M. P. A. · Part 2

April Twenty-Eighth

Too much roseate nonsense has been indulged about life on the plantation or in the city in the ante-bellum days. Neither the planter nor the factor nor the lawyer led a life of idle ease and pleasure; they were workers, whose energy built up the State; they lived often rather in rude profusion than in luxury.

PIERCE BUTLER

_James Monroe born, 1758_

April Twenty-Ninth

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

April Thirtieth

To Jefferson's initiative and farsightedness we owe it that we secured without bloodshed, for a trifling sum of money, a territory which doubled our republic, assured its expansion to the Gulf of Mexico and to the Pacific, and thus lifted us, by a stroke of genius, into a world power of the first class.

THOMAS E. WATSON

_Jefferson acquires the Louisiana territory from France, 1803_

_Washington inaugurated first President of the United States, 1789_

May

AT ARLINGTON

The dead had rest; the Dove of Peace Brooded o'er both with equal wings; To both had come that great surcease. The last omnipotent release From all the world's delirious stings. To bugle deaf and signal-gun, They slept, like heroes of old Greece, Beneath the glebe at Arlington.

And in the Spring's benignant reign, The sweet May woke her harp of pines; Teaching her choir a thrilling strain Of jubilee to land and main. She danced in emerald down the lines; Denying largesse bright to none, She saw no difference in the signs That told who slept at Arlington.

She gave her grasses and her showers To all alike who dreamed in dust; Her song-birds wove their dainty bowers Amid the jasmine buds and flowers, And piped with an impartial trust-- Waifs of the air and liberal sun, Their guileless glees were kind and just To friend and foe at Arlington. JAMES RYDER RANDALL

May First

The linnet, the lark, and oriel Were chanting the loves they chant so well; It was blue all above, below all green, With the radiant glow of noon between. JOSEPH SALYARDS (_Idothea_; Idyl III)

May Second

A strange fatality attended us! Jackson killed in the zenith of his successful career; Longstreet wounded when in the act of striking a blow that would have rivalled Jackson's at Chancellorsville in its results; and in each case the fire was from our own men! A blunder! Call it so; the old deacon would say that God willed it thus.

COL. WALTER H. TAYLOR

_Stonewall Jackson wounded at Chancellorsville, 1863_

_Emma Sanson directs Forrest in pursuit of Streight, 1863_

May Third

Chancellorsville, where 130,000 men were defeated by 60,000, is up to a certain point as much the tactical masterpiece of the nineteenth century as was Leuthen of the eighteenth.

LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C. B.

General Pender, you must hold your ground, you must hold your ground.

JACKSON'S Last Command

May Fourth

The productions of nature soon became my playmates. I felt that an intimacy with them not consisting of friendship merely, but bordering on frenzy, must accompany my steps through life.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

_John James Audubon born, 1780_

May Fifth

Lord of Hosts, that beholds us in battle, defending The homes of our sires 'gainst the hosts of the foe, Send us help on the wings of thy angels descending, And shield from his terrors and baffle his blow. Warm the faith of our sons, till they flame as the iron, Red glowing from the fire-forge, kindled by zeal; Make them forward to grapple the hordes that environ, In the storm-rush of battle, through forests of steel! From the Charleston _Mercury_

_Battle of the Wilderness; Lee, with 60,000 men, attacks Grant with 140,000, 1864_

May Sixth

It depends on the State itself, to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have, in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.

(Rawle's text-book on the Constitution, taught at West Point before the War between the States)

JUDAH P. BENJAMIN, AMERICAN DISRAELI

Who is the man, save this one, of whom it can be said that he held conspicuous leadership at the bar of two countries?

SIR HENRY JAMES (England)

_Tennessee and Arkansas secede, 1861_

_Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, dies, 1884_

May Seventh

The slaves who ran away from their masters were set to work at once by General Butler and made to keep at it, much to their annoyance. One of these, having been put to it rather strong, said: "Golly, Massa Butler, dis nigger nebber had to work so hard befo'; dis chile gwine secede once moah."

Ohio _Statesman_, 1861

May Eighth

Having completed our repairs on May 8th, and while returning to our old anchorage, we heard heavy firing, and, going down the harbor, found the _Monitor_, with the iron-clads _Galena_, _Naugatuck_, and a number of heavy ships, shelling our batteries at Sewell's Point. We stood directly for the _Monitor_, but as we approached they all ceased firing and retreated below the forts.

COL. JOHN TAYLOR WOOD

_The "Virginia" again challenges the "Monitor" to battle, 1862_

_Battle of Palo Alto, 1846_

May Ninth

MOTHERS' DAY

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother." EDGAR ALLAN POE

May Tenth

Fearless and strong, self-dependent and ambitious, he had within him the making of a Napoleon, and yet his name is without spot or blemish.

LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C. B.

... Ask the world-- The world has heard his story-- If all its annals can unfold A prouder tale of glory? If ever merely human life Hath taught diviner moral-- If ever round a worthier brow Was twined a purer laurel? MARGARET J. PRESTON

_Stonewall Jackson dies, 1863_

May Eleventh

The Spanish legend tells us of the Cid, That after death he rode erect, sedately Along his lines, even as in life he did, In presence yet more stately.

And thus our Stuart at this moment seems To ride out of our dark and troubled story Into the region of romance and dreams, A realm of light and glory. JOHN R. THOMPSON

_J. E. B. Stuart mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, 1864_

May Twelfth

General Lee, you shall not lead my men in a charge!

GORDON

General Lee to the rear!--_His Soldiers._

I do wish somebody would tell me where my place is on the field of battle! Wherever I go to look after the fight, I am told, "This is no place for you; you must go away."

ROBERT E. LEE

_Lee, with 50,000 men, repulses Grant with 100,000, at Spottsylvania Court House; Lee "ordered" to the rear, 1864_

May Thirteenth

Good is the Saxon speech! clear, short, and strong, Its clean-cut words, fit both for prayer and song; Good is this tongue for all the needs of life; Good for sweet words with friend, or child, or wife.

* * * * *

'Tis good for laws; for vows of youth and maid; Good for the preacher; or shrewd folk in trade; Good for sea-calls when loud the rush of spray; Good for war-cries where men meet hilt to hilt, And man's best blood like new-trod wine is spilt,-- Good for all times, and good for what thou wilt! JAMES BARRON HOPE

_Landing at Jamestown, 1607_

_Texas troops, C. S. A., defeat Federals in last battle of the War, at Palmito Ranch, 1865, the victors learning from their prisoners that the Confederacy had fallen (Chas. Wm. Ramsdell)_

May Fourteenth

[This exploration] was undertaken at the instance of President Jefferson, and together with the voyage which Captain Gray of Boston had made to the Columbia, in 1792, gave the United States a claim to all the territory covered by the States of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

PHILIP ALEXANDER BRUCE

_Lewis and Clark start from St. Louis on northwestern expedition, 1804_

May Fifteenth

Throughout the events that led up to the Revolution, it seemed ordained that Massachusetts was to suffer and Virginia to sympathize. Until the outbreak of actual hostilities scarcely anything of moment occurred on the soil of Virginia to incite her sons to champion the cause of freedom. Indeed, from the beginning of the controversy between the colonies and the mother country, the British Ministry seemed to have avoided any special cause of irritation to the people of the Old Dominion. The part, therefore, which Virginia took in the events of those days must be attributed to her devotion to the principles of liberty, to her interest in the common cause of the colonies, and particularly to her sympathy with Massachusetts in the suffering which that province was called upon to endure. If we lose sight of these motives as the springs of Virginia's conduct in that struggle, we shall be unable to appreciate either the nobility of her spirit or the wisdom and energy which marked her initiative.

