OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME
Mrs. Eichelberger supplied us merely with a place to sleep. For meals
she referred us to a lady who lived a few doors up the street. But when
in the morning we went, full of hunger and of hope, to the house of this
lady, we were coldly informed that breakfast was over, and were
recommended to the Bell Café, downtown.
My companion and I are not of that robust breed which enjoys a bracing
walk before its morning coffee, and the fact that the streets of
Columbus charmed us, as we now saw them for the first time by daylight,
is proof enough of their quality. There is but little appetite for
beauty in an empty stomach.
The streets were splendidly wide, and bordered with fine old trees, and
the houses, each in its own lawn, each with its vines and shrubs, were
full of the suggestion of an easy-going home life and an informal
hospitality. Most of them were of frame and in their architecture
illustrated the decadence of the eighties and nineties, but here or
there was a fine old brick homestead with a noble columned portico, or a
formal Georgian house, disposed among beautiful trees and gardens and
sheltered from the street by an ancient hedge of box. So, though
Columbus is, as I have indicated, not too easily reached by rail, and
though, as I have further indicated, walks before breakfast are not to
my taste, I am compelled to say that for both the journey and the walk I
felt repaid by the sight of some of the old houses--the Baldwin house,
the W.D. Humphries house, the J.O. Banks house, the old McLaren house,
the Kinnebrew house, the Thomas Hardy house, the J.M. Morgan house, with
its garden of lilies and roses, its giant magnolia trees and its huge
camellia bushes; and most of all, perhaps, for its Georgian beauty, the
mellow tone of its old brick, its rich tangle of southern growths, and
its associations, the venerable mansion of the late General Stephen D.
Lee, C.S.A.--now the property of the latter's only son, Mr. Blewett Lee,
general counsel of the Illinois Central Railroad, and a resident of
Chicago.
It was apropos of our visit to the Lee house that I was told of a
dramatic and touching example of the rebirth of amity between North and
South.
Stephen D. Lee it was who, as a young artillery officer attached to the
staff of General Beauregard, transmitted the actual order to fire on
Fort Sumter, the shot which began the war. Two years later, having been
promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, the same Stephen D. Lee
participated in the defense of Vicksburg against the assaults of
Porter's gunboats from the river and of Grant's armies, which hemmed in
the hilled city on landward side, until at last, on the 4th of July,
1863, the place was surrendered, making Grant's fame secure.
Years after, when the Government of the United States accepted a statue
of General Stephen D. Lee, to be placed upon the battle ground of
Vicksburg--now a national park--it was the late General Frederick Dent
Grant, son of the capturer of the city, who journeyed thither to unveil
the memorial to his father's former foe. And by a peculiarly gracious
and fitting set of circumstances it came about that when, in April last,
the ninety-fifth anniversary of the birth of U.S. Grant was celebrated
in his native city, Galena, Illinois, it was Blewett Lee, only son of
the general taken by Grant at Vicksburg, who journeyed to Galena and
there in a memorial address, returned the earlier compliment paid to the
memory of his own father by Grant's son.
* * * * *
Columbus may perhaps appreciate the charm of its old homes, but there is
evidence to show that it did not appreciate certain other weatherworn
structures of great beauty. I have seen photographs of an old Baptist
Church with a fine (and not at all Baptist-looking) portico and fluted
columns, which was torn down to make room for the present stupidly
commonplace Baptist church: and I have seen pictures of the beautiful
old town hall which was recently supplanted by an ignorantly ordinary
town building of yellow pressed brick. The destruction of these two
early buildings represents an irreparable loss to Columbus, and it is to
be hoped that the town will some day be sufficiently enlightened to
know that this is true and to regret that it did not restore and enlarge
them instead of tearing them down.
Until a decade or two ago Columbus had, so far as I can learn, but four
streets possessing names: Main Street, Market Street, College Street,
and Catfish Alley, all other streets being known as "the street that
Mrs. Billups, or Mrs. Sykes, or Mrs. Humphries, or Mrs. Some-one-else
lives on."
Market and Main are business streets--at least they are so where they
cross--and, like the other streets, are wide. They are lined with brick
buildings few if any of them more than three stories in height, and it
was in one of these buildings, on Main Street, that we found the Bell
Café--advertised as "the most exclusive café in the State."
Being in search of breakfast rather than exclusiveness, we did not sit
at one of the tables, but at the long lunch counter, where we were
quickly served.
After breakfast we felt strong enough to look at picture post cards, and
to that end visited first "Cheap Joe's" and then the shop of Mr.
Divilbis, where newspapers, magazines, sporting goods, cameras, and all
such things, are sold. Having viewed post cards picturing such scenes as
"Main Street looking north," "The 1st Baptist Church," and "Steamer
_America_, Tombigbee River," we were about to depart, when our attention
was drawn to a telephonic conversation which had started between Mr.
Divilbis's clerk and a customer who was thinking of going in for the
game of lawn tennis. The half of the conversation which was audible to
us proved entertaining, and we dallied, eavesdropping.
The clerk began by recommending tennis. "Yes," he said, "that would be
very nice. Everybody is playing tennis now."
