Reminiscences of a Mississippian in Peace and War E-Book

Frank Alexander Montgomery

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 484

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Frank Alexander Montgomery was a native Mississippian, and served as Lt. Colonel in the 1st Mississippi Cavalry during the Civil War. Reminiscences of a Mississippian in Peace and War offers a fascinating look into 19th century Mississippi. A table of contents is included.

Leseprobe

Dedication

To my surviving comrades of

Armstrong’s Old Mississippi Cavalry Brigade

and to the memory of its gallant dead

I dedicate this book.

PREFACE.

       Most people who read books look first at the Preface to see what the author has to say about himself or about his book, and often this contains an excuse for writing it. I have no excuse to offer for what I have written, and since the book itself is an autobiography will here say nothing about myself; but I think it proper to give some of the reasons which have induced me at this late day to become an author.

       It has been my fortune to have lived for seventy years in my native state, Mississippi, and until within the last few months to have led an active life from boyhood to my present age, never without some occupation which was congenial to me. But time which has brought me age has also brought me leisure, and I have availed myself of it to write my recollections of so much of the war between the states in which my own immediate cavalry command took part. In the following pages, however, I have not confined myself to this, but have allowed my memory to carry me back to the days when I was a young man, and to speak of Mississippi life as it then was. So also I have dwelt upon the reconstruction era in the state and brought my memoirs down to the present time, with, however, only a passing reference to the civil offices I have held.

       So far as the war is concerned I have felt it almost a duty, it certainly has been a pleasure, to recall the incidents of that stirring time and to rescue from oblivion, as far as I can, the names and deeds of some Mississippi soldiers, and commands, to whom history in the state has done but scant justice.

       If I have succeeded in this, if I have contributed, in ever so slight a degree, to the history of the state or of the war, I will be amply repaid for the work I have done.

FRANK A. MONTGOMERY.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction—Birth place—Old Natchez trace—Lost villages of seventy years ago—Territory of Mississippi—Ancestors—Country school—Oakland College—Its president—His lecture one day—Political speech of Dr. Duncan, of Ohio—Whig party—Excitement in Mississippi in 1851—Senators Jefferson Davis and Henry S. Foote—Speeches by them—Tragic death of Dr. Chamberlain—Fate of Oakland College.

       For some years past I have purposed if I lived to the age of seventy to write the story of my life. That time has now come, and I have the leisure for the first time in my life since I have been grown, for, though active and vigorous still and capable of work congenial to me, I have nothing to do except to amuse myself with my pen.

       I have lived through the greatest part of the most eventful century in the world’s history, and while I have filled no great place in the history which I, in common with all other men living during this time, have helped to make, yet my story may not prove uninteresting to those who read it, and it will at least serve while I am writing it to recall the past, the friends I have known, the pleasures of my youth, the stirring events of my manhood, till age has now come to warn me that my time is short, and that what I do I must do quickly.

       Though not a great man in the events I record, yet what I did and what I saw I can tell, and there are those still living who will be glad to read what I write; and it may even be that it will be of some value to some great historian of my state and of the war who is yet to come. For true history is gathered from small details by comparatively obscure men who write of their times, as well as by men who filled larger places in the eye of the world. In writing this story of my own life I must of necessity have something to say of the men I have known who filled far more important places than I did, and who now with few exceptions have “passed over the river.” When I have occasion to speak of them, while I do so freely, I will I hope do so kindly.

       But one great purpose I have in writing, is to give as far as I can the details of the operations of the cavalry command to which I was attached during the great war between the states, for these are never given in the reports of the great commanders or in the histories which are compiled from them, except when some great exploit by a Forest, or Wheeler, or Stuart, is mentioned. The busy and constant service of the cavalry, its innumerable fights, and constant loss of life, is rarely if ever mentioned.

       It is to supply to some extent this omission as to my immediate cavalry command, as well as for other reasons, that I write this story. I am not, I think, either a vain man or a boastful one, and I regret that I must of necessity use the personal pronoun “I” many times in what I write, but my purpose is to tell a continuous story, and I cannot otherwise do it, at least not so well; so I hope I may be pardoned by my readers. It is not so much what I did that I want to tell as it is what the brave men with whom I served did.

       It is a source of deep regret to me that I have not every name and that I will not even be able to give the names of all who died in the various affairs of which I will tell, for it is these men whose names I would gladly make live as far as I can. The great men who commanded our armies with few exceptions deserve the honors they won, but it is the unknown and forgotten who won their honors for them.

       Some of the great commanders on each side have told their stories, and these are of more or less value in making up the history of the war, but few, if any who held subordinate places have recorded their observations or their experiences as soldiers either of the Federal or Confederate armies, and this is to be regretted, for there were men in the ranks who could if they would have told interesting stories, and even yet there are many who can do it if they will, and I hope others may yet do it. But whatever is done must be done soon, for a few more years and there will be none left to tell, for especially what Mississippi and Mississippians did in that great war, and thus aid the historian who is to come in writing the history of the war and of the state.

