quit, and de quicker you git up and git de better. I do not abdicate de supperstition tuh dese strange friens, lately so-called citizens uh Ferginny. Ef dee don' gimme my rights, I'll suffer dis country tuh be lak Sarah. I'll suffer desterlation fus!"...

"I'se here tuh qualify my constituents. I'll sing tuh Rome an' tuh Englan' an' tuh de uttermos' parts uh de uth." ("You must address yourself to the chair," said that functionary, ready to faint.) "All right, suh, I'll not 'sire tuh maintain de House any longer."

HON. LEWIS LINDSAY
(_From Stenographic Report_)

December Fifth

Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said that if there had been no God mankind would have been obliged to imagine one.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

December Sixth

CLEMENCY OF JEFFERSON DAVIS

Honorable Jefferson Davis: My father, Harrison Self, is sentenced to hang at four o'clock this evening on a charge of bridge-burning. As he remains my earthly all, and all my hopes of happiness centre on him, I implore you to pardon him.

ELIZABETH SELF
(_Telegram which secured pardon for her father_)

_Jefferson Davis dies, 1889_

_The county of Kentucky formed from Virginia, 1776_

_Duncan Nathaniel Ingraham, "Hero of the Koszta Rescue," born, 1802_

December Seventh

For years after the war, the Republican politicians in the South told the negroes that if the Democrats were elected, they would be put back into slavery. Consequently, after the first election of Cleveland, many of them began to make their arrangements to readapt themselves to the old regime. One old Virginia "aunty" living in Howard County, Maryland, announced that she was ready to return to Richmond; but declared most positively: "Deed, my ole Missus has got to send me my railroad ticket fust."

December Eighth

Our one sweet singer breaks no more
The silence sad and long,
The land is hushed from shore to shore
It brooks no feebler song.
CARL MCKINLEY

_Henry Timrod born, 1829_

_Joel Chandler Harris born, 1848_

December Ninth

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

It would be difficult to estimate the good done by a man like Harris, who brings a sense of relaxation and a thrill of pleasure to countless readers round the world. Such a man becomes a public benefactor. To-day men are better citizens, life's tasks are easier, the roads are lighter, and heaven is nearer to earth because of the cheerful, hopeful, mirthful stories of Uncle Remus.

HENRY STILES BRADLEY

_Lord Dunmore defeated by Colonel Woodford at Battle of Great Bridge, Virginia, 1775_

December Tenth

Mt. Vernon, 31 Jan. 1786

Sir:--If you have no cause to change your opinion respecting your mechanical boat, and reasons unknown to me do not exist to delay the exhibition of it, I would advise you to give it to the public as soon as it can be prepared conveniently.... Should a mechanical genius hit upon your plan, or something similar to it, I need not add that it would place you in an awkward situation and perhaps disconcert all your prospects concerning this useful discovery....

GEORGE WASHINGTON
(_Letter to James Rumsey_)

_Mississippi admitted to the Union, 1817_

December Eleventh

Mr. Rumsey's steamboat, with more than half her loading (which was upwards of three ton) and a number of people on board, made a progress of four miles in one hour against the current of Potomac River, by the force of steam, without any external application whatsoever.

(_Virginian Gazette and Winchester Advertiser, Jan. 11, 1788_)

_Second trip of Rumsey's steamboat at Shepherdstown, Va., in boat designed after model of 1784_

December Twelfth

I have taken the greatest pains to perfect another kind of boat, _upon the principles I mentioned to you at Richmond_, in November last, and have the pleasure to inform you that I have brought it to a great perfection ... and I have quite convinced myself that boats of passage may be made to go against the current of the _Mississippi_ or _Ohio_ rivers, or in the _Gulf Stream_ (from the _Leeward_ to the _Windward_-Islands) from sixty to one hundred miles per day. I know this will appear strange and improbable to many persons, yet I am very certain it may be performed, besides, it is simple (when understood) and is also strictly philosophical.

