THE
TAYLOR-TROTWOOD MAGAZINE
SUCCESSOR TO
BOB TAYLOR’S MAGAZINE and TROTWOOD’S MONTHLY
PUBLISHED BY THE TAYLOR-TROTWOOD PUBLISHING COMPANY, 11, 13,
16, 19 VANDERBILT LAW BUILDING, NASHVILLE, TENN.
GOVERNOR BOB TAYLOR and JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE, Editors
$1.00 A YEAR MONTHLY 10c. A COPY
Contents for March, 1907
FRONTISPIECE—From a painting by Gilbert Gaul
FAMOUS THRESHOLDS IN WASHINGTON _Annie Riley Hale_ 569
Illustrated.
HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF THE SOUTH—CHAPTER
XVIII. _John Trotwood Moore_ 577
Illustrated.
SOME BEAUTIFUL WOMEN OF THE SOUTH 587
Illustrated.
AUNT HETTY ON THE “WET AND THE DRY.” (Story) _Louise Clarke Pyrnelle_ 592
MY LOVE. (Poem) _Lillian Wester_ 594
OLD HICKORY _Robert L. Taylor_ 595
Illustrated.
DALE’S HIGHLANDERS _Capt. H. W. Carpenter_ 599
THE FALSE FRANCISCO. (Story) _William A. Branan_ 601
THE STATE HOUSE OF MARYLAND _George W. McCreary_ 604
Illustrated.
MEN OF AFFAIRS 606
Illustrated.
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH _Lillian Kendrick Byrn_ 611
Illustrated.
THE MEASURE OF A MAN. (Serial Story) _John Trotwood Moore_ 618
THE FIRST CAMP MEETING IN AMERICA _Helen Harcourt_ 622
THE SHADOW OF THE ATTACOA. (Serial Story) _Thornwell Jacobs_ 626
HISTORY OF THE HALS—Chapter XVIII. _John Trotwood Moore_ 635
THE QUEST OF POAQUITA. (Story) _Horatio Lankford King_ 638
NAPOLEON—Part VII. _Anna Erwin Woods_ 645
WITH BOB TAYLOR 649
SENTIMENT AND STORY
THE PARADISE OF FOOLS
WITH TROTWOOD 654
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD
THE TESTER-BED AND ITS OLD-TIME COVERINGS _Susie Gentry_ 657
Illustrated.
AUNT JANE’S MOCKING-BIRD. (Story) _Alma L. Stewart_ 659
SOME SOUTHERN WRITERS _Kate Alma Orgain_ 661
Illustrated.
SOME QUAINT OLD BALLADS _Virginia Chambers_ 663
BOOKS AND AUTHORS _Lillian Kendrick Byrn_ 665
WITH OUR READERS 667
THE FAMILY SCRAP BOOK 671
Copyright, 1907, by The Taylor-Trotwood Publishing Co. All
rights reserved. Entered as second-class matter, January 12,
1907, at the post-office at Nashville, Tennessee.
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[Illustration: “Standing at the small gate, now off its hinges, she took
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THE TAYLOR-TROTWOOD
MAGAZINE
VOL. IV MARCH, 1907 NO. 6
FAMOUS THRESHOLDS IN WASHINGTON
THE OCTAGON HOUSE
By Annie Riley Hale
At the northwest corner of New York Avenue and Eighteenth Street, within
a stone’s throw of the War, State and Navy Department, and almost
within the shadow of the Corcoran Art Gallery, is a queer old red brick
structure, with stone steps leading up to the white-pillared portico,
which is known in Washington as the “Octagon House.”
As a historic mansion, as a “haunted dwelling,” and as a unique piece of
Colonial architecture, the Octagon has a triple claim to a place in the
catalogue of “famous thresholds.”
Back in 1798—that same year in which George Washington laid the
cornerstone of his “two buildings” on North Capitol Street—another
Virginian, Colonel John Tayloe, moved by the persuasive arguments
of our first President and first real estate boomer for the Federal
City, decided to build his “town residence” in Washington, instead of
Philadelphia, as was his original intention.
Colonel Tayloe’s Virginia estate, “Mt. Airy,” comprised eight thousand
fertile acres along the Rappahannock, with five hundred slaves and a
superb villa, all inherited from his father, a member of the House of
Burgesses, who built the Mt. Airy country seat in 1758, on a scale of
magnificence unsurpassed at that period in this country.
The site of the Octagon was purchased from Mr. Benjamin Stoddert, our
first Secretary of the Navy, an office created by the first Adams.
It is related that General Washington was much interested in the Octagon,
frequently riding by on horseback to watch the progress of its building,
though he was not permitted to witness its completion. Singularly enough,
it was begun in the same year, finished in the same year (1801) and
designed by the same architect (Dr. Thornton) as his own house on Capitol
Hill. The Octagon was well and strongly built and set in a triangular lot
which conformed to the street lines. The rear premises, in which were
located the stables and servants’ quarters, were enclosed by a high brick
wall, now broken in places, and ivy-grown.
When finished, this was the finest private residence in the Federal City,
as it antedated the more stately Van Ness mansion by a number of years,
and from its unique style of architecture was regarded as the show house
of the surrounding country.
The irregular perimeter of its walls—whence the name “Octagon”—includes
five sides and six angles for the main body of the house, with two short
sides, and a circular swell across the front—demonstrating that the owner
had to strain a point and round a curve for its christening. The exterior
exhibits many windows of the old-fashioned, small-pane pattern, and from
the rear giant old trees fling their flickering shade athwart them.
[Illustration: THE OCTAGON HOUSE]
The interior of the house was modeled to fit the outward circumference,
the doors, sash and glass in the circular vestibule being made on the
circle and all still in working order.
In the niches prepared for them are exhibited two old cast-iron wood
stoves, which crackled their good cheer for generations long past, but
which evidently owe their present lustre to more recent furbishings. The
doors on the ground floor are all of mahogany, and in an excellent state
of preservation, as is likewise the railing to the stairway leading from
the main hall up to the third story—a frail, insubstantial-looking affair
with its slender wooden pilasters and narrow rail; yet, owing to the fact
that every fourth pilaster is of iron, and the railing of mahogany, this
old stairway has stood the test to which more massive balustrades have
succumbed.
The rooms, eleven in all, are few, as compared with the size of the
building, but the area of some of them might easily accommodate a modern
housekeeping apartment. To the right of the main hall is the spacious
drawing room, which has been the scene of many a brilliant assemblage in
the days long gone, where the bas-relief figures on the mantel imported
from London, watched the going and coming of the men and women who made
history. Upon the estimate of an expert, it is said that the cost of
reproducing this mantel in marble nowadays would be two thousand dollars.
Opposite the drawing room, to the left of the hall, is the long,
high dining room, studded with windows and flooded with western
light. Turning back the clock of time for almost a century, one sees
gathered around this generous board a distinguished company, including
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams; Hamilton, Marshall,
Jay and Pinckney; Webster, Calhoun, Clay and Randolph; Decatur, Porter,
Lafayette, Steuben, Sir Edward Thornton and other notabilities.
[Illustration: DRAWING ROOM]
Although it is not recorded that any of the Tayloes shone very
conspicuously in their country’s annals by reason of any great service
rendered in positions of public trust, yet because of their great wealth
and social prominence, their lives touched at various points many of
the great names which emblazon the pages of history. At the time he
took possession of his Octagon home, in 1801, Colonel Tayloe’s income
was seventy-five thousand dollars a year—three times as much as the
President’s salary at that period—and the unbounded hospitality dispensed
from his two households at Mt. Airy and the Octagon, embodied the most
splendid features of the regal Old South.
He was married at the early age of twenty-one, to Miss Ann Ogle, daughter
of Governor Benjamin Ogle, of Maryland. Descended from the Corbins,
Gwynnes, Platers and Fauntleroys, connected by the marriage of his
sisters with the Lees, Pages, Washingtons, Carters, Beverleys and Lomaxes
of Virginia, and by his own marriage with the Bladens, Taskers, and
Ogles, of Maryland, Colonel Tayloe’s social prestige was limitless.
One does not live long in Washington ere he learns to uncover and speak
softly before a lineage which reaches to the “Eastern shore,” either of
Virginia or of Maryland; and when a line is discovered which connects
both these aristocratic strongholds—well, words are but poor things, and
a solemn hush is the most approving corollary.
[Illustration: ECLIPSE]
Colonel Tayloe was educated at Eton and Cambridge, England. He was noted
for the urbanity of his manners, for the splendor of his equipages and
for his lavish hospitality. In 1802, conjointly with Governor Ridgeley,
of Maryland, Colonel Tayloe laid out the Washington City Race Course on
the Holmead Farm, about two miles north of the President’s house, near
the present Mount Pleasant. For a number of years, the Colonel was at
the head of the turf in his native state at a time when the turf was
much affected by the aristocratic sportsmen of the old régime. He kept
in his stables at Mt. Airy a large number of blood horses. He owned the
celebrated Leviathan, Gallatin, Sir Charles, Sir Archy and others; and
from his imported thoroughbreds were descended the most famous coursers
in the early annals of the American turf. From the Tayloe stables came
Eclipse and Henry—“the North and the South”—who ran the celebrated
sectional race on the Long Island course in 1823, in which Henry was
beaten, and the success of Eclipse was attributed to the manipulation of
a jockey named Purdy. The victory was received with uproarious shouts,
Eclipse was led to the stand amid the strains of “The Conquering Hero,”
and there followed a jubilee in New York. Whereupon, John Randolph, of
Roanoke, who was present, remarked: “I am glad no one on the course
thought of nominating Purdy for the Presidency, for it would have been
carried by acclamation!”
In 1818 Colonel Tayloe built the old Willard Hotel, on Pennsylvania
Avenue and Fourteenth Street, which was enlarged and improved by his son,
Mr. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, in 1844, when it became and has since continued
the most fashionable hotel of the Federal City.
Colonel Tayloe was in his day the largest contributor to St. John’s
Episcopal church, which was the first building erected on Lafayette
Square after the War of 1812, and is popularly known as “the President’s
church,” from the fact that more Presidents have attended it than any
other in the city, probably because of its proximity to the White House.
Colonel Tayloe presented to this church the massive silver service which
formerly belonged to the old church of Lunenburg, in Richmond County,
Virginia.
[Illustration: CIRCULAR ROOM IN WHICH TREATY OF GHENT WAS SIGNED]
Colonel Tayloe’s occupancy of the Octagon embraced the administrations
of four Presidents—Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams—and
ceased in 1828, just as the picturesque figure of “Old Hickory” rose
above the Presidential horizon. In 1814, after the burning of the White
House by the British, the hospitality of the Octagon was tendered to
the homeless President and his bewitching “Dolly,” and for six or eight
months it was transformed into “the President’s house,” Colonel and Mrs.
Tayloe retiring to their country seat for the nonce. In the circular
room over the round vestibule, Madison signed the Treaty of Ghent,
February, 1815, which closed our second war with Great Britain. The table
at which the treaty was signed is still in the possession of the Tayloe
family.
The fact that Madison is esteemed one of our most intellectual and
scholarly Presidents, that his state papers exhibit not only statecraft,
but literary construction of a high order, and that a distinguished
Southern Senator in a recent speech in Congress named him “more than
any other man the author of the American Constitution,” gives peculiar
piquancy to the following story, which is vouched for by Mr. Benjamin
Ogle Tayloe:
When a member of Congress in Philadelphia, Mr. Madison boarded in the
house of Mrs. Payne, the mother of “Dolly,” at that time the beautiful
Widow Todd. Mr. Madison, attracted by the personal charms of the
fascinating young widow, sent her a book to read and requested her
opinion of it—presumably with a view to sounding her mental depth.
Whereupon, Mrs. Todd, who, Mr. Tayloe says, was always more remarkable
for beauty, tact and manner than for depth of intellect, asked Colonel
Burr, who boarded there, also, to write her reply to Mr. Madison, which
he accordingly did.
Shortly afterward, Madison offered himself to the handsome and
intellectual widow, and was accepted. This story tallies with the
statement from other sources that Burr made the match between Madison and
the sprightly Dolly, but if our accomplished fourth President really was
ensnared by the schoolgirl ruse, he certainly had no occasion to complain
of his matrimonial bargain. For in the judgment of her contemporaries
and of all succeeding generations, no lady has ever done the honors of
the White House more gracefully and acceptably to all parties than the
gracious and lovely Dolly Madison. Her brilliant levees and various
functions at the Octagon during her brief sojourn there are among the
richest traditions of early official life in the Federal city.
Dr. William Thornton, the architect of the Octagon, was remarkable for
his talents, benevolence and eccentricities. He was the first architect
of the Capitol at Washington, and was appointed one of the three original
commissioners to lay off the city. At the request of Jefferson, he
furnished designs for the University of Virginia. He was born in the
West Indies, of Quaker parentage, and educated in England and Scotland.
A man of science, he was head of the Patent Office from the time of
Washington’s administration to that of Monroe, and claimed to have
preceded Fulton in the application of steam as a propeller of boats, and
to have made experiments on the Delaware before Fulton made his on the
Hudson.
This claim naturally brought the two into collision, and their quarrel
consisted in writing pamphlets against each other, apropos of which,
Thornton is said to have declared: “I killed Fulton with that last
pamphlet of mine!” Dr. Thornton married the daughter of an English lady
who kept a fashionable school for young ladies in Philadelphia, and is
reputed to have stood much in awe of both his wife and mother-in-law—a
condition of mind which finds scant compensation in worldly honors. The
ladies were allies in their opposition to his leaning toward the turf, to
which, despite his Quaker blood, the Doctor was passionately addicted.
This brought him into close association with Colonel Tayloe, and their
deaths occurred in the same year, 1828.
After her husband’s death, Mrs. Tayloe retired from society, although
she continued to make the Washington house her principal home until her
death, nearly thirty years later. One of her granddaughters, yet living
in the District, is authority for the fact that for more than fifty years
the Octagon was lighted solely by candles. Although gas was introduced
prior to Mrs. Tayloe’s death, she would never permit its use in the
Octagon, looking upon it as a “dangerous innovation,” and clinging to her
candles to the last. The granddaughter remembers as one of the distinct
impressions of her childhood, the sockets over the doorways which held
these wax illuminators.
The Tayloe occupancy of the Octagon ceased with Mrs. John Tayloe’s death,
in 1855, though its ownership did not pass from the family until its
purchase by the American Institute of Architects, in 1903.
Between the dates 1855 and 1865, the Catholic Sisters of St. Matthew’s
Parish taught a girls’ school in the Octagon, and from 1866 to 1879 it
was leased by the government for the “Hydrographic Office,” incorporated
by Congress in 1866 as a branch of the Navy Department.
Then for nearly twenty years the Octagon was given over to silence,
cobwebs, mice and ghosts, the last the inevitable tenants of all
deserted dwellings which have been the scene of departed grandeur.
A Virginian of good birth—whose fortunes had fallen on evil days, and who
was wont to seek solace in the flowing bowl and nepenthic drug—having
been installed as custodian of the place, greatly assisted popular
superstition by the recital of his own pipe-dream imaginations. As one of
the present Tayloes remarked—“you had only to fee the caretaker, and get
a ghost-story spun to your liking.”
[Illustration: HALL AND STAIRWAY, SCENE OF THE REPUTED SUICIDE]
Indeed, what with a mythical Miss Tayloe flinging herself over the
third story balustrade to escape the pangs of misplaced affection, and
a British officer—“nameless here forevermore”—walling up an octoroon
slave girl in the wine cellar; with bells ringing at all hours of the
night through the empty rooms, and heart-rending sighs breathing from
hidden nooks and passages, the Octagon is particularly rich in spooky
traditions, which neither the incredulous smile of daylight, nor the
disapproving frown of the family can wholly dispel. So often have they
been repeated, and so closely interwoven with the history of the old
house—whole works of fiction having been built on them—that when one goes
from the warm sunlight across this colonial threshold, pushing back the
heavy curved door with its iron bar and ponderous key, the sensation in
one’s spinal region is distinctly creepy. The eye wanders apprehensively
up the thin, winding stairway to the third floor and back to the spot
in the hall directly beneath, where the fatal plunge was made; and
descending the narrow, worn stairs to the basement, one involuntarily
listens in expectant dread for the smothered groan or sigh from behind
those mouldy bricks.