       Our brave foes have been more fortunate than we have been, for there is probably not a name of any man who served in their ranks or who died for their cause whose name has not been preserved, and their dead lie in well-cared-for cemeteries guarded with jealous care, that future generations may see how brave men died for the Union and how a grateful people have honored their memories.

       We of the south, whose dead nearly all lie on the battlefields where they fell, grudge not these honors to the gallant dead, who while they lived were our foes; we only ask that history may truly tell our side of that time “when Greek met Greek.” This will be done, though the time may not have fully come.

       But now to my own story.

       I was born January 7, 1830, in Adams county, Mississippi, within about a mile of a place called Selsertown, and which, though there is now no town, still I believe retains the name. The place is twelve miles from Natchez, and a tavern was kept there for a long time, perhaps still is, though the railroad which now runs near it from Jackson to Natchez has nearly destroyed the usefulness of the celebrated highway upon which it was situated except for local purposes. This was the road cut in the earliest history of the territory of Mississippi from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, along which General Jackson rode when he sought and found his bride at the home of his friend, Colonel Thomas M. Green, on the banks of Coles creek, and along which he marched his victorious troops when returning after the battle of New Orleans. It was then the great thoroughfare for all travel north from Natchez, and most of that south to Natchez, for few cared to risk the dangers of river travel in those days. At intervals of about six miles along this road, in the early settlement of the territory, little villages had been located as I remember, between Natchez and Port Gibson, first Washington, once the capital of the state, then Selsertown, Uniontown, Greenville, Raccoon Box, and one other, the name of which I have forgotten, Red Lick, I believe, and then Port Gibson. All of these villages are gone save only their names, and these forgotten except by a few old men like myself, and except that Washington still remains, a small village preserved perhaps by the college located there. The history of this part of the state always possessed and still does, a romantic interest for me, because perhaps, when a boy I knew many of those who had either been among its earliest settlers, or were their descendants then grown, and who loved to talk of their trials, of the Indians, of the Spaniards who owned the country when it first began to be settled by American pioneers, and of highway robbers who sometimes waylaid the solitary traveler. Some of the stories I may tell as I recall them. The story of the ill-fated tribe of the Natchez, of the French occupation, then of the English, then of the Spanish, and last, its cession to the United States, all combine to make the history of this part of Mississippi of absorbing interest, and growing up at the time and place I did, it is little wonder that it still possesses a charm for me, and that I love to dwell even now upon it.

       From the south boundary line of what is now Claiborne county, to Natchez, I know every hill and spring and stream, for twenty-five years of my life, the days of my youth, were spent midway between Natchez and Port Gibson, and memory often takes me back to those scenes of my youth. But if I dwell too long on these things I will never tell my story.

       While still an infant my father moved into Jefferson county, and soon after died. He was James Jefferson Montgomery, son of Alexander Montgomery, one of the pioneer settlers of the territory, of whom Claiborne in his history of Mississippi, makes honorable mention as one of the leading citizens of the territory and of the state till his death, a few years after its admission into the Union. My mother was the youngest daughter of Colonel Cato West, also a pioneer, who became secretary of the territory under Governor Claiborne, and for some time the acting governor when Claiborne went to New Orleans as governor of the newly-acquired territory of Louisiana.

       Colonel West was an intimate acquaintance and friend of General Jackson, and I have now in my possession a long autograph letter written to him by General Jackson in the year 1801, devoted to personal matters and politics, and directed to “Colonel Cato West, Coles Creek, Mississippi Territory.” After my father’s death, my mother went to live on our place on Coles creek, about two miles from Uniontown, which was at the time still a little village, and not far from the Maryland settlement, so called because some of the earliest settlers were from Maryland. The old highway spoken of ran through our place. Here after some years my mother married a Mr. Malloy, a Presbyterian minister, but she died while still a young woman, and the plantation and negroes then fell to me. In my early boyhood, and while she lived, I spent much of my time with my uncle Charles West, near Fayette, in Jefferson county, and went to school to a Mr. Roland, a Welshman, who certainly did not spare the rod, or rather the ferule, which was his favorite instrument of torture. That was the rule in those days; all teachers whipped their scholars, and indeed parents all approved it. We live now in a better day, for the best teachers rarely, if ever, resort to corporal punishment, which only tends to degrade a child and harden him.

       After a few years with Mr. Roland, who was an educated man, becoming afterwards an Episcopal minister, I was sent to Oakland College, when about twelve years old, and remained about five years and till after the death of my mother. Oakland College deserves more than a passing notice, both because of the tragedy in the year 1851, when its venerable president was slain at his own door in open day by a neighbor, and because of its singular destiny in after years, at least its undreamed of destiny, by those who founded and supported it. Oakland College as I first knew it, and before the war between the states (I have not seen the place since), had an ideal situation for a college. In the southwestern part of Claiborne county not far from the line, the nearest town was Rodney, five miles away in Jefferson county. The cottages in which the students roomed formed a semi-circle on the crest of the ridge, with the main college near the center, and close to this the president’s house. In front was a campus covered with oak trees, and sloping down to the common boarding-house, and at each end of the semi-circle the halls of the literary societies, the Belleslettre and the Adelphic. I belonged to the first. The college was founded mainly by Mr. David Hunt, of Jefferson county, supposed to be the wealthiest planter of his time, and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Chamberlain, who was its president. Dr. Chamberlain was an eminent divine of the Presbyterian Church, and was a most lovable character. Genial and whole-souled, the boys and young men all loved as well as respected him. He had also quite a vein of humor in his nature, and this would crop out at unexpected times. I remember once when he was hearing a class in rhetoric or logic, in his lecture to the class he repeated the following lines, which I at least have never seen in print, but which though it is more than fifty years ago I have never forgotten:

