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Dixie Book of Days

<h2>October</h2> Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf To blind the eyes of grief; Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit That sorrow may be mute; A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep, Ere the gray dusk may creep Sober and sad along thy dusty ways, Like a lone nun, who prays; High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls; Thy lazy lizard sprawls On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep About thy hedge, asleep; The Sun swings farther toward his love, the South, To kiss her glowing mouth; And Death, who steals among thy purpling bowers, Is deeply hid in flowers. John Charles McNeill    [Pg 222] <big>October First</big> Come on thy swaying feet, Wild Spirit of the Fall! With wind-blown skirts, loose hair of russet brown Crowned with bright berries of the bitter sweet. Trip a light measure with the hurrying leaf, Straining thy few late roses to thy breast: With laughter overgay, sweet eyes drooped down, That none may guess thy grief: Dare not to pause for rest Lest the slow tears should gather to their fall. Danske Dandridge     <big>October Second</big> In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim—that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate, and buckle it on as our armour. George Mason    [Pg 223] <big>October Third</big> What a brave splendour Is in the October air! How rich and clear— How life-full, and all joyous! We must render Love to the Spring-time, with its sproutings tender, As to a child quite dear— But autumn is a noon, prolonged, of glory— A manhood not yet hoary. Philip Pendleton Cooke     <big>October Fourth</big> At morn—at noon—at twilight dim— Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and woe—in good and ill— Mother of God, be with me still! When the Hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee! Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast Darkly my Present and my Past, Let my future radiant shine With sweet hopes of thee and thine! Edgar Allan Poe    [Pg 224] <big>October Fifth</big> Tormented sorely by the chastening rod, I muttered to myself: “There is no God!” But faithful friend, I found your soul so true, That God revealed Himself in giving you. Walter Malone     <big>October Sixth</big> Who said “false as dreams”? Not one who saw Into the wild and wondrous world they sway; No thinker who hath read their mystic law; No Poet who hath weaved them in his lay. Henry Timrod   Henry Timrod dies, 1867 Nathaniel Bacon dies, 1676     <big>October Seventh</big> And the fever called “Living” Is conquered at last. Edgar Allan Poe   Edgar Allan Poe dies, 1849 Battle of King’s Mountain, N. C., 1780    [Pg 225] <big>October Eighth</big> EDGAR ALLAN POE It is no small achievement to have sung a few imperishable songs of bereaved love and illusive beauty. It is no small achievement to have produced individual and unexcelled strains of harmony which have since so rung in the ears of brother poets that echoes of them may be detected even in the work of such original and accomplished versemen as Rossetti and Swinburne. It is no small achievement to have pursued one’s ideal until one’s dying day, conscious the while that, great as one’s impediments have been from without, one’s chief obstacle has been one’s own self. William P. Trent   All who possess the divine element of pity will unite in feeling that his sufferings were his expiation. Letitia H. Wrenshall    [Pg 226] <big>October Ninth</big> BATTLE OF KING’S MOUNTAIN: THE FIRST REBEL YELL And they came, these mountaineers of the South. Congress has not ordered them; it is a rally of volunteers.... They neither hesitate nor parley; they hitch their horses to the trees; like a girdle of steel they clasp the mountain; and up they go, at the enemy—rifles blazing as they advance, and the Southern yell ringing through the woods. Thomas E. Watson   It was the joyful annunciation of that turn of the tide of success which terminated the Revolutionary War with the seal of our independence. Thomas Jefferson    [Pg 227] <big>October Tenth</big> Soldiers! You are about to engage in an enterprise which, to insure success, imperatively demands at your hands coolness, decision, and bravery; implicit obedience to orders without a question or cavil; and the strictest order and sobriety on the march and in bivouac. The destination and extent of this expedition had better be kept to myself than known to you. Suffice it to say, that with the hearty cooperation of officers and men I have not a doubt of its success,—a success which will reflect credit in the highest degree upon your arms. Maj.