My dear young friends: Let me tell you a pretty story. Just a hundred years ago there was a young man hanged in Dublin, Ireland, for committing treason against the English government. His name was Robert Emmet, and his crime was that of organizing a rebellion which was intended to set Ireland free from the dominion of England and to place his native land among the nations as free and independent. The rebellion failed, and its leaders had to escape for their lives. Emmet was one of the most eloquent and gifted men in all the land. He graduated with high honors at Trinity College, and at this time was engaged to be married to Miss Curran, the beautiful daughter of the great Irish lawyer, John Philpot Curran. After the rebellion was crushed he fled to France, where he remained for two years, and then, in disguise, went back to Ireland to marry the lady he loved and bring her to the United States. But English detectives were on his track and arrested him. He was tried, convicted and hanged, and his affianced died of a broken heart. His speech made in his own defense was the most eloquent, pathetic and patriotic ever delivered in any court room. I used to speak part of it when I was a schoolboy, and still recall the last sentence, “When I am dead let no man write my epitaph—until Ireland is free let not my epitaph be written.”

This is enough of Robert Emmet, but it is only a pointer to my story. Among Emmet's college companions and his comrades in the rebellion were two brothers whose names were James and Patrick Maguire. They were the younger sons of Sir Francis Maguire, a member of Parliament and a very wealthy gentleman. He did not favor the rebellion, but could not control his younger boys. They, too, had to flee the country, and did so in a vessel that their father bought and equipped for that purpose. They came to Charleston, S. C., in 1803 and began business as linen merchants. In the course of a year or two Patrick sold his interest and changed his abode, but James continued the business and married Emily Barret. Two children were born to them, James and Caroline. When these children were nine and seven years of age the yellow fever visited Charleston, and in a brief time swept half of the population into their graves. Maguire and his wife died almost simultaneously, and were buried by night in the same grave—for all night long the hearses and dead carts were rumbling over the cobble stones, their tires bound in bagging to smother the noise.

Now, my children, this brings me to the saddest and sweetest part of my story. The pestilence was awful. All who could fly from it did so, but there were thousands who had nowhere to go or who could not leave the dead and dying in their own households. A good man came and took James, the boy, to his home, and a good woman took Caroline. Next morning an order was issued that all children who had no homes should be put on board the vessels that were anchored near the city and sent to some other port. In the confusion there was no effort made to keep brothers and sisters together, and James was placed on board a brig bound for Boston, and Caroline on a schooner under sail for Savannah, but neither knew what had become of the other. Just imagine their grief and desolation. Alone in the wide world - no father or mother, no kindred, no loving friends! After a stormy voyage the brig reached Boston, where the boy was placed in an orphan asylum. Caroline was landed in Savannah and found a home in an asylum there. The matrons in charge of each were good and kind, but the children's eyes were red and their pillows wet with weeping. They were just old enough to realize what they had lost.

Now, let us skip over two or three years. When James was ten years old, a wealthy gentleman, a manufacturer of boots and shoes who lived at Randolph, fifteen miles east of Boston, came to the asylum to choose a boy, to wait on him in his counting room. James was a bright and handsome lad, and the gentleman, whose name was Burwell, chose him and took him home with him. He proved to be the very boy he wanted, and grew into favor. Part of the time he was sent to school and learned rapidly, and in a few years was taken into partnership, and the old gentleman gave him his only daughter for a wife. Young Maguire was a good man, loved and respected by all who knew him, but at times he was sad, very sad, because of his lost sister. Twice he had visited Charleston and made diligent search, but found no clue. He found the very house he was born in and where his parents died, but new people lived in it and the neighbors were all new. An old negro woman remembered the Maguires, and said she washed for them, but that was all. She thought that the fever “got 'em all,” she said.

I said that young Maguire was popular with the people. So much so that when he was only twenty-six years old he was elected State Senator, and became well acquainted with Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate and Judge Story.

Now you know, my young friends, in a small village like Randolph everybody knew all about everybody, and could tell where they came from. And so it was very generally known that Maguire had lost his sister and had not a relative in the wide world that he knew of, and how he had sought for her, but in vain, and why it was that at times he seemed so sad and distressed. Well, he lived in a beautiful home in Randolph, and right across the street lived his most intimate friend and neighbor, whose name was Wales. Wales knew all his sorrows and could weep over them too.

But what of little Caroline, “The Flower of Dumblane,” as they used to call her in her childhood—for she was as lovely in disposition as she was beautiful. She had to tell her sad story in tears to the good matron—and the good woman cried too, and the orphans cried, for it was a sadder case, if possible, than any of theirs.

But Time is a good doctor, and after a few days Caroline became interested in her new home, and her broken heart began to heal and went out in love to the matrons and the many children who were her companions. She had been there about two years when one day a fine lady came there in a fine carriage, and after introducing herself to the matron, she said she came to see if she could get a nice, pretty orphan girl to go and live with her and keep her company. That she lived on a rice plantation in Liberty county—that her children had grown up and married and moved too far away, and that her name was Goulding, the mother of Dr. Goulding, the Presbyterian preacher, and the grandmother of Frank, who wrote “The Young Marooners.” It was not an unusual thing for good people to come and choose a child and take her away and adopt her, but it was always a sad time and made solemn and serious impression upon them. They knew that one of their number had to go, and that they would see her no more, perhaps forever—which one—which one, they wondered, and each one said, “maybe it will be me,” and the thought alarmed them. They were happy where they were, and a change to some one they did not know, filled their hearts with fear. Well, the fine lady was shown to the large reception room where the children had to gather on such occasions. The children had of course to put on their best garments, which were all uniform, and wash their faces and brush their hair, and they marched in and were seated on the benches that were next to the walls of the large room. Then the grand lady walked around slowly and talked to every one she fancied, and said kind, pleasant words and asked them many questions. It was soon noticed that every time she went around she stopped longer with little Caroline than any other, and after the third round she turned to the matron and said, “I will take this one.” The little girl trembled like an aspen leaf. Her heart beat rapidly, and tears filled her eyes. With the other girls the agony was over, but they grieved that Caroline was chosen, for they loved her very dearly. The matron, too, was sad as she kissed her a last goodbye—her heart was too full to speak it. It was a tearful scene as the orphans, every one of whom had her own sad experience, marched to Caroline and kissed her farewell.