                       “Could we with ink the ocean fill,

                       Were earth of parchment made,

                       Were every single stick a quill,

                       Each man a scribe by trade,

                       To write the tricks of half the sex

                       Would drink that ocean dry.

                       Gallants, beware, look sharp, take care,

                       The blind eat many a fly.”

       I don’t remember what else was in that lecture, but that caught me and has staid. It was well known that the doctor was an ardent Whig of the Henry Clay and Daniel Webster school, and the boys sometimes took advantage of it to tease him if they could. I recollect in the campaign when Mr. Polk was the candidate of the Democrats, I came across a speech made by a Dr. Duncan, of Ohio, which was a red-hot Democratic speech, and as my time to declaim before the president and students was near at hand, I committed some of the most eloquent parts to memory to speak, counting in advance on the good doctor’s indulgence. I was urged, too, by many boys who said I was afraid to do it.

       It seems that in some parade of the Whigs in some Northern state they had a banner with this inscription: “We stoop to conquer.” This excited the ire of some poetical Democrat who wrote a piece with which Dr. Duncan closed his speech. Two verses I remember yet:

                       “ ‘We stoop to conquer!’ who are ‘We’

                       That from our mountain height descending

                       With golden bribe and treacherous smile,

                       With the sons of freemen blending,

                       Sow the seeds of vile corruption?

                       Poor nurselings of the Federal ‘style,’

                       Fed on the husks of aristocracy—

                       ‘We’ quail in fear beneath the eye

                       Of nature’s true and tried Democracy.”

       The last verse I gave with all my power, turning to the doctor and pointing at him. When I got through, he asked me where I had got the speech, and when I had told him, only said as I had spoken better than usual, he had not stopped me. In fact, though a boy, I was myself a Whig, and I did not loose my faith and hope in that most glorious of all political parties this country has ever seen, till the election which gave us Mr. Lincoln and bloody war.

       Dr. Chamberlain was not only a Whig, he was an uncompromising unionist, and to something growing out of this he owed his death.

       At the time, the summer of 1851, during the vacation, I was married and living on my plantation some twenty miles from the college.

       The compromise measures as they were called, under which I believe California was admitted to the Union, had excited a great deal of feeling in the South, higher in Mississippi and South Carolina than in any other states. The two senators from Mississippi, the somewhat erratic, but brilliant, Henry S. Foote, supported the compromise, while Mr. Jefferson Davis had opposed it in congress. A convention of the people had been called, and feeling ran high. During the canvass I heard both those distinguished men, and candor compels me to say I thought Mr. Foote the superior of Mr. Davis on the stump. I remember one thing Mr. Davis said which was applauded both by those who supported him and those who did not. It was thought by many that South Carolina would secede then, and Mr. Davis said, if that state did secede and the Federal government attempted to coerce her, he for one would shoulder his musket and go to her aid. The sentiment was loudly applauded, for none in this country at that time denied the right of a state to secede and set up a government of its own if its people desired, with or without reason.

       Among the members of Dr. Chamberlain’s church a wealthy gentleman living near the college, named Batcheldor, was as ardent a secessionist as the doctor was a union man. It was reported to this gentleman by a Mr. Briscoe, himself a secessionist, that Dr. Chamberlain had said that no man could be a secessionist and a Christian. They had met by accident in the town of Rodney, and with other gentlemen were discussing the all-absorbing topic of the day, when Mr. Briscoe made this statement, not as I remember as a fact, but as something he had heard. Without a thought Mr. Batcheldor said to him, “You may tell the doctor I am a secessionist.”

       Mr. Briscoe was a member of a prominent family living near the college, and had to pass through the college grounds on his way home. He was seen to stop at Dr. Chamberlain’s gate and get off his horse, and the doctor walked from his porch to his gate, only a few feet away. No one heard what passed, but the doctor was seen to open the gate and pass through, and then turn and walk back to his house and, in the presence of his horrified wife and daughters, saying “I am killed,” fell dead. He had been stabbed to the heart, a heart whose every impulse in his long and useful life had been for the good of his fellow-men.

