With idle hands, because her work is done,
I mark how smiles the lovely, fading year,
Crowned with chrysanthemums and berries bright,
And in her eyes the shimmer of a tear.
DANSKE DANDRIDGE
November Fifth
It came to pass that I was one of the few who witnessed the last
descending glory of this attempted Republic, projected by men who
considered that the only true and natural foundation of society was "the
wants and fears of individuals," but which was decided adversely to
_their_ interpretation of that natural law, by the God of battles.
CORNELIUS E. HUNT
(_Of "The Shenandoah"_)
[Learning Aug. 2, 1865, in the course of her cruising in the Pacific,
that the Confederate government no longer existed, and knowing that
they had been rated as "pirates" by Federal officials, the captain and
crew determined to surrender their flag and commission in a foreign
port, setting out forthwith for Liverpool, England.--Editor]
November Sixth
The First Lieutenant stood ... gazing at the flag under which he had so
long done battle, and then turned away with tears coursing down his
bronzed cheeks.
He was not alone in this exhibition of weakness, if such it was, for more
than one eye, unaccustomed to weep, turned aside to conceal the unwonted
drops, as at a silent signal, the quartermaster hauled down the Stars and
Bars, thereby surrendering the Shenandoah to the British authorities.
CORNELIUS E. HUNT
(_Of "The Shenandoah"_)
_The "Shenandoah" furls the last Confederate battle flag, 1865_
November Seventh
A very shy fellow was dusky Sam,
As slow of speech as the typical clam.
He couldn't make love to his Angeline
Though his love grew like the Great Gourd Vine;
So he brought the telephone to his aid
To assist in wooing the chosen maid:
"Miss Angeline? Dat you?" called he.
"Yas.--Dis Angeline--Dis me--"
"I--des wanter say--dat I does--love you--
Miss Angeline--does you love me, too--?"
"Why--yas--Of course I loves my beau--
Say what's de reason you wants to know?"
"Miss--hold de wire--Will you marry me? True--?"
"Yas. Course I will----Say. Who is you?"
MARTHA YOUNG
November Eighth
History will record the events attending this capture as a most
extraordinary lapse in the career of a civilized nation--an instance where
statesmen and _Jurisconsults_ betrayed their country to administer to the
passions of a mob. Edward Everett ... wrote for the newspapers,
vindicating on principles of public law, the act of Captain Wilkes.
JAMES M. MASON
_The English Royal Mail steamer "Trent" held up by the Federal war-ship
"San Jacinto" and the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell,
arrested, 1861_
November Ninth
I also propose that these surgeons shall act as commissaries, with power
to receive and distribute such contributions of money, food, clothing, and
medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of prisoners. I further
propose that these surgeons be selected by their own Governments, and they
shall have full liberty at any and all times, through the agents of
exchange, to make reports, not only of their own acts, but of any matters
relating to the welfare of prisoners.
ROBERT OULD
(_Agent of Exchange_)
This letter was ignored by the Federal Government, as were others of
similar import, although receipt was acknowledged by the Agent of
Exchange.
_R. R. Stevenson's Account_
I need not state how much suffering would have been prevented if this
offer had been met in the spirit in which it was dictated. In addition,
the world would have had truthful accounts of the treatment of prisoners
on both sides, by officers of character, and thus much of that
misrepresentation which has flooded the country would never have been
poured forth.... The acceptance of the proposition made by me, on behalf
of the Confederate Government, would not only have furnished to the sick,
medicines and physicians, but to the well an abundance of food and
clothing from the ample stores of the United States.
R. R. STEVENSON
_A. P. Hill born, 1825_
November Tenth
The verdict has been found, said they, and no appeal will be permitted.
"Besides," said many, "why stir up these old matters? Let them be; they
will be forgotten within a generation." But there are some yet living, in
both the South and the North, who prefer truth to falsehood, even though
the attainment of the former costs some trouble.
R. R. STEVENSON
_Major Henry Wirz, Commandant of Andersonville prison, hanged, 1865_
_Robert Young Hayne born, 1791_
November Eleventh
"The report of Mr. Stanton, as Secretary of War, on the 19th of July,
1866, exhibits the fact that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands
during the war, 22,576 died; while of the Confederate prisoners in Federal
hands 26,436 died."
[Since Dr. Stevenson wrote the above (1876), the figures on either
side have been added to, but the proportion remains about the same.