And now a brief mention of my wife and myself—my birth and youth and manhood. On the 15th day of June, 1826, half a million children were born into the world and I was one of them. In the pleasant village of Lawrenceville, Gwinnett county, Georgia, I first saw the light. My infancy was not unlike that of other children, except that sometimes I had little fits of passion and threw myself upon the floor or bumped my head against the wall, at which my mother smiled and sometimes said I couldn't help it, for it was South Carolina fighting Massachusetts. My childhood was happy, and so were my school days. I still have fond recollections of my teachers. Miss Cooley, an aunt of Mrs. George Hillyer's, was the first one. She was good and kind to us all. Then came Dr. Wilson and Mr. Sayre, John Norton and Dr. Patterson and Mr. McAlpin in succession. I was a mischievous lad, and Mr. Norton whipped me occasionally—not hard but lightly—once he whipped me on my boil and bursted it, and nearly broke my mother's heart, but it was good for the boil. My teachers are all dead. A few years ago old Father Sayre called to see me in Chester, S. C., and as he grasped my hand said, “Yes, you went to school to me, and I never whipped you but once. Perhaps if I had whipped you more you would have made a better man—but I am proud of you, my boy. Yes, I am proud of you.”

The civil war was a play, a thrilling tragedy, in which great armies were the players and the world the witnesses. But in every play there are performances behind the scenes that the footlights do not shine upon nor the audience have any knowledge of. There are prompters and properties, dressing and undressing, false hair and false faces, weapons and banners, and machinery for thunder and lightning. There is hurrying to and fro, and sometimes subdued altercations, jealousies and envyings. Sometimes there is real rivalry and real love transpiring behind the scenes while it is mimicked and played in front. The acts and deeds of mankind are behind the scenes. The greater part of life—the better part and the worse - is invisible to the world. Our domestic relations, fireside pleasures, family dissensions, our joys and sorrows, desires and ambitions, yes, our secret thoughts that harbor hate or cherish love are all behind the scenes, known only to a few or to ourselves alone.

I propose now to touch briefly upon some things that were behind the scenes before and during the civil war— some things that have not been published and which present a vivid contrast to the glory of a soldier's life. These are war times and it is well enough to exhibit the picture to the young men of the South and let them ponder upon it and draw the line between a war of patriotic duty and one of conquest and glory. This part of my address will be brief and is intended chiefly for the entertainment of the veterans who still live, for you know that while the capital stock of youth is hope, that of age is memory.

Early in the year 1861, when secession was the great and vital question that agitated our people, a convention was called to decide whether Georgia would follow South Carolina's lead, or not. All of the young men, nearly all of the women, and many of the old men, were outspoken for secession, even though it provoked war. There was a party, however, with Alexander Stephens as a leader, who preferred co-operation and did not wish Georgia to secede alone, but favored a convention of delegates from all the Southern States and let them all go out together or remain in the Union. This party, however, was too feeble to stem the tide of resistance to Northern aggression, and so the delegates from every county gathered at the capital.

There was a Union element among the delegates. It was composed of old men who had property and did not wish it imperiled by war, and there were some non-slaveholders, who were not in sympathy with the slaveholders' policy or alarmed by their fears.

There were a few strong men who were for the old flag and the Union above all other considerations. Of this class Herschel Johnson was the leader. He was one of the great men of Georgia. He was on the ticket for Vice-President when Stephen A. Douglass ran for President. He was a man of sluggish, ponderous mind, not easily excited by ordinary events, but when aroused from his lethargy by some vital issue he had no equal in Georgia. He was called the sleeping Sampson, and his political foes used all their arts to keep him asleep. He was opposed to secession, and went as a delegate to the convention. Toombs and his party dreaded him and feared the power of his eloquence. “Old Sampson is aroused,” said Toombs, “and the boys must look out.” Johnson began to speak just before twelve and was fairly getting under way, and knocking out the props upon which secession leaned, when he was interrupted by Albert Lamar, the secretary and a suggestion made to adjourn for dinner. At the dining wine was served, and Johnson, being pressed by Lamar and his friends, drank too freely. He lost his mental balance and the remainder of his speech fell flat and tame and unfinished. After his death, Lamar, who was editor of the Macon Telegraph, wrote up the unwritten fraud and published it, boasting how he drugged the wine at the dinner table, and that if it had not been done the old lion would have carried the majority of the delegates with him as easily as a tornado carries the trees in its track. “But for those two drinks,” said Lamar, “Georgia would not have seceded and there would have been no war.”

Whether this be true or not true is of no great concern, for if no war then it would have come later. There was no averting it as long as the negro was here in slavery.