       The news spread like wild fire, the prominence of the doctor and his blameless life, the prominence of the family of the unfortunate who in a moment of madness without conceivable motive had slain him, all combined to excite the people to madness. Hundreds hastened to the college and dire threats of vengeance were made, but Mr. Briscoe could not be found. After striking the fatal blow he had mounted his horse and gone in the direction of his home, and for some five or six days this was all that was known of him. Then he was found by a negro in a pasture not far from the house of a relative, a Mr. Harrison, in a dying condition from poison. He was taken to the house unconscious and soon died. After the war between the states, Oakland College was sold to the state and became Alcorn University, a college for negroes, and is now the Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, devoted to the education of that race. Who of its founders or those who supported it, or the proud young men who filled its halls, could ever have dreamed of a fate so strange, and to me so sad, for this college, once the pride of South Mississippi! And yet this change in Oakland College is a small thing compared to that upheaval and destruction of southern homes and southern society caused by that bloody war for the preservation of that Union which Doctor Chamberlain and thousands of others in his day loved so well, even in Mississippi, which a few years later was to be one of the first of the states of the South to break or try to break the bonds which bound it to the Union.

       The names of Dr. Chamberlain and Mr. Hunt have been perpetuated in the name of the Chamberlain-Hunt Academy at Port Gibson, and long may they live, though few perhaps know of the tragic fate of Dr. Chamberlain or the unostentatious life of the ante bellum millionaire, Mr. Hunt.

       I remained at Oakland College till I had gone through the junior class, and then the Mexican war having broke out, though under age, having no one to restrain me, I left the college to become a soldier. In this hope I was disappointed, as the result of my efforts will show.

CHAPTER II.

Mexican war—Jefferson troop—General Thomas Hinds—Natchez fencibles, Captain Clay—Vicksburg—Mustering officer, General Duffield—Company rejected—Trip to Jackson—Governor Brown—General McMackin—Alleghany College, Meadville, Pennsylvania—Concert—Escaped slave—Copper cents—Skating, sleigh riding—Militia muster—Home again—Cotton planter of those days—The negro as he then was—As he is now.

       My first effort to be a soldier was to join a cavalry company, gotten up by Charles Clark, then a lawyer living in Fayette, Jefferson county. This was a great man, and in another place, when I shall have occasion to mention him, I will pay a tribute of love and admiration to his character and services to his state. Our company was to be called the Jefferson Troop, after the celebrated company commanded by General Thomas Hinds in the battle of New Orleans, of whom General Jackson, speaking of its charge upon the British lilies, said: “It was the wonder of one army and the admiration of the other.” I knew General Hinds in my boyhood days, and remember him as a fine old gentleman of the olden time. For him the county of Hinds was named, and thus his name will live as long as the state does. After some weeks of drilling, it being found no cavalry was wanted from Mississippi, we disbanded, and I went to Natchez and joined a company commanded by a Captain Clay, and called, I believe, the Natchez Fencibles. Captain Clay took, as he supposed, a full company to Vicksburg to be mustered into service. Certainly, as I remember, it was a fine company, but there was politics in those days as well as now, for it was charged openly it was due to the desire of the state administration to keep a place open for a company from some other part of the state, which was always true to the Democratic party of the time, that Captain Clay’s company was not mustered in, it being from a staunch Whig county. Anyway we got to Vicksburg and were assigned quarters in the old depot building, where, after remaining a few days, we were brought out by General Duffield, to be, as we supposed, mustered into service.

       I recollect him well as dressed in a gorgeous uniform, with a cocked hat and waving plume, a long saber by his side, he strutted along our line. Since that time I have seen “Captain Jinks, of the Horse Marines,” on the stage, and I at once thought of General Duffield, and when I think of one now the other comes before me. As he came to me he stopped and asked how old I was, and when I told him he ordered me out of the ranks. There was another young fellow of my age in the ranks whose name was Fauntleroy, and heal so was ordered out; and having thus reduced the company below the minimum, he promptly rejected it. We were all indignant, as were many prominent citizens, and it was decided to go to Jackson and lay our case before Governor Brown. We succeeded in getting an engine and some box cars, and got to Jackson late in the afternoon, but the governor was reported sick and could not be seen. He had not gone on a distant fishing excursion, as I have known one governor to do, in order to avoid an unpleasant interview. We did not get to see him, but we had a high time. Any number of speeches were made, and it was openly charged that he was keeping a place for a favored company for political purposes. There was great excitement and danger of personal difficulties, but happily these were avoided.

       After a while we were taken to supper at a hotel kept by General McMackin, whom I then saw for the first time. I took him to be some intoxicated man as he went around crying out his bill of fare: “The ham and the lamb and the jelly and jam and blackberry pie, like mama used to make.” The reason he gave for this habit was that when he first opened a hotel in Jackson, so many members of the legislature could not read, he had to do it in order to let them know what his bill of fare was. Long after this when the carpet-baggers, who had swooped down on the state “like a wolf on the fold,” had got full control, I was at a hotel kept by the General in Vicksburg, the old Prentiss House, and to my surprise I found bills of fare on the table. He had just commenced this usual mode of letting his guests know what there was to eat, but he was still from the force of habit walking up and down the dining-room calling his bill. As he passed near me, I called to him and he came at once, for no host was ever more polite and attentive to his guests. I said to him: “General, I am sorry to see those bills of fare on your table.” “Why, why?” he said. “Because,” I replied, “it would seem to intimate that you thought the state had become more intelligent under this carpet-bag rule than it was in the good old days before the war.”