Mr. Glenn Brown, the accommodating secretary of the American Institute
of Architects, which now owns and occupies the Octagon, tells of a more
objectionable class of tenantry than the ghosts, when the architects
first took charge of the building in 1899. The faithless caretaker had
rented out the rooms to irresponsible negroes, and the architects found
several families of them domiciled in the erstwhile abode of Presidents.
To remove the squalor and damage consequent upon such occupancy, and
to restore and preserve the colonial architecture of the once splendid
mansion, the Institute expended three thousand dollars, resulting in
handsome and artistic headquarters, in all respects worthy of such an
organization.
It may not be generally known that prior to 1850, the profession of
architecture was not in good repute in America; that carpenters and
contractors were much more highly esteemed than architects, the former,
in contrast to the latter, being classified as “practical persons.”
In 1857, in the city of New York, a dozen young architects met in
the office of Richard Upjohn, for the purpose of considering the
organization of a society of architects, whose object should be the
promotion of schools for architecture, the publication of journals and
raising the standard of public taste in regard to it. This was the
genesis of the American Institute of Architects, which now numbers
eight hundred members and ten past presidents, of whom Richard Upjohn
was the first; another, Thomas U. Walter, designed the present wings of
the Capitol, and another, Richard M. Hunt, designed the Administration
Building, at the World’s Fair, and the famous “Biltmore,” at Asheville,
North Carolina.
The circular room on the second floor of the Octagon, once President
Madison’s executive office, is now the business office of the Institute,
and Dolly Madison’s bedroom has been converted into an exhibit room for
the American Academy in Rome.
Through the courtesy of the secretary, the writer was permitted to
explore the back yard and peep into the stable lot, in which is located a
large stone block—“whereby hangs a tale.”
A granddaughter of Colonel Tayloe’s, who spent much of her youth at the
Octagon, affirms that this stone was used by the postilions in mounting.
Yet to the frenzied fancy of more than one chronicler of local history,
this was the “slave block,” from which were auctioned some of those five
hundred slaves ascribed to John Tayloe, and is referred to in pompous and
melodramatic phrase as “doing satanic duty through the years.” Opposed
to this is the well authenticated fact that Colonel Tayloe never sold
any of his dusky retinue, and his wife’s reply when questioned as to the
number of her husband’s slaves: “He has five hundred _servants, but only
one slave. I_ am slave to them all,” is fraught with much historic truth
which is pretty generally overlooked in the portrayal of ante-bellum
types of Southern women.
Other pious visitors to the Octagon kitchen, looking through the same
lens as the discoverers of the “slave block,” beheld in the long iron
“spits,” used for roasting meats, unique _instruments of torture_ for the
hapless slaves!
These stories indicate that other imaginations besides the inventors of
ghostly legends, have been busy with the long-suffering Octagon; these
encrustations of false over the true cannot, however, detract from the
real interest of the history of this dignified old mansion.
FATE’S IRONY
He fought against his weakness; weary,
Heartsick, he, amid his failures, died.
Then one who knew him, knew how near he
Came to conq’ring with the hurts he bore;
Knew the reachings of his nature,
And the sweetness of his heart at core;
Knew the baffled will, the down-crushed pride;
From his effort plucked up courage,
Turned the failure into story,
From it won renown and glory.
_Amy E. Blanchard._
HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF THE SOUTH
CHAPTER XVIII—THE BLUNDERS OF SHILOH
By John Trotwood Moore
The more one studies Shiloh, the more contradictory it becomes. It will
ever remain an incongruous battle. On the Union side it was a battle of
unpreparedness—though not of dishonorable surprise—and on both sides
a battle of blunders. And never in any battle of any war that I have
ever read did Chance—old-fashioned, historic, blind Chance—play a more
conspicuous part.
Some of the big chances, standing out in the light of to-day like gray
ghosts above the battlefield, are:
First—The chance that cut Buell off one day too late for the Union cause.
Second—The chance that put him there one day too soon for the
Confederates.
Third—The chance which Grant took—and which he says in his autobiography
he would not have taken with the riper knowledge gained later in the
war—of not entrenching.
Fourth—The chance of mud and rain, which delayed Johnston one day in
bringing on the fight.
Fifth—The chance of one fateful bullet amid ten thousand harmless
ones, striking an artery not hit once in ten thousand times in battle,
and striking from the boards the only head on either side which had
absolutely a clear conception of the entire battle to be, planned by
himself with consummate skill and executed, till stricken to death, like
a thunderbolt of Jove in the brain of Mars. He alone, I repeat, of all
the host of generals, Federals and Confederates, who swarmed booted and
bedecked around the contending hosts of that day, had definite plans,
knew what was to be done, and held the doing of it in the hollow of his
hand, and his name was Albert Sidney Johnston.
Sixth—The great chance Beauregard had for ending the fight on the first
day, instead of calling off the troops until the fatal to-morrow.
Seventh—The chance—ay, the blunder—of Grant in recalling Lew Wallace
from a position which a most gracious and generous fate had given him.
A chance which gave to Wallace the opportunity for his own fame and the
fame of Grant’s army—the chance of falling upon the flank and rear of the
eager, neglectful, front-fighting Confederates, of breaking their hearts
as Johnston’s death could never have done. This was a greater chance
than Jackson had at Fredericksburg when he utterly defeated the Yankee
army; it was as great as the chance Blücher had at Waterloo; greater than
Bonaparte’s at Austerlitz.
In thinking of Stonewall Jackson and Johnston, did God in His wisdom know
it was best that the Confederacy should not be, as we all now know it,
and take these two men from life that it might not come to pass?
And there we are at it again: For God’s decision is man’s destiny.
Now, are not these chances enough? Or is it Law, Cause and Effect,
Adjustment, Nature—God?
To know—to see clearly—to understand that one paragraph, who would not
be willing to go hence to-night? For if it is God and immortality, there
would be no fears, doubts, pitiless days of self communion, ending in
that pale despair which strikes into the soul of every man whose soul is
his own and who thinks. And if it is all Chance (a thought repellant and
unbelievable to one who thinks), or even the Great Unchance of fixed,
immutable, but unloving and uncaring Law—as many believe—then why suffer
to this palsied, dust-turning end?
[Illustration: GENERAL LEW WALLACE]
From the lips of babes, from the humble and the ignorant, what wisdom!
Here is some of it:
On a morning after a cyclone where I once lived, amid the death of nearly
threescore people, and the wreck of homes, a friend met an old negro,
whose wife and children had been killed, and his home blown away. There
was the usual compassion and condolence and trust from the learned man,
who had lost nothing. But the old negro said: “Marster, the man that you
calls God—yo’ God—it ’pears to me that he do about as much harm as he do
good!”
I have wondered since—often and often—if our God—the God our little minds
have been able to grasp—to whom some people falsely attribute revenge and
cruelty and murder—if he is not as the old negro said; and I have prayed
that I might live to know the God Which Is, and that he would permit me
to understand the things which do stagger me now!
Were these things really chances? Take each one of them and sift it to
its very beginning—follow up the broad stream of each till you find the
first drop of its water trickling over the blind bluff of the thing
unknown which staggers and stops you, and even to that last tiny drop you
will stand and find no answer to the question, and before that drop you
will stop again, look up at the stars and ask the same question: “Is it
Chance, is it Law, or is it God?”
Let us take the first one: Why was Buell a day late? A thousand little
things—a march from Nashville to Savannah, planned with ample time, yet
delayed. What delays? Hundreds of them—follow up any one of them and it
will end in the drop.
Let me give you one which came under my personal recollection: Some ten
years ago I stopped one night at a hotel in Chicago, known as the Kuhn
House. After registering, the proprietor sought me out. He had been one
of Buell’s chief engineers, and upon seeing where I was from—Columbia,
Tennessee—he wanted to know if the old bridge across Duck River at that
point was still standing. “It was there,” he said, “that we saved Grant’s
army and made him President instead of prisoner. I was given two days”—I
think that is the time he stated—“to repair the bridge, the flooring of
which had been torn up and the structure half burned before we reached
it. But we had heard rumors of a great battle pending near Savannah and
though we had received messages from General Grant saying there was no
need for undue haste, we were marching for all we were worth. I felt,
somehow, that great things were at stake, and I doubled my force and
worked day and night completing the repairs so that the artillery might
pass over in just half the time given me; and that time saved, put us in
Savannah twelve hours to our good. I have often wondered what would have
happened had I taken my full time to repair that old bridge over Duck
River at Columbia.”
Chance. Might-have-been! Tell me what they are and I will tell you what
God is!
Grant and Buell threshed out their differences years ago before they both
passed into the shadowland, and nothing is more interesting than the
grave and dignified controversy between these two men. Grant, great as
he was in war, was out of his element with a pen in his hand; and in the
written battle, Buell, to my mind, has worsted him. Nor was it Buell’s
fault that this controversy arose. It came about from the exaggerated
desire of the friends of the Army of the Tennessee to shield Grant and
Sherman from the blunders they so clearly made and which should have been
acknowledged by them like men, instead of trying to belittle the part
that Buell played. For Buell had enough to his own credit.
In his very able article in _The Century_, Buell demonstrates at least
very clearly to his own mind:
First. That Grant and Sherman were neglectful in preparing for this
battle.
Second. That Grant’s army was too badly scattered, and he, himself, too
far away from the front when the battle opened.
Third. That Grant and Sherman were surprised.
Fourth. That they were whipped.
Fifth. and (Q. E. D.) that Buell saved them.
Here is Buell’s very succinct, graphic and convincing statement in the
beginning of his paper and argued throughout with the greatest ability:
“An army comprising seventy regiments of infantry, twenty
batteries of artillery and a sufficiency of cavalry lay for two
weeks and more in isolated camps, with a river in its rear and
a hostile army, claimed to be superior in numbers, twenty miles
distant in its front, while the commander made his headquarters
and passed his nights nine miles away, on the opposite side
of the river. It had no line or order of battle, no defensive
works of any sort, no outposts, properly speaking, to give
warning or check the advance of an enemy, and no recognized
head during the absence of the regular commander. On a Saturday
the hostile force arrived and formed in order of battle,
without detection or hindrance, within a mile and a half of the
unguarded army, advanced upon it the next morning, penetrated
its disconnected lines, assaulted its camps in front and
flank, drove its disjointed members successively from position
to position, capturing some and routing others, in spite of
much heroic individual resistance, and steadily drew near the
landing and depot of its supplies in the pocket between the
river and an impassable creek. At the moment, near the close of
the day, when the remnant of the retrograding army was driven
to refuge in the midst of its magazines, with the triumphant
enemy at half-gunshot distance, the advance division of a
reinforcing army arrived on the opposite bank of the river,
crossed and took position under fire at the point of attack;
the attacking force was checked and the battle ceased for the
day. The next morning at dawn the reinforcing army and a fresh
division belonging to the defeated force advanced against the
assailants, followed or accompanied by such of the broken
columns of the previous day as had not lost all cohesion, and,
after ten hours of conflict, drove the enemy from the captured
camps and the field.”
It will be seen from the statement in his article that one of the
strongest points he made as to the unpreparedness of Grant’s army is
the repeated fateful turning of the flanks of the different divisions
throughout the day, in one of which Prentiss was captured. He says:
“The outflanking so common in the Union report at Shiloh is not
a mere excuse of the inferior commanders. It is the practical
consequence of the absence of a common head and the judicious
use of reserves to counteract partial reverses and preserve the
front of battle.”
[Illustration: GENERAL GRANT.
As he appeared at the time of Shiloh]
From this alone he argues all the misfortunes of the different divisions
acting independently and without a common head. Their flanks turned again
and again as each fell back with no warning from the others. And this is
his graphic statement of the critical ending of the first day’s fight:
“Before the incumbrance of their success was entirely put out
of their day, the Confederates pressed forward to complete
a seemingly assured victory, but it was too late. John K.
Jackson’s brigade and the Ninth and Tenth Mississippi of
Chalmer’s brigade crossed Dill’s ravine, and their artillery
on the south side swept the bluff at the landing, the missiles
falling into the river far beyond. Hulbert had hurriedly gotten
into line in rear of the siege guns, as they are called in the
official report, posted a half-mile from the river, but for
five hundred yards from the landing there was not a soldier
or any organized means of defense. Just as the danger was
perceived Colonel Webster, Grant’s Chief of Artillery, rapidly
approached Colonel Fry and myself. The order of getting the
battery which was standing in park into action was expressed
simultaneously by the three of us, and was promptly executed
by Colonel Webster’s immediate exertion. General Grant came
up a few minutes later, and a member of his escort was killed
in that position. Chalmer’s skirmishers approached within one
hundred yards of the battery. The number in view was not large,
but the gunners were already abandoning their pieces, when
Ammen’s brigade, accompanied by Nelson, came into action. The
attack was repelled and the engagement ended for the day.... We
know from the Confederate report that the attack was undertaken
by Chalmer’s and Jackson’s brigade, as above stated; that the
reserve artillery could effect nothing against the attacks
from under the shelter of Dill’s ravine; that the fire of the
gunboats was equally harmless on account of the elevation which
it was necessary to give the guns in order to clear the top of
the bluff, and that the final assault, owing to the show of
resistance, was delayed. Jackson’s brigade made its advance
without cartridges, and when they came to the crest of the hill
and found the artillery supported by infantry, they shrank
from the assault by bayonet alone. Jackson went in search of
co-operation and support, and in the meantime the attack was
superseded by the order of the Confederate commander calling
off his troops for the day.”
His description of how things looked when he landed at Pittsburg Landing,
of the demoralized condition of Grant’s army, is graphic in the extreme:
“On the shore I encountered a scene which has often been
described. The face of the bluff was crowded with stragglers
from the battle. The number that at different times has been
estimated at five thousand in the morning to fifteen thousand
in the evening. The number at nightfall would never have fallen
short of fifteen thousand, including those who had passed
down the river, and the less callous, but still broken and
demoralized, fragments about the camps on the plateau near the
landing. At the top of the bluff all was confusion. Men mounted
and on foot and wagons with their teams and excited drivers,
all struggling their way closest to the river, were mixed up in
apparently inextricable confusion with a battery of artillery
which was standing in park without men or horses to man or move
it.”
There lives near me in honor and good name, General Gates P. Thruston,
one of the greatest scholars of the South, and perhaps the greatest
living ethnologists of this country. He was with Buell, and corroborates
his chief, and he refers me to General Lew Wallace’s oration, delivered
at Shiloh, April 6th, 1903, in which General Wallace uses the following
language:
“Did any of you, my friends, ever hear of an army fighting a
battle without a commander? No? Well, that was the case with
the Army of the Tennessee at the beginning of the first day
here. The five divisions on the field had each its chief, to
be sure; but none of the five chiefs was in general command.
Instead of one supreme governing will, nowhere so essential as
in battle, there were five officers, each independent of the
others. Between them things were done by request, not orders.
No one of them was responsible for what the others did. I am
sure you will see the enormity of the disadvantage. You will
even wonder that there was any resistance made.
“I may not pass this point without an explanation. To do so
would be grossest injustice. General Grant, as everybody knows,
was in command of the Army of the Tennessee at the time. By
order of General Halleck, his headquarters were at Savannah,
ten miles below Pittsburg Landing. Hearing the guns, he made
all haste to the scene of action, arriving there four hours
after the attack began. It was then too late for him to change
the day. The battle had passed beyond his control.
“A strange circumstance that, certainly; but what will you say
to this I offer you next? The Confederate army left Corinth
for Pittsburg Landing on Thursday, in the afternoon. It moved
in three corps—Hardee’s, Bragg’s, Polk’s—with Breckinridge’s
three brigades in reserve. The intention was to attack the
Army of the Tennessee Saturday morning, but it was not until
late Saturday afternoon that the entire army reached its
destination and was deployed. Here, now, is the marvel. How was
it possible to move the three great army corps into as many
lines of battle, each behind the other, within two miles of
Shiloh Church, without making their presence known? Were there
any Union pickets out? How far out could they have been? Had
they no eyes, no ears? It would seem not. For at five o’clock
Sunday morning, when Hardee moved to the attack—I give you all
permission to wonder while you listen—neither General Grant at
Savannah nor one of his division commanders on the field knew
of the peril, or even suspected it.”
Of the other great chance or blunder of Shiloh—Grant’s recall of Lew
Wallace—let us now speak. Early in my study of this battle I stumbled on
this so unexpectedly that it filled me with surprise. It was beyond doubt
the greatest opportunity of Shiloh, as I mentioned in a previous paper.