_If nothing more_, these figures of comparative mortality should be
borne in mind in exoneration of Henry Wirz, and of those of greater
responsibility who were accused with him, but who were neither
executed nor even brought to trial. A number of gallant Federal
officers, once prisoners at Andersonville, have in later years come
forward to testify in book and monograph as to the true character of
Major Wirz.--Editor]
November Twelfth
When it was ascertained that exchanges could not be made, either on the
basis of the cartel, or officer for officer and man for man, I was
instructed by the Confederate authorities to offer the United States
Government their sick and wounded, _without requiring any equivalents_.
Accordingly, in the summer of 1864, I did offer to deliver from ten to
fifteen thousand of the sick and wounded at the mouth of the Savannah
River, without requiring any equivalents, assuring, at the same time, the
Agent of the United States, General Mulford, that if the number for which
he might send transportation could not readily be made up from sick and
wounded, I would supply the difference with well men. Although this offer
was made in the summer of 1864, transportation was not sent to the
Savannah River until about the middle or last of November.
R. R. STEVENSON
November Thirteenth
In the summer of 1864, in consequence of certain information communicated
to me by the Surgeon-general of the Confederate States as to the
deficiency of medicines, I offered to make purchases of medicines from the
United States authorities, to be used exclusively for the relief of
Federal prisoners. I offered to pay gold, cotton, or tobacco for them, and
even two or three prices, if required. At the same time I gave assurances
that the medicines would be used exclusively in the treatment of Federal
prisoners; and moreover agreed, on behalf of the Confederate States, if it
was insisted on, that such medicines might be brought into the Confederate
lines by the United States surgeons, and dispensed by them.
R. R. STEVENSON
_Texas declares her independence of Mexico, 1835_
November Fourteenth
Were I to enter the Hall, at this remote period, and meet my associates
who signed the instrument of our independence, I should know them all,
from Hancock down to Stephen Hopkins.
CHARLES CARROLL
(_Of Carrollton, at 90 years of age_)
_Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signer of the
Declaration of Independence, dies, 1832_
November Fifteenth
In other words, a veteran of our civil strife, General Sherman advocated
in an enemy's country the sixteenth century practices of Tilly, described
by Schiller, and the later devastation of the Palatinate policy of Louis
XIV, commemorated by Goethe. In the twenty-first century, perhaps,
partisan feeling as regards the Civil War performances having by that time
ceased to exist, American investigators, no longer regardful of a victor's
self-complacency, may treat the episodes of our struggle with the same
even-handed and out-spoken impartiality with which Englishmen now treat
the revenges of the Restoration, or Frenchmen the dragonnades of the Grand
Monarque. But when that time comes, the page relating to what occurred in
1864 in the Valley of the Shenandoah, in Georgia, and in the Carolinas,--a
page which Mr. Rhodes somewhat lightly passes over--will probably be
rewritten in characters of far more decided import.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
(Massachusetts)
_Sherman begins his march from Atlanta to the sea, 1864_
November Sixteenth
HENRY WIRZ, THE UNFORTUNATE SWISS-AMERICAN COMMANDANT AT ANDERSONVILLE
On the evening before the day of the execution of Major Wirz a man visited
me, on the part of a Cabinet officer, to inform me that Major Wirz would
be pardoned if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in the cruelties at
Andersonville....
When I visited Major Wirz the next morning he told me that the same
proposal had been made to him.
F. E. BOYLE
(_Priest in attendance upon Major Wirz_)
Some parties came to the confessor of Wirz, Rev. Father Boyle, and also to
me, one of them informing me that a high Cabinet officer wished to assure
Wirz, that if he would implicate Jefferson Davis with the atrocities
committed at Andersonville, his sentence would be commuted. He, the
messenger, or whoever he was, requested me to inform Wirz of this.
LEWIS SCHADE
(_German-American Attorney to Major Wirz_)
November Seventeenth
Sad spirit, swathed in brief mortality,
Of Fate and fervid fantasies the prey,
Till the remorseless demon of dismay
O'erwhelmed thee--lo! thy doleful destiny
Is chanted in the requiem of the sea
And shadowed in the crumbling ruins gray
That beetle o'er the tarn. Here all the day
The Raven broods on solitude and thee:
Here gloats the moon at midnight, while the Bells
Tremble, but speak not lest thy Ulalume
Should startle from her slumbers, or Lenore
Hearken the love-forbidden tone that tells
The shrouded legend of thine early doom
And blast the bliss of heaven forevermore.