JAMES RUMSEY
(_In letter to George Washington after construction of steamboat model
seen in action by the latter in 1784_)

December Thirteenth

On part of the field the Union dead lay three deep. So fearful was the slaughter that our men at certain points on the line cried out to the advancing Federal forces, "Go back; we don't want to kill you all!" Still they pressed forward in the face of despair, and they fell in the unshrinking station where they fought. In six months Lee had effaced Pope, checked McClellan, and crushed Burnside--June 25 to December 13, 1862.

HENRY E. SHEPHERD

_Burnside repulsed at Fredericksburg, 1862_

December Fourteenth

Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations.

JAMES BRYCE
(England)

_George Washington dies, 1799_

December Fifteenth

Of late I have opened a pawnbroker's shop for my hard-pressed brethren in feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for every borrowing Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthly instalments of singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seed for a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs in an orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices?

JAMES LANE ALLEN

December Sixteenth

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.
EDWARD C. PINKNEY
("_A Health_")

December Seventeenth

Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.
EDWARD C. PINKNEY
("_A Health_")

December Eighteenth

... Nay, more! in death's despite
The crippled skeleton "learned to write."
"Dear mother," at first, of course; and then
"Dear Captain," inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer: "Of eighty-and-five,
Giffen and I are left alive."
FRANCIS O. TICKNOR
("_Little Giffen_")

_Francis O. Ticknor dies, 1874_

December Nineteenth

Word of gloom from the war, one day;
Johnston pressed at the front, they say.
Little Giffen was up and away;
A tear--his first--as he bade good-bye,
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
"I'll write, if spared!" There was news of the fight;
But none of Giffen.--He did not write.
FRANCIS O. TICKNOR

_Crittenden's compromise opposed by dominant party in Congress, 1860_

Some of the manufacturing states think that a fight would be awful. Without a little bloodletting this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.

Z. CHANDLER
(_Senator from Michigan_)

December Twentieth

The Convention of 1787 was composed of members, a majority of whom were elected to reject the Federal Constitution; and it was only after the clause declaring that "the power granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury and oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them at their will," was inserted in the ordinance of ratification, that six or more of the majority opposed to the measure consented to vote for it. Even with this accession of strength the Constitution was carried only by a vote of 89 to 79.

(_From Editorial Article in Charleston "Courier," 1861_)

_South Carolina secedes, 1860_

December Twenty-First

RESOLVED.... As the powers of legislation, granted in the Constitution of the United States to Congress, do not embrace a case of the admission of a foreign State or Territory, by legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts.

(_Resolutions of Massachusetts Legislature, 1845. Nullification?_)

_President Tyler urges annexation of Texas, 1844_

December Twenty-Second

Bowing her head to the dust of the earth,
Smitten and stricken is she;
Light after light gone out from her hearth,
Son after son from her knee.
Bowing her head to the dust at her feet,
Weeping her beautiful slain;
Silence! keep silence for aye in the street--
See! they are coming again!
ALETHEA S. BURROUGHS

_Sherman enters Savannah, 1864_

_Reconstruction Act put in effect in Georgia, 1869_

December Twenty-Third

The glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remote ages.

(_President of Congress, to General Washington_)

_Washington resigns his commission as Commander-in-Chief, Annapolis, 1783_

December Twenty-Fourth

CHRISTMAS EVE

The moon is in a tranquil mood;
The silent skies are bland:
Only the spirits of the good
Go musing up the land:
The sea is wrapped in mist and rest;
It is the night that God hath blest.
DANSKE DANDRIDGE

December Twenty-Fifth

To the cradle-bough of a naked tree,
Benumbed with ice and snow,
A Christmas dream brought suddenly
A birth of mistletoe.

The shepherd stars from their fleecy cloud
Strode out on the night to see;
The Herod north-wind blustered loud
To rend it from the tree.

