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ROBERT TOOMBS
[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, AT THE AGE OF 75 YEARS.]
ROBERT TOOMBS
_STATESMAN, SPEAKER, SOLDIER, SAGE_
HIS CAREER IN CONGRESS AND ON THE HUSTINGS--HIS WORK IN
THE COURTS--HIS RECORD WITH THE ARMY--HIS LIFE AT HOME
BY
PLEASANT A. STOVALL
* * * * *
"The blood which mingled at Cowpens and at Eutaw
cannot be kept at enmity forever."--_Toombs._
* * * * *
NEW YORK
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1892,
BY CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J.
* * * * *
Dedication.
TO ROBERT TOOMBS DU BOSE, WHOSE INTEREST AND AID WERE INVALUABLE, AND
WITHOUT WHOSE COOPERATION THE BIOGRAPHY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PREPARED,
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.
"There are courageous and honest men enough in both
sections to fight. There is no question of courage
involved. The people of both sections of this Union have
illustrated their courage on too many battlefields to be
questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities
shoulder to shoulder whenever their country has called upon
them; but that they may never come in contact with each
other in fratricidal war, should be the ardent wish of
every true man and honest patriot."--_Robert Toombs, Speech
in U. S. Senate_, 1856.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Family, Boyhood, Life at College, 1
II. At the Bar, 13
III. In the Legislature, 29
IV. Elected to Congress, 43
V. In the Lower House, 56
VI. The Compromise of 1850, 67
VII. The Georgia Platform, 83
VIII. The Campaign of 1852, 97
IX. Toombs in the Senate, 107
X. The "Know-nothing" Party, 121
XI. Toombs in Boston, 129
XII. Buchanan's Administration, 140
XIII. "On the Stump" in Georgia, 144
XIV. The Campaign of 1856, 155
XV. John Brown's Raid, 169
XVI. The Charleston Convention, 175
XVII. Toombs as a Legislator, 186
XVIII. Election of Lincoln, 199
XIX. Farewell to the Senate, 205
XX. Toombs and Secession, 209
XXI. Toombs as Premier of the Confederacy, 222
XXII. Brigadier-General in Army of Northern Virginia, 236
XXIII. With the Georgia Militia, 277
XXIV. Toombs as a Fugitive, 286
XXV. Without a Country, 308
XXVI. Commencing Life Anew, 315
XXVII. Days of Reconstruction, 324
XXVIII. His Last Public Service, 337
XXIX. Domestic Life of Toombs, 353
XXX. His Great Fault, 364
XXXI. His Last Days, 369
* * * * *
ROBERT TOOMBS.
CHAPTER I.
FAMILY, BOYHOOD, LIFE AT COLLEGE.
Gabriel Toombs was one of General Braddock's soldiers who marched
against Fort DuQuesne in 1755. He was a member of the sturdy Virginia
line which protested against the dangerous tactics of the British
martinet, and when the English regulars were ambushed and cut to pieces,
Gabriel Toombs deployed with his men in the woods and picked off the
savages with the steady aim and unerring skill of the frontiersman. Over
one hundred years later Robert Toombs, his grandson, protested against
the fruitless charge at Malvern Hill, and obliquing to the left with his
brigade, protected his men and managed to cover the retreat of his
division.
This was a family of soldiers. They were found in the old country
fighting Cromwell's army of the rebellion.
Robert Toombs of Georgia was fond of tracing his lineage to the
champions of the English king who defended their sovereign at Boscobel.
But the American family was made up of lovers of liberty rather than
defenders of the King. It was one of the anomalies in the life of the
Georgia Toombs, who resisted all restraint and challenged authority in
every form, that he should have located his ancestry among the sworn
royalists of the seventeenth century.
William Toombs, the great-grandfather of Robert, was the first of the
English family to come to America, about 1650. He settled in Virginia.
Gabriel, who fought with Braddock, was the son of William. Major Robert
Toombs, the father of the Georgia statesman, commanded a Virginia
regiment during the Revolution and rendered conspicuous service in
Georgia against the British. Major Toombs came to Georgia in 1783 and
received a rich tract of 3000 acres of land in Wilkes County. This was
their share in the award to distinguished soldiers of "the Virginia
line."
"They fought for their estates like feudal barons," General Toombs used
to say, when speaking of his ancestors, now sleeping in the red hills of
Georgia. When he was asked after the civil war why he did not petition
for relief of political disabilities, he declared that "no vote of
Congress, no amnesty proclamation, shall rob me of the glory of
outlawry. I shall not be the first of my name for three centuries to
accept the stigma of a pardon."
The elder Gabriel Toombs in 1795 made his last will and testament. He
commended his soul to God who gave it, and blessed his Maker for the
worldly goods that he was possessed of. Distributing his estate among
his wife, Ann Toombs, and his six children, he expressly directed that
his negroes and their increase must be appraised together; that they
were not to be sold out of the family, and that they should be "used in
a Christian-like manner." He divided up parcels of land in Greene and
Wilkes counties among his sons, Robert Toombs and Dawson Gabriel Toombs,
and his four daughters. Gabriel Toombs died in 1801.