JOHN B. TABB
_First American Monument erected to the memory of Edgar Allan Poe
dedicated in Baltimore, 1875_
November Eighteenth
POE--He is the nightingale of our Southern poets--singing at night,
singing on nocturnal themes, but with all the passionate tenderness and
infinite pathos of his own angel Israfel, "whose heart-strings are a
lute."
OLIVER HUCKEL
(Pennsylvania)
November Nineteenth
The election of 1873 was the culmination of the evil effects of
reconstruction. The rule of the alien and the negro was complete, with the
latter holding the lion's share of the offices. The lieutenant-governor,
secretary of state, superintendent of education, and commissioner of
immigration and agriculture, all were negroes; both houses of the
legislature had negro presiding officers; in the senate ten negroes held
seats; of the seventy-seven Republicans in the house, fifty-five were
negroes and fifteen were carpet-baggers; the majority of the county
offices were filled by negroes, 90 per cent. of whom could neither read
nor write.
DUNBAR ROWLAND
(_Mississippi in "Reconstruction"_)
November Twentieth
Fleet on the tempest blown,
Far from the mountain dell,
Rose in their cloudy cone,
Elfin and Spell;
Woo'd by the spirit tone,
Trembling and chill,
Wandered a maiden lone,
On the bleak hill:
Mau-in-waun-du-me-nung,
Trembling and chill.
JOSEPH SALYARDS
November Twenty-First
Low in the moory dale,
Green mossy waters flow,
Under the drowsy gale,
Moaning and slow;
There in her snowy veil,
Bleeding and bound,
Lay the sweet damsel pale,
On the cold ground,
Mau-in-waun-du-me-nung,
On the cold ground.
JOSEPH SALYARDS
November Twenty-Second
The history of that period, of the reconstruction period of the South, has
never been fully told. It is only beginning to be written.
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
_Convention in Louisiana disfranchising ex-Confederates, 1867_
November Twenty-Third
But talkin' the way I see it, a big feller and a little feller, SO-CALLED,
got into a fite, and they fout and fout a long time, and everybody all
round kep' hollerin' hands off, but kep' helpin' the big feller, until
finally the little feller caved in and hollered enuff. He made a bully
fite, I tell you, Selah. Well, what did the big feller do? Take him by the
hand and help him up and brush the dirt off his clothes? Nary time! No,
sur! But he kicked him arter he was down, and throwed mud on him, and drug
him about and rubbed sand in his eyes, and now he's gwine about hunting up
his poor little property. Wants to confiscate is, SO-CALLED. Blame my
jacket if it ain't enuff to make your head swim.
BILL ARP
(_To Artemus Ward_)
November Twenty-Fourth
PROTEST AGAINST THE TARIFF, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1832
The majority in Congress, in imposing protecting duties, which are utterly
destructive of the interests of South Carolina, not only impose no
burthens, but actually confer enriching bounties upon their constituents,
proportioned to the burthens they impose upon us. Under these
circumstances, the principle of representative responsibility is perverted
into a principle of representative despotism. It is this very tie, binding
the majority of Congress to execute the will of their constituents, which
makes them our inexorable oppressors. They dare not open their hearts to
the sentiments of human justice, or to the feelings of human sympathy.
They are tyrants by the very necessity of their position, however elevated
may be their principles in their individual capacities.
GEORGE MCDUFFIE
(_Address to the People of the United States_)
_Ordinance of Nullification passed by South Carolina, 1832_
_Battle of the Clouds, Lookout Mountain, 1863_
November Twenty-Fifth
PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR OF 1812, NEW ENGLAND
The call of the Secretary of War for the militia of the States met blunt
refusal from the Governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Connecticut. The Assembly of the latter State sustained its Executive in a
formal address which denounced the war and declared Connecticut to be a
free, sovereign, and independent State, and that the United States was not
a national but a confederated republic. President Madison was held up as
an invader of the State's authority over her militia.
HENRY A. WHITE
_Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863_
November Twenty-Sixth
THE HOMESPUN DRESS
Oh, yes! I am a Southern girl,
And glory in the name,
And boast it with far greater pride
Than glittering wealth or fame.