       In a voice that could be heard all over the dining-room, he cried: “I’ll burn ‘em every one up; I’ll burn ‘em every one up!” and I believe he did, for I never saw them on his table afterwards.

       We got back to Vicksburg the same night (tired out I slept all the way back on a pile of muskets), without having seen the governor, or got any satisfaction as to whether our company would be received. We staid in Vicksburg a few days, and the company gradually broke up, some of the men joining other companies, and some going home. For myself, I was disgusted and went home, for I would not join a company where I did not know either the men or officers.

       My guardian advised me to return to college for at least another year, and this I was willing to do, but I was unwilling to go back to Oakland College, as I preferred to go north. I did not care what place so it was in the north. To this he consented, and at his request I concluded to go to Alleghany College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He knew nothing of the college, except a young man from the north who had taught school for him and who had kept up a correspondence with him was then a student at it. Meadville was ninety miles west of Pittsburg, and the trip from my home in those days was a long and tedious one. I embarked at Rodney on a steamboat named the Ringgold, after Major Ringgold who had been recently killed in the battle of Palo Alto or Resaca, I forget which, and after a long trip got to Louisville, there took another boat to Cincinnati, and then another to Pittsburg, where I took the stage to Meadville, arriving at that place after an all day and all night ride, a little before day. My first care after breakfast was to look up my guardian’s friend, whose name was Mills. I found him at the college and was at once made at home with him. He was some years older than I was, but he was a fine fellow, and we became and remained great friends, though he played me a little trick that night. Except Mills, there was not a human being in the town I knew, and he I had only seen that morning for the first time. Meadville had at the time about twenty-five hundred inhabitants, and had its very exclusive set in society as I afterwards found out. There was a concert to be given at the hotel at which I was staying that night. A young man was to sing, and I proposed to Mills to come and take supper with me and go with me, and he agreed, but said he knew some young ladies and proposed we should take them, to which of course I made no objection.

       He introduced me to his friends, two sisters, who I saw at once were two very respectable girls, as indeed they were, but I could see were not much accustomed to society. However, I did not know anything about the people we were to meet at the concert, so I did not much care.

       Neither of the girls was pretty, and both were much older than I was, but Mills took the youngest and prettiest one and left me the other. It was a long walk to the hotel and I was very much bored by my company, but I took care not to show it. I could see at once from the company assembled that the elite of the town were there, and that our girls were out of place, and I felt sorry for them and somewhat ashamed for myself. I don’t think Mills had ever been to an entertainment before, and I never knew him to be afterwards where ladies were to be present. How it was he ever became acquainted with these girls I don’t know. Their father owned an apple cider mill and a distillery, as I found later. I did not desert my charge, but paid her marked attention, till I had got her safely back home, but after one formal call for politeness, I never saw her again, though I remained in Meadville a year.

       When I became acquainted as I did with most of the young ladies who had been at the concert, I was often teased about my first appearance in society. The singer’s name was Sloan, and he sang well, and for the first time I heard Napoleon’s grave, a fine old song.

       I was a young man fresh from a southern state and had never been north before, but I was treated with extreme kindness, and before I left had many warm friends. There was a great deal of curiosity about the south and about slaves, and I was surprised at the ignorance of those whom it seemed to me ought to have been better informed, but there was little travel between that section of the country and mine. Indeed, I don’t remember to have seen but two men from the south, and one of those was a relative of my own who came on and joined me after a few months, and the other a young student from Maryland, which was called a southern state because it was a slave state. There were not very many avowed Abolitionists in town, but they were very bitter. The general feeling then was that slavery was a matter for the south to deal with, but if a runaway negro happened to come through the town, he was helped along by everybody, and sometimes one did come escaping from Maryland or Virginia. One came while I was there and advertised to give a lecture. To everybody’s surprise, I did not go, for two reasons: one that I had no desire to see the negro, and the other because I was pretty sure the wild young fellows would raise a row, as actually happened. I was told by some who went that he was a very ignorant negro. There were very few of that race in town, some barbers and one old fellow who said he was an escaped slave from Maryland a good many years before, were all that I knew anything about. The latter soon took a liking to me and waited on my room, though every now and then he would get a little tipsy and tell me I couldn’t whip him like I could in Mississippi. Sometimes I would pretend to be angry and start towards him when he run, and once fell downstairs being a little fuller than usual, and I had to go down and help him up. I reckon the old fellow liked me chiefly because I was free with my dimes and quarters, and did not put him off with copper cents. These copper cents were the old fashioned kind, as big as a half dollar, and at first when offered me in change I would not take them; but I soon found that would not do, as they were a very useful coin in that country and are no doubt to this day; and it will be a good thing for the south when they come into general use here. Everything seemed to me to be cheap in that country; my board with a room to myself, fires, lights and washing furnished, was only two dollars a week. After the battle of Buena Vista, where the Mississippi regiment saved the day, Mississippians were at a premium, and being the only one in town, I shared in the glory without having been in danger, as I would have been had Captain Clay’s company been received.

