December
Reading edition
ICICLES AT THE SOUTH
The rain on the trees has ceased to freeze; (’Twas molded with quaint device) The bent boughs lean, like cimeters keen, In scabbards of shining ice. ’Neath frozen cloaks the pines and oaks Are stooping like Druids old,— And the cedars stand—an arctic band— Held in the clutch of cold. Through the outer gloom the japonicas bloom, With the lustre of rubies bright— Like blossoms blown from a tropic zone,— A marvellous land of light! William Hamilton Hayne
December First
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL
The Fir-tree felt it with a thrill And murmur of content; The last dead Leaf its cable slipt And from its moorings went; The selfsame silent messenger, To one that shibboleth Of Life imparting, and to one, The countersign of Death. John B. Tabb
December Second
The avengers whose lives he had attempted, whose wives and children he had devoted to the hideous brutality of insurgent Africans, spared him all indignities, even moral torture.
Percy Greg (England)
John Brown hanged, 1859
December Third
The Black and Tan Convention met December 3, 1867, in our venerable and historic capital to frame a new constitution for the Old Dominion. In this body were members from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, District of Columbia, Ireland, Scotland, Nova Scotia, Canada, England; scalawags, or turn-coats, by Southerners most hated of all; twenty-four negroes; and in the total of 105, thirty-five white Virginians, from counties of excess white population, who might be considered representative of the State’s culture and intelligence.
Myrta Lockett Avary
James Rumsey (1787) makes successful trial trip of the steamboat designed after the model of 1784, then witnessed by George Washington and others
December Fourth
A BIT OF RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY
“Mistah President, de real flatform, suh. I’ll sw’ar tuh high Heaven. Yas, I’ll sw’ar higher dan dat. I’ll go down an’ de uth shall crumble intuh dus’ befor’ dee shall amalgamise my rights. ’Bout dis question uh cyarpet-bags. Ef you cyarpet-baggers does go back on us, woes be unto you! You better take yo cyarpet-bags and quit, and de quicker you git up and git de better. I do not abdicate de supperstition tuh dese strange friens, lately so-called citizens uh Ferginny. Ef dee don’ gimme my rights, I’ll suffer dis country tuh be lak Sarah. I’ll suffer desterlation fus!”...
“I’se here tuh qualify my constituents. I’ll sing tuh Rome an’ tuh Englan’ an’ tuh de uttermos’ parts uh de uth.” (“You must address yourself to the chair,” said that functionary, ready to faint.) “All right, suh, I’ll not ’sire tuh maintain de House any longer.”
Hon. Lewis Lindsay (From Stenographic Report)
December Fifth
Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said that if there had been no God mankind would have been obliged to imagine one.
George Washington
December Sixth
CLEMENCY OF JEFFERSON DAVIS
Honorable Jefferson Davis: My father, Harrison Self, is sentenced to hang at four o’clock this evening on a charge of bridge-burning. As he remains my earthly all, and all my hopes of happiness centre on him, I implore you to pardon him.
Elizabeth Self (Telegram which secured pardon for her father)
Jefferson Davis dies, 1889
The county of Kentucky formed from Virginia, 1776
Duncan Nathaniel Ingraham, “Hero of the Koszta Rescue,” born, 1802
December Seventh
For years after the war, the Republican politicians in the South told the negroes that if the Democrats were elected, they would be put back into slavery. Consequently, after the first election of Cleveland, many of them began to make their arrangements to readapt themselves to the old regime. One old Virginia “aunty” living in Howard County, Maryland, announced that she was ready to return to Richmond; but declared most positively: “Deed, my ole Missus has got to send me my railroad ticket fust.”
December Eighth
Our one sweet singer breaks no more The silence sad and long, The land is hushed from shore to shore It brooks no feebler song. Carl McKinley
Henry Timrod born, 1829
Joel Chandler Harris born, 1848
December Ninth
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
It would be difficult to estimate the good done by a man like Harris, who brings a sense of relaxation and a thrill of pleasure to countless readers round the world. Such a man becomes a public benefactor. To-day men are better citizens, life’s tasks are easier, the roads are lighter, and heaven is nearer to earth because of the cheerful, hopeful, mirthful stories of Uncle Remus.
Henry Stiles Bradley
Lord Dunmore defeated by Colonel Woodford at Battle of Great Bridge, Virginia, 1775
December Tenth
Mt. Vernon, 31 Jan. 1786
Sir:—If you have no cause to change your opinion respecting your mechanical boat, and reasons unknown to me do not exist to delay the exhibition of it, I would advise you to give it to the public as soon as it can be prepared conveniently.... Should a mechanical genius hit upon your plan, or something similar to it, I need not add that it would place you in an awkward situation and perhaps disconcert all your prospects concerning this useful discovery....
