September Eighteenth
He's in the saddle now. Fall in,
Steady the whole brigade!
Hill's at the ford, cut off; we'll win
His way out, ball and blade.
What matter if our shoes are worn?
What matter if our feet are torn?
Quick step! We're with him before morn--
That's Stonewall Jackson's way.
JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER
[From lines written within the sound of Jackson's guns at Antietam,
1862. Although then a correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, Dr.
Palmer was a Southerner by birth and residence.--Editor]
_Lee awaits McClellan's attack at Sharpsburg, 1862_
September Nineteenth
As a deputation from New England was one day leaving the White House, a
delegate turned round and said: "Mr. President, I should much like to know
what you reckon to be the number the rebels have in arms against us?"
Without a moment's hesitation Mr. Lincoln replied: "Sir, I have the best
possible reason for knowing the number to be one million of men, for
whenever one of our generals engages a rebel army he reports that he has
encountered a force twice his strength. I know we have half a million
soldiers, so I am bound to believe that the rebels have twice that
number."
LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C.B.
_Lee repulses attempted advance across the Potomac after Antietam, 1862_
_First day at Chickamauga, 1863_
September Twentieth
Judged by percentage in killed and wounded, Chickamauga nearly doubled the
sanguinary records of Marengo and Austerlitz; was two and a half times
heavier than that sustained by the Duke of Marlborough at Malplaquet; more
than double that suffered by the army under Henry of Navarre in the
terrific slaughter at Coutras; nearly three times as heavy as the
percentage of loss at Solferino and Magenta; five times greater than that
of Napoleon at Wagram, and about ten times as heavy as that of Marshall
Saxe at Bloody Raucoux.... Or, if we take the average percentage of loss
in a number of the world's great battles--Waterloo, Wagram, Valmy,
Magenta, Solferino, Zurich, and Lodi--we shall find by comparison that
Chickamauga's record of blood surpassed them nearly three for one.
GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON
_Second day at Chickamauga, 1863_
September Twenty-First
THE OLD TIME NEGRO
God bless the forlorn and ragged remnants of a race now passing away. God
bless the old black hand that rocked our infant cradles, smoothed the
pillow of our infant sleep, and fanned the fever from our cheeks. God
bless the old tongue that immortalized the nursery rhyme, the old eyes
that guided our truant feet, and the old heart that laughed at our
childish freaks.
PETER FRANCISCO SMITH
September Twenty-Second
If I could preserve the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it;
if I could preserve the Union by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.
What I do about the colored race, I do because I think it helps to save
the Union.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
_President Lincoln issues an emancipation proclamation to take effect
January 1, 1863, unless the Confederate States should return to the Union
by that date_
September Twenty-Third
THE MOCKING-BIRD
The name thou wearest does thee grievous wrong.
No mimic thou! That voice is thine alone!
The poets sing but strains of Shakespeare's song;
The birds, but notes of thine imperial own!
HENRY JEROME STOCKARD
September Twenty-Fourth
No other man did half so much either to develop the Constitution by
expounding it, or to secure for the judiciary its rightful place in the
Government as the living voice of the Constitution.... The admiration and
respect which he and his colleagues won for the court remain its bulwark:
the traditions which were formed under him and them have continued in
general to guide the action and elevate the sentiments of their
successors.
JAMES BRYCE
(England)
_John Marshall born, 1755_
_Zachary Taylor born, 1784_
September Twenty-Fifth
We are gathered here a feeble few
Of those who wore the gray--
The larger and the better part
Have mingled with the clay:
Yet not so lost, but now and then
Through dimming mist we see
The deadly calm of Stonewall's face,
The lion-front of Lee.
HENRY LYNDEN FLASH
_Memoirs of the Blue and Gray read at Los Angeles, 1897_
September Twenty-Sixth
Summer is dead, ay me! Sweet summer's dead!
The sunset clouds have built his funeral pyre,
Through which, e'en now, runs subterranean fire:
While from the East, as from a garden-bed,
Mist-vined, the Dusk lifts her broad moon--like some
Great golden melon--saying, "Fall has come."