S. C. MITCHELL

_Virginia opposes Boston Port Bill, 1774_

May Sixteenth

I refuse to make any acknowledgments for what I have done. My blood will be as seed sown in good ground, which will produce a hundred fold.

JAMES PUGH

(_Before execution under Gov. Tryon, North Carolina, 1771_)

_Battle of Alamance Creek, 1771_

May Seventeenth

He came into military and political life like some blazing meteor, with exceeding brilliance and splendor speeding across the horizon of history. His activities in politics and war covered only a brief span of seventeen years, 1848 to 1865, and in so short a period but few men ever received more, maintained their parts better, were the recipients of greater honors, or bore themselves with nobler dignity, greater skill or more superb courage either in victory or defeat.

BENNETT H. YOUNG

_John C. Breckinridge dies, 1875_

May Eighteenth

Hushed is the roll of the rebel drum, The sabres are sheathed and the cannon are dumb; And Fate, with pitiless hand, has furled The flag that once challenged the gaze of the world. JOHN R. THOMPSON (_From "Lee to the Rear"_)

May Nineteenth

But the fame of the Wilderness fight abides, And down into history grandly rides Calm and unmoved as in battle he sat, The gray-bearded man in the black slouch hat. JOHN R. THOMPSON (_From "Lee to the Rear"_)

May Twentieth

You can get no troops from North Carolina.

GOV. ELLIS (_Reply to Washington administration, April 15, 1861_)

_North Carolina secedes from the Union, 1861_

May Twenty-First

The Dixie girls wear homespun cotton, But their winning smiles I've not forgotten; Look away, away, away down South in Dixie. They've won my heart and naught surpasses My love for the bright-eyed Dixie lasses; Look away, away, away down South in Dixie.

Chorus:

I'll give my life for Dixie; Away, away; In Dixie's land I'll take my stand, And live and die for Dixie. Away, away, Away down South in Dixie. MARIE LOUISE EVE

May Twenty-Second

How brilliant is the morning star; The evening star how tender; The light of both is in her eyes,-- Their softness and their splendor; But for the lash that shades their sight, They were too dazzling for the light, And when she shuts them all is night,-- The daughter of Mendoza. MIRABEAU B. LAMAR

May Twenty-Third

Great Chieftain of our choice, Albeit that people's voice No comfort speaks in thy lone granite keep; Through those harsh iron bars There come back from the stars Low echoes of the prayers they nightly weep. WILLIAM MUNFORD

_Jefferson Davis puts in irons at Fort Monroe, 1865_

May Twenty-Fourth

Yet to all Americans it must be a regrettable chapter in our history when it is remembered that this man was no common felon, but a prisoner of state, a distinguished Indian fighter, a Mexican veteran, a man who had held a seat in Congress, who had been Secretary of War of the United States, and who for four years had stood at the head of the Confederate States.

MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY (_Davis in chains_)

May Twenty-Fifth

A rich and well-stored mind is the only true philosopher's stone, extracting pure gold from all the base material around. It can create its own beauty, wealth, power, happiness. It has no dreary solitudes. The past ages are its possession, and the long line of the illustrious dead are all its friends.

GEORGE DAVIS

May Twenty-Sixth

Cease firing! There are here no foes to fight! Grim war is o'er and smiling peace now reigns; Cease useless strife--no matter who was right-- True magnanimity from hate abstains. Cease firing! MAJOR WILLIAM MEADE PEGRAM

_The last Confederate army, under General Kirby Smith, surrenders at Baton Rouge, 1865_

May Twenty-Seventh

Representing nothing on God's earth now, And naught in the water below it, As a pledge of a nation that's dead and gone, Keep it, dear Captain, and show it. Show it to those who will lend an ear To the tale this paper can tell Of liberty born, of the patriot's dream, Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.

Too poor to possess the precious ores, And too much of a stranger to borrow, We issued to-day our promise to pay, And hoped to repay on the morrow. MAJOR S. A. JONAS (_From "Lines on the back of a Confederate note"_)

May Twenty-Eighth

Old time negroes intuitively knew who "belonged" to them and who did not. The following incident is told of Senator Sumner's visit to friends at Gallatin, Tennessee, some years before the war; the colloquy is between the Senator and "Old Virginia Jeff:"

"Jeff, I hear you call all the white folks down here 'Marse'--'Marse Henry,' 'Marse John' or what not, isn't that true?"

"Yas, sah."

"And you always call me 'Mister Sumner.' Now, Jeff, here's a quarter. During the rest of my visit you call me Marse Charles, you hear?"

MAJOR JOHN C. WRENSHALL

_P. G. T. Beauregard born, 1818_

May Twenty-Ninth

If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

PATRICK HENRY

_Patrick Henry born, 1736_

May Thirtieth

Those who oppose slavery in Kansas do not base their opposition upon any philanthropic principles, or any sympathy for the African race. For, in their so-called Constitution, framed at Topeka, they deem that entire race so inferior and degraded as to exclude them all forever from Kansas, whether they be bond or free.

ROBERT J. WALKER

_Kansas given territorial rights by Congress, 1854_

May Thirty-First

SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE

... All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried _Abide, abide_, The wilful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said _Stay_. The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed _Abide, abide_, _Here in the hills of Habersham_, _Here in the valleys of Hall_. SIDNEY LANIER

_British Government declared suspended in North Carolina (Mecklenburg) 1775_

June

THE SLEEPER

At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; Wrapping the fog above its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. EDGAR ALLAN POE

June First

... The year, And all the gentle daughters in her train, March in our ranks, and in our service wield Long spears of golden grain! A yellow blossom as her fairy shield, June flings her azure banner to the wind, While in the order of their birth Her sisters pass, and many an ample field Grows white beneath their steps, till now, behold, Its endless sheets unfold The snow of Southern summers! HENRY TIMROD (_Ethnogenesis_)

_Kentucky admitted to the Union, 1792_

_Tennessee admitted to the Union, 1796_

_John H. Morgan born, 1825_

June Second

In regard to African Slavery, which has played so important a part in our political history, Randolph was an Emancipationist, as distinguished from an Abolitionist. This distinction was a very broad one; as broad as that between Algernon Sidney and Jack Cade; or between Charlemagne and Peter the Hermit--in fact, it was the difference between Reason and Fanaticism. On this subject Randolph and Clay concurred; both were Emancipationists, and both denounced the Abolitionists; as did also Webster, and all the best, wisest, and purest men of that day.

JUDGE DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS

_John Randolph born, 1773_

June Third

Other leaders have had their triumphs. Conquerors have won crowns, and honors have been piled on the victors of earth's great battles, but never, sir, came man to more loving people.

HENRY W. GRADY

_Jefferson Davis born in Kentucky, 1808_

June Fourth

In the hallowed stillness of your bridal eve, ere the guests have all assembled, lift up to yours the pale face, love's perfect image, and you shall see that vision to which God our Father vouchsafes no equal this side the jasper throne--you shall see the ineffable eyes of innocence entrusting to you, unworthy, oh! so unworthy, her destiny through time and eternity. Inhale the perfume of her breath and hair, that puts the violets of the wood to shame; press your first kiss (for now she is all your own), your first kiss upon the trembling petals of her lips, and you shall hear, with ears you knew not that you had, the silver chiming of your wedding bells far, far up in heaven.

GEORGE W. BAGBY

June Fifth

THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH

Instead of superficial adornments and supine action, the intellectual sympathies and interests of these women were large, and they undertook with wise and just guidance, the management of households and farms and servants, leaving the men free for war and civil government. These noble and resolute women were the mothers of the Gracchi, of the men who built up the greatness of the Union and accomplished the unexampled achievements of the Confederacy.