George Washington (Letter to James Rumsey)
Mississippi admitted to the Union, 1817
December Eleventh
Mr. Rumsey’s steamboat, with more than half her loading (which was upwards of three ton) and a number of people on board, made a progress of four miles in one hour against the current of Potomac River, by the force of steam, without any external application whatsoever.
(Virginian Gazette and Winchester Advertiser, Jan. 11, 1788)
Second trip of Rumsey’s steamboat at Shepherdstown, Va., in boat designed after model of 1784
December Twelfth
I have taken the greatest pains to perfect another kind of boat, upon the principles I mentioned to you at Richmond, in November last, and have the pleasure to inform you that I have brought it to a great perfection ... and I have quite convinced myself that boats of passage may be made to go against the current of the Mississippi or Ohio rivers, or in the Gulf Stream (from the Leeward to the Windward-Islands) from sixty to one hundred miles per day. I know this will appear strange and improbable to many persons, yet I am very certain it may be performed, besides, it is simple (when understood) and is also strictly philosophical.
James Rumsey (In letter to George Washington after construction of steamboat model seen in action by the latter in 1784)
December Thirteenth
On part of the field the Union dead lay three deep. So fearful was the slaughter that our men at certain points on the line cried out to the advancing Federal forces, “Go back; we don’t want to kill you all!” Still they pressed forward in the face of despair, and they fell in the unshrinking station where they fought. In six months Lee had effaced Pope, checked McClellan, and crushed Burnside—June 25 to December 13, 1862.
Henry E. Shepherd
Burnside repulsed at Fredericksburg, 1862
December Fourteenth
Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations.
James Bryce (England)
George Washington dies, 1799
December Fifteenth
Of late I have opened a pawnbroker’s shop for my hard-pressed brethren in feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for every borrowing Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthly instalments of singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seed for a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs in an orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices?
James Lane Allen
December Sixteenth
I fill this cup to one made up Of loveliness alone, A woman, of her gentle sex The seeming paragon; To whom the better elements And kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air, ’Tis less of earth than heaven. Edward C. Pinkney (“A Health”)
December Seventeenth
Her every tone is music’s own, Like those of morning birds, And something more than melody Dwells ever in her words; The coinage of her heart are they, And from her lips each flows As one may see the burdened bee Forth issue from the rose. Edward C. Pinkney (“A Health”)
December Eighteenth
... Nay, more! in death’s despite The crippled skeleton “learned to write.” “Dear mother,” at first, of course; and then “Dear Captain,” inquiring about the men. Captain’s answer: “Of eighty-and-five, Giffen and I are left alive.” Francis O. Ticknor (“Little Giffen”)
Francis O. Ticknor dies, 1874
December Nineteenth
Word of gloom from the war, one day; Johnston pressed at the front, they say. Little Giffen was up and away; A tear—his first—as he bade good-bye, Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye. “I’ll write, if spared!” There was news of the fight; But none of Giffen.—He did not write. Francis O. Ticknor
Crittenden’s compromise opposed by dominant party in Congress, 1860
Some of the manufacturing states think that a fight would be awful. Without a little bloodletting this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.
Z. Chandler (Senator from Michigan)
December Twentieth
The Convention of 1787 was composed of members, a majority of whom were elected to reject the Federal Constitution; and it was only after the clause declaring that “the power granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury and oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them at their will,” was inserted in the ordinance of ratification, that six or more of the majority opposed to the measure consented to vote for it. Even with this accession of strength the Constitution was carried only by a vote of 89 to 79.
(From Editorial Article in Charleston “Courier,” 1861)
South Carolina secedes, 1860
December Twenty-First
RESOLVED.... As the powers of legislation, granted in the Constitution of the United States to Congress, do not embrace a case of the admission of a foreign State or Territory, by legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts.
(Resolutions of Massachusetts Legislature, 1845. Nullification?)
President Tyler urges annexation of Texas, 1844
December Twenty-Second
Bowing her head to the dust of the earth, Smitten and stricken is she; Light after light gone out from her hearth, Son after son from her knee. Bowing her head to the dust at her feet, Weeping her beautiful slain; Silence! keep silence for aye in the street— See! they are coming again! Alethea S. Burroughs
Sherman enters Savannah, 1864
Reconstruction Act put in effect in Georgia, 1869
December Twenty-Third
The glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remote ages.