And so Georgia seceded and prepared for war, and her sister States followed in quick succession. While the new regiments were forming the State was one vast recruiting camp. The call of the drum resounded from mountain to seaboard. Men, women and children participated in the general enthusiasm. Beautiful banners were being made by womanly fingers and presented to the companions with womanly benedictions. Why is it, my friend, why is it, that loving, pitying, tender-hearted women, who will not willingly tread upon a worm, are always first and foremost in urging their husbands, brothers, sons, to battle for their country or their section? It is a fact that but for the smiles of mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts, Georgia would never have sent 100,000 soldiers to the front. I did not visit Virginia, in June, 1861, with any intention of joining the army, but I did join while there and knew full well that my wife would weep but still be proud of it. Her five brothers were already there, and the wonder of it is that she was not there herself, playing the role of Joan of Arc. But she had a lively time of it at home three years later and saw enough of war, for she had to flee from the foul invader with five little children tagging after her. She paused in Atlanta, but only for a day—just long enough to catch breath and start again. Then she made a good, long run down to Tuskegee, in the secluded shades of Alabama, the State whose beautiful name means “here we rest.” But it was no resting place for her, for Wilson's raiders were on the wild hunt for rebels and refugees, and so she departed those coasts with alacrity and sought retreat and safety at her father's plantation on the upper Chattahoochee. She left almost everything behind her when she fled from Rome that dark and dismal night. The house was full of furniture, the pantry full of good things, the smoke-house full of meat and lard and a barrel of home-made soap. I believe she made more ado about losing that soap than anything, for she had made it in the dark of the moon and stirred it from left to right with a sassafras paddle while it was boiling, But in her wild haste she forgot some things that were very precious. She forgot the package of love letters that I wrote her during my courtship, in which I promised many things that she declares I have ceased to perform since she lost them. She forgot the letters that I wrote home from the army, many of them containing graphic descriptions of the battles and who of our boys were killed and who were wounded, and they were read aloud to the people from her front door as soon as she received them. I would give money for those letters now. She forgot her album - her maiden's treasure, in which her friends and lovers, including myself, had written tender verses. These were all given up as lost, but in December, 1884, she received the album, with these lines inscribed on the last page:

That man is a gentleman, if he did belong to Sherman's army, but it took him a long time to reform.

Shortly after I joined the army, I was appointed brigade commissary on the staff of General Bartow. I had no military forms or papers, no money where with to purchase supplies, and I had not yet drawn or issued a single ration, for I had just been appointed. I was green, and was waiting for money and advices to come from Richmond. After we had crossed the Shenandoah river, General Bartow told me to ride on ahead until I reached Marshall, a small village, and there procure some fresh meat and some bacon for the boys to cook and eat when they arrived. “General,” said I, timidly, “how will I get these things? I have no money to buy them with.” “My dear sir,” said he, “you must remember that this is war and everything in this country owes tribute to the army. Look around Marshall for three or four fat cattle—everything is fat up here—buy them at a fair price, and give the owner a receipt and a certificate and tell him to bring it to me when I get there and I will approve it so that he can draw his money at Richmond. Buy some good bacon, also, say a thousand pounds. The boys will want it to cook with their beef. This is war, I tell you.”

About that time I began to realize what war was, and that the civil law was silent, dead or sleeping, and that nobody had any rights save the generals and their officers.

When I arrived at Marshall I found a farmer unloading corn, and he had the finest, fattest yoke of oxen attached to his wagon that I ever saw. I stopped and saluted him. “Those are fine steers,” said I, “what would buy them?” “Well, about one hundred dollars, I reckon,” he replied. Then I made known my business, and soon found that he would not sell, nor would he take any scrap of paper on this here Southern Confederacy, as he called it. The argument was soon exhausted and time was precious. By this time some butchers from the First Kentucky Regiment had arrived and were ready for work. I pointed out the steers to them, and before the farmer could say Jack Robinson they had them unyoked and were leading them to the branch. Amazement, indignation, anger, took it by turns over his features; then he began to use language—cuss words and expletives in abundance. Suddenly he swore he'd ruther die than be run over in any such way, army or no army. Then he cried and wiped the tears away with his coat sleeve. His last exclamation was, “How in the hell am I to get my wagon home?” I was awfully sorry for that man. My hope is that he got his pay from the Federal government after the war. Well, I got the bacon without any trouble, for the merchant was a red-hot rebel and made me eat dinner with him. Those great oxen were killed and butchered and cut up into small mess pieces in less time than I can tell about it. Wood was hauled up and camp fires built, and by dark our brigade of four thousand men were full and had tumbled down to sleep.

Well, I soon learned that war was war, and in course of time I could impress provisions with but little scruples of conscience. One time I impressed four hundred barrels of flour from a Union sympathizer in Orange county who had a merchant mill and was waiting to sell it to the Yankees for greenbacks. His wife was a genuine rebel woman and treated me so kindly on the sly that I gave back two hundred barrels of it. It was a case of Nabel and Abigail.