MADISON CAWEIN
September Twenty-Seventh
All America will soon treasure alike both Federal and Confederate
exploits, in the greatest of wars, as a priceless national heritage. Then
Semmes and the _Alabama_ will shine beside John Paul Jones and the
_Bonhomme Richard_, Decatur and the _Philadelphia_, Lawrence and the
_Chesapeake_, and be ever lauded with the victories of _Old Ironsides_,
the intrepid deed of Farragut sailing over the mines in the channel of
Mobile Bay, that of Dewey entering Manila Harbor, and of Hobson bringing
the _Merrimac_ under the fire of the forts at Santiago.
JOHN C. REED
_Raphael Semmes born, 1809_
September Twenty-Eighth
The _Alabama_ had been built in perfect good faith by the Lairds. When she
was contracted for no question had been raised as to the right of a
neutral to build and sell to a belligerent such a ship. The reader has
seen that the Federal Secretary of the Navy himself had endeavored not
only to build an _Alabama_, but ironclads in England.
RAPHAEL SEMMES
_John Laurens born, 1754_
September Twenty-Ninth
When summer flowers are dying,
August past,
When Autumn's breath is sighing
On the blast;
When the red leaves flutter down
To the sod,
Then the year kneels for its crown--
Goldenrod!
VIRGINIA LUCAS
September Thirtieth
Thistles send their missives white
To the sky;
Robins southward wing their flight,
(Sad goodbye!)
But where Summer, yellow-gowned,
Last has trod,
Thorn-torn fragments strew the ground--
Goldenrod!
VIRGINIA LUCAS
October
Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
To blind the eyes of grief;
Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit
That sorrow may be mute;
A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep,
Ere the gray dusk may creep
Sober and sad along thy dusty ways,
Like a lone nun, who prays;
High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;
Thy lazy lizard sprawls
On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep
About thy hedge, asleep;
The Sun swings farther toward his love, the South,
To kiss her glowing mouth;
And Death, who steals among thy purpling bowers,
Is deeply hid in flowers.
JOHN CHARLES MCNEILL
October First
Come on thy swaying feet,
Wild Spirit of the Fall!
With wind-blown skirts, loose hair of russet brown
Crowned with bright berries of the bitter sweet.
Trip a light measure with the hurrying leaf,
Straining thy few late roses to thy breast:
With laughter overgay, sweet eyes drooped down,
That none may guess thy grief:
Dare not to pause for rest
Lest the slow tears should gather to their fall.
DANSKE DANDRIDGE
October Second
In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of
this fundamental maxim--that all power was originally lodged in, and
consequently derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate,
and buckle it on as our armour.
GEORGE MASON
October Third
What a brave splendour
Is in the October air! How rich and clear--
How life-full, and all joyous! We must render
Love to the Spring-time, with its sproutings tender,
As to a child quite dear--
But autumn is a noon, prolonged, of glory--
A manhood not yet hoary.
PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE
October Fourth
At morn--at noon--at twilight dim--
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe--in good and ill--
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee!
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
EDGAR ALLAN POE
October Fifth
Tormented sorely by the chastening rod,
I muttered to myself: "There is no God!"
But faithful friend, I found your soul so true,
That God revealed Himself in giving you.
WALTER MALONE
October Sixth
Who said "false as dreams"? Not one who saw
Into the wild and wondrous world they sway;
No thinker who hath read their mystic law;
No Poet who hath weaved them in his lay.
HENRY TIMROD
_Henry Timrod dies, 1867_
_Nathaniel Bacon dies, 1676_
October Seventh
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
_Edgar Allan Poe dies, 1849_
_Battle of King's Mountain, N. C., 1780_
October Eighth
EDGAR ALLAN POE
It is no small achievement to have sung a few imperishable songs of
bereaved love and illusive beauty. It is no small achievement to have
produced individual and unexcelled strains of harmony which have since so
rung in the ears of brother poets that echoes of them may be detected even
in the work of such original and accomplished versemen as Rossetti and
Swinburne. It is no small achievement to have pursued one's ideal until
one's dying day, conscious the while that, great as one's impediments have
been from without, one's chief obstacle has been one's own self.
WILLIAM P. TRENT
All who possess the divine element of pity will unite in feeling that his
sufferings were his expiation.