The story of it by Lew Wallace himself, is the most interesting paper
ever written about that battlefield. For many years the distinguished
author of “Ben-Hur” was made the scapegoat of Shiloh. He bore it like
the man he was, but history will now vindicate him and nothing has given
me greater pleasure than to contribute my share toward his vindication
in this series of papers. At the time I arrived at the conclusion I did
concerning General Wallace’s brilliant movement during the first day’s
fight, I did not know that he had ever explained it himself, but seeing
the position I took, and the conclusions I deduced, a friend has sent me
the account General Wallace wrote of it himself and turned it over to
General James Grant Wilson to be published by General Wilson after the
death of the author. This was done last January by the Appletons,[1] and
it is useless to add that the author of “Ben-Hur” has told in no usual
way the graphic story of that blunder of his superior which made Wallace
a scapegoat instead of a hero of that much misunderstood fight. I quote
only part of it, but this part bristles with interest, and is enough:
“On the 6th, the memorable Sunday, a sentinel woke me from
sleep on the steamboat serving me for headquarters. He reported
cannonading up the river. When I reached the hurricane deck
dawn was breaking. The air was humid and heavy, but still.
The guns were quite audible. Five minutes—ten—and then the
irregular pounding, sometimes distinct, sometimes muffled, kept
scurrying down the yellow flood of the river. Directly the camp
on the bluff became astir.
“My staff officers reported to me. One of them (Lieutenant
Ware) I sent to Colonel Smith with directions to form his
brigade and conduct it to ‘Stoney Lonesome.’ Another (Major
James R. Ross) was dispatched at speed to Colonel Thayer with
orders to have everything ready to move; continuing his ride,
he bore an order to Colonel Wood of the Third Brigade to break
camp, send baggage and property to the landing (Crump’s) and
bring his regiments to the rendezvous at ‘Stoney Lonesome.’
The purpose of these orders was to have the division ready for
movement when General Grant, who was at Savannah for the night,
should pass in his dispatch boat going up the river.
“About 8:30 o’clock General Grant drew alongside, and a
conversation, substantially (almost literally) the following,
took place:
“‘Have you heard the firing?’ he asked.
“‘Yes, I have been listening to it since daybreak.’
“‘What do you think of it?’
[Illustration: NASHVILLE PIKE, NEAR SPRING HILL, DOWN WHICH ROAD BUELL
MARCHED]
“‘It is undoubtedly a general engagement.’
“‘What have you in your front?’
“‘There is nothing reported.’
“He then said, after thought: ‘Very well. Hold yourself in
readiness for orders.’
“‘But, General, I ordered the concentration about daylight. I
am ready now.’
“Again he reflected. He seemed uncertain. It afterwards came
out that he believed the real attack would be on me. Presently
he repeated: ‘Hold yourself in readiness to move in any
direction.’ The pilot bell rang, the lashings were removed and
his steamer put off up-stream hard as it could go.
“There was general disappointment among my officers. I was
disappointed; but without remark I left the boat. My last order
at the Landing was to have a horse saddled and bridled and
hitched to a tree on the bluff, that a messenger coming down
the river with an order for me might bring it without delay.
Thereupon I rode out to ‘Stoney Lonesome,’ where Smith and
Thayer were waiting, arms stacked. The Third Brigade had not
yet arrived.
“The men were clustered together in groups. They were doing
little talking. Their faces were turned to the south,
listening. Occasionally musketry could be heard accompanying
the artillery. Smith and Thayer and their staff officers
collected around me, and were surprised when I told them the
order General Grant had left me.
“Ten o’clock, and still the air laden with noises of the
struggle going on—still no order; 10:30—yet no order. Smith got
into his saddle and rode away, saying: ‘I guess Grant sees he
can get along without us.’
“Eleven o’clock. The firing was no longer continuous, but at
intervals and in outbursts. Thayer suggested that an order
might have been started and the messenger intercepted. I
thought not; for if the situation on the field called for us,
the possibility of an accident to a courier by land would
necessitate sending him by boat. So I ordered a staff officer,
Major Ross, to ride to the landing and see if anything had come
down by the river. About half a mile down the road he met an
officer on the horse I had left, who asked him where General
Wallace was. Ross told him; then he asked, in turn, if he
had orders for General Wallace. The officer said he had, and
gave the Major a paper, which the Major read. In a short time
Captain Baxter, a Q. U. of General Grant’s, introduced himself
to me and placed the paper in my hand, saying: ‘Here is an
order.’
“Our watches showed 11:30 o’clock. The officers of my staff
and of Thayer’s closed around me while I read. The paper was a
half sheet of foolscap, dented with boot heels and soiled with
tobacco juice, and it was folded, not enveloped. The writing
was in pencil. Strangest of all, no signature was attached. I
passed the paper to Thayer to read, and, turning to Baxter,
asked: ‘How is the fighting going, Captain?’
“Baxter replied: ‘Very well. We are repulsing them all along
the line.’
“The paper was returned to me, and I read it a second time,
and, noticing its deficiencies, inquired:
“‘Who is this from, Captain?’
“‘General Grant.’
“‘Why is it not signed?’
“He then explained: ‘I received the order verbally. Not being
used to carrying orders, I picked the paper from the floor of
the cabin as I came down and wrote what you see. I was afraid I
might make a mistake.’
“General Grant, speaking of the order, has several times said
that he sent it to me not later than 10 o’clock; that it
directed me to march to Pittsburg Landing by the lower or river
road; that he gave it verbally to a staff officer, and did not
know what it was when delivered to me. Of course, he could
not know, but I do; and others, some dead, some living, who
read it, have given their accounts of it, so that I can speak
with confidence. Here it is—as I received it, mark you—almost
verbatim:
“‘You will leave a sufficient force at Crump’s Landing to guard
the public property there; with the rest of your division march
and form junction with the right of the army, your line at
right angles with river, and be governed by circumstances.’
“Observe, if you please, that the words by the lower or river
road to Pittsburg Landing are omitted, leaving nothing but a
naked direction for me to march and form junction with the
right of the army.
“Do I deny General Grant’s version of the order? I believe he
ordered me to Pittsburg Landing by the river road because he
says he did, and because at 10 o’clock, when the whole army
was slowly and sullenly retiring to the river, it was the
order logically right and first to present itself. Moreover,
by inserting in the body of the order actually brought to me
the words ‘to Pittsburg Landing by the lower or river road,’ we
have sense in the other direction to ‘form my line of battle
at right angles with the river,’ otherwise without sense. At
the right of the army, out three miles from the Landing, how
was the angle to be ascertained? Why, then, did I not lead
my column to Pittsburg Landing? And I answer, because the
order Captain Baxter delivered to me contained no mention of
Pittsburg Landing or of any road. Satisfied that I comprehended
it, I passed the paper to Colonel Thayer; others about us at
the moment read it. I gave it finally to Captain Kneffler, my
Adjutant-General, who probably stuck it under his sword belt.
It was lost during the day. On account of its informality, he
attached no importance to it, and, as I shared the opinion, I
never blamed him.
“My first thought was, where is the right of the army? Captain
Baxter’s good news settled the point. If not where it was
in the morning, then Sherman must have advanced. In short,
Sherman’s camp was now my goal, and I knew it was just beyond
the bridge at the junction of Owl and Snake Creeks, on the road
from Pittsburg Landing to Purdy. To get to it by the shortest
route and in the quickest time from the corner of the V my
brigades were in, I must take the right-hand road. General
Grant has said in a footnote of his ‘Memoirs’ that, in the
absence of an express direction, if I had been an older soldier
I would have marched to Pittsburg Landing, and thence, as from
a base, out to Sherman. I think not. He forgot the news I had
from Baxter as to the condition of the battle; besides which,
by taking the right line of the road fork, the distance of the
march would be reduced nearly, if not quite, three miles; in
addition to which, again, the column would be on the very road
Myers had bridged and corduroyed for me. So I sent word to
Myers to lead out for the Owl Creek bridge next to Sherman’s
camp.
“I asked myself, to be sure, if we are beating the enemy, and
he is on the run, why the want of me? And why the order to form
my line at right angles with the river? I could not answer,
but rested implicitly on the order. Grant was on the ground—he
knew—that was enough. The idea of defeat never entered my mind;
and starting, as I was, with intelligence of a victory already
won by our army, what ground is there for the imputation that I
had the achievement of some special glory in purpose?
“The road we were pursuing had been well repaired. The cavalry
had done its work substantially, and we bowled along. By the
firing we could tell we were nearing the battle. We took no
note of time. Somewhere about half after one o’clock—I remember
the head of the column was reported in the vicinity of the
Owl Creek bridge—a cavalry officer, quite young and capless,
covered with mud, slashed across the forehead, rode up from the
rear and asked:
“‘Are you General Wallace?’
“Without pulling rein, I replied.
“‘General Grant,’ he said, ‘has sent me to tell you to hurry
up.’
“Up? To the right of the army, of course; so I returned: ‘Give
General Grant my compliments, and tell him I will be up in a
few minutes.’
“The courier rode off the way he came—a circumstance which,
if I had had the slightest suspicion that my movement was in
error, would have prompted calling him back for question.
“So, in absolute unconsciousness of mistake, I pushed on.
Several times officers came to me and remarked upon the firing
so far down on our left. And it was curious. Had we been
repulsing the enemy, he should have been in the south, not so
nearly in the southeast. But I settled the point, at least
to my own satisfaction. ‘The fighting has ceased on front of
Sherman; but they are keeping it up away over on our left.’
From the position my column was then in, the left of our army
should have been well down toward the river in an almost
easterly direction—certainly far enough in that direction to
dispose of the only mistake General Grant attributes to me in
the footnote corrective of the text in his ‘Memoirs.’
[Illustration]
“Finally the revelation overtook me. A second messenger came
up from the rear. It was Captain Rowley, well known as of
General Grant’s staff. He it was who reported to his chief that
he found me marching to Purdy and several miles farther from
the battlefield than when I started. From ‘Stoney Lonesome,’
Purdy lies west; whereas the road upon which he overtook me
runs almost due south, and Shiloh Church, marking the left of
Sherman’s camp, could not have been to exceed two miles from
where Rowley and I held the conversation, which I will give
very nearly in exact words. The fact is, he was himself out of
his reckoning, if not lost.
“‘I’ve had a devil of a time to find you,’ he said, in high
excitement.
[Illustration: JOHNSTON’S MONUMENT AT SHILOH]
“‘I am sorry to have put you to trouble,’ I returned, checking
my horse. ‘What is it?’
“‘The General has sent me to hurry you up.’
“‘That’s the second message of the kind in ten minutes. I don’t
understand it.’
“‘Where are you going, anyhow?’
“‘To join Sherman.’
“‘Sherman!’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Come to one side with me.’ We went a little out of the road.
“‘Great God!’ he said, ‘don’t you know that Sherman has been
driven from his camp? And that the whole army is now within
half a mile of the landing, and it’s a question if we are not
all to be driven into the river?’
“To my exclamations Captain Rowley went into details. There
are kinds of fear; but nothing of that nature can shoot one’s
marrow so to the core as the dread of making a mistake in a
situation such as Rowley then flung me. Yet I could see with
astonishing distinctness that I had led my division into the
rear of the rebel army, or rather that the whole victorious
army was between me and Grant.
“My first impulse was to go on. A vigorous assault upon the
enemy’s rear might turn defeat into victory. Two years later,
at City Point, General Grant told me that if he had known at
Shiloh what he then knew he would have ordered me where I
started to go. To which I add, if I had known the moment Rowley
was talking to me that General Nelson was on the right bank of
the Tennessee, with a possibility of crossing his division to
the left bank at Pittsburg Landing before night, I would have
continued my march at all hazards. As it was, I did not even
know that General Buell was within fifty miles of Savannah.
Why, in the morning at Crump’s Landing, General Grant did not
tell me that a considerable part of the Army of the Ohio was
within supporting distance of the Army of the Tennessee has
been a mystery to me from that day to this. It must have been
that he did not yet believe there was seriousness in the rebel
demonstration at Pittsburg Landing.
“Captain Rowley, it is to be observed, did not estimate that
there was a mistake in my movement to the right of the army. I
told him it was plain that I was in the rear of the rebel army,
and asked categorically: ‘What does General Grant want me to
do? Do you bring me an order from him?’
“‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘General Grant wants you to go to Pittsburg
Landing, and he wants you there like hell.’
“‘Very well, I shall obey him,’ I said. ‘But it will be
necessary for me to back out of this and find a cross road to
take the column into the river road. You have just come through
the swamps; stay, now, and pilot me.’
“He declined, and presently left me; then, thinking to find
a crossing into the river road before the head of the column
would lap the foot, I sent Captain Kneffler, who was still
with Major Myers at the Owl Creek bridge, intelligence of
the altered situation and a desire that he would remain with
Myers and help take care of the rear. Thereupon I ordered a
counter-march by brigades. The tactics of the movement have
been criticised, and I now think justly. I should have resorted
to a right-about of column.
“Note, now, please—when we thus changed direction, from the
south facing north, it was to march completely around the
left flank of the Confederate army. Note, also—when the
counter-march was ordered, not only was my cavalry holding the
bridges at Owl Creek, scarcely a half-mile from the bluff on
which the right of Sherman’s division rested in the morning,
but Thayer’s advance guard had been some time turned into
the Hamburg-Purdy road, and could not have been to exceed
three-quarters of a mile from the bridge. And, marvelous to
say, not a sign of the enemy had been seen! The inference is
that the rear of the Confederates was unguarded. Indeed, it has
been told me by reputable officers of their side that at the
time of my approach there were fully as many of their soldiers
looting and drinking in the captured camps as there were of
ours burrowing under the bluffs down at the landing. Who shall
tell the result had I been permitted to go on in my march? Many
a time, seeing as we see in dreams, I have beheld Thayer’s
deployed regiments moving through those tented streets, a wave
crested with bayonets, and heard the demoralized hordes rushing
panic-stricken upon their engaged lines. And now, in moments
when personal ambition gets the better of me, I hold Rowley’s
coming my greatest quarrel with Fortune. Oh, if he had remained
lost in the woods an hour longer!”
[1] _Appleton’s Magazine_, January, 1906.
[Illustration]
SOME BEAUTIFUL WOMEN OF THE SOUTH
[Illustration: MISS ALETHA VARDAMAN
Daughter of the Governor of Mississippi
_Sweeney, Jackson_]
[Illustration: MRS. J. C. W. BECKHAM
Wife of the Governor of Kentucky
_G. B. Waggener, Philadelphia_]
[Illustration: MISS EULALIE GORMAN
Dallas
_Voorhees & DeVoe, Dallas_]
[Illustration: MRS. THEODORE PERRY SHONTS, OF WASHINGTON]
[Illustration: MRS. WILLIAM ATKINSON JONES
Warsaw, Virginia]
AUNT HETTY ON THE “WET AND THE DRY”
By Louise Clarke Pyrnelle
[The editors feel that they will not be treating their readers
fairly unless they call especial attention to this picture
of Alabama negro life and the unusual cleverness of the
dialect.—Editors Taylor-Trotwood.]
The town of Luckville had been from its very beginning “wet;” that is,
there had always been a saloon or “doggery,” at which whisky could be
bought by the pint, quart or gallon.
But the discovery of phosphate beds in the river near town had brought
in a number of new residents, many of them “temperance folks.” So at the
next election the town voted “dry,” and no liquor could be bought there
except from the drug store by a doctor’s prescription.
This law remained in force for three years, and now, on the verge of
another election, the opposing factions were busily and earnestly at
work for their respective sides. It was at this time and under these
conditions that Aunt Hetty began loudly to proclaim her opinions on the
“wet and the dry.”
“Humph! De whi’ fo’ks is all de time er-gittin’ up some kin’ er ructions
er nuther ’long uv deyse’fs! Dat’s des whut mek me say whut I does—dat de
whi’ fo’ks is de cuttin’upist an’ de gwineonist fo’ks dat de good Lawd
evah made! Dey’s er-votin’, er dey’s er-fightin’, er dey’s er-co’tin’ up
teh de cote-house, er dey’s er-doin’ sump’n er-nudder dat-a-way de whole
indurin’ resistunce uv dey time! Now dey’s ’scussin’ uv de ’wet an’ de
dry’! Humph!