-Gen. J. E. B. Stuart   J. E. B. Stuart, with 1,800 men, begins his second circle around the Union Army, riding through Pennsylvania and Maryland, 1862     <big>October Eleventh</big> His firmness and perseverance yielded to nothing but impossibilities. A rigid disciplinarian, yet tender as a father to those committed to his charge; honest, disinterested, liberal, with a sound understanding and a scrupulous fidelity to truth. Thomas Jefferson   Meriwether Lewis dies, 1809    [Pg 228] <big>October Twelfth</big> LEE He was a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a soldier without cruelty, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices, a private citizen without wrong, a neighbor without reproach, a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was Cæsar without his ambition, Frederick without his tyranny, Napoleon without his selfishness, and Washington without his reward. He was as obedient to authority as a true king. He was as gentle as a woman in life, pure and modest as a virgin in thought, watchful as a Roman vestal in duty, submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in battle as Achilles. Benjamin H. Hill   Robert E. Lee dies, 1870 Chief Justice Roger B. Taney dies, 1864    [Pg 229] <big>October Thirteenth</big> TANEY It was the conviction of his life that the Government under which we live was of limited powers, and that its constitution had been framed for war as well as peace. Though he died, therefore, he could not surrender that conviction at the call of the trumpet. He had plighted his troth to the liberty of the citizen and the supremacy of the laws, and no man could put them asunder. Severn Teackle Wallis     <big>October Fourteenth</big> LEE He sent to the suffering private in the hospitals the delicacies contributed for his personal use from the meagre stores of those who were anxious about his health. If a handful of real coffee came to him, it went in the same direction, while he cheerfully drank from his tin cup the wretched substitute made from parched corn or beans. Gen. John B. Gordon    [Pg 230] <big>October Fifteenth</big> THE CONFEDERATE VETERAN Let the autumn hoarfrost gather, Let the snows of winter drift, For there blooms a fruit of valor that The world may not forget. Fold your faded gray coat closer, for It was your country’s gift, And it brings her holiest message— There is glory in it yet. Virginia Frazer Boyle     <big>October Sixteenth</big> This button here upon my cuff is valueless, whether for use or for ornament, but you shall not tear it from me and spit in my face besides; no, not if it cost me my life. And if your time be passed in the attempt to so take it, then my time and my every thought shall be spent in preventing such outrage. Let alone, the Virginian would gladly have made an end of slavery, but, strange hap, malevolence and meddling bound it up with every interest that was dear to his heart. George W. Bagby (Slavery)   John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, 1859    [Pg 231] <big>October Seventeenth</big> JOHN BROWN’S RAID Of course a transaction so flagitious with its attendant circumstances ... could but produce the profoundest impression upon the people of the South. Here was open and armed “aggression”; whether clearly understood and encouraged beforehand, certainly exulted in afterwards, by persons of a very different standing from that of the chief actor in this bloody incursion into a peaceful State. George Lunt (Massachusetts)   “Saint John the Just” was the verdict of the Concord philosophers concerning John Brown. “The new Saint ... will make the gallows glorious like the Cross” was the sentiment of Emerson that drew applause from a vast assemblage in Boston. Henry A. White    [Pg 232] <big>October Eighteenth</big> I address you on this occasion with a profound admiration for the great consideration which caused you to honor me by your votes with a seat in the Senate of Georgy. For two momentus and inspirin’ weeks the Legislature has been in solemn session, one of whom I am proud to be which. For several days we were engaged as scouts, making a sorter reconysance to see whether Georgy were a State or a Injin territory, whether we were in the old Un-ion or out of it, whether me and my folks and you and your folks were somebody or no body, and lastly, but by no means leastly, whether our poor innocent children, born durin’ the war, were all illegal and had to be born over agin or not. This last pint are much unsettled, but our women are advised to be calm and serene. “Bill Arp” (To His Constituents)    [Pg 233] <big>October Nineteenth</big> Float out, oh flag, from Freedom’s burnished lance. Float out, oh flag, in Red and White and Blue! The Union’s colors and the hues of France Commingled on the view! James Barron Hope   Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, 1781 Burning of the “Peggy Stewart” at Annapolis, 1774    [Pg 234] <big>October Twentieth</big> Her right to it rested upon as firm a basis as the right of any other Commonwealth to her own domain, and if there was any question of the Virginia title by charter, she could assert her right by conquest. The region had been wrested from the British by a Virginian commanding Virginian troops; the people had taken “the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia”; and her title to the entire territory was thus indisputable.... These rights she now abandoned; and her action was the result of an enlarged patriotism and devotion to the cause of union. John Esten Cooke   Virginia cedes to the general government the territory north of the Ohio, 1783    [Pg 235] <big>October Twenty-First</big> When social relations were resumed between the North and South—they followed slowly the resumption of business relations—what we should call the color-blindness of the other side often manifested itself in a delicate reticence on the part of our Northern friends; and as the war had by no means constituted their lives as it had constituted ours for four long years, the success in avoiding the disagreeable topic would have been considerable, if it had not been for awkward