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With Sabre and Scalpel. The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon:
Electronic Edition.

Wyeth, John Allan, 1845-1922

Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the electronic publication of this title.

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First edition, 1998
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Academic Affairs Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1998.

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Call number E605.W97 1914 (Davis Library, UNC-Chapel Hill)

Source Description:
(title page) With Sabre and Scalpel. The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon
Wyeth, John Allan
New York, NY
Harper & Brothers Publishers
1914

        The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digitization project, Documenting the American South.
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        WITH SABRE AND SCALPEL
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
A SOLDIER AND SURGEON
JOHN ALLAN WYETH, M.D., LL.D.
UNIVERSITIES OF ALABAMA AND MARYLAND

        FOUNDER OF THE NEW YORK POLYCLINIC MEDICAL SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL, THE PIONEER ORGANIZATION FOR POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL INSTRUCTION IN AMERICA--PRESIDENT OF THE FACULTY AND SURGEON-IN-CHIEF; EX-PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, THE NEW YORK STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, THE NEW YORK PATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY, THE NEW YORK SOUTHERN SOCIETY, AND THE ALABAMA SOCIETY OF NEW YORK CITY; FORMERLY ATTENDING SURGEON TO MT. SINAI AND ST. ELIZABETH HOSPITALS; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF NEW JERSEY AND OF THE TEXAS STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION; AUTHOR OF ESSAYS IN SURGICAL ANATOMY AND SURGERY; AWARDED THE FIRST AND SECOND PRIZES OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION IN 1878 AND THE BELLEVUE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PRIZE IN 1876; A TEXT-BOOK ON GENERAL SURGERY; THE LIFE OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST; HISTORY OF LA GRANGE MILITARY ACADEMY AND THE CADET CORPS; A HISTORICAL ESSAY ON THE STRUGGLE FOR OREGON, ETC.

        

Illustration

JOHN ALLAN WYETH, M.D., LL.D.
From a photograph by Bradley, 1914
[Frontispiece Image]

        

Illustration

[Title Page Image]

WITH SABRE
AND SCALPEL THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF A SOLDIER AND SURGEON

BY

JOHN ALLAN WYETH
M.D., LL.D.

ILLUSTRATED

HARPER& BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMXIV

Page verso

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HARPER& BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1914
K-O

Page v

        TO
LOUIS WEISS WYETH
AND
EUPHEMIA ALLAN


                         "MY BOAST IS NOT THAT I DEDUCE MY BIRTH
                         FROM LOINS ENTHRONED AND RULERS OF THE EARTH;
                         BUT HIGHER STILL MY PROUD PRETENSIONS RISE,
                         THE SON OF PARENTS PASSED INTO THE SKIES."
COWPER

Page vii

CONTENTS

Page xi

Page xiii

INTRODUCTION

        THE chief purpose of this volume is to record from personal observation something of the social, economic, and political conditions which prevailed in the South before, during, and immediately after the Civil War. It was my good fortune to have been born and reared in a section where the wealthy landed proprietors and slave-owners, the poorer whites, and the negroes came together.

        What is written of the delightful society of the aristocracy of the old South at Huntsville would apply to hundreds of other communities of that period below "the Line." It was only possible with the institution of slavery, and with the downfall of the Southern oligarchy it disappeared, never to be repeated. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Wythe, Monroe, Mason, the Randolphs and Lees were among the products of that unique civilization. "There were giants in those days."

        In my native county the poor whites greatly outnumbered the rich slaveholders and their slaves. The negroes baptized them contemptuously as "poor white trash." They were poor, comparatively speaking, but they were not trash. The vast majority were uneducated, many could not read or write; but they were as a class far from being ignorant, for they were "good listeners" and close observers of current events. My father, whom they made at first county and later district judge, was idolized by these simple people,

Page xiv

and I fell heir to their affectionate guardianship. By the time I was fifteen years old I believe I was personally acquainted with every one of these families in our county. Their homes were chiefly in the uplands or foot-hills or coves or in the sparsely settled plateau of Sand Mountain. The houses were of logs, some hewn, many of skinned poles, and some so primitive that the bark was left on. The roofs were of rived boards, not nailed, but held in place by split logs laid on as weights and reinforced here and there by stones. Some of the floors were of puncheons, others of planks; and not infrequently the kitchen, smokehouse, and other added shelters had for flooring the sandy earth. As might be inferred, their lives were simple, and in general they were obedient to law. They were, however, high-strung and quick to resent an affront, and their too ready appeal to the rifle and the hunting-knife in the settlement of personal differences was the chief exception to their common acceptance of the authority which the court-house represented. Very rarely, far back in some remote fastness, an occasional mountaineer, who gathered inspiration from the sun which curved over his head each day without seeming to pay much attention to human regulations, or from the free air which the preacher told him "bloweth where it listeth," would conclude that the government at Washington had no right to prescribe in what form the corn which he raised with his own hands and on his own land should ultimately be marketed, and would proceed to distil it into whisky by the light of the moon. I shall never forget the feeling which was evident as one of these mountaineers remarked to me: "Your pap put me in jail once for moonshinin', but I never blamed him fer it. We all knowed he was a good man and done what he thought was

Page xv

right." These poor whites were in the main religious, belonging to the Baptist or Methodist persuasions, and were much given to "protracted meetings," revivals, and exhortations to secure conversions, which latter was defined as "comin' through."

        They dressed with extreme simplicity, usually in cotton or woolen stuffs, raised, spun, woven, and tailored at home. The mild climate made it possible to go for at least nine months without shoes, and the one pair of brogans for the year was usually put on at Christmas. The young children and boys to about the sixteenth year wore in summertime nothing but a single garment made like a long shirt, which came down to near the ankles and was slit on each side as high as the knees to allow freedom in walking or running. As they raised everything they ate, except sugar and coffee, it may well be said that their wants were few and easily supplied.

        At least three-fourths of the men who carried guns in the battle-line of the Southern Confederacy were of this class. They had no interest directly or indirectly in slavery, and would willingly have seen the negroes freed and colonized out of the country. The proportion of non-slave-owners in my own company and regiment was greater than seventy-five per cent. Colonel James Cooper Nesbit,1 in his most interesting and instructive narrative, says: "My company, H, Twenty-first Georgia regiment, was recruited in northwest Georgia and Alabama. The muster-rolls show one hundred and eighty-five names. All were non-slaveholders except myself. The parents of four owned one or two slaves, and the father of one of my lieutenants owned forty.
1 Four Years on the Firing Line, p. 69. Imperial Press, Chattanooga, Tenn., 1914.

Page xvi

This was the average of the Twenty-first Georgia and the Twenty-first North Carolina of the same brigade, and these two regiments made the best record of any in Stonewall Jackson's corps."

        The brave fight these men made was not for slavery. Their contention was that freemen had the inherent right to do as they pleased, and as freemen they would stay in the Union or secede, as the majority desired. They were then and are still clean-cut Americans, uncontaminated by contact or association with the restless, poverty-stricken, and discontented hordes of immigrants who are crowding our shores in these latter days either as anarchists, who, like shedding snakes, strike blindly and viciously at everything which moves, or like the socialists, whose aim is seemingly to bring all human endeavor to the common level of mediocrity. Should the safety of our institutions ever be endangered I prophesy that these men of the foot-hills and mountains of the South will be the strongest guarantee of law and order.

        At various periods in history (and doubtless before the records were preserved, for in his natural tendency to do foolish things on a large scale man is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever) epidemics of insanity have appeared with results more unfortunate to moral and intellectual development than have followed the wide-spread infections of the body.

        The legend of the Tower of Babel; the numerous racial migrations; the crusades and the war of the five great nations now in progress in Europe, each of which, claiming to represent a Christian civilization, is calling for divine assistance in robbing and killing, are examples.

        One such epidemic has visited our shores. In the agitation

Page xvii

for and against slavery in the United States, reason and conscience were finally dominated by fanaticism. There was a period in the decade from 1830 when by the judicious co-operation of the advocates of emancipation North and South a humane and practical solution of this momentous problem was possible. I ask attention to the fact that at this time there were in the eight largely agricultural and slave-owning counties of my native section along the Tennessee River in Alabama eight active emancipation societies organized by Southern men, and that in Huntsville a former slaveholder edited an emancipation newspaper and was twice nominated for the Presidency of the United States on the abolition ticket; also to the fact that a single state freed negroes approximating in value one hundred million dollars without one penny of remuneration!

        I am firmly convinced that if instead of the nagging, irritating, insulting, and finally insurrectionary and murderous meddlesomeness of the Northern abolitionists, the conservative and better portion had united in earnest and friendly co-operation with their brothers of the South, who proved their zeal and devotion to principle by the wholesale sacrifice of wealth and ease, the humane scheme of emancipation and colonization as set forth in the "Virginia Resolutions" would have been carried out and chattel slavery would have disappeared by peaceful means.

        That portion of the volume which relates to the Civil War is chiefly a narrative of the every-day life of a private soldier in camp, in battle, and in prison. A single experience-- namely, the battle of Chickamauga--is discussed from the standpoint of speculation. In my opinion the Southern Confederacy was won here by desperate valor and lost by the failure of the commanding general to appreciate the

Page xviii

magnitude of his victory and to take advantage of the great opportunity which was his for the capture or destruction of the entire Union army in Georgia and Tennessee. Chickamauga, as I interpret it from personal observation and from careful study, marked the high tide of the Confederacy.

        I have been asked to describe the sensations or emotions which are experienced under the trying ordeal of battle. The courage, whether moral or physical, or the combination of both, which enables a human being to incur the risk of suffering and death is a common possession. I would guess that of every one hundred men in our regiment fully ninety-five would have done, or would have tried to do, more or less willingly, any duty required. The other five would shirk and exhaust ingenuity to keep out of gunshot range by feigning illness, or some temporary necessity, or lagging until a chance offered to dodge behind an obstacle whence only the file-closers could drive them to the firing-line.

        In very rare instances the sense of fear became so overwhelming the victim would run away without regard to the commands to halt and the danger of being shot in the back by one's own men.

        Personally I never saw any one do this, but it did occur. The very unusual experience of the soldier who, when what was thought to be a dangerous charge was ordered and we were in the act of moving forward, stepped from the ranks and handed his gun to our captain and said he couldn't "go in" is given in the text. Vanity, another name for which is "family pride," or the dread of being called a coward, will account in part for what is usually accepted as courage; and yet admitting all this as a measure of human frailty, I have witnessed a great many instances of that

Page xix

sublime quality of self-forgetfulness in the performance of duty which is the crystallization of virtue namely, true courage. Appreciating, as every normal human being must, the instinctive dread of suffering and the love of life, it is not difficult to realize the awful sensation which is experienced in the moments given for reflection as one marches calmly up to the point of danger. It must, as I take it, count as a supreme moment in existence. Once engaged and in the excitement of fighting, this sense of impending disaster is happily lost; and to some there comes an exhilaration which it would be almost permissible to term ecstatic.

        In my own case, in the first two or three minor engagements I was not scared; in fact, the excitement or exhilaration was rather enjoyable; but this was "the valor of ignorance." After I had learned what war really was I never went under fire without experiencing an overpowering sense of dread and fear, with the single exception of the incident of riding through the Union lines at Chickamauga, which is given further on.

        Part II is devoted mainly to my work as a surgeon and teacher. My aim has been to collect in concise form for convenient reference those original contributions which have been generally accepted by the profession.

        The Ligation of the External Carotid Artery as an accepted procedure dates from the publication of my essays on the arteries by the American Medical Association in I878; the Bloodless Amputations at the Hip-joint and at the Shoulder, in 1889; The Cure of Otherwise Inoperable Vascular Tumors by the Injection into their Substance of Water at a High Temperature; The Immunizing Effect upon Sarcoma of a Mixed (Pyogenic) Infection; The Demonstration of the Process of Arterial Occlusion after Ligation in Continuity, etc.

Page xx

        Upon these, together with the introduction of systematized postgraduate medical teaching in America, the author "rests his case" at the bar of posterity. That the Polyclinic gave an impetus to and was coincident with the great awakening in American medicine there can be no doubt. Once inaugurated, the movement practically compelled postgraduate study in the general profession, for it naturally followed, that when even a single practitioner in any community took advantage of the extraordinary facilities which were offered for increasing his store of knowledge, public opinion, that insistent vis a tergo of human progress, compelled the others to follow. Not only has every city of importance in our own country established one or more postgraduate medical schools, but abroad (as in London) our system has been adopted.

Page xxi

PART I

Page 1

WITH SABRE AND SCALPEL

I
THE TENNESSEE VALLEY--MARSHALL COUNTY AND GUNTERSVILLE IN ALABAMA

        FIFTH in size of the rivers in the United States, the Tennessee, rising in the mountainous regions of Virginia and North Carolina, flows in a general direction southwest until, at the great bend in northern Alabama, it turns northwest to empty into the Ohio. Although three-fourths of its course is within the boundaries of the state to which it gave its name, that section of the South widely known as the Tennessee Valley is wholly within the state of Alabama.

        Eastward and to the north, from where Lookout stands sentinel for the mighty Appalachian range, the numerous large tributaries fairly divide honors with the main stream, while to the west, after pitching over the great cascade at Mussel Shoals, it leaves the mountains and the picturesque valley through which it has flowed for two hundred miles.

        Emerging near Chattanooga from the narrow gorge through which it has worn its way, walled in by cliffs of stone so steep and high that from the channel their crests are at times not within the range of vision, this majestic river enters the beautiful Valley of the Tennessee.

        Winding in and out among the mountains on either hand,

Page 2

some near, some far, for most of the year covered with verdure to the steep cliffs which form their crests, opening here and there into fertile plains or densely timbered coves that rise as they recede to reach the summit of the distant heights, on past bold projecting bluffs which seem to block the way, wide fields of corn and grain and cotton which long before the frosts of winter fall shall be as white as snow upon the arctic plains, flows ever on this gracious gift of nature, blessing with plenty my native Valley of the Tennessee.

        In 1802 the territory now included in the states of Mississippi and Alabama was ceded by Georgia to the United States, and in 1819 Alabama was admitted to the Union. That portion of this new state lying north of the river had been opened for settlement a number of years, while to the south stretched the reservations of three great Indian tribes--the Seminoles, nearest the Gulf of Mexico; then the restless, warring Creeks, and, closest in touch with civilization, the wonderful Cherokees. Lovers of peace and tactful, they were on living terms not only with their war-like brothers, but friendly also with their Anglo-Saxon neighbors just across the Tennessee. Builders of houses and tillers of the soil, these Indians had made such progress toward civilization that they had in use a syllabic alphabet and a method of printing. Invented by Sequoyah,1 this alphabet of eighty-five characters, each representing a single sound of their language, is pronounced by a writer in the American Encyclopedia to be the "most perfect alphabet ever devised for any language."

        While the Cherokees could not hold the Creeks and Seminoles to peaceful ways, they would not allow them to
1 This remarkable man died in 1843. It was with this tribe that Sam Houston lived before and after he became Governor of Tennessee.

Page 2a

Illustration

MARSHALL COUNTY COURT-HOUSE, GUNTERSVILLE, ALABAMA

Page 3

pass through their domain to harrow the white settlers north of the Tennessee. The massacre at Fort Mims, Alabama, on August 30, 1813, where four hundred men, women, and children were butchered, led to the annihilation of the Creek Nation at the battle of the Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa in 1814, while the remnant of their allies, the Seminoles, sought refuge in the impenetrable marshes of the everglades in Florida, where they still survive. For twenty-four years longer the Cherokees lingered in their native land, until by treaty in 1836 they marched to the West, and their former reservation was opened for settlers.

        When from a part of this Indian land the new county of Marshall was formed, Louis Wyeth, a young lawyer, journeying by stage from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Pittsburg, by steamboat down the Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky, thence by stage to Huntsville, Alabama, and on foot for the remainder of the way (for as yet there were only trails in the Cherokee purchase), came to cast his lot with the other pioneers and to "grow up with the country."

        He must have taken well with these men of the wilderness, for they made him their county judge within the first years of his advent; and, although he did not long remain on the bench--for he sought a wider field--it may truthfully be said that throughout a long and useful career he judged these, his people, to whose welfare he devoted his life. In 1848 he founded the town of Guntersville at the south bend of the Tennessee, built at his private expense a handsome brick court-house and a well-appointed jail, which were his gifts to the county and the new town, which became and still is the county-seat. As a member of the state legislature he secured a charter for a railroad "to connect the navigable waters of the Tennessee and Coosa

Page 4

rivers, with the object of securing an inland system of transportation between Mobile Bay and the vast rich region through which flowed the Tennessee and its tributaries." Of this railroad, which is now a part of the great Nashville& Chattanooga and Louisville& Nashville railroad systems, he was the originator and first president.

Page 5

II
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS

        IT would be interesting to determine just when the brain-cells begin to register impressions that become fixed and are subject to the call of memory; and also with which of the senses these early registrations are associated. The brain is such an unreliable machine that the results of its operations require careful study and critical analysis before acceptance. Since older minds (which are considered mature) are known to entertain absolutely impossible schemes as fixed convictions, it is not to be wondered at that children are readily susceptible to self-deception. I have no doubt that many incidents retold as being the recollections of early childhood are nothing more than reflected images of word-pictures from older persons who really were witnesses. Only to-day a woman of more than ordinary brilliancy and of unquestionable sincerity assured me she remembered distinctly being held as a baby in her grandmother's arms when she was only a little more than one year old!

        It occurs to me that since children are almost wholly animal, their earlier brain-cell registrations should be associated with alimentation, and with those to whose personal ministrations they looked for comfort and protection. It would seem but natural that one's mother should come first of all things; but with myself, I am sorry to say, this is not the case. I was four years old when my memory of things began; and my mother, who, as I now know, did little

Page 6

else but devote her time and thoughtful care to me, does not hold this precedence. My earliest recollection is of a burning house, and of Mack, one of our slaves, holding me seated on one of the front gate-posts, where I could have a good view of the conflagration. The date of this incident is known, and it enables me to determine that my brain-cells were not registering fixed impressions earlier than the fourth year. About this time I first straddled a horse and tumbled off, and that incident was indelibly impressed, as was a relation thus early established with Aunt Peggy, our negro cook, whereby without the knowledge of my mother, at about ten o'clock every morning I found myself in the kitchen eating from a small wooden tray corn-bread crusts soaked in "pot-liquor," a very filling, greasy, and satisfying mixture, which, I learned later, was a common food of the negro children of the plantations.

        It is clear, then, as far as I am concerned, that the very first enduring impression was conveyed to the cells from the retina, through the so-called "sense of sight." The second was from fright, and fused with this is another impression which seems to indicate that the mind was commencing operations from within on its own responsibility. I very distinctly remember that as I was sliding off the bare back of the horse and was about half-way to the ground my good guardian Mack caught me and placed me again in position. Being scared, I asked him to let me get off and walk, but he was as inexorable as the law of gravitation. There was no getting out of it. I had to learn, and did learn, and from that time on I almost lived on horseback. This lovable slave not only taught me to ride, but he gave me a first lesson of inestimable value, which was, not to get scared and quit. The third registration, which, according to the "animal

Page 7

theory" just expressed, should have come first, was evidently conveyed through the "sense of taste," or hunger. Now, the one--to me--incomprehensible feature of this retrospection is that up to this period, and even later, I have not the slightest recollection of my parents. I was on excellent terms with the cook, and between Mack and his ward there was established an affectionate association which had already a fixed place and never ceased; in fact, grew so strong as time went on that I never wanted to be away from him in daylight.

        At five years of age I was taken to school; and here again fright comes in, for I doubt if any wretch riding toward the guillotine ever suffered more than did this victim of civilization on this occasion. The teacher who preceded the present incumbent had not spared the rod; in fact, had whipped two of his boy pupils so severely that his services were dispensed with. Hearing all this from the older children, I supposed I would come in for my share from the new man, who was "part Cherokee."1

        "Mr. Dave" was, however, a mild-mannered man, and, while he kept a long hickory switch in the chimney corner near his chair, it was only a reminder of the possibilities which might follow bad behavior. The worst he ever did was to "thump" us on the head with the last knuckle of one finger, and usually we got this punishment for misspelling a word or for some shortcoming in our studies. My first, and I believe only, experience came within a day or two after I began. The spelling-class stood in a row behind one of the long benches. When a word went wrong, in order to have the correction indelibly impressed on our
1 Descended from intermarriage between a Cherokee Indian and a white person.

Page 8

minds the culprit had to walk to where the teacher sat, project his small head in advance of the perpendicular, and receive thereon a thump which was light or heavy in proportion to the gravity of the error. My offense was "separation," and from that day to this I have never forgotten that it is dangerous to change the first "a" of the word into "e."

        I had been at school for some time, and was well turned into my seventh year, when on one memorable day I made a discovery which was worth more to me than the finding of a new world was to Columbus. I discovered my mother, and incidentally began to appreciate the fact that I had a father, although at this early period he occupied a position, to my vision, very much nearer the horizon than did my newly discovered planet. The discovery came about in this fashion: a boy playmate lost his temper at something that happened between us, and in anger gave me a slap which I did not resent. At this juncture I heard a voice from a near-by window, and, turning, I saw my mother leaning out, her eyes flashing so that I could almost see the sparks flying and her cheeks as red as fire. In a tone about which there could be no misinterpretation, even by one who instinctively preferred peace to war, she asked me if the boy struck me in anger; and when I told her he had, she blazed up and said, "And you didn't hit him back?" My response was that father had told me it was wrong to fight, and that when another boy gave way to anger just to tell him it was wrong and not fight back. At this the blue bonnet of Clan-Allan went "over the border," and she fairly screamed: "I don't care what your father told you; if you don't whip that boy this minute I'll whip you!" And she looked on, and was satisfied when it was all over. I date my career from that eventful day; for I had come to the parting of the ways.

Page 8a

        

Illustration

CHEROKEE MISSIONARY STATION, 1820
The first house built in that part of "The Reservation" in the present county of Marshall in Alabama. The author's parents were living here when he was born. It still serves as a residence and bids fair to endure for another century

Page 9

        No one who knew my father ever doubted his physical or moral courage, for it was of that sublime type that held life as of secondary consideration where duty was involved, but his was the gift of gentle forbearance and kindly remonstrance to those who gave way to ungovernable and passionate word or deed. His was the way of the Nazarene and of that far-reaching wisdom of which the Proverb says: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."

        My mother, too, was a Presbyterian, the daughter of a minister of that faith, tender and true to her convictions of duty. Peter didn't love his Lord any less because he was human enough to lose his temper and smite off the ear of the servant of the high priest. My mother and I chose him for our patron saint, and, turning aside from the path of peace, hand in hand we trod the rougher road which led up the hill Difficulty. Upon its summit we stood at last triumphant, and thence, her beautiful face lighted up with a heavenly smile, an eternal benediction, she left me and passed down into the valley.


                         Time but the impression stronger makes,
                         As streams their channels deeper wear.

        It was on one of her later birthdays I wrote:


                         Deal gently with her, Time! These many years
                         Of life have brought more smiles with them than tears.
                         Lay not thy hand too harshly on her now,
                         But trace decline so slowly on her brow
                         That, like a sunset of the northern clime,
                         Where twilight lingers in the summer-time,
                         And fades at last into the silent night,
                         Ere one may note the passing of the light,
                         So may she pass--since 'tis the common lot--
                         As one who, resting, sleeps and knows it not. --Century Magazine, January, 1902.

Page 10

III
OUR VILLAGE BOYS

        Boys are boys the world over, and we were boys, some good, some bad. None good all the time; none so bad but that if properly handled the germ of good in him could have been cultivated to an aspiration for the ideals of life and for usefulness. It is almost a maxim that children are what their parents make them. Even the influences of heredity may in large measure be eliminated if carefully studied and the value of environment appreciated, for children, like chameleons, take readily the color of that which is about them. A left-handed child, or even an adult with a strongly inherited tendency to use the off-hand, may be made just as clever with the opposite and unpreferred member by persistent training. This has been very frequently demonstrated. It is just as possible to make both members equally useful. This will be done in the years to come, and it will greatly increase both mental and muscular efficiency. What is true of a physical defect or deviation from the normal is just as true of a moral weakness. No one doubts that Ashanti infants transplanted to a Christian civilization and reared with refined and cultivated children would cease to be cannibals and savages. The domestication of wild animals and fowls is complete evidence of the influence of environment.

        Among the boys of our village very few turned out bad;

Page 11

and had these few been surrounded in their homes by better example and received more kindly consideration and encouragement, even they would not have fallen by the way. Fully fifty per cent. of my playmates near my age perished in battle or from wounds or sickness contracted in the military service of the Confederacy. Most of our time up to our fifteenth year, when as a rule we were sent away to one of the well-known colleges, was spent in the long sessions of the village school with its exacting duties. A week at Christmas and the months of July and August made up the vacation period. On holidays in the fall and winter months, when the river and creeks and forests were flush with game, we were hunters and became adepts in woodcraft and the use of firearms. Often on Saturday nights, in the colder season, with the young negro boys, toward whom we white boys were always kind and considerate, with pine torch-lights and our dogs, we would roam the heavily timbered bottom lands hunting possums and coons, and at times on moonlight nights take our shotguns and seek out the wild-turkey roosts. With the full moon on cloudless nights we could even shoot turkeys, coons, and possums from the trees with the rifles, which carried only one ball. It was the practice to get the dark object between the marksman and the bright moon, sight into the moon, and slowly lower the barrel until both sights were darkened by the intervening black object, and at this moment touch the trigger. We were at home on horseback, and in the very warm days of the long summers we almost lived in the river, the temperature of which was several degrees warmer than the cold water which came in from the near-by mountain streams. Few of us could remember when we learned to swim, and the practice was general. No one seemed

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afraid of the water, nor was there ever a death by drowning. I recall that one day in the late spring, when the water in the river was still cold from the melting snows in the Virginia mountains, and it was nearly to the top of the banks, five of our group deposited our scant wardrobes, which consisted of trousers, shirt, and hat (no one wore shoes in warm weather), in the hollow of a giant sycamore and swam across the Tennessee and back for the frolic of it. In going the six hundred yards across the strong current we were carried fully a mile below the starting-point, and in returning we were compelled to walk far enough up the river-bank to offset the force of the current.

        Life was not by any means all play and school with us. It was the custom with both rich and poor for every boy to do a certain amount of manual labor, plowing or other work in the garden, or chopping wood or hauling. The wealthiest planter in our county insisted that his sons work in the fields with his slaves a certain number of days each crop season. In one year I raised unaided a ten-acre field of corn. It was a wholesome custom, for it instilled in our minds an appreciation of the dignity and value of labor and made us acquainted with the use of various implements. My father refused to give me even the small "spending-money" a boy is supposed to be allowed, but he gave me every opportunity to earn what I needed by my own efforts. My chief source of revenue was cutting wood in the forests near town which belonged to him, and hauling and selling it by the wagon-load to my various regular customers. With the money so earned I became an early subscriber to Harper's Magazine and Harper's Weekly. One of the family treasures which was lost when the Union soldiers burned our home was a much-appreciated

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personal letter to me from one of the original "Brothers" who founded the great "House of Harper." Thackeray and "Porte Crayon" were contributors to the Magazine then, and in the Weekly were appearing the illustrations of the Sepoy Rebellion in India.

        Thoughtful care was always given the selection of our teachers, and our community was fortunate in securing the services of Professor W. D. Lovett, of Zanesville, Ohio, a college graduate, well versed in the classics, an excellent mathematician, patient, insistent, and conscientious in the discharge of his duty. He was to me teacher and friend, and with his encouraging help and that of my father, himself at home with the classics, I was able in my fifteenth year to pass my college entrance examinations and matriculate at La Grange Military Academy in January, 1861.

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IV
HORSE AND GUN

        THE boy of the old South learned to ride and to shoot almost as soon as he learned to walk.1 I began to ride when I was only four years old, and at ten was the possessor of my own horse and gun. A saddle was not permitted to beginners. Stirrups were dangerous entanglements, and when we grew up to the saddle our stirrups had leather guards to prevent the ankle from slipping through and hanging. A blanket fastened on with a surcingle was the favorite seat. For years before I was big enough to get on a horse without sidling up to a stump or a fence I rode to the creek to water my horse, or straddled an evenly balanced sack of shelled corn and made the trip twice a week to the water-mill a mile away.

        I had also good practice in "riding behind" one or the other of my parents, for the newness of the country and the absence of good roads made the use of buggies or carriages practically impossible and horseback the one reliable way of traveling or of visiting our neighbors.

        My first gun was a flint-lock rifle of the same death-dealing
1 The girls of the South in my day were equally at home on horseback. Both of my sisters owned their saddle-horses, were fearless riders, and were expert with gun and pistol. On one occasion during the war, while all the men-folk were absent from the plantation in Lee County, Georgia, the negroes came running in great consternation to tell my eldest sister that a huge alligator was eating the pigs at the barn down near the lake. With an accurate shot through the eye she killed the monster, which was over six feet in length.

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pattern as those used by the backwoodsmen of Jackson and Coffee on Wellington's Peninsular veterans at New Orleans. It was a dangerous weapon at the muzzle, and not altogether harmless at the other end. I could never entirely overcome the sense of nervousness at the flash of the powder in the priming-pan within a few inches of the eye. The bullet used was molded from bars of lead kept in stock at all frontier stores. The ball was laid in the palm of the hand, and the proper charge of powder was measured by pouring enough to make a pyramid which just concealed it. The powder was then poured into the muzzle of the barrel held perpendicularly. A bit of thick cotton cloth greased with tallow on the under side was laid over the muzzle, and the ball, placed on this, was pushed in until its top was level with the surface of the barrel, when the patch was cut smoothly across with a sharp knife. Incased in this lubricated cloth envelope, the bullet was pushed down upon the charge of measured powder near the touch-hole by means of a long, slender ramrod of tough hickory. The priming-pan was next opened and filled with powder, and the "striker" closed. The flint was so arranged that when the hammer was cocked and the trigger pressed a spring drove the flint against the striker and primer, forcing it open, and thus bringing the powder in the pan in contact with the igniting spark. These guns, now obsolete, soon gave way to those equipped with tubes for percussion-caps, and these in turn to our modern breech-loaders with percussion-cartridges.

        This early training to horse and gun will explain why the mounted troops of the Confederacy for the first two years of the Civil War were notably superior to the cavalry of the North. For the third year honors were about even, and after that to the end the advantage was on the Union

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side. It took the Federal cavalrymen about two years to become expert riders and marksmen, and as such they held their own with their opponents. By 1864, when the South was depleted of live stock, the impossibility of securing good mounts or of maintaining the efficiency of those in service placed its cavalry at great disadvantage; and when to the best of horses and seasoned veterans was added the equipment with the repeating-rifle, as against the single-barreled muzzle-loader of the Confederates, it is no wonder that the men who had followed Forrest and Wheeler and Stuart and Morgan to victory on practically every battle field in the earlier campaigns could no longer successfully resist the gallant troopers of Wilson and Sheridan.

        The hunting-season in the South began in the early autumn and lasted until March. In the wide ranges of uncleared woodland in the near-by mountains, and in the dense cane-brakes which grew in the rich bottom land of the Tennessee, there were wild deer and turkeys in great numbers throughout the year. I counted more than twenty of the beautiful animals in one herd within three miles of our village, and I have killed turkeys feeding in the fields and truck-gardens of our home. So plentiful were they at one time that during the breeding-season I have often heard, as I sat on our portico, the drumming sound made by the wings of the males when strutting. Squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and opossums were abundant, while beavers, muskrats, and minks made their homes in the river's bank. Wild duck and geese came with the cold weather and remained until spring. Of the migrating birds the wild pigeon was at once the most beautiful and wonderful. The story of these birds will seem in this day like a gross exaggeration, and yet there are many persons still living who saw,

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as I have seen, the vast and countless flocks of these swift and graceful birds of passage as they whirred through the air on their southward flight, so massed that they cast a shadow like a thick cloud which shut out the sun, while the noise of their countless wings sounded like the roar of an approaching cyclone. As far as the eye could distinguish them their lines were stretched, and one flock would scarcely be out of sight before another followed. A favorite feeding-ground was the beech forest near our home, and one of the most wonderful sights I have ever beheld was the sudden and almost perpendicular descent of a vast army of these birds from a height of at least a mile to the tree-tops in the bottom lands. They simply let go, fell like snowflakes from the heavens, and alighted in such numbers that the limbs broke beneath the great weight. When the nuts were all consumed, or threshed off by the motion of their wings, the birds would swarm to the ground, many of them lost to sight in the foot-deep leaves which carpeted the earth beneath these giant trees. My father and I on one occasion picked up twenty-five pigeons killed by a single volley of our two shotguns--his a double, mine a single barreled gun. I have no idea of the cause of their disappearance; but they, like the buffalo, are now practically extinct. As late as 1870 I saw them in the White River section of Arkansas, as plentiful as they had been before the war in Northern Alabama. I am informed by a close student of ornithology that a reward of $5,000 for a pair of these birds has for three years remained unclaimed.

        In the cane-brakes and thickly wooded regions we hunted chiefly on foot, but for deer and turkey and for shooting quail, the horse was in common use, while for the rare sport of fox-hunting the gun was discarded, and the

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swift horses kept the hunters always close up with the hounds.

        When I became the owner of a saddle-horse it was my duty to feed and curry and take personal care of my mount; and so when the war came on, and I rode away on my beautiful Fanny, we knew each other thoroughly and were as comrades in all the exciting scenes, the times of danger in battle and of trial, with long marches and short rations, and all the hardships of an active cavalry service. Horses are not unlike their two-legged masters in the variations of character and quality; and a well-bred animal feels and shows its distinction and superiority over a common plug as does the man of gentle breeding exhibit certain qualities that mark him as not of the common run. Fanny was not only the most beautifully formed horse I have ever seen, but she possessed an intelligence almost human and could be trusted in any emergency. A whip or spur she would not tolerate. I could ride and guide her anywhere without saddle or bridle. A word, a motion of the hand, or a slight inclination of the body gave to her quick perception the direction and the gait. If the saddle was not comfortably adjusted she would stop and back one ear or the other to tell me where it pinched.

        I trained her to a running-walk, at once the easiest stride for horse and rider, and day after day she has averaged forty miles over roads and trails not easy as to going. I rode her twice from my home to Rome, in Georgia, seventy-five miles, in a day and a half. When it came to running she was like the wind, and in the long speeding to safety in our scouting expeditions, when speed needed stamina to make the goal of the picket-line, she showed her mettle. As long as I rode this graceful, coal-black creature-- unmarked save

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for a white star in the center of the forehead and a white ring on the nigh hind pastern--I felt no fear of capture. On one memorable occasion she showed her heels and her rider's back in most satisfactory fashion to a squadron of Brownlow's Union Cavalry in a chase from near Triune to our outpost, some four miles away. There are times in a soldier's life when, as Campbell expresses it,

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.

        In the Christmas raid through Kentucky in 1862, when in the crisis of the pursuit and hemmed in on all sides, we were forced to ride day and night for thirty-six hours through a merciless blizzard without stopping, and then, after a rest of six hours, went on to the end of our seventy-two hours' forced march, there was not in that entire command of three thousand a horse more fit than "The Little Black"--for that was her pet name in the regiment.

        In times of stress, when food was scarce and Fanny was hungry, I have often shared with her the roasting-ears of corn issued to me as my rations. At night, when we bivouacked, and the enemy was so near that every man must be ready to mount at a moment's notice, I would unspring the bit from the head-stall, and as she ate her shelled corn from the saddle-blanket I would sleep holding the halter strap and knowing full well she would never tread upon or attempt to wander from her sleeping comrade.

        We Southerners rode with long stirrup-leathers, such as the vaqueros of Mexico and the cowboys of the plains and pampas use. The trained horseman with this seat is one with his mount. When it becomes necessary, the saddle pressure can be lessened by tiptoeing slightly in the stirrups.

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The pigskin-covered, shallow-seated saddle of the English, with the short stirrup-leathers and the bobbing-up-and-down style of riding, is, from my point of view and training, awkward and tiring to both rider and horse.

        Our saddles were strong, and raised behind and in front, so that when firmly cinched one foot could be caught beneath the rim as the rider swung head downward on the other side to pick up any object from the ground. This we were trained to do with the horse at full gallop. At mounting we were equally expert, and from either side I could mount or leap entirely over my horse, and vault into the saddle from behind, with my pistol buckled around the waist, by placing my two hands on the horse's rump.

        I said good-by to my little Fanny on June 27, 1863, and I look back on this as one of the saddest experiences of a lifetime. It was the day of the battle of Shelbyville. From near Eagleville on the Triune turnpike our regiment, then on outpost duty, was ordered to retreat hurriedly to Shelbyville. Near noon we stopped for half an hour to cool our horses' backs and rest and feed. As there was no forage except grazing, I stripped my mount of saddle and bridle and turned her into a near-by clover-field to feed at will.

        When the bugle blew to saddle up I called "Fanny!" Tossing her head in the air with a whinny of recognition, she came to me at once. Leaping on her back without a bridle, I guided her by a movement of the hand toward my company's bivouac. As I approached there lay across the way the huge trunk of a fallen tree. I urged her to a canter, and she jumped over the log as I had trained her over hurdles before we began our war experiences. As she rose to take the jump the inner calk of the right fore shoe caught

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in the bark and tore the shoe loose. Unfortunately, the forge and farrier had moved on ahead; and as the enemy were in sight and pressing us, I saddled and mounted and joined in the six-mile run to Shelbyville. Within a mile the flinty bed of the macadamized roadway had done its work. Fanny began to limp, and then to lag, as her hoof was split to the quick, and I dismounted and led her. As good luck would have it, the enemy did not press us, or I should have been lost.

        As I came up at last the regiment was in line of battle, and the enemy's line, a mile away, was in sight, evidently preparing to advance. As I mounted and rode into the line Major Taylor, seeing how lame my horse was, ordered me to the wagon-train and would not listen to my entreaty to let me stay. Dismounting and leading Fanny, now hobbling on three legs, and depressed beyond measure at the thought of being absent from the first big fight the regiment was to be engaged in since I had joined it, I made my way sorrowfully to the rear.

        Two or three hundred yards back I came upon a member of my company who told me he was detailed to guard the wagon-train. As he had a fairly good horse and seemed anxious to take care of one too lame to be in the fight, I changed horses and equipments; and, exacting a promise that he would take Fanny to my home in Alabama, where I could find her at the close of the campaign, I mounted and rode into the line of battle just as the firing began.

        The story of that fight, from two o'clock to sundown, and the disaster which overtook me at its close is told elsewhere. The great tragedy of it was, not that we were beaten or that I was left on the field, ridden down and over by the victorious enemy, but that I never again saw my

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noble Fanny. The man to whom I intrusted her reported that she grew so sore of foot she could no longer move, and he had left her in care of a farmer in Tennessee. At the close of the war my first duty was to search for my little thoroughbred, but no trace of her could be found.

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V
MAJOR, THE VILLAGE KING--LESSON FROM THE LIFE OF A NOBLE DOG

        IT is as true of dogs as of poets that they are "born, not made." Major was born great. Not that he had a proud pedigree. No more have poets as a rule: Shakespeare's father was a glovemaker; Milton's a scrivener; Spenser's a tailor; Keats's paternal ancestor kept a livery stable; and the father of Robert Burns made a very insufficient living as a gardener.

        The average poet, however, knew his father--and here the comparison becomes embarrassing for Major. Genealogically he was classified as a mongrel cur, but genealogy, like the thermometer, does not always register correctly. The laws of heredity, like the laws of the universe, are as inexorable as they are wonderful and difficult of comprehension. Major was an illustration. Even as the planets of our system, after eons of divergence in space, come again in conjunction, so in this loved and faithful companion of my boyhood, born to be king of his kind in the village, there united by some mysterious alchemy certain ancestral strains, certain inherited qualities, which made him worthy of founding a dynasty.

        Cast in human form, he would have been another Forrest or Jackson, a natural-born soldier. Courage and strategy and tactics were of his mental make-up, and behind these

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qualities there was a magnificent endowment of muscle and bone which made them savagely effective. Like the "Wizard of the Saddle," who said, "five minutes of 'bulge' was worth more than a week of tactics," Major believed in bulge. He always "showed fight," and never waited to be attacked. Forrest's one "general order" was: "Whenever you see a Yankee, show fight. If there ain't but one of you and a hundred of them, show fight. They'll think a heap more of you for it."

        Now, Major was not particular about what the other village dogs thought of him, but he did enjoy a quiet stroll along a dogless highway. Even Cowper in his "Morning Walk" was not more fond of solitude, and as my fighter's reputation spread his meditations were rarely disturbed. At the zenith of his reign, if there was a canine in all the region round about his Judea upon whose skin he had not left the indelible register of his prowess, it was only because the other dog elected to keep between his hide and Major that distance which lent enchantment to the view. When after one of these occasional joy-chases in the wake of a fleet-footed vagrant he would return panting, with his dripping tongue hanging out of one side of his mouth, and come up to me to get the usual pat of commendation on his back, he would sit down on his hunkers and in very human fashion laugh at the comical figure the scared fugitive had cut. And it was funny enough to make even a dog laugh; for few things are more ludicrous than precipitate flight, whether there be two or four legs in action. In my soldier days I took an active part in more than one cavalry stampede, in which for the time being my comrades and I parted company with our family pride, which is another name for courage. On these occasions, if on no other, I

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Illustration

"MAJOR" AND HIS PUPIL

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was inspired with the idea of leadership, and if the inspiration was of brief duration it was only because the horse I rode was not equal to the occasion. As one after another the rattled troopers passed me in the wild scramble toward safety I had ample opportunity to observe the earnestness which characterized each individual's effort to annihilate distance. Notwithstanding the increasing proximity of the pursuers, I registered the ludicrous features of the situation, and many a time since then, with bullets and sabres eliminated, I have laughed over these scenes.

        Somebody has said, or is said to have said, "All the world loves a lover," which is generally accepted as true. There is another saying that "Everybody sympathizes with the under dog." Elsewhere and in the abstract this may have been (or may be) true; but in our village it did not hold. When the bottom dog got on his feet, saw his chance, tucked his tail between his legs, and ran, every boy and man whose Christian mother or wife was not in hearing yelled at him in terms not found in the Westminster Confession, and added to the fugitive's intensity of purpose the quickening impulse of a stone or a brickbat.

        Naturally, Major became the pride of the village, his prowess the talk of the neighborhood; and I, his master, shone, albeit with reflected glory. We are all more or less influenced by environment and association, and little wonder it soon came into my mind that I among my kind must keep stride with my victorious dog. He expected it of me, and when on one memorable day I licked the bully of the playground, Major jumped all over me for joy. Victors on every field, Major and his master, like Alexander, sighed for more worlds.

        In a near-by settlement there was another fighting dog

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of local repute; and one summer's day when the circus came to town, the boy who owned him and his crowd walked in to see the sights, bringing with them the redoubtable pup. My chum and I were engaged in watching the busy showmen put up the big tent, when the other boys and their champion came on the scene. He was a magnificent specimen of his kind, brindle-colored, well muscled, noticeably longer in body and neck, and some two inches taller than Major. He was evidently game to the core, for he no sooner saw my pet than he bristled up, fixed his eyes intently upon him, and assumed that muscular tension peculiar to the wolf and cat tribes when about to spring. As he and they approached, the circus men, seeing that something exciting was in the air, quit work and with the crowd of loiterers attracted by the "Greatest Show on Earth" turned their attention to the battle-scene.