“Hit’s all one teh me! I knows I ain’t er-gwine teh hab no bar-room
mahse’f, an’ I ain’t er-gwine teh pestah nobuddy frum habin’ er bar-room
ef dey wants one. Dat’s des perzac’ly whar I stan’s.
“I done seen de wuckin’s uv de bar-rooms, an’ ergin, on de yutheh han’,
I done seen de wuckin’s uv de drug-sto’. I done study uv ’em bofe thu’
de ’newvehmunts uv dat ole niggah Pomp, whut nomuhnates hisse’f mah
husbun’—do’ I ain’t nevah seen no mighty ’mount uv _husbun’_ ’bout him.
He’s des er lazy, biggity, ornerary ole black niggah, whut got hisse’f
tied up in de bon’s er macremony des feh teh git his vittles an’ his
lodgmunts. But he done bin er-livin’ er-long uv me now er-gwine on a
mighty heap uv yeahs, an’ I got so used teh see him er-hangin’ ’roun’
mah house tell hit ’pyears lak I cyarn’ do bedoutin’ him—lak sump’n’s
er-missin’ ef he ain’t dar.
“But ’scusin’ all dat, he sho’ is de _on_temperatist man, white er
black, dat evah wuz bawn! He des natch’ly _bleedged_ feh teh drink ef he
knows dar’s enny kin’ uv liquidmunts er-roun’! W’en de whi’ fo’ks had
de bar-rooms ole Pomp he got pow’ful pyeart! He tuck’n tuck my ax an’
went all er-bout er-splittin’ an’ er-cuttin’ up wood—but de Lawd knows
he ain’t nevah cut an’ split none feh _me_! An’ den he digged in de
blossom patches feh de whi’ fo’ks. An’ let er-lone all er dat, mah hens
got teh doin’ mighty cur’s—dey’d cackle lak dey wuz er-layin’ pow’ful,
but I nevah could fin’ de fust rudemunts uv er aig. I mought er done
a onjustice to de po’ ole niggah, but I ’spicioned him ’caze I hearn
tell uv him er-sellin’ aigs, an’ hit don’t ’pyeah natch’l feh er man
teh sell aigs w’en he ain’ got no hens uv his own feh teh lay ’em. Dem
two ingrejunces—hens an’ aigs—des ’pintedly b’long to one er-nuther. Ef
you got hens you’ll git aigs, an’ ef you ain’t you won’t. Dat is, not
natch’ly! Uv co’se dey _is_ shawt cuts you kin take feh to git ’em, an’ I
’spicioned mah ole man uv takin’ dem vehy cuts—an’ mah aigs wid ’em.
“Well, dem an’ his wuckin’s fotch him in a little sal’ry, an’ evah night
he’d go teh de bar-room. Ef he had fo’ bits he’d buy er fo’-bit bottle;
ef he had two bits he’d buy er two-bit bottle; so, ’cordin’ teh his
bits wuz de size uv his bottle. Den he’d stan’ er-roun’ an’ tell his
’speriunces an’ notate his tales, an’ sing his chunes, an’ de gen’l’mun
would treat him to beeh an’ segahs. An’ des es long es dat bar-room stay
open, ole Pomp, he’d stay dar. An’ evah night hit wuz de same thing! Evah
_re_gitimate cent Pomp could scrape up stopped slap dar in dat bar-room!
“So I wusht teh de Lawd de whi’ fo’ks ’d shet up dem bar-rooms, an’ bless
de Libbin’ Goodness, dey tuck’n done dat vehy thing!
“Den dey made de law dat nobuddy could git er drink ’ceptin’ ef dey
wuz sick an’ had de doctah’s subscription feh teh git it by. W’en
dat ole Pomp got er clear ondehstan’in’ uv dat ’ar law he des hump
hisse’f! De niggah wuck so hahd an’ step er-roun’ so pyeart, an’ look so
’ligious-minded dat I got mighty holped up erbout him. But, _umph-umph_,
honey, dat ole niggah, he sho’ sly! W’en Sat’d’y night come he ties er
hank’cheh ’roun’ his ole jaws an’ gits him er stick an’ limps up teh de
drug sto’. W’en de doctah notice him he say, ‘O-o-oh, Lawdy-Lawdy,’ lak
he mos’ daid. An’ de doctah ax him, ‘Whut’s de mattah wid you, Uncle
Pomp?’ An’ dat weekid ole Christyun niggah, whut’s es strong es er
natch’l bawn oxen, he ’lowed, ‘O-o-oh, Lawdy, doctah, I feels pow’ful
bad, thank Gawd!’ ‘Whut seem teh huht you now?’ sez de doctah, an’ ole
Pomp ’spon’s back teh him, ‘Well, suh, I don’t perzac’ly know des whut
it is. I got er miz’ry in de off side, an’ I’se afeerd I’se busted de
rim outeh mah stomach. I knows I got a achin’ in de pit uv mah back, an’
mah livah’s all gummed up! An’ dis laig—o-o-_oh_—hit seem lak hit ain’t
hung right er sump’n—hit ain’t _plum_, somehow. So I thought I’d ax you
ef you’d be so onscruperlous, suh, as teh gib me er subscription teh git
a drap uv whisky teh rub on intun’ly, suh, on dese stiff ole j’ints uv
mine, ef you please, suh.’
“So dat ole backslidin’ niggah, he wuck on de doctah’s symphonies tell
de doctah gib him de subscription, an’ he gib de doctah fo’ bits. An’
on top uv dat he hatter gib er dollar an’ er quawteh fo’ de vehy same
kin’ an’ same remount uv whisky dat he git frum de bar-room feh fo’ bits
befo’! Lawzy, chillun, hit wuz des lak I bin er-tellin’ you! An’ evah
week hit wuz de same prefawmunts tell hit set me teh studyin’. An’ I done
’pintedly come to dis ’clusion, dat ef er man is _got_ teh hab whisky—des
natch’ly boun’ an’ ’bleedged feh teh hab it, hit don’t mek much diff’unce
whedder it come frum de bar-room er frum de drug sto’. An’ ef dey calls
de bar-room de ‘wet’ an’ de drug sto’ de ‘dry,’ den de mos’ diff’unce is
’twixt an’ ’tween er dollah an’ six bits—countin’ de subscription—an’
fo’ bits. So I tells you dis, honey, w’en it comes to bar-rooms an’ drug
sto’s hit’s des nip an’ tuck—mos’ly tuck.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: MY LOVE]
BY LILLIAN WESTER
You have been mine, O Love!
One fair, sweet day;
Last night you left the courts of men
And passed my way.
I did not ask, O Love!
In wish nor prayer,
For one so strong, so wholly good,
To think me fair.
I did but hope, O Love!
From humble sphere,
To sing one song so true that you
Might pause to hear;
Might pause, and find, O Love!
_That_ path more sweet,
When Chance should bring you once again
Where strayed my feet.
But then you came, O Love!—
’Twas night with me—
You smiled and drove the shadows far,
And I could see.
You took my hands, O Love!
And with your eyes
You looked my soul away from me
To where yours lies.
I weep, my Life, my Love!
But then the tears
Are for the days before you came,
Not coming years.
You came, my King, my Love!
And in your eyes
I lost the fear of days, and found
A Paradise!
OLD HICKORY
BORN AT WAXHAW SETTLEMENT, MARCH 15, 1767
DIED AT THE HERMITAGE, JUNE 8, 1845
By Robert L. Taylor
The most noted character in American history, one whom the coming ages
will number among the truly great, was born at a point so obscure that
its exact location is still in dispute. On the remote frontier of the
Carolina colony, whose boundary lines were uncertain; far up on the
forest-clad banks of the Catawba, whose slopes were just beginning to
feel the pioneer’s axe; on the fifteenth day of March, 1767, Andrew
Jackson was presented to humanity.
The story of his mother partakes of the tragic, the heroic and
the pathetic. The daughter of a fairly prosperous linen weaver of
Carrickfergus, she linked her destiny with young Andrew Jackson, a
Scotch-Irishman, and, after a few years at home, they left the shores of
the Emerald Isle, seeking fortune in the new colonies. Scarcely had they
fixed their abode in the Waxhaw Settlement and begun to make a home, when
death claimed the young husband, and the bereaved widow was left almost
destitute, with two young sons, Hugh and Robert, her sole dependence.
Within a few days Andrew was born, and necessity forced her to send her
eldest son, Hugh, to live with a relative, while she and the two younger
made their home with another.
Here in the primeval forests young Andrew began to imbibe that love
of liberty which fitted him later so to bless humanity. His education
was obtained in the old field school, but, impatient of its restraints
and loving best the rifle and the chase, he spent the earlier years in
developing the sinews of a vigorous manhood.
When yet a mere lad the sweep of the Revolution reached the Waxhaw
Settlement, and Mrs. Jackson willingly gave her two older boys to the
service of the colonies, but clung to her youngest born until the insult
of a British officer gave intensity to an inclination that was destined
to cost England so dear.
[Illustration: OLD HICKORY]
Peace found young Andrew bereft of mother, brothers and worldly
inheritance, but with a vigorous constitution, a chivalrous sense
of moral duty and a deep, abiding love for his country, he set out
resolutely upon an unexampled career, the chief characteristic of which
in earlier years was reckless daring, in which he was unconsciously
laying the foundations for that intrepid adherence to right principle
that later set him apart and above his fellows. Of uncommon mental
endowment, he easily acquired such education as was then obtainable and
adopted the profession of law, and when but twenty-one years of age
he fell in with the adventurous spirit of the times on the frontier
and made his way with the pioneers into the Southwest Territory. After
lingering in the Watauga settlements a time, he followed the trail still
farther into the wilderness until he reached the beautiful basin of the
Cumberland, where he took up his final abode.
There, from the first, he took his place easily and naturally as a leader
of men and began to work out that great destiny which will link his name
indissolubly with liberty and free government as long as men love to be
free, the symbol of the soundest and strongest fundamental principle in
government ever conceived by man.
Measured by the moral standards now obtaining, many of his acts and
habits in those earlier years cannot be justified, although there is
little to indicate that they were held to be reprehensible then. His
chief characteristic was towering and intolerant mastery of men, his
greatest foible was his love for a race-horse, and he left nothing
further to be done in following both bents, and yet he was actuated
in everything by the highest conception of honor and principle, and
imparted dignity and the virtue of his own indomitable character to every
transaction in which he engaged.
The annals of men do not afford, and fiction has never conceived, an
instance of more sublime devotion to womanhood than Andrew Jackson held
for his wife. He loved her with an intensity of tenderness that was the
exact antithesis of that fierce and stormy love of adventure and aptitude
for arms that possessed him; and if nothing else were known of him but
this, it would enshrine his name forever. She could not have been less
than a charming, loving woman to have deserved the devotion of such a
man and held it to the end, and she sleeps now by his side under a slab
inscribed with a tribute by his hand that for entreating tenderness of
sweet affection is scarcely paralleled:
“Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President
Jackson, who died the 22d of December, 1828, aged 61. Her
face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her
heart kind; she delighted in relieving the wants of her
fellow-creatures and cultivated that divine pleasure by the
most liberal and unpretending methods; to the poor she was a
benefactor, to the wretched a comforter, to the prosperous an
ornament; her piety went hand in hand with her benevolence, and
she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good. A being
so gentle and so virtuous, slander might wound, but could not
dishonor. Even death, when he tore her from the arms of her
husband, could but transport her to the bosom of her God.”
Jackson’s character as a warrior and a statesman are so conspicuous as
to dwarf by comparison his record as a lawyer. It is said that he filed
seventy lawsuits for clients in the first month of his practice, and that
out of one hundred and ninety-two cases before the court in 1790 he was
counsel in forty-two. Three years later his cases numbered seventy-two
out of one hundred and fifty-five, and the next year he increased this
to two hundred and twenty-eight out of three hundred and ninety-seven.
It was no inconspicuous lawyer who could make such record as this. But
for his other resplendent traits, his reputation as a jurist might rest
more securely, but it doubtless suffered much by his own indisposition to
build his fame upon it.
He was only eight years in Tennessee before being made Major-General of
militia, which in those times meant active service in the field. His
career as a soldier needs scant recapitulation here to establish the
statement that it was characterized by a most unselfish patriotism. He
hesitated at nothing when his country’s interests were in jeopardy,
creating opportunities and anticipating the power to meet them, daring
even to invade a friendly territory, to disobey superior orders, to take
fate and destiny in his own hands at any peril to himself.
It was this same unchanging, unconquerable spirit of invincible daring
that characterized his administration of the government and nerved him
to defy and conquer the money power that was then dominating the country
through the United States Bank and gave him power to meet and quell the
turbulent and dangerous doctrine of the right of a state to nullify a
proper act of Congress.
The most conspicuous service rendered to mankind by Andrew Jackson was
the creation and enforcement of the political cult that is expressed in
his name. “Andy Jackson Democracy” has no mere partisan significance, but
it denotes a principle and power in popular government that is to save to
America forever the right of the people to rule themselves—the invincible
strength of a central government based upon the supreme power of the
separate states acting in harmony.
What was the secret of Jackson’s power? Whence came the attraction that
drew men to him as the magnet draws the needle? It is not difficult to
find the secret of his popularity with the pioneers. He appealed to them
through his devotion to the “sport of kings,” for no man loved a fast
horse or would risk more upon its prowess than he, and he led the sport
in which the people most delighted. And then he stood first in all the
feats of daring to which frontiersmen were addicted—a perfect shot,
swift of foot, a mighty wrestler, capping it all off with a spirit of
chivalrous gallantry and a gentlemanly bearing that rendered him superb.
But what drew the sage of Monticello to him? What gave him such mastery
in statecraft and charmed men to his standard? It was his inherent,
unswerving love of human liberty, his tense loyalty and stern faith in
the institutions of his country, his immaculate conception of right and
duty, and the superb fearlessness that possessed him, that made the man
_convincing_.
It is said that Jackson has more biographers than any other national
character. His career was so replete with incidents inviting
interpretation that writers are drawn to it like flies about the
sugar-bowl. Of no other man can historians resort to panegyric in
substitute of statement and be justified by public criticism. There are
perhaps more anecdotes told of him than any other public man, and never
one that does not denote courage and power and strength. Indicative of
his intuitive powers of quick decision is the story that when the subject
of a site for a new treasury building to replace that burned by the
British was broached one day, he was walking on Pennsylvania Avenue. With
instant emphasis, he struck his stick upon the ground and said: “Put it
here!” And there it stands to-day.
No man has lived who had a simpler human way of loving his friends and
hating those who hurt him than Andrew Jackson. His fiercest wrath,
however, was reserved for those who dared traduce his wife. In his
Florida campaign, when supplies failed the army, he set the example of
eating nuts and roots and berries. One of his friends at the other end of
a long table at a barbecue became involved in a difficulty, which Jackson
no sooner perceived than he cried, “I’m coming!” and, mounting the table,
strode its full length to the rescue. He was singularly tender to little
folks. How touching is the picture of this grim warrior, the seasoned
duelist, the fierce hater, tenderly wrapping a sugar-rag for a ragged
papoose found in a Creek village after a battle, and nursing it until
he could send it to a friendly woman in Montgomery! Such was his hold
upon the affections of his people that a certain traveler, reaching a
Tennessee town the day after he was elected President, found the populace
engaged in applying tar and feathers to two reckless burghers who had
dared to vote against the General! And there is still a happy valley
somewhere in remote Arcadia, we are told, where the old men hobble to the
polls quadrennially in November and cast a loyal vote for “Andy Jackson.”
His faculty for remembering faces and names was marvelous. In 1832,
returning from Washington to Nashville, he was tendered a reception at
Cincinnati. A rough-looking fellow was seen trying to make his way past
the reception committee. The General’s keen eye spied him and at once he
darted forward. “Hello, Ned!” was his hearty greeting, and, turning to
his bewildered committee, he explained: “One of my old boys in the Fourth
Infantry, gentlemen—had to release him from the guard-house once or twice
for fighting or stealing chickens, but he was a good soldier, gentlemen.”
“How long since you have seen him, General?” asked one of the committee.
“Oh,” was the matter-of-course answer, “it’s about twelve years. I saw
him on guard at the Governor’s house the day I left Pensacola.”
Early in the spring of 1845, after his arduous campaign in Polk’s behalf,
General Jackson’s health began to fail. He met the idea of death with
that same fortitude which nerved him when a lad of thirteen to suffer a
sabre cut rather than black a British officer’s boots.
