Under The Stars And Bars Part 20

And yet--and yet, minimizing as we may the limited advantages of those old school days in the '40's, and magnifying as we do the wondrous advance in educational methods and appliances in all grades from the kindergarten to the university, the fact remains that "there were giants in those days" who seem to have no successors. Examples might be multiplied both in our state and national life, but I give only two. The places of George F. Pierce in the pulpit and of Benjamin H. Hill in the forum and on the hustings have never been filled. It may be true that Dame Nature requires after the production of great men a period of repose and rest, and if my limited observation is not at fault she is enjoying a good long nap. Whatever may have been the explanation of the fact mentioned, the privilege of hearing these men in their palmy days, of feeling the "cold chills" creep up the spinal column as they soared to the empyrean heights of impa.s.sioned oratory, of losing consciousness of time and place and environment under the magic spell of their almost superhuman eloquence, furnished some measure of compensation for the meagre advantages, on educational lines, of the last generation.

The writer's first opportunity to hear Ben Hill occurred at Mount Moriah camp ground, in Jefferson county, in the presidential campaign of 1856.

On the disintegration of the old Whig party Mr. Hill had aligned himself with its residuary legatee, the American party, and was canva.s.sing the State as an elector on the Fillmore ticket. He was 33 years of age, just in the rosy prime of a superb physical and intellectual manhood. I was only a boy and knew nothing of parties or party politics, but I remember that for three hours and more he held the rapt and untiring interest and attention of that vast audience.

At the close of the speech Major Stapleton announced that a messenger had been sent to Mr. Stephens asking a division of time with Mr. Hill at the former's appointment in Burke county, on the next day. Mr. Hill was sitting on the pulpit steps, and when the announcement closed he said, "Yes, I am not afraid to meet "Little Aleck," nor big Aleck, nor big Bob added to them," alluding to Mr. Toombs. Mr. Stephens did not consent, but met Mr. Hill afterwards at Lexington, Ga., in the same campaign.

Out of this debate grew Mr. Stephens' challenge and Mr. Hill's refusal to accept it, an incident which had large influence in ending the reign of the code duello in Georgia.

Two years later I had the privilege of hearing Mr. Hill again in the State campaign for governor. A joint canva.s.s of the State had been in progress, but after a few discussions Governor Brown found that he was no match for Mr. Hill on the "stump," and he wisely cancelled further engagements. In giving his reasons for such action he said that Mr. Hill was too much of a sophist, that he could make the worse appear the better cause, and to enforce the point he related the "pig and puppy"

anecdote, a favorite ill.u.s.tration with political speakers in those days.

In the speech I refer to, delivered at Covington, Ga., Mr. Hill gave his opponent the benefit of a statement of the reasons he had a.s.signed for his withdrawal, with the anecdote included, and then with the smile that always gave premonition of a happy retort, he said, "And now, fellow-citizens, in this campaign I have made no effort to make anything out of anybody but Mr. Brown, and if I have made nothing better than a pig or a puppy it was the best I could do with the material I had to work upon."

Mr. Hill never employed the anecdote argument in his speeches, but if used against him no man of his time or perhaps of any other time was able to turn its edge more readily or more effectively on his opponent I recall only one pa.s.sage from the address and as it has not been preserved in his published speeches I give it in ill.u.s.tration of his style at that date. After disposing of his opponent and the State campaign he turned his attention to national issues and in urging his audience to resist Northern encroachments on their rights closed a burst of impa.s.sioned oratory with these words: "Has the spirit of Southern chivalry folded its wings for an eternal sleep in the grave of Calhoun?

Shall the breezes, which blow from the 'cowpens' where the infant days of Jackson were spent, now fan the brows of a nation of slaves? Rise, freemen of Georgia! Arise in your might. Shake off this Delilah of party for she is an harlot and will betray you to your destruction. Arise!

drive back the invader from your thresholds, or like Samson of old, pull down the pillars of the temple and perish in one common ruin." Its effect upon the audience may be inferred from the fact that it has lingered in my memory more than forty years. I heard Mr. Hill no more until some years after the war. His nerve in putting an end to the seizure of cotton by Federal agents in the South in '65, his "Davis Hall" and "Bush Arbor" speeches and his "Notes on the Situation" had given him the very highest place in Southern esteem and affection. And then came his acceptance of an interest in the State Road Lease and his speech at the "Delano Banquet," which placed him under the ban of popular distrust and postponed the day when Southern character and Southern history was to find its brave and complete vindication at his hands in the halls of Congress. During this shadowed period in his life I heard him several times in Atlanta, and on one of these occasions occurred the incident which forms the t.i.tle of this sketch. Chafing under the criticisms and abuse to which he had been subjected he boldly defended the consistency of his record and pointed proudly to the day in '65 when the lips of every public man in Georgia were sealed except his own. "And now, my friends," said he, "when the lion of military government had prostrate Georgia in its cruel grasp, these men, who are now decrying me, were hiding away in quiet places afraid to face him.