(President of Congress, to General Washington)
Washington resigns his commission as Commander-in-Chief, Annapolis, 1783
December Twenty-Fourth
CHRISTMAS EVE
The moon is in a tranquil mood; The silent skies are bland: Only the spirits of the good Go musing up the land: The sea is wrapped in mist and rest; It is the night that God hath blest. Danske Dandridge
December Twenty-Fifth
To the cradle-bough of a naked tree, Benumbed with ice and snow, A Christmas dream brought suddenly A birth of mistletoe. The shepherd stars from their fleecy cloud Strode out on the night to see; The Herod north-wind blustered loud To rend it from the tree. But the old year took it for a sign, And blessed it in his heart: “With prophecy of peace divine, Let now my soul depart.” John B. Tabb (Mistletoe)
December Twenty-Sixth
Now praise to God that ere his grace Was scorned and he reviled He looked into his mother’s face, A little helpless child. And praise to God that ere men strove Above his tomb in war One loved him with a mother’s love, Nor knew a creed therefor. John Charles McNeill (A Christmas Hymn)
December Twenty-Seventh
Hear the sledges with the bells— Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. Edgar Allan Poe
December Twenty-Eighth
In the future some historian shall come forth both strong and wise, With a love of the Republic, and the truth, before his eyes. He will show the subtle causes of the war between the States, He will go back in his studies far beyond our modern dates, He will trace our hostile ideas as the miner does the lodes, He will show the different habits born of different social codes, He will show the Union riven, and the picture will deplore, He will show it re-united and made stronger than before. James Barron Hope
December Twenty-Ninth
Slow and patient, fair and truthful must the coming teacher be To show how the knife was sharpened that was ground to prune the tree. He will hold the Scales of Justice, he will measure praise and blame, And the South will stand the verdict, and will stand it without shame. James Barron Hope
Texas admitted to the Union, 1845
December Thirtieth
I changed my name when I got free To “Mister” like the res’, But now dat I am going Home, I likes de ol’ name bes’. Sweet voices callin’ “Uncle Rome” Seem ringin’ in my ears; An’ swearin’ sorter sociable,— Ol’ Master’s voice I hears. ······ He’s passed Heaven’s River now, an’ soon He’ll call across its foam: “You, Rome, you damn ol’ nigger, Loose your boat an’ come on Home!” Howard Weeden
December Thirty-First
’Tis midnight’s holy hour—and silence now Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o’er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds, The bells’ deep notes are swelling. ’Tis the knell Of the departed year. No funeral train Is sweeping past; yet on the stream and wood, With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred, As by a mourner’s sigh; and on yon cloud, That floats so still and placidly through heaven, The spirits of the seasons seem to stand— Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn’s solemn form, And Winter, with his aged locks—and breathe In mournful cadences, that come abroad Like the far wind harp’s wild and touching wail, A melancholy dirge o’er the dead Year, Gone from the earth forever. George Denison Prentice
Battle of Murfreesboro, Tenn., 1862
Index
PAGE
Alabama, the, fight with the Kearsarge. June 19 140
Alamance Creek, Battle of. May 16 118
Alamo, the. Mch. 6 65
Antietam, Battle of. Sept. 17 212
Arkansas, the, destroyed. Aug. 6 180
Ashby, Gen. Turner. June 6 131
Assembly, first legislative in America. July 30 172
Atlanta, evacuation of. Sept. 1, 2 200