       At Alleghany College, in Meadville, I found that the vacation was in the winter for three months, commencing the first of December, so I was not there long before the vacation commenced. One reason for this was, as I was informed, that the young men might teach school in the country schools at a time when the children could be spared from the work of the farm to go to school. I was in my room one day when a farmer came in and introduced himself as the trustee of a school a few miles away, and desired to engage me to teach it. I have always regretted I did not take the school. This left me nothing to do but to frolic, and I soon had friends enough among the young people to keep me busy at this entertaining, if not profitable, business. French creek (I believe that is the name) ran through the town, and when it froze over I got me a pair of skates—I paid two dollars and a half for them— and went down to join a crowd and learn this exhilarating amusement, but after several severe falls I concluded it would not pay a Mississippi boy to learn, and I gave my skates away. I got along much better with sleigh riding though my first ride was disastrous, for the horse ran away with the cutter and threw my friend, a young man named Fleury, and myself out and broke the cutter, for which I had to pay.

       What with sleigh rides and dances every week, and sometimes twice a week, besides other amusements, time did not drag slowly, but soon brought the opening of the college, and I devoted myself to it till I concluded to quit and go home.

       The arsenal for North-western Pennsylvania was located at Meadville, and while I was there a muster of the militia was had, and all the students attended, of course. There were hundreds of country people, and the natural result followed, a number of fights between the students and those people, in which no greater damage was done than black eyes or bloody noses. I carried the signs of the battle for some days myself.

       Next door to my boarding house lived a Dr. Yates, whose wife was a sister of James Buchanan, then the secretary of the navy, I believe, and afterwards president of the United States. The doctor had a very pretty daughter, who married a young man, a friend of mine, named Dunham, and I was a frequent visitor at their house, as I had also made the acquaintance of the doctor’s son, a midshipman, who was at home a good deal on leave.

       When the civil war broke out I always looked to see if this young man ever arose to any distinction, but I never saw his name mentioned; perhaps he died before the war.

       I spent a year in Meadville, but I can’t dwell on that time, pleasant as is the retrospect.

       I returned to my home and, with the consent of my guardian, went at once to live on my plantation, which was under the care of an overseer. I wished to learn the duties of my station, and fully made up my mind to spend my life as a cotton planter. I think looking back to that olden time the most delightful existence, and the most iudependent a gentleman could have.

       The highest ambition of all men in the south at that time, so far as occupation was concerned, was to be a planter, and to spend the most if not all his time on his plantation. For this, the merchant invested his profits, the lawyer his earnings, and indeed everybody saved all he could to attain to this ideal life. The planter living upon his own lands, surrounded by his slaves, a happy and childlike race in that day, dispensed a broad and generous hospitality; no one was ever turned from his door. For even the lowliest a place was found. His neighbors were everybody within a day’s ride from his home, and frequent visits were made, the planter mounted on his splendid saddle horse, his favorite mode of travel, and his wife and children in the carriage. He was a proud man, proud of his wife and children, proud of his plantation and slaves, proud of his stainless honor, and ready to exact or give satisfaction for wrongs fancied or real, suffered or done, not by the deadly pistol concealed in the hip pocket, but by a meeting upon the field of honor, with mutual friends to see fair play. These were the halcyon days of the south, gone never to return, but the stories of those days, the sacred traditions, have preserved, and will, I hope, continue to preserve the same spirit in the descendants of those noble men, and keep them pure in race and upright and honorable. In this lies the hope of the south to-day. But what pen can do justice to southern society as it was before the war, its wide influence for good all over the land; mine cannot. I speak of a class and not of individuals, for there were rare exceptions who were coarse and rude, as there are to-day men who, forgetting the traditions of the past, destitute of gratitude and honor, flaunt themselves in high places, scheming only how best they may deceive the credulous and achieve their ends.

       I have said that the negro of that day was a happy and child-like creature. He had no wants not willingly supplied; he had no care; his day’s work done, he slept secure. Crime was literally unknown to him. The planter left his wife and children on his place surrounded by his slaves; sure that they were safe from harm.

       Now, what is his condition? I speak not of a few bright exceptions. Ask the jails, the penitentiaries, the lunatic asylums, which are filled not from the ranks of the old slaves, but their sons and daughters. No white man will now leave his family on his place, surrounded by negroes alone, and often when I have been on the bench, I have been constrained to excuse jurors for this reason.

       Insanity was as unknown among negroes before the war as homicides; each was extremely rare. I don’t remember in those days but one really crazy negro, though there were occasionally idiots, and though we have now two large asylums, the jails are filled with those who cannot be received. The homicides now committed by negroes upon each other constitute the most frightful chapter in the history of crime ever known among any people. This is easy to prove. What is to be his ultimate destiny, no man can tell, but his only hope at last is in the white people of the south. I take no account of the comparatively few negroes in the north, nor do I here speak of the negro in politics. This will come later.

CHAPTER III.