But the old year took it for a sign,
And blessed it in his heart:
"With prophecy of peace divine,
Let now my soul depart."
JOHN B. TABB
(_Mistletoe_)

December Twenty-Sixth

Now praise to God that ere his grace
Was scorned and he reviled
He looked into his mother's face,
A little helpless child.
And praise to God that ere men strove
Above his tomb in war
One loved him with a mother's love,
Nor knew a creed therefor.
JOHN CHARLES MCNEILL
(_A Christmas Hymn_)

December Twenty-Seventh

Hear the sledges with the bells--
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
EDGAR ALLAN POE

December Twenty-Eighth

In the future some historian shall come forth both strong and wise,
With a love of the Republic, and the truth, before his eyes.
He will show the subtle causes of the war between the States,
He will go back in his studies far beyond our modern dates,
He will trace our hostile ideas as the miner does the lodes,
He will show the different habits born of different social codes,
He will show the Union riven, and the picture will deplore,
He will show it re-united and made stronger than before.
JAMES BARRON HOPE

December Twenty-Ninth

Slow and patient, fair and truthful must the coming teacher be
To show how the knife was sharpened that was ground to prune the tree.
He will hold the Scales of Justice, he will measure praise and blame,
And the South will stand the verdict, and will stand it without shame.
JAMES BARRON HOPE

_Texas admitted to the Union, 1845_

December Thirtieth

I changed my name when I got free
To "Mister" like the res',
But now dat I am going Home,
I likes de ol' name bes'.

Sweet voices callin' "Uncle Rome"
Seem ringin' in my ears;
An' swearin' sorter sociable,--
Ol' Master's voice I hears.

* * * *

He's passed Heaven's River now, an' soon
He'll call across its foam:
"You, Rome, you damn ol' nigger,
Loose your boat an' come on Home!"
HOWARD WEEDEN

December Thirty-First

'Tis midnight's holy hour--and silence now
Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds,
The bells' deep notes are swelling. 'Tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred,
As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand--
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter, with his aged locks--and breathe
In mournful cadences, that come abroad
Like the far wind harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead Year,
Gone from the earth forever.
GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE

_Battle of Murfreesboro, Tenn., 1862_

Index

PAGE

_Alabama_, the, fight with the _Kearsarge_. June 19 140

Alamance Creek, Battle of. May 16 118

Alamo, the. Mch. 6 65

Antietam, Battle of. Sept. 17 212

_Arkansas_, the, destroyed. Aug. 6 180

Ashby, Gen. Turner. June 6 131

Assembly, first legislative in America. July 30 172

Atlanta, evacuation of. Sept. 1, 2 200

Audubon, John James. May 4 109

Bacon, Nathaniel, epitaph. Jan. 2 15

Bagby, George W. Aug. 13 185

Baltimore, in first bloodshed of the War. April 19 97

Benjamin, Judah P. May 6 111

_Bonnie Blue Flag_, the. Jan. 10, 12 21, 23

Boston, A Southern view. Mch. 12 69

Breckinridge, John C. May 17; Aug. 10 118, 183

Brooke, John Mercer, constructor of the first ironclad. Mch. 9 67

Brown, John, execution. Dec. 2 268
Raid at Harper's Ferry. Oct. 16, 17 230, 231

Calhoun, John C. Mch. 18 74
Nationalism of. Mch. 31 81

Carroll, Charles of Carrollton. Nov. 14 255

Charleston "Courier" on Secession. Dec. 20 280

Chickamauga, Battle of. Sept. 20 215

Clark, George Rogers. Feb. 23, 24 53, 54

Clark and Lewis, Northwestern expedition. May 14 116

Clay, Henry. June 29 148

Coercion, opposed by border States. Apr. 16, 17, 18;
May 20 94, 95, 96, 119

Confederacy, fall of. Apr. 8, 9, 10, 11 87, 88, 89, 90
Surrender of last army. May 26 122

Cornwallis, surrender of. Oct. 19 233

Crittenden, compromise of. Dec. 19 279

Crockett, Col. David. Aug. 17 188

Custis, Hon. John, epitaph. July 11 158

Davis, Jefferson. June 3; Dec. 6 129, 271
Imprisonment. May 23, 24 121

Democrats, negro view of. Dec. 7 272

Dixie, new version. Jan. 31; April 25; May 21 36, 102, 120

Easter, selections for. April 4, 5 86

Emancipation. Jan. 11; Feb. 12; Aug. 1, 2, 3;
Sept. 3 22, 45, 176, 177, 178, 201
Lincoln on. Sept. 22 216
Southern view of. Feb. 28; June 2; Oct. 16 58, 129, 230