        I recall distinctly that sinking feeling which often comes over one in the first few moments of an impending crisis, the issue of which is doubtful. I put my hand encouragingly on my companion's neck, pulled his head against my leg, and said in a low tone, "Steady, Major." There must have been some quiver of the arm or tremor in the voice which betrayed my apprehension, for, while the other valiant knight was yet some thirty yards away, my champion turned his eyes reproachfully on mine with a look which said. "Watch me." I did watch him, and, to my surprise, for the first time in his life Major did not advance to meet the enemy. I knew later his keen intelligence had cautioned him that this was the heaviest contract he had ever undertaken, and that strategy and tactics as well as courage and strength would be needed to win. I did not know it then, and as the stranger boldly and deliberately advanced

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I almost sank to the earth with shame and mortification; for Major not only failed to meet him half-way, but stood there stock-still, seemingly not wanting to fight and wagging his tail in friendly fashion, as if he were about to greet a long-lost brother. So deceptive was this assumption of friendliness, or timidity, or cowardice, that the other crowd of boys began to jeer and yell at the top of their lungs, "School-butter!" "Chicken-liver!" "Soak him!" and a lot of other objectionable constructions of nouns, verbs, and adjectives of origin as unknown as they were insulting.

        It was just as this yell of exultation in anticipation of our discomfiture rose that the strategy of the master was disclosed. Unused to such a crowd and to such an unearthly noise, the invader turned his head for a moment toward his shouting mob of backers. This error sealed his doom; for in that instant, like a stone from a catapult, with lightning-like swiftness and with irresistible force, Major bounded forward, striking full-breasted against the side of the neck and shoulders of the longer dog, bowling him over and on his back. The stranger did not hit the ground before his cunning and savage foe had his throat and windpipe in the grip of a pair of jaws that never relaxed their hold until the bottom dog was half dead and hopelessly beaten, when we pulled the victor off. As Major shook himself and stood over his fallen foe in triumphant pose, ready to renew the attack, the crowd yelled and hurrahed again and again for him and me. Then we "town boys" laughed best, because we had laughed last.

        Major's star, ascendant from the day he entered the arena, reached its zenith in this month, when he was four years old and when Sirius was in its glory. From this on

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his story is briefly told, and I venture to apply to my faithful friend, tried and not found wanting, a quotation from Froude's Sketch of Cæsar:

Everything which grows holds in perfection but a single moment.

        When the days of the sere and yellow leaf came on for this, my Cæsar, the college days came on for me; and although I did not suspect it then, I bade a long and last good-by to the home of a happy boyhood and to my loved and faithful dog. From college I went into the Southern army until the end of the Civil War, and when peace came there was no home, and Major had long since gone to the undiscovered country. After I had left, one of the slaves, ambitious to maintain the prestige of the absent member, brought into the fold a puppy, scion of my village king, who schooled him as a fighter, alas! to his own undoing.

        As in the course of nature Major's muscles withered and his jaws became toothless his powerful and plucky son grew more and more resentful of the painful reprimands inflicted by his hectoring sire, and at last turned on him in mortal combat. I was told that when the servants pulled them apart the beaten but unconquered old warrior, staggering to his feet, tried in vain to renew the hopeless combat, and then, with head erect and lordly mien, passed for ever from the scene. A week later they found him dead in the edge of a forest near the town. Victory or death was the lesson that came from the spirit of this dumb creature. The savagery which he exhibited was his by nature, uncurbed and unchanged by the impossibility of a higher intelligence. That of his master, whose heart now in ripe old age, and long before he had reached the years of maturity, was filled with

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regret that even in the wild life of the frontier and in the riot of restless boyhood he could delight in these tests of animal courage and skill and strength, had less in extenuation. With all of this the moral of the lesson was not lost: "He who fights the battle of life to win or die, wins."

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VI
EARLY SCENES, RELIGIOUS AND OTHERWISE

        WHILE a large majority of our early settlers were sober and law-abiding, it was inevitable that some lawlessness should prevail in the formative period of a community such as this in which I grew to manhood. Disputed pre-emption claims and other conflicts of interest led to feuds between individuals and families, in the settlement of which personal prowess and the bowie-knife or rifle were too often appealed to instead of argument or arbitration or reason and law.

        In partial extenuation of these brutal combats it must be said that they usually were open fights without unfair advantage; in fact, in all the earlier bloody history of Marshall County I knew of but a single instance where one man shot and killed another from ambush. I witnessed a number of these affairs, as they often took place in the streets of my native village, where the county and district courts were held, and where from far and near the people came to political conventions, or to vote on election days, or to take part in the annual muster of the militia. During the afternoon of one election contest in which excitement ran high I saw a half-dozen different combats, while fully as many more, as I afterward learned, took place beyong my field of vision.

        The business center of our village was confined to a single street, on either side of which for some two hundred yards

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the stores and shops were located. One of these stores, with a roof that sloped away from the street, the comb or highest portion of which was parallel with the edge of the sidewalk, was a favorite rendezvous for our crowd of boys, who never willingly missed those exciting scenes. Upon one pretext or another we would manage to get away from home and climb to our gallery on Kinzler's grocery. This point of vantage not only gave us a commanding view of the street, but it possessed another attractive feature, for we could peep over the edge and see all that was going on with nothing but our eyes and the tops of our heads in danger. Whenever a gun was pointed our way, or a badly aimed stone or stick flew too high, we had only to slide back a few inches and duck our heads to be safe until the gun went of or the missile had passed on. The casualties on one occasion included one man killed and a large number laid up for repairs.

        Another personal encounter that came under my observation was a fight between two men, for each of whom even as a small boy I had formed a warm friendship. Passing along the sidewalk on an errand to my father's office, I came upon my two friends in excited conversation standing on a platform or open porch which served as entrance to a candyshop where I was a frequent visitor. As I stood within a few feet of them the proprietor of the shop, a very small but wiry man, stepped back quickly, drew a single-barreled pistol from his pocket, and pointed it at the other larger man, saying, "If you take a step toward me I'll kill you." The big man did not advance. He said, "I am unarmed; but if you'll wait I'll be right back, and we'll settle it." With this he hurried across the street to a dry-goods store and asked the merchant for the loan of a pistol, which was

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refused. He then picked up an ax, which he held in his right hand. With the other he seized the top of a wooden packing-box, and holding this in front of his chest and abdomen as a Kaffir would hold his pavise, or rawhide shield, to ward off a thrust from an assagai, he walked straight toward his adversary.

        Meanwhile the small man was standing at the edge of the platform, pistol in hand, and pointing now directly at the big miller, who was advancing at a fast walk. The one thing which made the most vivid impression on my mind of what happened here was the self-cocking feature of the pistol. As the man pulled the trigger I saw distinctly the hammer rise just before the flash and noise of the explosion. I had never before seen a "self-cocker." My big friend interposed the box-top, through which the bullet passed before it buried itself in the muscles of his broad chest, where it remained many years, to the day of his death. As it struck him he staggered back with the ax slightly raised, whereupon the other fighter hit him a stunning blow with the heavy barrel of the empty pistol. By this time some other men had come up and separated the combatants.

        This pioneer settlement was about as active and violent in matters of religion as in the occasional settlement "outside the law" of personal differences. Of the various sects the Baptists and the Methodists were about equally divided--these two outnumbering all the rest. I do not think there was a single Catholic in our community, and only one family of Episcopalians, while our immediate family furnished the Presbyterian contingent.

        When my father founded the present village of Guntersville he gave a spacious lot to each sect, to be deeded

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when a house of worship was erected; but up to the breaking out of the Civil War, in 1861, there was not a single church edifice in the town. The school-house, the courthouse, and later the large Masonic Hall were used for Sunday services. Our preachers were all "circuit riders," and occupied the pulpit in turn, all the sects attending to swell the congregation. There was Sunday-school from ten to eleven o'clock in the morning, preaching from eleven to twelve, and again by candlelight, to which each family contributed a candle and a sconce, or holder, which was fastened to the wall.

        The Baptists were spoken of as the "Hardshell" and "Foot-washing" sects, and were believers in total immersion; and the congregations of this particular church celebrated once or twice a year the ceremony of foot-washing. The creeks or the Tennessee River furnished holes deep enough for immersion, which usually took place in warm weather, while a piggin of water and a towel served the parson or assistants who performed the foot-washing rite.

        At certain times, usually in the late summer months, in the periods of comparative leisure in a farming community after the crops were "laid by" and before "gathering-time," would be held what were called "protracted meetings" or "revivals." When the attendance proved too large for the meeting-house the congregation would move out under the shade-trees; or more frequently great arbors made of the branches of thick-leaved trees would be hastily constructed. The negroes spoke of these as "Bresh-Harbor" revivals.

        The "circuit-riders," so called because they were designated to preach in a circuit of several counties, traveled their rounds on horseback, as the roads were new, ill kept, and often impassable to any kind of vehicle except the

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crude, heavy wagons drawn by oxen. At these protracted gatherings the exercises lasted three or four days, and when the excitement ran high a longer time was utilized until the supply of "mourners" and "converts" was exhausted.

        The assistants to the leading clergymen were known as "exhorters," selected, it seemed to me, on account of their cleverness in appealing to the emotional qualities of their hearers. Most of them had good voices, and at certain periods in their exhortations to all who had not been converted to come up to the mourners' bench, confess their sins, and be saved, they would at the psychological moment break forth in some one of the many revival songs which rarely failed to fire the train of religious fervor or hysteria which the preacher's sermon and his own preliminary exhortation had prepared for explosion.

        Of one of these songs I recall a verse or two:


                         Jesus my all to heaven is gone;
                         Glory halleluiah!
                         Him whom I fix my hopes upon;
                         Glory halleluiah!


                         His track I see and I'll pursue;
                         Glory halleluiah!
                         If you get there before I do,
                         Tell all my friends I'm coming, too;
                         Glory halleluiah!

        And so on for a number of stanzas. When the song began he would leave the place in front of the pulpit, where he had been standing, and rush along the aisles, shaking hands vigorously right and left with all in reach, and calling them by name as "my brother" or "my sister"--there being as a rule about three sisters to one brother. There was a very large lady in our village easily moved to tears

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and hysterical sobbing, who usually gave way first and, like Abou ben Adhem, led all the rest. By the time the sermon was over she was about ready for the outburst, and when the exhorter broke loose with his "Glory halleluiah" song she would clap her hands violently together with a resounding smack, sway her body back and forth, and scream out at the top of her high-pitched voice: "Bless the Lord! Bless the Lord! Oh, my Jesus!" And with this she would follow on the trail of the exhorter, crying out to her two sons, about eighteen and twenty-two respectively, to "Come to Jesus." These young men, knowing their mother's weakness, found it convenient to sit near the door or an open window, through which a quick exit was possible when she began a rush for them.

        I remember on one occasion one of the boys reached the door and escaped, and the dear old lady cut the other off from that exit only to see him leap through a window at least six feet from the ground. With twenty or thirty mourners kneeling before the parallelogram of benches arranged for them just in front of the pulpit, many of these sobbing, the exhorters singing and shaking hands in and out among the congregation, and a half-dozen hysterical women shouting as loud as they could scream, confusion reigned. There was one young man whose fondness for alcohol caused him to fall from grace with recurring regularity, and his way of restoring himself to divine favor was to confess his errors at these revivals and ask to be taken back in the fold. He immortalized himself with the smaller boys in our neighborhood by breaking out on one occasion in an ecstasy of song which, as far as I knew, was entirely original. As the exhorter was on his rounds, Jasper leaped from his seat, grasped him by both hands, and, jumping up and down, not

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unlike the movements of a turkey-gobbler in the early spring chanted:


                         The devil is dead, and I am glad;
                         Glory halleluiah!
                         He ain't got the soul he thought he had;
                         Glory halleluiah!

        My parents, being Presbyterians, did not wholly approve of these excitable religious demonstrations, and I did not attend as many as I should have liked. Their minister, who always stayed at our house, did not reach us in his circuit oftener than once in four or five weeks, and the intervening Sundays I spent in familiarizing myself with the Westminster Confession of Faith, the religious section of the New York Observer, and Alexander's Sermons, one of which I was called upon to stand up before the family and read aloud. How long each one of these effusions of the good old Princeton theologian seemed! Visiting in 1913, in one of the private rooms of the Polyclinic Hospital, a grandson of their author, himself eminent in the affairs of the metropolis, I was answered with a smile when I told him I rejoiced at last to have an opportunity of taking revenge on the family for the wrongs I had suffered at the hands of his grandfather.

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VII
THE ARISTOCRACY OF THE OLD SOUTH

        IT would be difficult to imagine a society more cultured, hospitable, and delightful, more in harmony with that definition of gentlefolk as "those whose rule of conduct is consideration for others," than that to which, thanks to my mother, I found admission in the community of Huntsville in the days of the old régime. This may savor of exaggeration or prejudice, or perhaps of conceit; but in the larger view which has come from reading and travel, and an association of more than forty years with many of the noblest and best of the metropolis, nothing like it has come to my knowledge. Such a society was possible only with the institution of slavery; and when slavery ended it ended never again to be reproduced. The people composing this society were almost wholly descended from the cavaliers of Virginia, many of the earlier settlers coming directly from the tide-water section of the Old Dominion; others indirectly, from Kentucky and Tennessee and North Carolina--countries which were stocked by the Virginia overflow.

        In the spirit of adventure, and with the wealth in slaves inherited from their fathers, these hardy scions of a noble race passed over the mountains, pre-empted the rich valley of the Tennessee, and established there a New Virginia. Twelve miles north of the Tennessee River, in the upper

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reaches of a rich agricultural section, where the spurs of the Appalachian range begin to hem it in from the north, at the base of a picturesque limestone cliff, there gushes from the earth a spring of crystal water. It is of such volume and force that it sets in motion the powerful machinery which carries unlimited luxury into every home. Upon the summit of the bluff which overlooks this marvelous spring and the far-reaching valley through which the silvery stream flows toward the great river, one of those restless pioneers, John Hunt by name, built his cabin of cedar logs in 1806 and claimed the region roundabout. There was no Alabama then-- only Indians and wilderness. The area which now forms the states of Alabama and Mississippi was ceded in 1802 by Georgia to the United States. The fact that the Cherokee Indians had lived there from time beyond the memory of man and still claimed the land did not matter to John Hunt. He was friendly with the aborigines, and sent his Calebs and Joshuas back to civilization to spread the news of the rich Canaan, and others just as hardy and just as hungry for land joined him. The discreet Cherokees, children of the great Sequoyah, wisest of all the Indian tribes, realizing that the better part of valor was discretion, and seeing that the white man was surely crowding him out, ceded in 1819, for a price, all their claims north of the Tennessee River, and in the same year Congress made of Alabama a sovereign state.

        Huntsville had not waited for this. Indians or no Indians, it was a town already, having incorporated itself in 1811; and in 1812, the year that our second war began with England, when Napoleon's Grand Army was freezing to death in Russia, and one year before the great Tecumseh passed along the Creek Path in sight of these settlers' log

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defenses and made those speeches which stirred the red men to the massacre of Fort Mims and to other bloody deeds, Huntsville was publishing The Madison Gazette, the first newspaper printed within the limits of the present state.

        The first sessions of the legislature were held here, and but for its location in the extreme northern end of the state it would without doubt have been the permanent capital. It remained, however, the political capital and the social and commercial center of one of the most enterprising and productive agricultural communities in the New World. For more than a hundred miles in all directions the rich owners of vast estates whose work was done by slaves, and the humbler settlers who came in covered wagons and cleared their small farms and tilled them with their own hands, everybody, except the outlaws and the rowdies, who haunted the wilderness for refuge, made of Huntsville even in these earlier days the Mecca toward which all eyes were turned. The wealthier people built their homes and churches here, established in 1812 the famous Greene Academy, a college-preparatory school, whence to La Grange College, or Henry and Emory, or William and Mary, or the University of Virginia, or Princeton, or elsewhere in the then far-away world their sons went for their finishing studies. The Huntsville Seminary (Presbyterian), where my mother and her daughters were educated, and the equally famous and popular Female College (Methodist), were other institutions of learning which won for this beautiful city the well-deserved name of the "Athens of the South." The country was so new, the atmosphere and environment so inspiring to endeavor, that, instead of yielding to the softening influences of wealth and the luxury which the institution of slavery implied, the men of this period turned their attention to

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active pursuits, to the excitement of politics, to manufacturing and commercial enterprises, and to public improvements. Theirs was the first cotton factory in the state, and probably in the far South, established in 1832, the machinery being run by the water-power of Flint River. The magnificent macadamized roads, which stand to-day as models of highway construction, were built by them while yet the crack of the Indian's rifle was heard in the near-by brakes.

        In this delightful society, through years of peace and prosperity and happiness, my mother had lived from infancy to the fullness of a noble womanhood; hither came Louis Wyeth, a young lawyer, just turned of twenty-seven, and already appointed by the state legislature judge of the new county of Marshall, carved out of the Cherokee country, and lately opened for settlement. Thence went this man and woman, whom God had joined and nothing but death could part, to their new home in the wild and sparsely settled region to the south, from which as yet the Indians had not wholly departed. John Allan, her father, had graduated from the University of Georgia in 1807. In addition to the Greek and Latin classics; he had mastered the French language, and, supplementing his college course with another in theology, he made himself familiar with Hebrew literature. Having been admitted to the ministry, and having married the daughter of a soldier, who in recognition of his services in the war for independence had been granted a rich estate in the blue-grass region of Tennessee, he accepted the call to the Presbyterian church in Huntsville. From the pulpit, and in his professorship of the classics in the Greene Academy, he became a power for good, and died at his post, universally beloved and lamented.

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        Naturally, the home of such a family as his became a center of the refinement and culture of the community, a rallying-point of the remarkable group of men and women, many of whom as they grew to maturity found high places in the esteem of mankind and later wrote their names in history. First of all, as the memory of these earlier days flashes through my mind, there comes a woman, the girlhood and lifelong friend of my mother, Virginia Tunstall, descended as were almost all of them from the cavaliers; later to be more widely known as the brilliant leader of society at the national capital in the decade that preceded the tragedy of 1861-65, as the wife of Senator Clement C. Clay, Jr. The story of that unique period is known to all readers of our native literature in a most fascinating book by Mrs. Clay, A Belle of the Fifties. Still holding, in 1914, the sway she could not relinquish if she would, the sole survivor of the brilliant throng of whom I write, one can fitly apply to her that unsurpassed compliment of Shakespeare to womanhood:


                         Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
                         Her infinite variety.

        The Clays all came from Virginia. The famous orator was from Ashland, near Richmond, and I have always felt a touch of pride that my kinsman, George Wythe, discovered Henry Clay, educated him, and trained him in the law. Clement C. Clay, the elder, from Halifax, in the Old Dominion, came to Huntsville in 1811, served many terms in the legislature, and was governor and United States Senator. Clement C. Clay, Jr., his son, "to the manner born and native hero" with his university degree, succeeded his father in the United States Senate, and was the first

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Senator elected from Alabama to the Southern Confederacy. His history, even down to the long and wearisome and unjust persecution of imprisonment in Fortress Monroe, is known to all. The record stands without a stain. And here Jere Clemens, lawyer, legislator, soldier of the Mexican War, Senator of the United States, and, beyond all such ordinary distinction to my youthful mind, author of Bernard Lile, Mustang Gray, and The Rivals; or, the Days of Burr and Hamilton. How many a tallow candle that I helped my mother mold have I seen melt away as I read and reread these "romances, couched in gorgeous diction and abounding in thrilling episode," when I should have been absorbed in the brain-racking exercises of algebra or geometry! A college man of La Grange and the State University, handsome of feature and proud of carriage, no wonder the maidens of the land fell victims to his charms. Virginia Tunstall was not alone in the list of young girls whose hearts beat faster at first sight of this "Romeo of Madison County."

        Let her tell it in her own inimitable way:1

        "It was to my Uncle Tom that I owe the one love sorrow of my life. It was an affair of the greatest intensity while it endured, and was attended by the utmost anguish for some twelve or fourteen hours. During that space of time I endured all the hopes and fears, the yearnings and despairs, to which the human heart is victim. I was nearing the age of fifteen when my uncle one evening bade me put on my prettiest frock and accompany him to the home of a friend, where a dance was to be given. I was dressed with all the alacrity my old mammy was capable of summoning, and was soon ensconced in the carriage and on my way to
1 A Belle of the Fifties, Doubleday, Page& Co., 1904.

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the hospitable scene. En route we stopped at the hotel, where my uncle alighted, reappearing in a moment with a very handsome young man, who entered the carriage with him and drove with us to the house where he, too, was to be a guest.

        "Never had my eyes beheld so pleasing a masculine wonder! He was the personification of manly beauty! His head was shapely as Tasso's (in after life I often heard the comparison made), and in his eyes there burned a romantic fire that enslaved me from the moment their gaze rested upon me. At their warmth all the ardor, all the ideals upon which a romantic heart had fed, rose in recognition of their realization in him. During the evening he paid me some pretty compliments, remarking upon my hazel eyes and the gleam of gold in my hair, and he touched my curls admiringly, as if they were revered by him.

        "My head swam! Lohengrin never dazzled Elsa more completely than did this knight of the poet's head charm the maiden that was I. We danced together frequently throughout the evening, and my hero rendered me every attention a kind man may offer to the little daughter of a valued friend. When at last we stepped into the carriage and turned homeward the whole world was changed for me.

        "My first apprehension of approaching sorrow came as we neared the hotel. To my surprise, the knight was willing, nay, desired to be set down there. A dark suspicion crept into my mind that perhaps, after all, my hero might be less gallant than I had supposed, else why did he not seek this opportunity of riding home with me? If this wonderful emotion that possessed me also had actuated him--and how could I doubt it after his devotion throughout

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the evening?--how could he bear to part from me in this way without a single word or look of tenderness?

        "As the door closed behind him I leaned back in the darkest corner of the carriage and thought hard, though not hardly, of him. After a little my uncle roused me by saying, 'Did my little daughter enjoy this evening?' I responded enthusiastically.

        " 'And was I not kind to provide you with such a gallant cavalier? Isn't Colonel Jere Clemens a handsome man?'

        "Ah, was he not? My full heart sang out his praises with an unmistakable note. My uncle listened sympathetically; then he continued, 'Yes; he's a fine fellow, Virginia, and he has a nice little wife and baby.'

        "No thunderbolt ever fell more crushingly upon the unsuspecting than did these awful words from the lips of my uncle. I know not how I reached my room, but, once there, I wept passionately throughout the night and much of the following morning. Within my own heart I accused my erstwhile hero of the rankest perfidy, of villainy of every imaginable quality; and in this recoil of injured pride perished my first love dream, vanished the heroic wrappings of my quondam knight!"


        With all his charm of manner and handsome face, this gifted man fell short of his opportunities. The judgment of Jacob upon his first-born son might well apply to him! "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." Although a member of the Secession Convention, signing the ordinance which carried his native state into the Southern Confederacy, and accepting the chief command of all the Alabama forces when hostilities were declared, he resigned later, and when the armies of the North occupied Huntsville he went

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over, "foot, baggage, and artillery," to those making savage war upon the people among whom he was born and reared and to whom he owed the distinction that had been accorded to him. His kinsman, Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), joined the Confederate cavalry as a lieutenant, and deserted, as did Henry M. Stanley, the noted explorer.

        From Virginia also came John W. Walker, a Princeton graduate, and the first United States Senator from Alabama, and his two sons, Richard and Pope, born in Huntsville and schooled at Greene Academy and at the University of Virginia and at Princeton; the former a Confederate State Senator, the latter the first Secretary of War in the Confederate cabinet. Gabriel Moore, lawyer, governor, Congressman, United States Senator, and James G. Birney were Huntsville men. The latter, with my mother's father, John Allan, organized the first "Society for the Emancipation of Slavery" in Alabama, published a newspaper founded to advocate the cause of abolition, and was the nominee on this ticket in 1840, and again in 1844, for the Presidency of the United States.

        Also came hither Reuben Chapman, of Caroline County, Virginia, lawyer, legislator, governor, and Congressman. I remember my father reading to me a letter from this famous politician, asking his advice as to whether or not he could safely vote for an appropriation then before Congress for a certain sum of money to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington City to Baltimore. My father advised him to vote for it by all means, but added, "You need not hope to be re-elected if you do."

        Dr. Henry Chambers, from the Old Dominion, the only member of the medical profession ever elected to the Senate of the United States from Alabama, was a practising physician

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here. James White McClung, the brilliant and dissipated orator; William Smith, who was offered and declined an associate-justiceship in the Supreme Court of the United States; Silas Parsons, of the state Supreme Court; Colonel Robert and Dr. Thomas L. Fearn, the Erskines, Mastins, Popes, Coles, Brandons, Facklers, Donegans, Lanes, Acklens, Garths, Irbys, Russells, Newmans, Mathewses, Leftwicks, Calhouns, Phelans, Beirnes, Hales, Weedons, and Pattons, and many others were of this extraordinary community of pioneers in which my parents moved. The list would not be complete did I not mention Robert C. Brickell, the famous chief justice of the state Supreme Court, and his associate in law, Septimus D. Cabaniss; also Peter M. Dox and Wm. M. Lowe, members of Congress, each of whom was bound to my father by the ties of personal friendship.

        Into this community I made my first entrance when I was nine years old. I had learned the story of Aladdin, and now I felt as if his lamp was mine. Born in a log cabin and reared in the country of the Cherokees, as yet little more than a wilderness, I knew nothing of the outer world except what I had gathered from conversation with my parents. The sun which rose over the high mountains an hour's walk from our home, and went down behind the range which shut in our beautiful valley on the west, measured the limits of my horizon. The near-by hills and valleys and streams and woods made up my world. I knew the trees in the forests and the animals and birds, wild and tame, before I knew the names of the human beings coming in ever-increasing numbers into the newly opened territory.

        My father made frequent journeys away on errands connected with his law practice, and every year my mother made a visit of a few weeks to her old home and girlhood friends

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in Huntsville, and this time I was to go with her. We took the steamboat Lookout, which puffed and whistled and churned the water into huge waves that went surging from underneath the great stern wheel, which turned over so fast and made such a mighty splashing. Captain Matt Todd, whose boat it was, took me on the roof--he called it the "hurricane-deck"--and held me as I leaned over to watch the water fly from the strokes of the paddles, or "buckets," and then into the pilot-house, where the man at a smaller wheel turned it one way and then another, always busy and watchful, as our boat plowed between great rocks that we could see down below the surface, or sunken logs or "sawyers" (loose, half-submerged logs), or swept around a bend in the beautiful river. Great cliffs of stone, with cedars clinging to the fissures in the rock, rose up on one or the other side so high at times I wondered if anybody ever climbed to the top.

        On we went, by great plantations of corn and cotton; and every now and then the deafening whistle blew, and the big bell rang, and the noisy wheel stopped as we swung around bow up-stream and tied to the bank to take on or put off travelers and freight. At the mouth of Flint River, where the shoals were bad, the good Lookout went aground, and a great rope hawser had to be taken ashore and fastened by one end to a big tree while the other was wound around the capstan until our boat was pulled back into the channel.

        From Whitesburg Landing we drove the twelve miles to Huntsville in a stage-coach. The road was so wide and white and hard I wondered if it was the same kind of earth we were used to. No dust, no stumps for the wheels to bump over, no loose rocks, and no mud-holes. Then my mother told me of a Mr. McAdam, who taught people how

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to build good roads of crushed stone, and how "her people" had learned to do this long ago. Near sundown we climbed a high hill, and from the top of this I saw ever so many houses clustered together, and one with a great round dome high above the others, and farther on a steeple even higher still. They told me one was the court-house and the other, my mother said, was her father's church. We had no court-house where we lived, and up to this moment I had never seen a church. There were preachers at times in Marshall, "circuit-riders" who came to our village every once in a while, usually on horseback, with their sermons and belongings in a pair of saddle-bags, preached and held "revivals" in our log school-house, and in summer-time under brush arbors.

        Somewhere, in a street with great houses stretching away on both sides as far as I could see, our stage stopped, and we got out. I remember the high iron fence, and the gate that opened into the park-like yard, and the smoothly mown blue grass, and ever so many shade-trees on either side of the long brick walk which led up to the mansion. The servants took our luggage, and Colonel Fearn and his dear wife came out to welcome my mother. They called her by her school-girl name, and she spoke to them as "Robert" and "Mary," for they had grown up together. Even Caledonia, the seamstress, who had been lady's-maid to her young mistress in their younger days, courtesied and took my mother's hand as she said, "Howdy, Miss Phemie." I wondered why Carter (I can't spell it as Colonel Fearn pronounced it, for he had the tide-water accent), the butler, wore a red waistcoat and a blue coat with shiny brass buttons; and I was told that was his livery. The wide front portico was nearly as large as all of our little house at

Page 48a

Illustration

A HUNTSVILLE MANSION OF THE EARLY DAYS

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home, and the great white columns went up two stories to the roof; and inside there was a maze of rooms and winding stairs and strange, old-fashioned furniture--bureaus and tables, and beds with long posts which reached to near the ceiling, and had tops or testers, with curtains on the sides. How strange it all was, and a lonesome feeling came over me, and I wanted to go back home!

        I remember vividly that when we went to the supper-table I saw for the first time a silver fork, and it felt so awkward as I tried to eat with it that I boldly asked Colonel Fearn if I couldn't have "a sure-enough fork instead of a split-spoon." He laughed louder than I thought he ought to as he said: "Carter, go to the kitchen and bring that child another fork."

        Another great surprise was in store for me when I discovered up in our room that there were pipes which carried cold and hot water, and that we didn't have to go to the spring with a bucket and bring it in by hand. I learned later that there were hydrants on the corners of all the streets, and I soon learned that by pushing down on the handle and slipping a pebble above it I could keep the clear stream flowing until the gutter was as full as the spring branch at home; and one day a rude policeman took the pebble out and stopped the water from wasting, with a threat to arrest me if I did it again. But the greatest surprise was in store for me when I saw what I was told was gas-light; no wick or candle or lamp, just light; and there was nothing to do but to turn a brass key and strike a match. What a wonderful new world all this was to a boy of nine years who had never before been out of sight of his home in the backwoods!

        I shall never forget those Huntsville gardens and the

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beautiful flowers. These we had at our home; for mother watched and cared for her rose-bushes and flower-beds with her own hand, and, as I was always with her, I had learned their names; but here the grounds were very large, and this garden was laid out like a big Chinese puzzle. There were tiny paths that led in all directions, with dense rows of box along the edges, and the beds were grouped in all sorts of fantastic shapes, and down at one end stood a small house all of glass windows where they put things away in cold weather to keep the frost from killing them. Farther away was the vegetable garden, for there were no market-houses in those early days, and every home provided for itself; and back of this, opening on an alleyway which cut the block in two, were the spacious stables for the milk-cows, horses, and carriages.

        As we entered the church the next Sunday morning I found myself in the largest room I had ever been in, with row after row of benches--enough, it seemed to me then, to seat all the people in Marshall County. On the high wall at the end where the preacher stood was a tablet, and in big letters was written my grandfather's name, and when he was installed as pastor, and the date of his death. When the minister said the prayer I started to kneel down as we did when my father had family prayers at home, but here they all stood up to pray. What was just as strange as this was the way he gave out the hymn, which he read verse after verse all through before any one began to sing. At our "meetings" the preacher alone had a hymn-book, and he gave out only two lines at a time, which was as much as he thought the congregation could remember, and then when they had sung these he would go on with more until the whole hymn was finished.

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        When the Huntsville minister read the last verse, a half-dozen young people stood up over in the corner of the church, and as they began to sing there sounded with their voices the soft, low tones of some--to me--strange instrument (the organ), and such heavenly harmonies as I had never dreamed were in the world. No wonder my mother loved to come to Huntsville, and no wonder I looked forward after this first visit to the many I was to make, and did make, in the years which followed, until I felt at home, and knew by face and name all of these delightful people, the like of whom I shall not look upon again.

        Their "literary circles," the yearly "college commencements" in which they took such justifiable pride, and, above all, as I grew older and better able to appreciate them, the great political debates in which the foremost men of that period figured in the tournaments of oratory, were among the great attractions to this exceptional community. It was here, in 1859 or 1860, in the shade of a beautiful grove of oaks, where thousands of people were gathered, I sat for four hours and had no thought of the lapse of time as I listened to the fiery argument in favor of secession by William L. Yancey, then famous as one of the greatest political orators of our country.

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VIII
THE NEGRO AND SLAVERY IN THE OLD SOUTH

        THE negro of the South in the days of slavery so little resembles the "colored citizens" of half a century later that we of the earlier period scarcely recognize in him the descendant of those of his race with whom we were once so happily associated. The charm of manner, the pride of family--the "quality," as they so aptly termed it--the sentiment of loyalty, affection, and trust which characterized the relation between these faithful, patient, submissive, and happy creatures and the "white folks" in the "big house" is now only a memory.

        For nearly two hundred miles the fertile valley of the Tennessee, in which I was born and grew to manhood, was a succession of plantations tilled almost wholly by slaves. On some of these the owner lived and superintended in person the laborers, while on others an overseer took charge for the master, whose home was in some center of culture, usually where there were schools or colleges which the children attended.

        As child and boy I played and romped with the younger negroes belonging to my parents and neighbors; visited the various plantations, and knew intimately scores of this race living under the various conditions of slavery; and I know that with very rare exceptions the negroes were treated with great kindness and consideration. They were well

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fed, housed, and clothed, and when ill had the best available medical attendance. Had human sympathy been entirely absent, the protection of valuable property would for selfish reasons have assured this fostering care. They were happy and contented, and proved their gratitude by an affectionate loyalty and an efficient and profitable service. To my mind, in no other way can there be explained that wonderful exhibition of devotion in those millions of slaves toiling away on the home plantations during the four years of the war which their absent owners were waging for their continued enslavement. And this notwithstanding the knowledge which was general among them that the success of the Federal army meant for them freedom!

        As there were no white domestic servants in the South and no freed negroes in Alabama, since the law required that all emancipated slaves should be transported to a free state or exported to Liberia, my parents, both of whom favored emancipation, bought for house service two families of negroes, each consisting of the father and the mother and their children, some twelve or fifteen in all. They were as near being members of the family as was possible in the kindly relation of master and mistress and slave. When "Mack," our majordomo, was taken seriously ill, a room was given him, not in his own comfortable house, but in our residence, where we thought he could be more carefully watched. His wife, a woman of fine character, was a second mother to us as children. We called her "Mammy," and when our own mother was not at hand we knew to whom to look for our needs.

        When in later unhappy years the war came on and I was about to mount my horse and ride away to take my place in the ranks, and said good-by to my mother and my father,

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I knew that back in the kitchen this devoted black woman was waiting for me to come to have her blessing; and there, with her arms around "the boy she had brought up"--for I was not yet eighteen years old--I had the only "crying-spell" of the parting scene. I said, "Mammy, the chances are you won't see me again, and I know you will take good care of all the folks at home." She said she would; and she was true to her word, even refusing, as did all of our slaves, to go away when the Union army occupied our section and offered them their freedom from bondage.

        It was my father's custom to have family prayers, and the negro children were required to be present, the only distinction being that we sat on chairs and they had stools or small ottomans. Physical punishment was unknown except when the parents switched their own children for cause. I cannot imagine a more mutually satisfactory arrangement than such servitude under such humane conditions. There was a very great deal of this sort of relationship in our section, and, as I believe, throughout the entire South. There was another side to the picture, however; for the system did allow of cruelty and inhumanity, and, though this was very rare, it could and did exist at times, and it was the knowledge of this fact that made so many of the best people of the South emancipationists.

        The number of slaves belonging to a single plantation varied in our section from ten to twenty-five or fifty, rarely exceeding one hundred. While I knew personally every slave-owner in our county and a great many of the slaves, it so happened that I spent more time and became more intimately acquainted with the management of the establishments belonging to my cousin, Mr. James A. Boyd, in Madison County, where I frequently visited, remaining for

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weeks at a time, and that of Dr. Sydney Harris, a retired physician who lived on and managed his own plantation near our village. His residence--known in plantation parlance as "the big house" or "the white-folks' house"--made of smoothly hewn logs with chinking filling the interstices, all painted in white, with large halls and passageways, stood on a slight elevation or hillock, surrounded by a grove of oak and hickory trees, which almost hid it from view as one approached through the half-mile of open road which led from the front gate through the fields of cotton, corn, and grain.

        Beginning some seventy-five yards to the rear in the same grove, and arranged in two parallel rows, each with its spacious yard and vegetable garden, were ranged a dozen or more comfortable whitewashed log cabins of different sizes to accommodate the various families of slaves. Still farther back were the stables and the barns, the gin-house, the cotton-press, and the fields for pasturage. It was the duty of the head-man, the most trusted and capable of the slaves, to be up early to see that the work-animals were properly fed and curried; and at daybreak the horn blew, calling all hands to breakfast. By sunrise the plows and hoes were going, and kept busy until twelve noon, when a blast from the horn sounded the hour of rest and dinner; then back to the fields till sundown.

        There was no white overseer or slave-driver on this place. One of the negroes was in charge to see that each did his duty. On rainy days there was plenty of indoor employment, such as spinning and weaving, making or mending harness and shoes and repairing the wagons, for every big plantation had its blacksmith and carpenter shop, ran spinning-wheels and looms, and made most of its clothing. When

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the crops had been gathered, the winter supply of wood was cut and hauled in; and the thousand and one odds and ends of keeping a great estate in order and in getting ready for the next crop were attended to. The physical and moral welfare of these slaves was carefully looked after by the good doctor and his gentle and cultured wife.

        After the work of the day was over, the negroes were required to remain on the place, and usually from fatigue and the necessity of rising early they were in bed an hour after dark. On Saturday nights singing and dancing were permitted in the cabins, and, by special permission in writing, visits could be made to neighboring plantations. The constable of each township or "beat" was the official patrol, and had authority to punish by arrest and whipping any negro slave found "after an hour by sun" away from his home without a written and signed "pass and repass." The form was: "Pass the bearer to and from the plantation named between eight and twelve o'clock to-night." (Dated and signed by the owner.)

        This precaution was taken to prevent vagrancy, to keep the laborers in good condition for work, and to guard against the possibility of conspiracy and insurrection. While the relations between the white people of the Tennessee Valley and the negroes were in every respect, as far as I was able to judge, kindly and mutually trustful, the Southern people had learned from the occasional outbreaks, and especially from the midnight massacre of women and children in the Southampton uprising in 1831, that watchfulness was as essential a guarantee of safety as kindliness.1


1 Nat Turner, the instigator and leader of the Southampton massacres, was the trusted head-man and overseer of his owner. The kindly relations of owner and slave were exemplified in his case. On the day of the night when he began his murders he feigned illness, and the lady to whom he belonged cooked and carried to his cabin the food she thought would be best for a sick man. He repaid these kindly acts by slipping into their room at dead of night and knocking her husband and herself in the head with hatchet or ax and braining her baby against the fireplace. Details of this insurrection will be given in the chapter devoted to the movement for the abolition of slavery and the Harper's Ferry attempt at servile insurrection.
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        The negroes of our section were so well behaved that punishment of any kind was almost unknown. I never heard of a negro being whipped by the patrol in our county, and knew of but a single instance where a rawhide was used in chastisement. A negro man who had done some injury to another received thirty-nine lashes on his naked back from the constable of our town, under an order of the court. With the enterprising curiosity of a boy, I climbed the jail-yard fence and witnessed this performance. The first half-dozen lashes were severe enough to cause the unhappy victim to cry out, and after that only the form of the law was carried out.

        It was on the occasion of one of my earlier visits to the plantation of my cousin, Mr. James A. Boyd, in Madison County, that I first witnessed a "corn-shucking." In gathering the corn the ears were pulled from the stalks and piled in pens near the cribs. The negroes on one plantation were privileged to invite those of other places near by to come at dark on Saturday night. A bonfire was built at a safe distance, by the light of which the men and the women ranged themselves around the corn-piles and began to strip the shuck, or husk, from the ear, to the cadence of their African chants and weirdly melodious singing. One of the number, by reason of his greater accomplishments, took the part of leader, and from the top of the heap sang out or chanted a line of a verse often improvised. When he

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ceased, the chorus of from fifty to one hundred voices would take up the refrain and carry it in a strange and varying cadence of sounds without words, which typified joy or sorrow, or an emotion in full sympathy with the sentiment expressed by the leader.

        I can recall only a few of these lines, and wish I could transcribe the music. For instance, the leader would sing "I'm gwine away to leave you," and, as this was suggestive of the sadness of parting, the chorus would begin in a low moan, which, rising and falling, would for a minute or two be carried to the fullest tone, and then die away so gradually one could scarcely say just when it ceased. Then the leader would chant in tones a little less tinged with sadness: "I'm gwine to de happy islands!" And, as this suggested the consummation of a dream of rest, the chanting of the chorus was more cheeringly rendered.

        On these occasions extraordinary liberties were permissible, and not infrequently, as the white people of the premises were listening, the bold leader would by suggestion open the way for a holiday, or a barbecue, or a dance, or extra Christmas vacation, when they visited relatives and friends on other plantations. For example:


                         Marster an' Mistus lookin' mighty fine--
                         Gwine to take a journey; gwine whar day gwine;
                         Crab-grass a-dyin', red sun in de west--
                         Saturday's comin', nigger gwine to rest.

        And much more in this happy vein. Meanwhile everyone was busy stripping corn, throwing the ears into the winter crib and packing the shucks in the rail pens. It took usually about three hours for the many hands to strip all the corn raised on the place, and then there was a

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supper with all sorts of home-made edibles, especially pumpkin pies, sweet cakes, and persimmon beer, a refreshing, unfermented beverage which the negroes made from this fruit.

        Among the articles of diet peculiar to the negroes on the great plantations were the "ash-cake," the "hoe-cake," and the "Johnny-cake." The two first named were made of corn-meal dough. For hoe-cake the dough was spread or "patted" thin on the smooth surface of a hoe and held close to the fire until it was cooked brown. The other was wrapped in corn-shucks, leaves, or brown-paper, and buried under the hot ashes and embers until it was well baked or roasted. The Johnny-cake was made of wheat-flour dough, with "shortenin' " (some form of grease or fat) in it; and this, as with the hoe-cake, was spread thin on a hickory or an ash board and baked before the coals. Many a time I have shared these--to me then--delicious breads with my friends and playmates of another race.

        The real fun began with the dancing. The banjo and the fiddle made up the orchestra, and there were accompanists who "patted" with the hands, keeping accurate time with the music. In patting, the position was usually a half-stoop or forward bend, with a slap of one hand on the left knee followed by the same stroke and noise on the right, and then a loud slap of the two palms together. I should add that the left hand made two strokes in half-time to one for the right, something after the double stroke of the left drumstick in beating the kettle-drum. In rare instances I have seen the triangle in these crude orchestras or trios, and have heard that before the triangle came into vogue the dried and resonant jaw-bone of the ox or horse was used this way, the sides being rhythmically struck with

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a rib. I have no doubt of this, for I learned from one of their songs, handed down by repetition, probably, from pre-American sires, these lines:


                         Oh, de jaw-bone walk,
                         And de jaw-bone talk,
                         And de jaw-bone eat
                         Wid a knife and fork:
                         I laid my jaw-bone on de fence,
                         And I hain't seed dat jaw-bone sence.

        When on these occasions the crowd was very large, they would divide and go to the cabins in smaller parties, or the big floor of the gin-house may have been selected. Strange to say, they did not relish dancing on the ground, in the manner of the American Indians; and I think this can be explained by the negroes' instinctive love of rhythm, which the Indian does not seem to possess. The shuffle of the feet, in many instances unshod--for in warm weather they would pull off their shoes to keep their feet cool--could not be heard as distinctly on the ground as on a plank floor or a tight puncheon.1 I have often seen them dance on the bottom of a wagon-bed, which made an excellent sounding-board. The dances were primitive and gave opportunity for great activity; and when two danced alone, whether of the same sex or not, the object seemed to be to determine which could outdo the other. As the "steps," or gyrations and contortions, not only of the body and the legs, but of the arms and the hands, grew more violent and rapid,
1 A puncheon was the flat surface of a split log, smoothed with an ax and pinned to the joists to make the floors of the rude cabins constructed before sawmills were introduced. Sometimes they became loose, and rocked or rattled when trod upon. When the negroes would dance a pas de deux, a tight puncheon was selected, and the two danced forward and back on this single slab. Hence the common expression, "Hunt your puncheon," when something fixed or solid or sure was desired.