Railroads—Shinplasters—Customs of the times—Barbecues—Camp meetings—Militia drills—Shooting matches—Music of the times—The preacher and the robber—Indians—S. S. Prentiss—Dueling.

       Before I proceed with my story, I must pause to indulge in some reminiscences of that far away time when I was a boy in Jefferson county, and give some account of the manners and customs of the people and of their amusements, and this chapter may be taken by way of parenthesis. There were in those days no railroads, the first in the state being the short line from Jackson to Vicksburg, over which I made my memorable trip to interview Governor Brown. One other was projected north from Natchez, and was actually finished for some seven or eight miles, but this fell through for want of funds. It had a bank, too, I remember, for those were the days of shinplasters as the paper money of the numerous banks in the state was then called. The mode of travel for gentlemen was on horseback; for ladies, on horseback or in carriages.

       The first thing when a gentleman arrived on a visit, if it were not before eleven o’clock, was to invite him to the sideboard to take a drink. This was the universal custom except at the homes of preachers or very strict members of the Methodist Church, and intoxication was rare except at barbecues or assemblies to hear speeches when politics ran high. The old fashioned barbecue of that time has passed away, for those we have now-a-days are unlike them in many particulars.

       The men did not go to them loaded down with pistols, for the deadly hip pocket was not then invented, and the pistol of the day, with its long barrel and ugly flintlock, was too troublesome to be carried. If arms were carried, and this was rare, it was the bowie knife or dirk, and no body ever got hurt except the combatants. Fights were common on those occasions, but they were almost always fisticuffs, a word and a blow. There was always a dance on the ground, and at night an adjournment to the nearest house, when daylight put an end to it the next morning. The music was the fiddle, played usually by a negro and such music! old men forgot their age to join in the dance, for it was almost impossible to hear it and keep still. It makes me young again to think of it; not the long-drawn-out music of these days, but such soul-stirring, heel-rocking tunes as “Arkansaw Traveler,” “Mississippi Sawyer,” “Sugar in the Gourd,” “Jennie, put the Kittle on,” “Nigger in the Woodpile,” “Natchez under the Hill,” and others too numerous to mention. Almost every plantation had its negro fiddler as well as negro preacher, usually the biggest scamp on the place, and the happy darkeys would dance to the one and shout to the other some times the livelong night. The planter and his family often went to look on.

       Those were the days also of militia drills and of shooting matches, usually following the drill. Everybody between eighteen and forty-five was required to attend and bring his gun and such a motley crowd and such an assortment of arms can never be seen again.

       But those were happy days, for if the daily paper could not be had the good people never felt its loss, for they knew nothing of it. In these days we can’t live without it, for we must hear the news from all the world every day, and twice a day if we live where we can get an evening paper.

       The shooting matches were trials of skill with the long rifle, sometimes at the head of a turkey and sometimes at a small mark for beef, and there were many who could rival the skill of the Leather-stocking.

       Camp meetings were another feature of those days, which have passed away before the advancing civilization of the times; for if one is held now, I am told, a restaurant is attached where meals are sold. In the days I speak of a shady grove was selected near a good spring, and the well-to-do members of the church—Methodist—for camp meetings, as far as I know, was a distinct feature of that church, though preachers of other denominations often helped—would build rude but comfortable shanties, each large enough to accommodate from twenty to sometimes forty guests, and to this the owner would move his whole family and his house servants and keep open house with old fashioned hospitality.

       And then the preaching. With power and zeal sinners were warned to repentance, and a vivid imagination could almost see the fiery billows as they enveloped the hopeless, doomed ones who cried too late for mercy where mercy never came. One sermon I remember by the Rev. B. M. Drake, the father of a prominent lawyer now living in Port Gibson. A man of stately presence, his text was: “Hear, oh heavens, give ear, oh earth, for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me; the ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” Conceive the effect which a sermon from this sublime text from the prophecies of the royal prophet would have upon a congregation already wrought up to the highest pitch of religious fervor by prayers and hymns, when the preacher was eloquent and full of zeal for the salvation of the souls of those who heard him, and which he firmly believed would be lost forever if they did not repent.

       The pioneer Methodist preachers in that territory were an interesting class. Some I recall—the Rev. John G. Jones, whose adventures when he was a young man were thrilling to hear; and another, the Rev. Mr. Cotton, who, when I was a boy, was often at our house; and I heard him tell of his adventure with a robber, a story which Mr. Shields, in his Life of Prentiss, tells, I believe, but a little differently from the way I had it from Mr. Cotton. He was riding along a lonely road, when suddenly a man with a gun stepped from behind a tree, and ordered him to halt. He then made him ride into the woods, and demanded his money. He was like the apostle, for “silver and gold” he had none. The robber, enraged, told him to dismount, as he intended to kill him. Mr. Cotton asked leave to pray before being put to death, and it was granted him. He kneeled down by the side of a log, and, with closed eyes, prayed fervently for his own reception into heaven, for the salvation of the world, and, above all, for the pardon and salvation of the sinful man who was about to imbrue his hands in his blood. When, at last, he had finished, he arose, and, lo! the robber had gone. But, I might fill pages with stories of that time without ever finishing my own.