J. L. M. CURRY

June Sixth

To the brave all homage render, Weep ye skies of June! With a radiance pure and tender, Shine, oh saddened moon! Dead upon the field of glory, Hero fit for song and story, Lies our bold dragoon. JOHN R. THOMPSON

_Turner Ashby killed in Shenandoah Valley Campaign, 1862_

_Patrick Henry dies, 1799_

June Seventh

Peace to the dead! though peace is not In the regal dome or the pauper cot; Peace to the dead! there's peace, we trust, With the pale dreamers in the dust. JAMES RYDER RANDALL

_Monument created, 1910, to the memory of Confederate officers who perished from starvation and exposure at Johnson's Island_

June Eighth

Aurora faints in the fulgent fire Of the Monarch of Morning's bright embrace And the summer day climbs higher and higher Up the cerulean space; The pearl-tints fade from the radiant grain, And the sportive breeze of the ocean dies, And soon in the noontide's soundless rain The fields seem graced by a million eyes; Each grain with a glance from its lidded fold As bright as a gnome's in his mine of gold, While the slumb'rous glamour of beam and heat Glides over and under the windless wheat. PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

_Stonewall Jackson turns upon Fremont at Cross Keys, 1862_

June Ninth

He sleeps--what need to question now If he were wrong or right? He knows ere this whose cause was just In God the Father's sight. He wields no warlike weapons now, Returns no foeman's thrust,-- Who but a coward would revile An honest soldier's dust?

Roll, Shenandoah, proudly roll, Adown thy rocky glen, Above thee lies the grave of one Of Stonewall Jackson's men. MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND

_Stonewall Jackson meets Shields at Port Republic, 1862_

June Tenth

The indomitable courage, the patient endurance of privations, the supreme devotion of the Southern soldiers, will stand on the pages of history, as engraven on a monument more enduring than brass.

MAJ. JAS. F. HUNTINGTON, U. S. A.

_United Confederate Veterans organized at New Orleans, 1889_

_Battle of Bethel, Va., the first regular engagement of the War between the States, 1861_

June Eleventh

We believed that it was most desirable that the North should win; we believed in the principle that the Union is indissoluble; but we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred convictions that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them, as every man with a heart must respect those who gave all for their belief.

JUSTICE O. W. HOLMES (Massachusetts)

June Twelfth

The band preceding the coffin smote on their ears with poignant loud lamenting, then carried its sorrow to die moaning on the night. As the shadowy cortege filed by--men bearing lanterns on either side the hearse--a horse, riderless, with boots empty in the stirrups, following--a few soldiers carrying arms reversed--a single carriage with mourners--the effect was infinitely sad. So common the spectacle during the Battle Summer, it did not occur to them to even wonder which of our martyrs was thus journeying to his last home.

MRS. BURTON HARRISON

June Thirteenth

A little bird there was once, with golden wings; In the stars she would build her nest; And so, with a twig in her beak, at eventide When Hesperus sank to rest, Away to the starry deep she flew;--for said she, "In the Pleiades shall my nesting be!" Ah, little bird! There are heights far, far too high For the reach of those tiny wings! Down here by this thicket of haw let us rest, you and I, And list what the brooklet sings! ALLEN KERR BOND

June Fourteenth

A flash from the edge of a hostile trench, A puff of smoke, a roar Whose echo shall roll from the Kenesaw Hills To the farthermost Christian shore, Proclaims to the world that the warrior priest Will battle for right no more. HENRY LYNDEN FLASH

_Gen. Leonidas Polk, the Warrior Bishop, killed at Kenesaw Mountain, 1864_

June Fifteenth

O, Art, high gift of Heaven! how oft defamed When seeming praised! To most a craft that fits, By dead, prescriptive Rule, the scattered bits Of gathered knowledge; even so misnamed By some who would invoke thee. WASHINGTON ALLSTON

June Sixteenth

W'en banjer git ter talkin' You better hol' yo' tongue, Hit mek you think youse gre't an' gran' An' rich an' strong an' young, An' ev'rything whar scrumpshus Right at yo' feet is flung.

Oh, my soul gits up an' humps hisse'f An' goes outside an' walks, W'en a picker gits ter pickin' An' de banjer talks! ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON

_Winchester captured by Confederates, 1863_

June Seventeenth

GENEROUS TRIBUTE OF A BRAVE FOE AND DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN SOLDIER AND CITIZEN

Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia never sustained defeat. Finally succumbing to exhaustion, to the end they were not overthrown in fight.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS (Massachusetts)

June Eighteenth

Now, Ham, de only nigger whut wuz runnin' on der packet, Got lonesome in de barber-shop, an' c'u'dn't stan' de racket; An' so, fur to amuse hese'f, he steamed some wood an' bent it, An' soon he had a banjo made--de fust dat wuz invented.

De 'possum had as fine a tail as dis dat I's a-singin'; De ha'r's so long an' thick an' strong,--des fit fur banjo-stringin'; Dat nigger shaved 'em off as short as washday-dinner graces; An' sorted ob' em by de size, f'om little E's to basses. IRWIN RUSSELL (_Origin of the Banjo on Board the Ark_)

June Nineteenth

By Captain Winslow's account, the _Kearsarge_ was struck twenty-eight times; but his ship being armored, my shot and shell fell harmless into the sea. The _Alabama_ was not mortally wounded until after the _Kearsarge_ had been firing at her _an hour and ten minutes_. In the meantime, in spite of the armor of the _Kearsarge_, I lodged a rifled percussion shell near her stern post--_where there were no chains_--which failed to explode because of the defect of the cap. On so slight an incident--the defect of a percussion-cap--did the battle hinge.

RAPHAEL SEMMES

_The "Alabama" sunk by the "Kearsarge" off Cherbourg, 1864_

June Twentieth

Jamestown and St. Mary's are both within the segment of a circle of comparatively small radius whose centre is at the mouth of the Chesapeake. In this strategic region, the key of America, Raleigh chose the base from which he would colonize the new empire; here the Jamestown experiment succeeded, after Raleigh's head had fallen on the block; the Revolution was fired by the eloquence of Patrick Henry, and was consummated at Yorktown; the War of 1812 was settled by the victories of North Point and Fort McHenry; the crisis of the Civil War occurred; and seven Presidents of the United States were born.

ALLEN S. WILL

_The first Lord Baltimore obtains from the Crown a grant of the territory lying between the Potomac and the 40th parallel, 1632_

_Secession of West Virginia from Virginia sustained by the Federal Government, 1863_

_"Virginia, who had given to all the States in common five great commonwealths of the northwest and the county of Kentucky, was now bereft of half of what remained to her"_

June Twenty-First

What care I if Cyrus McCormick was born in Rockbridge County? These new-fangled "contraptions" are to the old system what the little, dirty, black steam-tug is to the three-decker, with its cloud of snowy canvas towering to the skies--the grandest and most beautiful sight in the world. I wouldn't give Uncle Isham's picked man, "long Billy Carter," leading the field, with one good drink of whisky in him--I wouldn't give one swing of his cradle and one "ketch" of his straw for all the mowers and reapers in creation.