When Major Robert Toombs, the Virginia veteran, and son of Gabriel, came
to Georgia to claim his award of land, he settled on Beaverdam Creek,
five miles from the town of Washington. It is probable that he stopped
in Columbia County, for he married Miss Sanders, of that county. She
died, leaving no children, and Major Toombs went back to Virginia and
married Miss Catlett. One son was born, and this lady died. Miss
Catharine Huling was the third wife. The Hulings were also Virginians,
and by this marriage six children were reared. Sarah, who finally became
Mrs. Pope; James, who was killed by accident while hunting; Augustus,
Robert, and Gabriel.
Catharine Huling, the mother of Robert Toombs of Georgia, was a most
excellent woman, of strong and exalted piety. She was of Welsh ancestry,
a devout Methodist, and after accompanying her son to college, and
seeing him married, prosperous, and distinguished, died in 1848, when he
was a member of Congress. Mrs. Toombs gave generously of her own means,
to family and friends. Robert Toombs proved to be a dutiful son. He
visited his mother constantly, and carefully managed her property.
Finally he induced her to move to Washington, so that he might be near
her.
Robert Toombs was the fifth child of Robert and Catharine Toombs. He was
born in Wilkes County, about five miles from Washington, July 2, 1810.
His brother Gabriel, who still lives, was three years his junior, and
was throughout his life his close and confidential adviser and friend.
Robert Toombs, in childhood, was a slender, active, mischievous lad, and
it will be a surprise to those who remember his superb physical manhood,
to hear that at school and college he bore the nickname of "Runt." He
was marked for his energy and vivacity. He was not precocious. Nature
gave no signs of her intentions in his youth. His development, physical
and mental, was not rapid, but wholesome. He was fond of horseback
riding, and the earliest glimpse we have of him is as a slender lad,
with dark eyes and hair slightly touched with auburn, flying through the
village, and sometimes carrying on his pony behind him his little
brother to school.
He was always in good health. He boasted that he never took medicine
until he was thirty-four years old. His mother said that he grew up
almost without her knowledge, so little trouble had he given her. He was
a fine horseman. Possibly this practice had much to do with his good
spirits and physical strength.
In his younger days he rode sixty-five miles to Milledgeville, covering
the distance in one day, and was fresh enough to attend a dance at
night. He delighted in fox-hunting, although never a racer or in any
sense a sporting man. During the earlier years of his career he
practiced law in the saddle, as was the custom with the profession at
that time, and never thought of riding to court on wheels until later in
life. Throughout his active participation in the Civil War he rode his
famous mare, "Gray Alice," and was a striking figure as, splendidly
mounted and charged with enthusiasm, he plunged along the lines of the
Army of Northern Virginia. In his long wandering from capture in 1865,
he was in the saddle six months, riding to and from the wilds of
northeast Georgia to the swamps of the Chattahoochee. There was
something in his picturesque figure upon the horse which suggests John
Randolph of Roanoke.
His first training was at what was known as an "old field school,"
taught by Welcome Fanning, a master of good attainments and a firm
believer in the discipline of the rod. Afterward, Robert Toombs was
drilled by a private tutor, Rev. Alexander Webster--an adjunct professor
of the University of Georgia and a man of high repute as scholar and
instructor. Mr. Webster was the friend and early preceptor of Alexander
H. Stephens.
Young Toombs was christened Robert Augustus, and carried his middle name
until 1840, when he seems to have dropped it as a useless piece of
furniture. There is a report that some of his political foes, playing
upon his initials, saddled him with the sobriquet of "Rat." Having
out-grown one nickname he was prepared to shed another.
Young Toombs proved to be a great reader. Most of his learning developed
in the Humanities; and a cultured visitor from Maryland who once stopped
at his father's house declared that this boy of fourteen was better
posted in history than anyone he had ever seen.
It was about this time that Robert Toombs was fitted out for Franklin
College--now the State University--located in Athens, Ga., forty miles
from Washington.
This institution, to which he was devotedly attached and of whose
governing board he was a member at the time of his death, was chartered
in 1785 by the State of Georgia. It was the early recipient of the deed
of western lands, which the State subsequently purchased, assuming the
perpetual endowment of the college. It has been to Georgia what
Jefferson's school has proved to Virginia, the nursery of scholars and
statesmen. Governor John Milledge had given the institution a home upon
a beautiful hill overlooking the Oconee River, and this lovely spot they
had named Athens. Here in 1824 young Robert Toombs repaired, animated
with the feelings which move a college boy, except that his mother went
with him and relieved him of the usual sense of loneliness which
overtakes the student. Major Robert Toombs, his father, who was an
indigo and tobacco planter, was reputed to be a wealthy man for those
times, but it was the comfort of the early settler who had earned his
demesne from the government rather than the wealth of the capitalist. He
had enough to support his family in comfort. He died when Robert was
five years old, and the latter selected as his guardian Thomas W. Cobb,
of Greene County, a cousin of Governor Howell Cobb, a member of Congress
himself and a man of high legal attainment.