       These were the days, also, of quilting bees, and each house had its frame; the wealthiest as well as the poorest planter’s wife would save her scraps and sew them into squares, stars and diamonds, until enough were gotten to make a quilt, and then the neighboring ladies would come and gather round the frame while the busy needles flew, and the busy tongues kept time till the work was done. This was a source of great pleasure and amusement to the married ladies, nor were the negro seamstresses, of which there were always one or more on each plantation, permitted to aid in this work. Now and then, in these days, one of these old patch-work quilts may be found, a relic of other days, but then piles of them were in every house. Sewing machines were not even dreamed of; indeed, long after this, when my wife began to talk of getting a machine, I laughed at the idea, for I did not believe one could be made which would work. In those days, too, cooking stoves were unknown in the south; it was not until I had been married seven or eight years that I would consent to buy one. The kitchen was never in the house, always at a distance from it, and the fireplace, a huge affair, with an iron crane to hang the pots over the fire in which boiling was done, while upon a great wide hearth the coals would be raked out, upon which the skillets were put to do the baking, while heaps of coal were put on their lids. These were the days of hoe cakes, ash cakes and Johnnie cakes, and no such cooking has ever been done since, and it makes my mouth water now to think of it. But, good-bye to those good old times, though memory still often brings them back.

       In my earliest recollection, there were a good many Indians still to be seen in the country; these belonged to the Choctaws, for the brave but ill-fated Natchez had disappeared from the face of the earth. They made their last stand on a place known, perhaps, yet as Cicily Island in what is now Louisiana, not far from Natchez, and the few who were not killed or captured were dispersed and lost forever as a tribe. It has been said that the dead Indian is the only good Indian, and it may be so. But their story is a melancholy one, and it is a pity a better fate was not reserved for them. They had the vices of the barbarian, but they had virtues which none of the other barbarous races ever had. The Indians I knew were a peaceful people, the women making baskets from cane and the men subsisting by hunting and making and selling to the white boys blow-guns, a favorite weapon with the boys to shoot birds with in those times.

       While I was still a small boy, the great Prentiss was often in the county, sometimes attending the courts and sometimes speaking at the political barbecues.

       I remember to have heard him in two of his great speeches, noticed specially by his biographer, Shields. One was near Natchez and the other was at Rodney. I was too young to appreciate his arguments, but I remember well the words seemed to flow from his lips in a torrent and with what enthusiasm they were received by his audience, and his face and figure still dwell in my memory. He was a wonderful man, an unrivaled orator.

       Coming from the land “of steady habits” to Mississippi, he became in a little while a typical Mississippian of the olden time, when that name implied all that was honorable and true. After I grew up and became acquainted with the life and writings of Byron, I always associated the two together, for each had the same lameness, and to this physical likeness there were many things in their temperaments which were alike. Each died in his prime. The name of Prentiss occurred to me here as I remembered another custom of that time among gentlemen, an “imperious custom,” as it was called by a noted divine in his eloquent funeral sermon at the burial of Alexander Hamilton, who had fallen in his duel with Aaron Burr—the custom of dueling.

       Mr. Prentiss fought two duels with Henry S. Foote, but it is no part of my plan to give an account of these duels, but only to mention the fact that in those days no man who had any regard for his honor or character could refuse to fight if insulted or if he had insulted another. The custom is just as “imperious” now as it was then, for while the laws condemn it, yet public sentiment will condemn any man in public life, or whose business or profession makes him prominent, who dares to refuse, to demand, or give satisfaction on the field of honor in those cases where custom has made it proper, if not imperative. But I must leave those old times and hasten on.

CHAPTER IV.

Marriage—Move to Bolivar county—Old town of Napoleon—The hunter—Money—State banks—Overflows and levees— Battle of Armageddon—John Brown’s raid—Effect in the south— Election of Mr. Lincoln.

       On the 12th day of January, 1848 when I was but little past eighteen and my wife not quite that age, I was married to Miss Charlotte Clark, or, as she was always affectionately called, Lottie Clark. She was the daughter of James Clark, who had when she was an infant moved from Lebanon, Ohio, where she was born, and a sister of General Charles Clark. We had been sweethearts as long as I could remember, and she also had just returned from school at Georgetown in the District of Columbia, having while there made her home with an uncle living in Washington City. The family were Marylanders, having originally come over with or as a part of Lord Baltimore’s colony, and her father had been born in Maryland, moving when a young man into Ohio, where he lived till he was induced by his son Charles, who had preceded him some years, to move his whole family to Mississippi, becoming a cotton planter. He was not a large planter, but he prided himself on the knowledge he had acquired of the business, and especially on the cultivation of his crop, which was always clean. He took special care in the neatness with which his cotton was handled in preparing it for market, and it always brought the highest market price. After I was married I was riding one day with him through his field and to my surprise he said it had always seemed singular to him that there were red and white blooms on the same stalk. I explained it to him; but the fact was he had always been puzzled over it, but would not inquire. Peace to his ashes; he was a good man and lived to a good old age.