GEORGE W. BAGBY

_Cyrus Hall McCormick of Virginia patents his reaping machine, 1831_

June Twenty-Second

If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky. EDGAR ALLAN POE

_Arkansas readmitted to the Union, 1868_

June Twenty-Third

THE BROOK

It is the mountain to the sea That makes a messenger of me: And, lest I loiter on the way And lose what I am sent to say, He sets his reverie to song And bids me sing it all day long. JOHN B. TABB

June Twenty-Fourth

AN AMUSING COMMENTARY ON THE MAKING OF SOME HISTORIES

I have here a small volume entitled, "John Randolph, by Henry Adams." It is one of a series called "American Statesmen," and emanates from the thin air of Boston. The series is edited by Mr. J. T. Morse, Jr. By what law of selection he has been governed in allotting to particular authors the preparation of respective biographies it is impossible to divine. It is quite clear, however, that he has not followed any rule of qualification or congeniality hitherto recognized by men or angels. For example, a foreigner, Dr. Von Holtz, who, in an emphatically European and un-American treatise on the Federal Constitution, had already denounced Calhoun as a kind of Lucifer, is appointed his biographer; Henry Clay, the father of Protection (as it is called), is assigned to Carl Schurz, who, I understand, is an ardent advocate of Free Trade; while John Randolph is turned over to the tender mercies of a descendant of the first Vice-President, and the grandson of John Quincy Adams!

Had this unique law of selection prevailed hitherto, we might have had a biography of Luther by Leo the Tenth; a life of St. Thomas Aquinas by Thomas Payne; while Pontius Pilate, or more likely the devil himself, would have been selected to chronicle the divine career of Jesus Christ.

DANIEL B. LUCAS

_John Randolph dies, 1833_

June Twenty-Fifth

But far away another line is stretching dark and long, Another flag is floating free where armed legions throng; Another war-cry's on the air, as wakes the martial drum, And onward still, in serried ranks, the Southern soldiers come. GEORGE HERBERT SASS

_Beginning of Seven Days' Battle around Richmond, 1862_

June Twenty-Sixth

A PROPHECY, 1869

The close of the Civil War found the conquering States so nearly equally divided between the Radical and Conservative parties, that if the South should be restored to her relative might in the Union, the balance would be thrown at once in favor of the Conservatives. The problem therefore assumed a mathematical form, and demanded that the South should not reinforce the Conservatives of the North. This could be prevented only in two ways, _viz._; either by keeping the South out of the Union entirely or by placing the political power there in the hands of a minority. To adopt one or the other of these expedients was a party necessity. This is the whole key to Reconstruction; and fifty years hence no man living will be found to deny it.

JUDGE J. FAIRFAX MCLAUGHLIN (_In the "Southern Metropolis," June 26, 1869_)

June Twenty-Seventh

The duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of our enemy than in our own.

ROBERT E. LEE

_Lee issues his famous Chambersburg order, 1863_

_"Winnie" Davis born, 1864_

June Twenty-Eighth

COL. WILLIAM MOULTRIE; SERGEANT JASPER; "PALMETTO DAY"

The battle holds a conspicuous place in the history of the Revolution. It was our first clear victory over the British, and won over one of England's most distinguished naval officers.

JOHN J. DARGAN

_Defence of Fort Sullivan, (Moultrie,) 1776_

_North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana readmitted to the Union, 1868_

June Twenty-Ninth

His trumpet-tones re-echoed like Evangels to the free, Where Chimborazo views the world Mosaic'd in the sea; And his proud form shall stand erect In that triumphal car Which bears to the Valhalla gates Heroic Bolivar! JAMES RYDER RANDALL

_Henry Clay dies, 1852_

June Thirtieth

Yes, there's a charm about the name of Mary Which haunts me like some old enchanter's spell, Or rather like the voice of some sweet fairy, Singing low love-songs in a lonely dell. It hath a music that can never weary, A strain that seems of love and grief to tell, The echoes of an anthem from the shrine Of peace, and bliss, and rest, and love divine. WILLIAM WOODSON HENDREE

_Robert E. Lee marries Mary Page Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, 1831_

July

A SUMMER SHOWER

Meanwhile, unreluctant, Earth like Danae lies; Listen! is it fancy, That beneath us sighs, As that warm lap receives the largesse of the skies?

Jove, it is, descendeth In those crystal rills; And this world-wide tremor Is a pulse that thrills To a god's life infused through veins of velvet hills.

Wait, thou jealous sunshine, Break not on their bliss; Earth will blush in roses Many a day for this, And bend a brighter brow beneath thy burning kiss. HENRY TIMROD

July First

A SOUTHERN SOLDIER'S TRIBUTE

To the Union commander, General George Gordon Meade, history will accord the honor of having handled his army at Gettysburg with unquestioned ability. The record and the results of the battle entitle him to a high place among Union leaders. To him and to his able subordinates and heroic men is due the credit of having successfully met and repelled the Army of Northern Virginia in the meridian of its hope and confidence and power.

GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON

_First day at Gettysburg, 1863_

July Second

General Lee distinctly ordered Longstreet to attack early the morning of the second day, and if he had done so, two of the largest corps of Meade's army would not have been in the fight; but Longstreet delayed the attack until four o'clock in the afternoon, and thus lost his opportunity of occupying Little Round Top, the key to the position, which he might have done in the morning without firing a shot or losing a man.

GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON

_Second day at Gettysburg, 1863_

July Third

General Lee ordered Longstreet to attack at daybreak on the morning of the third day.... He did not attack until two or three o'clock in the afternoon, the artillery opening at one.... Nothing that occurred at Gettysburg, nor anything that has been written since of that battle, has lessened the conviction that, had Lee's orders been promptly and cordially executed, Meade's centre on the third day would have been penetrated and the Union Army overwhelmingly defeated.

GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON

_Third day at Gettysburg, 1863_

_Joel Chandler Harris dies, 1908_

July Fourth

General Lee, according to the testimony of Colonel Walter H. Taylor, Colonel C. S. Venable, and General A. L. Long, who were present when the order was given, ordered Longstreet to make the attack on the last day, with the three divisions of his corps, and two divisions of A. P. Hill's corps, and that instead of doing so he sent fourteen thousand men to assail Meade's army in his strong position, and heavily intrenched.

GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON

_Lee awaits the attack of Meade at Gettysburg throughout the fourth day, 1863_

_Vicksburg surrenders, 1863_

_Thomas Jefferson dies, 1826_

July Fifth

Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine. Prim creed, with categoric point, forbear To feature me my Lord by rule and line. Thou canst not measure Mistress Nature's hair, Not one sweet inch: nay, if thy sight is sharp, Wouldst count the strings upon an angel's harp? Forbear, forbear. SIDNEY LANIER

July Sixth

A golden pallor of voluptuous light Filled the warm Southern night; The moon, clear orbed, above the sylvan scene Moved like a stately queen, So rife with conscious beauty all the while, What could she do but smile At her perfect loveliness below, Glassed in the tranquil flow Of crystal fountains And unruffled streams? PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

_Paul Hamilton Hayne dies, 1886_

_John Marshall dies, 1835_

July Seventh

Do orioles from verdant Chesapeake, And crested cardinal, With linnets from the Severn, come to seek, Obedient to thy call, If they can give thee one new music-thought, Who ev'ry note from ev'ry land hast caught? E. G. LEE (_The Mocking Bird_)

July Eighth

Sweet bird! that from yon dancing spray Dost warble forth thy varied lay, From early morn to close of day Melodious changes singing, Sure thine must be the magic art That bids my drowsy fancy start, While from the furrows of my heart, Hope's fairy flowers are springing. CHARLES WILLIAM HUBNER (_The Mocking Bird_)

July Ninth

And to defenders and besiegers it is alike unjust to say, even though it has been said by the highest authority, that Port Hudson surrendered only because Vicksburg had fallen. The simple truth is that Port Hudson surrendered because its hour had come. The garrison was literally starving. With less than 3000 famished men in line, powerful mines beneath the salients, and a last assault about to be delivered at 10 places, what else was left to do?

LIEUT.-COL. RICHARD B. IRWIN, U. S. V.