Forrest, N. B. July 13 159
Address to soldiers. Oct. 27 239
Tributes to. Oct. 21, 26, 29, 30, 31 235, 238, 240, 241

Fort Sullivan, defence of. June 28 147

Fort Sumter, attempts to reinforce. Jan. 9 20
Capture of. April 14 92
Firing upon. April 12 91

Frederick, Md., occupied by Confederates. Sept. 9 206

Fredericksburg, Battle of. Dec. 13 276

Frietchie, Barbara, in reference to "Stonewall" Jackson. Sept. 6 204

Gettysburg, Battle of. July 1, 2, 3, 4 150, 151, 152, 153

Gordon, Gen. Geo. H., remarks on Jackson's soldiers. Aug. 28 195

Gordon, Gen. John B. Feb. 6 41

Grady, Henry W. April 24 101

Hampton, Gen. Wade. Mch. 28 79

Harris, Joel Chandler. Dec. 9 273

Hayne, Paul Hamilton. Jan. 1 14

Henry, Patrick. May 29 125

Hill, Gen. A. P. April 2 85

Hill, Gen. D. H. July 12 159

Houston, Samuel, inaugurated president of Texas. Oct. 22 236

Insurrection, the Southampton. Aug. 1, 2, 3 176, 177, 178

Jackson, Gov. C. F., declaration of secession. Aug. 5 179

Jackson, Andrew. Mch. 15 71

Jackson, "Stonewall." Jan. 21 30
Bill Arp's view of. Sept. 16 211
Capture of Harper's Ferry. Sept. 15 211
Death. May 10 113
Wounded. May 2 108

Jamestown, first legislative assembly met. July 30 172
Reference to. June 20 141
Settled. May 13 115

Jefferson, Thomas. April 13 92
On Louisiana Purchase. April 30 105

Johnston, General Albert Sidney. April 6 86

Johnston, General Jos. E. Feb. 7 41

Kansas, formed as territory. May 30 125

Kennedy, John P. Oct. 25 238

King's Mountain, Battle of. Oct. 9 226

Ku Klux Klan. Feb. 20, 21, July 31 50, 51, 173

Lanier, Sidney. Feb. 3 39
Tabb's tribute to. Sept. 8 206

Laurens, John. Aug. 27 194

Lee, Anne Carter, monument to. Aug. 8 182

Lee, Henrietta, letter to Gen. Hunter. July 19 164

Lee, Henry. Jan. 29 34

Lee, Robert E. Jan. 19 29
Accepts presidency of Washington College. Aug. 24 192
Elected president of Washington College. Aug. 4 178
First Northern invasion. Sept. 13 209
Hill's tribute to. Oct. 12 228
Issues Chambersburg order. June 27 147
Marries. June 30 148
Resigns commission in United States Army. April 20 98
Sent to the rear. May 12 114
Surrender at Appomattox. April 9 88
The unselfish leader. Oct. 14 229

Lent, selections for. Mch. 19, 20 74, 75

Lewis, Meriwether. Oct. 11 227

Lincoln, Abraham, death of. April 15 93
On abolition. Feb. 12 45
On negro suffrage. Feb. 11; Aug. 12 44, 184

Literature, first of the New World. Mch. 13 70

Louisiana Territory, acquired from France. Apr. 30 105

Manassas, first Battle of. July 21 166

Marshall, Chief Justice. Sept. 24 217

Meade, Gen. Geo. Gordon, Southern tribute to. July 1 150

Negro, status of. Sept. 11 208

New Orleans, Liberty Place Anniversary. Sept. 14 210

North Point, Battle of. Sept. 12 208

Nullification, Northern view of. Nov. 25; Dec. 21 263, 281
Southern view of. Nov. 24 262

O'Hara, Theodore. July 20 165

Old South, life in the. Sept. 11, 21 208, 216

Oliver, Thaddeus. Aug. 9 182

_Peggy Stewart_, burning of the. Oct. 19 233

Poe, Edgar Allan. Oct. 7, 8 224, 225
First monument erected to. Nov. 17 258

Pope, Gen. John, Address to the Army of Potomac. Aug. 26 193

Polk, James Knox. Nov. 2 244

Port Hudson, fall of. July 9 156

Prisoners, mortality of. Nov. 11 252
Of war, exchange of. Nov. 9, 10, 12, 13 250, 251, 253, 254