His career, which had been like the blaze of the sun in the fierceness of
its glory, melted into a passing away as tranquil as a summer evening.
The majestic energy of an indomitable will gave way to the gentleness of
a heart rich in the tenderest affections. No man in private life more
completely possessed the hearts of all around him; no man ever retired
from public life with more complete mastery of the affections of the
people. No man was more truly and typically American in his ideas; no man
expressed them more boldly or more sincerely. He was always, under all
circumstances, wholly sincere and true. I cannot do better, in closing,
than to quote from George Bancroft, the historian.
“Up to the last,” he says, “he dared do anything that it was right to
do. He united personal and moral courage beyond any man of whom history
keeps the record.
“Before the nation, before the world, before coming ages, he stands
forth the representative, for his generation, of the American mind. And
the secret of his greatness is this; by intuitive conception he shared
and possessed all the creative ideas of his country and his time; he
expressed them with dauntless intrepidity; he enforced them with an
immovable will; he executed them with an electric power that attracted
and swayed the American people. The nation, in his time, had not one
thought of which he was not the boldest and clearest expositor.
“Not danger, not an army in battle array, not wounds, not widespread
clamor, not age, not the anguish of disease, could impair in the least
degree the vigor of his steadfast mind. The heroes of antiquity would
have contemplated with awe the unmatched hardihood of his character;
and Napoleon, had he possessed his disinterested will, could never have
been vanquished. He conquered the wilderness; he conquered the savage;
he conquered the bravest veterans trained on the battlefields of Europe;
he conquered everywhere in statesmanship; and when death came to get the
mastery over him, he turned the last enemy aside as tranquilly as he
had done the feeblest of his adversaries, and passed from earth in the
triumphant consciousness of immortality.”
Notwithstanding the fact of his incomparable successes at the bar, on
the bench, in Congress and on the field of battle, which demonstrate his
sense and genius, and although his state papers compare well with those
of any President, there are yet those living who believe him to have
been illiterate. If Colonel Colyar’s masterly “Life and Times of Andrew
Jackson” had naught else to commend it, it would deserve the commendation
of the American people in its complete refutation of the charge of
illiteracy, all-sufficient and incontestable.[2]
His faithful old body-servant remained at the Hermitage and kept his
grave green through all the years, and to all visitors who came he talked
about “de Gin’ral” as though he were still in the flesh. The story is
told that soon after the death of Old Hickory a visitor asked old Alfred
if he thought General Jackson went to heaven.
“I don’t know, boss,” promptly replied the old man, “whether de Gin’ral
went to heben or not, but dar’s one thing I does know—he did if he wanted
to!”
[2] Life and Times of Andrew Jackson. By A. S. Colyar, Nashville:
Marshall and Bruce.
DALE’S HIGHLANDERS
By Captain H. W. Carpenter
United States Marine Corps
One of the finest examples of what discipline can do in affecting the
conduct of soldiers and others whose lives are passed amid dangerous
surroundings, is furnished by the charge of Dale’s Highlanders at the
battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, just ninety-two years ago.
In order to understand just what this charge meant to the brave Scots, it
is necessary to summarize briefly the events which preceded the memorable
battle, a fight which, as one of General Andrew Jackson’s cannoneers
expressed it, “was lost before the fighting began,” for a peace was
signed while the preliminary movements were going on.
A powerful British fleet with a large military force under Sir Edward
Pakenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, sailed from the West
Indies to attack New Orleans and arrived in Lake Borgne about December
twentieth, 1814. The small American flotilla which opposed their landing
was destroyed, and the troops disembarked on Pine Island.
Finding themselves in a swamp, the British floundered through the mud
until about nightfall of the first day of the advance, ground suitable
for a bivouac was discovered near the Mississippi River, and not far
from the position along the Rodriguez Canal, which had been selected
by General Jackson for the defense of the city. Here, behind hastily
constructed works of mud and cotton bales, were drawn up the defenders,
composed of a few United States regular artillery, volunteers from New
Orleans and Kentucky, many of the latter unarmed; a force of pirates and
smugglers from Baratara Bay, under their captains, Dominique and Beluche;
and last, but not least, about twenty-five hundred backwoods riflemen
from the Cumberland Valley, in all not above thirty-two hundred men.
Hardly were the invaders established in their bivouac before they were
rudely disturbed by a night attack from the Americans, during which they,
for the first time, discovered the prowess of the backwoodsman and his
long rifle, and during the short fight which followed lost two hundred
and thirteen killed and wounded, and seventy captured.
Reinforcements, which increased their number to thrice that of the
Americans, having arrived from the fleet, the invaders remained in or
near their bivouac until the morning of December thirtieth, 1814, but
never for a moment were they permitted to be at peace; for by day their
hiding places were sought out by the guns of the gunboat _Carolina_, at
anchor in the river, and as soon as night enfolded them the backwoodsmen
took up the bloody work. Sentries were shot down as they walked their
posts, and to enjoy the warmth or light of the camp fire was but to
court almost certain death from the unerring rifles. Knife and tomahawk
also played their parts, until the harassed British were not only
panic-stricken at the swift death which overtook so many of them, but
bitterly complained of the uncivilized methods of their adversaries.
The situation became so serious that Sir Edward himself came up from the
ships to take over the command from General Keane, and plans were at once
perfected to relieve matters by attacking the troublesome enemy. The
commander in chief could not be made to believe that there was anything
to be feared from backwoodsmen and untried militia when they were
confronted by the pride of the British army in battle formation.
The Americans had been very busy with their works in the meantime, and
had also mounted thereon five small field pieces, so that when, on the
morning of the fourth day after Sir Edward’s arrival, a force of about
two thousand men advanced to storm their position they were ready and met
the adversaries with such a storm of well directed lead and iron that
they were repulsed, and being unable to withdraw from the field sought
shelter in the ditches and drains until, under cover of darkness, they
were able to retreat, leaving over one hundred dead upon the field.
Sir Edward had become convinced that these men behind the mud walls were
something different from the militia he had been accustomed to denounce,
and therefore called a council of war and erected a battery composed
of sugar hogsheads, mounting thirty-five guns within a third of a mile
from General Jackson’s works. The attack was then renewed, but it was
a repetition of the first one, so far as results were concerned, for
the infantry were repulsed and the battery with its thirty-five guns
completely dismantled. The British loss in this attack was eighty-odd
killed and wounded, beside the thirty-five guns.
Reinforcements again arriving from the fleet. Sir Edward, furious and
chagrined, determined, for his honor as well as for his safety, to renew
the assault with such a force as would overwhelm the militia by mere
weight of numbers, if nothing else, and therefore remained inactive for
eight days in order to allow his men to get over the ill-effects of the
two former failures, and to bring up every available man for the final
effort.
On the morning of January 8th the British were early astir, and it was
soon discovered from the American lines that the enemy was about to
deliver his assault in three columns. General Keane’s Foot and Colonel
Rennie’s Rifles formed the left of the British line; General Gibbs, with
three thousand Peninsular Veterans, the right; Dale’s Highlanders, nine
hundred and fifty strong, the center, and a force of about two thousand
foot, under General Lambert, as a reserve—in all, about eighty-five
hundred men.
Over them all hung a silence as of the grave, for none knew better
than these men that they were about to march to almost certain death
at the hands of the backwoodsmen and their long rifles. At break of
day, by rocket signal, the columns moved into position; but some
plantation buildings which concealed the advance of the Rifles having
been set on fire by the American guns and the attack unmasked, Colonel
Rennie promptly ordered a charge, for he had already been discovered
by Commodore Patterson in the _Louisiana_, whose guns were decimating
his ranks. The riflemen were immediately met by such a hail of bullets
and grape from the breastwork guns and the backwoods rifles that they
hesitated, halted, and the few that remained erect finally sought safety
in flight, leaving General Keane, Colonel Rennie, and two-thirds of their
number killed or wounded on the field.
Owing to some misunderstanding, the attack of General Gibbs’ column was
delayed, but, after some hesitation, advanced to within one hundred yards
of the works, where they were met by such a storm of American lead as to
kill General Gibbs and to cause his men to melt away like snow before the
summer sun.
Word of all this came to Sir Edward, who was with the Highlanders, and
Colonel Dale was at once ordered to advance ahead of the wreck of General
Gibbs’ force, which command was at once obeyed by the Scots, who started
forward steadily and with bagpipes playing, only to be engulfed in the
rout of the comrades in retreat. Colonel Dale was killed, Sir Edward
Pakenham fell pierced by three balls, and, as all that remained of the
other columns were in retreat, the fight was lost beyond repair.
The brave and thoroughly disciplined Highlanders alone remained. They
could not advance, they would not retreat, so they remained where they
were, under the galling fire of the long rifles, until out of the
original nine hundred and fifty scarce four hundred remained alive and
erect. Lieutenant Lavack achieved the distinction of being the only
Englishman over the walls that day. The remaining Highlanders surrendered
and no hostile British soldier remained upon the field. The fight was
short, sharp and decisive, lasting but thirty minutes.
General Lambert, with the reserves, did not come within range, but of
the six thousand British actually engaged, two thousand one hundred had
fallen—more than one in every three. Of the fourteen hundred wounded, six
hundred died within the week. Seven hundred and thirty dead were buried
where they fell.
The American loss was only eight killed and thirteen wounded by artillery
fire. The British retreated to their ships and sailed away, and New
Orleans was saved, but discipline only could have caused that magnificent
charge of Dale’s Highlanders at a time when they very well knew the
battle was lost and the way in which they were to go was strewn with the
bodies of those who had gone before.
THE FALSE FRANCISCO
By William A. Branan
Jones felt bad about it. Demurely distant, she sat in the patio of her
father’s _casa_, black of eye and red of lip, the most interesting sight
he had seen south of the Rio Grande; and not a decent word could he say
to her in her own language.
For Jones had never been in Mexico before—nor did his course at Columbia
embrace the study of Spanish. Had his knowledge of baseball, football and
highballs been a source of honor, no doubt he would have graduated at the
head of his class; but to his everlasting shame be it said, he was sadly
deficient in the languages. So he gave vent to a few remarks of some
warmth—in English, of course, confident that the little _señorita_ would
not detect the quality of his foreign expressions.
Now, Jones was not in Chihuahua for his health, either in the strict
or common usage of the word; in fact, his shoulders were rather broad
for his height, and the healthy color of his cheek carried no sign of
affliction. And as for the other use of the word, Jones had departed
from his home in the States with ease and without undue haste—nor had
a description of his person been wired to the Mexican officials on his
departure.
But Jones was a tourist in the truest sense. He had nowhere in particular
to go, and he took his time to get there. In less than three days after
his arrival in Chihuahua he was worse than a _peon_ about the sunny side
of the house; in less than a week he had caught the spirit of _mañana_
and could lie like a native when the occasion required; in truth, he was
an idler in an idle land.
After a few days in Chihuahua Jones had secured apartments at a Mexican
hotel of the smaller sort, the better to get in touch with the language
and customs of the people as soon as possible. His landlord was one of
the wiry, working class of Mexicans, with a genial smile that never
called for less than _un peso_; but it was the landlord’s dark-eyed
daughter who caught the eye of Jones.
Now, she was seated on one of the long, low benches in the patio of her
father’s hotel, her head slightly shaded by the flowers and foliage
behind her, while the sun streamed in spots and showed the clear color
of her face and hands. Jones thought he had never seen anything quite so
charming as the play of sunshine and shadow—and the pretty head with its
black lace mantilla. But how was he to express emotion? or admiration? or
anything? Certainly not in Spanish—if so, it must of necessity be a brief
and painful expression.
Still, Jones was of a sturdy New England stock that had despised
difficulties as far back as the Mayflower, and was not to be deterred by
the lack of a common medium. He cleared his throat, shuffled his feet so
as to attract attention to his maneuver and crossed the patio to where
she was seated.
“Do you _habla_ English, _señorita_?” he began, bravely enough.
“_No, señor_,” she said, with a demure droop of the eyes and a little
smile.
“The deuce you don’t!” he started to ejaculate, but wisely refrained,
aware that its appropriate application would hardly appeal to her.
Instead, he began again: “Ahem!—perhaps—er—I might _hablo_ Spanish, then:
_no sabe mucho_ myself,” he added, as if with a sudden inspiration.
But the maid merely tapped the stone floor with a small slipper to
the distant music of a band in the plaza around the corner, and made
no effort to help him in his dilemma, though she sent him a smile of
reassurance when he flushed and made a move to withdraw.
And then a glorious idea occurred to Jones. There was Francisco, the
remarkably radiant Francisco, all smiles because of his connection
with the _casa_! Francisco was not only chief cook, but enjoyed the
distinction of serving his own dishes in the dining room—and washing them
afterwards.
Jones remembered with satisfaction the smattering of choice English, with
a French flavor, that Francisco was wont to perpetrate on the guests of
the house. Francisco’s English was bad enough, thought Jones, but not
quite as bad as it might have been—especially in those lucid intervals
when he was anxious to see if the _Americano’s_ purse-string pulled _con
mucho gusto_. Certainly Francisco should be given a chance; he should act
as interpreter; he should tell the _señorita_ what he (Jones) thought of
her, and perchance he (Jones) might find out what she thought of him.
“Eet ees that the _señor_ weeshes that I make the speech for heem?”
Francisco inquired, with a polite shrug of the shoulders, when Jones
explained to him the emergency of the situation.
“That’s just it,” Jones answered; “you see, neither of us understands the
other, and—well, I rather like her looks, you know, Francisco. _Sabe?_”
“_Si, señor_,” and Francisco cleared away the remainder of a highly
seasoned supper—then the two left the dining-room together. There were no
longer any sunbeams to bring out the beauty of the flowers in the patio;
but the landlord’s daughter was still sitting there in the twilight.
“_Señorita_—” Francisco paused with eloquent eyes, then turned to Jones
for further instructions.
“Tell her,” said Jones, in a hoarse whisper, “tell her that she’s the
most exquisite—no, no, don’t tell her that—tell her that she will catch
cold out here in the patio,” he stammered.
“_Señor_, the _señorita_ will run far eef you espeak like that,”
Francisco remarked, with a deprecatory gesture of his brown hands.
“Well, tell her that I am delighted to see her looking so well,” was the
next effort of the persistent Jones.
“But yes—that ees more well.” Then Francisco turned to the daughter of
the house, indicated Jones with a curve of his thumb and spoke rapidly
in Spanish. It might as well have been Dutch for all the good Jones got
out of Francisco’s enthusiastic expressions. But the _señorita_ smiled
sweetly enough, and gave a glance from under her long lashes that was
worth a world of trouble to Jones.
“A-ha!—we’re coming on, eh—Francisco? Now, tell the young lady that
I—that she looks like a lovely little—er—rosebud.”
Again Francisco jabbered eloquently, eyes, hands and tongue making his
meaning clear, apparently, for the _señorita_ shyly drooped her head and
replied coyly.
“Tell her,” prompted Jones, devouring the star-like face, set in its
frame of jetty ringlets, “tell her I am going to walk around the plaza.
Ask her if she is going.”
“She says she cannot to go this night,” was the translation he received.
“She ees painful.”
“Well—er—tell her—er—”
“That you go to dream of her, you theenk of her alone only?” suggested
the accommodating Francisco.
“Yes, and—er—tell her that I—that we—will talk again. Tell her that—will
you, Francisco?”
After Francisco had conveyed this expression in its proper form, with
all the courtesy of the occasion, the two retired—Francisco to the
_cocina_, where the dishes were waiting to be washed, Jones to promenade
in the plaza and swing his cane to the music of La Paloma. Visions of
further conversations with the distracting beauty flitted before him as
he strolled under the orange trees—visions wherein the useful Francisco
figured not at all; wherein he saw himself holding a little rose-leaf
hand and uttering sweet nothings which needed neither bad Spanish nor
broken English for their interpretation.
Jones was shocked, to say the least; and for a moment he could hardly
catch his breath, much less command the attention of the lovers. There
they were, two of them—in fact, it usually takes two to complete such
a scene. The young Romeo was leaning against the bars of her casement
window, his face upturned to hers; their hands were clasped through the
grating, their heads were close together, and every now and then Jones
thought he saw—
It was an ideal scene—to the participants—re-acted there in the moonlight
from some Shakespearean play, till Jones rang down the curtain with a
laugh of ominous portent. For one of the lovers was Francisco and the
other—well, the other was the landlord’s daughter.