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the spectators would begin to pat and shout words of approval or kindly criticism, until at last one of the contestants gave up and the victor was hailed as the "best man." At midnight the frolic ended, and the visitors returned to their several homes.

        The banjo was the real musical instrument of the Southern negroes, not the fancy silver or nickel rimmed article with frets seen now on the minstrel stage or in the shops, but a very crude device, which I believe to be of native origin, notwithstanding the name is said to be corrupted from the Spanish bandore. The most primitive instrument was made from a large gourd with a long, straight neck or handle, shaped like those of smaller growth, used commonly then for drinking-dippers. The bowl of the gourd was cut away on a plane level with the surface of the neck, the seed and contents removed, and over this, like a drumhead, a freshly tanned coonskin was stretched, fastened, and allowed to dry. The five strings of homemade materials passing from the apron behind over a small bridge near the middle of the drumhead were attached to the keys in proper position on the neck.

        I learned to play upon a banjo which one of our slaves, who was a very good performer, helped me to make, when I was about eleven years old. The rim was made from the circle of a cheese-box. A calfskin soaked in lime solution, which removed the hair, was tacked while wet over one surface of this, while the stem was carved from a suitable piece of soft poplar. I was extravagant enough to import four catgut strings and a wire bass, which excited no little curiosity, as they were the first ever seen by our negroes. To the uninitiated there would probably be some surprise at the quality of the music or harmony--even if crude-- which

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could be produced by playing on this primitive instrument. "Billy," my teacher, accompanied his various tunes with songs rendered with no ordinary skill--at least, that was the verdict of his pupil. One of these "selections" was a great dancing-score entitled "Jimmie Rose," and no one with any love of music, or even an ordinary sense or appreciation of rhythm, could keep his feet still as Billy "waked to ecstasy," not "the living lyre," but our home-made banjo.

        The song was something in this strain:


                         Jimmie Rose he went to town;
                         Jimmie Rose he went to town;
                         Jimmie Rose he went to town;
                         To 'commodate de ladies.


                         Fare ye well, ye ladies all;
                         Fare ye well, ye ladies all;
                         Fare ye well, ye ladies all;
                         God Ermighty bless you.

        And so for an hour or more my instructor would continue with the exploits of his hero, Jimmie Rose, while the other in twos or fours danced away, "cutting the pigeon-wing," "the back-step," "the double shuffle," and other steps which required not only a keen sense of keeping time with the music, but agility and muscular power of a high order.

        The real negro music as I knew it was, as one would expect, simple and crude, and quite unlike that which modern negro minstrelsy has made popular. One of the best-known "jig," or short-step, banjo and dance tunes was called "Juba."


                         Juba dis and juba dat;
                         Juba kill a yaller cat.
                         Juba up and juba down;
                         Juba runnin' all aroun'.

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                         Ole Aunt Kate she bake de cake;
                         She bake it hine de garden gate.
                         She sift de meal, she gim me de dust,
                         She bake de bread, she gim me de crust,
                         She eat de meat, she gim me de skin,
                         And dat's de way she tuck me in.

        Another piece much in vogue was:


                         Sugar in de gourd; when you want to git it out,
                         Way ter git de sugar out roll de gourd about.

        There was one old-time tune called "Johnny Booker," which I learned very early from the negroes, and I believe it to have originated with them. It had a swing and go to it which suited the banjo as played by the plantation negro--that is, "over-hand," and not "guitar fashion," as almost all are taught now.


                         I went down de back ob de fiel';
                         A black-snake cotch me by de heel
                         I cut my dus', I run my best;
                         Run my head in a hornet's nest
                         Oh! do, Mr. Booker, do; Oh, do, Johnny Booker, do;
                         Oh do, Mr. Booker, Johnny Booker, Mr. Booker, Mr. Booker, Johnny Booker, do!

        Another popular song referred to the "patrol," which the negroes styled "patter-rollers":


                         Run, nigger, run; patter-roller catch you;
                         Run, nigger, run; it's almos' day;
                         Run, nigger, run; patter-roller catch you;
                         Run, nigger, run; you'd better git away.
                         Dis nigger run; he run his best;
                         Stuck his head in a hornet's nest.
                         Jump'd de fence and run frew de paster;
                         White man run, but nigger run faster.

        There was an embellishment of this "star" selection which may be of interest. After playing the music of the chorus,

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Billy would pause, lay the banjo across his knees, and speak in about this style, preluding his remark with one of those long-drawn-out grunts or weirdly intonated expressions of great surprise which only the African seems to enjoy: "Golly! folks; I went to see Miss Sal last Sat'day night. Sal's a handsome gal, too, no 'ceptions to dat. I ain't more'n had time to 'spress myself on de occasion when Sal say, 'Looky dar, Peet!' 'Looky whar, Sal?' 'Look at dat patter-roller peepin' frew de crack!'" Then a second long grunt or ejaculation of surprise.

        "Golly! chillun; dis yer nigger riz as quick as a nigger could convenient; jumped frew de winder, fell ober de wood-pile, knocked de wood into short sticks, an' took down de road fas' as my laigs could go, an' de white man he tuk airter me, an' ebery jump I make de white man say" (then he would sing):

"Run, nigger, run, patter-roller ketch you," etc.

        "Sech a gittin up-stairs I nebber did see," and "Susanna, don't you cry," were also banjo tunes of more modern origin. I can recall only a single verse and the refrain of the latter:


                         I jumped on board de telegraf,
                         An' floated down de ribber.
                         De 'lectric fluid magnified
                         An' killed five hundred nigger.
                         Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me,
                         For I'se down in Alabama wid de banjo on my knee.

        Still another:


                         Ole Aunt Dinah she done got drunk;
                         Fell in de fire; kicked up a chunk.
                         De red-hot coals got in her shoe--
                         Good Lord! how de ashes flew!

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        "Nellie Gray," "Ole Dan Tucker," "Jordan am a Hard Road to Trabbel," "I'se Gwine on Down to Lynchburg Town," and scores of other pieces of more modern production were in vogue, and popular with the negroes.

        In addition to their love of melody they were fond of story-telling, and many a night I have slipped off to Mammy Tildy's cabin to sit by her at the kitchen hearth and listen to the weird stories of ghosts and other "skeery" things, until I was afraid to go alone in the dark the very short distance between her door and the porch of our house. Joel Chandler Harris has done much to popularize the negro folk-lore stories, but I do not recall that he dwelt upon the pantomime accompaniment which was a part of some of these dramatic recitals.

        By way of illustration I will repeat a story which I learned from a very superior member of his race, a coal-black negro with clear-cut features after the type of physiognomy of the African East Coast. "Uncle Henry Moore" was one whose ability and character obtained for him the confidence of his master and of the entire community, and, with the exception of the franchise, he was granted about every privilege that the ruling whites enjoyed; with all of which, together with freedom from responsibility and taxes, he should have been, and I believe was, a happy and contented being. He did not even require a "pass" at night, and he could come and go at all hours without molestation. He was a frequent visitor with our servants, and I never tired of listening to him. This is one of his stories, entitled, "Uncle Efra'm and de Lord":

        "Ole Marster come along down de quarter one dark night, and dess as he was passin' Uncle Efra'm's cabin he heered de ole man a-prayin' so loud and so e'rnes'-like, he dess say

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to hisself: 'I'se gwine ter stop and listen ter what Efra'm's a-sayin'.' So he walk up on hes tiptoe an' put his eye ter a hole in de chinkin', an' dar was Efra'm down on hes knees a-prayin' and a-supplicatin' to de good Lord, an' he say--an' ole Marster he heared ever' word he say--'O Lord, hear de pra'r ob old Uncle Efra'm, for he tired o' livin' in dis yer worl' whar de grass grow so fas' and de sun shine so hot, and de nigger do all de wu'k, and ole Marster he dess set aroun' in de shade; and O Lord, come down and take Uncle Efra'm inter Abraham's bosom, whar dar ain't no grass a-growin' an' de sun don't shine like a bresh-heap a-burnin'. Yes, Lord, come down right now!'

        "An' when old Marster hear dat he say to hisself, 'I gwine ter try Uncle Efra'm'; an' so he knock free times wid de butt en' ob his walkin'-stick on de side ob de cabin, and when Efra'm hear de knockin' he stop a-prayin', an' he say, 'Who dat knockin'?' An' ole Marster he dess change hes voice, an' he say pow'ful slow, 'It's de Lord come down to answer Efra'm's pra'r!' An' de ole nigger was dat skeered he didn't know whether he los' his hearin' or not, an' he holler out loud, 'Who's dat you say you is?' An' ole Marster he say ag'in, 'It's de Lord come down to take Efra'm to Abraham's bosom'; and by dat time Efra'm was a-shakin' all over like he have a chill, an' he say, a-tremblin', 'Look here, Lord; Efra'm don't live her no mo'--he done move away!' "

        All through this recital Uncle Henry's voice would be modulated to suit the meaning he wished to convey, and every gesture and movement was in sympathy with the text. He would kneel down to show how Ephraim prayed, and then get up and walk to the door, open it, lean outside, knock three times on the wall, and then imitate from without

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in the dark the voice of the Lord. By this time the children in the half-circle about the fireplace--for all the cooking was done then on the open hearth--would be in such a condition of excitement that I for one would not have been surprised to see the Lord walk right in and snatch Black Mammy and me (for I was sticking so close to her He would have had to take us both), and flit way to plant us in Abraham's bosom. I might add pages of negro folk-lore stories and of incidents associated with the life of the slave with us, but what I have already said is enough to show the true relation of the negro slave to the white people of our immediate section. I will add one very remarkable experience connected with this race, for fear there may be made of it no other published record.

        Three miles from our village, at a plantation known as "Beard's Bluff," on the Tennessee, there lived a Mr. McLemore, who owned a negro called "Cap." He was about twenty-five years old when I first remember him; dark brown or almost black in color, and of normal development physically, with the exception of his eyes, which were unusually prominent (exophthalmus) and opened wider than I had ever observed. The almost constant rolling movement of his eyeballs, which, as it seemed to me, he could not fix steadily on any object, gave him an uncanny expression. In fact, he was mentally defective in the ordinary sense, and had to be cared for as if he were a child.

        As his parents were field-hands, at work on the plantation during most of the day, the kind master had built a cabin for them in the yard of his own home, where the helpless boy might be cared for while the mother was absent. When he was about fifteen years old Mr. McLemore noticed one day that the boy who had been shelling the grains from

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an ear of corn had arranged them decimally--i. e., in squares of ten rows, each row containing ten grains. He stopped for a moment and said, "Ten times ten makes a hundred, ten times one hundred makes one thousand." The negro's face lighted up with a look of surprise or joy, and he repeated the words of the master, who then repeated the numerals, and soon discovered the boy's wonderful aptitude for figures and for calculation. Although he never learned to read or write, he developed into one of the most remarkable mathematical machines I have ever known. He would solve instantly problems in multiplication which would take me an hour or more to work out and prove. For instance, he was given this example:

        "Cap, the hind-wheel of a wagon is five feet in diameter; it is forty miles from here to Huntsville. How many times will it revolve in going that distance?" As the proposition was being given out his eyeballs would turn upward, and, with the lids half closed, only the white portion was visible. By the time the last word of the questioner was spoken he would begin with the answer, which was invariably correct; and after the last figure was named his eyes would open as he politely added "Sir" to each answer. Time and again I have tried to catch him in the multiplication of the most confusing figures, such as 789, 687, 431, and so on, by the same figures rearranged. Though the answer ran into quadrillions, it made no difference to him, for he gave the correct answer immediately. In the course of time many well-known persons, teachers, professors of mathematics, and others came to investigate this phenomenon or to satisfy curiosity. He would have been as profitable on exhibition as was Blind Tom, another negro prodigy, but his kind-hearted and proud master would not permit his

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ward to be carried around as a money-making show. When the war was over, and the various county-seats of the Southern states were garrisoned by negro soldiers (to keep us "rebels" in subjection), the white captain of the company stationed at Guntersville, under the operations of the famous "Freedman's Bureau," had himself appointed guardian for "Cap," and was preparing for a tour of exhibition when the negro died of cholera.

        I have always regretted that his brain could not have been submitted to the careful study of a competent anatomist. As he was mentally deficient in the ordinary sense, it is probable that certain brain cells, which in the average human beings are arranged to carry on the various functions of this puzzling organ, were crowded into his mathematical center, enormously developing it.

        In Blind Tom's case the center of music or harmony was the seat of this extraordinary development. From what I could see in the study of this wonderful creature, I felt that in some way the secret was related to the decimal system. Dreaming, sometimes, I have dared to think that perhaps the brain of this poor, helpless negro was more nearly attuned to the universal harmony than ours, which we deem normal; more nearly in touch with that mysterious influence which holds planets and systems in unchanging relationship, with that eternal influence which we of our time and limited knowledge "call God and know no more"!

        Another phase of slave life in Alabama may be illustrated in a brief sketch of "Uncle Dan Gilbreath," a pure-blooded negro of the prevailing East Coast or Somali type. He and his master were of the same age and had grown up together on the plantation. They had played and hunted and fished in their younger days in constant companionship.

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When the young man came into his inheritance he gave Dan all the privileges of a freeman. Far from abusing the confidence and affection of his master, he was industrious, conscientious, and had developed a fair degree of business ability. It was not to be expected that a slave who, as the other negroes expressed it, had "growed up in de white folks' house" would labor with the field-hands, but none the less Dan made himself useful and profitable.

        Years before the Emancipation Proclamation, which was at first only effective in theory, and even before the collapse of the Confederacy, which made all slaves free, Dan had earned enough money to ransom himself, but he was too wise in his generation to accept freedom with the risks of exportation to Liberia, for such was then the law. There was never a public occasion which would draw a crowd to the county-seat at which Uncle Dan did not appear driving his yoke of steers with the two-wheeled cart with melons or fruits or some enticing article of food or drink. When fruits were out of season he had the art of making chicken-pies, ginger-cakes, and cider or persimmon beer, which made him famous in every nook and corner of the county. The allurements of freedom or of "reconstruction politics" could not seduce Dan from his loyal appreciation of the white people who had always shown him kindness. Respected by all classes, he lived to a very old age. In common with his race he possessed a keen sense of the ludicrous and the ability to describe humorous or exciting incidents. I am tempted to give in his own language as near as I can remember it his description of a personal experience when the Federal artillerists first turned their guns on our quiet village.

        The incident I am about to relate occurred on the 27th

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of July, 1862. That portion of Alabama north of the Tennessee River had been occupied by the Federal armies. The Confederate pickets held the south bank, and the village of Guntersville was a mile still farther south, yet in full view from the high bluff on the north side of the river. By a night march a regiment of Union infantry, half a regiment of cavalry, and a section of artillery reached the river opposite the town, and from a commanding height had two six-pounder Parrott guns in position and trained upon it.

        When daylight dawned the villagers bestirred themselves in peaceful unconsciousness of the storm impending. An hour later, Uncle Dan, seated upon the cross-plank of his two-wheeled ox-cart, drove down Main Street, which, running north and south, was for half a mile in plain view of the Union artillerists across the Tennessee. Like his master, Dan was of the "old school." The former still held to the customs and costumes of the Virginia planters from whom he had descended; and Dan, who fell heir to the costumes, sat erect and proud, clad in the long-tailed, blue-cotton, brass-buttoned frock coat which he had received from his owner. Farther on he turned aside and drove his panting team for shelter from the hot July sun into the cool shade behind the big brick edifice which served not only as county and district court-house, but as town hall, Masonic lodge, and a place in which wandering one-night Thespians could give their entertainments.

        Before he could unhitch his oxen preparatory to making the usual display of his melons the unexpected had happened--a flash of lightning from a cloudless sky. Not even the blast from Gabriel's trumpet sounding the Day of Judgment could have startled the villagers or Uncle Dan more

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than this unlooked-for boom of a cannon, the reverberation of which, while waking the echoes upon the mountainsides, was accompanied by the whiz of a shell which rent the air above the housetops, exploding with deafening noise and sending its whirring fragments to the ground.

        The white citizens of the village knew what was at hand and stood not upon the order of their going, but fled for safety to a deep ravine which crossed Main Street near the upper end of the village.1 There a hundred or more women and children were huddled against the northern slope of the hillside when Dan flashed by in flight so meteor-like and swift and in demoralization so complete that he did not know whether he was running or flying, living or dead. I can do no better than repeat the story as nearly as possible in Dan's own language:

        "When de fust shell busted I was dat skeered I mighty near drapp'd dead. I look up quick for thunder, but dar warn't no cloud in de sky, an' I knowed den it warn't a storm a-comin', but I didn't have no notion o' what it wuz till anoder one dess like it come a-whizzin' high up. Dat en hadn't more'n blowed up when Jedge Lott he run out o' de Probit Office bar'headed an' in his shirt-sleeves, an' he holler out, 'Run, everybody--de Yankees is a-shellin'!' When I hyeah dat I kinder come to, an' I say ter myse'f de cou't-house walls is mighty thick, an' de Yankees is a mile off on de oder side o' de ribber, an' when dey sees dey ain't nobody hyeah to fight back dey gwine ter git tired an' quit shootin', an' den I kin take my cyart an' go on home. Bless my soul, chile, befo' de words was out 'er my mouf sumpen done hit de cou't-house 'bout ha'f-way up, an' one
1 Mrs. S. K. Rayburn and another citizen were killed by shells, and another wounded; all non-combatants.

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whole side o' de wall jump away from whar it wuz, an' de brickbats dey scatter dess like a drove o' pa'tridges. Some ob em hit me, but mos' ob em hit de steers, an' dey broke in er run, an' dess as dey wuz a-startin' I sez to myse'f, 'Dis ain't no place fer me'; so I lit inter de waggin, an' away we went, lickerty-split. Dem steers wuz dat skeered dey couldn' run true, an' dess as we swung round inter de street, one wheel it hit de corner pos' ob de grocery stoah, an' de cyart turned bottom side up an' frode me an' de watermillions plum inter de middle ob de road. Dar warn't no time for foolishness, so I riz a-runnin', an' lef' de steers standin' dar wid de yoke turned an' de watermillions still a-rollin', and I tuk up de street so fas' I dess fairly shuck myse'f loose from de face ob de earth. An', my Lord! honey, dem blasted Yankees dey seed me a-runnin', an' dey p'int de cannon at me as I kep' right on up de street, an' de shells kep' a-hittin' de groun' closer an' closer ter me, some er-bouncin', an' some er-bustin', an some er-doin' bofe at de same time an' er-kickin' up dus' an' grabbel till I thought in my soul I nebber would git ter de top o' de hill by de ravine. By de time I got dar an' struck de slant gwine down, I wuz so skeered an' wuz a-workin' my laigs so fas' dat I warn't sho' but what I'd plum lef' de groun', fer when I look back, dar wuz de tails o' my coat a-standin' straight out behin' me dess like dey wuz wings. Den I shot pass de wimmen an' chillen a-scrouchin' down in de ravine, an' I holler out dess as loud as I cud holler, 'White folks, fo' de Lord's sake, tell me, is I runnin' or is I flyin'?' Some o' de white people say, 'Stop, Uncle Dan; dar ain't no danger heah,' an' dat make me know I wuz still a-livin'; but, Lord bless yer, chile, my laigs was dat deaf dey couldn't hear em; an' dey kep' right on."

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IX
THE POINT OF VIEW--HISTORY OF AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE ABOLITION CRUSADERS--SOME TRUTHS ABOUT JOHN BROWN AND THE SO-CALLED MARTYRDOM

        IN the discussion of slavery and the movement for its abolition in the United States one may be open to the criticism, however trite, that one's convictions depend largely upon the point of view. While my viewpoint is Southern, it is that of one convinced early in life of the moral wrong and economic unwisdom of chattel slavery.

        My father was born and reared in a Northern community, and his training and early associations were with those who believed in universal freedom. My mother came of a family of Southern emancipationists. Her father, John Allan, a Presbyterian minister, liberated his slaves, his six children jointly signing the articles of manumission. In association with James G. Birney, who twice preceded Frémont and Lincoln as the nominee for the Presidency on the Abolition platform, he organized in Huntsville, Alabama, one of the early societies of Southern emancipationists, and published there an abolition newspaper. There were in 1835 eight emancipation societies organized in seven of the wealthy and populous agricultural counties in the Tennessee Valley in northern Alabama. In Lawrence County, where one of these existed, an uncle of mine, David A. Smith, in 1838 liberated all of his slaves and transported

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them to, and provided them with homes in, Morgan County, Illinois.

        The gravest of the many errors made by the Northern abolitionists was their failure to appreciate the strength and the possibilities of the Southern emancipation movement. It was undoubtedly well under way and gaining strength steadily. The example and teaching of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, the Randolphs, and a host of the great leaders of Virginia, to whom the whole South looked for guidance, had exercised a profound influence on the best minds of the slave-holding class. My kinsman George Wythe not only freed his slaves, but, in order to show the possibilities of the race, gave one of his young negro lads a classical education. This influence was widely felt in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. In 1827 the legislature of Alabama enacted a "law forbidding the importation of slaves for barter or hire." As early as 1722 the Virginia assembly had authorized private emancipations, and in 1778 this assembly prohibited slave importations, imposing a fine of five thousand dollars for each offense. Ballagh, in his history, says, "Virginia had thus the honor of being the first political community in the civilized world to prohibit the pernicious traffic." After Virginia in 1784 ceded the Northwest Territory to the United States, her delegates in Congress were the leading spirits in securing the adoption of the ordinance for ever excluding slavery from that vast empire.

        At the close of the Revolution there were less than three thousand freed negroes in the state. By 1810 there were more than thirty thousand. By 1860, despite the deportation of thousands whose masters had freed them and settled them in Liberia and elsewhere, nearly sixty thousand freed

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negroes still remained. Mr. Ballagh, author of The History of Slavery, estimates that Virginian planters had manumitted up to that time, "without a penny's compensation, one hundred thousand of these bondsmen," the money value approximating one hundred million dollars. Of this period W. Gordon McCabe, in his careful review1 of this subject, says: "Unfortunately, when the hopes of Virginia emancipationists were highest during the famous session devoted to 'Slavery Debates' the rabid abolitionists of the North, through secret emissaries, flooded the state with abusive and incendiary pamphlets calling on the slaves to rise and re-enact the horrors of Haiti and San Domingo. One of these-- the notorious Walker pamphlet--referred to 'Haiti, the glory of the blacks and the terror of tyrants.'" Then came the Southampton Insurrection, in 1831, an event of horror which created intense excitement throughout the South. Speaking for Virginia, McCabe says: "The reaction was immediate, even the strongest antislavery advocates were disgusted and repelled, and the movement collapsed." In the campaign of vilification which dealt this stunning blow to the Southern emancipationists the Genius of Universal Emancipation, edited by Benjamin Lundy, of Baltimore, and the Liberator, founded by William Lloyd Garrison in Massachusetts, were prominently aggressive. Passing from words to deeds, the "Underground Railroad," a numerous, active, and wealthy organization, the outspoken business of which was the unlawful enticing away of slaves, began its operations. These openly disregarded the Constitution (the basis of the Union), which guaranteed protection in property of slaves, and by mob-rule and the enactment of state laws persistently
1 London Saturday Review, March 5, 1910.

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and successfully set at naught the laws of Congress.

        Then came the armed invasion of Virginia by John Brown and his band of outlaws, and with this effort to arm a servile race and repeat the Southampton Massacre on a large scale secession was made possible and the hope of peace was gone. Living as I did through this period of intense excitement, a close observer of events as they were happening, I am convinced that but for this murderous foray the leaders of secession in the South could not have carried Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama out of the Union; and without these there would have been no Southern Confederacy and no Civil War.

        Slavery was already doomed, and a bloody war was not necessary for its extinction.

        A large majority of the Anglo-Saxon South did not own a slave, and had no selfish interest in perpetuating slavery. Fleming, the historian, says that as late as 1860 a majority of the white people of Alabama were opposed to slavery. They realized that the verdict of the higher civilization was against it; and, although the movement for emancipation which at one period was gaining a strong and influential backing in the slave-holding section was temporarily checked in the resentment which followed the mistaken policy of the militant abolitionists of the North, it could not have been long deferred.

        Mr. Benton said in the United States Senate in 1829: "I can truly say that slavery, a hereditary institution, descended upon us from our ancestors, has but few advocates or defenders in the slave-holding states, and would have fewer if those who have nothing to do with the subject

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would only let us alone."1 I have no doubt that but for this meddlesomeness to which Benton refers, the Southern people, aided by the kindly sympathy of their Northern kinsmen, would long before this have carried out a humane plan of emancipation, giving the African race a home of their own in a "territory where, secure from external dangers, they would enjoy civil and political liberty," (Report of the Virginia Committee.) How much better for both blacks and whites would this have been than the long, bloody, and cruel war, which, as I maintain, only the aggressive abolitionists made possible.

        The introduction of negro chattel slavery in the North American colonies dates from 1619, when a Dutch ship sold to the settlers along the James River, in Virginia, a small cargo of slaves. There followed other consignments, distributed along the Atlantic coast, until by 1700 African slavery existed in all of the thirteen original colonies, these aliens forming then about one-sixteenth of the entire population. Vessels owned chiefly by skippers from New England and New York took up the profitable traffic, with Newport and Bristol, Rhode Island, as the chief ports of distribution in the North, and Charleston and Savannah in the South. Although in the more fertile sections of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey negroes were purchased in considerable numbers by individual owners for work upon the larger plantations, in New England and in the states north of Maryland in general ownership was more frequently limited to a single slave or to one family, the members of which performed the duties of house-servants.
1 With this conviction, Benton would doubtless have approved Wendell Phillips's assertion that a New-Englander's definition of hell is a place where every man has to attend to his own business.

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It soon became evident that the rigorous climate of the North was unsuitable to the profitable employment of a race born and reared under tropical conditions and suddenly subjected to the long winters, the frosts and snows of the North Atlantic colonies.

        In the lower temperate zone and nearer the equator in the southern settlements, where a semitropical climate prevailed, profitable employment for negroes was found; and hither, in obedience to the inexorable law of demand and supply, the system of slavery gravitated.

        It has been stated with great positiveness by certain writers that the introduction of the cotton-gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1794, by giving renewed impetus to the cultivation of cotton, increased the demand for slave labor as a necessity for its production and added largely to the money value of slaves. In view of the fact that for the thirty-six years following this invention the annual increase in the number of bales produced was less than thirty thousand, I am not willing to accept the statement. In 1800 the output was two hundred and ten thousand bales, and the million-bale mark was not reached until 1830. Meanwhile, during the forty years from 1790 to 1830, the number of negro slaves increased from seven hundred thousand to two millions. As the African trade ceased in 1807, it may be inferred that conditions in the South were favorable to procreation in this alien race. The market price of negroes had risen from fifty to one hundred dollars, in early colonial days, to about five hundred dollars in 1830, and they continued to become more valuable, until by 1860 a "prime field-hand" brought from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars. Other causes than cotton must be looked for to explain the rise in value. That the negro was not essential

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to the cultivation of this great crop has been amply demonstrated in late years by the millions of bales produced annually in vast areas of the South where only white labor is engaged. What is true of cotton is equally true of rice and cane, and but for the unfortunate presence of the blacks the Southern country would long ago have swarmed with white laborers of the same intelligence and thrift that have created the wealthy, prosperous, and thickly populated Northwest.

        Notwithstanding the fact that slavery had existed in practically every nation of the earth since the dawn of history, and that even in the early settlement of America white persons from Great Britain had been sold and indentured as slaves to the colonists, yet the vast majority of these hardy pioneers had sought the wilderness for a greater liberty than the older civilization allowed, and it was to be expected that from the very beginning African slavery would meet with strong protest and formidable opposition. Theirs was the broad and just contention that, however humanely practised, chattel slavery was wrong; that involuntary servitude was repugnant to the instinctive love and natural right of liberty; and that ownership as a chattel to be leased or sold permitted the infliction of bodily punishments and the enforced severance of the family relation which were cruel and inhuman.

        As far back as 1641 Massachusetts forbade the importation of African slaves, and Rhode Island followed her sister colony's example in 1652; but these regulations could not then be successfully enforced, and the traffic and slavery continued for more than one hundred and twenty-five years. In 1688 a society of Friends in Pennsylvania made public protest against the growing practice of slavery, but it was

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not until 1775 that the first abolition society was formally organized (in Pennsylvania), with Benjamin Franklin as president.

        The first state to enact emancipation was Vermont, which in 1777 freed all slaves at majority (twenty-one years). Pennsylvania followed in 1780, fixing the age at twenty-eight; and Massachusetts in the same year freed all slaves without regard to age. New Hampshire in 1783, Rhode Island and Connecticut in 1784, New York in 1799, and New Jersey in 1804 enacted schemes of gradual emancipation. In 1807 Congress absolutely forbade the further importation of slaves into the United States.

        By 1820 slavery, formally recognized by the Constitution, the compact of union, which guaranteed protection to slaves as property, was accepted as a permanent institution in the states then existing south of the Mason and Dixon line, although at the North the antislavery organizations had already grown in numbers and influence to formidable proportions. In this year slavery first came prominently before the American people as a political issue. The proslavery politicians, in the effort to counteract the growing influence of the champions of emancipation, succeeded in having Missouri admitted as a slave state. The opposition, however, was strong enough to compel a "Compromise," which, while permitting slavery in Missouri, excluded it from all the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of a line which from the Mississippi River followed westward the 36° 30' degree of north latitude, which line was the southern boundary of Missouri.

        A period comparatively free from agitation followed the Missouri Compromise from 1821 to 1836, when Texas, having declared its independence of Mexico, asked to be

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taken into the Union as a slave state. The antislavery advocates, North and South, resisted this proposition so successfully that the Lone Star State was not admitted until 1845. In 1854, under the leadership of Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, the spokesman of Democracy, North as well as South, the proslavery politicians made the fatal blunder of reopening the fight for the further extension of this institution in the territories, and, although they succeeded in repealing the Missouri Compromise and in passing the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which in substance left it to the bona-fide settlers to determine by popular vote whether or not slavery should be permitted in the states to be admitted, they sealed their own doom.

        It was this action which precipitated the "Kansas conflict" and made of this territory for several years the battle-ground between the contending forces of slavery and antislavery. In this period the generally accepted laws of God and man which are supposed to govern a Christian civilization were in large measure suspended, and the so called "higher law" was substituted. It seemed a ready transition from the enthusiast to the zealot, from the zealot to the fanatic; and these, given as of old to the wildest exaggeration of their own importance in the reformation of their kind, flattering themselves into the delusion that they were ordained of God for the accomplishment of a great and self-imposed purpose, ran amuck in bloodshed and robbery. "Bleeding Kansas" became the storm-center of the great controversy, around and over which since 1820 the darkening clouds of sectionalism had been gathering; and from this center, in ever-widening circle, spread a cyclone of insanity which swept over North and South alike in its maddening progress. Reason, like a lightship parted

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from its moorings, was carried away to be lost in the stormy sea of differing opinions. Forbearance and charity and kindly argument as to right and wrong gave way to reckless and passionate assertion and to the bitter speech of prejudice, and conscience became dulled to that deplorable degree which permitted the end to justify the means.

        Out of this turmoil emerged a weird, red-handed specter in human form whose name but for his lawless deeds in Kansas would never have crossed the boundaries of that fair State had he not become the agent in one of the most nefarious plots recorded in history. A group of men of intelligence, position, and wealth aided him in the armed invasion of a peaceful and law-abiding community. Brown's purpose was the treasonable capture of the United States arsenal and the appropriation of government property to an unlawful purpose, the robbery of the houses of law-abiding citizens, and murder. He sought to incite a widespread slave insurrection and the consequent massacre of thousands of helpless women and children. This wicked deed, known as the "Harper's Ferry Raid," made secession possible and brought on the Civil War.

        The world knows that the active leader of this enterprise was John Brown. It may not know that among those who very substantially aided him were such men as Gerrit Smith, George L. Stearns, Theodore Parker, Dr. S. G. Howe, Frederick Douglass, F. B. Sanborn, Judge Thomas Russell, T. W. Higginson, Edwin Morton, and F. G. Merriam. Those who aided Brown practically all denied any intention to incite a servile insurrection; yet for what other purpose did Brown carry one thousand pikes than to arm such slaves as could not yet use the guns to be taken by

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force from the United States arsenal? The civilized world cried out at the shame of it. Brown had declared it were "better that a whole generation of men, women, and children should be wiped out than that slavery should endure." He also said after his capture1: "I knew the negroes would rally to my standard. If I had only got the thing fairly started, you Virginians would have seen sights that would have opened your eyes, and I tell you if I was free this moment and had five hundred negroes around me I would put these irons on Wise himself before Saturday night." He had said to Frederick Douglass, "When I strike, the bees will swarm." What more positive evidence of Brown's purpose than is set forth in Gerrit Smith's letter of August 27, 1859, only a few weeks before the invasion of Virginia:

        "It is perhaps too late to bring slavery to an end by peaceful means. The feeling among the blacks that they must deliver themselves gains strength with fearful rapidity. The South would not respect her own Jefferson's prediction of servile insurrection, and is it entirely certain that these insurrections will be put down promptly? Will telegraphs and railroads be too swift for even the swiftest insurrections? Remember that telegraphs and railroads can be rendered useless in an hour. Remember, too, that many who would be glad to face the insurgents would be busy transporting their wives and daughters to places where they would be safe," etc. To this letter Sanborn adds: "He knew what Brown's purpose was, and his last contribution of money to Brown's camp-chest was sent about the time this letter was written" (page 545). And what else could Dr. Howe have in mind than an insurrection of slaves
1 Life and Letters of John Brown. By F. B. Sanborn. Page 572.

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when he wrote that he trembled at the fate which might befall his friend in the South?

        Strongest of all the evidence, to my mind, is the action of many of Brown's backers, who promptly fled beyond the borders of their own country--the country to whose laws they owed obedience. True, they had begun their course with an earnest and laudable purpose, and at first by open and honorable methods of protest and argument sought to free the slaves in the South. Under the excitement of a passionate antagonism they had advanced by rapid strides from enthusiasm to zeal and from zeal to fanaticism, which in many cases blinded their perception of right and justified in their minds even horrible and bloody means for the accomplishment of the end they had in view.

        When the news was heard of the failure of Brown's nefarious plot, Gerrit Smith retired to an insane asylum at Utica, New York. As late as 1874 he attempted some explanation. Still later, when Sanborn notified him of his probable utterance on the subject, he wrote: "If you could defer your contemplated work until after my death you would lay me under great obligations to your kindness."

        Scarcely less pitiable was the position of Dr. S. G. Howe. Referring to a visit, shortly before the John Brown raid, to Wade Hampton's plantation, he said he shuddered to think of what might have happened to these people, of whose hospitality he had been lately the recipient, as a result of this foray into the South. Dr. Howe promptly went to Canada. He wrote on November 4, 1859: "Rumor has mingled my name with the events at Harper's Ferry. That event was unforeseen and unexpected by me." When, at last, he appeared before the Mason committee he tried to

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convince them that the last fifty dollars he gave went toward the purchase of the Thompson farm for Brown.1

        Commenting on Dr. Howe's conversation in the summer of 1859 with John Brown, Mrs. Adams, Brown's daughter writes: "It was after father had become weary and even discouraged with begging for money and men to carry out his plan that he made up his mind to confiscate property that the slave or his ancestors had been compelled to earn for others--property that he needed to subsist on. At a former time when Dr. Howe was parting from father, he gave him a little walnut box with a fine Smith& Wesson revolver in it. I have it still." "Now, in making this gift, Dr. Howe fully expected Captain Brown to break the law against carrying concealed weapons, and possibly the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' " (Villard, pages 181-2).

        George L. Stearns fled to Canada, and later, according to Sanborn, twisted the truth out of shape in his efforts to square his conscience and escape indictment. The Reverend Theodore Parker remained abroad, and died there. This exponent of the Divine Law in a letter to Judge Russell, dated April, 1857, wrote as follows:

        "MY DEAR JUDGE,--If John Brown falls into the hands of the marshal from Kansas he is sure of the gallows or of something worse. If I were in his position I should shoot dead any man who attempted to arrest me for those alleged crimes; then I should be tried by a Massachusetts jury and be acquitted." Then, with the exquisite capacity for dodging which many developed at about this time, he added: "P. S. I don't advise J. B. to do this; but it is what I would do."

        The high regard for morals and law which prevailed in
1 John Brown, Fifty Years After. By Oswald Garrison Villard.

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Massachusetts at this period in the minds disordered on the subject of slavery is evident in this letter from a preacher to a judge. Edwin Morton hastened to inform Sanborn that important letters had been "buried under a brick walk leading to Mr. Smith's door," and then took refuge in Switzerland, where at length he died.

        Judge Thomas Russell's activities seemed to have ceased when he did not accept his friend's offer of "two hundred and fifty dollars and a good big fee besides in personal property," which Brown had accumulated overnight from the silver and valuables of Colonel Washington and other citizens south of Mason and Dixon's line. Frederick Douglass lost no time in crossing the boundary-line between Canada and the United States, and found a residence with the Atlantic Ocean between him and his native land. Francis J. Merriam alone demonstrated in a measure the courage of his convictions by venturing as far as the Maryland side of the danger-line when the attack was made, whence with Owen Brown (also with the wagon-train) he ran away at an early and propitious moment and escaped over the mountains. F. B. Sanborn, instead of following the object of his obsession to glory and the grave in Virginia, fled to Canada. Venturing back to the Concord Circle, when he and his friends thought the danger had passed, he was arrested by officers of the law and released (not by a mob--only "one hundred and fifty men and women present") by the Massachusetts construction of justice and law.

        In the New York Evening Post, March 15, 1878, Sanborn lays bare some facts connected with this scheme which it would appear he had hesitated to make public until everybody else concerned was dead.

        He writes: "My own first knowledge of the plans of John

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Brown for invading the South and forcibly emancipating slaves, the same plans he afterward attempted to execute in Virginia, was obtained from Brown in Gerrit Smith's house at Peterboro, February 22, 1858, and in the presence of Mr. Smith himself, with whom I discussed them fully on that day, the following day, and again on the 24th of May, 1858, at the Revere House in Boston. We two--Mr. Smith then sixty-one years old, and myself a little turned twenty-six--on the 23d of February, 1858, at about the hour of sunset, did deliberately and earnestly engage with each other that we would stand by and support John Brown in his undertaking. Up to the day of John Brown's capture at Harper's Ferry in October, 1859, that engagement was faithfully kept.

        "Neither of us, probably, was ever fully or coolly convinced of the wisdom of his scheme. At no time during the nineteen months between February 19, 1858, and October 18, 1859, did Mr. Smith cease to aid the plan. When he wrote me that 'as things now stand it seems to me it would be madness to attempt to execute it' (May 7, 1858) he had just given money to aid it, and within a month afterward he gave money again. He allowed Brown to take the responsibility of failure. Such was then my opinion, and when Smith met at his own room in the Revere House, Boston, May 24, 1858, with Theodore Parker, Dr. Howe, George L. Stearns, and myself, to decide whether Brown should be allowed to go on at that time, Mr. Smith was an active participant in the discussion. It resulted in sending Brown back to Kansas until such a time as he could more safely undertake his Southern campaign. It was understood that Brown should go to Kansas for the summer and autumn of 1858, but should be aided to begin his Southern campaign

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in the winter and spring of 1859, when two or three thousand dollars should be raised for him by Messrs. Stearns, Smith, and the rest of us. In accordance with this agreement, in the following spring, April, 1859, Brown presented himself at Peterboro after delivering his twelve forcibly emancipated Missouri slaves in Canada and received from Mr. Smith there a subscription of four hundred dollars. With some of this money Brown paid in part for his pikes at Collinsville, Connecticut, to arm the slaves of Virginia.

        "Again, in August, 1859, when Brown wrote me from Chambersburg that he still wanted three hundred dollars with which to begin the attack, I sent his letter to Smith, who at once sent Brown a draft for a hundred dollars on the State Bank of Albany. I am certain that this was sent with a full general knowledge of what Brown would do with it. How, then, could Mr. Smith, G. L. Stearns, and Dr. Howe deny, as they all did, that they knew of the Harper's Ferry attack--simply because they did not know, or guess, that Brown meant to begin it? We expected he would go farther west, into a region less accessible, where his movements might escape notice for weeks except as the alleged acts of some marauding party. In this respect, and in this alone, as far as I know, he changed his plans of 1858, which he fully explained. Being called to testify at Washington, the two last named (as they both1 told me) found the questions of the Senate committee so unskilfully framed that they could without literal falsehood answer as they did. I do not say they were justified in this, but such was their own opinion. Probably Gerrit Smith also felt justified at the time in making public statements which told a part of the truth, but not the whole. He was not a
1 Stearns and Howe.

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witness at Washington, being an asylum patient at Utica; but in 1860 and again in 1867 he published papers which, had I seen them in manuscript, as I did that of 1874, I should have protested against their publication."

        The Southern people were fully alive to the significance of this attempt by John Brown and his sympathizers in the North to arm and liberate the slaves. Had they succeeded the enterprise would have led to a wide-spread servile insurrection. Of several such uprisings in Virginia the details of one shall be here given. The leader of this insurrection was a negro, Nat Turner, thirty-one years old, who had been kindly reared in the Turner family of Southampton County, Virginia.1 He had been taught to read; he professed religion, became a preacher of the Baptist sect, and was intrusted as overseer of the work and in the management of the other slaves on the plantation. Of the kindly nature of the treatment to which he was accustomed it is known that upon his feigning sickness on the Sunday of the outbreak the wife of his owner carried
1 Professor William S. Drewry, 2 after a most exhaustive study of the matter, shows that undoubtedly this fanatical negro, of more than ordinary intelligence, had been informed of the uprising of the slaves in Haiti and San Domingo, and had persuaded himself that the success of that insurrection could be repeated in the Southern states. In 1793 a crowd of refugees escaping from Haiti arrived in Baltimore, bringing with them about six hundred slaves. Some of these refugees settled in Southampton County. In 1800 and 1801, and in succeeding years, rebellious slaves in various sections of Virginia confessed that they had been inspired by the hope that the uprising in Haiti might be successfully repeated. Of these earlier outbreaks, the one in Henrico County in 1800 was the most formidable. Moreover, the militant abolitionists of the North were active in encouraging the negroes to insurrection. Benjamin Lundy, of Baltimore, editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, published and circulated in 1828 a detailed history of these various insurrections, and in 1830 the celebrated "Walker Pamphlet" was secretly distributed, urging the negroes to remember Haiti, "the glory of the blacks and the terror of tyrants."
2 The Southampton Insurrection. The Neale Company, Washington.