I envy not the Northern girls
Their robes of beauty rare,
Though diamonds grace their snowy necks
And pearls bedeck their hair.
Hurrah, hurrah!
For the sunny South so dear.
Three cheers for the homespun dress
The Southern ladies wear.
November Twenty-Seventh
But know, 'twas mine the secret power
That waked thee at the midnight hour
In bleak November's reign:
'Twas I the spell around thee cast,
When thou didst hear the hollow blast
In murmurs tell of pleasures past,
That ne'er would come again.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
November Twenty-Eighth
The cruel fire that singed her robe died out in rainbow flashes,
And bright her silvery sandals shone above the hissing ashes!
_Organization of Legislature in Carolina Hall after the election of
General Hampton as Governor of South Carolina, 1876_
November Twenty-Ninth
My fellow-people, let me, in conclusion, congratulate you on having a
Governor once more as is a Governor. Oh, there is life in the old land
yet, and by and by we'll transport them black Republicans into the African
desert, and put 'em to teaching Hottentots the right of suffrage. Winter
Davis could then find a field of labor sufficient for the miserable
remnant of his declining years. He is the winter of our discontent, and we
want to get rid of him.
BILL ARP
(_On Hampton's Election_)
November Thirtieth
Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb.
THEODORE O'HARA
(_From "The Bivouac of the Dead"_)
_General Patrick R. Cleburne killed at Franklin, Tenn., 1864_
December
ICICLES AT THE SOUTH
The rain on the trees has ceased to freeze;
('Twas molded with quaint device)
The bent boughs lean, like cimeters keen,
In scabbards of shining ice.
'Neath frozen cloaks the pines and oaks
Are stooping like Druids old,--
And the cedars stand--an arctic band--
Held in the clutch of cold.
Through the outer gloom the japonicas bloom,
With the lustre of rubies bright--
Like blossoms blown from a tropic zone,--
A marvellous land of light!
WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE
December First
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL
The Fir-tree felt it with a thrill
And murmur of content;
The last dead Leaf its cable slipt
And from its moorings went;
The selfsame silent messenger,
To one that shibboleth
Of Life imparting, and to one,
The countersign of Death.
JOHN B. TABB
December Second
The avengers whose lives he had attempted, whose wives and children he had
devoted to the hideous brutality of insurgent Africans, spared him all
indignities, even moral torture.
PERCY GREG
(England)
_John Brown hanged, 1859_
December Third
The Black and Tan Convention met December 3, 1867, in our venerable and
historic capital to frame a new constitution for the Old Dominion. In this
body were members from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maine, Vermont,
Connecticut, Maryland, District of Columbia, Ireland, Scotland, Nova
Scotia, Canada, England; scalawags, or turn-coats, by Southerners most
hated of all; twenty-four negroes; and in the total of 105, thirty-five
white Virginians, from counties of excess white population, who might be
considered representative of the State's culture and intelligence.
MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY
_James Rumsey (1787) makes successful trial trip of the steamboat designed
after the model of 1784, then witnessed by George Washington and others_
December Fourth
A BIT OF RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY
"Mistah President, de real flatform, suh. I'll sw'ar tuh high Heaven. Yas,
I'll sw'ar higher dan dat. I'll go down an' de uth shall crumble intuh
dus' befor' dee shall amalgamise my rights. 'Bout dis question uh
cyarpet-bags. Ef you cyarpet-baggers does go back on us, woes be unto you!
You better take yo cyarpet-bags and quit, and de quicker you git up and
git de better. I do not abdicate de supperstition tuh dese strange friens,
lately so-called citizens uh Ferginny. Ef dee don' gimme my rights, I'll
suffer dis country tuh be lak Sarah. I'll suffer desterlation fus!"...
"I'se here tuh qualify my constituents. I'll sing tuh Rome an' tuh Englan'
an' tuh de uttermos' parts uh de uth." ("You must address yourself to the
chair," said that functionary, ready to faint.) "All right, suh, I'll not
'sire tuh maintain de House any longer."
HON. LEWIS LINDSAY
(_From Stenographic Report_)
December Fifth
Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one
cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason,
in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a
Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said that if there had
been no God mankind would have been obliged to imagine one.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
December Sixth
CLEMENCY OF JEFFERSON DAVIS
Honorable Jefferson Davis: My father, Harrison Self, is sentenced to hang
at four o'clock this evening on a charge of bridge-burning. As he remains
my earthly all, and all my hopes of happiness centre on him, I implore you
to pardon him.