Audubon, John James. May 4 109
Bacon, Nathaniel, epitaph. Jan. 2 15
Bagby, George W. Aug. 13 185
Baltimore, in first bloodshed of the War. April 19 97
Benjamin, Judah P. May 6 111
Bonnie Blue Flag, the. Jan. 10, 12 21, 23
Boston, A Southern view. Mch. 12 69
Breckinridge, John C. May 17; Aug. 10 118, 183
Brooke, John Mercer, constructor of the first ironclad. Mch. 9 67
Brown, John, execution. Dec. 2 268
Raid at Harper’s Ferry. Oct. 16, 17 230, 231
Calhoun, John C. Mch. 18 74
Nationalism of. Mch. 31 81
Carroll, Charles of Carrollton. Nov. 14 255
Charleston “Courier” on Secession. Dec. 20 280
Chickamauga, Battle of. Sept. 20 215
Clark, George Rogers. Feb. 23, 24 53, 54
Clark and Lewis, Northwestern expedition. May 14 116
Clay, Henry. June 29 148
Coercion, opposed by border States. Apr. 16, 17, 18; May 20 94, 95, 96, 119
Confederacy, fall of. Apr. 8, 9, 10, 11 87, 88, 89, 90
Surrender of last army. May 26 122
Cornwallis, surrender of. Oct. 19 233
Crittenden, compromise of. Dec. 19 279
Crockett, Col. David. Aug. 17 188
Custis, Hon. John, epitaph. July 11 158
Davis, Jefferson. June 3; Dec. 6 129, 271
Imprisonment. May 23, 24 121
Democrats, negro view of. Dec. 7 272
Dixie, new version. Jan. 31; April 25; May 21 36, 102, 120
Easter, selections for. April 4, 5 86
Emancipation. Jan. 11; Feb. 12; Aug. 1, 2, 3; Sept. 3 22, 45, 176, 177, 178, 201
Lincoln on. Sept. 22 216
Southern view of. Feb. 28; June 2; Oct. 16 58, 129, 230
Forrest, N. B. July 13 159
Address to soldiers. Oct. 27 239
Tributes to. Oct. 21, 26, 29, 30, 31 235, 238, 240, 241
Fort Sullivan, defence of. June 28 147
Fort Sumter, attempts to reinforce. Jan. 9 20
Capture of. April 14 92
Firing upon. April 12 91
Frederick, Md., occupied by Confederates. Sept. 9 206
Fredericksburg, Battle of. Dec. 13 276
Frietchie, Barbara, in reference to “Stonewall” Jackson. Sept. 6 204
Gettysburg, Battle of. July 1, 2, 3, 4 150, 151, 152, 153
Gordon, Gen. Geo. H., remarks on Jackson’s soldiers. Aug. 28 195
Gordon, Gen. John B. Feb. 6 41
Grady, Henry W. April 24 101
Hampton, Gen. Wade. Mch. 28 79
Harris, Joel Chandler. Dec. 9 273
Hayne, Paul Hamilton. Jan. 1 14
Henry, Patrick. May 29 125
Hill, Gen. A. P. April 2 85
Hill, Gen. D. H. July 12 159
Houston, Samuel, inaugurated president of Texas. Oct. 22 236
Insurrection, the Southampton. Aug. 1, 2, 3 176, 177, 178
Jackson, Gov. C. F., declaration of secession. Aug. 5 179
Jackson, Andrew. Mch. 15 71
Jackson, “Stonewall.” Jan. 21 30
Bill Arp’s view of. Sept. 16 211
Capture of Harper’s Ferry. Sept. 15 211
Death. May 10 113
Wounded. May 2 108
Jamestown, first legislative assembly met. July 30 172
Reference to. June 20 141
Settled. May 13 115
Jefferson, Thomas. April 13 92
On Louisiana Purchase. April 30 105
Johnston, General Albert Sidney. April 6 86
Johnston, General Jos. E. Feb. 7 41
Kansas, formed as territory. May 30 125
Kennedy, John P. Oct. 25 238
King’s Mountain, Battle of. Oct. 9 226
Ku Klux Klan. Feb. 20, 21; July 31 50, 51, 173
Lanier, Sidney. Feb. 3 39
Tabb’s tribute to. Sept. 8 206
Laurens, John. Aug. 27 194
Lee, Anne Carter, monument to. Aug. 8 182
Lee, Henrietta, letter to Gen. Hunter. July 19 164
Lee, Henry. Jan. 29 34
Lee, Robert E. Jan. 19 29
Accepts presidency of Washington College. Aug. 24 192
Elected president of Washington College. Aug. 4 178
First Northern invasion. Sept. 13 209
Hill’s tribute to. Oct. 12 228
Issues Chambersburg order. June 27 147
Marries. June 30 148
Resigns commission in United States Army. April 20 98
Sent to the rear. May 12 114
Surrender at Appomattox. April 9 88
The unselfish leader. Oct. 14 229
Lent, selections for. Mch. 19, 20 74, 75
Lewis, Meriwether. Oct. 11 227
Lincoln, Abraham, death of. April 15 93