_Fall of Port Hudson, 1863_

_Defeat of Lew Wallace by Early at the Monocacy, Maryland, 1864_

_Alexander Doniphan, "the Xenophon of America," born 1808_

July Tenth

MAMMY'S FIRST EXPERIENCE AT THE 'PHONE

We heard Mammy say "Hello--H'llo! (What meks you rattle de handle so?) Is dat _you_, Miss?--wants Main twenty-free! (I ain't gwine to have you foolin' wid me!) I say, Main twenty----what's ailin' you? '_Bizzy!_' I guess I'se bizzy, too! You gim-me dat number twenty-free, I'se bizzier 'n you ever dared ter be!" MARY JOHNSON BLACKBURN

July Eleventh

The Old World had its Xantippe; but----the facts have not been fully established in the New!

"Under This Marble Tomb Lies The Body Of The HON. JOHN CUSTIS, Esq., Of The City Of Williamsburg, And Parish of Bruton, Formerly Of Hungar's Parish, On The Eastern Shore Of Virginia, And County Of Northampton, Age 71 Years, And Yet Lived But Seven, Which Was The Space Of Time He Kept A Bachelor's Home At Arlington, On The Eastern Shore Of Virginia."

"This Inscription put on His Tomb was by His Own Positive Orders."

July Twelfth

Jackson's genius for war, Lee's resistless magnetism, were not vouchsafed to Hill; but in those characteristics in which he excelled: invincible tenacity, absolute unconsciousness of fear, a courage never to submit or yield, no one has risen above him, not even in the annals of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was the very "Ironsides" of the South--Cromwell in some of his essential characteristics coming again in the person and genius of D. H. Hill.

HENRY E. SHEPHERD

_D. H. Hill born, 1821_

July Thirteenth

Though the Grey were outnumbered, he counted no odd, But fought like a demon and struck like a god, Disclaiming defeat on the blood-curdled sod, As he pledged to the South that he loved. VIRGINIA FRAZER BOYLE

_N. B. Forrest born, 1821_

July Fourteenth

Pleasant and wonderfully fair, Like one that knows her own domain, Magnolia-flowers in her hair, And orange-blossoms rare, Let her not knock in vain! Lift up your equal heads to her, Of all your courts contain, co-heir, For lo! she claims her own again! DANIEL B. LUCAS (_The South Shall Claim Her Own Again_)

July Fifteenth

FACT OR FICTION?

For four years the Northern States fought to keep their Southern sisters in the Federal family; then having soundly thrashed these sisters in order to keep them at home, they suddenly shut the door and kicked them down the steps! The "erring sisters" are now fully restored to the family circle; but they had a longer and more painful struggle in the effort to get back than in the attempt to get away. More briefly, for four years the Federal government, led by Lincoln, maintained that all of the Southern States were in the Union and could not get out; and then for five years, under the rule of the Radicals, it argued that some of these States were out of the Union and could not get in!

MATTHEW PAGE ANDREWS

_Reconstruction ended and the Union restored by the readmission of Georgia, 1870_

July Sixteenth

I shall yet live to see it an English nation.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

_Raleigh's first colony arrives at Roanoke Island, 1584_

July Seventeenth

KIN

A visitor in the Old Chapel Graveyard, in Clarke County, Virginia, asked the aged negro sexton if he knew the whereabouts of a certain grave, adding that the deceased was her relative.

"Ole Mis' Anne? Why ob cose I knows whar my ole mistis is! She your gran'ma! Jus' to think now, if you hadn't spoke we never would have knowed we was related!"

July Eighteenth

Uncle Remus was quite a fogy in his idea of negro education. One day a number of negro children, on their way home from school, were impudent to the old man, and he was giving them an untempered piece of his mind, when a gentleman apologized for them by saying: "Oh well, they are school children. You know how they are."

"Dat's what make I say what I duz," said Uncle Remus. "Dey better be at home pickin' up chips. What a nigger gwineter learn outen books? I kin take a bar'l stave and fling mo' sense inter a nigger in one minnit dan all de school houses betwixt dis en de New Nited States en Midgigin. Don't talk, honey! wid one bar'l stave I kin fairly lif de vail er ignunce."

(Quoted by) HENRY STILES BRADLEY

July Nineteenth

What was my offense? My husband was absent--an exile. He had never been a politician or in any way engaged in the struggle now going on, his age preventing. The house was built by my father, a Revolutionary soldier, who served the whole seven years for your independence.... Was it for this that you turned me, my young daughter and little son out upon the world without a shelter? Or was it because my husband was the grandson of the Revolutionary patriot and "rebel," Richard Henry Lee, and the near kinsman of the noblest of Christian warriors, the greatest of generals, Robert E. Lee?... _Your_ name will stand on history's page as the Hunter of weak women and innocent children; the Hunter to destroy defenseless villages and refined and beautiful homes--to torture afresh the agonized hearts of widows; the Hunter of Africa's poor sons and daughters, to lure them on to ruin and death of soul and body; the Hunter with the relentless heart of a wild beast, the face of a fiend and the form of a man.

HENRIETTA B. LEE

[Extract from letter to General Hunter, often referred to as the best example of excoriating rebuke in American literature. Mrs. Lee's home was burned July 19, 1864]

July Twentieth

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on life's parade shall meet The brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead. THEODORE O'HARA

[It is remarkable that the memorial inscriptions of Federal cemeteries are taken from stanzas written by a "rebel" soldier-poet. Grand Army Posts have also made use of "anonymous" lines by Major Wm. M. Pegram, C. S. A., (quoted May 26th), when decorating Confederate graves. Both uses are unconscious but eloquent tributes to the genius of Southern expression.--Editor]

_Burial in Frankfort of Kentuckians killed in the Mexican War, 1847_

July Twenty-First

We thought they slept!--the sons who kept The names of noble sires, And slumbered while the darkness crept Around their vigil fires! But, aye, the "Golden Horseshoe" knights Their Old Dominion keep, Whose foes have found enchanted ground, But not a knight asleep. FRANCIS O. TICKNOR

_First Battle of Manassas, 1861_

July Twenty-Second

In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine My tireless arm doth play, Where the rocks never saw the sun's decline, Or the dawn of the glorious day.

* * * * *

I blow the bellows, I forge the steel, In all the shops of trade; I hammer the ore and turn the wheel Where my arms of strength are made; I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint, I carry, I spin, I weave, And all my doings I put in print On every Saturday eve. GEORGE W. CUTTER (_The Song of Steam_)

July Twenty-Third

... The rush, the tumult, and the fear Of this our modern age Have only widened out the poet's sphere, Have given him a broader stage On which to act his part. The spiritual world of godlike aspirations, The kingdom of the sympathetic heart, The fair domain of high imaginations, Lie open to the poet as of old. Wrong still is wrong, and right is right,

* * * * *

And to declare that poetry must go, Is to do God a wrong. WILLIAM P. TRENT (_The Age and the Poet_)

July Twenty-Fourth

Ante-bellum Master: "Julius, you rascal, if this happens again we'll have to part."

"La, Marse Phil, whar you gwine?"

July Twenty-Fifth

The nights are full of love; The stars and moon take up the golden tale Of the sunk sun, and passionate and pale, Mixing their fires above, Grow eloquent thereof. MADISON CAWEIN

July Twenty-Sixth

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MAMMY PHYLLIS

"Hush, Mary Van," commanded Willis; "you can't crow, you've got to cackle."

"I haven't neether; I can crow just as good as you. Can't I, Mammy Phyllis?"