ELIZABETH SELF
(_Telegram which secured pardon for her father_)
_Jefferson Davis dies, 1889_
_The county of Kentucky formed from Virginia, 1776_
_Duncan Nathaniel Ingraham, "Hero of the Koszta Rescue," born, 1802_
December Seventh
For years after the war, the Republican politicians in the South told the
negroes that if the Democrats were elected, they would be put back into
slavery. Consequently, after the first election of Cleveland, many of them
began to make their arrangements to readapt themselves to the old regime.
One old Virginia "aunty" living in Howard County, Maryland, announced that
she was ready to return to Richmond; but declared most positively: "Deed,
my ole Missus has got to send me my railroad ticket fust."
December Eighth
Our one sweet singer breaks no more
The silence sad and long,
The land is hushed from shore to shore
It brooks no feebler song.
CARL MCKINLEY
_Henry Timrod born, 1829_
_Joel Chandler Harris born, 1848_
December Ninth
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
It would be difficult to estimate the good done by a man like Harris, who
brings a sense of relaxation and a thrill of pleasure to countless readers
round the world. Such a man becomes a public benefactor. To-day men are
better citizens, life's tasks are easier, the roads are lighter, and
heaven is nearer to earth because of the cheerful, hopeful, mirthful
stories of Uncle Remus.
HENRY STILES BRADLEY
_Lord Dunmore defeated by Colonel Woodford at Battle of Great Bridge,
Virginia, 1775_
December Tenth
Mt. Vernon, 31 Jan. 1786
Sir:--If you have no cause to change your opinion respecting your
mechanical boat, and reasons unknown to me do not exist to delay the
exhibition of it, I would advise you to give it to the public as soon as
it can be prepared conveniently.... Should a mechanical genius hit upon
your plan, or something similar to it, I need not add that it would place
you in an awkward situation and perhaps disconcert all your prospects
concerning this useful discovery....
GEORGE WASHINGTON
(_Letter to James Rumsey_)
_Mississippi admitted to the Union, 1817_
December Eleventh
Mr. Rumsey's steamboat, with more than half her loading (which was upwards
of three ton) and a number of people on board, made a progress of four
miles in one hour against the current of Potomac River, by the force of
steam, without any external application whatsoever.
(_Virginian Gazette and Winchester Advertiser, Jan. 11, 1788_)
_Second trip of Rumsey's steamboat at Shepherdstown, Va., in boat designed
after model of 1784_
December Twelfth
I have taken the greatest pains to perfect another kind of boat, _upon the
principles I mentioned to you at Richmond_, in November last, and have the
pleasure to inform you that I have brought it to a great perfection ...
and I have quite convinced myself that boats of passage may be made to go
against the current of the _Mississippi_ or _Ohio_ rivers, or in the _Gulf
Stream_ (from the _Leeward_ to the _Windward_-Islands) from sixty to one
hundred miles per day. I know this will appear strange and improbable to
many persons, yet I am very certain it may be performed, besides, it is
simple (when understood) and is also strictly philosophical.
JAMES RUMSEY
(_In letter to George Washington after construction of steamboat model
seen in action by the latter in 1784_)
December Thirteenth
On part of the field the Union dead lay three deep. So fearful was the
slaughter that our men at certain points on the line cried out to the
advancing Federal forces, "Go back; we don't want to kill you all!" Still
they pressed forward in the face of despair, and they fell in the
unshrinking station where they fought. In six months Lee had effaced Pope,
checked McClellan, and crushed Burnside--June 25 to December 13, 1862.
HENRY E. SHEPHERD
_Burnside repulsed at Fredericksburg, 1862_
December Fourteenth
Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow-peak rising above
its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy and
purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding
generations.
JAMES BRYCE
(England)
_George Washington dies, 1799_
December Fifteenth
Of late I have opened a pawnbroker's shop for my hard-pressed brethren in
feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for every borrowing
Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthly instalments of
singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. But were a man never so
usurious, would he not lend a winter seed for a summer song? Would he
refuse to invest his stale crumbs in an orchestra of divine instruments
and a choir of heavenly voices?
JAMES LANE ALLEN
December Sixteenth