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About The banner of the South. (Augusta, Ga.) 1868-1870 | View Entire Issue (July 24, 1869)
8 part Cause, Polk! BY C. E. m’c. We hear a solemn sad’ning sound, A mournful knell; From every sacred spire tolls forth The Funeral bell. Through all the land a wail goes out, The nation weeps; And “voices full of tears” proclaim, A Hero sleeps. Forever stilled the noble heart, Within his breast, The patriot soldier, martyr priest, Is now at rest. Then everywhere let joy be hushed, And bow each head; Truth, Chivalry, and Freedom weep, For Polk is dead. And near the spot where fell our chief, We wait the foe; But we weep not though all our hearts Are full of woe. Our sobs are hush’d where cannons roar, And patriots fall; The tears we shed are grape and shell. And Minnie hall! A thought undying sternly throbs, Our hearts among; And vengeance speaks in ev’ry eye, On every tongue. For this, O God! we watch and wait— From hour to hour. Be ours, Almighty One the arms, And thine the power. Army Term ., June 17£A, 18G4. ANECDOTE OF STONEWALL JACKSON- The good people of Madison county, Va., are fond of entertaining strangers with an anecdote of the great Stonewall Jackson, “t seems that while the Yan kees occupied Orange Courthouse, a short time before the battle of Cedar Run, in 1862, and while Jackson was supposed to be far away, out of striking distance, a party of Federal officers started in the direction of Madison Courthouse, for a good dinner at a farm house. They soon came to the elegant residence of Mrs. K., and promptly told her their wants, at the same time politely saying that if she had no one to cook the dinner, they had brought one along with them who had learned that art at the hands of Mons. Soyer during the Crimean war. She graciously set before them the contents of such a larder as only a regular Virginia housekeeper can boast of, apologizing for the homely style of everything. In the midst of the revelry she walked up to the ranking officer present, and, with great sweetness of manner, begged them to spare her enough out of the stores she set before them to enable her to entertain some friends at supper whom she was expect ing momentarily. ‘‘And who may the expected guests he madam, if I may be so bold? Mosbv, or some of your rebel scouts, perhaps, as this is a great rendezvous for the jay hawkers. ’’ “Someone greater than Mosby, my dear sir, and one equally übiquitous, and ten times more dangerous to those who wear your colors.” She then briefly told them she had received a note from one of Gen. Jackson’s aids, saying that he and staff would probably call about 7 o’clock P. M., and would be glad to get supper. The rapid order to “mount and away,” was the Coloners lirst words, and soon they mouuted, and the jingling of spurs and the clattering of hoofs along the road showed that the name of the Avenger of the Valley had scared away the Blue Birds. As much to Mrs K.’s astonish ment as it would have been to the Fede ral officers’, Gen. Jackson and staff did come along at sundown, and really made their evening meal off what the morn ing guests had spared. A few days more and his cannon had forced John Pope back beyond Manassas, arid our army entered Maryland. —Nat then Courier A BOY IN BLUE AN HONOR TO HIS CLOTH One of the bravest spirits that fell in defence of the principles of the Lost Cause, was Joel A. Battle, Jr., a son of Col. Joel A. Battle, who had several sons in the war on that side of the ques tion, two of whom whre killed on the same field. Joel A. Battle, Jr. was the adjutant of his father’s regiment, having left his home and wife in Ohio, where he was practicing law, when the war. nroke out to attach himself as a private soldier to this command. He was killed on the second day’s engagement (Mon day, ah of April) of the battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing. He had on his person at the time he fell, a plain gold watch, bearing his name engraved on a shield on the case, outside. A Federal soldier got possession of it, and sold it subsequently to Col. Win, Heath of the L. S. Army. A short time since Col. Heath met Col. Joel A. Battle, of this city and learning from him that a watch answer ing a description of one he gave had belonged to his son, undertook to recover it for him on his return. Yesterday Col. Battle received the watch, as per promise, accompanied by the following note from Col. Heath : “St. Louis, June 