"Well," solemnly answered Phyllis, "it soun' mo' ladylike ter hear er hen cackle dan ter crow, but dem wimmen fokes whut wants ter heah dersefs crow is got de right ter do it," shaking her head in resignation but disapproval, "but I allus notice dat de roosters keeps mo' comp'ny wid hens whut cackles dan dem whut crows. G'long now an' cackle like er nice lit'le hen."

SARAH JOHNSON COCKE

July Twenty-Seventh

'Tis night! calm, lovely, silent, cloudless night! Unnumbered stars on Heaven's blue ocean-stream, Ships of Eternity! shed silver light, Pure as an infant's or an angel's dream; And still exhaustless, glorious, ever-bright, Such as Creation's dawn beheld them beam, In changeless orbits hold their ceaseless race For endless ages over boundless space! RICHARD HENRY WILDE

July Twenty-Eighth

When he first set down he 'peared to keer mighty little 'bout playin', and wished he hadn't come. He tweedle-leedled a little on the trible, and twoodle-oodle-oodled some on the base--just foolin' and boxin' the thing's jaws for bein' in his way. And I says to a man settin' next to me, s'I "what sort of fool play'n is that?... He thinks he's a doing of it; but he ain't got no idee, no plan of nuthin'. If he'd play me up a tune of some kind or other, I'd----"

But my neighbor says, "Heish!" very impatient....

GEORGE W. BAGBY (_How Rubenstein Played_)

July Twenty-Ninth

... He fetcht up his right wing, he fetcht up his left wing, he fetcht up his centre, he fetcht up his reserves. He fired by file, he fired by platoons, by company, by regiments and by brigades. He opened his cannon, siege guns down thar, Napoleons here, twelve-pounders yonder, big guns, little guns, middle-size guns, round shot, shell, shrapnel, grape, canister, mortars, mines and magazines, every livin' battery and bomb a'goin' at the same time. The house trembled, the lights danced, the walls shuk, the floor came up, the ceilin' come down, the sky spilt, the ground rockt--heavens and earth, creation, sweet potatoes, Moses, nine-pences, glory, ten-penny nails, my Mary Ann, hallelujah, Samson in a 'simmon tree, Jeroosal'm, Tump Tompson in a tumbler-cart, roodle--oodle--oodle--oodle-- ruddle--uddle--uddle--uddle--raddle--addle--addle--addle--addle--riddle-- iddle--iddle--iddle--reetle--eetle--eetle--eetle--eetle--p-r-r-r-r-r-land! per lang! per lang! p-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-lang! Bang!... When I come to....

GEORGE W. BAGBY (_How Rubenstein Played_)

July Thirtieth

Let me also recall the fact that on July 30, 1619, eighteen months before the Pilgrims set foot on American soil, the vine of liberty had so deeply taken root in the colony of Virginia that there was assembled in the church at Jamestown a free representative body (the first on American soil)--the House of Burgesses--to deliberate for the welfare of the people.

RANDOLPH H. MCKIM

_First Legislative Assembly in America meets at Jamestown, 1619_

_Battle of the Crater, near Petersburg, 1864_

July Thirty-First

It was probably the most remarkable evidence on record of the resourcefulness of the Anglo-Saxon race, and its ability and determination to dominate. Driven to desperation by conditions that threatened to destroy their civilization, the citizens of the South, through this organization, turned upon their enemies, overwhelmed them, and became again masters of their own soil ... and its proper use must be commended by all good men everywhere, for by it was preserved the purest Anglo-Saxon civilization of this nation.

CAREY A. FOLK (_The Ku Klux Klan_)

August

SUMMER

A trembling haze hangs over all the fields-- The panting cattle in the river stand Seeking the coolness which its wave scarce yields. It seems a Sabbath thro' the drowsy land: So hush'd is all beneath the Summer's spell, I pause and listen for some faint church bell.

The leaves are motionless--the song-bird's mute-- The very air seems somnolent and sick: The spreading branches with o'er-ripened fruit Show in the sunshine all their clusters thick, While now and then a mellow apple falls With a dull sound within the orchard's walls.

The sky has but one solitary cloud, Like a dark island in a sea of light; The parching furrows 'twixt the corn-rows plough'd Seem fairly dancing in my dazzled sight, While over yonder road a dusty haze Grows reddish purple in the sultry blaze. JAMES BARRON HOPE

August First

The Southampton Insurrection, which occurred in August, 1831, was one of those untoward incidents which so often marked the history of slavery. Under the leadership of one Nat Turner, a negro preacher of some education, who felt that he had been called of God to deliver his race from bondage, the negroes attacked the whites at night, and before the assault could be suppressed, fifty-seven whites, principally women and children, had been killed. This deplorable event assumed an even more portentous aspect when it was realized that the leader was a slave to whom the privilege of education had been accorded, and that one of his lieutenants was a free negro. In addition, there existed a wide-spread belief among the whites that influences and instigations from without the State were responsible for the insurrection.

BEVERLY B. MUNFORD

August Second

But in addition to the Southampton Massacre, and the failure of the Legislature to enact any effective legislation, the contemporary rise of the Abolitionists in the North came as an even more powerful factor to embarrass the efforts of the Virginia emancipators. Unlike the anti-slavery men of former years, this new school not only attacked the institution of slavery, but the morality of the slaveholders and their sympathizers. In their fierce arraignment, not only were the humane and considerate linked in infamy with the cruel and intolerant, but the whole population of the slave-holding States, their civilization and their morals were the object of unrelenting and incessant assaults.

BEVERLY B. MUNFORD

August Third

Resolved, "That secession from the United States Government is the duty of every Abolitionist, since no one can take office or deposit his vote under the Constitution without violating his anti-slavery principles, and rendering himself an abettor of the slave-holder in his sin."

From Resolutions of the American Anti-Slavery Society

August Forth

His last campaign alone, even ending as it did in defeat, would have sufficed to fix him forever as a star of the first magnitude in the constellation of great captains. Though he succumbed at last to the "policy of attrition," pursued by his patient and able antagonist, it was not until Grant had lost in the campaign over 124,000 men, better armed and equipped--two men for every one that Lee had had in his army from the beginning of the campaign.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

_Lee elected President of Washington College, 1865_

August Fifth

By the recognized universal public law of all the earth, war dissolves all political compacts. Our forefathers gave as one of their grounds for asserting their independence that the King of Great Britain had "abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war upon us." The people and the Government of the Northern States of the late Union have acted in the same manner toward Missouri, and have dissolved, by war, the connection heretofore existing between her and them.

GOV. C. F. JACKSON

_Governor Jackson declares Missouri out of the Union, 1861_

August Sixth

Very soon after, the Essex was seen approaching under full steam. Stevens, as humane as he was true and brave, finding that he could not bring a single gun to bear upon the coming foe, sent all his people over the bows ashore, remaining alone to set fire to his vessel; this he did so effectually that he had to jump from the stern into the river and save himself by swimming; and with colors flying, the gallant _Arkansas_, whose decks had never been pressed by the foot of an enemy, was blown into the air.

CAPTAIN ISAAC N. BROWN

_The "Arkansas" destroyed, 1862_

_Judah P. Benjamin born, 1811_

August Seventh

Oh, de cabin at de quarter in de old plantation days, Wid de garden patch behin' it an' de gode-vine by de do', An' de do'-yard sot wid roses, whar de chillun runs and plays, An' de streak o' sunshine, yaller lak, er-slantin' on de flo'!