Impressment of provisions was nothing compared with the conscription of men and forcing them to fight and face the enemy, willing or unwilling, whether they were brave men or cowards. There was the case of Jacob Wise, a rich Jew who lived in Rome and had neither wife nor children. When the conscription officers came to Rome he secreted himself, and one night came to my house about midnight in tears. Trembling, he said, “Major, I vas porn a coward; I could not fight a lettle poy nor a von arm seek man. My legs vill turn around and run avay mid me efery time. I vas porn shust dot vay, and I will pay big money if you vill keep me out of his old war. Oh, mine Gott; oh, Abraham; oh, Isaac and Yacup.” He excited my sympathies so much that I undertook to befriend him. There was an examining board then sitting in the town, of whom Dr. Starr of Rome was the chairman. He was my friend and knew Wise well, and so I brought Wise over to be examined. Wise was ready to swear that he had consumption and rheumatism and epilepsy and apoplexy and Bright's disease and heart disease and any other disease; but I juggled with Starr and we agreed that Wise should pay $5,000 to the county fund for the support of poor soldier's wives and children, and be discharged. Wise never hesitated a moment. Dr. Starr filled up a printed blank and named the disease for which he was discharged in these Latin words: “Non controlus shankus in combatibus”—can't control his legs in battle. When we returned home, Wise paid the money over to the county treasurer and I gave him the certificate of discharge, but never explained the meaning of his remarkable disease.

But neither victories nor defeats are to be compared to the horrors of battle, the things that are behind the scenes and are never published. During the seven days' fight across the Chickahominy, hundreds of the dead were hastily buried in trenches, buried head to foot a foot or so under the surface, and the earth heaped over them; for you must know, my friends, that on a battlefield there are neither shrouds nor graves, nor coffins nor mourners.

Heavy rains came on and softened that earth to mud and when a few, days later, our wagons had to cross that field, the wheels sank to the hubs when crossing the trenches and sometimes a leg, sometimes an arm, and sometimes a ghastly skull was thrown up, as if beseeching for mercy. Another graphic scene I witnessed the night after the battle of Manassas. The hospital chosen was a large brick building near the battle-ground. It was property that had been vacated under military orders. But the surgeons' operating room was not there. It was in a willow glade, not far away, where there was a clear spring branch flowing peacefully along. Dr. Miller ordered all the wounded brought there, for the night was beautiful and the water convenient. All night long he and his assistants amputated arms and legs, and probed for balls, and used bandages and splints and other appliances, and as fast as one man was fixed up he was taken away and the doctor said “Next!” like in a barber shop. But there was no groaning. The boys were heroes under the surgeon's knife as well as on the battle-field. I remember when Jett Howard, of Kingston, limped up without assistance and the doctor said, “What's the matter with you, Jett?” Jett pointed to where a minie ball had penetrated his hip and said he could feel it on the other side. Quickly the doctor thrust a probe into the wound, and as quickly drew it out, and turning Jett around, and sound for the ball under the skin, he found it. With his knife he cut an opening and thrusting in his finger pulled out the ball and gave it to him. “Here's your diploma, Jett,” he said. “Next!” Jet limped away with a smile and had his wound dressed. When my brother-in-law, Captain Cooper, was brought up with a shattered leg, his knee pan crushed and his bones mangled, the doctor said, “Fred, this leg must come off immediately,” and he reached for his knife and saw.“Stop, doctor,” exclaimed Fred, “can't you save my leg?” “No; it is impossible,” said he, “it must come off, I tell you.” “Doctor, is there a possible chance for me to save this leg?” “Perhaps,” said the doctor, “one chance in a hundred, but I warn you now that if it is not speedily cut off you will be a dead man in two weeks.” Captain Cooper was full of nerve and faith. “Doctor, I will take that chance,” he said; and the doctor said “Next!” Fred was taken to the hospital that night and died in two weeks.

Poor Tom King's leg was broken, and while it was being splinted he was laughing and joking like a school boy. He lost only sixty days from the service and lived only to die at Chickamauga.

On the sixth day of the Chickahominy fight, when McClellan was in full retreat, our brigade commander, Tige Anderson, sent me down the river to General Lee's headquarters for some instructions about moving the brigade. I found him in a large wall tent with many officers around him. This tent opened into another where the camp tables were set for dinner and the servant bringing it in. There were four or five large camp tables joined together, and as I sat upon my horse awaiting a reply, I saw a man, an officer, whose head and body were underneath the right hand table and his feet out upon the straw. His slouched hat was over his head and eyes, his sword was unbuckled, and his boots were on and spurred. His Confederate gray clothes seemed faded and worn. My curiosity was greatly excited, and when the adjutant handed me the instructions, I ventured to point to the sleeping man and to ask, “Who is he?” “That is Stonewall,” he said; “he has had no sleep for forty-eight hours and fell down there exhausted. General Lee would not suffer him to be disturbed, and so our dinner will be eaten over him and in silence.” Reverently I gazed upon him for a minute, for I felt almost like I was in the presence of some divinity. What a scene for a painter was that—the two greatest generals of the army, yes, of the age, together; one asleep upon the straw, worn out with fatigue and excitement, the camp tables set above him; while the other, with his staff, dined in silence over him and watched his needed rest. Both of them were patriots and Christians, and both of them were men of prayer.

With them there were no selfish motives behind the scenes, but every act and deed and thought was for God and their country. I have long been grateful that I witnessed that scene, the bivouac of a sleeping hero, and I love to recall Palmer's beautiful lines:

With many people on the border line, their loyalty rested on very delicate pivots. Which shall I work for, pray for, or fight for, was a serious and perplexing question. Fathers were separated from sons, and brothers from brothers. Mrs. Lincoln was a Miss Todd, of Kentucky, and all her brothers were in the Confederate service. I knew one of them well, for he was for months on the staff of our corps commander. He was of no force, just an ornament, and made himself disagreeable by his abuse of Old Abe, his brother-in-law. Mrs. Grant was interviewed last year in Saint Augustine and said her sympathies were with the South, but her interest was with her husband's choice. With many West Pointers there was no patriotic emotion. Fighting was their profession, and position, pay and promotion their coveted reward. General Geo. C. Thomas, one of the ablest Federal generals, was a class-mate of General Joe Johnston, and like him was a Virginian of the Virginians. When Johnston was made a major-general by Mr. Davis, Thomas sought a similar position, but was told the places were all filled and he would have to wait. He did not wait, but was soon after offered that position by Mr. Lincoln and accepted it. General Johnston told me of this at my house in '67 and was greatly mortified. General Grant had no sympathy with the anti-slavery feature of the war, for he was a slave-holder himself and hired them out in St. Louis until sometime after Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of freedom to the slaves. You will find more about this in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, wherein is published a letter from General Grant's father, in which he says, “My son, Ulysses, was very improvident before the war and frequently applied to me for money. In the fall of 1860 he begged me to lend him $500, as he was in pecuniary distress. I wrote to him that I could not do it, and I thought the income from the rent of his house and the hire of his negroes ought to support him, but if he was suffering he had better go to Galena and work for his brother in the tan-yard. This he did, and got along fairly well till the war began and he got a good position in the army.”

What a blessed thing is peace and law and order, for, as Ben Franklin said, “There never was a good war, nor a bad peace.” The contest was too unequal to last longer. Seven hundred thousand could not cope longer with two million, seven hundred thousand. There were many blunders on both sides, and much good blood was wasted, and there were some pivotal points on which turned tremendous results on the side of the South. Prominent among them was the death of Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh, the failure of Huger to come in time and cut off McClellan's retreat at Malvern Hill, the death of Stonewall Jackson, the invasion of Pennsylvania, and the removal of General Johnston at Atlanta. But, no doubt, the will of God was done. Time is a good doctor. We are learning to know each other better, both North and South, and to tolerate each other's opinions and prejudices. All that is now necessary to make the reconciliation complete is for the North to put our heroes and Confederate widows on the pension rolls, just as they have theirs. Most all of ours are dead; only seventy thousand are left of all our army; but there are a million pensioners on the rolls up North, and as time rolls on they grow more thicker, more denser-as Cobe would say. “Time cuts down all, Both great and small, Except a pensioned soldier; They do not die, But multiply As fast as they grow older.” Now, if the North will do that, and apologize, we will be calm and serene.

Before the civil war our Southern civilization was divided into two classes—the aristocracy and the common people. The aristocrats were generally slave-holders, and though they were only one-seventh of the voting population, they dominated the other six-sevenths politically, socially, and financially. And yet there was no friction. The common people were loyal to their wealthy and educated leaders. They voted for them and fought for them. They elected them to our highest offices. These aristocrats were our governors, judges, and members of Congress, our civil and military office-holders. And they were shining lights in the councils of the nation. The common people were allowed to be magistrates, constables and non-commissioned officers in the militia. They served on the petit juries and worked the public roads. Their loyalty to the aristocracy was beautiful. They shouted for Toombs and Stephens, and Colquitt and Cobb, with a wild hurrah, and when the war came they fought for their principles just like our forefathers fought who resisted a tax on tea when not one in a thousand drank it. Out of a company of eighty-four men who went from Murray county, not one was a slave-holder. The aristocracy was mainly an aristocracy of dominion. This kind of aristocracy brings with it culture and pride and dignity of bearing. The scriptures always mention the number of servants when speaking of the old patriarchs' consequence in the land. “I am a man having authority,” said the Centurion. “I say unto this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh.” Dominion is the pride of man—dominion over something. A negro is proud if he owns a “possum” dog. A poor man is proud if he owns a horse and a cow and some razor-back hogs. His neighbor is proud if he owns a good horse and a top buggy and some bottom land and can take the lead in his country church or his county politics. The big boy loves dominion over his little brother, and the father takes it over all—well, not always, for there are some wives who have a sweet and silent control over their husbands; I speak from experience. Bob Toombs once remarked, “That the dominion of a good wife over her husband was his surest safeguard” against the temptations of life. Toombs was a very great and noble man, and the most beautiful trait of his character was his loyalty and devotion to his wife.

But the Anglo-Saxon race glories in owning men, and it makes but little difference whether the men are their dependents or their slaves; the glory is all the same if they have got them in their power. Wealthy corporations, railroad kings, princely planters, have dominion over their employees and they control them at their pleasure. It is not a dominion in law, but it is almost absolute in fact, and there is nothing wrong about it when it is humanely exercised; indeed, it is a very agreeable relation between the poor laborer and the rich employer. An humble, poor man loves to lean upon a generous landlord, and the landlord is proud of the poor man's homage. I asked Bill A. once how he was going to vote, and he said he couldn't tell me until he saw Colonel Johnson. But the dominion of the old aristocracy of the South was not over their own race. It was over another, and it gradually grew into an oligarchy of slave-owners, and the poorer whites were kept under the ban. There was a line of social caste between them, and it was widening into a gulf, for the poor white man could not compete with slave labor any more than the farmer or the mechanic can now compete with convict labor. But, at the same time, this kind of slave aristocracy gave dignity and leisure to the rich, and Solomon says: “In leisure there is wisdom;” and so these men became our law-makers and jurists, and they were shining lights in the councils of the nation. But, my friends, it was an aristocracy that was exclusive, and it overshadowed the masses of the people like a broad spreading oak overshadows and withers the undergrowth beneath it. The results of the war wiped out this distinction between the aristocrat and the common people. But there are still left two classes—those who have seen better days, and those who haven't. The first class used to ride or drive, but most of them now take it afoot or stay at home. Seventy-five per cent. of them are descendants of old Henry Clay Whigs. Forty and fifty years ago they were the patrons of high schools and colleges, and stocked the professions with an annual crop of high-strung graduates who swore by Henry Clay and Fillmore and Stephens and Toombs and John Bell and the Code of Honor. They were proud of their birth and lineage, their wealth and culture; and when party spirit ran high and fierce they banded together against the pretensions of the struggling democracy. When I was a young man, a Whig girl deemed it an act of condescension to go to a party with a Democrat boy. But the wear and tear of the war, the loss of their slaves, and a mortgage or two to lift, broke most of these old families up, though it didn't break down their family pride. They couldn't stand it like the Democrats who lived in log cabins and wore wool hats and copperas breeches. I speak with freedom of the old Georgia democracy, for I was one of them. The wealth and refinement of the State was, in the main, centered in the party known as the Old Line Whigs. Out of one hundred and sixty student in our State University at Athens, fifty-five years ago, one hundred and thirty of them were the sons of Whigs. I felt politically lonesome in their society, and was just going to change my base when I fell in love with a little Whig angel who was flying around. This hurried me up, and I was just about to go over to the Whig party, when suddenly that party came over to me. I don't know yet whether that political somersault lifted me up or pulled the little angel down—but I do know she wouldn't have me, and at last I mated with a Democratic darling who had either more pity or less discrimination. She took me, and she's got me yet; she surrendered, but I am the prisoner.