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to his cabin some specially prepared articles of food for the supposed invalid, to whom the family were attached. As Mrs. Turner slept that night with her infant at her side, she and her husband were slain with axes, and the baby's brains were dashed out against the brickwork of the fireplace. Two other children, boys of about twelve and fourteen, were fatally struck on the head as they slept. Having wiped out this family at dead of night, Nat and his seven negro accomplices armed themselves with the guns belonging to his dead master, mounted themselves on horseback and rode to the home of Mr. Francis, a bachelor brother of the woman they had just slain, called him under the pretext that there was a message for him, and, as he opened the door, killed him. Mrs. Reese and her son William were the next victims of the ax, and Mr. James Barmer, being hit on the head, fell limp and unconscious and was left for dead, but ultimately survived--a life-long cripple. Three miles away to the farm of Mrs. Elizabeth Turner they rode quickly, and she, Mrs. Newsom, and a Mr. Peebles were murdered. The company of negroes now numbered fifteen, nine of whom were mounted. Mr. Henry Bryant, his wife and child, and his wife's mother died next, and these were followed in short order by Mrs. Whitehead and her son Richard, three daughters, an infant, and the grandmother. One of the daughters, fleeing to escape, was pursued by Nat Turner, who beat her brains out with a piece of fence-rail. Harriet, another daughter, successfully concealed herself beneath the mattress in a box-bed, the only survivor of this family. About sunrise, as they were proceeding to the next farm, they met Mr. Doyle in the road and killed him. Mrs. Williams and her little child and two small boys were then butchered. Another

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Mr. Doyle, Mr. John Barrow, George Vaughan, Mrs. Levi Waller and her child, Martha Waller, Lucinda Jones and eight other school-children, Mr. Williams and wife, Miles and Henry Johnson, Mrs. Warrell and child, Mrs. Vaughan, her son and niece, Mrs. John K. Williams and child, Mrs. Jacob Williams and three children, and Mrs. Edwin Drewry were among the other victims of this horrible slaughter. Drewry, the historian, says this is not the complete list.

        Only a few of these victims were shot. The negroes were not accustomed to the use of firearms. Axes and hatchets and grubbing-hoes were preferred as weapons. The pikes John Brown had made, which philanthropists like Stearns, Gerrit Smith, Sanborn, and their associates had paid for, were well suited to the purpose these conspirators had in mind. In the course of the trials which ensued--for none of these murderers was lynched--it was shown that the razor was used to despatch only one person. The head of a small boy, who ran up to one of the negroes he knew and asked him to take him up behind him for a ride, was completely severed from the body by a single stroke of an ax. Some few armed themselves with scythe-blades; all robbed the dead; and finally nearly the whole of this murderous gang became drunk.

        They had gone about their bloody work in cunning fashion. The region was not thickly settled. The farm-houses were so far apart that the screams of the frightened and dying could not be heard at the place the negroes were next to visit; then, having killed every one, they rode hurriedly to the next house. In this way the bloody work went on all through the night, and it was only after broad daylight that some one escaped and began to spread the alarm; so that the remaining women and children fled to the woods

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to hide themselves, and the men and lads began to gather to put down the desperate rabble. It so happened that a neighbor escaping galloped along the road shouting to each household as he passed the great danger of remaining indoors.

        In one of these homes was then living Mrs. John Thomas, and as Nat Turner's band was seen approaching she and her fifteen-year-old son narrowly escaped the common doom by running, closely pursued, into the dense forest, where they were safely concealed. By this narrow margin was saved the life of the one human being who, in my opinion, defeated the Southern Confederacy and saved the cause of the Union in the crisis of the Civil War on the field of Chickamauga, where the independence of the South was won and thrown away. That fifteen-year-old boy was George H. Thomas, who lived to be the "Rock of Chickamauga."

        By noon the white men of the country had rallied under arms, and soon killed, captured, or dispersed the negroes. The ringleaders and some fifteen others were tried, convicted, and hanged. Thus ended the sickening slaughter. Haiti and San Domingo had been imitated.

        John Brown treasonably and murderously led an armed invasion of this same state to liberate and arm the slaves and subject the helpless women and children to a repetition of these scenes of horror on a more extended scale. The heartless fanaticism of the antislavery agitation is indicated in Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown. Upon receipt of the news of this massacre at the home of Brown in Ohio, Squire Hudson exclaimed: "Thank God! I am glad of it. The slaves have risen down in Virginia!"

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X
SOME FACTS ABOUT JOHN BROWN NOT GENERALLY KNOWN

        HAVING failed at every one of a half-dozen different vocations to make a living for his family and himself, a rolling stone so mossless that at the age of fifty-five he was absolutely bankrupt in fortune, and no less so in honorable reputation, John Brown turned up in Kansas in October, 1855, in the rôle of a professional Free-soil agitator in the employ of Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, Secretary and Treasurer of the New England Emigrant Aid Society, of which Mr. Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, was the president. It is safe to say that had his antecedents been known to these honorable gentlemen, they would not have given him employment or furnished him the money to pay his traveling-expenses to the territory (without which he could not have made the trip), for as soon as his misconduct there revealed his true character--and this was soon in evidence--they repudiated him and publicly denounced him as unworthy of confidence and respect and an injury to the free-state cause.

        Disappointed and embittered at the age of fifty-five, "fit for treason," looking for "spoils," and ready with whatever "stratagem" was required to secure them, he, with scant regard for the laws of God and man, began the mad career of crime which in the course of four years of robbery, bloodshed, and murder, carried into untimely graves three of his sons and one son-in-law and ended on December 2, 1859, in his legal execution at Charlestown, Virginia.

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        Born in 1800 of poor and respectable New England parents, who moved in 1805 to Hudson, Ohio, where there were scant opportunities for schooling, John Brown learned to read and write, and later in life acquired a working knowledge of surveying. Here he worked at tanning and surveying, then moved to Pennsylvania, thence to Portage County, Ohio, where he speculated in lands which "did much to injure his standing and business credit,"1 tried public contracting, at which he failed, and went into bankruptcy.

        "On July 11, 1836, he was sued on a debt of six thousand dollars, and his surety, a Mr. Oviatt, was forced to pay the debt. Brown made a bond to Oviatt, to secure him on a piece of land he had traded for, but without recording the deed. When the deed was finally recorded, without notice to Oviatt, to whom he was under every obligation of honor, Brown mortgaged the land to two other men." Mr. Villard says: "This transaction bears an unpleasant aspect." In 1837 he moved back to Hudson, Ohio, and went into the business of breeding race-horses, and changed in 1838 to the cattle and sheep raising business. In one of a number of suits brought against him about this time, which was decided against him, he resisted the process of the law. With his three sons, John, Jason, and Owen, he barricaded himself in a house on the land in question and held unlawful possession until the sheriff with a posse compelled them to vacate and placed them in the jail at Akron, Ohio.

        "On June 15, 1839, John Brown received from the New England Woolen Company at Rockville, Connecticut, the sum of twenty-eight hundred dollars, through its agent, George Kellogg, for the purchase of wool. This money he
1 John Brown, Fifty Years After. By Oswald Garrison Villard. The most reliable history of this subject yet printed.

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purloined for his own benefit, and was never able to redeem. Fortunately for him, and very probably convinced that their chance of securing the return of all or a part of this money was better with the defaulter at large than in the penitentiary, the company exercised leniency toward him, in return for which he promised, in 1842, after passing through bankruptcy, to pay the money from time to time with interest, as Divine Providence might enable him to do."1 Although he lived twenty years after this transaction and robbed much, none of the stolen money was ever repaid.

        Villard states: "On the records of the Portage County Court of Common Pleas at Ravenna, Ohio, are no less than twenty-one lawsuits in which John Brown figured as defendant. Thirteen were actions brought to recover money loaned to Brown, singly or in company with others. The remaining suits were mostly for claims for wages or payments due or for nonfulfilment of contracts. Judgment against Brown was once entered by his consent for a nominal sum. In ten other cases he was successfully sued, and judgments were obtained against him. A serious litigation was an action brought by the Bank of Worcester to recover on a bill of exchange drawn by Brown and others on the Leather Manufacturers Bank of New York, and repudiated by that institution on the ground that Brown and his associates had no money in the bank. When judgment against Brown and his associates was rendered it was for nine hundred and seventeen dollars and sixty-five cents."1 Mr. Sanborn says 2 that when he questioned Mr. Simon Perkins, of Akron, about Brown's wool-growing and wool-dealing, he replied, "The less you say about them the better." In 1841 Brown hired out as a sheep-tender at Richfield, Ohio;
1 Villard.
2 Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 57.

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went back to tanning in 1842; and gave it up once more in 1844. In 1846 he was settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, as a wool-dealer, in association with the Mr. Perkins mentioned above, and in 1849 made a trip to England in connection with this business, failed, and caused his partner a loss of forty thousand dollars. Suit was brought against Perkins& Brown for sixty thousand dollars for breach of contract. The case was tried in 1853. According to Villard, it was settled out of court, "counsel deeming it wiser to compromise than to face a jury." From this time to his death, in 1859, he had no business and no visible means of support except "gifts made to maintain him as a guerrilla leader in Kansas or as a prospective invader of Virginia."

        Five of Brown's sons, John, Jason, Owen, Frederick, and Salmon, chips of the old block, able and willing to commit murder and rob defenseless settlers in a new country, squatted on lands in Kansas in the spring of 1855, and here their father joined them in October, 1855.1 The excitement over the struggle between the proslavery and the free-state partisans in the territory was already great. In all probability the most important factor in finally winning Kansas as a free state was the New England Emigrant Aid Company, chartered in February, 1855. The head and prime mover in this far-sighted measure was Mr. Eli Thayer, who represented Worcester in the Massachusetts legislature and later was a member of Congress. Of this company Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, for whom I believe the city in
1 As an index of the character for thrift and industry of these sons of Brown it may be stated that John, Jr., was thirty-four years old; Jason, thirty-two; Owen, thirty-one; Frederick, twenty-five; and Salmon nineteen; and all they had to show for their lives to this time were eleven cattle and three horses. They were worthy sons of their sire, and went to Kansas ripe for the era of plunder and murder in which they moved with much success.

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Kansas is named, was the treasurer, and it was he who paid Brown to go to Kansas to take part in any activities which might require the use of Sharp's rifles, or "Beecher Bibles," as the markings on the boxes specified. A man of blameless life, whose reputation for cautious speech and perfect truthfulness is unquestioned, Mr. Lawrence said before the Massachusetts Historical Society in May, 1884: "When Eli Thayer obtained the charter for the company, Dr. Robinson was chosen territorial agent. It was to support the party of law and order and make Kansas a free state by bona-fide settlement. Charles Robinson had the requisite qualities to direct this movement. He was cool, judicious, entirely devoid of fear, and in every respect worthy of the confidence reposed in him by the society and the settlers. He was imprisoned, his house burned, his life was threatened, yet he never bore arms or omitted to do what he thought to be his duty. He sternly held the people to their loyalty to the government against the arguments and the example of the 'higher-law' men, who were always armed, and who were bent on bringing on a border war.

        "But what shall we say of John Brown? His course was the opposite of Robinson's. He was always armed, he was always disloyal to the United States government, and to all government except what he called the 'higher-law.' He was always ready to shed blood, and he always did shed it without remorse.

        "It fell to me to give John Brown his first letter to Kansas, introducing him to Governor Robinson and authorizing him to employ Brown and to draw on me for his compensation, if he could make him useful in the work of the Emigrant Aid Company. But very soon Governor Robinson wrote that he would not employ him, as he was unreliable and

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would as soon shoot a United States officer as a border ruffian. When he was a prisoner at Harper's Ferry I wrote to Governor Wise, advising his release on the ground that he was a monomaniac and that his execution would make him a martyr. John Brown had no enemies in New England, but many friends and admirers. He was constantly receiving money from them. They little knew what use he was making of it, for he deceived everybody. If he had succeeded in his design at Harper's Ferry of exciting a servile insurrection the country would have stood aghast with horror."

        Eli Thayer says in the Kansas Crusade (page 189): "John Brown induced Mr. Amos A. Lawrence to furnish him money to pay his expenses to Kansas. It was easy for any one who professed a desire to aid in the work of making Kansas a free state to secure his entire confidence. But his confidence was sometimes abused, notably in the case of John Brown. Mr. Lawrence furnished him the money which enabled him to pay his fare to Kansas, late in 1855. Subsequently he contributed for his use in the territory, and for traveling outside of it, many important sums. He also furnished about one thousand dollars to pay a mortgage on Brown's home at North Elba, New York. For one or two years he regarded Brown as an honest man and an aid to the free-state cause. At length, however, he learned how his confidence had been abused, and from that time no one ever denounced the Pottawatomie assassin in more vigorous English."

        Mr. Thayer says further: "The Republican convention which nominated Lincoln for the presidency in 1860 named John Brown as one of the greatest of criminals.

        "When Brown made his invasion of Virginia, and during

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his trial, conviction, and execution, I was a member of Congress, and had the means of knowing the opinions of members. There was not one of that body who considered his punishment as unjust. A few, however, were of the opinion that it would have been better to have put him in a mad-house for life. This would have prevented the grotesque efforts of a few of his sympathizers and supporters to parade him before the country as a martyr.

        "John Brown arrived in Kansas nearly two years after the conflict there against slavery began. He was a great injury to the free-state cause and to the free-state settlers. He said, 'I have not come to make Kansas free, but to get a shot at the South.' He wished to begin a civil war. He never had any property in Kansas which might be subject to retaliation and reprisal for his crimes. Skulking about under various disguises and pretenses, he left the free-state settlers to suffer further numerous outrages. At length they compelled him to leave the territory.

        "To the above should be added the robbing of slaves in Kansas, the stealing of horses, and about four thousand dollars' worth of oxen, mules, wagons, harness, and such valuables and property as he could find. He was a merciless and most unscrupulous jayhawker. . . . After his midnight murders the people about Ossawatomie assembled to express their indignation. Here on most friendly terms were the free-state men and the slave-state men. In the overshadowing gloom of such a terrible crime all partisan issues were forgotten. John Brown, with characteristic lying, denied that he was present at this massacre or that he had had anything to do with it. No fact in history is now better established than that he was the father of the crime and leader of the assassins."

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        Mr. Thayer says further: "He came to me in Worcester to solicit a contribution of arms for the defense of some Kansas settlements which he said he knew were to be attacked. Not doubting his word, I gave him all the arms I had, in value about five hundred dollars. Under the same false pretense he received another contribution from Ethan Allan& Co., manufacturers in this city. These arms were never taken to Kansas, but were captured at Harper's Ferry. Under the same false pretense of assisting the settlers, he procured funds from several New York merchants."

        Mr. Thayer says that after the raid in Missouri, in December, 1858, when William Cruse was murdered, Brown stole about four thousand dollars' worth of property and valuables, along with eleven slaves; and then, in order to make them useful for the purpose of securing funds, he took from December to April to get his liberated slaves to Canada. He sent agents in all directions to solicit aid.

        In an editorial comment on Mr. Thayer's statement, the New York Sun of November 27, 1887, says: "Mr. Thayer speaks from intimate personal knowledge; describes John Brown as a felon or a fiend, a robber, murderer, and traitor, and gives instances of his conduct to justify the truth of his description. Abraham Lincoln in his famous speech at Cooper Institute agrees with Mr. Thayer in ranging John Brown with the monomaniacs who resort to assassination for the cure of what seem to them social or political evils. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were in their philosophy the same. These words expressed a sentiment so general in the North that the first Republican leader felt it necessary to speak so emphatically. At that time the

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abolitionists, always a small and detested body of fanatics, had reached the firm conclusion that their only hope lay in the dissolution of the Union. They were out and out disunionists, trampling on the Constitution at their meeting as 'a league with death and a covenant with hell,' and declaring that 'there was no issue of any importance except the dissolution of the Union.' They were therefore quick to make John Brown a martyr to their cause. These are doubtless the facts of history, and Mr. Thayer does the public a service in calling attention to them at a time when anarchists are attempting to justify their savagery by pointing to John Brown as a great moral hero whose memory is revered by his countrymen and honored by the whole world."

        I have quoted these men of high character and unquestioned veracity because they were men of strong conviction, who believed that Kansas was a battle-ground where under the law a stand-up fight might be made in the open, and with guns if need be, between the opposing forces of slavery and antislavery. They were wise enough to see that carrying hardy farmers and planting them as tillers of the free soil was the one legitimate and logical way of doing what Thomas Jefferson of Virginia tried to do--namely, prevent the extension of slavery into the territories. These men were in personal contact with John Brown, and they knew him. Eli Thayer was of such prominence in his day that, according to the New York Independent of December 16, 1875, "Charles Sumner said in January, 1857: 'The state of Kansas should be named "Thayer." ' "

        In 1910, at a meeting of the veterans of '56 in Kansas, Colonel O. E. Learnard, of Lawrence, made an address from which what follows is taken. While I felt sure, from the

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tone of the protest, that its author could say nothing that was of doubtful truthfulness, I wrote to a brother physician in Lawrence, Dr. George W. Jones, making proper inquiry. He assured me that "Mr. Warren, a former State Senator; Mr. Brooks, once member of the legislature; Mr. Kennedy and Captain Huddleston and Colonel Learnard were in every respect among the foremost citizens of the state. Of Colonel O. E. Learnard, the noblest Roman of them all, one cannot say too much in praise of his noted integrity. A man who has had about all the honors the community could give him is now in retirement, universally respected. Colonel Learnard was an abolitionist Republican."

        In the address entitled "John Brown's Career in Kansas," Colonel Learnard said:

        "At the meeting of this association two years ago I was to have made some remarks in relation to John Brown and his career in Kansas, but was unable to do so on account of ill health. Since then I have given the matter very little thought until the recent much-heralded event at Ossawatomie,1 by and through which was revealed a stated purpose to pervert the facts in the interest of a mawkish sentimentality that deliberately ignores and derides well-authenticated history.

        "The late Joel K. Goodwin, in a letter to Governor Robinson, said: 'The sickening adulation and offensive slobbers over some of the imaginary saviors of Kansas to freedom which have passed the lips of ministers and laymen, lecturers and politicians, editors and essayists during the past thirty years has added little to the truthfulness of history or the healthy education of the young men and young women of the state.' Under the circumstances it seems
1 In reference to the address of ex-President Roosevelt.

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pertinent that at least some of the salient facts of the matter should be stated, and I do this from no motive or wish other than a vindication of the truth of history. It is conceded at the outset that most of the early settlers, those who were cognizant of the facts, most of whom were participants in these events, did not, and do not, share the sentiments which have recently been expressed as to the character and achievements of John Brown. I have always thought that some of us who survive think they know better. Of those who have passed away I readily recall General Thomas Ewing, Marcus J. Parrott, Colonel W. Y. Roberts, Colonel Campbell, Colonel C. K. Holliday, General R. B. Mitchell, Guilford Dudley, George A. Crawford, Senator Alex. McDonald, Colonel Blood, C. W. Babcock, Lyman Allen, B. W. Woodward, Judge Emery, General G. Deitsler, and Joel K. Goodwin--indeed, the list might be extended almost indefinitely.

        "Those present here to-day, Mr. Morrow, Paul R. Brooks, Scott Kennedy, your president, Captain Huddleston, and others who were active participants in nearly all the stirring events of '56, of my personal knowledge--these gentlemen can speak for themselves. The claims made for John Brown are that he was the savior of Kansas to freedom, that he inspired the organized armed resistance to border-ruffian aggression, and was its master spirit and guide. Each and all of these claims on his behalf I unhesitatingly and absolutely repudiate and deny.

        "The first organized and armed resistance was in what is designated as the 'Wakarusa War.' Governor Robinson was chief in command, and General Lane second. John Brown had but recently arrived, and on the strength of the representation that he had fought in the battle of Plattsburg

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in the War of 1812--a representation, by the way, that was absolutely false--he was given the nominal command of a small squad of men.

        "During that brief and bloodless campaign John Brown spent most of his time in faultfinding and growling about the camp, particularly of the Topeka company; so that they ordered him to get out and stay out. This statement is made on the authority of the late Guilford Dudley, for a great many years a prominent and well-known resident of Topeka, who was a member of the Topeka company. John Speer, in his Life of General Lane, referring to the treaty that closed the 'Wakarusa War,' says: 'The conflict was remarkable for the harmony among the free-state leaders. I heard of no disagreement except Brown, who was bitter against any settlement.'

        "And this same habit of growling and faultfinding characterized all his later relation to the free-state movement and its leaders. During the spring and summer of 1856 John Brown was only occasionally about Lawrence, and only for brief periods, and at no time did he have a command here. He was here on the 14th of September. I saw him a little after noon as twenty-five of us mounted men started to locate the Missourians, about whom all sorts of rumors were afloat. I saw no more of him that day, and I know of no one who did. The only free-state forces employed that day other than our twenty-five horsemen, who occupied the outpost southeast of town until the troops came, was a small company under the command of Captain Joseph Cracklin, stationed out in Earl's addition, and some members of the Cabot guards, and other citizens in the stone fort on the hill. I saw Brown at Rock Creek camp and one or two other times during the summer. When Lane proposed

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to me to make the demonstration on Leavenworth that summer he coupled with it the suggestion that Brown accompany us. I replied that I was willing to make the trip, but that Brown could not go with us; and, of course, he did not.

        "Most of his operations were in the border counties of Kansas and Missouri--forays, night alarms, and frightening peaceful citizens. Generally his raids were fruitful of plunder. A proslavery man, or even a free-state man who did not accord with his views and methods, had no rights of person or property that Brown respected. This condition continued long after the free-state issue was settled and the territorial legislature was in the hands of the free-state men, as well as the administration of local affairs in the border counties. Indeed, a condition of disquiet and apprehension prevailed to a greater or less extent in the border counties until Brown left Kansas for good.

        "His achievements for the most part were of the order of that noted by Professor Spring, as follows: 'At St. Bernard, five miles from camp, a successful proslavery trader had a miscellaneous store, filled with dry-goods, clothing, drugs, groceries, firearms, hardware, boots and shoes. A necessitous company of guerrillas could scarcely be expected to neglect so favorable an opportunity to supply their wants at the expense of a Southerner. Certainly the company camped on Middle Creek did nothing of the kind. About nightfall, June 3d, such is the drift of the testimony before the Strickler Commission, "part of a company commanded by one John Brown, armed with Sharp's rifles, pistols, bowie-knives, and other deadly weapons, came upon the premises and attacked and rushed into the said store"--a sudden condition of affairs so warlike that the employees

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were deterred, threatened, and overpowered by the desperadoes, who demanded a surrender of the goods and chattels, threatening immediate death and destruction should the slightest opposition be offered. Finding the prize richer than they had anticipated and their appliances for transportation inadequate, the gang returned in the morning and resumed operations. They evidently left nothing to be desired in point of thoroughness.['] "


        Redpath, in his Life of John Brown, says: "Brown then lay down by our side and told us of the wars and trials he had passed through; that he had settled in Kansas with a large family, having with him six full-grown sons; that he had taken a claim in Lykens County, Kansas, and was attending peacefully to the duties of husbandry when the hordes of wild men came over from Missouri and took possession of all the ballot-boxes, destroyed his corn, stole his horses, and shot down his cattle, sheep, and hogs, and repeatedly threatened to shoot, hang, or burn him." Commenting upon this, Dr. George W. Brown, who has written some of the most accurate of Kansas history, and who lived a great part of it, says: "Need we write, even at this distance in time from those occurrences in Kansas history, that probably there was not one word of truth in all that statement? Old John Brown had participated in no wars; he never settled in Kansas with his family, hence did not have any six sons with him in that family; he never entered any claim in Lykens County, Kansas, nor anywhere else; he did not attend to the duties of husbandry; he was not in the territory until six months after the Missouri usurpation of the ballot-boxes. The only horses he ever owned, save the one he drove into the territory, were stolen, and the same is true of

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his blooded stock, his sheep, and his hogs, if he had any."

        The late General J. K. Hudson, for many years editor of the Topeka Capital, and one of the foremost writers of the West, said in the course of an editorial in the Topeka Capital: "There is not written in the annals of Kansas a single incident that reflects credit upon the intelligence of John Brown, his industry, his integrity, or reveals a single admirable quality of heart or mind. Kansas has been wont to veneer the character of John Brown with excessive praise. It has habitually spread upon his memory the spittle of effulgent adulation. Isn't it about time to take the measure of his true value as a citizen? Isn't it about time to admit the truth, which is that he was a loafer, a brawler, a disturber who did nothing to his own credit and who scattered misery with the hand of a sower?"

        As to the alleged "battle of Ossawatomie," August 30, 1856, John Brown, in a letter to his wife recently published, stated that he had had a hard fight with the Missourians, whom he had defeated, their killed being estimated at from seventy to eighty men. Dr. Updegraft, in his speech at the dedication of the John Brown monument, fixed the number of killed at from thirty to forty and the wounded from seventy-five to one hundred. The well-authenticated facts are that not one of the Missourians was killed, and only three were wounded by gun-shots.

        Judge Robinson, for years a prominent citizen of Paola, who wrote the history of Miami County, verifies this statement, and adds:

        "When I came to the battle of Ossawatomie, wishing to be historically correct, I spent a good deal of time investigating the subject; and, while my sympathies are and always

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have been with the defenders of Ossawatomie, and I should have been glad to have had the Missourians routed or captured, sentiment cannot be used in making history--facts are required."

        Colonel William Higgins, formerly secretary of state for Kansas, and at present postmaster and post commander of the G. A. R. at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, then a boy who was present on the occasion as a teamster in the Read, or proslavery, command, says: "Two of the gunners were wounded, and one man with a bad shot in his left arm. The two wounded gunners were conveyed back to Missouri in a wagon, while the other wounded man was able to ride his horse. This covers the total loss and damage sustained by the border ruffians, while but two of the free-state men were killed, and they on the picket-line in the morning."

        These were Fred Brown and George Partridge, the only authenticated victims of the engagement. Mr. Higgins adds: "While the fires were still burning the roll was called, and every man that marched to Ossawatomie was accounted for; not one killed or missing."

        Captain J. M. Anthony, brother of Colonel D. R. Anthony, a resident of Ossawatomie at the time, in a letter to the Leavenworth Times recounting the incidents of the occasion, said: "A few shots were exchanged. When pressed by the enemy there was no orderly retreat, but a general skedaddle, every man for himself--John Brown with the rest." He adds: "I went down to the barnyard to milk the cow, having had nothing to eat since breakfast, and while milking saw Brown advancing up the ravine. When about twenty-five feet from me he stopped and called out: 'Hello! Is that you?' I replied that it assuredly

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was. He then asked me about the day's engagement, seemingly entirely ignorant of the result, and, like Dr. Updegraft and everybody else, thought the whole community had been killed."

        As an example of the reliability of any statement emanating from John Brown or any member of his family the following extract is taken from a letter of Brown's printed in Sanborn's book and dated Lawrence, Kansas Territory, September 7, 1856:

        "On the morning of the 30th of August an attack was made by the ruffians on Ossawatomie, numbering some four hundred. At this time I was about three miles off, where I had some fourteen or fifteen men. These I collected with some twelve or fifteen men, and in about three-quarters of an hour I attacked them from a wood with thick undergrowth. With this force we threw them into confusion for about fifteen or twenty minutes, during which time we killed or wounded from seventy to eighty of the enemy, as they say. Four or five free-state men were butchered during the day in all. I was struck by a partly spent grape, canister, or rifle shot which bruised me some but did not injure me seriously. 'Hitherto the Lord has helped me,' notwithstanding my afflictions."

        The simple facts above given are from sources no sane person will question, and this distortion of truth by John Brown, which his biographers use as a text for a sermon on one of his greatest and most heroic battles for free Kansas, demonstrates the force of the maxim that there is but "a step from the sublime to the ridiculous," which is still further emphasized when we reflect that the people of Kansas have been deceived into erecting a monument on this battle-field, on one side of which is blazoned the "Heroism of

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Captain John Brown, who commanded at the Battle of Ossawatomie August 30, 1856; who died and conquered American Slavery at Charlestown, Va., December 2, 1859."

        It may be illuminating to quote from a letter from Mr. Richard Mendenhall, a Quaker (Sanborn, page 326): "I next met John Brown again on the evening before the battle of Ossawatomie. He with a number of others was driving a herd of cattle which they had taken from proslavery men. He rode out of the company to speak to me when I playfully asked him where he got those cattle. He replied with a characteristic shake of the head that 'they were good free-state cattle now.' "

        Governor Charles Robinson, in his Kansas Conflict, says (page 330): "The only battles in which Brown was engaged were at Black Jack and Ossawatomie. At the first Captain Shore had nineteen men and Brown nine. Shore with his men attacked Pate from the open prairie and drove him into the ravine, while Brown took to the ravine at once and was not in sight of the foe at all. Shore also went into the ravine, and shots were exchanged for several hours, till Captain J. B. Abbott appeared in sight of the enemy with his company, when Pate surrendered. This is substantially the part played in this battle by Brown."

        The truth is that Brown's most famous engagement, and one that will be remembered when Black Jack and Ossawatomie are forgotten, took place on the night of May 24, 1856. On this night, accompanied by his four sons Owen, Frederick, Salmon, and Oliver, his son-in-law Henry Thompson, a Jew named Wiener, and Townsley, a settler, about two o'clock in the morning he took from their beds and homes three men and two lads, one under age, and made his sons

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and the others cut these to death in a manner almost too horrible to be believed. That their leader and his gang were careful of their own lives is attested by the statement of Salmon Brown, one of the murderers, who wrote later: "Soon after crossing the creek some one of the party knocked at the door of a cabin. There was no reply, but from within came the sound of a gun rammed through the chinks of the cabin walls. At that we all scattered. We did not disturb that man" (Villard). They next proceeded to the cabin of William Sherman, knocked, and the door was opened. James Harris in his testimony before the committee of Congress swore: "I took Mr. William Sherman out of the creek and examined him. Mr. Whitman was with me. Sherman's skull was split in two places, and some of his brain was washed out by the water. A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off except a little piece of skin on one side." Sanborn says: "When the bodies of the dead were found, there went up a cry that they had been mutilated; but this was because of the weapons used." Ordinarily it would seem that two gashes through the skull from which the brain was oozing might suffice without the extra thrust on the side and lopping off of the hand.

        Another of the victims was a Mr. Wilkinson, who was the postmaster at Shermansville (now Lane), and also a member of the territorial legislature of Kansas. Mrs. Wilkinson in her testimony said that she was sick in bed with the measles; that she begged them to let her husband stay with her, as she was helpless. "The old man [Brown] who seemed to be in command looked at me and then around at the children, and replied, 'You have neighbors.' They then took my husband away. One of them came back and took two

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saddles. The next morning Mr. Wilkinson was found. I believe that one of Captain Brown's sons was in the party which murdered my husband. My husband was a quiet man and was not engaged in arresting or disturbing anybody."

        Three Doyles, father and sons, one of the lads under age, were also murdered. John Doyle, a son of the murdered man, testified: "I found my father and one brother, William, lying dead in the road about two hundred yards from the house. I saw my other brother lying dead on the ground about one hundred and fifty yards from the house. His fingers were cut off, and his arms were cut off; his head was cut open, and there was a large hole in his breast. William's head was cut open, and a hole was in his jaw, as if made by a knife; and a hole was also in his side. My father was shot in the forehead and stabbed in the breast" (page 160). This done, the horses and saddles of the dead men were taken along and, according to Sanborn, traded off in northern Kansas.

        John Brown denied killing any of these men with his own hands, and yet a pistol-shot was fired, and Doyle was found with a bullet through the forehead. Salmon Brown says that Owen and another killed the Doyles; and Villard adds, "By a process of elimination it is apparent that the other could only have been himself." Salmon Brown will not positively state that his father fired this shot, but admits that no one else in the party pulled a trigger. He is at a loss to explain why the shot was fired. He said Doyle was dead; it was probable that the old man fired into the dead man's skull for additional moral effect.

        Of this affair Andrew Johnson said in the United States Senate: "Innocent and unoffending men were taken out,

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and in the midnight hour fell victims to the insatiable thirst of John Brown for blood. Then it was that he shrank from the dimensions of a human being into those of a reptile. Then it was, if not before, that he changed his character to a demon who had lost all the virtues of a man."

        Professor L. W. Spring, in his Kansas, says: "John Brown's statements were sufficiently evasive to deceive members of his own family and personal friends who long denied that he led the foray. The five squatters upon whom he laid a tiger's paw were not exceptionally bad men; and the squatters, without distinction of party, denounced the deed as 'an outrage of the darkest and foulest nature, by midnight assassins who murdered and mangled them in the most awful manner.' To this must be charged most of the havoc and anarchy in which the Kansas of 1855 weltered. It set afoot retaliatory violence, and finally issued in a total military collapse of the free-state cause."

        Villard says (page 264): "Between November 1, 1855, and December 1, 1856, about two hundred people are known to have lost their lives in the anarchical conditions which prevailed, and the property loss in this period is officially set down at not less than two millions of dollars. However superior in character and intelligence and industry the free-state emigrants indubitably were in the beginning, there was little to choose between the border ruffians and the Kansas ruffians in midsummer of 1856. The Whipples and Harveys and Browns plundered and robbed as freely on one side as did the Martin Whites, the Reids, and the Tituses on the other, and there was not the slightest difference in their methods."

        Concerning the Pottawattomie murders, the governor of the territory (Shannon), on May 31, 1856, wrote to the

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president of the United States: "The respectability of the parties and the cruelties attending these murders have produced an extraordinary state of excitement in that portion of the territory which has heretofore remained comparatively quiet" (Villard, page 169).

        Major John Sedgwick, who later won undying fame as commander of a corps in the Army of the Potomac, reported: "Five men were taken out of their beds, their throats cut, their ears cut off, and their persons gashed more horribly than our savages have ever done. I sincerely think that most of the atrocities have been committed by the Free-soil party, but I cannot think that they countenance such acts--that is, the respectable class" (Villard, page 169).

        Mr. Adair, a Free-soiler, when Owen Brown, who with his brother Salmon had cut the Doyles to death, asked to stay all night, said to him: "Get away--get away as quickly as you can. You are a vile murderer, a marked man."

        " 'I intend to be a marked man,' shouted Owen, and rode away on one of the murdered man's horses" (according to Mr. Villard).

        John Brown, Jr., was deposed from command of a company (Villard, page 151) because a man rode into camp in great excitement, saying, "Five men have been killed on Pottawattomie Creek, butchered and most brutally mangled, and old John Brown has done it." Jason Brown says: "This information caused great excitement and fear among the men of our company, and a feeling arose against John and myself which led the men all to desert us."

        Villard says (page 187): "From the ethical point of view John Brown's crime on the Pottawattomie cannot be successfully palliated or excused. It must ever remain a complete indictment of his judgment and wisdom; a dark

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blot upon his memory; a proof that, however self-controlled, he had neither true respect for the laws nor for human life, nor a knowledge that two wrongs never make a right."

        Biographers of Brown, notably Sanborn and Redpath, disclaimed his reponsibility or participation in this crime until the proof was so positive that even the former accepted it. He then justifies the murders as "executions" in which his hero became judge and jury, holding midnight sessions of about one minute each for each defendant--"brief but sufficient trials," as he beautifully expresses it. Sanborn's qualifications for his self-imposed task may be judged from his treatment of this incident. Redpath, another "reliable" historian, says he was twenty-five miles away. The retaliatory killings at the Marais des Cygnes were not "executions," but murders! The poet Whittier, who sang of the Marais des Cygnes outrage, could not tune his lyre to the measure of the Pottawattomie. The wrong ox had been gored. The zealots of abolitionism were so far lost to the sense of justice and to truth itself that they made of themselves the apostles of misrepresentation. Witness Longfellow's "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp" and Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie," recited by thousands of impressionable school-children and read by many more thousands of older persons who may never know the truth and will accept this version of an incident which occurred only in the imagination of the poet as an indictment of the Southern soldier and of his section.

        I know from a brother physician, an honorable member of my profession and of this same family in Frederick, who assured me that his aged relative never saw Stonewall Jackson or a single Confederate soldier, and that when the poet of New England sang of her as leaning out of the window

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waving her country's flag in Jackson's face and daring him to shoot, she was a block away, hopelessly bedridden. Her joints were stiffened to such a painful degree that not only was it impossible for her to get out of bed and walk, but she could not even have stood upright had she been placed on her feet!

        As late as November 10, 1913, this often resurrected falsehood arose again from the dead through the medium of the New York Sun, and was again temporarily laid to rest by Professor W. Gordon McCabe, of Richmond, Virginia, with the timely aid of Mr. Valerius Ebert, of Frederick, Maryland. The original was published in the Baltimore Sun:

SIR,

        --I have just read a communication in the Sun, purporting to set forth certain facts in relation to the life and character of the late Barbara Frietchie, the heroine of Whittier's celebrated war poem. It may be proper to state that I am the nephew of Dame Barbara, and had the settling up of her husband's estate in the capacity of administrator.

        This necessarily threw me into frequent communication with the ancient and venerable dame. Barbara Frietchie, my venerable aunt, was not a lady of twenty-two summers, but an ancient dame of ninety-six winters when she departed this life.

        As to the waving of the Federal flag in the face of the rebels by Dame Barbara on the occasion of Stonewall Jackson's march through Frederick, truth requires me to say that Stonewall Jackson with his troops did not pass Barbara Frietchie's residence at all, but passed up what in this city is popularly called "The Mill Alley," about three hundred yards above her residence, then passed due west to Antietam, and thus out of the city.

        But another and stranger fact with regard to this matter may be presented: the poem by Whittier represents our venerable relative (then ninety-six years of age) as nimbly ascending to her attic window and waving her small Federal flag defiantly in the face of Stonewall Jackson's troops. Now, what are the facts at this point? Dame Barbara was, at the moment of the passing of that distinguished general and his forces through Frederick, bedridden and helpless, and lost the power of locomotion. She could at this period only move as she was

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moved by the help of her attendants. These are the true and stern facts, proving that Whittier's poem upon this subject is fiction, pure fiction, and nothing else, without even the remotest semblance or resemblance of fact.

VALERIUS EBERT.

FREDERICK CITY, MARYLAND, August 27, 1874
.

        Such is the explicit testimony of one who could "speak with authority," and such must be reckoned the real "truth about Barbara Frietchie."

        This same otherwise lovable man is also responsible for another unpoetic untruth, "Brown of Ossawatomie," which served its purpose of aiding to establish his martyrdom-- viz., the kissing of a negro baby as he was walking to the gallows, which deed, according to the standard of zealots, cleaned his record of all misdeeds. Even Sanborn now admits it could not have taken place; and, in fact, nothing of the kind did occur.

        Brown's next notorious expedition was over the border in Missouri on December 20, 1859. "With him were a well-known horse-thief, 'Pickles' by designation, Charles Jemison, Jeremiah Anderson, Gill, Kagi, and two young men named Ayres, besides one or two others. At midnight Hicklan's (a slave-owning citizen's) door was quickly forced by men with pointed revolvers, and he was informed of the mission of the raiders. Gill, one of the raiders, says: 'Watches and other articles were taken; some of our number proved to be mere adventurers, ready to take from friend or foe as opportunity offered' " (Villard).

        Mr. Hicklan testified: "Nothing that was taken was ever recovered. I learn that it was stated by John Brown that he made his men return all the property they had taken from me. This is not true. They did not give anything

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back. Brown said to me that we might get our property back if we could; that he defied us and the whole United States to follow him" (Villard, page 368).

        "Besides the negroes Brown took from the Lawrence estate two good horses, a yoke of oxen, a good wagon, harness, saddles, a considerable quantity of provisions, bacon, flour, meal, coffee, sugar, etc., all the bedding and clothing of the negroes, Hicklan's shotgun, overcoat, boots, and many other articles belonging to the whites. From Larue were taken five negroes, six head of horses, harness, a wagon, a lot of bedding and clothing, provisions, and, in short, all the loot available and portable" (Villard, page 369).

        Meanwhile Stevens's expedition had released but one slave, and that at the cost of the owner's life. David Cruse, a wealthy settler, had a woman slave whom the Daniels party wished to take along. Stevens had hardly entered the house when he said he thought Mr. Cruse was reaching for a weapon. He fired instantly, and the old man dropped dead. Stevens, who was hanged at Charlestown with Brown, freely admitted the killing, though it weighed heavily upon him. The Cruse family charged wholesale looting of the house, the taking of two yoke of oxen, a wagon-load of provisions, eleven mules, and two horses. John Brown says of this expedition that a white man who resisted the liberation was killed; and Sanborn adds, "He left Kansas pursued by United States troops."

        On pages 370, 371 Villard says: "Naturally, the death of Mr. Cruse created great excitement in Missouri, for, Stevens's narrative to the contrary notwithstanding, he ranked as a peaceful, law-abiding citizen, accustomed to minding his own business. This murder instantly imperiled the safety of all the Kansas settlements near the border line, for it was

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wholly unprovoked and without a shadow of the usual apology-- that Cruse had been guilty of outrages upon the people of Kansas. Finally, for this crime the President of the United State offered a reward of two hundred and fifty dollars for the arrest of Brown and Montgomery, and the governor of Missouri three thousand dollars for the capture of Brown." Sanborn admits that even in Kansas he was "proscribed." Villard also says that "Brown, on March 25, 1859, sent from Ashtabula, Ohio, one hundred and fifty dollars, part of the proceeds of the sale of the horses taken from the Missouri farmers to his family at North Elba." Part of this particular fund paid for a yoke of oxen for the Brown family.

        In this period as a fugitive from justice he lived under various aliases: Isaac Smith, Shubel Morgan, James Smith, and Nelson Hawkins. Naturally he writes, "I am advised that one of Uncle Sam's hounds is on my track."

        It will amuse students of the art of war after reading Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and Napoleon's disastrous march from Moscow to the Berezina, to follow the historian Sanborn's detailed description of the retreat of Captain John Brown from the plantations he had robbed in Missouri to Detroit, Michigan, and thence across the river to Canada. Although Xenophon came home a loser, he was in pretty fair shape, considering the difficulties he had to encounter. Napoleon lost about everything; but Brown, like a rolling ball of snow, gathered as he went. This from Sanborn:

        "The retreat from southern Kansas with his freedmen, and particularly the first step of his journey, was one of the boldest adventures of Brown. With a price on his head, with but one white companion, himself an outlaw, with

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their property loaded into an odd-looking wagon drawn by the cattle taken from the slave-owner in Missouri, Brown pushed forward in the dead of winter, relying on the mercy of God and on his own stout heart."1

        The "himself an outlaw" was Whipple, alias Stevens, who murdered Mr. Cruse, and who was hung at Charlestown. It took Brown nearly three months to pull through.

        Eli Thayer, who had employed Brown until he learned his real character, says that he stole on this expedition some four thousand dollars' worth of property, and instead of going directly to Canada, which he could easily have done in two weeks, as no one hindered him, he dawdled along in all sorts of meanderings, working everybody for any and every thing he could get, sending agents in all directions to excite sympathy for the poor captive slaves, and incidentally to get money for John Brown. The retreat led through Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan to Canada.

        "At Muddy Creek, with only twenty-three white men and a dozen negroes, he put to rout a marshal with eighty men, chased them six miles, and brought back four prisoners and five horses. The captain told the prisoners they could proceed on foot. Their horses were retained for prudential motives! and given to the brave Topeka boys" (Sanborn, page 485). It may be recalled that in the great battle of Ossawatomie Brown reported some seventy of the enemy hors de combat, when not a single man was killed.

        The Kansas strategist acquired an item of "one hundred and thirty-eight dollars in cash received on his private account of J. H. Painter." Also something from Gerrit Smith, who, having "heard of his foray in Missouri," wrote to friend Sanborn as follows (page 483):


1 Sanborn's Rhapsody, page 484.
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PETERSBORO, January 22, 1859
.

"MY DEAR SIR,

        -- I have yours of 19th. I am happy to learn that the Underground Railroad is so prosperous in Kansas. I send you twenty-five dollars, which I wish you to send to our noble friend, John Brown. The topography of Missouri is unfavorable. Would that a spur of the Alleghany extended from the east to the west borders of the state."