But ole Mars' wuz killed at Shiloh, an' young Mars' at Wilderness; Ole Mis' is in de graveyard, wid young Mis' by her side, An' all er we-all's fambly is scattered eas' an' wes', An' de gode-vine by de cabin do' an' de roses all has died! MARY EVELYN MOORE DAVIS

August Eighth

Here Carolina comes, her brave cheeks warm And wet with tears, to take in charge this dust, And brings her daughters to receive in form Virginia's sacred trust. JAMES BARRON HOPE

_Monument erected to Anne Carter Lee, Warren County, N. C., said to be the first monument erected by Southern women, 1866_

August Ninth

"All quiet along the Potomac," they say, "Except now and then a stray picket Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket. 'Tis nothing--a private or two, now and then, Will not count in the news of the battle; Not an officer lost--only one of the men, Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle." _From "All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night"_

[This poem has been claimed by a Mississippian. It has also been claimed on behalf of a New York writer; but it now seems probable that the verses were originally written in camp by Thaddeus Oliver, of Georgia, in August, 1861.--Editor]

_Francis Scott Key born, 1780_

August Tenth

To defend your birthright and mine, which is more precious than domestic ease, or property, or life, I exchange, with proud satisfaction, a term of six years in the Senate of the United States for the musket of a soldier.

JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE

_General Lyon killed and his army defeated by General Ben. McCulloch at Wilson Creek, Mo., 1861_

August Eleventh

Against the night, a champion bright, The glow-worm, lifts a spear of light; And, undismayed, the slenderest shade Against the noonday bares a blade. JOHN B. TABB (_Heroes_)

August Twelfth

I will say that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor inter-marry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And, inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior; and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

_The Mississippi Constitutional Convention meets in Jackson, 1890, principally for the purpose of restricting suffrage_

August Thirteenth

Virginia, mother of States and statesmen, as she used to be called, has contributed many men of worth to the multitude that America can number. All her sons have loved her well, while many have reflected great honor on her. But of them all, none has known how to draw her portrait like that one who years ago, under the mild voice and quiet exterior of State Librarian and occasional contributor to the Periodical Press, hid the soul of a man of letters and an artist.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

_George W. Bagby born, 1828_

August Fourteenth

Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands, And waves his blades upon the very edge And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er may walk nor talk, Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime That leads the vanward of his timid time And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme. SIDNEY LANIER (_Corn_)

August Fifteenth

In the hush of the valley of silence I dream all the songs that I sing; And the music floats down the dim Valley Till each finds a word for a wing, That to hearts, like the Dove of the Deluge, A message of Peace they may bring. ABRAM J. RYAN

_Abram J. Ryan born, 1839_

August Sixteenth

Freighted with fruits, aflush with flowers,-- Oblations to offended powers,-- What fairy-like flotillas gleam At night on Brahma's sacred stream.

* * * * *

Around each consecrated bark That sailed into the outer dark What lambent light those lanterns gave! What opalescent mazes played Reduplicated on the wave, While, to and fro, like censers swayed, They made it luminous to glass Their fleeting splendors ere they pass! THEOPHILUS HUNTER HILL (_A Ganges Dream_)

_Battle of Camden, S. C., 1780_

August Seventeenth

My judgments were never appealed from, and if they had been, they would have stuck like wax, as I gave my decisions on the principles of common justice and honesty between man and man, and relied not on law learning; for I have never read a page in a law book in my life.

DAVID CROCKETT

_David Crockett born, 1786_

August Eighteenth

Like a mist of the sea at morn it comes, Gliding among the fisher-homes-- The vision of a woman fair; And every eye beholds her there Above the topmost dune, With fluttering robe and streaming hair, Seaward gazing in dumb despair, Like one who begs of the waves a boon. BENJAMIN SLEDD (_The Wraith of Roanoke_)

_Virginia Dare, the first child born in America of English parentage, 1587_

August Nineteenth

... Hast thou perchance repented, Saracen Sun? Wilt warm the world with peace and love-desire? Or wilt thou, ere this very day be done, Blaze Saladin still, with unforgiving fire? SIDNEY LANIER (_A Sunrise Song_)

August Twentieth

"Well," says Uncle Remus, "de 'oman make 'umble 'pology ter de boy, but howsomever he can't keep from rubbin' hisse'f in de naberhood er de coat tails, whar she spank 'im. I bin livin' 'round here a mighty long time, but I ain't never see no polergy what wuz poultice er plaster nuff to swage er swellin' or kore a bruise. Now you jes keep dat in min' en git sorry fo' you hurt anybody."

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

August Twenty-First

The radicals and negroes had, in the summer of 1867, refused to "co-operate" with the representative white citizens in restoring political and social order. The election of delegates to the constitutional convention was held in October, 1867. About 94,000 negroes voted. The radical majority included five foreign born, twenty-five negroes, twenty-eight Northerners, and fourteen Virginians. Never before in the history of the State had negroes sat in a law-making body. The former political leaders were absent. The State had been revolutionized.

JOHN PRESTON MCCONNELL (_Reconstruction in Virginia_)

August Twenty-Second

The moon has climbed her starry dome, That taper gleams no more: Delicious visions wait me home, Delicious dreams of yore. Old waves of thought voluptuous swell, And rainbows spread amid the spell Arcades of love and light. Oh! what were slumber's drowsy kiss, To golden visions such as this, Through all the wakeful night? JOSEPH SALYARDS (_Idothea; Idyll III_)

August Twenty-Third

EVOLUTION

Out of the dark a shadow, Then, a spark; Out of the cloud a silence, Then, a lark; Out of the heart a rapture, Then, a pain; Out of the dead, cold ashes, Life again. JOHN B. TABB

August Twenty-Fourth

I have led the young men of the South in battle; I have seen many of them fall under my standard. I shall devote my life now to training young men to do their duty in life.

ROBERT E. LEE

_General Lee accepts the Presidency of Washington College, 1865_

August Twenty-Fifth

BALM

After the sun, the shade, Beatitude of shadow, Dim aisles for memory made,-- And Thought; After the sun, the shade.

After the heat, the dew, The tender touch of twilight; The unfolding of the few Calm Stars; After the heat, the dew. VIRGINIA WOODWARD CLOUD

August Twenty-Sixth

I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies--from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary, and beat him when found, whose policy has been attack and not defense. I presume that I have been called here to pursue the same system.... It is my purpose to do so, and that speedily.... Meanwhile, I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases, which I am sorry to find much in vogue amongst you. I hear constantly of taking strong positions and holding them--of lines of retreat and of bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas.... Let us study the probable line of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of themselves.

GEN. JOHN POPE, U. S. A. (_Before Campaign in Virginia_)

August Twenty-Seventh

Although a youth of only twenty-six years, he achieved, by his consummate tact and extraordinary abilities, what the powerful influence of Franklin failed to effect.

ELKANAH WATSON (New York)

I knew him well, and he had not a fault that I could discover, unless it were an intrepidity bordering on rashness.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

_John Laurens dies, 1782_

August Twenty-Eighth

STONEWALL JACKSON'S MEN HELP THEMSELVES TO POPE'S SUPPLIES, 1862

Weak and haggard from their diet of green corn and apples, one can well imagine with what surprise their eyes opened upon the contents of the sutler's stores, containing an amount and variety of property such as they had never conceived. Then came a storming charge of men rushing in a tumultuous mob over each other's heads, under each other's feet, anywhere, everywhere to satisfy a craving stronger than a yearning for fame. There were no laggards in that charge.... Men ragged and famished clutched tenaciously at whatever came in their way, and whether of clothing or food, of luxury or necessity. A long yellow-haired, bare-footed son of the South claimed as prizes a tooth-brush, a box of candles, a barrel of coffee. From piles of new clothing the Southerners arrayed themselves in the blue uniforms of the Federals. The naked were clad, the barefooted were shod, and the sick provided with luxuries to which they had long been strangers.

GEORGE H. GORDON, U. S. A.