On abolition. Feb. 12 45
On negro suffrage. Feb. 11; Aug. 12 44, 184
Literature, first of the New World. Mch. 13 70
Louisiana Territory, acquired from France. Apr. 30 105
Manassas, first Battle of. July 21 166
Marshall, Chief Justice. Sept. 24 217
Meade, Gen. Geo. Gordon, Southern tribute to. July 1 150
Negro, status of. Sept. 11 208
New Orleans, Liberty Place Anniversary. Sept. 14 210
North Point, Battle of. Sept. 12 208
Nullification, Northern view of. Nov. 25; Dec. 21 263, 281
Southern view of. Nov. 24 262
O’Hara, Theodore. July 20 165
Old South, life in the. Sept. 11, 21 208, 216
Oliver, Thaddeus. Aug. 9 182
Peggy Stewart, burning of the. Oct. 19 233
Poe, Edgar Allan. Oct. 7, 8 224, 225
First monument erected to. Nov. 17 258
Pope, Gen. John, Address to the Army of Potomac. Aug. 26 193
Polk, James Knox. Nov. 2 244
Port Hudson, fall of. July 9 156
Prisoners, mortality of. Nov. 11 252
Of war, exchange of. Nov. 9, 10, 12, 13 250, 251, 253, 254
Raleigh, Sir Walter. July 16 162
Reconstruction. Jan. 4; Mch. 2; Aug. 21; Oct. 21; Nov. 19, 22; Dec. 3, 4 16, 62, 190, 235, 259, 261, 269, 270
Bill Arp’s view of. Oct. 18; Nov. 23, 29 232, 261, 265
End of. July 15 161
Foreshadowed. April 15 93
Negro oratory on. Dec. 4 270
A prophecy of 1869. June 26 146
Religious Freedom in Maryland. Mch. 25, 27; Apr. 21 77, 78, 99
Rumsey, James, letter to, from Geo. Washington. Sept. 7 205
Rumsey, trial of the steamboat. Dec. 10, 11, 12 274, 275
Ryan, Abram J. Aug. 15 186
Sandys, George, first author of the New World. Mch. 13 70
Secession. Jan. 9, 11; Apr. 17; Aug. 5 20, 22, 95, 179
From the Northern standpoint. Jan. 13, 26, 27; Mch. 24; May 6, 11 23, 33, 77, 111
From the Southern standpoint. Jan. 10, 28; Feb. 5, 8, 9, 10, 18; Mch. 30 21, 34, 40, 42, 43, 45, 48, 80
South Carolina. Dec. 20 280
Semmes, Admiral Raphael. Sept. 27, 28 219
Seven Days’ Battle, beginning of. June 25 145
Sharpsburg, Attack at. Sept. 18 213
Shenandoah, surrenders last Confederate flag. Nov. 5, 6 246, 247
Slavery. Jan. 4; Feb. 9, 28; Aug. 1, 2, 3; Sept. 3, 21 16, 42, 58, 176, 177, 178, 201, 216
Bagby’s view of. Oct. 16 230
Northern view of. Jan. 13, 26, 27; Mch. 24; May 6; Sept. 5 23, 33, 77, 111, 203
From the Southern standpoint. Jan. 10, 28; Feb. 8, 9, 10, 18; Mch. 30 21, 34, 42, 43, 48, 80
Star Spangled Banner Anniversary. Sept. 14 210
Stephens, Alex. H. Mch. 4 64
Stuart, Gen. J. E. B. May 11 114
Address to soldiers. Oct. 10 227
Suffrage, Negro. Nov. 1 244
Negro restriction of. Aug. 12 184
Tabb, John Banister. Mch. 22 76
Tariff, South Carolina’s protest. Nov. 24 262
Taney, Chief Justice. Oct. 13 229
Texas. Mch. 23 76
Ticknor, Francis O. Dec. 18 278
Tilghman, Col. Tench, ride of. Oct. 23 237
Timrod, Henry. Oct. 6 224
Tribute to. Dec. 8 272
Trent, The, affair of. Nov. 8 249
Tyler, John. Mch. 29 79
Union, the, restored. July 15 161
Veteran, United Confederate, Northern tribute to. June 10 134
Virginia, conquering of Northwestern territory. Feb. 23, 24 53, 54
Opposition to Boston Port Bill. May 15 117
Cession of Northwestern territory. Oct. 20 234
Secession from, of West Virginia. June 20 141
Two views of. Mch. 11 68
University of. Mch. 7 65
Virginia, the, challenges Monitor. May 8 112
First iron-clad. Mch. 8, 9 66, 67
Washington, Geo. Feb. 22; Dec. 14 52, 276
Resigns commission. Dec. 23 282
War Times. Jan. 17, 18; April 26 27, 28, 103
Northern view of. Feb. 17, 26 48, 56
West Virginia, secession from Virginia sustained by Federal Government. June 20 141
Wilde, Richard Henry. Sept. 10 207
Wilderness, Battle of. May 5 110
William and Mary College, Northern tribute to. Feb. 14 46
Wirz, Henry, execution of. Nov. 10 251
Women, the Southern. Mch. 3; June 5 63, 131