        The italics are in the original, and are significant, as they refer to the proposed invasion of the South to arm the negroes. Villard says Brown sent his wife one hundred and fifty dollars from the proceeds of the sale in Ohio of the horses stolen in Missouri. But these were insignificant sums when compared with the amount contributed by the New England contingent. Mr. George L. Stearns, one of the militant group of abolitionists, was a gold-mine for the "hero and martyr." How much he worked this placer for it is impossible to determine; but, being needy, as was his wont, he wrote and read at the psychological moment to Mrs. Stearns's "Old Brown's Farewell," the last lines of which are: "I am destitute of horses, baggage-wagons, tents, harness, saddles, bridles, holsters, spurs and belts; camp equipage, such as cooking and eating utensils, blankets, knapsacks, intrenching-tools, axes, shovels, spades, mattocks, crowbars; have not a supply of ammunition; have not money sufficient to pay freight and traveling expenses; and left my family poorly supplied with common necessities." The dear lady says: "I wish I could picture him as he sat and read, lifting his eyes to mine now and then, to see how it impressed me." Mrs. Stearns was won over, very much won over, as was her husband, for "when breakfast was over he [Mr. Stearns] drove to the residence of Judge

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Russell and handed Captain Brown his check for seven thousand dollars!"

        Discredited in Kansas by reason of his unlawful methods, disowned by such honorable antislavery leaders as Eli Thayer, Amos A. Lawrence, Governor Charles Robinson, O. E. Learned, and a host of men whose names are the synonyms of honor, integrity, and truthfulness; dismissed from their service and pay as unworthy of confidence or respect; an outlaw, with rewards for his apprehension offered by the President of the United States and by the Governor of Missouri; a fugitive from justice, slipping about under various aliases; an Ishmaelite with no possible means of a living for himself and the pitiable family he had long neglected, except what he might obtain from the wealthy zealots among the militant abolitionists or appropriate by violence, John Brown was now in a position to undertake even a venture that might involve some risk. Like Macbeth in more ways than one, he was so hopelessly advanced in bloody deeds 'twas just as easy to go on as to recede. He had had in mind what his historian dignifies by calling it an "invasion of the South" for the liberation of the slaves. It might or might not involve a wide-spread insurrection and a repetition on a grand scale in many remote communities of Nat Turner's massacres in Southampton. He had said it was better for a whole generation of white men, women, and children to be wiped out rather than slavery should continue. He knew what had been done in Haiti, San Domingo, and in Virginia. Mr. Sanborn, who conspired with him, and who more than all others, perhaps, is responsible for this apotheosis, regales us with the record of loud shouting, "Thank God, the negroes have risen in Virginia at last!" when the news came to

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Hudson, Ohio, about Nat Turner's murderous insurrection. Will the reader calmly and dispassionately think of this, and then read the appalling story, only a part of which is given in this book.

        It is stated that Brown had thought of going down the Mississippi to near the Louisiana line, where the negroes were ten to one more numerous than the whites, but in all probability he abandoned this project as the chances of escape in case of disaster would not be so good at such a distance from the Mason and Dixon line. No one who carefully studies each step of his career at this crisis can doubt that he had no idea of being caught or of dying. Had he been a really brave man and of heroic mold, ready and willing to die for the liberation of the slaves, nothing would have been easier than to have gone down the Ohio and the Mississippi in a trading flatboat, in which his guns and pikes and men could have been readily concealed, or on a raft of logs, which would have disarmed suspicion, and to have opened his campaign of "arming the slaves" where it was feasible. He knew that in 1811 in St. John's Parish, in Louisiana, the negroes, unaided from without, had risen, and that it took a week to put the insurrection down. With a white leader and his armed company and guns, and pikes for those who didn't know how to shoot, what a great success he might have made of it!

        The truth, as I believe it, is that John Brown was a craven at heart. He and his two sons ran away from the click of a gun from the inside of a cabin when they were calling unsuspecting men and boys to the door and, finding them unarmed, hacking them to pieces with cleavers--in order not to raise an alarm in that bloody night on the Pottawattomie. There is undoubted testimony that he

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ran at Ossawatomie, from which he emerges as a hero at the hands of the martyrists. Read Brown's report of this great battle, with its sixty or seventy of the enemy slain, and then read the truth, that not one of the enemy was killed, and that there was "a general skedaddle, John Brown with the rest," and you begin to get the measure of a colossal fraud. He evidently expected to escape into the mountains and then to his harbor of refuge in the North in case of failure at Harper's Ferry. "He and his men had studied the country carefully and knew it a hundred times better than any of the inhabitants. Every avenue of escape was noted" (Sanborn, page 556). It was the measure of a coward to take helpless citizens and hold them as hostages in constant danger of being shot to protect himself in the engine-house, in which, from a port-hole, he, rifle in hand, was killing or trying to kill his assailants. He had refused to surrender, saying, "I prefer to die just here," but when the crisis came what did he do?

        "One lone man, Lieutenant Green, of the United States Marine Corps, forced his way through a small aperture made by a ladder used as a battering-ram, jumped on top of the engine, and stood a second mid a shower of balls. Singling out John Brown, he sprang at him, having no weapon but a small officer's sword which bent double with the first thrust or blow, when Brown fell down, with his head between his knees, permitting Green to maul him with the bent weapon, and offering no resistance whatever!"

        Brown was at last face to face with a fearless man, armed as he was; he had boasted he preferred to die just here, but when he had the opportunity to fight he behaved as stated before in the words of an eye-witness, one of the hostages. If there is a suggestion of the heroic in this, I fail to discern

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it. Even after he was caught red-handed he did not abandon hope or the effort to escape the just penalty of his crimes. He offered Judge Thomas Russell (among others), who was in the conspiracy, two hundred and fifty dollars "and personal property sufficient to pay a most liberal fee to yourself" to come and try to get him off, and in his anxiety he added, "Do not send an ultra abolitionist!" They had taken Colonel Washington's silver and watch, and probably other valuables. Brown had no personal property beyond what he had obtained illegally. To Senator Mason he spoke falsely when he said he furnished most of the money for his expedition, and that he had killed no man except in fair fight. Standing by and ordering his sons to kill his victims was not killing unfairly, as he interpreted it.

        Of the trial, Sanborn, his rhapsodist, says: "He was ably defended." Brown said: "I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. It has been more generous than I expected." He was sentenced to be executed on December 2, 1859. Then--and only then--when all hope of escape was gone, came the pose of martyrdom. Sanborn sounds the slogan when he says: "But he soon began to see that his mistake" (in not running earlier) "was leading him to his most glorious success, a victory such as he might never have won in his own way." A deluge of letters flowed from the Charlestown jail to all points of the compass but one--pathetic appeals of a dying man, of a poor man with a helpless family, of a man who had lost three sons and a son-in-law and was himself soon to be judicially murdered by slave-owners, and all because he had tried to free the slaves.

        Nobody stopped to think that one of his dead sons, Frederick, was a murderer in Kansas before he in turn was

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murdered by a proslavery preacher who got the drop on him; that Owen, Salmon, and Oliver, and son-in-law Thompson cut some of the Pottawattomie helpless and unarmed victims into slices with cleavers; and that the leading candidate for martyrdom had a long and varied career of deception, embezzlement, robbery, and murder. Oh no! The maxim of Napoleon, the great master in the art of pulling the wool over men's eyes--namely, "Not facts, but sentiment and imagination, if you would rule mankind"-- was the motto of the crusade of martyrdom. It spread like wild-fire among the militant abolitionists of the North; it appealed to thousands who never stopped to reason, only to sympathize. It found a ready lodgment in the "Concord Circle of Authors." On December 2, 1859, at the hour at which the execution was to take place at Charlestown, with time allowance carefully calculated, the circle began at Concord the Crusade of Martyrdom. Sanborn furnished "A Dirge"; Alcott read the "Martyr's Service" and quoted appropriately from Solomon, David, the Psalms, and Plato; Thoreau chimed in with selections from the poets, and the Reverend E. H. Sears "offered prayer." Alcott, in his Diary, notes: "The spectacle of a martyrdom such as his must needs be, will be greater service," etc., etc. But it was left to Mr. F. B. Sanborn to settle the matter in this rhapsodical outburst: "From the crucifixion at Jerusalem a light sprang forth that was reflected back without obstruction from the ugly gallows of Virginia. John Brown took up his cross and followed the Lord, and it was enough for this servant that he was as his Master!"

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XI
A DISSERTATION UPON THE PERVERSION OF FACTS-- SKETCHES FROM THE BACKWOODS OF ALABAMA-- THE GRAPE-VINE TELEGRAPH--THE LIARS' TOURNAMENT--THE SHERIFF'S STORY OF "WHEN THE YANKEES FIRST CAME"

        ALTHOUGH born a Presbyterian and brought up with a Bible and the Westminster Confession in either hand, I must own up to a mental reservation in accepting the definition of a lie as the "wilful perversion of fact." I would rather define a real lie as perversion of fact with intent to avoid an obligation or to harm another. Deep down in its heart the human family believes that there are moments when lying is a near virtue. Judas told the truth when he gave his Master away, while Peter perverted fact three times with such a rising inflection that his last whopper started the cock crowing--and yet we all despise the man who told the truth and applaud the liar.

        If I ever write a book and dedicate it to one of the disciples, I shall not forget Peter. He was human enough to get mad and to qualify his nouns with forcible adjectives, and even went so far once on a time as to cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Then, too, Peter believed in himself. How we all look up to a man who has the courage of his convictions! He wasn't willing to let any living man get ahead of him, so when the Master came near to the boat walking across the surface of the water, as if

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it were the Mall in Central Park, Peter said, "I can do it if He can," and overboard he went. Alas for Peter! the law of gravitation refused to be suspended in his case, and he had to shout to his Master for help and swim until it was at hand.

        It may be that I lean toward the twisting of facts because I am a doctor. In my profession we often feel justified in deceiving our patients, especially when the truth might contribute to their mental or physical undoing. The fact that we are caught at it does not discourage us or stop the practice. I was on one occasion "sitting up" with a very dear and very sick friend, the late Dr. J. Marion Sims. He was suffering acutely, and begged so persistently for a hypodermic injection of morphine that I said at last, in affected sincerity: "Well, if you will have it, I'll give it to you; but you must take the responsibility, for you know Doctors Loomis and Janeway have forbidden it."

        He said he would, and so I went through all the forms of sterilizing the solution and the instrument, inserted the needle and gave him--nothing but plain water. The light was turned down, and I went back to the cot by the bedside, feigning sleep, but listening. In a few minutes I heard a whisper calling me. He said:

        "How much morphine did you give me?"

        I put on my best Presbyterian face and, looking him straight in the eye, said, "A fourth of a grain."

        Quick as a flash he said, "Wyeth, you're a liar, and you know it!"

        I wrote on the chart, "Diagnosis correct."

        Lawyers, too, are said at times to wander from the straight and narrow path of truth. On one occasion a group of this profession, in selecting a site for the county court-house,

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requested a Baptist preacher to officiate in dedicating this bit of earth to its great purpose. He opened the services by asking those present to join in singing that well-known hymn--


                         Come, trembling sinner, view the ground
                         Where you shall shortly lie--

        If Bobby Burns is to be believed, even our clerical friends occasionally part company with facts. In that irreverent poem entitled "Death and Doctor Hornbook," he says:


                         Some books are lies frae end to end,
                         An' some great lies were never penn'd;
                         E'en ministers they ha'e been kenn'd,
                         In holy rapture,
                         A rousing whid at times to vend
                         An' nail't wi' Scripture.

        Even a soldier may find it necessary to protect himself by a false statement. In one of my war-time experiences I had to go into the Union lines on an urgent errand. The night was dark, and the little light which the stars were shedding was shut out by the overhanging forest and the dense undergrowth, which grew right up to the edges of the narrow country roadway. Suddenly as I struck the enemy's pickets my horse shied, and as I gave him the spurs I recognized the dim outlines of two men as they sprang to one side to keep from being run over. Our interview was brief, and very hurried on my part; but had I told those two pickets the truth as to who I was and what I was up to, the reader would have been spared the present infliction.

        The definition once given, that "a lie is an abomination in the sight of the Lord, but an ever-present help in time of trouble," might apply to such a situation. There is current a positive, comparative, and superlative classification,

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as lies, damned lies, and statistics. In my boyhood days down in Alabama you might be called a liar, and survive with something of character and reputation by promptly replying, "You're another"; but when in a moment of excitement or anger one boy called another a "damned liar" he had to fight or go to Texas. No boy ever took that insult and retained the respect of his playmates, or even of the grown-ups in that community. Whenever one of our crowd took it into his head that he wanted a fight with another boy, all he had to do was to call him a "damned liar," and the fight was on. The only delay was in a rapid exfoliation of hat and coat, and in summer-time the hat alone was in the way. I suppose boys are alike the world over, and in these engagements the usual rules of warfare were enforced. You could pull hair, and hit with your fists anywhere above or below the belt, smash a nose or blacken an eye or two, clench and wrestle and bang away until one or the other "hollered," but you dared not choke, scratch, bite, gouge, or kick. If you were guilty of one of these reprehensible practices the onlookers intervened and declared the victim the victor, and from that time on the offender was an Ishmaelite, with every hand against him.

        Modern society recognizes very properly the "white lie," which is accepted as a distortion of fact, not only without intent to do an injury, but often to avoid wounding the sensibilities, or to amuse, and thereby benefit, another.

        One of the cherished memories of my youth is that of an intimate association with a man some fifteen or twenty years my senior, who was endowed by nature with such a keen sense of humor, coupled with a genius for invention and exaggeration, that his companionship was always welcome. With the straightest face and in the most earnest

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and impressive way he would tell of the most impossible happenings. Up to a certain age I believed everything he told me, and when it dawned upon my awakening reason that I was the victim of a romancer I felt something of the same sickening sense that came over me when I first learned that Santa Claus really didn't come down the chimney. All the same, I loved and admired this gentle, gifted, blue-eyed, and soft-voiced old friend, who long ago knocked at the door of heaven; and if St. Peter knows a good thing when he sees it (and I think he does), James Swiverly is on the inside. If I am ever lucky enough to get there with him I'll lay aside my harp at any time to hear him talk. At heart this man was truthful and the soul of honor. He became the most popular man in our county, constable of his beat, sheriff, and a member of the legislature. He was of humble origin and uneducated. The district in which he was born was for many years represented in Congress by a statesman who boasted that there was no use for an education beyond the three R's--readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic. In frontier days--for we grew up in the Cherokee country of northern Alabama--the school facilities in Honey-Comb Cove were limited. In all probability neither his opportunities nor his aspirations carried him beyond the simpler forms of spelling.

        In addition to his genial disposition, which brought him in friendly touch and sympathy with every man, woman, and child in our county, it may be that something of his political success was due to a serious lameness which incapacitated him for physical labor, and when the war came on barred him from military duty. One leg was fully six inches shorter than the other, and, as he made no attempt to correct the inequality by wearing a high shoe, his limping

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gait made of him a rather grotesque figure as he went bobbing up and down. With a boy's curiosity I asked him how it happened that one of his legs was so much shorter than the other. We were walking down the village street side by side in our usual familiar conversation. As I made this inquiry he stopped short and, looking earnestly down at me, turned and led the way to the back of one of the stores--his look, manner, and tone indicating that what he was about to say was in the nature of a confidential communication.

        When we were by ourselves he said: "John, I don't like to brag about myself in public; but I don't mind talking to you, if you won't tell it." I told him I wouldn't. In a tone so serious that I believed every word, he said: "It come about in this way. When I was a-growin' up ther' wasn't nobody in Honey-Comb could lift as big a load as me. One day a lot of us fellers was a-standin' in front of Rickett's store when a feller drove up with a bushel bag plum full o' buckshot. He said he'd bet a dollar I couldn't shoulder the bag, and I took him up. It wasn't no trouble for me to shoulder a bushel o' shot, but, as bad luck would have it, my left foot was a-restin' on a rock and couldn't sink into the ground as the other one did, and the heavy weight drove that hip-bone half a foot up into my body, and it's stayed thar ever sence." Before I could tell him how sorry I was that the rock happened to be under his foot, he forestalled the expression of sympathy which he saw coming by adding: "After all, son, it ain't so powerful bad as a feller might think, specially in turnin' over ground with a mold-board plow. I just keep my long foot down in the furrer and the short one up on the land, and it ain't half so tirin' as bein' in Marshall County one second and up in High Jackson the next."

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        In later years, after the dawn of his political career, he turned this seeming misfortune to his further advantage, for, as he said, it gave him a chance to meet all classes of people on their own level. "When I'm a-talkin' to the people in 'The Gap' or over in Honey-Comb, I git down among 'em on my short leg, familiar like; but when I'm up here in town with the upper ten, like your pap, I rise up on my other foot, and thar I am."

        In those earlier days, before civilization moved into Marshall, there were no cattle laws, and at times not many of any other kind except those which the rifle and the bowie-knife enforced. Everybody's hogs ran loose and oftentimes strayed away into the woods and became wild. More than once in my hunting expeditions I have had to climb a tree or retire precipitately before the onslaught of a savage sow on guard over her litter. When the mast in the forests was scarce these omnivera would play havoc with the cornfields, gardens, and orchards of the settlers, and great care was necessary to build tight or close fences. Jim said: "John Kennedy's razorbacks was so poor and thin they laughed at fences and palings and went through them as if they wasn't there. Even tying knots in their tails couldn't stop 'em. Howsomever," he added, "old Ben Swords got the best of 'em. He went up on the side o' the mountain whar the chestnut-trees growed twistin', and split rails enough to fence in his peach-orchard. Well, John, you'd 'a' died laughin' to 'a' seen how foolish them shotes looked when they struck them cork-screw rails, and went in and come out on the same side."

        He furthermore assured me that down in Parch Corn Cove a friend of his raised so many hogs he couldn't take time to mark them with "a hole in the left ear and an underbit

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in the right," so he changed his registration to a "smooth crop for both ears, and mowed 'em off with a scythe-blade."

        Jim Swiverly was not the only man in politics in Marshall County. At one time or another about everybody I knew who wore breeches was running for something, and with some of our people this was a continuous performance. I remember one man well along in years when I was just getting big enough to go with my father to the barbecues and musters and other large gatherings held after the crops were "laid by," who at every convention in the absence of any one else to present his name would mount the stump when it was possible to get it before another candidate pre-empted it and announce himself as a candidate for governor. He did this so often that everybody knew him by the nickname of "Governor Hutton."

        An opportunity such as this could not escape the observation of Jim Swiverly, and there went the rounds the story that after repeated failures the candidate determined upon suicide. As Jim stated the facts: "The Governor wasn't a-goin' t' have no flash in the pan in his case; so he bought him an inch rope, a big dose o' arsenic, a quart o' turpentine, and a box o' red-headed matches, loaded his old Derringer so full the bullet stuck half out of the muzzle, and then, to make things shore, he got in a skiff and paddled out in the river, under a leanin' willer, to hang himself. He tied the rope 'round the tree, slipped the noose over his head, said his prayers, swallowed the pizen, poured the turpentine over his clothes, struck a match and set himself on fire, cocked his Derringer quick, stuck the muzzle agin the side of his head, kicked the boat out from under him, and blazed away. Well, by doggie, his head was that hard the bullet glanced off and cut the rope in two, and Gov, he drapped inter the

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water, which put out the blaze and strangled him till he coughed and throwed up the arsenic, and--would you believe it?--the river was so shaller he couldn't drown, and he waded to the bank plum disgusted, shook himself like a wet dog, and swore 'By -- , he'd be a candidate for life!' "

        More than once I've listened to the story of the "Liars' Tournament," held around the red-hot stove in Kinzler's grocery in Christmas week when "Tom and Jerry" and "egg-nog" were half-price to everybody, and free to all accepted entries. It was on such occasions that James Swiverly, self-appointed master of ceremonies, autocrat, and umpire, rose on his long leg to his greatest height. I can hear him now making the opening address to the crowd of eager listeners, seated and standing about the warm fire, all seemingly unmindful of the stifling air which was only spasmodically relieved when an inrush of cold wind announced another accession to the throng.

        "Feller-citizens: This meetin' is called to settle the question as to who's the biggest liar in Marshall County. It's a momentous question. Everybody knows it's as full o' liars as a watermillion is o' meat. Some of us is born liars and can't help it; some of us learned it young, and has stuck close to it for a livin'; and some few, natterally truthful, have bin obliged to lie to save 'emselves from drowning and taxation. I've bin assessor five years, and I know what I'm talkin' about. Thar's a power o' candidates for the fust prize, and it ain't bin no easy job to thin out the rows to a good stand. Fur be it from me to intentionally hurt any feller's feelin's, but after prayerful consideration thar's jest three that's stayed in for the last heat. Them's Ben Weeks, Jack Holder, and Ezekiel Burgess. We'll hear first from Mr Weeks."

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        Ben arose and with modest mien faced the stove and the half-encircling throng, and spoke as convincingly as his monotonous low drawl would permit:

        "Boys, you know thar's allers bin feelin' betwixt Parch Corn and the settlers over in Honey-Comb Cove, 'specially in the matter of watermillions. As it was me that come out ahead in the raisin' contest, it got spread over the 'North Side' that what I said about it was made outen whole cloth. Now, thar is liars in this county, as the sheriff says, and thar ain't as many of 'em down in Honey-Comb as thar used to be before he moved up to the county-seat, but thar's enough yit for a farmin' community. I'm a forty-gallon Baptist and the father of sixteen childen, all baptized exceptin' the last set o' twins, and they'll be put under when the circuit-rider comes around, and what I'm a-goin' to-tell you is the plum truth, and if any man disputes it thar'll be a vote missin' in his beat at the next election.

        "When Kernal Cobb was a-runnin' for Congress and was around shaking hands--and I tell you he was so pertickerler not to slight anybody that he'd wake the babies up in their cradles to git a chance to tell their mammies how purty they was--he tole me he had my name down at Washington for a package o' garden seeds. Shore enough, next spring they come along, and among 'em was one big, fat-lookin' watermillion seed. He sent word that it was a new kind, and powerful sca'ce, and cost the gov'mint five dollars a seed, and I must be very pertickerler to plant it whar the ground was rich and give it plenty of water and lots of room. Well, I fenced in a half-acre by the spring branch, 'riched the bed, and planted that seed. It come up next day, run out just one shoot, and on the end o' that thar come a great big yaller blossom. And now, gentlemen,

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comes the queer part of what I'm a-tellin' you. Instead o' waitin' a week to shed that blossom, that darned watermillion growed so fast it pushed it off in one night, and from that time on tell frost it was all we could do to keep outen the way and not git run over. It growed so fast you could see its shadder gittin' bigger every minute of the day. When it was three weeks old it throwed the fence down, dammed up the spring branch, and made for the house, and all hell couldn't stop it. When the logs begun to keel over and the roof was a-fallin' in, me and my wife and childen cut a door in one end of the watermillion and moved in, and lived on it tell a week before frost, when we met a drove o' hogs eatin' thar way through from the other side; and we had to move out and go and live with my wife's pap, whar we've been a-livin' ever sence."

        When the applause died out and Ben had resumed his seat Jim said he would reserve "all p'inted comments until the other contestants had spoke," but there was a semi-malicious smile of satisfaction, which may have sprung from Cove rivalry, when he added, "If all of what we've jest heard was as true as the last part of it, it ought to be a chapter in the Bible." By the time the laugh and the muffled comments on Ben's relations to his father-in-law's corn-crib had ceased Mr. Jack Holder was on his feet.

        "I'm not a church member," he announced, "and as far as I know I ain't never been really baptized, for my folks was only sprinklers; but I'm a thirty-second degree Freemason and a full-fledged Know-nothing, and I've got a discharge paper from Gineral Fremont and Kit Carson, certifying that what I seed in Arizony, when we marched thro' thar on our way to Californy in 1853, was as true as the Book of Exodus. When we fust started out from Missouri

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it looked like we was goin' to have nothin' but a long walk and lots o' fun, but the farther west we went the thinner the grass got, and when we got over the Rockies it give plum out. When we hit the edge of the desert everybody was ordered to fill up with water and to tote all he could, for Kit said thar wasn't a drap to be had for one hundred miles of the hot and petrified forests we marched through. Talk about your pillar of cloud by day! Why, gentlemen, the childen of Israel never raised such a dust as we did a-windin' in and out among them rock trees. Thar they stood, just like they wuz before they turned to stone, and they must have turned powerful quick when the change come, for on every petrified tree thar wuz petrified limbs, and them limbs wuz thick with petrified leaves which never throwed a shade, and the most surprisin' thing of it all wuz that a-settin' all over them limbs was thousands of petrified birds, and every darn bird was a-singin' a petrified song."

        Amid a considerable clapping of hands and a scattering fire at the square sawdust-spitbox near the stove, Jack found his seat, while Jim remarked:

        "The Good Book tells us that when Lot was a-runnin' from Sodom after the fire broke out, his old woman looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. As Judge Shorter said in his charge to the jury in the case of Feemster agin McShane, 'I don't intend to draw any invidious distinctions,' but in my opinion it would 'a' bin a great blessin' to this country if 'Truthful Jack' had looked back and been turned into a standin' committee of one and had stayed out in Arizony a-listenin' to petrified birds a-singin' petrified songs till Gabriel blowed a petrified blast on his petrified horn."

        There was nothing of mock modesty or assumed humility

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in the mien or tone of Ezekiel Burgess, a veteran of the Mexican War, as he arose and with military precision made two steps forward to the open place in the circle, took off his hat, saluted the sheriff, and then, looking squarely into the face of a large chromo of the Father of his Country which adorned the wall of the saloon, said:

        "Gentlemen, like George Washington, I have served my country. When the call for volunteers was made to repel the Mexican invaders of the Lone Star State I offered my humble services, and they were accepted. When we reached the Rio Grande General Taylor rode up to me and said, 'Zeke' (he always called me that when we were alone) 'get on your horse and swim across and make a scout, and come back and tell me how many of Santa Anna's men there are over there.' I found a low place in the banks and got across, and went ten or twenty miles and never saw a sign of their men, until just as I was riding around a bunch of chaparral two hundred Mexican lancers dashed out and came yelling right at me. There was nothing left for me to do but to break for the river at the nearest point and trust to luck in hitting a low place. As I came up to it at full speed I saw, to my horror, that I had struck a high bluff where it was at least one hundred and fifty feet straight down to the water. By this time the lancers were so close and coming so fast I could almost feel their sharp points between my shoulder-blades. Now, gentlemen, there are times in a man's life when he who hesitates is lost; and, as I realized it was sure death to stop or turn, I shut my eyes, said my prayers, stuck my spurs into my faithful horse's sides, and over the precipice I went--horse and all--a hundred and fifty feet down into the Rio Grande."

        As Ezekiel lowered his eyes from the calm face of George

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Washington, repeated his salute, and started to resume his seat, the sheriff said, "Will Ezekiel Burgess inform this crowd how long it took him to come up after that dive?" The veteran, unable to conceal his contempt at such a question, turned only a moment to reply: "Come up, Mr. Sheriff? Come up? I never did come up; I'm there yet!" And as he ceased, amid applause which shook the saloon to its underpinning, the chromo of George Washington fell with a crash to the floor.

        Startled by the outburst of applause at the way Ezekiel had downed the sheriff, and before the vote could be taken, Ben Weeks jumped to his feet and, with eyes turned heavenward and both hands raised in the same general direction, in a pleading tone shouted: "Boys, like Moses of old, I'm a-holdin' my hands up to ask fer a word more. If thar ever wuz a time when friendship and jestice could jine hands to help Ben Weeks, it's right now. My repertation down in Parch Corn Cove is at stake. Up to now over on our side of the river no man has ever worked with as long a pole as me or knocked down as many high persimmons. If this vote is agin me, the chances is ten to one that my wife's pap 'll turn us out, and I'll have to go back to work to make my own livin'. While I scorn the idee of usin' undue influence, I want to tell yer that I saved eight bushels of them watermillion seeds, and they're soon to be distributed in Marshall County, free, gratis, fer nuthin'."

        As Ben seated himself the sheriff arose and remarked that, as Mr. Weeks had added "a codicil to his will," if the other candidates desired to speak any "last words" they now had the chance. Without rising or even uncrossing his legs, and with a voice of such subdued tone that it gave the impression of despair, Mr. Jack Holder said, "I pass."

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Not so with Colonel Ezekiel Burgess, who stood erect and with a gesture which included the whole audience in its sweep said: "Mr. Sheriff, to draw one card to four aces would be an act of deception to which a survivor of the Mexican War could never stoop. Gentlemen, I stand."

        And Ezekiel Burgess passed into history as the biggest liar the Cherokee country of northern Alabama had ever produced.

        When the war came on, in 1861, Jim had grown tired of being sheriff, and ran for the legislature, and was elected, of course, for nobody could beat him. By the spring of 1862 the Confederate Army of the West had been driven back to the south side of the Tennessee River, which then became the dividing-line of the opposing hosts. Guntersville, my native town, was situated about a mile from the southerly bank of this noble stream. When Huntsville, some forty miles to the north, became the headquarters of the Union forces, communication for us with the outside world practically ceased. The steamboats could no longer run, the stages and mail-riders were discontinued or became so unreliable that we could learn little of what was going on, and war news was eagerly desired. In this emergency my friend again rose to the occasion and established what he termed "the grape-vine telegraph." He said, "The Yankees may burn our steamboats, tear up our railroads, cut our telegraph wires, and stop the mails, but there ain't enough of 'em left to strip the grape-vines from the trees along the river-banks, and as long as they last there'll be plenty o' news." He justified himself by saying: "Whether it's so or not don't make no difference; for the people is starving for news, and one kind is jest as good as another." Over those wireless lines, long before Marconi

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was born, came volumes of the most impossible happenings, as interpreted by the fertile brain of our proprietor and sole operator; and by the few at home, mostly old men or cripples and wounded soldiers on furlough who gathered daily at the post-office, where the operator made his headquarters, they were heard with a smile, for no bad news ever came that way. The Confederacy was always victorious and its diplomacy invariably prevailed.

        On the occasion of the Mason-Slidell controversy the irrepressible operator reported that Mason was coming back with the whole British navy to raise the blockade, while Slidell and the Emperor Napoleon at the head of a million French soldiers were marching by way of Moscow and Bering Strait to take the United States in the rear. Before the cyclone of active hostilities struck my native village and wiped it out with fire and sword I had gone to the wars, and for three years I lost sight of my old friend. When I saw him again during the period of reconstruction the scepter had departed from Judah and the ruler's staff from between his feet. Old in body, broken in health and fortune, he was living the song of "Tam o' Shanter"--


                         Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,
                         What sorrows thou canst make us scorn!

        My last recollection of him is the ludicrous story told in one of his moments of sobriety, or semi-sobriety, of a panic and stampede in which he took an active part upon the occasion of the sudden and unexpected visit of a company of Ohio cavalry to our village.

        The Federal commander at Huntsville had been informed that the steamer Paint Rock was hid away in a creek which emptied into the Tennessee near Guntersville, and he determined

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upon its capture. Guided by a native scout, and crossing the river near Huntsville, an all-night ride over the mountains brought the Union cavalry upon the unsuspecting villagers about nine o'clock on an April morning. At this period there were no soldiers in town, and but few men, and these were non-combatants, either too old for military duty or exempt by reason of physical defects. When the advance-guard of the Federals reached the head of the main street a dozen troopers dashed at full speed down this highway through the village, paying no heed to anybody, their object being to seize the steamboat at the river-landing beyond. All unconscious of what was about to occur, the sheriff, the village doctor, and a wealthy, pompous, and very portly planter, who had seen some service in the Mexican War, were sitting on the open platform in front of the doctor's drug-store, which served also as the post-office and headquarters of "the grape-vine telegraph." Trusting to memory in the repetition of a narrative tinged, no doubt, with the exaggeration which a ludicrous incident invites, and may, on occasion, justify, this was the story:

        "I've been skeered lots o' times in my life, and bad skeered, too, but I never come so near being paralyzed all over at once as I was the mornin' them dod-blasted Yankees dashed 'round the corner and come a-tearin' down Main Street so fast and so sudden-like that before a feller could say Jack Robberson they was right on top of him.

        "We all knowed they was over in Huntsville, but nobody ever dreamt they'd cross the river below and come on us in the back way. Howsomever, that's jest what they done, and at the wrong time, too, for Kernel Jim was right in the middle of one of his big war talks. I disremember whar he left off, for he was a-facin' up the street, and me and Doc

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was a-lookin' the other way, and he seed the Yankees fuss. You see, Kernel Jim was askin' if thar was any news, and I says nothin' more than Lee and Stonewall Jackson had whupped 'em ag'in and had tuk Washington City, and Jeff Davis was a-movin' over from Richmond so he could keep closer to 'em. With that the Kernel says: 'That's the only way to end the war-- whup 'em, and keep on a-whuppin' 'em, and drive 'em into the Atlantic Ocean, and drown 'em, or corral 'em away up in Cannedy, and hold 'em thar till winter-time comes on and freezes 'em to death. Fight 'em, just like we fout the Mexicans at Buny Visty. The more them lancers charged, the firmer we stood our ground, and when we got 'em a-goin' we never let 'em stop long enough to git thar wind. Thar's whar General Beauregard made the big mistake at Shiloh. If he'd 'a' kep' on another hour he'd 'a' drove Grant into the Tennessee. My motto is to keep on a-fightin' 'em. One Southern man can whup five Yankees any day, and if they ever try to take our town we'll--' And right here Kernel Jim stopped a-talkin' so short off I knowed somethin' more'n common had happened.

        "I was a-lookin' straight at him, and as he shut up his eyes popped wide open, and he riz and jumped over me and Doc and flew out o' sight into the narrer passageway betwixt the drug-store and Kinzler's grocery. Four hundred pounds o' dead weight wasn't interferin' with Kernel Jim's quick action. As I was a-noticin' the way he was behavin' I heard a roarin' sound like a drove o' horses a-runnin' away, and, turnin' 'round, thar was the whole road blue with Yankees, and they was right on top of us. Talk about being skeered! When I tried to git up my legs wouldn't work, and I slid off my cheer onto the platform and rolled

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into the street. By this time the Yankees was gone, and everybody else was gone but me. Then my legs come back, and I run into the alleyway, and thar I seed the comicalest sight I ever seed in all my born days. Skeered as I was, I jest had to laugh, for thar, at the back o' the house where the underpinnin' had sagged down and narrowed the passage, was Kernel Jim wedged in so tight he couldn't move one way or t'other, and Doc was jest a-clearin' him with one o' the highest jumps I ever seed.

        "By this time I was a-movin' so fast I couldn't check up, and I riz on my long leg and tried to clear the Kernel like Doc, but I fell short, and my knees hit him right between his shoulder-blades. Just as I struck him he hollered, 'Oh, Lord! I'm shot plum through with a cannon-ball,' and then he went to prayin' same as if he'd been a church-member, and as I crawled betwixt his legs and cleared the openin' he was still a-supplicatin'. By the time I got through Doc was nearly out o' sight, and I hollered to him to wait for me, but the louder I hollered the faster he went, and if it hadn't been for one thing I never could 'a' cotched him. When we come to the side o' the steep hill back o' town, as good luck would have it, I struck the slant with my short leg on the upper side, and then I went by Doc like he was a-standin' still."

        How the Colonel extricated himself from his unfortunate position was not included in the story as it was told to me. It may be that the whole thing was evolved from the fertile mind of the loquacious sheriff. In any event, its repetition furnished merriment for many a day thereafter, and no doubt helped to lighten some of the sad hours of that unhappy period.

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XII
THE SNAKES OF NORTHERN ALABAMA

        WHAT I have to say of snakes is based entirely on personal observation and experience, and not on a scientific study of these vertebrates. Much that is absurd or untrue or grossly exaggerated has been uttered concerning snakes, and it would seem as if the human family, taking its cue from the Garden of Eden on serpents, and from Jonah and one of the parables on fish, had exercised a free license in speaking of these creatures. In the early settlement days there were a great many snakes of different kinds in Marshall County; but now, owing to the clearing of the land for cultivation and the common warfare of extermination, they are comparatively rare with the exception of the water-moccasin. The snakes that run their prey down and catch it with their teeth, and when necessary kill it by constriction and crushing, are not venomous, and when fully grown are comparatively long (three to six or seven feet), slender, and graceful in motion. Some of them move with surprising rapidity. The "coach-whip," a very dark-brown, almost black serpent, so called because it looks as if it were a platted coach-whip, I have seen flash across the road so quickly that if the track it left in the dust or sand was not there as a witness one might doubt the testimony of the eye. By reason of their alertness they are rarely killed. While snakes are in general repulsive, this particular one may almost be said to be beautiful. Their nests, or dens, were

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usually in the ground, in recesses or caverns left by the decay and disintegration of the long, large roots of dead trees. When frightened they glide almost like a flash of lightning for their holes and do not seem to notice the presence of any body coming between them and the refuge they are seeking. This fact would seem to account for the superstition, especially among the negroes, that a coach-whip would attack a man. Like all other animals, these will always run if they see a way to escape, and fight only when cornered or wounded and desperate.

        The rattlesnake comes nearer to being indifferent to the presence of man than any other creature of its kind. I have seen coach-whips fully six feet in length. As they move so swiftly, they are apt to give the impression of being much longer than they are. The blacksnake, also a constrictor, is quite common in Alabama, is long, graceful, and moves with remarkable swiftness, leaving a track or trail only slightly sinuous. In fact, as it propels itself by the transverse movable scales across its belly, to which the abdominal and lateral muscles are attached, its progress is almost in a straight line, as with the common earthworm. This latter, however, elongates itself, fixes its anterior extremity, and then draws up its rear portion in a straight line, which the snake does not. The short or stubby and usually venomous snakes leave a sinuous or serpentine trail, showing that they propel themselves by the use of their large lateral muscles rather than by the abdominal or transverse scale layers. I infer from this that they are nearer in evolution to the vertebrates with legs. These move much slower than the constrictors. They lie in wait for their prey, and kill it by striking with their poison-injecting fangs, usually holding

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on to it until it soon dies from the venom which is rapidly absorbed in the blood.

        The saying "Be ye wise as serpents" is not without a meaning as applied to some of the snake tribe, for I have often observed their cunning when out for prey. I was seated on a log on a hillside in an open, shady woodland while hunting. Hearing a rustling above, I turned to see coming toward me a black racer four or five feet in length, and leaping for dear life about twenty feet ahead of it was a bullfrog of good size. The frog was clever enough to leap in zigzags, first to right and then to left; and for the first four or five manoeuvers of this kind the snake followed each turn of the animal it was chasing; but as the rapidly moving and, to me, extremely interesting picture arrived opposite my position I noticed that the racer, instead of turning to the right, glided the other way, and as the frog, reversing in his course, neared the ground he fell into the open jaws of his pursuer, who had actually caught him "on the fly." Sitting still unobserved, I noted that without constriction the snake proceeded to swallow his victim. The frog was at least two or three times as large as the head and neck of the snake, and I marveled at the way the mouth of the latter stretched as the morsel began to disappear down its throat. It was probably half an hour before it was well out of sight.

        I once killed a big blacksnake, and in order to discover the cause of a large lump or swelling in its abdomen I cut it open to find an undigested bird, feathers and all. It was a flicker, or yellowhammer, a beautiful bird of the South about the size of a Florida quail. The largest diameter of the bird was at least five times greater than the neck of the snake as it lay dead.

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        The blacksnake and the chicken-snake, constrictors of near kin to the racer and the coach-whip, but not nearly so swift, are tree-climbers. I have seen them high above the ground, stretched full length on top of a long limb, as motionless and fixed as the branch upon which they were lying in wait for some unwary bird to alight near enough to be snapped by the lightning-like stroke of the head and anterior portion of the body. In climbing they take hold by winding around the trunk of the tree. I recall a fright I experienced on one occasion when I was riding at a canter along a narrow path with a worm-fence on one side and a deep gulley on the other. Just as I was leaning forward on my horse's neck to pass under the limb of a tree which stretched directly across the trail, when my face was not a foot away, I saw stretched along the branch a huge chicken-snake five or six feet in length. It was too late to check my horse, so I ducked my head to pass under. The snake, more frightened than I, let loose and fell, striking across the horse's back just behind the saddle. As soon as he hit the ground he glided through the fence and was gone. I knew this one was not poisonous, and I was in no danger; but, although I have been accustomed to seeing them from childhood, the sight of a snake, even the picture of one, gives me a shudder.

        Chicken-snakes infest barns and outhouses, and live on tiny chickens, mice, and eggs. A large one will swallow a half-dozen hen's eggs without breaking the shells, which are later dissolved by the gastric juice. The only other snake I have seen in the trees was a small, slender creature about two feet in length and as green as the leaves. I do not know whether or not it is venomous, and I am of the opinion that, like the garter-snake, it lives largely on insects

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The garter-snake is very common, and is not only harmless, but useful in that it destroys insects. I have seen people pick them up by grasping them in the middle, and the wriggling captive would not even try to bite the hand that held it. Two of the largest of the harmless variety I ever saw were blacksnakes. They were as large around in the middle as my arm and fully six feet in length. My father and I were having a canoe hewn out of the trunk of a large poplar-tree in the Tennessee bottom. Within fifty yards this pair of serpents had their den in the roots of a great oak, and every afternoon near sundown they would appear and chase each other in a regular frolic, like two children playing hide-and-seek. No one had a thought of trying to kill them, as they were far from a habitation.

        Among the venomous serpents of northern Alabama are the Elaps russelli, or king-snake; the rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus, or diamond-back); the copperhead (Trigonocephalus contortrix, or cottonmouth); the moccasin--two varieties, the highland and the water moccasin (Toxicophis); and the spreading-adder, of the order Vipera berus. The elaps is quite rare. I have seen less than half a dozen. They are small, about two feet long, slender, graceful, slow and deliberate in movement, and seemingly fearless. Their markings are unique, having from neck to tail alternating black and golden rings, while the head is black with a golden arch over each eye. While driving along a lonely mountain road on a very bright and hot summer day I saw one of this variety gliding down the rather steep bank on the upper side of the highway. I stopped the horse, and, seemingly unmindful of danger or observation, the little creature came into the road, passed between the front and rear wheels of one side, and went

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between the two hind wheels, and thence into the brush wood on the other side. Several times, as it was directly beneath the buggy, it shot its forked tongue out of its mouth. It was a very interesting experience.

        At that time I had no idea of how very poisonous this seemingly innocent fellow was, but a mountaineer whom I knew very well told me it was a king-snake, and that he had seen one kill a rattlesnake several times larger than itself. I took this statement cum grano, as I always take fish or snake reports, although it may have been true. Later I secured one of these reptiles alive, brought it to New York, and presented it to Mr. Conkling, then the superintendent of the Central Park Zoo. As soon as he saw it he pronounced it the Elaps russelli, adding that it was the most deadly snake on the continent. It was on exhibition in New York for some time.

        The most horrible snake of all is the highland moccasin, a short, thick, stubby-tailed, and hammer-headed monster. It is said to be, and I believe is, very venomous. It is sluggish in its wriggling way of moving, and, as it inhabits lonely and unfrequented mountainsides, usually under cliffs and boulders, where it can readily find a fissure for refuge, it is rarely seen. I had an instructive experience with one of these, and I recall it vividly because on the same day I was stung in the palm of the hand by a scorpion. These latter live under rocks and beneath the loosened bark of fallen trees. While making a survey I planted the instrument near the trunk of a pine which had been blown down, and as I was leaning over to sight the flagman I displaced a piece of the loose bark with the flat of my right hand. Feeling a sharp sting, I lifted the hand and saw the scorpion, about two inches long, hanging by his tail, the stinger

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fastened in my palm holding it captive. Shaking the vicious creature loose, I sucked the poison out at once, and thought no more of it. Clambering over the bluff and well down the crest of the mountain, peering over a large boulder to find a place to set the transit, I saw a highland moccasin. It did not budge, and was probably sound asleep. While not over a foot and a half in length, it seemed fully three inches in diameter in the middle of its body. Picking up a large stone, I leaned over and dropped it directly on the snake, killing it. Cutting the body open, I made the (to me) surprising discovery that it was viviparous--I had thought all snakes were oviparous like the chicken-snake, and racer, and coach-whip.