So I did not marry my first love, but Mrs. Arp married her's—bless her heart—and she now declares I took advantage of her innocent youth and gave her no chance to make a choice among lovers. That is so, I reckon, for I was in a powerful hurry to secure the prize, and pressed my suit with all diligence for fear of accidents. Once before I had loved and lost, and I thought it would have killed me; but it didn't, for I never sprung from suicide stock. I had loved that little maid of Athens amazingly. I would have climbed the Chimborazo mountains and fought a tizer for her—a small tiger. And she loved me, I know, for the evening before I left for my distant home I told her of my love and devotion, my adoration and aspiration and admiration and all other “ations,” and the palpitating lace on her bosom told me how fast her heart was beating, and I gently took her soft hand in mine and drew her head upon my manly shoulder and kissed her. Delicious feast—delightful memory. It lasted me a year, I know, and hasn't entirely faded yet. I never mention it at home - no never; but I think of it sometimes on the sly—yes, on the sly. Before I left her for my distant home she promised to consider my love and write to me—but she never wrote. She is considering it yet, I reckon. In a year or so she married another college boy and was happy, and not long after I married Mrs. Arp, and was happy, too. So it is all right and no loss on our side.

I still love to ruminate about those delightful days—the memories of love's young dream. And why not? Four thousand years ago Jacob kissed Rachel, and Moses made a record of it in the sacred volume, and it has come down to us through the corridors of time, and is still the sweetest part of the story. To be mated as well as married is the happiest condition of human life. What a beautiful sight it is to see a venerable couple with loving children and grandchildren around them, and going down the vale like John Anderson my Jo John and his loving spouse. It seems to me that marriage in those days, half a century ago, were more serious than now. I will not say there was more love, but I know there were less clothes and fewer divorces and grass widows. The boys married the girls and the girls married the boys. But now it is not uncommon to see our old widowers following General Longstreet's example, and taking the girls for wives. It is not according to nature and is dangerous to both, especially if the old man refuses to die in a reasonable time and fails to leave the blooming widow a goodly sum. I recall now a beautiful Gwinnett girl, the daughter of a friend of ours. The civil war wrecked her father's fortune and he died soon after, leaving her almost penniless. When she was twenty years old she wedded a rich old man of fifty - an invald, whose lease on life seemed short - and he settled on her an ample fortune to be hers at his death. Now she is fifty years old and he is eighty, and keeps living on and on and on. They are childless, and live on a farm in the country, and she looks almost as old and haggard as he does. Hers is the wreck of a once happy and hopeful life.

Now, before the civil war, our young men almost invariably mated with our young girls, and our widowers married widows as a general rule, unless there was a Yankee school mistress in sight. They always married Southern widowers, and were glad to get them. Four New England girls went off that way in my town, and they made good wives and good mothers. They were raised to habits of industry and economy, and that is what a widower wants in a second wife. They take good care of his first crop of children and get them educated and out of the way by the time the second crop is coming on. There was no economy in ante-bellum days among the aristocracy of the South. It wasn't necessary. The little negroes were always standing around waiting for the scraps, either of food or clothing. Whereas, in New England, where I went to school one winter, they didn't even keep a dog or a cat at my uncle's house, and the rule was to take no more on your plate than you were going to eat, and the dishes and the plates were left so clean after meals that it was hardly necessary to wash them—and maybe they didn't.

Most of these families are poor, but they are proud. They are highly respected for their manners and their culture. They are looked upon as good stock and thoroughbred, but withdrawn from the turf. Their daughters carry a high head and a flashing eye, stand up square on their pastern joints, and chafe under the bits. They come just as nigh living as they used to as possible. They dress neatly in plain clothes, wear starched collars and corsets, and a perfumed handkerchief. They do up their hair in the fashion, take Godey's Lady's Book or somebody's Bazaar. If they are able to hire a domestic, the darkey finds out in two minutes that free niggers don't rank any higher in that family than slaves used to. The negroes who know their antecedents have the highest respect for them, and will say Mas' William or Miss Julia with the same deference as in former years. One would hardly learn from their general deportment that they cleaned up the house, made up the beds, washed the dishes, did their own sewing and gave music lessons—in fact, did most everything but wash the family clothes. They won't do that. I have known them to milk and churn, and sweep the back yard, and scour the brass; but I've never seen one of them bent over the washtub yet. In the good old times their rich and patriarchal father lived like Abraham, and Jacob, and Job. They felt like they were running an unlimited monarchy on a limited scale. When a white child was born in the family it was ten dollars out of pocket; but a little nigger was a hundred dollars in and got fifty dollars a year better for twenty years to come.