LETITIA H. WRENSHALL
October Ninth
BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN: THE FIRST REBEL YELL
And they came, these mountaineers of the South. Congress has not ordered
them; it is a rally of volunteers.... They neither hesitate nor parley;
they hitch their horses to the trees; like a girdle of steel they clasp
the mountain; and up they go, at the enemy--rifles blazing as they
advance, and the Southern yell ringing through the woods.
THOMAS E. WATSON
It was the joyful annunciation of that turn of the tide of success which
terminated the Revolutionary War with the seal of our independence.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
October Tenth
Soldiers! You are about to engage in an enterprise which, to insure
success, imperatively demands at your hands coolness, decision, and
bravery; implicit obedience to orders without a question or cavil; and the
strictest order and sobriety on the march and in bivouac. The destination
and extent of this expedition had better be kept to myself than known to
you. Suffice it to say, that with the hearty cooperation of officers and
men I have not a doubt of its success,--a success which will reflect
credit in the highest degree upon your arms.
MAJ.-GEN. J. E. B. STUART
_J. E. B. Stuart, with 1,800 men, begins his second circle around the
Union Army, riding through Pennsylvania and Maryland, 1862_
October Eleventh
His firmness and perseverance yielded to nothing but impossibilities. A
rigid disciplinarian, yet tender as a father to those committed to his
charge; honest, disinterested, liberal, with a sound understanding and a
scrupulous fidelity to truth.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
_Meriwether Lewis dies, 1809_
October Twelfth
LEE
He was a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a soldier without
cruelty, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without
vices, a private citizen without wrong, a neighbor without reproach, a
Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was Cæsar without
his ambition, Frederick without his tyranny, Napoleon without his
selfishness, and Washington without his reward. He was as obedient to
authority as a true king. He was as gentle as a woman in life, pure and
modest as a virgin in thought, watchful as a Roman vestal in duty,
submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in battle as Achilles.
BENJAMIN H. HILL
_Robert E. Lee dies, 1870_
_Chief Justice Roger B. Taney dies, 1864_
October Thirteenth
TANEY
It was the conviction of his life that the Government under which we live
was of limited powers, and that its constitution had been framed for war
as well as peace. Though he died, therefore, he could not surrender that
conviction at the call of the trumpet. He had plighted his troth to the
liberty of the citizen and the supremacy of the laws, and no man could put
them asunder.
SEVERN TEACKLE WALLIS
October Fourteenth
LEE
He sent to the suffering private in the hospitals the delicacies
contributed for his personal use from the meagre stores of those who were
anxious about his health. If a handful of real coffee came to him, it went
in the same direction, while he cheerfully drank from his tin cup the
wretched substitute made from parched corn or beans.
GEN. JOHN B. GORDON
October Fifteenth
THE CONFEDERATE VETERAN
Let the autumn hoarfrost gather,
Let the snows of winter drift,
For there blooms a fruit of valor that
The world may not forget.
Fold your faded gray coat closer, for
It was your country's gift,
And it brings her holiest message--
There is glory in it yet.
VIRGINIA FRAZER BOYLE
October Sixteenth
This button here upon my cuff is valueless, whether for use or for
ornament, but you shall not tear it from me and spit in my face besides;
no, not if it cost me my life. And if your time be passed in the attempt
to so take it, then my time and my every thought shall be spent in
preventing such outrage. Let alone, the Virginian would gladly have made
an end of slavery, but, strange hap, malevolence and meddling bound it up
with every interest that was dear to his heart.
GEORGE W. BAGBY
(_Slavery_)
_John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, 1859_
October Seventeenth
JOHN BROWN'S RAID
Of course a transaction so flagitious with its attendant circumstances ...
could but produce the profoundest impression upon the people of the South.
Here was open and armed "aggression"; whether clearly understood and
encouraged beforehand, certainly exulted in afterwards, by persons of a
very different standing from that of the chief actor in this bloody
incursion into a peaceful State.
GEORGE LUNT
(Massachusetts)
"Saint John the Just" was the verdict of the Concord philosophers
concerning John Brown. "The new Saint ... will make the gallows glorious
like the Cross" was the sentiment of Emerson that drew applause from a
vast assemblage in Boston.