        The water-moccasins are very numerous, and, as they live in or near the creeks and ponds, in which they dive out of sight when approached, their extermination will be long deferred. This snake is colored on the back and sides a muddy brown, not quite a black shade, while the belly is a light salmon. The largest I have seen were from three to four feet long, but these are exceptional. If a drift of logs or brush is cautiously approached on a hot, clear day, from one to a dozen or more may be seen, seemingly asleep and coiled, or half coiled, evidently enjoying the warmth. Disturbed, they slide below the surface of the water, where they seem to be able to remain indefinitely.

        The spreading-adder has a short and not very thick body, and is dark in color. When teased it will flatten its body until it looks not unlike thick webbing, and as it raises its head and the fore part of its body to strike it emits a warning, short hiss. Their habitat is in the uplands, and preferably among heaps of loose stones.

        I have saved the rattlesnake for the last out of respect

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to this underrated animal. They are admittedly very dangerous when nearly approached, but they will not strike unless they are trod on or attacked, and unless asleep when approached they will always warn you of danger by sounding the rattle with which nature has adorned their tails. Moreover, they are less afraid of man than any other living creature. On a hot August day while on a long horseback-ride, being saddle-weary, I alighted, threw the reins over the saddle, and walked ahead, my well-trained horse following. The road was narrow, with dense undergrowth on either side. Looking ahead some fifty yards, I saw a large rattlesnake glide slowly into the roadway. When he observed me he stopped as his head was over one wagon track and his tail over the other, and head and tail were raised three or four inches. As I came up within a few feet, instead of going on and escaping, as he could have done, he rattled his warning note; and I could see the tail in rapid, short vibration. As my horse now came up and saw and smelt his natural enemy, he turned to run back, and stopped only when I spoke. I led him off a short distance and fastened the bridle to a sapling.

        Meanwhile the rattler had not budged, although he had ample time to crawl into the underbrush and escape. As it was a wild and uninhabited stretch, I hoped he would go; but as I approached again, still stretched full length across the road, it rattled away and refused to move. It did not coil in defense until I came near with a long tree-branch, raised to strike. Then it gathered itself in half-coil; that is, doubling up the posterior two-thirds of its body, the part nearest the head was drawn back in an S-shape, and the open mouth, with the large poison-fangs in view, was shot toward me very rapidly four or five

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times. I broke his back and pounded his head. He measured in length the distance between the regulation wagon-wheels (forty-eight inches), and had nine rattles and a button, which I cut off and kept as a souvenir. In passing I may note the practice of the country fiddlers at home to drop one of these rattles inside their violins to increase the tone or resonance. I was curious to register the circumference of this, the largest rattler I ever killed (I never saw but one larger out of captivity). Having no measuring-tape with me, I stripped a ribbon of bark from a hickory sapling, carried it around the animal's body at the largest part, and marked it. It measured nine inches by the foot-rule. The sound of the rattle is like the clatter of dry beans in a pod.

        Rattlesnakes are rarely seen in the water. Only once have I seen one swimming, and this was in Arkansas in 1869. The boat upon which I was acting as pilot was lying at a wood-yard on Little Red River, when swimming directly toward us from the opposite shore we saw a rattler about three feet long. The engineer and another man rowed out in a yawl, and the former skilfully caught the animal--which was helpless in the water--just back of the head with one hand and near the tail with the other, and brought the captive on board. It was an exhibition of nerve I had never before seen--one I would not have repeated for the gold of Ophir.

        There is really very little danger of death even from venomous snakes, and none whatever from the constrictors of North America. I saw one of our negroes actually tangled up in the coils of a very long black racer, and I have never seen a human being more frightened. I was on horseback, and, with the negroes on foot, was trying to drive a small herd of cattle along a country road. As one of the cows started

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to turn into a patch of short, stubby bushes I shouted to one of the men to head her off, and he darted at full speed through the bushes, which were just about as high as his knees. After he had started, and before I could possibly give him the alarm, I saw from my elevated seat on horseback a tremendous long blacksnake lying at full length near the top of the dense bushes, evidently waiting for an unsuspecting bird. In another instant, moving at full speed, the negro's leg hit the snake about its middle and doubled the frightened creature around him. The darky screamed, kicked wildly with both legs, and fell over yelling, but before we could go to his rescue the swift traveler, true to his name, had raced away.

        There has not been, so far as I am informed, a fatal case of snake-bite in Marshall County, and, considering the large number of these reptiles when I was living in this comparatively unsettled section--1845-1869--very few persons were bitten. A young girl of twelve was struck on the ankle by a water-moccasin. The leg was considerably swollen and painful for several days, but the constitutional symptoms were insignificant.

        There is no danger in approaching a snake in coil or extended, provided one keeps his distance with ordinary care. That part of the body which rests upon the ground as it strikes with the anterior portion never budges. They cannot leap or jump, and cannot strike while crawling. The so-called suicide of the snake by biting itself is another fiction, since it is well known that the venom of a reptile is innocuous to itself or its kind, although it may be fatal to another snake of a different species. I have frequently seen them bite at a stick with which I held them down and occasionally miss the stick and bite themselves, but I believe

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the act was accidental rather than intentional. Moreover, they do not spit their venom. I have seen it ooze out and adhere to a stick with which I was teasing the snake, but never saw it leave the mouth any other way. I can imagine that if one were exuding a large quantity it would be possible, as the animal struck out in the attempt to bite, to throw off a small quantity; but I have never seen this happen.

        I have been told by several natives that they had seen very young snakes run for shelter and disappear down the open mouth of the mother reptile, but I cannot vouch for this as a fact. While I have never seen a battle-royal between two snakes, I do not doubt that they kill and eat each other. One such combat was witnessed by my friend Mr. John S. Sutphen, of New York.

        "I was trout-fishing," he said, "in Pike County, Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1905, when by a rare chance I saw a fight to the death between a rattlesnake about thirty inches long and a blacksnake fully five feet long. I was following a narrow, winding trail when I heard a rustling in the leaves near by. Peering through the undergrowth, I observed in a small clear space not fifteen feet away a small rattler coiled, with his head up and his rattle buzzing vigorously. Facing him, with his head about three feet distant, was his natural enemy, a long, graceful, and beautiful black racer, stretched at full length. Both seemed oblivious to the presence of a spectator.

        "Presently the black fellow began to encircle the rattler, carefully keeping out of harm's way as the head above the coil constantly turned to face him. Soon the strategy of the black was apparent, for as he spun faster and faster around the rattler he gradually decreased the distance, and

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soon he was so close that the rattlesnake struck--and missed. Twice the black adroitly dodged the blows, then boldly drew his circle still closer and glided still faster, as if taunting the foe to strike again. This the rattler did, when, with a movement so lightning-like that my eyes could hardly follow it, the black racer seized him with his jaws just back of the head. In a few seconds the black coiled himself around the rattlesnake and quickly strangled it. Then, to my great surprise, the black racer began to swallow his victim head foremost, and when I left the scene of the tragedy that had held me in its spell the process was well advanced."

        Before closing this sketch I wish to record an experience of my friend the late Dr. John S. Billings, a surgeon in the United States army for many years, and, at the time of his death, the librarian of the New York Public Library. It may be accepted as absolutely true, for I knew him well, and I am indebted to him for great help in my article on serpent venom in my work on surgery. In the experiments on snake poisons he was conducting he had in confinement a six-foot diamond-backed Florida rattler. Rattlesnakes are difficult to retain alive, as they are fastidious and will starve to death unless they can have the food which tempts them. This one would eat only white rats, and one of these was dropped into the large barrel in the bottom of which the snake was lying.

        Next morning Dr. Billings was astonished to see the rat resting at ease by the body of the dead reptile. Upon examination it was discovered that the spinal cord, just where it joins the medulla oblongata at the base of the brain, had been gnawed into and divided by the sharp, long teeth of the clever and plucky old rodent. Without doubt, as he

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landed in the bottom of the barrel and realized his situation he had with the instinct of the mongoose, which destroys the cobra in this same manner, seized his enemy in the one safe and vital spot and never let loose until his teeth had cut through the real center of life.

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XIII
MY YEAR AT COLLEGE--THE GUNBOAT INCIDENT

        HOW few of us realize the career of which we dreamed in boyhood! Mine was to be a soldier. It may have been the wild life about me, the early familiarity with horse and gun, or perhaps in the strain, for the ancestors of each of my parents had fought through the war for American independence. The first book I read was the life of Francis Marion. Nothing has ever fascinated me as did the story of this dashing partisan. I lived over and over again with him each hair-breadth escape, each thrilling exploit, and suffered with him the pangs of hunger and the misery of defeat. Then followed Weems's Life of Washington, Abbott's Napoleon Bonaparte, and a book of the marshals of the great soldier. My mind was made up.

        One day in the autumn of 1860, when I was fifteen years old, while attending the fair at Athens, in Limestone County, I saw the cadet corps of La Grange Military Academy giving an exhibition drill. It was wonderful. The beautifully fitting uniforms of gray and white, the tall black caps, the guns and bayonets glinting in the sunlight, the perfection of manual, the complicated manoeuvers carried out with marvelous precision, left a picture in my mind which stands out now clear and distinct, despite the fifty-three years that time has interposed.

        As I was ready for college, and as my father approved

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Illustration

LA GRANGE MILITARY ACADEMY, 1861
On the right the chapel, armory towers, and section-rooms; on the left Company B barracks; in the center the main building with section-rooms, chemical laboratory, etc., and company barracks. The headquarters structure, the hospital, the library buildings of the Dialectical and Lafayette societies, the extensive commissary and quartermaster buildings are not shown in the picture.

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my selection, I matriculated as a cadet on February 1, 1861. This institution, famous in the old South, was situated in what was then Franklin, now Colbert County, Alabama, upon the summit of a spur of the Cumberland Mountains, which, rising about four hundred feet above the surrounding country, overlooks the far-stretching valley of the Tennessee. La Grange College, chartered by the legislature of Alabama, had opened its doors in 1830, and was conducted strictly as a literary school until 1857, when the military feature was introduced. Under the new régime it reached its highest degree of popularity and prosperity. With wise forethought the state provided for the free education of two boys from each county, selected by competitive examination. The only obligation incurred was that each cadet should teach school in his native county for as many years as he was at La Grange. In 1861, out of one hundred and seventy enrolled, forty-seven were state cadets. The course of study was for four years; the curriculum was that of the National Academy at West Point. The teaching was of the highest order, the discipline very strict, but never unjustly severe. The students almost without exception were earnest, honest, and manly fellows, of fine physical and mental development; and but for the unhappy war, which involved this school in its trail of destruction, it would without doubt have ranked higher each year as one of the greatest educational institutions in the South, and of inestimable value in the moral and mental training of the people.

        Looking back upon the year I spent at La Grange, if I passed through any unpleasant experiences they have been forgotten, and there is now present in my mind nothing but the memory of happy associations and a sincere

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appreciation of the fact that the days there were of great help in fitting me for my subsequent career. Doubtless at the time I protested inwardly at the hard work which was required, some of which may then have seemed like drudgery. To sweep the floor, dust the room, carry water and wood, and to be held responsible for the order and cleanliness of our apartments were novel experiences. Nor was the scramble out of bed at the sound of reveille, the hurry to dress, the rush down-stairs to get in line and answer to roll-call before being marked late or absent, always a pleasant duty, especially for boys, who as a rule love to sleep late. Yet this was a valuable lesson, for no one could have remained long at La Grange without being converted to the early-rising habit. Then, when the roll-call was over, there was still the bed to be made, blankets and mattress rolled and buckled with a leather strap, the iron bedstead folded and placed against the wall for economy of space, shoes to be polished, and in a few minutes more the return to the campus to fall in for breakfast roll-call and the march to the mess-hall.

        It required a large dining-hall to seat nearly two hundred cadets. At each table there were ten privates and two officers, commissioned or non-commissioned, who sat at the head and foot, respectively, according to rank, the cadets at either side; and the ranking officer was held responsible for the deportment of the students at his table.

        After the breakfast-hour we had recitations and study until twelve. Dinner from twelve until one; in the afternoon recitations and study until five, and from five to six either infantry or artillery drill. At six o'clock we had dress-parade, and when we broke ranks we repaired to our quarters, put away our guns and accouterments, and

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immediately returned to the campus to fall in for supper. At dark the patrol was posted to stand guard until ten; at nine o'clock the drum beat for "lights out," and the day's work was over.

        On Saturday mornings we had full-dress parade and inspection, in which the most careful scrutiny was made, not only of every article of clothing as to strict personal cleanliness, but of the arms and accouterments, belt-plates, and gun-trimmings. In the afternoon of Saturday we usually played football or "foot-and-a-half," a long-distance leap over one another, or exercised on the ring swings or horizontal bars, or by special permission took long strolls through the mountain forests or in the valley. On Sunday we attended church. There were services in the chapel daily.

        At the July examinations my general standing in the fourth, or freshman, class, the last "half-term" of which I had entered in February, was eighth in a class of twenty-eight. Then for the two weeks' vacation I hurried home; and, as the steamboat did not leave Decatur for two days, we five cadets from Marshall County left our trunks to come by boat, continued by train to Woodville, in Jackson County, and walked in eight hours the twenty-six miles across the mountains to Guntersville. Upon my return I entered the third, or sophomore, class, and passed all the examinations before the close of the session for the winter holiday.

        Earlier in the year the war had begun, and the spirit of unrest was in the air. South Carolina had seceded on December 20, 1860, and Florida and Mississippi soon followed. On January 11, 1861, Alabama passed the ordinance, and these four states, with Georgia and Louisiana, had on February 4th met at Montgomery to organize the

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Southern Confederacy; but with all this I did not dream of the great catastrophe which was impending.

        I remember distinctly that one night while on sentry duty, marching up and down on my post in front of Barracks B, I noticed a peculiar mist-like star which I soon recognized as a comet. No one else had observed it, nor had we any notice of its coming. I called the attention of others to it, and night after night we watched its approach toward the earth with increasing interest, until it became the most remarkable heavenly body I have ever seen. In its nearest position it seemed to stretch more than half the entire distance across the heavens, the starry point being toward the west and the nebulous trail spread out in a great flowing mist far toward the eastern horizon. The superstitious considered it to be the forerunner of some great disaster. The wise men of the country should have known then that the disaster had already arrived.

        By March and April, 1861, there was a call for volunteers, and a very considerable number of the cadets resigned and returned to their homes in order to enlist in the first companies which marched to the front. By the time the first session ended with the commencement on the 4th and 5th of July, 1861, fully one-fourth of the corps had enlisted. Among the first to leave were Fielding Bradford, Bob Coles, and Jimmy Brandon, all of whom had volunteered with one of the Huntsville companies which made part of the famous Fourth Alabama Infantry. Bradford was killed, and Jimmy was wounded at the Battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861. Soon after this Brandon came home on furlough and visited his college-mates at La Grange. His presence excited the envy of every lad who had not been allowed to go home to volunteer. To have been in a great battle,

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Illustration

SITE OF LA GRANGE MILITARY ACADEMY
The trees shown here are growing from the ruins of the large central building with the portico of four columns shown in the illustration facing page 160

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wounded and furloughed, made Jimmy a hero, and all of us would probably have given our hopes of immortality to have been in his place. This gallant, handsome lad joined my regiment in 1863, and was killed at Big Shanty in 1864.

        When, early in 1862, northern Alabama became the scene of active hostilities the college closed its doors and remained unoccupied until April 28, 1863, when it was destroyed by fire by Federal cavalry under the command of Colonel Florence M. Cornyn. The destruction of this institution of learning was not only not a military necessity, but was in disobedience of the orders of General Grenville M. Dodge, in command of this expedition. In his official report, on page 250 of Volume XXIII, Part I, Official Reports, he says: "They were guilty of but one disobedience of orders, in burning some houses between Town Creek and Tuscumbia, on discovery of which I issued orders to shoot any man detected in the act." This officer, now, in 1914, a resident of Council Bluffs, Iowa, in a personal communication to the writer says, "It was a matter of great regret that my troops exceeded their authority and destroyed these buildings."

        A bill was introduced in Congress in 1904 by Hon. William Richardson to reimburse the trustees of La Grange Military Academy for the loss sustained by the destruction of this property during the Civil War. To replace at this period the library of four thousand volumes belonging to the institution, together with the chemical and physical apparatus, furniture, buildings, etc., would require at the lowest estimate one hundred thousand dollars. Upon the introduction of this bill the matter was referred to the Court of Claims. Over the door of that court might well be written the quotation from Dante, "Who enters here leaves Hope behind."

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        My native section of the South still feels the need of such a college as La Grange, and I have never given up the hope that some day some great-souled, far-seeing philanthropist would rebuild and perpetuate this institution.

        I published, in 1907, The History of La Grange Military Academy and the Cadet Corps. Of the one hundred and seventy-nine cadets, with the exception of three lads who to the end of the war were still too young to enter the service, all became soldiers of the Confederacy. Of this number twenty-three were killed in battle, and twenty-six died in the service from wounds or diseases incident to exposure, a total death-rate in the war of nearly twenty-eight per cent. Of those who survived many suffered from wounds or acquired diseases which carried them, soon after the close of hostilities, to untimely graves, while some who still live are suffering from those injuries which have handicapped them in their struggle for the support of themselves and families. True to their convictions of duty, they were worthy sons of the land they loved. The story of their war experiences would fill a volume of thrilling narrative, and were it possible I would honor these pages with the roster of their names and the record of their heroism.1 There were four, however, to whom I am closely bound by the ties of an affectionate friendship, which, commencing in youth, ripened with the years of maturity and crystallized with age. They were of the flower of our country, typical of the spirit of the South.

        James Alston McKinstry, from Pickens County, was my
1 In 1904, forty-three years after we had disbanded, twenty-eight survivors of the Corps held a reunion in the Old Brick Church at La Grange. No other building had been spared. The college campus was a dense tangle of briers and saplings. From the mound and debris where my room had been, a sycamore-tree fully thirty feet high was growing.

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Illustration

THE "OLD BRICK CHURCH"
From a photograph taken at the Reunion in May, 1904. The only building now standing at La Grange

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chum, and had the distinction of heading our class in mathematics. He enlisted as a private in Company D, Forty-second Alabama Infantry, and was in the assault on Fort Robinet at Corinth, October 4, 1862. One hundred yards in front of this fort was a dense abatis, and while working their way through this tangle the command suffered great loss from the direct fire in front and from two enfilading batteries. The survivors rushed across the open space and leaped into the ditch, where they were met with a shower of hand-grenades, some of which they picked up and hurled back into the fort, where they exploded. As they clambered out of the ditch and up to the parapet they received a volley which killed a comrade, who in falling threw his arms about Jim, and he and the dead man rolled back into the ditch. Regaining his footing and clearing the angle of a bastion, just as he recognized a small group of Confederates within the fort he emptied his gun at a Federal soldier, the muzzle almost touching his breast. As this man fell their reserve line fired a volley, and of the fourteen assailants who still survived all but McKinstry were killed. He received a Minié ball through the upper part of one arm, another through the shoulder, which fortunately did not penetrate the lung, while a third passed through the muscles of the thigh. Tumbling again into the ditch, he ran along this and hid under some debris until nightfall, when he made his escape. On the forced march in the retreat to Tupelo, for two days and nights, this lad of seventeen, with three painful wounds, lay on the botton of a wagon-bed jolting over rough country roads. A photograph of the dead bodies of these men, taken where they fell, may be seen in the Photographic History of the War, published in 1911. I place the incident on record here as one of the

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thousands which occurred in a war as unnecessary as it was cruel.1

        Robert Thompson Coles, descended from one of the old Virginia families at Huntsville, joined the Fourth Alabama Infantry, one of the most famous regiments in the Army of Northern Virginia. He became adjutant of this regiment, was in the first battle of Bull Run and at Appomattox, and except when wounded was in every battle in which this great army was engaged.

        Thomas Edward Stanley, of Lawrence County, Alabama, became lieutenant in Company B, Tenth Alabama Infantry, and, receiving two wounds at Chickamauga, was carried to his uncle's house near Leighton, Alabama. While there the Union army occupied the country, but with the aid of the faithful negroes he was concealed until he was convalescent. Armed with a shotgun, he surprised and captured an officer who was inspecting his outposts, appropriated his horse and equipment, and rejoined his command. 2

        Frederick Moseley Nelson, of Limestone County, Alabama, served in the Seventh Alabama Cavalry.3 In J. P. Young's history mention is made of his gallant conduct. The following experience may serve to illustrate the strange vicissitudes of a soldier's career.

        As Fred was leaving home his thoughtful father gave him a small Derringer pistol, which was easily carried in the side-pocket of his forage jacket, with the remark that he might need it some day when he did not have his six-shooter. Out of respect to his parent's admonition, Fred
1 As modest and retiring as they were brave, Jim McKinstry and Bob Coles are still living (1914), loved and respected as leading citizens of Marshall County, Alabama.
2 Stanley settled in Arkansas, became prominent in politics as a state senator, and died in 1904.
3 Nelson survives in Mississippi.

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kept the small weapon ready for use. One day while on picket duty he had dismounted and was sitting at the root of a tree, engaged in the pleasant perusal of a communication from his sweetheart. He glanced often down the road in the direction from which the enemy would be likely to come, and was satisfied that none was approaching. The cracking of a dead twig immediately in the rear attracted his attention, and, turning suddenly in that direction, he found himself covered with a six-shooter in the hands of a Federal who had stealthily crept up behind him. He was told to stand up, unbuckle his pistol-belt, let it drop to the ground, and walk off a few steps, which orders he obeyed. He was then told to mount his horse and ride alongside as a prisoner of war. He had not lost sight of an opportunity to use the Derringer, and the two had not proceeded a quarter of a mile before Fred, getting the weapon out unobserved, had it cocked, and, turning quickly, presented it within three feet of the body of his captor, telling him to throw up his hands. Fred immediately made himself possessor of the four pistols, and marched the chagrined Yankee triumphantly into his own headquarters.

        My first and only year at college ended in December, 1861. In that period our state had seceded, the Southern Confederacy was organized, with the capital at Montgomery, war was formally declared, and the battle of Bull Run had been fought. Then came a lull, which every one knew was the hush before the storm. The war-fever was spreading on both sides of the line. In the South it ran high. On my way home every village seemed ablaze with bunting. On every plantation, home, and farm-house the "Bonnie Blue Flag" was flying. Three companies of infantry and one of cavalry had already gone from our county. With

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these were one or two boys of my age (sixteen), and I wanted to enlist. As I was small of stature, my parents argued that I should wait another year and work on the farm. My father, though well beyond the military age, enlisted and went to the front and left me as the man of the family. When the farming season opened in 1862, I plowed, planted, and cultivated without assistance ten acres in corn. Incidentally I learned that farming is not an easy way of earning a livelihood, and that there are few hotter places on earth than a waist-high field of corn in the Tennessee River bottoms about "laying-by" time, early in July. I missed only one work-day, and this was on the 8th of June.

        The fortunes of war were going against the Confederacy in the West. Shiloh had followed Fort Donelson, and all of Alabama north of the Tennessee was now occupied by the Union army, and their gunboats had reached Florence. Above this point that great obstacle to through navigation of this noble river, the "Mussel Shoals," prevented their going. The upper Tennessee is landlocked, and the Confederates had made way with all the steamboats above the Shoals. In this emergency the Federal commander at Huntsville improvised a small gunboat with steam motorpower, protected it with an armor of cotton bales, placed on board two six-pounder Parrott guns and a crew of some sixty men of the Tenth Ohio Infantry, and sent it on its way to take possession of the upper Tennessee.

        It was such a slow tub that at Guntersville we knew it was coming six hours before it hove in sight. A man on horseback who saw it start had brought the news. Our local humorist, the genial sheriff, said of it after the excitement of its advent had subsided, that "up-stream it could

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run all day under the shade of a leaning sycamore, while going the other way the current went by it so fast it made your head swim."

        On this eventful 8th of June, while I was following a mule and a turning-plow up and down the long rows of growing corn, with thoughts about as far removed from Cincinnatus or Israel Putnam or glory as one pole is from the other, a lad from the village came to give me the exciting information that the gunboat was coming, and everybody who could shoot a gun was rallying to defend the town. As soon as I could unhitch my mule, we rode toward home, and when near enough, not wishing to alarm my mother, I slipped in through a back window, got my double-barreled shotgun and ammunition, and was just making my exit through the same opening when I heard a familiar voice say, "Hadn't you better go out through the door?" I saluted my commanding officer, my mother, and hurried out as directed. The truth is, if I hadn't come in of my own accord she would have sent for me and handed me the gun at the gate and made me go. Some twenty of us, old men and boys, reached the river-landing in time to see the United States gunboat Tennessee pass at a snail's pace, closely hugging the northern bank of the stream, and taking no more notice of our presence than if we hadn't been "bushwhackers" aching to fill anybody who had on blue clothes full of buckshot!

        After a hurried conference we rode as fast as our mounts could carry us to a point a few miles above Guntersville, where, at the low stage of water which then prevailed, the channel was near enough to the southern bank to bring the craft in reach of our shotguns. Arriving there, we dismounted some two hundred yards back in the woods, and,

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to give my mule a chance to graze, I tied one end of a long plow-line around his neck and the other to an ash sapling. Our company advanced, and we ranged ourselves along the bank, entirely concealed in the thick growth of cane. As the queer-looking boat came puffing toward us, the crew, seemingly without any thought of danger, were seated here and there on top of the bulwarks, evidently enjoying the scenery and sunshine. It seemed as if our captain pro tem would never say "Fire!" but when he did and we turned loose our fusillade of twenty double-barreled shotguns and rifles, the blue coats disappeared into the hold, as Artemus Ward would have said, "unanimously."

        In another minute they opened on us with their long-range rifles, and I heard the singing whiz of a swarm of Minié balls for the first time. Then the six-pounder joined in with shrapnel, at which by common consent we rose from our recumbent posture and ran for our horses, followed, or rather passed, by the screaming shells, which clipped an occasional branch from a tree-top, but flew too far above our heads to be very dangerous. That I did not equal the speed of the negro who testified in a shooting case was not my fault. Being under oath, he was advised by the attorney to be cautious and exact in his statement. When asked if he had heard the bullet whiz, he answered, quietly, "Yes, sah, I heered it twice." "You don't mean to say you heard the bullet twice, do you?" inquired the lawyer. "Oh yes, sah, I done heered it twice. Fust time I heered it when it whizzed by me, an' den, sah, I heered it ag'n when I whizzed by it!"

        By the time we reached our animals they were in a wild state of fright, and all that could break loose had stampeded. My mule had evidently tried to break away with the others

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and had run as far as the tether would permit, and had then gone into training as a circus performer by circling the sapling turn after turn in a gradually decreasing arc, until, when I reached him, his head was lashed so close to the tree no one but an expert could have told where the mule ended and the bark began. To add to the perplexity of the situation, I had lost my knife; and, as I could not get at the knot in the rope to untie it, expecting every minute to see the Yankees land on our side and come swarming up the bank in pursuit, I spent a seeming eternity, along with some earnest language and much muscular energy, in compelling this proverbially obstinate animal to do as some of our great jurists do at times--reverse himself. As soon as this process had been carried far enough to slacken the rope and expose the knot, I untied it, mounted, and rode off in a long stern chase to catch up with the company.

        A mile or so back in the depth of the forest we rallied, called the roll, and found all present or accounted for but one. As this one was the enthusiast who had summoned me from the plow to defend our lares et penates, and as I had seen him leading the retreat, having thrown his gun away and run out from under his hat, I assured my comrades he had not been killed, also that while I was unwinding my mule he had asked me to go back with him to help find his gun, a request which the exigencies of the moment forced me to decline. None had been killed or wounded by bullets. Some few had passed through the sharp cane-blades with such rapidity or had ridden too close to a swinging limb and bore the marks of the campaign on their faces and heads. At Short Creek the company halted, dismounted, and washed its face preparatory to the triumphal entry into Guntersville.

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        The deeds of prowess which were narrated as we rode toward town would fill several pages. When we blazed away with our sudden shower of buckshot the unsuspecting crew, who were airing themselves and viewing the scenery from every point of vantage, must have thought Gabriel's trumpet would sound next. The sheriff said: "Boys, talk about action! Them Yankees went out o' sight quicker' n a didapper duck." It was really a rapid act, and none stood on the order of his going. Some jumped into the hold, some rolled or slid off, and some turned back somersaults; and it looked for a few moments as if we had killed everybody on board. The fact that the machinery didn't stop, together with the rifle volley which flashed out of the port-holes and the swarm of Miniés which came singing through and over the cane, began to undeceive us, and when the cannon boomed we knew we hadn't disabled all. We compromised on half. Cæsar returning from Gaul never aroused greater excitement at Rome (in proportion to population) than did this partisan troop as it rode by twos through the main street of Guntersville and disbanded in front of Kinzler's grocery. It was a great day. I really thought so then. I have laughed at it a thousand times since. If I think of it on my dying day I shall smile, and it will be worth it. I have often wondered what my hero Francis Marion would have said of our quixotic performance. For one I am glad he can never know it.

        The truth remains that the boat was so much farther out in the stream than we had estimated that our short-range guns did no harm. Years after the war I corresponded with the surgeon who was on board. One buckshot just did bury itself in the shoulder-blade of a young chap who didn't glide out of sight as quick as he wished he had. This

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was the only casualty, and the victim never went to bed with it. The doctor confided that our volley was "like a bolt out of the blue sky,["] and caused a temporary panic on board, which, however, didn't last as long as the bushwhackers on the bank would have preferred. The pilot made for the other shore at once, and with our retreat the "Battle of Law's Landing" passed into history. I might add that it had a good deal to do with the military careers of two of this immortal band.

        One of these, the Paul Revere who came riding at full speed to summon me and others to glory, who never fired his gun or raised himself from the prone position on the ground until an exploding shrapnel furnished the impetus, and who, hatless and gunless, led the movement to the rear, never again heard the music of the battle-line. He was seized with a muscular contraction which drew one leg into a knot and held it there until the war was over, whereupon it straightway healed, and he was restored to usefulness. He suffered the fate of the shirker, as the village girls not only refused to speak to him, but sent him knitting-needles and bits of unfinished sewing and all sorts of gentle hints as to how a young man who didn't go into the army should occupy his time. It was a pressure no man could resist and survive in the respect of his neighbors. Soon after the war the youth went away to lose himself in the all-absorbing West.

        To the other it furnished a good excuse for regular enlistment. There was a clever native woman spy who lived on the north side of the river, who kept the Union commander well informed of all that happened in our section during the war; and we were notified promptly that the name of every guerrilla or bushwhacker who fired at the gunboat was

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known, and that when captured we would be hanged. The argument that it was just a little bit better to be shot fighting than to be kept in a state of "suspense" prevailed, and, as my father had been discharged on account of sickness and physical inability and was now at home, my way was open.

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XIV
WITH MORGAN'S CAVALRY--THE CHRISTMAS RAID--1862-1863

        IN August of 1862 a detachment of Morgan's cavalry, commanded by General Basil W. Duke, passed through our village and left in our care Lieutenant Frank Brady, who had been wounded a few days before in a skirmish near Huntsville. Bragg's strategic move through Cumberland Gap and across the upper Tennessee into Kentucky had caused the withdrawal of the Union forces from Alabama and Tennessee. The battles of Richmond and Perryville in Kentucky were indecisive and resulted in the retirement of the Confederate army to the vicinity of Murfreesborough in middle Tennessee. When Lieutenant Brady had sufficiently recovered to rejoin his command I went with him to"see the army." A ride of three or four days brought us to Alexandria, Tennessee, where Morgan's division was encamped. Here we learned that orders had been received to make a hurried dash into Kentucky, to destroy the Louisville& Nashville Railroad, and break up the communications of the Federal army with the North. As I was too young for enlistment, I joined Quirk's Scouts as an "independent," and took my place in that company.

        The expedition, with three days' cooked rations, started north from Alexandria on December 22, 1862. The command was divided into two brigades. The First, under Brigadier-General Basil W. Duke, was made up of the

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Second, Third, and Eighth Kentucky Cavalry, and Palmer's battery of four pieces, two of which were twelve-pounder howitzers and two six-pounder guns. The Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Kentucky and the Fourteenth Tennessee, to which was attached a small company of artillery including two mountain howitzers and one three-inch Parrott gun, formed the Second Brigade, in command of Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge.

        There was also a company of picked men, about fifty in number, known as Quirk's Scouts, made up chiefly of the remnants of Morgan's original squadron, which acted throughout the expedition as the advance-guard.

        The entire command, including the artillerists, numbered thirty-nine hundred, of whom four hundred were at this time unarmed. The command was generally well mounted and the animals in good condition. While the artillery was an impediment to a rapid dash into the enemy's country, it was essential to the accomplishment of the objects of the expedition, since by this time all of the railroad bridges, tunnels, and important depots of supplies along the route to be traversed were protected by forts and stockades, the reduction of which was impossible without artillery.

        "Morgan's men," mostly young fellows from eighteen to thirty-five years old, were a fine lot, and there were no better fighters in the world. They idolized their leader, who at the close of this, his most successful expedition, reached the zenith of his career. This command, as well as practically all of our Western mounted troops, fell short of their full efficiency in the absence of that strict discipline without which no men ever make the best of soldiers. They were in the main well armed. While it is true that four hundred of the command were without guns, these did

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effective service as horse-holders until the rich captures made at Elizabethtown and Muldraugh's Hill furnished them with the very best of modern firearms. The entire command was practically without sabres. The majority of the companies, which had been in service for a year or more, had one or two Colt's army pistols for each man; a smaller portion had cavalry carbines captured from the enemy, while some were armed with double-barreled shotguns, a weapon which at that period was capable of doing excellent service in the close-range fighting to which cavalry was accustomed. The greater part of the troops, however, carried long-barreled rifles, some Enfields and some of Austrian and Belgian make, weapons well adapted to fighting on foot, but clumsy to carry on horseback. As Morgan's men, and in fact all of the Confederate cavalry, did most of their fighting on foot, this long gun was an advantage rather than otherwise. Each man was expected to carry two horseshoes, a dozen nails, all the ammunition he might need, one blanket, and an oil-cloth or overcoat. There was nothing on wheels but the artillery.

        Late in the day we crossed the Cumberland River at Sand Shoals, and camped in the woods at dark about six miles north of Carthage, Tennessee. By daylight of the 23d we were in the saddle, at eleven stopping an hour to feed and rest, and then on until dark toward Tompkinsville, Kentucky. No enemy was encountered until at dusk on December 24th when the advance-guard entered the suburbs of Glasgow, the county-seat of Barren County, Kentucky. As they reached one corner of the public square several companies of the Second Michigan Cavalry, with no idea that Morgan's men were in that part of the world, rode into sight just across the square, and both sides fired

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simultaneously and at close range.1 One Federal was killed and two wounded, and a Confederate captain and one soldier were mortally and one lieutenant slightly wounded. Twenty Michiganders were captured, among them the adjutant of the regiment, whose saddle, a beautifully padded and brass-mounted McClellan tree, carried me for many a day thereafter. A number of the prisoners had Christmas turkeys strapped to their saddles--but man only proposes. In three short winter days, over bad roads and through a rough and hilly country, we had made ninety miles, and the artillery was up.

        As we marched out of Glasgow early Christmas morning on the Mumfordsville turnpike Quirk's Scouts were well in advance, and about ten o'clock we were joined by General Morgan, who rode with us until noon. He was in appearance the ideal of the beau sabreur, with light-blue or gray eyes and a strikingly handsome face partly concealed by a brownish or sandy mustache and imperial.

        In the early afternoon, as we approached a small settlement known as Bear Wallow, our vidette came tearing back at full speed, shouting as he drew near, "Yankees thick as hell up the road!" We were ordered to load and cap our guns, and then rode briskly forward to a rise, and there, some four or five hundred yards in front, in line of battle which extended on either side of and across the pike, were some two hundred mounted men in blue. 2 There was another company which we did not see then, but saw later, to our sorrow, for they were in ambush on the side of the road along which our Irish captain was to lead us. When we
1 Company C, Captain Darrow in command, supported by Companies L, M, and H, Second Michigan Cavalry, page 148, Official Records, vol. xx.
2 Official Records, vol. xx, part 1, page 151. Companies of the Fourth and Fifth Indiana Cavalry under Colonel Isaac P. Grey.

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were about two hundred yards from the Federal line, and protected by a depression in the road which for the moment hid us from view, we dismounted and advanced on foot toward the enemy. As we reached the top of the rise in a lane which had a high worm-fence on either side, the Federals gave us a lively volley, which we returned from the fence-corners. With my long Austrian rifle I took a dead rest through a crack in the fence at an officer who was recklessly riding up and down in front of us, but missed him. While we were thus engaged with the troops in front of us another detachment (Company C, Fifth Indiana), which was in ambush in a hollow to our right, charged up unexpectedly to within a few yards of the road abreast of and in the rear of our position, and fired into us and into the horse-holders at practically muzzle range.

        The sudden appearance of those troops and the fusillade from the flank and rear as well as from the front stampeded the horses and horse-holders, all of whom disappeared down the pike, leaving Captain Quirk and his fifty men with no means of escape except by climbing the westerly fence and running for a dense thicket of black-jacks or heavy undergrowth of bushes, some two hundred yards across an open field. Several of our men had been wounded--none seriously, however--but no one was killed on our side. Half a dozen of our company took shelter in a small farm-house which stood within fifty yards of where the fight began, and these were made prisoners. I happened to climb over the same panel of fence with our captain, whose face was a sight with blood from two bullet-wounds of the scalp. He was not in a happy frame of mind, for he was swearing like a trooper at the horse-holders for running away. The Yankees peppered away at us as we scampered in quick time across the

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space which lay between us and the thicket into which we dived and disappeared from view.

        At this juncture the leading regiment of our main column which had caught our runaway horses came up, and we remounted and joined in the pursuit, Tom Quirk, as usual, out in front, where at close quarters he killed a Federal trooper with his pistol. Those who escaped fled in the direction of Cave City. 1

        On the further march to Green River, which was crossed before dark, we captured a huge sutler's wagon which the stampeded owner had abandoned. Its contents were unceremoniously appropriated, even to a box of women's shoes, which the men gallantly distributed to the houses on the line of march. That night we camped in the woods between Hammondsville and Upton Station, on the Louisville& Nashville Railroad. All in all, it was the liveliest Christmas I had ever had.

        In the early morning of December 26th, while a light, drizzly rain was falling, we struck the railroad at Uptons, capturing a number of Union soldiers who were guarding the depot and this section of the track. Here we were again joined by General Morgan, and I witnessed a very interesting incident. Attached to the General's staff was a telegraph operator, a quick-witted young man about twenty-five years old named Ellsworth, better known by the nickname of "Lightning." On a former occasion having tapped a wire and interposed his instrument--which, being a pocket affair, did not always give the most perfect
1 Colonel Grey, page 151, vol. xx, Official Records, reports the Confederate loss as "nine killed and, as near as I can ascertain, twenty-two wounded and five prisoners." The last item is correct, but none was killed and only two wounded. His own loss he reports as "one killed and two captured."

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satisfaction--its wobbling and uncertain tick aroused the suspicion of the operator he was calling.

        "Who are you, and what's the matter with your office?" came over the wire, and quick as a flash Ellsworth disarmed suspicion by answering "O. K. Lightning," which in the language of telegraphy meant, "Go ahead; storm and lightning here interfering." This restored confidence at the other end, and Ellsworth got not only the information he and his general wanted, but also his nickname.

        At Uptons one of the men climbed a telegraph-pole, fastened two strands of wire to the line on each side of the insulation, and to these Ellsworth attached his instrument. Seated on a cross-tie within a few feet of General Morgan, I heard him dictate messages to be sent to General Boyle (who, I think, was military governor of Kentucky), in Louisville, and to other Federal commanders in that state, making inquiries as to the disposition of the Union forces, and at the same time telling some awful stories in regard to the large size of his own command and of its movements. Among other answers received was one that a train bearing some artillery and ammunition had left Elizabethtown on its way to Mumfordsville. Morgan immediately ordered Quirk to take his company and be ready to obstruct the track as soon as the train should pass the point indicated. Unfortunately, the wary engineer saw us in time to reverse his engine and escape with the train before we could get behind him. The two pieces of artillery were on a freight-car in plain view, and the few shots we fired at the engineer were poor consolation for missing a valuable capture.

        Heavy cannonading was now heard in the direction of Bacon Creek Bridge stockade, which, after a gallant resistance, was reduced, its garrison captured, and the bridge

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destroyed. We took up our march toward toward Nolin, the next station north of Uptons, where there was another bridge guarded by a stockade. This garrison surrendered to General Duke, and the bridge was also burned. We bivouacked that night a few miles from Elizabethtown, which place, garrisoned by eight companies of the Ninety-first Illinois Regiment, we captured after a slight resistance on the next day, the number of prisoners being six hundred and fifty-two men and officers.1 A number of brick warehouses near the railroad station had been loopholed and otherwise strengthened, and to make a direct assault upon such a stronghold would have been folly. Morgan made a rapid disposition of his forces, completely surrounding the town, brought up his artillery, and after a number of shells and solid shot had knocked great holes in the houses the garrison surrendered. That night we slept in feather beds, the only experience of this kind during the raid.

        While parleying for a surrender the colonel of this Union regiment marched his men several times over the exposed crest of a hill, then out of sight and around again, until I was convinced he had several thousand in his command. Morgan was too old a soldier, however, to be fooled by this ruse.

        On the 28th we reached the two great trestles on the Louisville& Nashville Railroad at Muldraugh's Hill, the destruction of which was the most important object of the expedition. They were each from sixty to seventy-five feet high and about seven hundred feet in length, and constructed entirely of wooden beams, or "bents," superimposed one upon another until the required height was
1 Official Records, vol. lxx, part 1, page 156. The garrisons captured at Bacon Creek, Nolin, and Uptons belonged to this regiment.

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reached. They were deemed of such importance that two strong stockades or forts had been built, and were then garrisoned by the Seventy-first Indiana and Seventy-eighth Illinois regiments of infantry. Morgan assailed both strongholds at the same time, the artillery doing most of the execution, and in less than two hours the two garrisons of seven hundred men were prisoners.1 This was the second time that Morgan had captured the Indiana regiment, and he directed Ellsworth to telegraph Governor Morton of the Hoosier State, thanking him for again sending the regiment down, and suggesting that the next time he could send the oil-cloths and overcoats without the men, as he was tired of paroling them. They were armed with new Enfield rifles, one of the most effective weapons of that day.

        When we reached the stockade, from which some of the enemy had escaped, we were ordered to scour the woods for fugitives. About two or three hundred yards from the fort I came upon a stripling, who, hearing some one approaching, bobbed up from behind the trunk of a fallen tree and held up one hand in token of surrender. As no one else was near, I took his gun--a beautiful new Enfield rifle--and accouterments. He seemed about my age, and I noticed tears running down over his "peach-down cheeks." His crying quickly aroused my sympathy, and I tried to reassure him by saying: "Don't be afraid; nobody's going to harm you; you'll be paroled right away and can go home." At this he sobbed out: "I've got a good mother at home, and if I ever get back I'll never leave her again." By this time my own feelings were getting the better of me, and when he mentioned his mother the thought of my own so overcame me that I could not keep the tears out of my eyes as I said to him:
1 Official Records, vol. lxx, part 1, page 156.

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"I have a good mother, too, and don't you cry any more." All this occurred as we were walking side by side back to the stockade, my war-spirit no little dampened and the pride of my capture about lost in the sympathy for the captive.

        After burning the trestles, which made the most magnificent bonfire I ever saw, the command moved to Rolling Fork River, the greater portion of the troops crossing that night and proceeding toward Bardstown.