Some time in the spring of 1861, when our Southern boys were hunting for a fight, and felt like they could whip all creation, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering us all to disperse and retire within thirty days, and to quit cavorting around in a hostile and belligerent manner.

I remember writing an answer to it as though I was a good Union man and law-abiding citizen, and was willing to disperse, if I could; but it was almost impossible, for the boys were mighty hot, and the way we made up our military companies was to send a man down the lines with a bucket of water and sprinkle the boys, as he came to 'em, and if a feller sizzed like hot iron in a slack trough, we took him, and if he didn't sizz, we didn't take him; but still, nevertheless, notwithstanding, and so forth, if we could possibly disperse in thirty days we would do so, but I thought he had better give us a little more time, for I had been out in an old field by myself and tried to disperse myself and couldn't do it.

I thought the letter was right smart, and decently sarcastic, and so I read it to Dr. Miller and Judge Underwood, and they seemed to think it was right smart, too. About that time I looked around and saw Bill Arp standing at the door with his mouth open and a merry glisten in his eye. As he came forward, says he to me: “Squire, are you gwine to print that?”

“Big John” was one of the earliest settlers of Rome, and one of her most notable men. For several years he was known by his proper name of John Underwood; but when another John Underwood moved there, the old settler had to be identified by his superior size, and gradually lost his surname, and was known far and near as “Big John.” The new comer was a man of large frame, weighing about 225 pounds, but Big John pulled down the scales at a hundred pounds more. He had shorter arms and shorter legs, but his circumference was correspondingly immense. He was notable for his humor and his good humor. The best town jokes came from his jolly, fertile fancy, and his comments on men and things were always original, and as terse and vigorous as ever came from the brain of Dr. Johnson. He was a diamond in the rough. He had lived a pioneer among the Indians of Cherokee, and it was said fell in love with an Indian maid, the daughter of old Tustenuggee, a limited chief, and never married because he could not marry her. But if his disappointment preyed upon his heart, it did not prey long upon the region that enclosed it, for he continued to expand his proportions. He was a good talker and an earnest laugher—whether he laughed and grew fat, or grew fat and laughed, the doctors could not tell which was the cause and which was effect, and it is still in doubt, but I have heard wise men affirm that laughing was the fat man's safety-valve, that if he did not laugh and shake and vibrate frequently, he would grow fatter and fatter, until his epidermic cuticle could not contain his oleaginous corporosity.

Big John had no patience with the war, and when he looked upon the boys strutting around in uniforms, and fixing up their canteens and haversacks, he seemed as much astonished as disgusted. He sat in his big chair on the sidewalk, and would remark, “I don't see any fun in the like of that. Somebody is going to be hurt, and fighting don't prove anything. Some of our best people in this town are kin to them fellers up North, and I don't see any sense in tearing up families by a fight.” He rarely looked serious or solemn, but the impending strife seemed to settle him. “Boys,” said he, “I hope to God this thing will be fixed up without a fight, for fighting is a mighty bad business, and I never knowed it to do any good.”

Big John had had a little war experience—that is, he had volunteered in a company to assist in the forcible removal of the Cherokees to the far west in 1835. It was said that he was no belligerent then, but wanted to see that the maiden he loved had a safe transit, and so he escorted the old chief and his clan as far as Tuscumbia, and then broke down and returned to Ross Landing on the Tennessee river. He was too heavy to march, and when he arrived at the Landing, a prisoner was put in his charge for safe keeping. Ross Landing is Chattanooga now, and John Ross lived there, and was one of the chiefs of the Cherokees. The prisoner was his guest, and his name was John Howard Payne. He was suspected of trying to instigate the Cherokees to revolt and fight, and not leave their beautiful forest homes on the Tennessee and Coosa and Oostanaula and the Etowah, or New Town, as it was called, an Indian settlement on the Coosawattee, a few miles east of Calhoun, as now known. There he kept the author of “Home, Sweet Home” under guard, or on his parol of honor, for three weeks, and listened to his music upon the violin, and heard him sing his own songs until orders came for his discharge, and Payne was sent under escort to Washington.

Many a time have I heard Big John recite his sad adventures. “It was a most distressive business,” said he. “Them Injuns was heart-broken; I always knowed an Injun loved his hunting-ground and his rivers, but I never knowed how much they loved 'em before. You know they killed Ridge for consentin' to the treaty. They killed him on the march and they wouldn't bury him. The soldiers had to stop and dig a grave and put him away. John Ross and John Ridge were the sons of two Scotchmen, who came over here when they were young men and mixed up with these tribes and got their good will. These two boys were splendid looking men, tall and handsome, with long auburn hair, and they were active and strong, and could shoot a bow equal to the best bowman of the tribe, and they beat 'em all to pieces on the cross-bow. They married the daughters of the old chiefs, and when the old chiefs died they just fell into line and succeeded to the old chiefs' places, and the tribes liked 'em mighty well for they were good men and made good chiefs. Well, you see Ross dident like the treaty. He said it wasent fair, and that the price of the territory was too low, and the fact is he dident want to go at all. There are the ruins of his old home now over there in DeSoto, close to Rome, and I tell you he was a king. His word was the law of the Injun nations, and he had their love and their respect. His half-breed children were the purtiest things I ever saw in my life. Well, Ridge lived up the Oostanaula river about a mile and he was a good man, too. Ross and Ridge always consulted about everything for the good of the tribes, but Ridge was a more milder man than Ross, and was more easily persuaded to sign the treaty that gave the lands to the State and take other lands away across the Mississippi.