But when largely through my persistent efforts his clutch was loosened and he was recalled to his den in Was.h.i.+ngton, the whole breed,

Mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, And cur of low degree,

left their hiding places and came out barking, not at the lion, but at me, yelping, "Radical!" "Radical!" "Radical!" The words had barely left his lips when a huge dog standing in the centre of the aisle, began barking loudly and vigorously, with his eyes fixed on Mr. Hill. I do not know that the speaker, in imitation of a certain minister's reputed habit of inserting, "Cry here," at the close of the pathetic pa.s.sages in his ma.n.u.script, had inserted "Bark here" in his notes, but I do know that the impromptu ill.u.s.tration fitted in so pertinently that the storm of applause, that greeted it, would have lifted the roof if such a result had been possible. For several minutes there was perfect pandemonium. As the wave of sound rolled and swelled and rose and fell to rise in larger volume than before the speaker faced the audience with the shadow of a smile upon his face and when the last ripple of applause had died away he said: "My friends, I meant no reflection on that dog."

I have had the privilege of hearing Toombs, Stephens, Johnson and Howell Cobb, the first two, a number of times. I claim no ability to make intelligent comparison among these distinguished Georgians. But basing an estimate simply upon their effect upon myself and upon others as I have observed it, I should say that while in epigrammatic force, in the ability to pack thought into limited s.p.a.ce, Mr. Toombs had no equal among them, yet in effective oratory, in the power to sway an audience at his will, whether in the domain of ice-cold logic or in the higher realms where only angels soar, Mr. Hill probably towered above them all.

The peroration to his appeal for the pardon of Wm. A. Choice had few equals in all the range of English forensic literature. It has not been preserved, and in the forty years that have elapsed since its delivery, my memory retains but a single sentence, and with that I close this sketch: "Even from the lips of the murdered man, a voice comes back to us today, as soft as evening zephyrs through an orange grove and as warm as an angel's heart. 'Forgive him, save him, for he knew not what he did.'"

THE REBEL CHAPLAIN AND THE DYING BOY IN BLUE.

The touching incident recorded in the following verses occurred on a b.l.o.o.d.y Western battlefield in the old war days in the '60's. Rev. J. B.

McFerrin, formerly of Nashville, Tenn., and now in Heaven, an able and honored minister of the Methodist church, and for four years a Confederate chaplain in the army of Tennessee, was the Christian hero of this tenderly pathetic story. His untiring devotion to the sick and wounded amid the dangers and hards.h.i.+ps of camp and field are gratefully remembered by his surviving comrades, while his gentle kindness to a stricken foe, will be embalmed in the loving memory of every veteran of both the "Blue and Grey."

'Twas evening on the battle field; O'er trampled plain, with carnage red The lines in blue were forced to yield.

Leaving their dying and their dead.

All day 'mid storm of shot and sh.e.l.l, With smoking crest, war's crimson tide Had left its victims where they fell, Nor heeding if they lived or died.

And now the cannon's roar was dumb, The "Rebel Yell" was hushed and still; The shrieking sh.e.l.l, the bursting bomb Were silent all on plain and hill.

From out the lines of faded grey To where the battle's shock was spent, A rebel chaplain made his way, On mercy's kindly mission bent.

He kneeled beside a stricken foe, Whose life was ebbing fast away, And then in gentle words and low, He asked if he might read and pray?

"No, no," the wounded man replied, "My throat is parched, my lips are dry,"

And in his agony he cried "Oh, give me water, or I'll die."

The chaplain hurried o'er the strand And in the stream his cup he dips, Then hastening back, with gentle hand He pressed it to his waiting lips.

"Now shall I read?" he asked again, While bleak winds blew across the wold, "No," said the soldier in his pain, "I'm growing cold, I'm growing cold."

Then in the wintry twilight air His "coat of grey" the chaplain drew, Leaving his own chilled body bare, To warm the dying boy in blue.

The soldier turned with softened look, With quivering lip, and moistened eye, And said: "If you, in all that book Can find for me the reasons why,

A rebel chaplain such as you, Should show the kindness you have shown To one who wears the Union blue, I'll hear them gladly, every one."

In tender tones the good man read Of love and life beyond the grave, And then in earnest prayer he plead That G.o.d would pity, heal and save.

Above the "Blue"--above the "Grey"

Shone no Cathedral's lofty spire, Yet I am sure the songs that day Were chanted by an Angel Choir.

The evening darkened into night, The shadows fell on wold and strand, But in their hearts gleamed softer light Than ever shone on sea or land.

And ere the wintry night was o'er, Beyond the sunset's purpled hue, The stars rose on a fairer sh.o.r.e To greet the dying boy in blue.

Long years have come and gone since then, Long years the good man lived to bless With kindly deed, his fellow men, And then to die in perfect peace.

And when in Heaven's eternal day, They met before His throne of light, There was no blue, there was no grey, For both were robed in G.o.d's own white.