“Hello, there, Francisco, you rascal—what are you doing there?” Jones
demanded. It was eleven o’clock and Jones had just returned from the
plaza.
Francisco turned quickly, dropped the little hand held in his own, said
something of sinister sound in Spanish which could hardly be translated
into English, then—“Eet ees you, ees eet, _señor_?—so surpreesed am I!
I—I was—how the Engleesh?—hold hands weeth the _señorita_, ees eet not?”
“It is,” commented Jones, rather emphatically: “but I would like to know
what right you—you—”
“You see,” interrupted Francisco, cheerfully conscious that explanations
were in order, “the _señorita_ have made the promeese to marry weeth
me. We have eengaged—ees eet not?—to marree us if the _papa_ of the
_señorita_ wills.”
“Ah, I see!” and Jones gave a low whistle of dawning discernment. Then a
sarcastic smile spread over his face.
“But may I be so bold as to inquire, Francisco,” he resumed, “what part
you played in that interesting conversation of ours this evening? Why
didn’t you tell me you were engaged to her?”
“Eet was thees way, _señor_. Eet was the leetle trick of mine to see
the _señorita_ and say the speech for myself. When you say to me to tell
the _señorita_ that you are delighted to see her look so well, I say
the Americano ees deelighted to see you look so well, _señorita_—and
Francisco lofe you!”
“Well, I’ll be hanged! You infernal—” but Jones checked himself.
“And when the _señor_ say to tell the _señorita_ that he will be glad to
say the speech some other time, I tell the _señorita_ that Francisco will
be glad to meet her to-night at her weendow on the Calle Aldama. For I
love the _señorita_—ees eet not so, _queridita_?”
For answer a small hand found its way through the bars of the window to
the false Francisco, and Jones heard a low laugh of love and music.
THE STATE HOUSE OF MARYLAND
By George W. McCreary
The most historic building in Maryland is the State House at Annapolis,
the present one having been preceded by two others. The first was built
in 1696, and a curious account of its condition is to be found in Volume
20, of the Maryland Archives. This building had a short but somewhat
tragic history.
In the Journal of the House of Delegates for 1699, it is recorded:
“Memorandum that on thursday, July 13, about four or five of the clock in
the afternoone a violent flash of Lightning broke into the State House at
Annapolis, the house of Delegates being there sitting, which Instantly
Killed Mr. James Crauford one of the members for Calvert County & hurt
& wounded Severall other members and Shattered & broke most part of the
Dores and window Cases belonging to the said house & sett the said State
house on fier in one of the upper Chambers & Severall other Damages but
the fire was presently Quenched by the Diligence & Industry of his Excy.
Nathaniel Blakistone his Majtyes. Govr.”
In the Journal of 1702 it is referred to as a “Stadt House.”
In 1704 the State House burned down, but how the fire originated neither
the records nor tradition show.
The second State House was finished in 1706, and stood where the present
one now stands. It was in the form of an oblong built of brick, and
entered by a hall, opposite to the door of which were the judges’ seats,
for this building seems to have been used as a courthouse as well as a
State House. Over the judges’ seats was a full length portrait of Good
Queen Anne.
A cupola or dome surmounted the building, and was surrounded with a
balustrade and furnished with seats for those who wished to view the
scenery.
On the north of this State House an armory was built, in which the arms
of the Province were arranged, and when the room was lighted up by the
wooden chandelier, the effect must have been brilliant.
Portraits of Queen Anne and Lord Baltimore hung in this room, which was
often used as a ballroom.
On the west stood the famous King William School, established under
an act of 1696, and afterwards succeeded by the well-known St. John’s
College.
In 1769 £7,000 sterling was appropriated to erect the present State
House, the corner stone of which was laid by Governor Robert Eden on
March 28, 1772.
David Ridgely, the annalist of Annapolis, tells us that “there is a
tradition that on Governor Eden’s striking the stone with a mallet, which
was customary on such occasions, there was a severe clap of thunder,
although not a cloud was to be seen, the day being clear and beautifully
serene.”
In 1773 a copper roof was put on, but was blown off in 1775 during a
violent gale.
The dome was not added till after the Revolution, and is built of wood.
The height internally to the top of the dome is 113 feet, externally to
the tip of the spire is 200 feet. The length of the building is 120 feet,
the depth 82 feet. The architect was Joseph Clark.
An excellent view of the State House with grounds, plans, etc., with
surrounding buildings as they then stood, is given in the _Columbian
Magazine_ for February, 1789.
Its magnificent site, fifty-eight feet above sea-level, with its simple
architecture, has at all times excited the admiration of strangers and
citizens alike.
From time to time various additions have been made, the latest being the
addition ordered by the Legislature of 1902, in order to accommodate the
General Assembly.
Through the efforts of Governor Warfield, an ardent lover of all that
is patriotic, the old Senate Chamber in which Washington resigned his
Commission in 1783, has been restored to its original condition. The
scene of this act is depicted in the well-known picture by Trumbull.
The treaty of peace with Great Britain, and the convention of 1786
were both held in this building, which is especially sacred to all
Marylanders, on account of the associations which cluster around it.
[Illustration: CAPITOL, ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND]
[Illustration: MEN OF AFFAIRS]
Of the younger classical scholars in America, one of the best known
is Professor Mitchell Carroll, of the George Washington University,
Washington, D. C. Mr. Carroll was born in North Carolina and reared in
Virginia. His father was Rev. John L. Carroll, D.D., a prominent Baptist
minister. He received the degree of Master of Arts from Richmond College
at the age of eighteen, being the youngest student of the college ever to
attain this distinction. After some experience in teaching, he entered
the Johns Hopkins University for the pursuit of graduate studies in Greek
and Latin, where he was successively scholar and fellow, and in 1893
received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He has since passed some
years in study abroad, one at the Universities of Leipsic and Berlin,
the others in the American schools at Athens and in Rome. He was for two
years Professor of Greek in Richmond College, and since 1899 has been
head of the classical department in the George Washington University. He
has taken a prominent part in the recent development of the University,
especially in the promotion of scientific publications, of which he is
Director.
[Illustration: DR. MITCHELL CARROLL]
Professor Carroll is also one of the national secretaries of the
Archaeological Institute of America, and has traveled extensively in its
interests, founding affiliated societies of the Institute in St. Louis,
Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and in the Northwest. He holds
membership in the American Philological Association and in many other
learned societies.
Mr. Carroll is an official in the Calvary Baptist Church, of Washington,
and is the teacher of the celebrated Vaughan class for young men, which
is one of the largest and best organized young men’s classes in the world.
He is also a lecturer and an author. In addition to his contributions to
the literature of classical philology, he has published two volumes on
the history of Greek women, and was one of the editors of the “World’s
Orators.”
In September, 1897, Mr. Carroll married Miss Caroline Moncure Benedict,
daughter of Major E. D. Benedict, of Brooklyn. Their home, “Belair,” is
in Cleveland Park, one of Washington’s loveliest suburbs.
* * * * *
Mr. Buffington is an excellent example of the generation that was born
after industrial conditions in the South had been altered by the Civil
War. He was born in 1863, in Huntingdon, West Virginia, his father
belonging to a prominent family there, and his mother being a member of
the Nicholas family, of Culpeper County, Virginia. After the close of the
war, Mr. Buffington’s father moved his family to Covington, Kentucky, and
he spent his youth in that city, studying in the public schools and at
Chickering Institute, Cincinnati. In the year 1881 he entered Vanderbilt
University, where he remained for two years, returning to Covington
to engage in the manufacture of wire and nails. Close application to
business, earnestness and an unlimited capacity for pushing his work
along, built up the business, and in 1890 his company moved to larger
quarters in Anderson, Indiana. After eight years of telling work in
this new and enlarged field, Mr. Buffington was called to assume the
directorship of the American Steel and Wire Company in Chicago, and a
year later was made President of the Illinois Steel Company, the largest
concern of its kind west of Pittsburg.
[Illustration: E. J. BUFFINGTON]
Mrs. Buffington was Miss Drucilla Moore, daughter of Judge Laban T.
Moore, of Catlettsburg, Kentucky. Their handsome home is in Evanston,
where may be found quite a colony of Kentuckians.
* * * * *
It was eminently fitting that the most intimate friend of the late
Sam Jones should succeed him as mayor of Toledo. Mr. Whitlock, while
understanding better than any other man in Toledo the political beliefs
of “Golden Rule Jones,” is, like him, a man of marked individuality, and
will not be bound by the traditions of any man or party. Like Mr. Jones,
he owes his nomination and election directly to the people and pays no
allegiance to any political machine, boss or party. Like Jones, his
only ambition is to make Toledo a city where the Golden Rule is really
the governing principle and not merely an empty phrase; and to make the
men of the city realize and live up to the liberty and independence of
their manhood. At the death of Jones, the corruptionists flocked to the
city hall and endeavored to resume their old-time control of municipal
affairs, but the common people, whom Jones had taught to recognize the
rights and duties of citizenship, went unorganized, but solidly, to the
polls and elected Brand Whitlock.
[Illustration: BRAND WHITLOCK]
We know Mr. Whitlock by his literary work. He has been a newspaper man
for years, and has published three successful novels—“The Thirteenth
District,” a novel of politics; “Her Infinite Variety,” and “The Happy
Average,” the last said to be autobiographical. He is also a lawyer and
is a close student of current affairs. He is an idealist who believes in
the present fulfillment of his dreams, and believes that all the problems
of life, whether social or political, depend for their solution on the
intelligence of the individual. To him the people are the foundation of
public power and public officials but their hired servants. He maintains
that the people can and should conduct their own government without the
aid of political machines, and that representative government is possible
in the present day. His only message to the people is that the power is
theirs and that they should never allow any man or set of men to take
it away from them. He makes no promises, simply pledging himself to
represent the whole people.
There is one thing of which Mr. Whitlock allows himself to be proud.
It is the Juvenile Court Bill, of Ohio, which he drew and was greatly
instrumental in having passed by the legislature. It provides for a
separate court for the hearing of children under sixteen, and it is Mr.
Whitlock’s earnest hope that a state “junior republic” may be the final
outcome of the work.
* * * * *
Dr. W. M. L. Coplin is another Southerner who has attained distinction in
the city of Brotherly Love. He was born in Bridgeport, West Virginia,
in 1864. He was educated at Lindsay Military Academy, Fairmont State
Normal School, Mt. Union College, and later at Jefferson Medical College,
Philadelphia, from which institution he graduated in 1886. After
practicing his profession for nine years, he accepted the position of
Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology in the Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee, where he remained one year. He then returned to
Philadelphia to assume the duties of a similar chair in the Jefferson
Medical College and to become Director of the Laboratories of the
Jefferson Medical College Hospital, positions which he still occupies.
He has held professorships in three medical colleges and a number of
national, state and municipal positions. For the last ten years he has
devoted his entire time to teaching and departmental organization, in
which he has shown peculiarly successful capabilities.
Dr. Coplin is an ardent research worker, and has conducted numerous
investigations along scientific lines; his experiments have rendered
the medical world invaluable aid in solving some of its most difficult
problems. He is a voluminous writer on subjects connected with Pathology,
Bacteriology and Sanitation, and is widely known by his contributions to
magazines. The fourth edition of his Manual of Pathology has just been
issued, and the Manual of Practical Hygiene is in process of revision.
[Illustration: DR. W. M. L. COPLIN]
In November, 1905, the mayor of Philadelphia bestowed upon Dr. Coplin
the highest honors which his adopted city could tender a physician—the
appointment of Director of the Department of Public Health and Charities,
a position for which he is peculiarly fitted, on account of his rare
administrative qualifications.
* * * * *
Probably the most uplifting tendency of the times is that looking towards
the nationalization of instruction in the universities of the chief
countries of the world, shown by the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford; the
Roosevelt Chair of American Institutions at the University of Berlin,
endowed by an American banker; Mr. Stillman’s million-dollar gift to
the Beaux Arts in Paris and the American Academy of Art at Rome; the
Hyde foundation for Harvard professors at the Sorbonne; the Baron de
Coubertin’s prizes at Princeton, Leland Stanford and Tulane Universities;
the Duc de Loubat’s foundation for the study of American Antiquities
at the National College of France; and the opening, in the University
of Paris, of a department for the study of the History and Outlines of
American Law.
[Illustration: CHARLES F. BEACH, JR.]
The Paris Law School has five thousand students—about seven times as
many as our largest law schools—and they are drawn from every country in
Europe. The effect of such instruction on such a large and influential
body of opinion can scarcely be estimated. The lecturer chosen for
this course by the University was Mr. Charles Fisk Beach, Jr., who had
already discharged similar duties in an American law school and whose
writings on American economic topics have been widely quoted. Mr. Beach
was born in Kentucky, fifty-two years ago, and is a graduate of Centre
College. After completing a law course at Columbia University he went
abroad and studied at the University of Paris. He then returned to his
native country and began the practice of law, paying especial attention
to railway and corporation law, and acting as counsel for various
corporations and lecturing on Civil Law and Equity Jurisprudence.
In 1896 he established himself as consultation lawyer counsel in London
and Paris, this experience further adding to his fitness for the post to
which he was chosen by the French university. Mr. Beach’s first year’s
work proved so successful that the university extended its scope to
include American institutions as well as the history and general outline
of our legal system. His field of efforts has been extended also to
include alternate lectures at Paris and Lille the first half of the term
and at Bordeaux and Toulouse the latter half.
At the time of the great expansion of American commercial, financial and
political influence in Europe, and especially just now, when efforts are
being made to induce trading in American securities on the Paris Bourse
and to influence French investment in America, this phase of educational
reciprocity, conducing to a better understanding of our institutions,
promotes the welfare of the world, and particularly our own special
interests abroad.
[Illustration]
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH
II
COLLEGE OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS, DENTON, TEXAS
By Lillian Kendrick Byrn
[Illustration: SPECIMENS IN DRAWING AND DESIGN]
The history of a nation is determined by the home life of its people.
Just as the prosperity of the individual home depends upon the efficiency
and care of the partners in its making, so does the welfare of a nation
hang on the ability and earnestness of the individual citizens. The rise
of our own nation is due to the determination of our forefathers to found
a government which, from the national down through the state, county and
city forms, should be based upon the simple principles of upright family
life. Our ideas of social life and social equality could not have been
conceived under the influence of European institutions. Here, where those
in the humblest walks of life may be the nobility, and where honor is
conferred for merit alone, we have developed social customs to correspond
with our American spirit, and, proceeding on independent and original
lines, we have made our industrial and commercial system to control the
busiest marts, to break the records of history, to fairly alarm the world.
The chief element of the American spirit is the appreciation of high
ideals, not only in the national life, but in the education, the culture
and the industrial life of the individual. When we see new openings on
already established lines, it is characteristic of us as a people to
pursue these openings, even though they lead in directions directly
opposed to those which we have hitherto followed. Thoroughness and
earnestness are the keynotes of American progress, and these are the
characteristics which to-day give us our commanding position among the
nations.
Is it not fitting and necessary that a nation of such religious,
social, political and commercial originality and progress should
develop co-ordinate with these a system of education? The free public
school system is among the purest and most effectual of our democratic
institutions. It has fostered the American spirit, it has laid the
foundation for an American culture; it has, in large part, made possible
the present success in American industrial life.
Although it is many years since the doctrine of learning through doing
was first promulgated, it has remained for the present generation to make
the general application. Educators have been slowly, but surely, arriving
at the conclusion that the university ideals of Europe, which naturally
dominated our higher educational institution during the first century of
our history, and which still hold sway in certain of our colleges, are
not sufficient for our needs. Present-day conditions demand an education
which will afford culture and practical preparation for the common duties
at the same time. There is a loud and emphatic call for our schools to
cultivate the executive quality in our young men and women and to prepare
them for immediate, well-directed action in the affairs of life. Many
of our states have answered nobly the call for schools where boys can
be trained along practical lines which make for success and usefulness.
Nearly every state has its Agricultural and Mechanical College. This is
all very well for the boys, but how about the girls?