When Robert Toombs entered college that institution was under the
Presidency of Moses Waddell, a born educator and strict disciplinarian.
Three generations of this family have served the State as preceptors in
Franklin College.
It may well be imagined that the college had not at that time reached
the dignity of a university, for an entry in President Waddell's diary
was this: "Caught Jones chewing tobacco: whipped him for it." Those were
the old days when boys were boys until they were twenty-one. There is no
record to show that Robert Toombs in college was a close scholar. Later
in life he became a hard student and laborious worker. But if these
industrious habits were born to him in Athens there is no trace of them.
That he was a reader of Shakespeare and history he gave ample evidence
in his long career, but if the legends of his college town are to be
trusted, he was more noted for outbreaks of mischief than for close
application. Full of life and spirits, a healthy, impetuous boy, he was
on good terms with his classmates, and took life easily. That was a time
when students were required to get up at sunrise and attend prayers.
One night, the story goes, the vigilant proctor actually found young
Toombs playing cards with some of his friends. Fearing a reprimand,
Toombs sought his guardian, who happened to be in Athens on a visit from
his home in Greenesboro. It is not certain that young Toombs
communicated the enormity of his offense, but he obtained leave to apply
to Dr. Waddell for a letter of discharge. The learned but severe scholar
had not received the proctor's report, and gave the young student a
certificate of honorable dismissal.
Later in the day the President met Toombs walking around the campus.
"Robert Toombs," said he, "you took advantage of me early this morning.
I did not then know that you had been caught at the card-table last
evening."
Toombs straightened up and informed the doctor that he was no longer
addressing a student of his college, but a free-born American citizen.
The halls of Athens are fragrant with these stories of Toombs. No man
ever left so distinctive a stamp upon the place or gave such spicy
flavor to its traditions.
Among the college-mates of Robert Toombs at Athens were Stephen Olin,
Robert Dougherty, and Daniel Chandler, the grandfather of the
unfortunate Mrs. Maybrick of England, and the man whose chaste and
convincing appeal for female education resulted in the establishment of
Wesleyan Female College--the first seminary in the world for the higher
culture of women.
The closest of these companionships was that of George F. Pierce, a
young man like Toombs, full of brains and energy--even then a striking
and sparkling figure. The path of these men commenced at the door of
their _alma mater_, and although their ways were widely divergent, the
friends never parted. Two of the finest orators in Georgia, one left his
impress as strongly upon the Church as did the other upon the State. One
became bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the other a Whig
senator. One day these men met, both in the zenith of power, when Toombs
said: "Well, George, you are fighting the devil, and I am fighting the
Democrats."
Closer in friendship their hands clasped as age swept over their raven
locks and stalwart shoulders. Bishop Pierce never hesitated to go to
Robert Toombs when his churches or his schools needed money. Toombs
would give to the Methodist itinerant as quickly as he would to the
local priest. Whether he was subscribing for a Catholic Orphans' Home or
a Methodist College he would remark, as he gave liberally and freely, "I
always try to honor God Almighty's drafts."
Pierce and Toombs had much in common--although the one was full of
saintly fire and the other, at times, of defiant irreverence. It was
Pierce whose visits Toombs most enjoyed at his own home, with whom he
afterward talked of God and religion. The good bishop lived to bury the
devoted Christian wife of the Georgia statesman, and finally, when the
dross of worldliness was gone, to receive into the Methodist Church the
bowed and weeping figure of the giant Toombs.
When Robert Toombs became prominent in Georgia, there is a story that
his State university, in order to win back his friendship, conferred
upon him an honorary degree. Toombs is represented as having spurned it
with characteristic scorn. "No," said he, "when I was unknown and
friendless, you sent me out disgraced, and refused me a diploma. Now
that I would honor the degree I do not want it."
There is no record that the college ever conferred a degree upon Toombs
at all. Later in life he was elected a trustee of this university, and
each year his familiar figure was seen on the stage during commencement,
or his wise counsel heard about the board. His attendance upon these
duties was punctilious. He would leave the courthouse, the legislative
halls, or Virginia Springs--wherever he happened to be--and repair to
Athens the first week in August. Once or twice he delivered the annual
address before the alumni; several times he secured appropriations for
his _alma mater_ from the State. His visits to Athens were always
occasions of honor. Young men flocked wherever his voice was heard,
fascinated by his racy conversation. No "Disinherited Knight" ever
returned to more certain conquest or more princely homage.
There is a regular mythology about Toombs at his State university. The
things he said would fill a volume of Sydney Smith, while the pranks he
played would rival the record of Robin Hood. There is still standing in
the college campus in Athens a noble tree, with the crown of a century
upon it. Under its spreading branches the first college commencement was
held one hundred years ago; under it the student Toombs once stood and
addressed his classmates, and of all the men who have gone in and out
beneath its shade, but one name has been found sturdy enough to link
with this monument of a forgotten forest. The boys to this day call it
"The Toombs Oak."
[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, AGE 19, LAW STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF
VIRGINIA, 1829.
(_From a miniature painting._)]