“Well, it took us a month to get 'em all together and begin the march to the Mississippi, and they wouldn't march then. The women would go out of line and set down in the Woods and go to grieving, and you may believe it or not, but I'll tell you what is a fact, we started with 14,000, and 4,000 of 'em died before we got to Tuscumbia. They died on the side of the road; they died of broken hearts; they died of starvation, for they wouldn't eat a thing; they just died all along the way. We didn't make more than five miles a day on the march, and my company didn't do much but dig graves and bury Injuns all the way to Tuscumbia. They died of grief and broken hearts, and no mistake. An Indian's heart is tender and his love is strong; it's his nature. I'd rather risk an Injun for a true friend than a white man. He is the best friend in the world, and the worst enemy. He has got more gratitude and more revenge in him than anybody.”

Big John's special comfort was a circus. He never missed one, and it was a good part of the show to see him laugh and shake and spread his magnificent face.

MR. EDITOR: “Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,” as somebody said, I am seeking a log in some vast wilderness, a lonely roost in some Okeefinokee swamp, where the foul invaders cannot travel nor their pontoon bridges float. If Mr. Shakespeare were correct when he wrote that “sweet are the juices of adversity,” then it is reasonable to suppose that me and my folks, and many others, must have some sweetening to spare. When a man is aroused in the dead of night, and smells the approach of the foul invader; when he feels constrained to change his base and become a runagee from his home, leaving behind him all those ususary things, which hold body and soul together; when he looks, perhaps the last time upon his lovely home where he has been for many delightful years raising children and chickens, strawberries and peas, lye soap and onions, and all such luxuries of this sublunary life; when he imagines every unusual sound to be the crack of his earthly doom; when from such influences he begins a dignified retreat, but soon is constrained to leave the dignity behind, and get away, without regard to the order of his going—if there is any sweet juice in the like of that, I haven't been able to see it. No, Mr. Editor, such scenes never happened in Bill Shakespeare's day, or he wouldn't have written that line.

I don't know that the lovely inhabitants of your beautiful city need any forewarnings, to make 'em avoid the breakers upon which our vessel was wrecked, but for fear they should some day shake their gory locks at me, I will make public a brief allusion to some of the painful circumstances which lately occurred in the eternal city.

Not many days ago the everlasting Yankees (may they live always when the devil gets 'em) made a valiant assault upon the city of the hills—the eternal city, where for a hundred years the Indian rivers have been blending their waters peacefully together—where the Cherokee children built their flutter mills, and toyed with frogs and tadpoles whilst these majestic streams were but little spring branches babbling along their sandy beds. For three days and nights our valiant troops had beat back the foul invader, and saved our pullets from their devouring jaws. For three days and nights we bade farewell to every fear, luxuriating upon the triumph of our arms, and the sweet juices of our strawberries and cream. For three days and nights fresh troops from the South poured into our streets with shouts that made the welkin ring, and the turkey bumps rise all over the flesh of our people. We felt that Rome was safe— secure against the assault of the world, the flesh and the devil, which last individual is supposed to be that horde of foul invaders who are seeking to flank us out of both bread and existence.

But alas for human hopes! Man that is born of woman (and there is no other sort that I know of) has but a few days that is not full of trouble. Although the troops did shout; although their brass band music swelled upon the gale; although the turkey bumps rose as the welkin rung) although the commanding general assured us that Rome was to be held at every hazard, and that on to-morrow the big battle was to be fought, and the foul invaders hurled all howling and bleeding to the shores of the Ohio, yet it transpired somehow that on Tuesday night the military evacuation of our city was peremptorily ordered. No note of warning - no whisper of alarm - no hint of the morrow came from the muzzled lips of him who had lifted our hopes so high. Calmly and coolly we smoked our killikinick, and surveyed the embarkation of troops, construing it to be some grand manœuvre of military strategy. About ten o'clock we retired to rest, to dream of tomorrow's victory. Sleep soon overpowered us like the fog that covered the earth, but nary bright dream had come, nary vision of freedom and glory. On the contrary, our rest was uneasy - strawberries and cream seemed to be holding secession meetings within our corporate limits, when suddeny, in the twinkling of an eye, a friend aroused us from our slumber and put a new phase upon the “situation.” General Johnston was retreating, and the foul invaders were to pollute our sacred soil the next morning. Then came the tug of war. With hot and feverish haste we started out in search of transportation, but nary transport could be had. Time-honored friendship, past favors shown, everlasting gratitude, numerous small and lovely children, Confederate currency, new issues, bank bills, black bottles, and all influences were urged and used to secure a corner in a car; but nary corner—too late—too late—the pressure for time was fearful and tremendous—the steady clock moved on—no Joshua about to lengthen out the night, no rolling stock, no steer, no mule. With reluctant and hasty steps, we prepared to make good our exit by that overland line which railroads do not control, nor A. Q. M.s impress.

With our families and a little clothing, we crossed the Etowah bridge about the break of day on Wednesday, the 17t