        A detachment of five hundred men was sent under Colonel Cluke to destroy the railroad bridge over Rolling Fork, but before the stockade could be battered down a sharp rear-guard action with a strong body of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, three thousand strong, under Colonel John M. Harlan, later General, and still later a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, compelled his withdrawal. When Harlan's men came up with us Quirk's company had been left as rear-guard, and took part in a sharp engagement which occurred about ten o'clock on the morning of December 29th. General Basil W. Duke, having recrossed from the north side of the river, took command of Cluke's regiment and Quirk's Scouts, which now formed the entire rear-guard, and led an attack which was so vigorous that, although he had but a handful of men, Colonel Harlan hesitated to press his great advantage.

        At this crisis Duke was wounded while with our company. A fragment of a well-aimed shrapnel struck him on the head and stunned him. The same shell killed two of our horses. It made an awful noise as it exploded. Quirk and others of the scouts hurried to the fallen man, placed him astride the pommel of the saddle in which our captain was seated, and, with the captain's arm around the limp

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body, the faithful animal was guided into the swollen stream. Quirk and Duke were both small in stature, and the captain's horse, a powerful bay, carried his double load safely across. Another vicious shell burst in the water as we were floundering across and splattered us. General Duke, being unconscious, was the only man who wasn't scared.

        Had the Federal commander pushed his advantage in this crisis, we must have lost heavily. As it was, we did not lose a man, as our other wounded rode away on their horses. Colonel Harlan reports his loss as three killed and one wounded. He explained his cautious advance by saying, "Morgan had a larger force than I."

        Safely over the river, a carriage was impressed, filled with soft bedding, and in this our wounded general was placed and carried along with the command.1

        Our company was now ordered to ride through the command and take the lead, which we did, reaching Bardstown at dusk, where we found shelter in a livery stable and a sound sleep on a corn-pile. Before leaving, between daylight and sunrise, December 30th, I witnessed the looting of one of the largest general stores in Bardstown. The proprietor had refused to accept Confederate money for his goods, locked his store, and left town. The men who had crowded in through the doors they had battered down found great difficulty in making their way out with their plunder through a surging crowd that pressed to get in before everything was gone. I was amused at one trooper, who induced others to let him out by holding an ax in front of him, cutting edge forward, one arm clasping a bundle of at least a dozen pairs of shoes and other plunder,
1 General Basil W. Duke still survives at this date, 1914.

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while on his head was a pyramid of eight or ten soft hats, one on top of the other, just as they had come out of the packing-box. Within a short half-hour nothing but the shelves and counters were left, for in the riot of an uncontrolled desire to plunder these men took piles of stuff they could not carry away or use.

        It was still clear, and yet colder than we had thus far experienced, as we marched in the direction of Springfield. Our spirits were high, for up to this time we had had a picnic, and as we passed a home of the Trappist brotherhood some ten miles up the road Lieutenant Frank Brady entertained us by singing "Lorena," a war-time poem which had been set to music and was then very popular. He told us that the author of the poem was an inmate of this Trappist home. If this were true and the self-imprisoned brother heard the sweet voice of the cavalier as he sang, "The years creep slowly by, Lorena," what sad and tender memories it must have awakened!

        I recall two verses:


                         The years creep slowly by, Lorena;
                         The snow is on the grass again;
                         The sun's low down the sky, Lorena;
                         The frost is where the flowers have been.


                         But the heart beats on as warmly now
                         As when the summer days were nigh:
                         The sun can never dip so low
                         Adown affection's cloudless sky.

        I may not be doing the author strict justice in quoting from memory. There was one other line that told of the past being "in the eternal past," upon which our tenor dwelt feelingly as he sang it. All of which, no doubt, will provoke a smile from the pupils of Debussy, Wagner, et id omne;

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yet I would rather hear my debonair comrade of "The Scouts" sing that war-time song again as we began our ride of thirty-two miles through a blizzard than listen to the so-called music of the "immortals" at our beautiful Metropolitan Opera House.

        By midday the clouds had gathered and a chilling rain set in, which, as the thermometer fell, turned into sleet. Reaching Springfield in the gloom of the evening (December 30th), our company was ordered to keep on to the suburbs of Lebanon, some nine miles farther, and there to drive in the pickets and build fires for as long a line on that side of town as possible, in order to give the enemy the impression that we were up in force and were only awaiting for daylight to attack. We piled fence-rails and made fires until late at night, while Morgan was leading his men south along a narrow and not much used country road, with Lebanon some two miles to the left. Having completed our work, we caught up with the command, and acted as rear-guard throughout the remainder of that awful night. What with the bitter, penetrating cold, the fatigue, the overwhelming desire to sleep, so difficult to overcome, and, under the conditions we were experiencing, so fatal if yielded to, the numerous halts to get the artillery out of bad places, the impenetrable darkness, and the inevitable confusion which attends the moving of troops and artillery along a narrow country road, we put in a night of such misery and anxiety and suffering that no man who experienced it could ever forget.

        Toward morning it became our chief duty to keep one another awake. All through the night the sleet pelted us unmercifully and covered our coats and oil-cloths with a sheet of ice. Time and again we dismounted and, holding

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on to the stirrup leather, trudged on through the slush and ice to keep from freezing.

        Daylight found us several miles south of Lebanon and the strong Federal command concentrated there to catch us, but we kept on without halting, for another heavy column was reported moving out from Mumfordsville and Glasgow to intercept us at Columbia or Burkesville before we could recross the Cumberland River.

        About midday (December 31st) we stopped for an hour to feed and rest, and then rode on to Campbellville, where we arrived at dark, having been thirty-six hours in the saddle since leaving Bardstown. Here we rested eight hours, and early on New-Year's day, 1863, left for Columbia, which we reached late in the afternoon, and then on throughout the whole bitter-cold night without stopping, until we passed through Burkesville on the morning of January 2d, where we recrossed the Cumberland and were safe from pursuit or interception. Since leaving Bardstown we had, with the exception of nine hours, been seventy-two hours in the saddle. I doubt if any troops in the entire history of the war ever passed through a more trying ordeal than Morgan's cavalry on this expedition. Of it General Basil W. Duke writes: "It is common to hear men who served in Morgan's command through all its career of trial and hardship refer to this night march around Lebanon as the most trying scene of their entire experience."

        It was not so much the bitter cold which bothered us as the slow going of the artillery. As long as we could stick to the turnpikes we moved swiftly. It was when driven to the ill-kept dirt roads that our troubles began, and in the pitch-darkness of a stormy winter's night, with the most severe blizzard raging that that section had ever

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known, they multiplied. For the entire night in the ride around Lebanon we made only seven miles. Climbing Muldraugh's Hill, we not only double-teamed the guns, but long lines of men on foot pushed and pulled to help the weary horses. Every piece was brought out safely over the Cumberland. We now took it leisurely to Livingston, and then to Liberty, Tennessee, where on January 6, 1863, we resumed our place on the right wing of Bragg's army.

        This was Morgan's most successful enterprise. He had destroyed the Louisville& Nashville Railroad from Mumfordsville to Shepherdsville, within eighteen miles of Louisville, captured 1,877 prisoners, destroyed a vast amount of United State property, and had lost only 2 men killed, 24 wounded, and 64 missing. His command returned well armed as a result of its captures, and better mounted than when it set out. The country along the line of march had been stripped of its horses. Every man in my company led out an extra mount.

        Moreover, Morgan had demonstrated again that genius of leadership which divined the plans and movements of the enemy in time to elude him. He had still further won the devotion of the men who followed his fortunes and who believed in him implicitly. I wonder now that after having succeeded in the object of his expedition, which culminated with the destruction of the Muldraugh's Hill trestles, he did not turn on Harlan and capture or destroy him, which he could easily have done. He could then at leisure have retraced his steps to Tennessee.

        All things considered, we had moved with great celerity. Despite the hindrance of artillery, the shortness of the winter days, and the rough roads in the hilly country before we reached Glasgow, the two all-night marches around

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Lebanon and from Columbia to Burkesville, we had marched two hundred and seventy-one miles and fought ten engagements. On Christmas Day we marched thirty miles, notwithstanding an hour's delay in the fight at Bear Wallow, and the next day made twenty-five miles, besides capturing the garrison at Uptons, the stockades at Bacon Creek and Nolin, and destroying the two bridges there.

        In our absence the great battle of Murfreesboro had been fought. The Confederates had captured some thirty pieces of artillery and had lost four; and, although Rosecrans was finally victorious in that Bragg retreated a day's march to Tullahoma, he had hammered his opponent so hard that it took him from January 1st to June 24th before he was again ready to advance. In this enforced delay Morgan's destruction of the Louisville& Nashville Railroad was an important factor.

        I have made no attempt to narrate the many acts of personal bravery which took place on this exciting expedition, but there were two occurrences of such an extraordinary character that I must find place for them. The first of these encounters took place about ten o'clock on the morning of December 31st, as the rear-guard was crossing Salt River, some five or six miles south of Lebanon. Captain Alexander Tribble, Lieutenant George B. Eastin, and a private soldier had been sent on a detour to New Market, four or five miles from the line of march, to secure a supply of shoes which were reported stored at that point. As they were returning to overtake the command they were set upon and pursued by a squad of Federal cavalry. Being well mounted, the three kept a safe distance ahead of their pursuers. Glancing backward in a long, straight stretch of road, they observed as the chase proceeded that all but

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three of the enemy had checked up, and they determined at the first favorable place to ride to one side and await their approach and attack them.

        The place selected was the ford at Salt River. At this point Eastin checked his horse and turned sharply to the right, concealing himself under the bank. Tribble continued into the middle of the stream, which here was about fifty yards wide, and stopped his horse where the water was about two feet deep. For reasons satisfactory to himself the private soldier kept on, leaving the two officers to confront the three Federals, who were now in sight coming at full speed toward the river and strung out from fifty to one hundred yards apart. The leading Federal turned out to be Colonel Dennis J. Halisey, of the Sixth Kentucky Cavalry. As he came near Eastin the latter fired at him with his six-shooter, which fire Halisey returned. Both missed; and, as Eastin now had the drop on his adversary, Halisey threw up his hands in token of surrender. As Eastin approached him, having lowered his weapon, Halisey fired, again missing, whereupon Eastin shot Halisey through the head, killing him instantly, his body falling from his horse into the river.

        While this combat was taking place the next in order of the Federals had closed with Captain Tribble. These two opened fire without effect, when Tribble spurred his horse alongside of his adversary, threw his arms around him, and dragged him with himself from the saddle into the river. Luckily, Tribble fell on top and strangled his enemy into surrender. At this moment the third Union trooper came on the scene, only to throw up his hands and surrender to the two Confederates.

        The second incident illustrates another phase of our war

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and almost justifies the term "Civil," which some writers apply to it.1 Five of our men on one of the numerous side expeditions, or scouts, came unexpectedly face to face and within a few yards of about the same number of Federal cavalry, just as each party reached the crest of a sharp rise or hill in the road. The surprise was mutual, the situation serious. The men were experienced enough to know that on such equal terms neither would surrender to the other without a hand-to-hand fight or killing. With wonderful presence of mind the Union officer at the head of his squad said, "Don't raise your guns," and the lieutenant of the other side quickly responded, "Don't raise yours," and they rode past one another, saluting, and went their respective ways. It reads like a romance, but it is true. It is not a bit more seemingly improbable than an incident in which I took part in another campaign later on, and which I shall describe elsewhere.

        Our war was full of pathos, and the tragedy of it makes the chivalric and pathetic side stand out in bolder relief. There is a man still living (1914) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a man of affairs, who captured his own brother, who was seated by the fireside holding his mother's hand. The two armies were near each other, and each of the sons had obtained leave for the night to pass into the intervening neutral zone to see his mother. The one who came last saw through a crack the other seated by the fire, opened the door quickly, gun in hand, and cried: "Throw up your hands; you're my prisoner!" The trio chatted till late, and then
1 This occurrence was detailed to me by Hugh Garvin of our command. He was a true soldier, always where he ought to have been, and entirely reliable in every respect. After the war he became a physician at Cave City, Kentucky, and died there a few years ago, beloved and respected by all.

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the prisoner went with his captor into the Union lines. It was largely a family affair. When I was captured I was guarded the first night by men from a company in the Tenth Illinois Infantry, of which my first cousin, Thomas Smith, of Morgan County, was captain.

        In February, leading my "captured" horse, I started on the long ride to my home. It rained almost incessantly for two days and nights, until every stream became a torrent, and some of them difficult and not altogether safe, especially while trying to cross with two animals. When I reached Paint Rock River it had overflowed its banks; and, the Tennessee being full, the back-water had flooded the lowlands, until where I had to cross it was over a mile from shore to shore. The hospitable citizen who gave me shelter for the night informed me that the ferryman who lived on the far side had tied up his boat and quit, as the general overflow had put an end to all travel.

        One of the great advantages of being raised in the backwoods is that every boy and man learns of necessity the use of tools and gets in the habit of overcoming difficulties. My good host said I could stay with him till the river fell. He thought in four or five days the road might be open. Early next morning another traveler on horseback came on the scene. He and I formed a partnership, borrowed an ax and an auger, cut three good ash logs of proper length, pinned them together into a fairly respectable raft, and with one pole and a bit of plank for a paddle we started on a voyage of discovery. It was half a mile to the river proper, and the rails of the corduroy road-bed had floated and made navigation difficult, but we were yet in dead-water and could take our time.

        When we arrived at the river's edge we found the current

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booming swiftly toward the Tennessee, several miles farther on. Away on the other side, a half-mile across, we could see the coveted ferryboat where the retiring ferryman had tied it when he suspended operations. The opening of the roadway on that side was narrow--not over twenty feet--and if in crossing we failed to hit it exactly right we would have to continue our journey indefinitely down-stream and take our chances of finding a landing-place somewhere down on the Tennessee; so we poled our raft through the still water far enough up-stream to give us good leeway, paddled across the swift current, and hit the opening in great style. I heard of one colored brother who indiscreetly inquired of another, "What wuz de price o' dem new britches what you got on?" and the reply was. "How'd I know. De shopkeeper wasn't dar." My partner and I never asked the price of this ferriage. We took the boat, pulled back for our three horses, ferried ourselves across, and went our way rejoicing. That night I reported as present and accounted for to my anxious mother and father, and they sat up to a late hour listening to my story of how I had "seen the army."

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XV
FOURTH ALABAMA CAVALRY

        MY brief partisan-ranger service as a "bushwhacker," and the trying and exciting experience as an "independent" with Morgan's cavalry, in 1862 and early in 1863, only whetted the desire to engage regularly in the active business of the war. In February I had asked Captain Tom Quirk at Liberty, Tennessee, where "the Scouts" were stationed after the Christmas raid was over, if I might not join his company. Evidently, Lieutenant Frank Brady, who felt responsible for my leaving home and going on the great ride through Kentucky, had talked my case over with the captain and had advised him not to let me enlist, as I was under age, and he thought I ought to report to my parents. Quirk frankly told me he would like to keep me with his company, but on account of my size and age he didn't think it would be best, and asked me to go home, talk it over with my parents, and, later on, if they consented and I still cared to come to him, he would take me.

        I was greatly disappointed at this, for I had fallen in love with my Kentucky comrades, especially with the Scouts, for they were as gallant a lot of horsemen as ever sat in the saddle. They had volunteered early in the war, and with John H. Morgan and Basil W. Duke had done some wonderful work and won undying fame as "Morgan's old squadron." When I joined them at Alexandria and asked to be

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allowed to go on the raid they never bothered about asking me what my full name was. Captain Quirk hailed me as "Little Johnny," and after that I never had any other name while with Morgan's men.

        After the final consultation with my parents the conclusion was that I had better join one of the cavalry companies from my native county already in service in a famous regiment, the Fourth Alabama, known also as "Russell's regiment."1 So early in April I was regularly enrolled as a private in Company I, joining the command then doing outpost duty near Eagleville, on the turnpike leading north from Shelbyville, Tennessee, to Triune and Nashville. Russell's Fourth Alabama was justly ranked as one of the best cavalry regiments in the service. In its organization a valuable military lesson may be learned--namely, the sandwiching of raw and untrained soldiers between true and tried veterans. The negroes had a saying that "It takes an old dog to teach a pup how to fight." Among the first troops to go to the front from Alabama were four mounted companies, and these were fortunate enough to be included in a battalion of cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. Anybody who knows anything about the Civil War knows what that meant. He led them, and they followed "close up" at Sacramento and at Fort Henry.

        At Fort Donelson, when everybody else was whipped and cowed and wanted to surrender, Forrest told the commanding officers not to include him and his men in the cartel, as he had no notion of surrendering. Napoleon said that the supreme test of courage was at four o'clock in the morning.
1 In distinction from another regiment under General Roddy, which is sometimes mentioned in the reports as the Fourth Alabama Cavalry.

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Near this hour on that cold, cheerless, and desolate February morning the grim fighter roused his tired and sleepy troopers from under their snow-covered blankets, called them about him, and said: "Men, they are going to surrender this fort and this army at daybreak. I am going out. The way is open. Get on your horses." They rode safely away without seeing one solitary Federal soldier. Every man surrendered there, who could have walked four miles between four and six o'clock A.M., could have come away and left General Grant the empty triumph of a "last year's bird's nest."

        These same men were with him at Shiloh, where they rode squarely in among Sherman's infantry, and for at least once during our four years' war men on foot were jabbing bayonets at men on horseback. When their twelve months' enlistment had expired they re-enlisted "for the war," and to these four old companies as a nucleus were added six new companies of mounted troops, all from Alabama, and the new regiment was christened Russell's Fourth Alabama in honor of the brave, grim doctor who laid aside the spatula and scalpel for the sword and six-shooter.

        Most of these recent volunteers made excellent soldiers, and with the example and prestige of the "old Forresters" they became a splendid body of fighters. Within two months of their organization two of the new companies, under the leadership of the daring Captain Frank Gurley, rode over and captured a section of artillery at Lexington, Tennessee, the orderly sergeant of one company being blown bodily from his horse at the cannon's mouth. They captured in addition the redoubtable Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll and troops of the Eleventh Illinois, Second

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West Tennessee, and Fifth Ohio Cavalry, and were bulletined by General Forrest for "exceptional gallantry" on this and other occasions. One of the proudest moments of my life as a soldier was when, at Anderson's Cross Roads, on October 2, 1863, as a brigade which had been sent to the front to beat off a train-guard came back beaten and demoralized, General Wheeler galloped up to our commander and said, "Colonel Russell, you will have to go in with the Fourth Alabama." Our grim old colonel came nearer smiling than I ever saw him as he saluted and gave the order, "Cap your guns, men!" We made short work of it.

        The men and horses were in generally good condition when I joined the company, although the equipment was far from sufficient. An official inspection had just been made, and the report of March 6, 1863, shows that out of seven hundred men present for duty in this regiment four hundred were as yet without arms.1 Nothing could better demonstrate the difficulties with which the South was contending. The four old companies were splendidly equipped with guns and army pistols which they had captured. The others carried long muzzle-loading Austrian or Belgian rifles, a clumsy weapon for mounted men. Some had double-barreled shotguns, a very effective weapon at close quarters--seventy-five yards or less. Army pistols were scarce, and no sabres were carried. I furnished myself with a captured Burnside carbine, for which I paid fifty dollars, and an army six-shooter, and as far as my mount was concerned there was not in all the seven hundred a horse more beautiful, intelligent, or swifter of foot than my thoroughbred Fanny. The hard campaign with Morgan had left her in the best of condition for service.


1 Official Records, series I, 23, part 2, p. 663
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        The only tent in our regiment belonged to Colonel Russell. The rest of us lived out of doors, with the dome of heaven for our covering. When night came on we slept on the ground, wherever we happened to be, provided we were not on picket or doing guard duty. When it rained, if in bivouac we leaned two rails or poles against a tree or a fence-panel, laid an oil-cloth over these, spread another oil-cloth on leaves or bushes, then a saddle-blanket; and then, with our saddles for pillows, two of us went to bed with an extra blanket for cover. When the rainfall was extraordinarily heavy, in cloudburst fashion, as occasionally happened, there was nothing to do but sit or stand up and take it good humoredly when we could, or the other way when patience and patriotism succumbed for the time being to the suffering which cold and loss of sleep entailed.

        I recall one night, when a young deluge was let down on us, with several inches of water on the ground, I placed two flat rails across the angle of a worm-fence, and, protected by a waterproof blanket, slept the sleep of the weary, unmindful of the heavy downpour. When day broke, as far as one could see the top of the fence on both sides of the pike was occupied by troopers in every possible attitude of discomfort. We didn't mind so much the rains of summer-time; but the winter rains, the sleet, the snow, and the biting wind made us think of home and wish "the cruel war was over." One great misfortune was that most of the men did not have oil-cloths or blankets enough to protect them properly, and now, as I look back on all this physical discomfort and misery, to which add short rations of food--and most of the time the little we got was bad--I marvel that our army stood up as long as it did. The truth is the men were in dead earnest to win out for the Southern Confederacy.

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        We had what by courtesy was called a commissary, took with grateful appreciation all it offered, and made up the deficit by foraging. Now, foraging is a science and an art which can only be acquired by experience. I messed with the captain and the first lieutenant of my company. Our utensils and housekeeping outfit consisted of a small frying-pan, a skillet, and one canteen which held three pints. We fried our bacon or other meat in one and mixed the meal dough and cooked it into bread in the other. At meal-time we drank in regular order from the canteen. Custom required that the last drinker should dry off the canteen's mouth before passing it. The nearest approach to a napkin was a handkerchief, and when this had not been recently laundered the palm of the hand sufficed.

        Buttermilk was the one great luxury of the mess, and as I was so youthful and small, and in appearance so generally suggestive of helplessness and hunger, the captain and the lieutenant detailed me with great regularity to scour the surrounding territory for this essential. As a rule I rarely came in with an empty canteen. The Confederate cavalry subsisted chiefly on corn--as roasting-ears when green or half ripe, and parched, or as hominy, when ripe. Corn-bread was the great standby. Wheat flour we rarely saw, and we used to say the infantry got it all. Coffee and tea were unknown, and sugar was as scarce as flour.

        Dr. Will Fennell was the captain of Company I, and it was chiefly on his account that I had joined it. He had studied medicine, and was just commencing practice when the war broke out. He volunteered as assistant surgeon in a regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia. At the battle of Seven Pines, as the wounded were not coming in fast enough to suit him, he had borrowed a gun and gone into the fight just

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in time to be severely wounded. During his convalescence at home he amused himself by drumming up a company of volunteers for the cavalry service, and, having been made captain, he gave up his place as surgeon. He was a fine type of man, sober, fearless, reliable, and withal just a little bit too quick-tempered. He and the second lieutenant, Sam Browning, would have come to blows on one occasion if we privates had not by expostulation and interference prevented it. Captain Fennell ordered Browning to perform some duty. The latter resented the tone and bearing of his superior, saying, "Captain Fennell, you wouldn't dare to speak to me that way if you didn't have those bars on your collar." Off went the captain's coat, and as he was squaring for action he remarked, "Lieutenant, the bars are off." It was a matter of great regret to me that on account of ill health he was compelled to leave the service.

        Between the Federal picket-line and ours, extending the fifteen or twenty miles of front along which the cavalry of either army was strung out, was a strip of country about four miles in width known as the neutral zone. An important part of the duty to which I was assigned was to make frequent excursions across this zone to obtain all possible information from the citizens living near the Union lines, especially from those who had access to their encampments. Practically all residents of this section of middle Tennessee were intensely Southern in sympathy.

        About half a mile north of Little Harpeth River, where the pike to Triune crosses, east of the road some four hundred yards stood a substantial brick farm-house. A carriageway led from the gate on the pike straight to the front yard through a beautiful field then green with clover. From a rise of ground in the turnpike, two hundred yards

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farther north of this gate, could be seen the Federal videttes as they sat on their horses. I visited at this house a number of times and made the acquaintance of the family. They were in good circumstances. The Federals being so near, naturally they also found their way there frequently. It was only half a mile from their outpost, and fully three miles to ours. The male members of the household were away in our army. The mother and the two young girls, about fourteen and sixteen years old, were all of the family I can recall.1 The oldest girl told me that Colonel Brownlow, of the First Tennessee Union Cavalry, or some of his officers rode out nearly every afternoon. They were polite enough "to keep on the good side of the Yankees," and equally loyal to me; for she gave me all the Northern newspapers she could obtain from them, and any other information. I usually started on these excursions before daylight, and on Fanny it did not take long to go three or four miles on a good Tennessee pike. The Louisville Journal I remember as one of the important papers we were glad to get from that side of the line.

        Realizing that this could not go on indefinitely without discovery, I took every precaution to prevent surprise. On the morning of my last visit I had with me two very reliable men, and when we reached the big gate I left it open and told them to ride to the rise in the road in sight of the pickets, and if the Yankees charged them to yell a warning to me, save themselves by a run for camp, and I would escape by a back way across the fields. The one embarrassing feature of a run down the pike was the river,
1 The younger of these daughters was still living in this house in 1907, wife of a Mr. Wommack, who, I think, is a preacher. He wrote me that the elder one, my little friend, had died many years ago.

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half a mile away, which, while not wide, was deep enough to stop the full speed of a horse or cause him to fall if not checked up. With a good start, however, this could be crossed before the pursuers were close enough to shoot with accuracy, and it would impede them as well.

        When about two-thirds of the way from the gate to the house, I was startled to see my little friend standing in the hall and well back from the door, where she could not be seen from the outside, waving her hand, and evidently signaling me to turn back, as there was danger. I wheeled at once and rode at full speed to rejoin my two comrades. As I neared them they threw up their guns and shouted to me: "Here they come!" I exclaimed quickly, "Don't shoot!" and in another instant I was on the rise where they were stationed and could see coming toward us, but as yet about four hundred yards away, a squadron of from fifteen to twenty Union troopers. Naturally, our first thought was to run full tilt for camp, but the river just in our rear made that a dangerous experiment, to be avoided if possible; and so we concluded to try to "bluff them off," and the three of us lined up across the pike, lowered our guns, and sat stock-still. They came on in a walk until they had reached a slight elevation about three hundred yards from us, where they halted in a line that stretched the full width of the roadway.

        I saw one of them raise his field-glasses, and while he still held them to his eyes every second trooper turned back and disappeared behind the hill. They evidently suspected us of trying to lead them into an ambuscade; so we waved our hats and, shouting, "Come on, boys!" turned and rode leisurely away, keeping our eyes on them until we were out of sight below the crest of the hill. As yet they had not

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budged, but as soon as we could no longer be seen we put the spurs to our horses and went at full speed toward the river, across which we floundered without accident and made our way safely to our lines. Had they rushed us from the start our situation would have been precarious in the extreme. I need scarcely add that this was my last visit to this house.

        Scouting and picket duty, foraging for one's self and horse, and attending drills on alternate days made a busy life of it. Our rule was four consecutive hours on post, and at night it was at times almost impossible to stay awake, especially toward morning, when stationed at some lonesome spot where not a sound could be heard except the hoot or screech of the owls, the cry of a whippoorwill, or the chirp of the grasshoppers or katydids. It was against orders to dismount, but I remember on one occasion the only way I could keep from going to sleep was to mount and dismount for minutes at a time, and to repeat this performance until fully aroused.

        Just at daylight on May 5, 1863, the outpost picket fired his gun, and, closely pursued by six Federal cavalrymen, came at full speed to the reserve. Lieutenant John Gibson, officer of the guard, followed by a man named Julian, mounted at once and raced in the direction of the enemy, who now faced about and started as fast as their horses could carry them back toward Triune. A dozen of us threw our saddles on and joined in the chase. One of the Yankee horses went down, and a comrade checked his horse, took the unseated man up behind him, and tried to escape. The double weight told on the animal, and, seeing they were being overhauled, the two dismounted, knelt in the road, and fired their carbines at Gibson, now two hundred yards

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in advance of Julian, who was about the same distance ahead of the others of the reserve. One of the balls struck the big sorrel just above the eye and crashed into his brain, killing him instantly. As he was going at a full run, some idea of the jolt the plucky lieutenant received when he struck the hard road-bed may be imagined. Stunned as he was, he staggered to his feet, revolver in hand, and advanced on the two desperate Federals, who, seeing Julian approaching and the guard right up, surrendered to Gibson. The other four made good their escape.

        Had these men been caught two weeks later they would in all likelihood have fared badly, for an important incident occurred at this time which embittered the Fourth Alabama against the First Tennessee (Union). A corn-detail sent into the neutral zone was set upon by a scouting party of the enemy and fled after two of the detail had been wounded. The citizens who owned the corn testified that Brownlow's troopers had ruthlessly put both the wounded men to death as they were lying helpless on the ground. The evidence was so convincing that reprisals were determined upon. I happened to be one of the detachment sent out on this expedition, and we had gone ahead of the corn-detail to guard it from attack. The Federals had evidently come out during the night, and were lying in wait for the corn-carriers, and in this way they were not discovered by us. As soon as the firing began we raced in that direction and drove the assailants away. In their precipitate retreat one was thrown from his horse and escaped into the dense cedar brakes or thickets which are numerous in this section and can only be traversed by a man on foot. As Fanny was the fastest animal in our scouting party, I happened to get ahead and capture the horse and outfit. Within a week two of this

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command were caught and shot. The men comprising this regiment were almost wholly from the mountain country of east Tennessee, where the people were about equally divided in their political affiliations. They were a hardy lot, and neither they nor the men from the mountain region just over the line in northern Alabama took the trouble to refer their grievances to the proper authorities for settlement, as the following dispatch may testify:

HEADQUARTERS FIRST TENNESSEE CAVALRY,
SPARTA, TENN., December 1st, 1863.

        Drove the enemy eight miles, killing nine and wounding between fifteen and twenty. I would take no prisoners.

JAMES P. BROWNLOW,
Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding.1


        1 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series I, vol. xxxi, part 1, p. 591.

        Colonel Brownlow was a son of the "Parson" Brownlow who was Governor of Tennessee at one time, and in reconstruction days was one of the most implacable enemies the South ever had.

        By a singular coincidence a man who at this time commanded a company in the First Tennessee Cavalry (Union) became one of my most devoted personal friends. Long after the war he came as a patient and remained in my private hospital for several weeks. I knew nothing of his war record until he was just far enough under the influence of the anesthetic, as I was proceeding to operate on him, to lose control of his tongue. He then said, "Dr. Wyeth, this isn't the first time you and I have seen each other," and to quiet him I said: "That's all right, Captain. Just keep quiet and go to sleep." But the spell was on him, the control was gone, and the memory cells of those awful experiences came into action as he continued: "Yes; I know it's all right, and I trust you with my life; but there was a

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time, when you were in Russell's regiment and I was in Brownlow's, when we wouldn't have been talking to each other this way." At this I held up the ether for a minute in order to assure him as emphatically as I was able that old scores were forgotten and forgiven and that his vote of confidence had touched me deeply.1


1 Captain E. O. Tate was then a post-office inspector. He died at Morristown, Tennessee, about 1900. To the day of his death, long after this incident, he never missed an opportunity to demonstrate his gratitude and friendship.
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XVI
COVERING THE RETREAT FROM TULLAHOMA--THE 27TH OF JUNE, 1863

        FROM about June 20, 1863, the increased activity of the Union cavalry gave every indication of the long-looked-for general advance of Rosecrans's army. There was hardly a day that we were not in collision with their videttes, and on June 27th we retired to Shelbyville, where we arrived about two o'clock in the afternoon, just in time to take part in the opening of one of the liveliest experiences which fell to my lot. On the way back my horse cast a front shoe; and as the farrier and forge had gone ahead, the shoe could not be replaced at once. The hard macadamized road caused a split in Fanny's hoof, which soon became so tender that she hobbled in on three legs. For the last mile I led her on foot. When I reached the battle-line which was forming, on account of my lame horse I was ordered back to the wagon-train, which was still in sight. Here I found a man belonging to my company who had a fairly good horse. He readily consented to take charge of Fanny with the wagons, so I transferred my saddle to my new mount and hurried back to the company just in time to go out on the skirmish-line.

        Some of our cavalry which had been handled roughly at Hoover's Gap were coming in at a lively pace; and although the sun was now shining, it had rained hard for an hour or

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two in the forenoon, and these flying troopers, all bespattered with mud, presented a rather demoralized appearance which afforded us no little merriment at their expense. The pursuers checked up when they came in sight of our line of battle and formed theirs in full view, a half-mile in our front. I had scarcely reached my place with the skirmishers when their long line began to advance. We were some two hundred yards in front of our main line, and the videttes deployed at intervals of about one hundred yards. When the Federal skirmisher, who was coming directly toward me, was about eighty yards off I thought it was about time to try to stop him, and, taking as steady an aim as was possible from the back of a restless horse, I fired. Instead of returning the shot from his saddle he dismounted, and, holding on to the bridle, rested the barrel of his gun against a tree.

        We were in an open wooded bit of ground, and, fortunately for me, there were other trees than the one he was using. Some twenty feet to my right was an oak of good size, and when I realized I had missed him and he was taking such deliberate aim at me I put the spurs to my horse and tried to get my body behind it. As the horse jumped the Yankee's gun went off, and when I was within two or three feet of the tree I saw the bark fly as the bullet struck the trunk and glanced off. Either it or a good-sized piece of bark struck me on the left side of the abdomen, and for the moment I was sure it had gone through me, for my left leg became immediately numb. My gun being empty, I had let it drop to the sling over my shoulder to which it was attached for safety and glanced quickly at the place where I had been struck. As there was no bleeding, I was reassured at once that the ball had not penetrated.

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        All this happened within a few seconds, and by this time my antagonist, doubtless thinking he had disabled me, had remounted and was coming right at me. As he came on at full speed I arose on tiptoe in the stirrups and shot at him four times with my army pistol; but my horse was rearing and behaving so badly that I failed to stop him. Incidentally he was popping away at me with his pistol at the same time. As I fired the fourth shot he was so close I could have thrown the pistol and hit him with it. At the flash of this shot he reeled in his saddle, fell or leaned over on the other side from me, pulled the bridle on that side, turned, and, to my great relief, urged his horse at full speed toward his comrades, who were advancing in line of battle and were now not over two hundred yards away. I followed him some fifty yards as he still clung to the saddle, gave him a parting shot, and then turned back to where I belonged.

        This horseback duel had taken place in plain view of the regiment and excited no little interest, for as it ended a wild cheer went up from our line of battle, and I only then realized how foolish I had been. This conviction was emphasized by the remark of a comrade who had gone out with Forrest early in the war and knew what soldiering really was. Fearing I was in danger, he had started to my assistance, and as I rode up to him on my way back he said, "John, you are the damnedest fool I ever saw."1

        I had scarcely taken my place with my company when the enemy's bugles sounded the charge, and their whole line came on at a gallop. We gave them a volley; but I doubt if this would have stopped them if General Wheeler had not
1 Dr. C. A. (Meck) Robinson, of Huntsville, one of the bravest and best soldiers in our command, is still living in Huntsville (1914).

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Illustration

JOHN A. WYETH, Co. I, 4TH ALABAMA CAVALRY
From a photograph taken in 1861

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posted a battery, which at this juncture opened on them. As they broke under this unexpected development--for the guns had been masked--we charged and drove them in considerable disorder on their reserves, which were constantly coming on the field. At this advance I recall hearing a ball strike the chest of one of our men which sounded as if some one had slapped him with the palm of the hand. It went through one lung and passed out below the shoulder-blade.1

        For the entire afternoon this kind of fighting was going on, with charge and countercharge, with no material advantage to either side, until late in the day near sundown. I did not know it then, but General Wheeler told me years after the war that when the fight began the road was jammed with loaded wagons filing slowly toward and over the narrow bridge across Duck River, two miles in our rear, and that his fighting was to hold the enemy off and save as much of the train as possible.

        Had the Federal commander been less cautious he could have run over us, battery and all, in the first hour of the fight, as he did later when the sun was setting, and taken us with the train, which was now safe. As the bridge was clear, General Wheeler withdrew the artillery and all the troops except our regiment, which he left in line across the pike with orders to stand our ground as long as possible. As the battery disappeared the Union commander ordered a general advance, and as we sat on our horses, ranged along the crest of a gentle rise, I witnessed one of the most magnificent cavalry charges made during the war. For a mile at least the open country in our front was in plain view, and
1 This man and another young soldier (Polk Wright) from Huntsville, who was shot here through one lung, also recovered.

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it was blue with thousands of Federal soldiers, for Stanley's corps was coming on the field, ten thousand in all, as the official reports show. Had we been wise our small band would have scattered at once into the woods to the east and saved itself, instead of waiting to be ridden over. But we had our orders to wait until they were within easy range, fire, and then "sauve qui peut." The Seventh Pennsylvania came on in front, in columns of fours, in gallant style, and just behind galloped the Fourth United States regulars. As they came within four hundred yards of us they spread right and left into line, opening like a fan. It was a glorious sight, and the thunder of their horses' hoofs was the only sound. Not a word of command, not a huzza from them, or a yell of defiance from us do I recall. The truth is, there was no defiance in us, only the courage born of despair, for we knew we were doomed. I lived an age in those few minutes, and every incident of the wonderful picture flashes on the screen of memory so vividly, so distinctly, that I can almost believe I am again a lad just turned eighteen and witnessing that scene anew. And clearer than all else there stands in relief the form and face of one of the bravest men that lived, who in this crisis gave me the assurance of a friendship which I have ever valued as one of the priceless treasures of my life.

        I had known John Gibson only a few months; he was an officer in another company than mine, and yet we were already like brothers. There is not only "a divinity that shapes our ends"; there is a divine, a mysterious influence which shapes our friendships, and that influence had brought us together. He was our colonel's most trusted scout, venturesome without being foolhardy, cool and self-possessed in the moment of peril, and so tenacious of purpose

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Illustration

LIEUT. JOHN A. GIBSON, Co. C, 4TH ALABAMA CAVALRY
From a photograph taken ten years after the Civil War closed

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that when sent out for information he never came in empty-handed. I had been close to him already on two exciting occasions, the one when Brownlow's men killed his horse near Rover, the other when our two wounded men were murdered near Eagleville, for he was in charge of the scout that day.

        In the emergency that was at hand now, while the double blue line, with their drawn sabres gleaming high above their heads and bearing down on us at a gallop, was still two or three hundred yards away, Gibson galloped to my side and said, "Johnny, when we break I'll be with you," and, pointing back in the direction we were to retreat, he said, "Bear off to the left yonder," and then he went to his place. Gibson's quick eye had seen what would probably have escaped me, as I was comparatively new in the business of war. Our position was very nearly opposite the extreme left of the advancing line, and a sharp run in the direction he had indicated gave us a chance to get out of the heavier rush of the charge, and possibly to dodge it altogether.

        With our guns at cock, and sighting along the barrel, waiting for the word, they were now so near that we could distinctly see their features; then some one shouted "Fire!" and as our volley blazed in their faces we wheeled our horses and started on the race for life. By the time we turned about not more than fifty yards separated pursuers and pursued. Obeying my friend's injunction, I bore off to the left at the best speed my horse could go, and within the first hundred yards of our flight Gibson, on his big, blue roan, six-shooter in hand, was at my side. Very near us--so near, in fact, that they called to us to stop and surrender--were a dozen or more Federal troopers, who had in all probability

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noticed that we were trying to run around the end of their line, while looming up before us was a rail-fence which seemed very high. As it was evident that I could never clear it, I said: "Lieutenant, I'll never get over on this horse. Go on and save yourself." His quick reply was: "I'll knock the top rails off, and you follow." And as he spoke his splendid horse went over like a bird, never touching a rail. I was now not more than three lengths behind him as he pulled up, turned in his saddle and shot at the man who was nearest to me with his sabre raised for the finishing-stroke. To avoid this danger I dodged to take the next panel, which my horse struck at full speed, and he, his rider, and a dozen or more fence-rails went down in a heap together. My last recollection of Gibson was when his pistol flashed. He saw the disaster that had overtaken me, and he told me afterward he was sure I had been killed. He so reported, and my parents had the great distress of finding me named among those who were dead. have no clear remembrance of what took place after I struck the ground. When I "came to" my horse was a few yards away nibbling at some grass, and not another living thing was in sight. Far off, a mile or more in the direction of Shelbyville, guns were popping and men were shouting and yelling; and the sun had gone down. I got on my feet, caught my horse, and led him into a near-by clump of cedars to be sure of a hiding-place. My gun and pistol were empty. I at once reloaded them. It soon grew dark enough to venture out, and, still bearing off to the east, I crossed a road and came upon a farm-house, the occupants of which gave me directions to find my way to the river. The bridge at Shelbyville was now in the hands of the enemy. The next one was eight or ten miles to the east,

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and my only hope was to hurry on and reach it before they could. Following a southeasterly course, guided by the stars, across fields and through long stretches of woodland, I came about midnight into a well-used road near a house. There was no light within, but as I rode up to the front gate I recognized the outline of a horse hitched to the fence.

        I was quite certain it did not belong to a Federal soldier, for the reason that one lone trooper would not venture this far afield and be away from his horse. In feeling over the saddle--for it was so dark I could not see clearly--I struck a wooden canteen. Then I knew the owner was a Confederate, and I hallooed. A man came to the door, and when he heard my story he said there was another soldier in the house on his way to the bridge, which was two miles off; so we rode on together.

        When within some two hundred yards of the bridge we were startled by a loud shout which formed itself into "Halt! Who comes there?" and I answered, "Friend." The sentinel replied, "What command?" Fearing he might be a Federal picket, I hedged by shouting, "Who are you?" At this there came the most pleasing blasphemy that has ever grated on my Presbyterian ears, "Eighth Texas, by God!" Then I answered, "Fourth Alabama." "How many?" "Two." "One of you come up on foot." One of us went up on foot, and we were safe at last. A half-mile on the south side of Duck River two worn-out Confederates on two worn-out horses rode into a clump of trees, dismounted, unsaddled, tethered, and when they opened their eyes the sun had been up an hour or more. The 27th of June, 1863, was for one of the two a day never to be forgotten. Neither of us had eaten anything since noon of the day before, and our forage-sacks were empty. The army had passed along

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this road on its retreat, and the locusts never stripped Egypt any cleaner than the hungry Confederates did the ground they passed over. Our horses could get an occasional tuft of grass or a bunch of leaves, but their riders could not graze or browse.

        We followed a road leading south to Tullahoma. The wagon-trains had evidently gone by this route, and how they ever got through was a wonder. The June rains had been pouring down for the last week and were to keep on pouring for another. Once or twice every day or night the heavens opened and soaked the earth and us; then the hot sun would do its best to dry us by a process akin to steaming; then another shower, and so on. For thirteen days in this retreat we were wet at least once every day.1 The rawhide upon our saddle-trees softened, slipped, rotted, and stank to such an extent that it was our practice whenever a halt was made to strip our horses, turn our saddles under side up, and dry them and our blankets. When we reached Elk River, some days later (July 2d), and took advantage of the first opportunity for a wash (no real soldier ever bathed), in trying to get my cotton shirt off it came hopelessly to pieces. How aptly the song in "The Pirates of Penzance" applies to the experiences of war:


                         Taking one consideration with another,
                         A (soldier's) life is not a happy one.

        As we were riding along we noticed lying in the muddy road a knuckle of ham-bone several inches in length. That portion sticking out of the mud had been picked so clean it seemed hardly worth while to investigate the hidden portion, and we passed on. The sight of something which
1 To any who may think this an exaggeration or a lapse of memory I refer to the Official Records of this campaign for daily weather reports.

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might be eaten, however, started our salivary and gastric machinery into action, so we stopped our horses, and one said he thought he would go back and see if anything had been left on the under side. I was that one; and when I scraped the mud off as cautiously as I could and showed it to my comrade, even the periosteum had disappeared. As a last resort we tightened our cartridge-box belts and rode on.

