We, the general and I, were the first to be informed of the supernal
qualities of bacon and greens. All Virginians were aware of the prime
importance of this necessary feature of an Old Dominion dinner, but
that "a Virginian could not be a Virginian without bacon and greens"
was unknown to us until the discoverer of that ethnological fact. Dr.
George William Bagby, read us his lecture on these cheerful
comestibles. We were the first to see the frost that "lies heavy on
the palings and tips with silver the tops of the butter-bean poles,
where the sere and yellow pods are chattering in the chilly breeze."
In the early days after the war Dr. Bagby had a pleasant habit of
dropping into our rooms at the Exchange Hotel in Richmond, and as soon
as the ink was dry on that combination of humor and pathos and wisdom
to which he gave the classic title of "Bacon and Greens" he brought it
and read it to us. I can still follow the pleasant ramble on which he
took us in fancy through a plantation road, the innumerable delights
along the way never to be appreciated to their full extent by any but
a real Virginian brought up on bacon and greens, and the arrival at
the end of the journey, where we were taken possession of as if we
"were the Prodigal Son or the last number of the _Richmond Enquirer_."
My eyes were the first to fill with tears over the picture of the poor
old man at the last, sitting by the dying fire in the empty house,
while the storm raged outside.
Though so thoroughly approving of "bacon and greens," there was
another feature of Virginia life, as well as of Southern life
generally, that met with Dr. Bagby's stern opposition--the duel. I
once had opportunity to note his earnestness in trying to prevent a
meeting of this kind. Two young men of whom General Pickett was very
fond, Page McCarty, a writer for the press and an idol of Richmond
society, and a brilliant young lawyer named Mordecai became involved
in a quarrel which led to a challenge. The innocent cause of the
dispute was the golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty, Mary Triplett, the
belle of Richmond, who had long been the object of Page McCarty's
devotion but had shown a preference for another adorer. Page wrote
some satiric verses which, though no name was given, were known by all
Richmond to be leveled at Miss Triplett. Mr. Mordecai resented the
verses and the dispute which followed resulted in a challenge. Dr.
Bagby came to our rooms when Page McCarty was there and made an
unavailing effort to secure peace. Both he and the general were
unsuccessful in their pacific attempts, the duel took place and Page
McCarty, who bore a name that had in former times become famous in the
duelling annals of Virginia, killed his antagonist at first shot.
Though so strongly opposed to the practice, Dr. Bagby twice came near
taking a principal part in a duel. Soon after the close of the war he
wrote an editorial on prisoners of war, in which he took the ground
that more Southern soldiers died in Northern prisons than Northerners
in Southern prisons, giving figures in support of his statement. A
Northern officer in Richmond answered the article, questioning its
veracity. The doctor promptly sent a challenge to combat which the
officer declined, saying that he had fought hard enough for the
prisoners in war-time, he did not intend to fight for them now that
hostilities were over.
The second time that our genial humorist came near the serious reality
of a duel he was the party challenged. The cause of the
misunderstanding that promised to result so tragically was a magazine
article in which the doctor caricatured a peculiar kind of Virginia
Editor. The essay was a source of amusement to all its readers except
one editor, who imagined himself insulted. Urged on by misguided
friends, he challenged the author of the offending paper who,
notwithstanding his opposition to the code, accepted. A meeting was
arranged and the belligerents had arrived at historic Bladensburg with
blood-thirsty intent, when one of those sunny souls, possessed of a
universality of mind which rendered him a friend to all parties,
arrived on the scene and a disastrous outcome was averted.
Dr. Bagby has been called "a Virginia realist." To him, receiving his
first views of life from the foot of the Blue Ridge, one realism of
the external world was too beautiful to admit of his finding in the
ideal anything that could more nearly meet his fancy-picture of
loveliness than the scenes which opened daily before his eyes. Years
later a memory of his early home returns to him in the dawn:
Suddenly there came from thicket or copse of the distant forest,
I could not tell where, a "wood-note wild" of some bird I had not
heard for half a century nearly, and in an instant the beauty,
the mystery, the holiness of nature came back to me just as it
came in childhood when sometimes my playmates left me alone in
the great orchard of my home in Cumberland.