August Twenty-Ninth

Doctor McGuire, fresh from the ghastly spectacle of the silent battle-field said: "General, this day has been won by nothing but stark and stern fighting."

"No," replied Jackson very quietly, "it has been won by nothing but the blessing and protection of Providence."

LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C. B.

August Thirtieth

In the rapidity with which the opportunity was seized, in the combination of the three arms, and in the vigor of the blow, Manassas is in no way inferior to Austerlitz or Salamanca. That the result was less decisive was due to the greater difficulties of the battle-field, to the stubborn resistance of the enemy, to the obstacles in the way of rapid and connected movement, and to the inexperience of the troops.

LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C. B.

_Second Battle of Manassas, 1862_

August Thirty-First

My deep wound burns, my pale lips quake in death, I feel my fainting heart resign its strife, And reaching now the limit of my life. Lord, to thy will I yield my parting breath, Yet many a dream hath charmed my youthful eye; And must life's visions all depart? Oh, surely no! for all that fired my heart To rapture here shall live with me on high; And that fair form that won my earliest vow, That my young spirit prized all else above, And now adored as Freedom, now as Love, Stands in seraphic guise before me now; And as my failing senses fade away It beckons me on high, to realms of endless day.

[Sonnet composed by John Laurens as he lay dying of wounds and fever incurred in a campaign against the British in South Carolina.--Editor]

September

AUTUMN SONG

My Life is but a leaf upon the tree-- A growth upon the stem that feedeth all. A touch of frost--and suddenly I fall, To follow where my sister-blossoms be.

The selfsame sun, the shadow, and the rain That brought the budding verdure to the bough, Shall strip the fading foliage as now, And leave the limb in nakedness again.

My life is but a leaf upon the tree; The winds of birth and death upon it blow; But whence it came and whither it shall go, Is mystery of mysteries to me. JOHN B. TABB

September First

Around me blight, where all before was bloom! And so much lost! alas! and nothing won; Save this--that I can lean on wreck and tomb, And weep--and weeping pray--Thy will be done. ABRAM J. RYAN (_The Prayer of the South_)

_General Hood evacuates Atlanta, 1864_

September Second

Sixty thousand of us witnessed the destruction of Atlanta, while our post band and that of the Thirty-third Massachusetts played martial airs and operatic selections.

CAPT. DANIEL OAKEY, U. S. A.

_Sherman enters Atlanta, 1864_

September Third

On this point, however, all parties in the South were agreed, and the vast majority of the people of the North--before the war. The Abolitionist proper was considered not so much a friend of the negro as the enemy of society. As the war went on, and the Abolitionist saw the "glory of the Lord" revealed in a way he had never hoped for, he saw at the same time, or rather ought to have seen, that the order he had lived to destroy could not have been a system of hellish wrong and fiendish cruelty; else the prophetic vision of the liberators would have been fulfilled, and the horrors of San Domingo would have polluted this fair land. For the negro race does not deserve undivided praise for its conduct during the war. Let some small part of the credit be given to the masters, not all to the finer qualities of their "brothers in black." The school in which the training was given is closed, and who wishes to open it? Its methods were old-fashioned and were sadly behind the times, but the old schoolmasters turned out scholars who, in certain branches of moral philosophy, were not inferior to the graduates of the new university.

BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE (_On Slavery_)

September Fourth

TOAST OF MORGAN'S MEN

Unclaimed by the land that bore us, Lost in the land we find, The brave have gone before us, Cowards are left behind! Then stand to your glasses, steady, Here's health to those we prize, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next who dies.

_General John H. Morgan killed, 1864_

September Fifth

If slavery were an unutterably evil institution, with no alleviating features, how are we to account for the fact that when the Confederate soldiers were at the front fighting, as they thought, for their independence, the negroes on the plantations took care of the women and children and old people, and nothing like an act of violence was ever known among them?... Is it not perfectly evident that there was a great rebellion, but that the rebels were the Northerners and that those who defended the Constitution as it was were the Southerners; but they defended State rights and slavery, which were distinctly intrenched within the Constitution?

CHARLES E. STOWE (_A Northern view in the light of fifty years of history_)

September Sixth

In regard to Barbara Frietchie a word may be said: An old woman by that now immortal name did live in Frederick in those days, but she was 84 years of age and bed-ridden. She never saw General Jackson, and he never saw her. I was with him every minute of the time he was in Frederick, and nothing like the scene so graphically described by the poet ever happened.

HENRY KYD DOUGLAS

_Jackson enters Frederick, Md., 1862_

September Seventh

OF JAMES RUMSEY, INVENTOR OF THE FIRST STEAMBOAT

I have seen the model of Mr. Rumsey's boat, constructed to work against the stream, examined the powers upon which it acts, been the eye witness to an actual experiment in running water of some rapidity, and give it as my opinion (although I had little faith before) that he has discovered the art of working boats by mechanism and small manual assistance against rapid currents; that the discovery is of vast importance; may be of the greatest usefulness in our inland navigation, and if it succeeds (of which I have no doubt) that the value of it is greatly enhanced by the simplicity of the works; which, when seen and explained, may be executed by the most common mechanic.

Given under my hand at the Town of Bath, County of Berkeley, in the State of Virginia, this 7th day of September, 1784.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

_Sidney Lanier dies, 1881_

September Eighth

Ere Time's horizon-line was set, Somewhere in space our spirits met, Then o'er the starry parapet Came wandering here. And now, that thou art gone again Beyond the verge, I haste amain (Lost echo of a loftier strain) To greet thee there. JOHN B. TABB (_Ave: Sidney Lanier_)

_Battle of Eutaw Springs, S. C., 1781_

September Ninth

Their conduct indeed was exemplary. They had been warned that pillage and depredations would be severely dealt with, and all requisitions, even fence-rails, were paid for on the spot.

LIEUT.-COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C. B.

_Lee and Jackson in occupation of Frederick, Md., 1862_

September Tenth

My life is like the autumn leaf That trembles in the moon's pale ray; Its hold is frail, its date is brief, Restless, and soon to pass away! Yet ere that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The winds bewail the leafless tree; But none shall breathe a sigh for me! RICHARD HENRY WILDE

_Richard Henry Wilde dies, 1847_

_Joseph Wheeler born, 1836_

September Eleventh

Long and close association with the white race had its civilizing effect upon the negroes, and it was not long before the two races became warmly attached, both alike manifesting a keen interest in the other's welfare. Thus as economic interests had fixed the system in the laws of the people, the domestication of the race fixed it in their hearts. The abolitionist was right in his position on the ethics of slavery, but more than benighted in his conception of its condition in the South.

DUNBAR ROWLAND

September Twelfth

In conclusion, the Battle of North Point saved Baltimore from a pre-determined fate; it encouraged the rest of the country; it, with Plattsburg, caused the English Ministry to suggest that the Duke of Wellington should take command in America, and it influenced the terms of the treaty of Ghent in favor of the United States.

FREDERICK M. COLSTON

_Battle of North Point, Md., 1814_

September Thirteenth

LEE'S ORDER OF INVASION, 1862

That he did not reap the full fruits of this wonderful generalship was due to one of those strange events which, so insignificant in itself, yet is fateful to decide the issues of nations....

It will be seen that Lee had no doubt whatever of the success of his undertaking. Both he and Jackson knew Harper's Ferry and the surrounding country, and his plan, so simple and yet so complete, was laid out with a precision as absolute as if formed on the ground instead of on the march in a new country. It was this order showing the dispersion of his army over twenty-odd miles of country, with a river flowing between its widely scattered parts, that by a strange fate fell in McClellan's hands.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

September Fourteenth

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream; 'Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! FRANCIS SCOTT KEY