        The Federal cavalry reached the outposts in front of Tullahoma almost as soon as we did, for I scarcely had time to assure my comrades that I wasn't dead when we had a collision with them. There we lost the gallant Stearns of the Fourth Tennessee, one of the best colonels of cavalry the Civil War developed. As every one in the company thought I had been killed, my reappearance afforded an opportunity for congratulations in which I heartily joined. I looked up Gibson at once, and his outburst was: "Lord God Almighty-- Johnny!" It was irreverent, but not meant to be so, and I give the words just as the brave lieutenant spoke them. My mother and my father had started for the front when they read the news of the bad luck which had befallen, but went back when I reappeared.

        There is not in all the history of our great war a more heroic record than that of General Joseph Wheeler, and with the means at hand he never fought a better fight, or achieved a greater success, or showed more generalship or more desperate personal bravery than here at Shelbyville.

        The Official Records show that in addition to an infantry force of about ten thousand men, which came up late in the afternoon of the 27th of June, the following Union regiments were on the ground and actively engaged (see pp. 547, 548, and 556, vol. xxiii, part 1):

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        Colonel E. M. McCook's brigade was in reserve and on the field. It was made up of:

        With their superior numbers and equipment the Federals could have run over us at any time after three o'clock, captured us and the enormous wagon-train floundering slowly along in the muddy roads between Shelbyville and Tullahoma. It was nearly sundown when the last wagon was over the river. Wheeler at no time on that day had more than three thousand effective men under his command, and his principal losses were caused by his recrossing to the north side after he and his men were safely over, as he was

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informed that Forrest had come up and was being surrounded. In an article entitled "General Wheeler's Leap," published in Harper's Weekly for June 18, 1898, the following description is given:

        "General Wheeler, who had safely crossed the river, was in the act of firing the bridge when a member of General Forrest's staff reported to him that Forrest, with two brigades, was within two miles of Shelbyville and advancing rapidly to cross. Realizing the danger which threatened Forrest, Wheeler, notwithstanding the Federals were in strong force in the suburbs of Shelbyville and advancing into town, taking with him two pieces of artillery and five hundred men of Martin's division, with this officer, hastily recrossed the north side in order to hold the bridge and save Forrest from disaster.

        "The guns were hastily thrown into position, but the charges had scarcely been rammed home when the Union troops came in full sweep down the main street. When within a few paces of the muzzle of the guns they were discharged, inflicting, however, insignificant loss. With their small force of five hundred men Generals Wheeler and Martin stood up as best they could under the pressure of this charge. They held their ground manfully as the cavalry rode through and over them, sabring the cannoneers from the guns, of which they took possession, and then passed on and secured the bridge, leaving the two Confederate generals and their troops well in the rear. The bridge had become blocked by one of the caissons, which had been overturned, and now, thinking they had them in a trap, the Union forces formed a line of battle parallel with the bank of Duck River and across the entrance to the bridge.

        "The idea of surrendering himself and his command had

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not entered the mind of General Wheeler. As Poniatowski had done at the Elster, he now shouted to his men that they must cut their way through and attempt to escape by swimming the river. With General Martin by his side, sabres in hand, they led the charge, which, made in such desperate mood, parted the Federals in their front as they rode through. Without a moment's hesitation, and without considering the distance from the top of the river-bank, which was here precipitous, to the water-level, these gallant soldiers followed their invincible leader and plunged at full speed sheer fifteen feet down into the sweeping current.

        "They struck the water with such velocity that horses and riders disappeared, some of them to rise no more. The Union troopers rushed to the water's edge and fired at the men and animals struggling in the river, killing or wounding and drowning a number. Holding to his horse's mane, General Wheeler took the precaution to shield himself as much as possible behind the body of the animal, and, although fired at repeatedly, he escaped injury and safely reached the opposite shore. Some forty or fifty were said to have perished in this desperate attempt. 'Fighting Joe Wheeler' never did a more heroic and generous deed than when he risked all to save Forrest from disaster. Many years after the war the hero of this story gave me the facts as above stated."

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XVII
TULLAHOMA TO ALEXANDRIA--ELK RIVER

        THERE was to be no great battle at Tullahoma, where behind formidable intrenchments Bragg's army had for months been sheltered, and upon which Rosecrans was now advancing. When we arrived the wagon-trains had had a four days' start along the awful roads to Chattanooga. The artillery went next, then the long lines of infantry floundered through the mud, and last of all we brought up the rear. Nothing so depresses an army as a retreat; no duty is so harrowing and demoralizing as that of fighting rear-guard actions day after day. South of Tullahoma, with the regular instalment of rain, we stood off the aggressive Union cavalry until we cleared the half-barren post-oak and black-jack plateau, from the summit of which we descended to cross Elk River on a planked-over railroad-bridge, and at dark on July 1st found ourselves posted to oppose the enemy at the crossing of this river known as Morris's Ford.

        On our side of the river at this crossing there was an open hillside which sloped gradually upward from the river-bank for about four hundred yards. It was an old, turned-out field, barren of trees or bushes and fully exposed to the fire of artillery and small arms from the opposite shore, which commanded the slope for this distance. Straight up this hillside the road ascended from the ford. The only protection east of the roadway on the south side was a narrow

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fringe of bushes and small trees which grew immediately upon the edge of the bank, just back of which was a worm-fence half fallen to pieces from age and neglect. West of the road, as it led up from the crossing, was a fairly dense thicket of scrub timber about half an acre in extent. Through this undergrowth there ran obliquely from the hillside eastward to the river a sinuous wash-out some four or five feet in depth which afforded admirable protection to a limited number of sharp-shooters.

        From this gully the entrance to the ford from the opposite side was in plain view, and not over eighty yards distant. Upon the opposite or northern shore of Elk River, which was here not more than two hundred feet wide, there was a low bottom heavily timbered and with a dense undergrowth of small bushes which extended back some two hundred yards from the stream. A fringe of tall, rank weeds lined the river-bank. The roadway coming from the north and leading into the stream was an ordinary Southern country highway, and so narrow that not more than four men could ride abreast. Moreover, as a result of the heavy rains,1 the river was so full that in midstream it was swimming for the horses for probably half of its width.

        On the morning of July 2, 1863, we were up early and were congratulating ourselves on having a short rest. It was clear, and as soon as the sun rose we turned our saddles bottom side up to dry, and while some of the men were busy getting breakfast a number of us went down to

        1 Official Records, series I, vol. xxiii, part 1, p. 620.

        (a) June 26th: "Rained nearly all day."--Major-General David S. Stanley.

        (b) June 28th: "At daylight the train and troops were all in motion, but owing to the continued rains the roads were in a terrible condition."

        (c) June 29th: "The men remained in line all day and all night. Raining all day and night."--Lieutenant W. B. Richmond, aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Polk.
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the river to indulge in the luxury of a swim. As we were finishing our simple breakfast of corn-bread and bacon the videttes left half a mile from the ford on the north side of the stream fired at a squadron of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry, which chased them into the river. As soon as the guns were heard we were ordered to rush to the ford and hold the enemy back. Some of us (sixteen in all) were fortunate enough to reach the small thicket near the crossing, where we ensconced in the gully described before. Others lay down behind the worm-fence, with nothing but that and the light fringe of bushes for protection. We had barely reached our places when the Federals opened on us with a heavy fire of small arms and two pieces of artillery.1 This fire raked the bivouac on the open hillside behind us, stampeded the horses, and drove the entire command--except the small number who had already succeeded in sheltering themselves close along the bank--back over the crest of the hill fully a half-mile away. As we had no artillery, our position was not to be envied. To try to escape exposed us at close range to the fire from small arms, and to grape and canister for fully four hundred yards of open hillside. Realizing that we were in for it, we prepared for rapid loading by laying our cartridges and caps in rows on the ground and concentrated our fire on the narrow roadway which led into the stream from the other side.

        After having driven everybody else away, the enemy gave their undivided attention to us, and for nearly three hours 2 there was the liveliest firing I ever heard. They were so near we could distinctly hear every command given in an ordinary tone of voice. Those of our men who were lying
1 Stokes's battery.
2 Lieutenant-Colonel O. P. Robbie says, "Nearly three hours."--Official Records, vol. xxiii, part 1, p. 575.

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behind the old fence suffered severely, and a number were killed or wounded (we could hear their groans), and long before the fight was over no resistance was offered anywhere except by our small squad of sixteen men. Captain Stokes of the Federal battery reported that he "advanced his section within thirty yards of the crossing"1 and opened on us "with canister." Finally they tried volley-firing, concentrating all their small arms and both cannon loaded with grape or canister on our thicket, an area not larger than half an acre. Our fire must have been effective, for we kept their two guns and them back in the undergrowth, where they could not aim with accuracy. Our heads alone were exposed, and after the first volley we ducked into the gully to avoid the others, for we distinctly heard the guns being loaded and knew about when they were going to pull the lanyards. The missiles crashed in showers through the bushes or plowed up the dirt over us, but we were unhurt. They seemed coming thick enough to mow the saplings down, and but for the gully we would all have been killed.

        The thick hedge or fringe of high weeds along the northern bank, where the soil was rich, which was not present on our side where the river cut into the hill, gave us a great advantage. At one time we observed a movement of the top of these weeds, which indicated that some one was crawling down to near the water's edge; and Frank Cotton, Jasper Matheny, and I trained our guns on that point. As soon as the blue uniform was seen we fired together, and nothing more came from that quarter.

        While this fight was in progress there occurred an incident that may well challenge credulity. For pickets of the two armies posted on opposite sides of narrow streams
1 Official Records, vol. xxiii, part 1, p. 579.

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to converse and at times to barter during the suspension of active hostilities was not uncommon, but to call a truce while the desperate defense of an important crossing was going on was certainly a novel procedure, yet this occurred here. I credit the Union officer responsible for it with motives of generous admiration for a handful of men who were putting up a desperate and determined fight. In a lull longer than usual which followed one of their volleys a voice from their side said, "Hello, boys! Let's hold up awhile and talk it over." We could scarcely believe our senses, and Frank Cotton replied, "What do you want?" The Federal answered, "To stop firing," and we said, "All right."

        It is difficult to estimate time accurately under circumstances of great excitement. I am positive that several minutes elapsed, during which time we and they talked as if in ordinary conversation. I recall clearly that one of our squad asked in a joking way if tobacco was not scarce on their side, and got the retort, "Not any scarcer than coffee is over there."

        The truce ended abruptly when the Union officer said, "Look out; we will have to open fire again," and we soon understood the reason. Being informed of our situation, General Wheeler had hurried back two Parrott guns, which at this moment were unlimbering on the crest of the ridge behind us where we could not see them, but in plain view of the Federals. The roar of these guns, the whizzing of the shells as they passed not far above our heads, and their explosion in the timber across the river was the most welcome sound I ever heard, for the Yankees scampered away as fast as our men had earlier in the day. Then when all was clear we ventured out and rejoined our company, to

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be publicly commended by our good colonel for what we really couldn't help doing.

        Wishing to make this extraordinary experience a matter of record, several years after the war I secured the following statement in writing from Mr. Jasper N. Matheny, a worthy farmer who in 1913 was still living in Marshall County, Alabama, and who was one of this detachment. I wrote him as follows: "Kindly let me know if you were with this detachment on that day (July 2, 1863), and, if so, whether or not you recall the fact that in a temporary lull in the firing, by mutual consent, the firing on both sides ceased for several minutes, during which time we talked to each other in practically an ordinary tone of voice." In reply he says:

        I distinctly recall the fact concerning which you write. During the truce we exposed ourselves to view by standing up in the gully in which we had been hidden, and no one shot at us, nor did we again fire. I am under the impression that at least five or ten minutes elapsed before the conversation was interrupted by a Federal, presumably an officer, who gave us warning that the firing would be resumed. We again concealed ourselves, but were almost immediately rescued from our precarious position by a Confederate battery, which from the hill in our rear opened upon the Federals across the stream and drove them precipitately from our front.

(Signed) J. N. MATHENY.


        In looking over the Official Records I find a further corroboration in the report of Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver P. Robie, of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry, who commanded the advance, dated "July 8, 1863, near Winchester" (Official Records, vol. xxiii, part 1, p. 575): "On the morning of the 2d [July] we came upon a small squad of rebels, to whom we gave chase as far as the river, when, finding the river too deep to ford quickly, and the enemy in considerable force on the opposite side, in obedience to orders I retired a short distance

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and dismounted my men and advanced into the thicket skirting the bank on the right of the road, where we remained within speaking distance of the enemy for nearly three hours, during which time the firing was very brisk.1 At 11 A.M. the enemy opened fire upon us with shell and canister, and, fearing a stampede of my horses, I returned and mounted my men and retired about a fourth of a mile and formed a line."

        Colonel Eli Long, commanding a Union brigade at this date, a gallant officer who never failed to distinguish himself, was in command in this fight. Six days thereafter, on July 8, 1863, he officially reported as follows: "July 2d. Returned to Hillsborough, thence taking the Winchester road. When within a mile of Morris's Ford on Elk River my advance discovered a squad of rebel cavalry and gave chase, the remainder of their regiment (Fourth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry) moving up briskly. Pursued them to the river, and drove them into the stream, when sharp musketry-firing was opened on the advance from the woods on the opposite shore, and replied to by my men, who found the water too deep to ford readily. The enemy proved to be in considerable force, and additional companies were moved up to support the advance. One officer (Captain Adae) and one man of the Fourth Ohio were here wounded; and, the firing becoming more heavy, I dismounted the remaining company of the Fourth and sent them forward as skirmishers on the front and left. I then dismounted a part of the Third Ohio and deployed them in the woods on our right. The numbers of the enemy were augmented by reinforcements from their rear, and they occupied a quite strong position, so that it was found difficult to dislodge
1 Italics not in the original.

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them until two pieces of Captain Stokes's battery were brought forward by order of General Turchin and opened upon them. This silenced their fire for a while, but meantime they were reinforced by a brigade of infantry and two pieces of artillery, the latter of which opened upon us a fierce fire with six and twelve pounder shells and canister. My main command (twelve companies altogether) was now forced back from the woods. Sharp firing was now kept up on both sides for some time, the rebel infantry retiring toward Decherd, with the two pieces of artillery. . . . My entire loss during the day was one officer and ten men wounded. Two of the latter were mortally wounded, and died during the afternoon."1

        General Long was in error in regard to the presence of any infantry on our side. After their artillery opened and drove the fragments of our brigade (parts of the Fifty-first and Fourth Alabama regiments) there was not a Confederate soldier in firing distance except our squad of sixteen men. Protected as we were, and commanding at close range the narrow roadway which led into the river, our position was impregnable.

        We had scarcely reached our horses when Lieutenant Gibson was ordered to take a scouting party of eight men to investigate a report that the enemy were crossing at an obscure ford about a mile and a half below or west of our position, and I went along. After going about a mile we left the high ground and were soon in the thickly wooded land of the river-bottom following a narrow, winding, and little-used road which had been made through a dense thicket of small saplings into which one could not see fifty feet on either side. Gibson rode ahead, and we followed in
1 Official Records, vol. xxiii, part 1, p. 558

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close double file. George Morris and Will Fackler were in front, and I was just behind Morris, when suddenly we were fired on from ambush. One bullet struck Morris at the outer edge of his left eye, cutting a trench along the side of his temple. The direction of the shots was from in front, but no one saw the flash or smoke. Gibson ordered us back one hundred yards, where a turn in the roadway took us out of range. We could now distinctly hear the shouting and tumult of the Federals, who were swimming their horses across the river.

        Gibson ordered me and two others to dismount and advance cautiously through the thicket in order to find out something of their strength. I had not gone a hundred yards through the dense undergrowth when a gun was fired and a bullet came through the saplings alarmingly near. I fell flat on the ground for safety and peered through the bushes in the direction from which it came, but saw no one. I then crawled forward some thirty or forty yards farther, when a second shot rang out, and the missile came my way. I could still see no one, and was in about as unhappy a frame of mind as was possible, when Gibson called us back; and we ran to our horses, mounted, and hurried back to report that the enemy was over and advancing in force. As we reached the upland a vidette was posted with orders to fire as soon as the Yankee cavalry came in sight. Within five minutes of the time we reached the command our picket came dashing in with a large body of Federals at his heels.

        A mile or more back from the river we formed in line of battle and skirmished heavily and continuously, gradually retiring until nearly dark. By this time General Wheeler had assembled a division of cavalry and lined them in a field in which the wheat had just been cut and shocked.

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The enemy's cavalry were now in full view, and it seemed as if we were to have a regular cavalry battle in this great open space. We advanced in echelon, firing by regiments as we came into line. It was a very beautiful sight; but the two lines of battle were not sufficiently near each other to do effective work. I afterward learned that we were manoeuvering to lead them into a trap, but the Federal commander (Long) was too smart to be caught, and withdrew his forces for the night.

        We left the Federals going into camp, and with a light line of pickets to watch them through the night our main column trudged on in the retreat southward until twelve o'clock, when we rested until daylight, only to resume the weary, disheartening march up the Cumberland Mountains, across this broad plateau, in rainy weather and along muddy roads, until we reached Bridgeport, Alabama, late one night. Here the Memphis& Charleston Railroad bridge over the Tennessee had been floored for the passage of troops. There was no side protection, but the floor was sufficiently wide for ordinary safety if one would keep between the rails. To prevent accident we were ordered to dismount and lead our horses single file; but I was so worn out I rode my horse all the way over. The rear-guard burned the bridge.

        Little of interest occurred for the next few days; and, worn out with the constant marching and fighting, loss of sleep, and daily rains which kept us wet and chilled, we proceeded at leisure down Big Will's Valley to a recruiting-camp near Alexandria, Alabama.

        I recall but one moment of merriment in all this trying experience, and this was due to a wholly unexpected reply our orderly sergeant received to an impertinent question he was wont to put to any lone and unprotected straggler.

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Sam Russell, whose experience of several years as conductor of a freight-train on the Memphis& Charleston Railroad had afforded a fairly good training for the hardships of a campaign, was not only a good soldier, but a great wag and "bluffer." On this particular occasion we were sitting by the roadside upon the top rails of a worm-fence, giving our horses and ourselves a rest, while another cavalry command was passing. Trailing behind the last regiment came the inevitable stragglers, and at the very last there jogged by on a raw-boned, flea-bitten gray nag one of the most forlorn-looking specimens of a soldier I had ever seen. The roads were so sloppy and the horse so bespattered with mud that the natural color was only recognizable on a limited area behind the saddle.

        The cavalryman had covered himself as well as he could with a homespun, copperas-dyed blanket which was water-soaked. The blanket reached to within about a foot of his shoe-tops, and from his ankles up the skin was bare, for his trousers had crawled upward to parts unknown. He wore a Confederate wool hat, which may originally have been gray, but sun and rain and time had changed it to a dirty ash color. The stiffening had long been washed out, and the brim flopped up and down with the movements of the horse. He looked neither to the right nor to the left as he passed and paid no attention to the remarks about himself or his horse until Sergeant Russell's voice rang out in an extra loud and insulting tone: "Hello, Mister! Are you a married man or a dog?"

        The pitcher had gone to the well one time too often; for this cavalier, the moment he heard the insulting query, reined his horse and, carrying his right hand back in the direction of the six-shooter which he was keeping dry under

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his blanket, faced the sergeant and said in a voice which could be heard beyond our company limit: "I'm a dog, G-- d-- you! What are you?" And Sam, abashed, red in the face, and crestfallen, stood convicted; for we all knew he, too, was a bachelor. The roar of laughter which swept along the line was like a ray of sunshine on a cold, gray winter's day. We cheered the stranger, gave him a vote of thanks, and proffered an escort, which he gracefully declined. Henceforth this question was erased from the sergeant's catechism.

        From Trenton I made a two days' ride over the mountains to my home to get the horse I had brought out of Kentucky in 1862, rested there three days, and then said good-by to my parents for two years and to the dear old home and faithful "black mammy" for ever. The Federals burned our village in 1864 and took mammy and her children to Nashville, where they all died in an epidemic of smallpox. The policy of devastation was carried out over practically all of northern Alabama; Bridgeport, Stevenson, Bellefont, Scottsboro, Larkinsville, Woodville, Camden, Vienna, and a number of other prosperous villages were burned, and there are no official reports of these transactions.

        At Alexandria we were comfortably stationed for the rest of July and until the last week in August. There was plenty of growing corn in this section, ripe enough to make good roasting-ears for the troopers and to be fed green to the horses. We bivouacked in a piece of wooded land which had been part of one of Jackson's old battle-grounds in the Creek War. There were still traces of the trenches and breastworks which had sheltered him when driven by these warlike Indians, who later took refuge and fortified themselves

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in the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa near by, where they were exterminated.

        We had little to do but feed and curry our horses, do camp duty, and drill two hours a day. One of those drill days, at least, I remember was excessively hot, and few places can get hotter than an open field from which the grain has been cut, with a midday sun overhead in mid-August and in middle Alabama! The full regiment was in line, and we had been doing all sorts of stunts--advancing and firing by companies, in echelon, skirmish drill, flanking drill, etc.--until men and horses were superheated, restless, and half mad at any and every thing, and thinking that nothing on earth was worth while at that particular moment but a drink of cool water and the shade of a tree. Dividing two of these hot stubble-fields was the wreckage of a half-rotted, tumble-down, old worm-fence, not over six rails high at any place, and these so rickety that if our horses' hoofs struck them they would break and fly in pieces.

        Colonel Russell ordered a charge, with this fence as the imaginary line of the enemy. As he rode along our front, with his long auburn beard and his gray uniform frock-coat buttoned up to the chin--and this was one of several of his eccentricities, for it never grew hot enough to make him unbutton his coat--we privates thought he was the hottest-looking thing we had ever seen on horseback. The "enemy" was three hundred yards in front; the bugle sounded "trot," then "gallop," then "charge." Yelling like Comanches, we rode over the fence, briers and all, acquiring so much momentum that no private could stop his horse until he reached that tree in camp to which his mount was habitually tethered.

        The officers came in later, at a walk. There was some small talk about having us lined up in front of the colonel's

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tent, but we all held out that our horses were crazy for water and had run away, and couldn't be stopped until they reached camp. The brave old colonel (who quit medicine and surgery to command a cavalry brigade) forgave us.

        The unconquerable spirit in that man never gave up. When Forrest surrendered at Gainesville he rode away to the West, crossed over into Mexico, and settled at Cordova, where he resumed the practice of medicine, accumulated a large fortune, and died only a few years ago. He sent me, only a little while before he died, the picture reproduced in my Life of Forrest, and with it a characteristic letter wondering how I could "live in a land governed by Yankees!" In this letter he said: "The Confederate army was not whipped; it simply wore itself out whipping the Yankees."

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XVIII
CHICKAMAUGA, WHERE THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY WAS WON AND LOST--THE REAL CRISIS OF THE CIVIL WAR

        LATE in August we saddled up for the march to Chattanooga. Two nights before we were to start my horse, tethered with a rope, got it tangled under one of his pasterns and was thrown lame. For three days of the march I walked and led my mount: they were long and tiresome days. Fortunately, the command moved leisurely, to save the horses--about twenty miles a day. By starting off at three or four in the morning I would be passed by the column about noon, and would catch up when they bivouacked for the night, usually long after dark. On the third day I made a temporary exchange with a trooper who was content to keep my disabled mount with the wagons, and secured in this way a first-class horse which I rode all through the Chickamauga campaign.

        It was on this march that an attempt was made to collect all the carbines and most modern and effective guns in the regiment and give them to the two flanking companies. I had bought my Burnside carbine with fifty dollars given me by my married sister, and I resented the order to turn it in for a long and heavy Austrian rifle. It so happened that a dear friend was ordnance officer, and when the inspection was made he allowed me to retain my carbine.

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        We reached Lafayette, Georgia, September 1st, and were assigned to active duty at once, to watch the gaps in Lookout Mountain, through which we were daily expecting the advancing columns of Rosecrans's army to descend into Georgia. Two of his three corps were already south of the Tennessee and were climbing the mountains. The other was in sight of Chattanooga.

        My first duty was with four other men to picket a defile through which one of the roads across Lookout Mountain led into the Chickamauga Valley. Our orders were to remain there until driven in by the enemy. As we started out with two days' rations, and as it was six days before the enemy appeared, we were soon left to our own resources for subsistence. The Confederate cavalry was used to that. Near our post there were two small farm-houses about half a mile apart. In one, a double cabin of hewn logs, there lived three ladies--a widowed mother, a married and an unmarried daughter. The husband of the daughter was away in our army, and these women unaided had cultivated a small field of several acres in corn. As it was all they had to live on, we took what we needed from another farm owned by an able-bodied man who had managed to stay at home. Within two weeks the battle of Chickamauga had been fought, in part over this very ground, and the next day I rode by this spot. Where the field of corn which we would not touch had stood there was not a stalk left, not even a fence-rail. The trodden ground was checkered with the charred embers of camp-fires where the tents of the Federal infantry had stood in rows, and nothing but the chimneys remained to tell where stood the log house which had sheltered those three lone women.

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Illustration

MAP OF THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA

        DESCRIPTION OF MAP
The battle of Chickarnauga was fought on the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st of September, 1863. The stream from which it took its name is a sluggish, crooked creek running in a general direction a little east of north toward the Tennessee River. The original battle-lines, facing east and west, extended from Wheeler's position on the extreme Confederate left to where Forrest, at the other end, opened the fight, about eight miles. There was a dam at Lee and Gordon's mill, and above, or south of this, for about a half-mile the back-water was too deep to be forded or waded. Some two miles farther south at Glass's mill there was another dam. There were several bridges; one at Lee and Gordon's (not shown on the map), Alexander's, Reed's, and at the Ringgold road-crossing, and a number of fords used for cross-cut or wood-roads. With the exception of the two deep-water stretches of about a half-mile each, this creek was not a formidable obstacle to the aggressive Confederates. When they opened the battle on the right on Friday afternoon, they captured all the bridges in short order, and over these and by the fords went the artillery. Most of the troops waded where it was not more than waist-deep. Here and there, as indicated, were small fields or cleared patches; but in general the ground which near the creek was fairly level, gradually rising to a rolling or hilly formation to the west, was covered with a forest of post-oak, black-jack and pine-trees, with an occasional dense cedar-brake, and practically everywhere a heavy undergrowth of bushes so thick that in some places an enemy could not be seen until the opposing lines were within a few yards of each other. All day of Saturday and until near noon on Sunday the Federals, shielded by the deep-water stretches on their right wing, held on to the creek. From Lee and Gordon's northward the Confederates held the stream, driving the Union line back to the La Fayette, Rossville, and Chattanooga road, which, as shown, runs due north and south. Along this highway the hard fighting of Saturday and early Sunday took place.
The possession of the creek was of great value in supplying the men and animals with water. It had not rained for several weeks, and the few wells or springs of a sparsely settled region were very low or dry. A hot southern sun shone for the four days of battle from a sky with no intervening clouds except those made by smoke and dust. The Union lines were supplied from Crawfish Spring on their far right wing, and the stretch of creek still held as far down as Lee and Gordon's. The smoke was at times very dense; but the dust was most distressing. On those sections of the field most stubbornly contested the tramping of men and horses back and forth repeatedly over the same ground pulverized the dry crust of the whitish soil and raised such a thick cloud of dust that at times it hid from view the almost stifled combatants.
For days after the battle the leaves on the undergrowth and on the lower limbs of the trees were still white. The arrow is pointing north toward Chattanooga. North and south the map represents a little over ten miles of ground. Note especially Missionary Ridge and the gaps at McFarland's and at Rossville. Through these Bragg permitted Thomas to escape. The great disaster to the Union line occurred near noon on Sunday where Hood's name appears. The entire right wing and center of the Federal battle-line fled the field and disappeared in panic through the woods, pouring through McFarland's gap and over the Ridge, and taking along in the stampede to Chattanooga the Commander in Chief, General Rosecrans, and Generals McCook and Crittenden, commanding two of the three corps of the Union army. Honorable Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, took a leading part in this part of the engagement.
Note that part of the field marked "Forrest's Second Position," and that from this point the several roads into Chattanooga were open and in possession of the Confederates at 4 o'clock P.M. Sunday, September 20th. At this hour there was no organized resistance to the victorious Confederates save that by Thomas.

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        By September 12th a corps of Union infantry under General McCook and a strong body of cavalry under General Stanley came over Lookout Mountain to Alpine, Georgia, and drove our pickets back. Then two other divisions of infantry advanced through the gaps in Pigeon Mountain, and we took part in an effort to capture these commands, which at that moment were widely separated; but owing to the lack of co-operation on the part of the Confederate generals the movement failed, and the Federals were at last permitted to concentrate their forces on the field of Chickamauga.

        In this movement to capture McCook's corps it was my good fortune to pass safely through a very unusual experience. Starting in the afternoon from Lafayette, our division marched all night in the direction of Alpine. Toward morning a staff-officer stationed on the side of the road as we filed by repeated to each company the order to cease talking and to make as little noise as possible. At four we were halted, and word came from the front down the line, repeated from regiment to regiment, that "a volunteer was wanted at the head of the column who would go where he was ordered." My curiosity was aroused, and I said to Lieutenant Jack Weatherly, my messmate, that I would go with him and see what was wanted. It was very dark, and there was no little difficulty in riding through the command, which packed the narrow country road. The general in command asked me if I was "willing to go inside the enemy's lines," and I replied, "If it was necessary I would try to do what was required, provided I could wear my uniform, but that I wouldn't go as a spy." To this he said: "All right. I want you to carry a message to some troops that have passed around their flank, and are now coming up in their rear. It is important that they be headed off

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and ordered to return by the route they traveled. To reach them in time you will have to pass through the Federal lines."

        He gave me some general directions as to about where I ought to find this detachment at daylight, and turned me over to a guide, a farmer who lived near by, who agreed to accompany me to where the road turned off that I must follow. As the mission promised to be more than ordinarily risky, I stripped my horse and self of everything not absolutely necessary, and with the exception of a small New Testament which my mother had handed me as I left home for the war, with the injunction that I should read at least one chapter every day, and my trusted army six-shooter, I turned over all my personal belongings to Jack. The incongruity of associating a Testament and a six-shooter did not occur to my mind then as it has since. While this was going on some one fastened on an extra surcingle to make my saddle more secure.

        As our good colonel, whose interest in this enterprise was evidently aroused, rode along with Jack, the guide, and myself for a short distance, he said: "If you get through all right, I'll see that you get as long a furlough as you want"; and then he and Lieutenant Weatherly said "Good luck!" and turned back. About a quarter of a mile farther on the farmer and I came to where the roads forked. I followed my guide a few yards along the one to the right, which I was to take. He told me it was about half a mile down that road to where the Federal pickets were stationed. He had seen them there between sundown and dark. After getting from him what information I could as to the character of the road ahead of me, I went on alone. It was now between four and five o'clock and very dark.

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        Having become accustomed to the darkness, I could make out the opening of the roadway a few yards ahead chiefly because it was accentuated by the blackness of the forest on either side. This was in my favor, as was the fact that the road was sandy and soft and my horse's hoof-beats at a fast walk were scarcely audible. The only sound that I did hear--and it is indelibly registered in the memory cells occupied by this experience--was the weird note of one of the small screech-owls which are common in this section, the cry of which no one is apt to forget who hears it for the first time. I had heard them hundreds of times, but never under just such surroundings.

        It goes without saying that I appreciated the dangers which this mission involved, but the most astonishing feature of the psychology of this moment was that I found myself in a condition of mind in which the value of life became a secondary consideration. It had never come to me before; it never has since. In that brief period the stars were not far away, for I had eliminated self. The one absorbing thought which took possession of me was that my mother would be proud of me for trying to do my duty. I did not intend to be stopped, and with a swift, game, and powerful horse the chances were in my favor. Riding into their lines would disarm suspicion, and if I could get by the outpost without alarm the rest would be easy. I had made up my mind that I would ride by or over anything or anybody who got in the way, and when hailed would say, as I galloped by, that I was a courier with important despatches.

        When I had gone about the distance which should bring me near the pickets, as indicated by the guide, I took my pistol from the holster, cocked it, and with the finger inside the guard held it ready for instant use. Catching a short

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hold on the bridle, I leaned well down on my horse's neck and urged him into a slow canter. He had not gone more than two hundred yards at this gait when he suddenly raised his head and seemed about to shy, and then not twenty feet ahead I recognized the dark figures of two men as they vanished from the open roadway into the dark bushes to my left. They must have spoken or challenged, and I doubtless replied; but the moment I saw them I gave my horse the spurs, and he bounded over or by them, and on the wings of the wind in another instant he and his rider were lost from their view. It is more than probable that my lucky escape was due to lack of vigilance on the part of the pickets. My horse made little or no sound in the deep, soft sand. Once past them, if they fired they endangered their own men.

        Another interesting feature of the psychology of this incident is that, while every detail up to this moment is distinctly and indelibly registered, I have never been clear as to what occurred for the next few minutes. The next thing I remember is that as the day dawned I was racing along, and saw from the top of a hill off in the valley below, probably a mile away, what looked like a heavy fog. As it had not rained for several weeks and the roads were very dusty, I realized that it was not fog, but a cloud of dust made by moving troops.1 Coming in plain sight, I was overjoyed to find that they were our troops, and to the officer in command I delivered my message.


1 A drought prevailed for nearly two months at this time in 1863. While we were on picket, early in September, the Federal corps crossing Lookout Mountain raised such clouds of dust that fifteen miles away their line of march could be made out. So thick was the dust on the battle-field at Chickamauga that at times it enveloped and bid the troops like a fog, and the forest trees far removed from the roads were white with the dust that settled on the leaves. See the official reports immediately after the battle.
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        When I got back to the regiment our colonel was as good as his word, and told me I was free to go home; but we knew a great battle was impending, and I stayed to see it.

        I must relate a very extraordinary experience which has an association with this night ride. In November, 1912, forty-nine years after it was made, I happened to be in Chattanooga, and, wandering along one of the hill streets at an hour so early that very few people were stirring, I saw following me at a short distance another early riser. Feeling in a conversational mood, I slackened my pace, and as he came up I remarked, "Fine town," to which he courteously responded with real Chattanooga pride, "Yes, indeed!" "Native?" I asked. "No sir; born in Madison County, Alabama." Then I continued: "We came near being twins. I'm from Marshall." He inquired my name, and I replied: "You don't know of me, but you must know of my father, Judge Louis Wyeth." As yet we had scarcely looked at each other; but when he heard my father's name he turned quickly toward me and stopped so suddenly that I did the same. In a voice that betrayed evident feeling he said: "Then you are Dr. Wyeth from New York; John A. Wyeth, Company I, Fourth Alabama Cavalry. My God! I haven't seen you since that night in 1863 when you volunteered to go into the Yankee lines for General Wheeler"--and he continued with some details which for the time being had escaped my memory. My accidental acquaintance turned out to be Mr. G. G. Lilly, of Chattanooga, a well-known citizen and a gallant soldier of our regiment to the end of the war. I did not suppose until then that there was living a human being who knew anything personally about this incident.

        The hot weather, the scarcity of water, and the dusty

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roads were very trying to the columns of infantry that were being rapidly concentrated near Lafayette, Georgia. In one of the divisions that passed my post I noticed the men were barefoot, their shoes swung across the barrels of their guns. The road here was sandy and soft, and they were saving their footgear for rougher going. They would march fifteen minutes or so and rest five, lying flat on the ground. In one of the Texas regiments I recognized a young lad, "part Cherokee," with whom I had gone to school in Alabama.

        For ten days before the battle we were almost constantly in touch with the enemy's cavalry, and on September 17th we had a lively skirmish in McLenmore's Cove near Catlett's Gap, which for a while seemed to be the precursor of a general engagement, but none in our company were hurt. Part of this action took place in a stretch of open farm-land with half a dozen houses in sight. Both sides were using artillery, and, naturally, the shells produced great consternation among the home people. One of the houses centrally located had a cellar for refuge, and toward it every man, woman, and child in the neighborhood was running to disappear within like bees darting into a hive at the sudden approach of a shower.

        On the late afternoon of September 18th, when the great battle of Chickamauga opened, we were posted on the extreme left of the Confederate line, about two miles from Crawfish Spring, in contact with Mitchell's and Crook's divisions of the Union cavalry. On the 19th the far-away thunder of artillery told the story of the hard fighting that was going on where the infantry were at work. We spent the day skirmishing and sharp-shooting with their cavalry advance, chiefly in observation. For protection we made defenses of rails and logs, and, until the ruse was discovered,

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amused ourselves by placing a hat on a ramrod and slowly elevating it, as if some one were peering over the rails to shoot. Meanwhile our best long-range rifle-shots, with their guns thrust through cracks and well protected, trained their sights on the trees and stumps from behind which the Federals were firing. No sooner would the hat rise high enough to be seen than their blue arms and shoulders would be exposed to our fire. Just in front of our position was a small field of corn, and, as we needed some for our horses and ourselves--for parched corn was our chief provender at this time--when there was a lull in the firing several of us crawled on our hands and knees, trailing our forage-sacks, and reached the corn rows without being seen. The watchful enemy, observing the tops of the stalks in commotion, turned loose on us so effectively that the corn detail suspended operations until night-time.

        Early on Sunday, September 20th, some of the Federal long-range guns began to land bullets in our bivouac, and one or two horses were hit. The firing came from a log cabin about four hundred yards across a field which was now grown up with a rich crop of high ragweed. Some ten of us volunteered to drive them out or capture them, and I was placed in command of the detachment. In order to get into the field of weeds through which it was necessary to crawl to keep out of sight, we made a slight detour and came up behind a dense copse of bushes, where we loosened a lower rail and crawled through the fence without being seen. As it was not safe to try to rush the cabin from the front, we made our way cautiously to the back of the barns or stables of a farm-house two or three hundred yards from the nest of the sharp-shooters in the log cabin. It was still very early, for as I came to the open back door of the farm-house

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I saw a lady and two children at the breakfast-table. When she saw me she started up and, recognizing my gray jacket, in evident alarm exclaimed, "The Yankee pickets are in the road by our front gate." To my inquiry of how many there were and how long they had been there she said a company of cavalry came the day before and left some of their men on picket. I crept along the wall of the house, peeped cautiously around the comer, but saw no one, and told her she must have been mistaken. She assured me she had seen them since daylight. I then signaled the others to come up, and as we reached the road we found plenty of fresh tracks made since the dew had fallen. There was no mistaking these footprints, for they were made by the square-toed regulation shoe of the United States army.

        We now quickly formed in a line about ten feet apart and ran through the woods toward the cabin, taking it on the flank and rear. Not a word was spoken as we rushed ahead with our guns cocked and ready. I expected every moment to see gun-smoke jet out of the cracks in the cabin; but when we reached it it was empty. A fresh fire was burning, and we found some blankets, cooking-utensils--among these a coffee-pot, for which we had little use--and a small sack of salt and other plunder, which the Federals had hurriedly abandoned. General Martin, who was watching us through his field-glasses, met us half-way across the field as we were returning, and upon my report ordered the ever-reliable Lieutenant John Gibson to ride out with some twenty men and see what was up. He came back within an hour with information which caused General Wheeler to move his whole command some two miles or more in great haste to Glass's Mill on the Chickamauga, about a mile from Crawfish Spring.

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        We had hardly reached this spot when we struck a big body of their cavalry, and a lively fight was precipitated. One of our batteries went immediately into action just in front of our position, and we were posted to guard it. The Federal guns about five hundred yards away soon got the range and threw a lot of shrapnel, which kept us on the anxious seat for fully an hour, for they frequently burst up in front of us, and the fragments came whirring down our way. One piece about two inches long struck the ground right by my horse, and I dismounted and picked it up and sent it home to my mother as a souvenir. Had we been fifty yards farther back we would have been fully protected behind the crest of the ridge on which we were formed. After what seemed an interminable time we were ordered back this far, and a detail was made to parch corn. Here two flour-biscuits and a small piece of bacon were issued to each man. For the three days of this battle no other ration than this was given to our command--we were subsisting on parched corn. After about two hours of fighting the Eighth Texas got on the flank of the Federals and gave them a wild chase in the direction of Lee& Gordon's Mill, in which we all joined.

        In this engagement a lot of prisoners were captured, and several of our dead and wounded were brought in on the horses, as we carried no stretchers and an ambulance was unknown. I saw one body held across the lap and legs of one of the Texas troopers, the limp arms and legs dangling nearly to the ground. I was told it was his brother, who had been instantly killed. That and another scene I witnessed at Glass's Mill still remain vividly in mind. A captured Union cavalry officer who had been shot through the bones of one foot came in limping along with the other dismounted

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captives. I was standing close by when a ranger who had been one of the captors said to him, "I want your boots." The officer had on a magnificent pair of Wellingtons, and, as it was useless to say no, he sat down and held up the sound foot while the Texan pulled that boot off and tried it on. As it was a fit, he motioned for the other. When the wounded man asked him if he wouldn't split it so it could be pulled off without hurting, the ranger simply pulled it off vi et armis, remarking, "You reckon I'm going to spoil that boot?" It was a pretty rough experience, and my sympathies were with the unfortunate prisoner. Earlier in the war this incident would not have been possible, but men had become callous and indifferent, and then the necessities of the Southern troops, half starved and poorly clad as they were, justified to some extent the wholesale appropriation of all the belongings of their prisoners.

        The dead on the field were practically all stripped before burial, leaving only a single undergarment on. Right after the Chickamauga battle I was detailed to gather up guns and other wreckage on the field, and the dead Federals were scattered everywhere, in some places very thick. I counted seven who had fallen in one pile, and I recall but one that had not been stripped of all outer clothing; yet not one of all these dead men but had some covering left for the sake of modesty.

        This cavalry fight at Glass's Mill and near Crawfish Spring ended about the time that Longstreet broke through the Union left wing and sent Crittenden's and McCook's corps flying toward Thomas and Chattanooga, and it may be that knowledge of this disaster had reached the Federal cavalry in our front and hastened their departure. Certain it is that, try as hard as we could, we never caught up

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with them any more that day. Had General Wheeler been promptly informed of the Confederate success, we could have been immeasurably more useful by going from Glass's Mill straight to Crawfish Spring, and on by the direct road into the immediate rear of the flying Union infantry, for they were disorganized, and we could have added to the rout and captured thousands whom our infantry could not overhaul. Instead of doing this we moved along the easterly bank of the Chickamauga, and, although we ran our horses all the way, we lost valuable time before we dismounted to advance on foot at Lee& Gordon's Mill.

        When the order was given to "dismount to fight" we were called off in "eights" instead of "fours," as usual, and when we were told that no more men could be spared to hold the horses we were convinced that a desperate situation was at hand. It so happened that number eight fell to me, and I made Nat Scott--a boy younger than I whom my parents had lately sent from home to bring me some much-needed articles of clothing--take my place as horse-holder. Nat asked for a gun and a place with us in the battle, but I insisted that he take my place with the horses.

        As we fell in line for the advance, and were loading and capping our guns, a member of my company, pale and trembling, left the line and walked up to the captain. I heard him say, "Captain, I can't go in." Captain James L. Smith, who had succeeded Dr. Fennell in command of Company I, replied, more in pity than contempt, "My God, then go back to the horses!" I have often thought that it took more courage to confess cowardice than it did to go into battle. I had seen shirking in many forms, but this was the first and only instance I ever saw or heard of in which a soldier in the presence of his comrades handed his

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gun to his captain and owned up that he couldn't face the music. There was a man in my company, sober, kindly disposed, and well behaved, who in one way and another dodged out of every fight the company was in and was captured late in 1863, only because his horse didn't start soon enough and couldn't run fast enough to get him on this final occasion out of the danger-zone in time. This was the man I found with the wagon-train in the rear of the line at Shelbyville who jumped at the chance to exchange his sound horse for my crippled mount. I never learned by what route or under what pretext he found his way to the rear. If he didn't "live to fight another day," he lived, and is still, at a very advanced age, a successful farmer in my native state.

        I have narrated elsewhere the incident of the lad who remained flattened out as close to the ground as his anatomy could be applied while all the oth