HENRY A. WHITE
October Eighteenth
I address you on this occasion with a profound admiration for the great
consideration which caused you to honor me by your votes with a seat in
the Senate of Georgy. For two momentus and inspirin' weeks the Legislature
has been in solemn session, one of whom I am proud to be which. For
several days we were engaged as scouts, making a sorter reconysance to see
whether Georgy were a State or a Injin territory, whether we were in the
old Un-ion or out of it, whether me and my folks and you and your folks
were somebody or no body, and lastly, but by no means leastly, whether our
poor innocent children, born durin' the war, were all illegal and had to
be born over agin or not. This last pint are much unsettled, but our women
are advised to be calm and serene.
"BILL ARP"
(_To His Constituents_)
October Nineteenth
Float out, oh flag, from Freedom's burnished lance.
Float out, oh flag, in Red and White and Blue!
The Union's colors and the hues of France
Commingled on the view!
JAMES BARRON HOPE
_Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, 1781_
_Burning of the "Peggy Stewart" at Annapolis, 1774_
October Twentieth
Her right to it rested upon as firm a basis as the right of any other
Commonwealth to her own domain, and if there was any question of the
Virginia title by charter, she could assert her right by conquest. The
region had been wrested from the British by a Virginian commanding
Virginian troops; the people had taken "the oath of allegiance to the
Commonwealth of Virginia"; and her title to the entire territory was thus
indisputable....
These rights she now abandoned; and her action was the result of an
enlarged patriotism and devotion to the cause of union.
JOHN ESTEN COOKE
_Virginia cedes to the general government the territory north of the Ohio,
1783_
October Twenty-First
When social relations were resumed between the North and South--they
followed slowly the resumption of business relations--what we should call
the color-blindness of the other side often manifested itself in a
delicate reticence on the part of our Northern friends; and as the war had
by no means constituted their lives as it had constituted ours for four
long years, the success in avoiding the disagreeable topic would have been
considerable, if it had not been for awkward allusions on the part of the
Southerners, who, having been shut out for all that time from the study of
literature and art and other elegant and uncompromising subjects, could
hardly keep from speaking of this and that incident of the war. Whereupon
a discreet, or rather an embarrassed silence, as if a pardoned convict had
playfully referred to the arson or burglary, not to say worse, that had
been the cause of his seclusion.
BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE
October Twenty-Second
Oh, the rolling, rolling prairies, and the grasses waving, waving
Like green billows 'neath the gulf breeze in the perfumed purple gloam!
Oh, my heart is heavy, heavy, and my eyes are craving, craving
For the fertile plains and forests of my far-off Texas home.
JUDD MORTIMER LEWIS
(_Longing for Texas_)
_Samuel Houston inaugurated President of Texas, 1836_
October Twenty-Third
BEARING THE NEWS FROM YORKTOWN TO PHILADELPHIA
All the night of the 22d he rode up the peninsula, not a sound disturbing
the silence of the darkness except the beat of his horse's hoofs. Every
three or four hours he would ride up to a lonely homestead, still and
quiet and dark in the first slumbers of the night, and thunder on the door
with his sword: "Cornwallis is taken: a fresh horse for the Congress!"
Like an electric shock the house would flash with an instant light and
echo with the pattering feet of women, and before a dozen greetings could
be exchanged, and but a word given of the fate of the loved ones at York,
Tilghman would vanish in the gloom, leaving a trail of glory and joy
behind him.
BRADLEY T. JOHNSON
_Col. Tench Tilghman's ride, 1781_
October Twenty-Fourth
IMMORTALITY
Battles nor songs can from Oblivion save,
But Fame upon a white deed loves to build;
From out that cup of water Sidney gave,
Not one drop has been spilled.
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE
October Twenty-Fifth
Supposing a disintegration of the Union, notwithstanding all efforts to
prevent it, to be forced upon us by the obstinacy and impracticability of
parties on each side--the case would still be far from hopeless. The
Border States, in that event, would form, in self-defence, a Confederacy
of their own, which would serve as a centre of reinforcement for the
reconstruction of the Union.
JOHN P. KENNEDY
(_In "The Border States--their Power and Duty in the Present
Disordered Condition of the Country"_)
_John P. Kennedy born, 1795_
October Twenty-Sixth
Give us back the ties of Yorktown!