In past years institutions which were organized primarily to meet the
needs of men for their professional or business training have, largely
from a spirit of chivalry and esteem, been opened to women. Also, largely
from a spirit of social concern, some of the best friends of womankind
have, in a degree, popularized the typical woman’s college. In both cases
much good has been accomplished, but in neither case have the needs of
the education of women been fully met. Men’s colleges that have been
opened to women have given them the same training as is provided for men,
and the majority of the women’s colleges have patterned their curricula
after the same assumption. This theory leads women to contemplate man’s
occupations and professions as their only field of action, and, while it
may be the best in many individual cases, it does not provide for the
mass of women the kind of higher education mostly needed. From a social
standpoint, I believe in the co-education of the sexes, for education is
but a preparation for life, and it seems the plain plan of creation for
men and women to mingle, but from a practical standpoint co-education is
not always advantageous, resulting too frequently, as stated, in making
woman the competitor of man, instead of fitting her to work on her own
peculiar lines.
[Illustration: BASKETRY WORK BY STUDENTS]
The young woman whose education has been based upon efficient
scholarship, together with domestic and industrial training of a
practical type, brings into the marriage relation a comradeship which
grows out of her ability to sustain her part of the partnership. It is a
womanly instinct to want to enter her legitimate realm—the home. Equipped
with the training which gives her a righteous sovereignty, the integrity
of that home is assured. Is it not worth our while to promote as many
such homes as possible?
What is a rational education for the home-maker? If the ideal mother must
have, in addition to a literary education, a knowledge of kindergarten,
general needlework, including dressmaking, art in at least its elementary
forms, bookkeeping, the chemistry of foods and practical cooking, house
cleaning, first aid to the injured and nursing, and yet have the time
and strength to be a comfort and companion to her husband and a teacher
to her children, is it not asking too much of women?
[Illustration]
The answer is plain. While many of our household industries must
necessarily be placed in outside hands, the power controlling these
industries must remain in the hands of the home-makers. These demands
are not more than a woman can meet, for the same training that enables
her to know all this teaches her the laws governing her physical self,
how to control and conserve her energies so that they may be expended
to the best advantage. It prepares her for making and maintaining a
good home, the highest and best profession that a woman can enter; and
the mother in the home, teaching, as she does, by precept as well as by
example, during the greater part of the twenty-four hours, has need of a
scientific training for her lifelong occupation.
There are many women who do not surround themselves with the security
of home, there to peacefully work out life’s problems. Many find
it necessary to enter the industrial and commercial fields, and a
preparation which commands for these a living salary is imperative.
Texas, one of the youngest states, but already outstripping many of her
elders in the spirit of progressiveness, has taken up the question of
the industrial training of her girls with characteristic vigor. With a
system of state public schools provided for by the allotment of public
lands, whose revenues furnish a magnificent school fund, with a State
University in the first rank among its kind, with State Normal Schools
in every district whose population warrants it, with an Agricultural and
Mechanical College second to none, and with manual training in practice
in city schools all over the state, she established, by an act of the
Legislature in 1901, the school known as the College of Industrial Arts.
Denton, situated about midway between Dallas and Fort Worth and somewhat
north of them, was selected as the site of the school. The idea met with
hearty support all over the state, and it opened in September, 1903, with
one hundred and eighty-six students, representing eighty-eight out of the
two hundred and thirty-four counties of the state.
[Illustration: TYPEWRITING.]
These girls come from the country, town and city; from the homes of
bankers, lawyers, real estate men, mechanics, contractors, stockmen,
teachers, druggists, farmers, ministers, merchants and physicians. Some
are the daughters of widows and some are orphan girls. Some have earned,
in whole or in part, the means by which they maintain themselves, while
some are contributing to their own support by working while in school.
Some of them entered on teachers’ certificates, some on high school
diplomas, but the great majority entered on examination.
The student body is not only thoroughly democratic, but it is composed
of earnest, conscientious, hard-working students, who appreciate their
opportunity of obtaining a thorough, practical education.
The college is situated on the outskirts of Denton, in a campus of
seventy acres of rising ground overlooking the city and surrounding
country. It is well supplied with large, shady trees, and is covered
with Bermuda grass. In the rear is a fine grove of oaks, where it is
proposed to erect additional dormitories and class-rooms when the
financial growth of the school admits of it. At present only the main
building has been finished.
[Illustration: GARDENING.]
[Illustration]
In the basement of this is found the creamery, equipped with churns,
separators, cream ripeners, butter workers, cream testers, bottling
apparatus and scales. All is deliciously clean and dainty, and visitors
are allowed to enjoy the products as they are finished. Here the girls
are given a scientific, practical knowledge of butter and cheese-making
and the care and handling of dairy products for the market, including
pasteurization and sterilization; the use of hand and power separators
and testers, acid testing and churning, beside instruction in dairy
bacteriology and the composition and good value of milk, butter and cream.
In another well-lighted apartment, with cement floor, is the laundry,
with complete outfits for hand and machine work. Here again the practice
is supplemented with lectures showing reasons for washing—sanitary
and aesthetic; study of fibres and how to cleanse each, illustrated
by practical work in cotton, linen and silk; the effect of soft and
hard water and how to treat them; the preparation and use of different
cleansing agents.
[Illustration]
The basement also contains the manual training rooms, where wood
carving, wrought-iron work and modeling are taught. In a broad sense,
all of the manual and laboratory work in the curriculum is in the nature
of manual training, but especial attention is given to the branches
mentioned and to weaving and basketry and other work which prepares
students for positions as manual training teachers in the public schools.
On the first floor are the President’s, Secretary’s and other offices,
and the art room. This department provides technical courses in drawing,
applied design and painting. The work is designed to develop the
imaginative and creative faculty from the first, and to give thorough
training along industrial lines. Lecture rooms and the library occupy the
rest of the first floor, while the second is devoted to the chemical and
photographic laboratories and the commercial school.
[Illustration: CLASS IN BEE CULTURE]
This department is always well attended, and the course is exceptionally
interesting, including, as it does, a study of the routes and growth of
commerce, the production centers and markets of the world, the relative
value and importance of staple articles and where they are obtained;
bookkeeping, including household accounts; business correspondence;
penmanship; filing and other clerical work; reporting; stenography. It
is intended to meet the demand for more broadly intelligent and more
accurate office workers in commercial lines.
On the third floor are the cooking and sewing schools. An electric
program clock in the main office automatically calls off the time for
changes of classes in the corridors on all the floors.
One of the most thorough departments, and one which opens up new avenues
for woman’s work, is that of the Rural Arts. The spring term of the
first year is devoted to a study of the principles of fruit, flower and
vegetable growing. Each student has a garden for practice, and the care
of the products until maturity and their packing for shipment are shown.
Bee culture is another branch of this department. The students set up
hives, examine bees, select queens and learn how to manipulate swarms and
take the honey. Poultry keeping belongs to the list of popular studies.
Nearly every woman has a natural interest in the care of chickens. The
class has incubators and brooders, and looks after the houses and runs,
feeding and improvement of stock and preparation for cooking or market.
In all of the courses literary work has a prominent place. Industrial
training is most valuable, but, taken by itself, it is not sufficient.
The work at the College of Industrial Arts is arranged in proper
proportions for the best, all-round, practical training for life’s work.
In the early part of the course the literary feature naturally receives
emphasis, connecting with school work previously done by the students,
and preparing them for the deeper appreciation of the scientific features
of the industrial courses.
Nor are the lighter arts neglected. Vocal music, physical culture,
expression and modern languages—all find a place in the curriculum.
The health of the girls is a first consideration. The college physician
teaches physiology and hygiene, and renders his services to the sick.
With pure water from a deep artesian well and the delicious home products
of the school, however, combined with the exercise and regular life of
the students, there is a minimum of sickness.
Tennis and basketball seem to be the most popular games. A student
Glee Club furnishes a social feature, while there are several literary
societies and a flourishing Young Women’s Christian Association.
Who may attend the college? All white girls of good morals who have
attained the age of sixteen years, who have a fair knowledge of the
common school subjects, who wish to continue their education, including a
thorough, practical training, and who come to the college with the clear
and earnest purpose of doing their best work.
The living expenses are small, there being a number of co-operative
clubs in the town, and all expenses being reasonable. The college has no
appropriation for paying the way of pupils without means, but there are
a number of ways by which the cost of living may be reduced or made by
extra work.
President Work thus summarizes the mission of this institution: “We want
to meet the need of our times in training women who will be competent,
intelligent and refined; well fitted for self-support, if this should
be necessary; thoroughly prepared for woman’s work in the industrial
and commercial world, if they so choose to labor; well trained for
companionship with worthy manhood and for motherhood.”
THE MEASURE OF A MAN
By John Trotwood Moore
CHAPTER VII
It was early in December, 1814. It had been a hot summer in New Orleans,
and the fall had brought little frost, scarcely enough to kill the
vegetation. A sallowness lay over the landscape, a callousness and an
unknown dread.
All the fall this dread had lain over the city—the dread of the British.
And strange rumors had been mingled with that dread—rumors which shook
the fair Creole city to its depths, for they were a gallant and romantic
people, and the things which touched their women touched them; and never
before in all their history had any such foe threatened them in any such
language as came mingled with the rumors of the approaching British—this
threat which they had sent of “Beauty and Booty.”
And never had any threat so stirred a people to desperate resistance;
for the French Creole is chivalric and his woman is his god. And the
Southern-American—who was fully one-half of the people at that time in
New Orleans—is more than chivalric—he is a fighter.
At first, in the sallow, stagnated city, they had heard vague things with
scarcely any confirmation—of the British landing at Pensacola and Mobile,
and the Creole city gave a sigh of relief, for it was higher up the coast
the dreaded British would land, and not in their fair town.
Then came a rumor which thrilled them and threw them into a fervor of
patriotic enthusiasm—they were wild in rejoicing—it was too good—it could
not be true! But it was, and they knew of it the next day—positively,
surely, from Lafitte, the Baratarian pirate, whom Jackson had pardoned
and given the rights of an American citizen. It was Lafitte who told
them that for the first time in this war the British had been whipped
and driven out, both from Pensacola and Mobile, and that by a backwoods
fighter who was already headed for New Orleans and with the same troops
which had annihilated the Indians and driven the British from Pensacola.
There were bonfires and rejoicings that night. And Lafitte also was a
hero, though his crimes had been many and his robberies more.
And they had pictured great things of this Jackson in the interval;
surely he was a man magnificent, in gold tinsel and booted and in velvet
and stars—a new Napoleon, a Louis the Fourteenth, armed cap-a-pie, in a
new land to avenge their old foe. They would now defy the British—let
them come!—long live Jackson!
It threw them into renewed spasms of exertion. Things had been dead, but
now they were alive again; and Major Planché, the intrepid, rushed around
to harangue his brave guards and call upon them to defend their country
to the last!
It was several days later before they saw him, and then their enthusiasm
went the way of all French ebullition. For it was a small party of
horsemen who came in on the road leading from old Fort St. John to the
city, a gray-haired, sallow, emaciated, gaunt, but terribly in earnest
man, riding at their head. One glance from the Creoles and they knew he
needed treatment for malaria, and they wondered how he sat his horse at
all. And his dress—this proud Napoleon—it was absurd! Great boots, too
big for his feet and legs, threadbare uniform and a little leathern cap
on his head!
But his eyes—his way of going at things, his quick cut to the heart of
things, his quiet assurance to the people who crowded around him—so sure
that it carried absolute certainty and so bravely said that it fired them
to the fighting pitch: “They’ll not enter New Orleans save over my dead
body!”
Juliette had been in New Orleans long enough to love the place—as all
who live in it long enough do—when one morning she received a note from
Mrs. Edward Livingston to come over and help her entertain General
Jackson and his staff at dinner.
“My husband,” the lady wrote, “has been appointed his aide-de-camp, and
we shall give them a royal welcome. But I do confess, my dear, that I
scarcely know how I shall be able to entertain this wild General from
Tennessee—so do come and help me.”
Juliette smiled and flushed indignantly. “A wild General from Tennessee!
Mother,” she said to the older lady, “listen! Is there not a surprise in
store for her?”
The Livingston mansion, the most fashionable home in the city, had been
lighted with many candles when Juliette arrived. From its wide-pillared
portico a negro butler ushered her in where a hum of feminine voices
greeted her and a beautiful sight met her eyes. Besides herself, a dozen
of the most beautiful society women of New Orleans had been asked to help
receive the noted Indian fighter.
“Oh, what does he look like?” cried one, as soon as she saw Juliette
and greeted her, “and how shall we do to please him? I am told you know
him well, _ma chérie_—does he wear coon caps, and, O, what do you call
it?—furs?”
Mrs. Livingston came up, smiling: “Now, my dear, you must act as my
aide-de-camp. You must introduce me and all these girls to the General
and his staff, and do taste the punch and see if I have put enough
whiskey in, for they say he drinks it straight out of a dipper!”
There were sounds of footsteps on the portico and the clatter of swords
against spurs. The bevy of pretty women fell back in line behind their
hostess, with:
“There they are, now!”
Juliette fell back with the others, her face pale, for just as they came
into the door her quick eye had seen them, Major Livingston ushering them
in—and Trevellian among them.
Then her heart began to thump so loudly—her breath to come so quickly
that she felt as if she should faint.
She had heard of his deeds and his rapid promotion. Mrs. Jackson
herself had written her over a month ago—how he had led the troops into
Pensacola, taking a battery which was threatening them with a squad of
men. How he had helped at Ft. Bowser, driving the British out and (for
Mrs. Jackson would not omit this, since she had written the letter for
no other purpose)—he had been promoted to the colonelcy of the Tennessee
regiment in place of Bristow, captured by the British and taken off in
their man-of-war as it ran out of Pensacola: “And Mr. Jackson says,” she
wrote, “that he had met them secretly and was acting without authority at
a critical time.”
All this had gone through her mind as she saw them advancing. She smiled
when she saw General Jackson’s magnificent bow to Mrs. Livingston, and
that lady’s look of surprise, as with courtly grace, he turned and
introduced to her each of his officers. In turn she introduced him to the
ladies and when he reached Juliette he stopped, raised and kissed her
hand, saying:
“I am delighted to see you so soon after my arrival, my dear, for I was
just going to look you up,” and then with a wonderful memory for French
and American names, he turned and introduced each of his officers to the
younger hostess and the younger ladies, pronouncing their names as if he
had been familiar with them always. Taking Mrs. Livingston by the hand he
conducted her to a sofa and seated her amid the hum and hubbub of younger
voices mingling. Juliette turned. It was a pretty girl whispering in her
ear.
“Is this your backwoodsman? He is a prince.”
She turned, looking for a corner—anywhere to be rid of Trevellian’s eyes.
She saw him coming towards her, led by General Jackson. Seizing her by
the arm as if to prevent escape and holding Trevellian also for the same
purpose: “I wish you to greet and congratulate Colonel Trevellian, my
dear,” said the general, his eyes flashing proudly.
“I am happy to congratulate you, sir,” she said, her face paling, her
knees trembling.
He took her hand, pressed it and turned away.
But in that pressure she knew he loved her yet and she—never had hated
herself more, for she loved him.
The evening was nearly over. It had been a memorable one for all, for
Jackson’s assurance had made them all assured.
“Oh, he will whip them,” said Mrs. Livingston to Juliette; “he can
do anything. Backwoodsman?—he is a prince. What reserve power, what
force—what natural leadership! And do you know,” she pouted, “he has not
touched any of my fine dishes—he is sick—he eats only a little rice and
milk. Oh, I wish I could keep him here and nurse him! But I know, dear, I
feel the city is safe.”
Trevellian had talked to each of his hostess’ guests; he had spent the
evening seemingly satisfied with the chattering, jolly beauties around
him, but his thoughts were continually with Juliette. For it had been
many months since he had seen her, and he, too, had yearned. And then
when she shook his hand—that pressure, ever so slight, but it meant, and
he knew it—that she loved him.
Could he seek her and speak to her again? Had she not said and done
enough to cause a renewal of his advances?
While she was thinking he walked over mechanically, but his heart
beating as it never had before. She was alone, near the window on the
vine-covered veranda looking over the cooling, dew-gathering landscape of
the mild December night.
“I hope you have found it pleasant living here,” he said, “and that you
will suffer no fright from the fear of the British.”
“I am not in the least afraid,” she said, smiling toward General Jackson,
who, fatigued, was stretched out on a sofa before a small fire, while a
number of young people listened to his talk.
Trevellian shook his head. “It is a terribly serious thing. Half our
troops are still in the woods marching here. The Kentuckians have not
yet arrived. We have only 2,000 troops of all kinds yet in the city, and
Lafitte places the English he met on the sea at 10,000 alone, to say
nothing of their sailors and marines and ships of war. But the General,”
he went on proudly, “I believe he thinks he could whip them himself, and
he would try it. I do not say this to frighten you, but I wish you to
be prepared. If the British were to land before our other troops come,
God only knows how we could stop them. I think we should all have to die
here.”