allusions on the part of the Southerners, who, having been shut out for all that time from the study of literature and art and other elegant and uncompromising subjects, could hardly keep from speaking of this and that incident of the war. Whereupon a discreet, or rather an embarrassed silence, as if a pardoned convict had playfully referred to the arson or burglary, not to say worse, that had been the cause of his seclusion. Basil L. Gildersleeve    [Pg 236] <big>October Twenty-Second</big> Oh, the rolling, rolling prairies, and the grasses waving, waving Like green billows ’neath the gulf breeze in the perfumed purple gloam! Oh, my heart is heavy, heavy, and my eyes are craving, craving For the fertile plains and forests of my far-off Texas home. Judd Mortimer Lewis (Longing for Texas)   Samuel Houston inaugurated President of Texas, 1836    [Pg 237] <big>October Twenty-Third</big> BEARING THE NEWS FROM YORKTOWN TO PHILADELPHIA All the night of the 22d he rode up the peninsula, not a sound disturbing the silence of the darkness except the beat of his horse’s hoofs. Every three or four hours he would ride up to a lonely homestead, still and quiet and dark in the first slumbers of the night, and thunder on the door with his sword: “Cornwallis is taken: a fresh horse for the Congress!” Like an electric shock the house would flash with an instant light and echo with the pattering feet of women, and before a dozen greetings could be exchanged, and but a word given of the fate of the loved ones at York, Tilghman would vanish in the gloom, leaving a trail of glory and joy behind him. Bradley T. Johnson   Col. Tench Tilghman’s ride, 1781     <big>October Twenty-Fourth</big> IMMORTALITY Battles nor songs can from Oblivion save, But Fame upon a white deed loves to build; From out that cup of water Sidney gave, Not one drop has been spilled. Lizette Woodworth Reese    [Pg 238] <big>October Twenty-Fifth</big> Supposing a disintegration of the Union, notwithstanding all efforts to prevent it, to be forced upon us by the obstinacy and impracticability of parties on each side—the case would still be far from hopeless. The Border States, in that event, would form, in self-defence, a Confederacy of their own, which would serve as a centre of reinforcement for the reconstruction of the Union. John P. Kennedy (In “The Border States—their Power and Duty in the Present Disordered Condition of the Country”)   John P. Kennedy born, 1795     <big>October Twenty-Sixth</big> Give us back the ties of Yorktown! Perish all the modern hates! Let us stand together, brothers, In defiance of the Fates; For the safety of the Union Is the safety of the States! James Barron Hope (Centennial Ode)    [Pg 239] <big>October Twenty-Seventh</big> The attempt made to establish a separate and independent confederation has failed, but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully and to the end will in some measure repay for the hardships you have undergone. In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness.... I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command, whose zeal, fidelity, and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my past success in arms. I have never on the field of battle sent you where I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous. N. B. Forrest (Farewell Address to His Soldiers)    [Pg 240] <big>October Twenty-Eighth</big> Whether in the thickest of the battle, where hundreds or thousands were rushing at each other in deadly combat, or on the lonely highway where he came face to face with a single adversary, or in the reconnoissance by day or night, when alone or attended by a single member of his staff he would ride into the enemy’s lines and even into their camps, he was with pistol or sabre ever ready to assert his physical prowess. It is known that he placed hors de combat thirty Federal officers or soldiers fighting hand-to-hand. John A. Wyeth     <big>October Twenty-Ninth</big> Swing, rustless blade, in the dauntless hand; Ride, soul of a god, through the deathless band, Through the low green mounds, or the breadth of the land, Wherever your legions dwell! Virginia Frazer Boyle   Gen. N. B. Forrest dies, 1877    [Pg 241] <big>October Thirtieth</big> It will be difficult in all history to find a more varied career than his, a man who, from the greatest poverty, without any learning, and by sheer force of character alone became the great fighting leader of fighting men, a man in whom an extraordinary military instinct and sound common-sense supplied to a very large extent his unfortunate want of military education. His military career teaches us that the genius which makes men great soldiers is not art of war. Viscount Wolseley (England)     <big>October Thirty-First</big> Rising from the position of a private soldier to wear the wreath and stars of a lieutenant-general, and that without education or influence to help him, wounded four times and having twenty-nine horses shot under him, capturing 31,000 prisoners, and cannon, flags, and stores of all kinds beyond computation, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a born genius for war, and his career is one of the most brilliant and romantic to be found in the pages of history. Rev. J. William Jones [Pg 242]     <hr style="width: 50%;" /> [Pg 243] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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