Perish all the modern hates!
Let us stand together, brothers,
In defiance of the Fates;
For the safety of the Union
Is the safety of the States!
JAMES BARRON HOPE
(_Centennial Ode_)
October Twenty-Seventh
The attempt made to establish a separate and independent confederation has
failed, but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully and to
the end will in some measure repay for the hardships you have undergone.
In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best
wishes for your future welfare and happiness.... I now cheerfully and
gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my
command, whose zeal, fidelity, and unflinching bravery have been the great
source of my past success in arms. I have never on the field of battle
sent you where I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good
soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor,
and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will
be magnanimous.
N. B. FORREST
(_Farewell Address to His Soldiers_)
October Twenty-Eighth
Whether in the thickest of the battle, where hundreds or thousands were
rushing at each other in deadly combat, or on the lonely highway where he
came face to face with a single adversary, or in the reconnoissance by day
or night, when alone or attended by a single member of his staff he would
ride into the enemy's lines and even into their camps, he was with pistol
or sabre ever ready to assert his physical prowess. It is known that he
placed _hors de combat_ thirty Federal officers or soldiers fighting
hand-to-hand.
JOHN A. WYETH
October Twenty-Ninth
Swing, rustless blade, in the dauntless hand;
Ride, soul of a god, through the deathless band,
Through the low green mounds, or the breadth of the land,
Wherever your legions dwell!
VIRGINIA FRAZER BOYLE
_Gen. N. B. Forrest dies, 1877_
October Thirtieth
It will be difficult in all history to find a more varied career than his,
a man who, from the greatest poverty, without any learning, and by sheer
force of character alone became the great fighting leader of fighting men,
a man in whom an extraordinary military instinct and sound common-sense
supplied to a very large extent his unfortunate want of military
education. His military career teaches us that the genius which makes men
great soldiers is not art of war.
VISCOUNT WOLSELEY
(England)
October Thirty-First
Rising from the position of a private soldier to wear the wreath and stars
of a lieutenant-general, and that without education or influence to help
him, wounded four times and having twenty-nine horses shot under him,
capturing 31,000 prisoners, and cannon, flags, and stores of all kinds
beyond computation, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a born genius for war, and
his career is one of the most brilliant and romantic to be found in the
pages of history.
REV. J. WILLIAM JONES
November
FALL
Sad-hearted Spirit of the solitudes,
Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods!
Gray-gowned in fog, gold-girdled with the gloom
Of tawny sunsets; burdened with perfume
Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist;
And all the beauty of the fire-kissed
Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way,
Odorous of death and drowsy with decay.
I think of thee as seated 'mid the showers
Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers--
The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June
Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune
A singer gives her soul's wild melody--
Watching the squirrel store his granary.
Or, 'mid old orchards, I have pictured thee:
Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back;
One lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black;
Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweet
The rosy russets tumbled at thy feet.
Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers?
Or heart-sick bird that sang of happier hours?
A cricket dirging days that soon must die?
Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?
MADISON CAWEIN
November First
The white people owe a high duty to the negro. It was necessary to the
safety of the State to base suffrage on the capacity to exercise it
wisely. This results in excluding a great number of negroes from the
ballot, but their right to life, liberty, property, and justice must be
even more carefully safeguarded than ever. It is true that a superior race
cannot submit to the rule of a weaker race without injury; it is also true
in the long years of God that the strong cannot oppress the weak without
destruction.
CHARLES B. AYCOCK
_The New Constitution of Mississippi adopted, 1890_
November Second
It becomes the duty of all States, and especially of those whose
constitutions recognize the existence of domestic slavery, to look with
watchfulness to the attempts which have been recently made to disturb the
rights secured to them by the Constitution of the United States.
JAMES KNOX POLK
_James Knox Polk born, 1795_
November Third
FROM THE LAST-KNOWN DECLARATION OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS OF MAN! VIRGINIA,
1687
Man in marriage is said to repair his maimed side, and to regain his own
rib. And the woman is then and thereby reduced to her first place.... From
a rib to a helper was a happy change.
COL. JOHN PAGE
(_In "A Deed of Gift"_)
November Fourth
NOVEMBER