She looked up at him quickly and in that look he saw all the sorrow of
love in her eyes.
“I, myself,” he said, “do not expect to live through this fight. I do not
want to, and that is why I have come to speak to you for the last time.”
He saw her frame quiver and tears spring to her eyes, but he went on:
“I shall leave with General Jackson a letter my father wrote to me before
he died, and which I found among his papers a few days after I first
met you. After this fight is over I want him to deliver it into your
hands—then you may think differently,” he added, “and I should not want
you to think evil of me after I am dead.”
“Tell me now,” she said, and turning she came up and stood looking into
his face, her eyes moist and yet afire with love and hope. “Tell me now.
I do so wish to hear you say.”
He could not restrain himself. He stooped and laid his lips on hers.
“It is my first—my last,” he said, and though she clung to his neck
for one brief moment and he heard her sob, he shook her quietly off,
and answered the call to horse that was sounded in the yard where his
commander and his aides had mounted and were ready to go.
“Goodbye, my darling,” he whispered. “I shall go on, knowing I have your
love and if I fall know that you were mine—forever.”
[_To be continued._]
A VISION
My thoughts were earthy, and the tainted springs
And ugly chattels of the city lay
Along my path—when, as one doth obey
A subtle call, soul-heard, that instant brings
A voice, a vision of diviner things—
I looked, and, lo! the sky, of softest gray,
Was radiant with roseate tint and play
Of light on clouds like wide, seraphic wings.
Then faded all around me while my heart
Was fixed on that bright cloudscape, passing fair,
Tranquil and shining o’er the sordid mart
As tho’ the embodiment of purest prayer.
Ah, Master of all Beauty, would that we
Each day some vision of Thyself might see!
_Ingram Crockett._
THE FIRST CAMP MEETING IN AMERICA
By Helen Harcourt
How and when did the now familiar camp meeting originate? Very few among
us can answer that question. Very few know that this unique means of
attracting the masses, especially those who, from necessity or choice,
rarely enter a church door, took its rise in this country in the year
1799. Those were early days, and primitive customs, and quiet, rural
simplicity were the rule, for the population of the young republic was
still small and scattered, but for the most part, that very simplicity
made the people all the more susceptible to any unusual religious
influences.
In the eastern part of the country, in the last year of the eighteenth
century, a remarkable revival spread from hamlet to hamlet, from town
to town, but the tidal wave of religion was not long confined to
that section. It quickly flowed westward and southward. Kentucky and
Tennessee, which were then attracting many home seekers, were especially
affected by the wave of religious enthusiasm that swept with resistless
power all over the United States. Veritable cyclonic centers of religious
forces appeared at the same time in many parts of the country, north,
south, east and west. Everywhere the power was seen and felt. Escape
from its overwhelming presence was impossible. “The great revival” was
the universal subject of conversation, and of wonder. Wherever a few
houses were clustered together, wherever a single pioneer’s hut arose in
the wilderness, there would soon be tethered the horse of the itinerant
preacher.
An apt illustration of this truth is given in an anecdote related by Dr.
Abel Stevens, the historian of Methodism. An itinerant preacher once
hailed one of these solitary pioneers, and asked permission to preach in
his cabin.
“What,” exclaimed the astonished pioneer, “are you here, too? I lived in
Virginia and a Methodist preacher came along and my wife got converted. I
fled into North Carolina, where I had hardly got settled before another
preacher came along and part of my family were converted. I went to
Kentucky, and they followed me there, but I thought this time I would get
beyond their reach. And now I have hardly got to this settlement till
here comes another preacher, wanting to preach right in my cabin.”
“My friend,” said the itinerant, “I advise you to make terms of peace
with the Methodist preachers, for you will find them everywhere you go in
this world. And when you die, if you go to Heaven, you will find plenty
of them there, and if you go to hell, as you will if you don’t repent, I
fear you will find some of them there, too!”
The pioneer thought it best to surrender.
In this great religious outburst, strict denominationalism was swallowed
up, and lost to sight. The discussion of mere creeds was forgotten in the
deeper demonstration of true Christianity. In the Southern States, more
particularly in Kentucky and Tennessee, the movement was particularly
strong. The sturdy Scotch-Irish element which was there in force, came
together at the meetings with skeptics, and non-professors of all shades
and degrees. All-day services were held on week days as well as on
Sundays. Throngs gathered from far and near, until their numbers became
so great that no building could shelter them. Still there was no thought
of camping on the spot. After the conclusion of each service, the people
sought their respective stopping places remaining there until time for
the next meeting.
It was late in the year 1799 that two brothers, John and William McGee,
the first a local Methodist preacher, the other a Presbyterian, started
on an evangelistic tour from Tennessee into Kentucky. On their way
they attended a sacramental service held by a Presbyterian minister
named McGreechy, on the Red river. The events that followed were a new
experience to the brothers, and were never forgotten. William McGee, who
was a personal friend of McGreechy’s, and, also, as we have noted, a
Presbyterian, introduced his brother, John, and the latter was invited to
“address the congregation from the pulpit.” He accepted the invitation.
“I do not know,” he writes of this incident, “that God ever favored me
with more light and liberty than He did each day while I endeavored to
convince the people that they were sinners, and urged the necessity of
repentance, of a change of nature to one of grace, and held up to their
view the greatness, freedom, and fullness of salvation which was in
Christ Jesus, for lost, guilty, condemned sinners.”
There were five preachers present, taking part in the daily services by
rotation. Four of these were Presbyterians, McGreechy, Rankin, Hodge and
William McGee, the fifth being John McGee, the Methodist. The effect of
their earnest exhortations was marked, and the frequent tears of their
hearers gave evidence of their power in awakening sleeping consciences.
On the last day of these revival meetings, during the “useful discourse
of the Rev. Mr. Hodge a woman in the east end of the house got an
uncommon blessing, broke through order and shouted for some time, then
sat down in silence.” Thus writes the Rev. John McGee.
This woman, whose name has not been recorded, thus has the doubtful honor
of being the pioneer shouter at an American revival meeting. As we all
know in these days, she was but the first of thousands. But at that time
it was altogether so new and out of order that during the interim that
soon followed, after which it was John McGee’s turn to preach, McGreechy,
Rankin and Hodge went out of the house, their sense of ecclesiastical
propriety having suffered a severe shock at the violent demonstrations
during the services. They felt compelled to withdraw their countenance
from what they considered an exhibition of irreverence.
The two McGees were thus left alone to address and guide the aroused
congregation. For a time they sat in perplexed silence, the people
remaining in their seats. All over the house there was a subdued sound of
moaning and weeping. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something more to
happen, though no one knew what the something might be. William McGee,
who, as we have noted, was a Presbyterian, presently quitted his seat on
the platform, and deliberately seated himself on the floor, evidently too
absorbed in thought to be conscious of this odd proceeding. Yet no one
smiled, or seemed to wonder at his act. The strain of waiting was too
severe, too intense, for smaller matters to intervene.
As for John McGee himself, he tells us that “a power which caused me
to tremble was upon me.” He told the story of that unique experience
in a letter written on June 23d, 1820, to the Rev. Thomas L. Douglas,
presiding elder of the Nashville district of the Tennessee conference of
the Methodist Episcopal church.
“Having a wish to preach,” he says, “I strove against my feelings. At
length I rose up and told the people that I was appointed to preach, but
that there was a greater than I preaching.” Then followed, instead of
the usual form of sermon, a recital of experiences effected by the power
of the spirit. McGee’s words were so earnest and impassioned that of his
hearers many broke silence. “The woman at the east end of the house
again shouted tremendously. I left the pulpit to go to her, and as I went
along through the people it was suggested to me ‘You know these people
are much for order. They will not bear this confusion. Go back and be
quiet.’ I turned to go back and was near falling. The power of God was
strong upon me. I turned again, and losing sight of the fear of man, I
went through the house shouting and exhorting with all possible ecstasy
and energy, and the floor was soon covered with the slain. Their screams
for mercy pierced the Heavens and mercy came down. Some found forgiveness
and many went away from that meeting feeling unutterable agonies of soul
for redemption in the blood of Jesus. This,” concludes the letter of the
Rev. John McGee, “was the beginning of that glorious revival of religion
in this country which was so great a blessing to thousands, and from this
meeting the camp meetings took their rise.”
In this quaint narrative, therefore, we see the inauguration of the
great revival meetings which soon came to be so largely attended that it
was necessary to build open arbors to accommodate the attendance. The
movement gathered strength as it spread north, south, east and west,
and camping on the spot followed as a natural result of the sustained
enthusiasm. From its first inception the plan and idea of camp meeting
life was to lift the mind for a season out of, and beyond all worldly
cares, and thus to permit the soul to feast on things spiritual. The
idea appealed at once to the primitive people of the rural communities
even more than to those of the cities. The simple life of the camp was
something they could understand and were used to. It was a mode of life
that they loved as well. Its popularity was such from the very outset
that it was no uncommon thing for the farmer who could not provide for
the attendance of all his family at the meetings, to load his big wagon
with cots, bedding, provisions and his family, and live in it, and under
it on the camp grounds, if he could not procure a tent, contented with
any sort of a shelter, so long as the meetings continued, which was
sometimes for several weeks.
The early camp grounds were attractive, yet very simple in their
arrangements. A thickly wooded site was always chosen, preferably on the
banks of a river or lake. Always, of necessity, there was water near
by, even if the camp could not be directly on its shores. Willing hands
cleared away the underbrush, made rude benches of logs, the ground under
them being strewn with new mown hay, fresh straw or pine needles. Other
willing workers marked off the boundaries for the circle of tents and
prepared the place for the preachers, building a platform and a rustic
pulpit. Then there was the “mourners’ bench”. This was an important
point, and was never omitted. It was a big log supported by stout forked
branches driven into the ground in front of the pulpit.
Gleaming through the dark, flickering shadows of the dense foliage
overhead, were seen the white-tented temporary homes of the people, while
behind them rose the blue smoke of the many outdoor kitchen fires, where
green branches and twigs served for fuel. Iron kettles on rustic cranes
hung over the fires, and in the hot ashes the savory odor of roasting
potatoes or apples rose on the air, mingling with the aroma of coffee,
the smell of roasting or stewing or frying meats and fish.
The program for each day was varied, although almost continuous. First
came a sunrise prayer service, at which the young people were most in
evidence, as also at the vesper service, which preceded the regular
evening sermon. At 9 o’clock were held “tent meetings,” preparatory to
the general service and morning sermon at 10:30. At 2 o’clock was held
the second service of the day, with a sermon. Before the evening service
began family prayers were held in the tents, while out of the twilight,
from tent and woods, resounded various hymns blending in a wild harmony
of praise. Then came a short period of restful silence, while the call
of the horn, or a voice from the pulpit, was awaited. At the sound tent
doors were thrown open and the eager throngs hurried to the place of “the
preaching.”
The night scenes at these camp meetings were really awe-inspiring. The
congregation was literally surrounded by a circle of fire. Even the trees
back in the shadows were festooned with candles, while small fires, the
remains of the supper-getting, smouldered in their midst. On each side,
and to the rear of the seated throng, were half a dozen or more large
platforms, eight or ten feet high, supported on heavy tree trunks. They
were covered a foot deep with damp earth, and on this roaring fires were
built of full length logs. The fierce crackle and thunder of the flames,
the clouds of sparks that flew up to be lost in the overhanging foliage,
the dense smoke that mounted to the skies, and the weird, uncanny shadows
that seemed to be instinct with life as they crept out of the inky
darkness beyond the flickering circle of light, united to make the scene
eloquent of awe.
After each of the three sermons of the day, the preachers “exhorted” and
urged the penitent, sin-convicted soul to kneel at the altar, and to
seek the mourner’s bench. These “after meetings,” as they were called,
were really the most strikingly characteristic features of the camp. So
mighty was the power at work in individual hearts, so great the effect
of mental and physical exhaustion, that many fell prostrate in the straw
before the mourners’ bench, and lay there as if dead. Others, again, were
differently affected, and uttered wild shouts of “hallelujah” and “amen,”
which, so far from disturbing the preacher, seemed rather to urge him on
to use yet more force in the delivery of his message of salvation for the
penitent sinner.
The singing at these camp meetings was in charge of a regular chorister,
but he was often unable to guide the great volume of sound that broke
out again and again from the hearts of the excited people, who sang
with more spirit than knowledge or rhythm. The leaders who guided
and supported the meetings were sincere and devout, and many of them
were of social and political prominence. Men and women of the first
respectability were constant in attendance, and many of them joined
in the work as earnestly as the preachers themselves. The peculiar
manifestations of the “after-meetings” are thus referred to by John McGee
in the letter previously mentioned to his Presiding Elder:
“The nights were truly awful. The people were differently exercised, some
exhorting, some shouting, some weeping, some praying, and some crying for
mercy, while others lay as if dead on the ground. Some of the spiritually
wounded fled to the woods, and their groans could be heard all through
the grounds, like the groans of dying men. From thence many came into the
camp rejoicing and praising God.”
Such scenes prevailed wherever camp meetings were held, the people,
ministers, laity, saints and sinners yielding miraculously, as it
seemed, to the sway of some strong spiritual influence. That many wild
and eccentric things were done and said, and that the borderland of
fanaticism was often overstepped, cannot be denied. But, in spite of
these extravagances of speech and action, which were certainly hindrances
rather than the opposite, the good effects of the camp meeting were
almost universally acknowledged. The moral transformations that followed
it in many communities were conspicuous, although, alas! such is human
nature, they were not always permanent in all cases of sudden and violent
“conversion.” But, in spite of backslidings, many and often, the camp
meetings of early days, as well as those of the present, were, and are,
productive of good, and serve their purpose of awakening the slumbering
conscience. The eccentric manifestations of feeling so characteristic of
the earlier meetings have, as a rule, toned down in these modern and more
repressive times, but they are not yet wholly subdued.
[Illustration: The Shadow of the Attacoa
By Thornwell Jacobs]
SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS
Commenced in the April number.
Ervin McArthur, bearing the nickname of “Satan” on account of his
ungovernable temper, learns printing at the office of the _Dunvegan_
(N. C.) _Democrat_ and loves Colonel Preston’s daughter. The colonel,
objecting to a love affair between his aristocratic daughter and a
son of “poor whites,” shifts the youth to a place on the _Charleston
Chronicle_. Here, the Civil War coming on, he distinguishes himself
by his journalistic ability and by his inventions of war-engines. In
these last he is ably assisted by Helen Brooks, a Boston girl visiting
Charleston relatives. She learns to love the inventor and his cause,
and he struggles between his allegiance to Helen Preston and his newly
awakened love. He returns to Dunvegan on furlough and in an altercation
with his old time chum, Henry Bailey, the latter meets his death. Ervin
escapes, and another friend, Ernest Lavender, is tried and convicted.
Ervin confesses and is tried, but cleared on proof discovered by Helen
Preston that the crime was committed by Mack Lonovan, who, wishing to
marry Helen Brooks, destroys the only living witness to his secret
marriage with half-witted Nance West.
Ervin returns to Charleston and invents the ironclad torpedo, destined,
when copied by the Federals, to destroy the Confederate Navy. He also
constructs a submarine torpedo boat, and while preparing for his initial
trip has an interview with Helen Brooks.
He decides to attack the _Housatonic_ instead of the _New Ironsides_,
as Helen has confessed that one whom she loves is on the latter. The
_Housatonic_ is sunk, also the torpedo, Ervin alone being rescued and
captured. Sent to the stockade on Morris’ Island, he finds Tait Preston,
who is about to be exchanged on account of a wound. Ervin determines to
escape.
After some weeks he does so, being wounded in the flight. At this time
his dragoon pigeon being accidentally loosened by Mrs. Adams, returns
to Dunvegan and Helen Preston leaves her father, who is at home on sick
leave, to nurse her lover. Arriving at Charleston, she learns that his
friends there suppose him to have been destroyed in the sinking of the
_Housatonic_, but the faithful girl continues her search until she finds
him on James’ Island and nurses him back to health.
In the meantime Mrs. Corbin and her family have fled to Columbia and are
among the sufferers when that city is burned. Charleston surrenders and
the _Chronicle_ is confiscated.