Raleigh, Sir Walter. July 16 162

Reconstruction. Jan. 4; Mch. 2; Aug. 21; Oct. 21;
Nov. 19, 22; Dec. 3, 4 16, 62, 190, 235, 259, 261, 269, 270
Bill Arp's view of. Oct. 18; Nov. 23, 29 232, 261, 265
End of. July 15 161
Foreshadowed. April 15 93
Negro oratory on. Dec. 4 270
A prophecy of 1869. June 26 146

Religious Freedom in Maryland. Mch. 25, 27; Apr. 21 77, 78, 99

Rumsey, James, letter to, from Geo. Washington. Sept. 7 205

Rumsey, trial of the steamboat. Dec. 10, 11, 12 274, 275

Ryan, Abram J. Aug. 15 186

Sandys, George, first author of the New World. Mch. 13 70

Secession. Jan. 9, 11; Apr. 17; Aug. 5 20, 22, 95, 179
From the Northern standpoint. Jan. 13, 26, 27;
Mch. 24; May 6, 11 23, 33, 77, 111
From the Southern standpoint. Jan. 10, 28;
Feb. 5, 8, 9, 10, 18; Mch. 30 21, 34, 40, 42, 43, 45, 48, 80
South Carolina. Dec. 20 280

Semmes, Admiral Raphael. Sept. 27, 28 219

Seven Days' Battle, beginning of. June 25 145

Sharpsburg, Attack at. Sept. 18 213

_Shenandoah_, surrenders last Confederate flag. Nov. 5, 6 246, 247

Slavery. Jan. 4; Feb. 9, 28; Aug. 1, 2, 3;
Sept. 3, 21 16, 42, 58, 176, 177, 178, 201, 216
Bagby's view of. Oct. 16 230
Northern view of. Jan. 13, 26, 27; Mch. 24;
May 6; Sept. 5 23, 33, 77, 111, 203
From the Southern standpoint. Jan. 10, 28;
Feb. 8, 9, 10, 18; Mch. 30 21, 34, 42, 43, 48, 80

_Star Spangled Banner_ Anniversary. Sept. 14 210

Stephens, Alex. H. Mch. 4 64

Stuart, Gen. J. E. B. May 11 114
Address to soldiers. Oct. 10 227

Suffrage, Negro. Nov. 1 244
Negro restriction of. Aug. 12 184

Tabb, John Banister. Mch. 22 76

Tariff, South Carolina's protest. Nov. 24 262

Taney, Chief Justice. Oct. 13 229

Texas. Mch. 23 76

Ticknor, Francis O. Dec. 18 278

Tilghman, Col. Tench, ride of. Oct. 23 237

Timrod, Henry. Oct. 6 224
Tribute to. Dec. 8 272

_Trent_, The, affair of. Nov. 8 249

Tyler, John. Mch. 29 79

Union, the, restored. July 15 161

Veteran, United Confederate, Northern tribute to. June 10 134

Virginia, conquering of Northwestern territory. Feb. 23, 24 53, 54
Opposition to Boston Port Bill. May 15 117
Cession of Northwestern territory. Oct. 20 234
Secession from, of West Virginia. June 20 141
Two views of. Mch. 11 68
University of. Mch. 7 65

_Virginia_, the, challenges _Monitor_. May 8 112
First iron-clad. Mch. 8, 9 66, 67

Washington, Geo. Feb. 22; Dec. 14 52, 276
Resigns commission. Dec. 23 282

War Times. Jan. 17, 18; April 26 27, 28, 103
Northern view of. Feb. 17, 26 48, 56

West Virginia, secession from Virginia sustained by
Federal Government. June 20 141

Wilde, Richard Henry. Sept. 10 207

Wilderness, Battle of. May 5 110

William and Mary College, Northern tribute to. Feb. 14 46

Wirz, Henry, execution of. Nov. 10 251

Women, the Southern. Mch. 3; June 5 63, 131

End of Project Gutenberg's The Dixie Book of Days, by Matthew Page Andrews