But that got him into trouble, for after a pause he said: "I'm sorry I
can't tell you everything about it. I don't play tennis myself. Al could
tell you, though. He plays."
Then, after a much longer pause: "Well, ma'am, you see, in a game of
lawn tennis everybody owns their own racquet."
At this juncture a tall, thin man in what is known (excepting at Palm
Beach) as a "Palm Beach suit," entered the shop and the clerk asked his
inquisitor to hold the wire while he made some inquiries. After a long
conversation with the new arrival he returned to the telephone and
resumed his explanation.
"Well, you see, they have a net, and one stands on one side and one on
the other--yes, ma'am, there _can_ be two on each side--and one serves.
What? Yes, he hits the ball over the net, and it has to go in the
opposite court on the other side, and then if that one doesn't send it
back--Yes, the court is marked with lines--why, that counts fifteen. The
next count is thirty. What? No, ma'am, I don't know why they count that
way. No, it's just the way they do in lawn tennis. If your opponent has
nothing, why, they call that 'love.' Yes, that's it--l-o-v-e--just the
same as when anybody's _in_ love. No, ma'am, I don't know why.... So
that's the way they count.
"No, ma'am, the lines are boundaries. You have to stand in a certain
place and hit the ball in a certain place.... No, I don't mean that way.
You've got to hit it so it _lands_ in a certain place; and the one
that's playing against you has to hit it back in a certain place, and if
it goes in some _other_ place, then you can't play it any more. Oh, no!
Not all day. I mean that ends _that_ part, and you start over. You just
keep on doing like that."
But though it was apparent that he considered his explanation complete,
the lady at the other end of the wire was evidently not yet satisfied,
and as he began to struggle with more questions we left the shop and
went to the Gilmer Hotel to see if any mail had come for us.
The Gilmer was built by slave labor some years before the war, and was
in its day considered a very handsome edifice. Nor is it to-day an
unsatisfactory hotel for a town of the size of Columbus. Its old brick
walls are sturdy, and its rooms are of a fine spaciousness. Downstairs
it has been somewhat remodeled, but the large parlor on the second floor
is much as it was in the beginning, even to the great mirrors and the
carved furniture imported more than sixty years ago from France. Most of
the doors still have the old locks, and the window cords originally
installed were of such a quality that they have not had to be renewed.
The Gilmer was still new when the Battle of Shiloh was fought, and
several thousand of the wounded were brought to Columbus. The hotel and
various other buildings, including that of the former Female Institute,
were converted into hospitals, as were also many private houses in the
town.
Though there was never fighting at Columbus, the end of the war found
some fifteen hundred soldiers' graves in Friendship Cemetery, perhaps
twoscore of the number being those of Federals. The citizens were, at
this time, too poor and too broken in spirit to erect memorials, but
several ladies of Columbus made it their custom to visit the cemetery
and care for the graves of the Confederate dead. This movement, started
by individuals--Miss Matt Moreton, Mrs. J.T. Fontaine, and Mrs. Green T.
Hill--was soon taken up by other ladies of the place and resulted in a
determination to make the decoration of soldiers' graves an annual
occurrence.
In an old copy of the "Mississippi Index," published at the time, may be
found an account of the solemn march of the women, young and old, to the
cemetery, on April 25, 1866--one year after Robert E. Lee's
surrender--and of the decoration of the graves not only of Confederate
but of Federal soldiers. It is the proud boast of Columbus that this
occasion constituted the first celebration of the now national
Decoration Day--or, as it is more properly called, Memorial Day.
It should perhaps be said here that Columbus, Georgia, disputes the
claim of Columbus, Mississippi, as to Memorial Day. In the Georgia city
it is contended that the idea of decorating soldiers' graves originated
with Miss Lizzie Rutherford, later Mrs. Roswell Ellis, of that place.
The inscription of Mrs. Ellis' monument in Linwood Cemetery, Columbus,
Georgia, states that the idea of Memorial Day originated with her.
It seems clear, however, that the same idea occurred to women in both
cities simultaneously, and that, while the actual celebration of the day
occurred in Columbus, Mississippi, one day earlier than in Columbus,
Georgia, the ladies of the latter city may have been first in suggesting
that Memorial Day be not a local celebration, but one in which the whole
South should take part.
The incident of the first decoration of the graves of Union as well as
Confederate soldiers appears, however, to belong entirely to Columbus,
Mississippi, and it is certain that this exhibition of magnanimity
inspired F.W. Finch to write the famous poem, "The Blue and the Gray,"
for when that poem was first published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for
September, 1867, it carried the following headnote:
The women of Columbus, Miss., animated by noble sentiments, have
shown themselves impartial in their offerings to the memory of the
dead. They strewed flowers on the graves of the Confederate and of
the National soldiers.
This episode becomes the more touching by reason of the fact that the
Columbus lady who initiated the movement to place flowers on the Union
graves, at a time when such action was sure to provoke much criticism in
the South, was Mrs. Augusta Murdock Sykes, herself the widow of a
Confederate soldier.
So with an equal splendor
The morning sun rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day;
Broidered with gold the Blue;
Mellowed with gold the Gray.