13,1869. General Joel A. Battle : Dear Sir— l We this day sent your watch, per Adam’s Express, to your ad dress at the City Hotel, Nashville, Ten nesse. You will probably receive it before this reaches you. I had a letter from Gen. Brayman after I wrote you last month, and determined then to do as I have done, but was suddenly re quested by our court to go to New York and Boston on business for the couuty, and only returned a day or so ago. Hoping you may experience the same pleasure in recovering the watch, that I do in restoring it, I remain Yours truly, W. H. Heath.” It is a massive plain gold, doubled cased watch, and orginally cost $175 in gold. By the family, of course, it is prized far above its intrinsic worth and to Col. Battle himself, its return in such a manner is especially gratifying, coming through the hands of one who thus proved himself a foeman worthy of his steel. Nashville Banner. Dead Confederate Soldiers. —The following soldiers from South Carolina and Florida, are buried in the Confede rate Cemetery at Shepherdstown Virginia S. L. Robinson, Brook’s Artillery; Samuel Canty, Company D. 16th Regi ment; M. Banks, Hampton's Legion; E. J. Rogers, Spartanburg; Capt. H. J. Smith, Company D, Hampton's Legion; J. E. Dawkins, Union District. Florida *—Sergeant-Major, An derson; T. J* Clark, sth Regiment; 0, M. Harris, Company K, Bth Regiment, B Wright, Company B, Bth Regiment. The cemetery is now under the exclu sive control of the Memorial Association composed of the surving Confederate soldiers, and efforts are making to raise funds to erect a handsome monument over the dead, and to remove those who fell at Sharpsburg, (Antietam) to this cemetery. Persons who may wish to learn any thing about Confederate graves at this place or Sharpsburg', or who may wish to contribute their mite to the “Monu ment Fund,” will have their letters promptly answered by addressing. JOSEPH McMURRAN. Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, Virginia. [From the Glasgow, (Mo.) Journal. M’NEIL, THE PALMYRA BUTCHER, So long as God gives us life, and the earth is cursed with the presence of McNeil, we feel it to be our solemn dutj* to rehearse, once every year, the story of the most atrocious and horrible occur rences in the annals of barbarous war fare. On the 17th day of October, 1862, a deed was enacted at the Fair Grounds at Palmyra, Missouri, which sent a thrill of horror throughout the civilized world. Tea brave, true and innocent men were taken from their prison, driven to the edge of the town, seated on their rough board coffins, and for no crime of their own, murdered like so many swine. Mur dered ! butchered! by the old blotch upon creation s face, John McNeil, now by the grace of bayonets, Tom Fletcher, and tho Devil, Sheriff of St. Louis coun ty! and a radical in full fellowship. There was our poor, handsome, gallant, boyhood friend, Tom Sidener. As pure a soul as ever winged its flight from blood-stained sod to that God who will yet, to all eternity damn the fiendish but cher NcNeil! Poor Tom! He was a model paragon of manly grace and beau ty. So exquisitely formed, features to perfect and lair, so brave and yet so gen tle, that even the vile reptile, Xnichell, now editor of the Hannibal Courier , said that “in his beauty and wickedness he reminded him of Absolom.” Poor fellow! He was engaged t■ be married to a young lady in Monroe county. When he learned he was to be shot, he sent for his wedding suit, which had just been made, declaring that if he could not be married in it he intended to die in it. Arrayed in his elegant black broadcloth, and his white silk vest, when he mounted his coarse plank coffin in the wagon that was to bear him to death, he looked as if he was going to be married instead of shot. The very guards cried like chil dren when they bid him good-bye. Rais ing his cap, and bowing to the weeping women, who lined the streets, he was driven from their sight, forever! Half an hour after, six musket ball pierced his noble heart, and his white silk wed ding vest was torn and dyed in his mar tyr blood. There was poor old Willis Baker, his ■ SES 111. Young Smith was selected. And then ensued a contest without parallel in all the 6,000 years of human history. Humphrey refused to let any man die in his stead, declared he would feel himself a murderer if he did. Smith protested that he was only a poor orphan boy, and so far as he knew there was not a soul on earth to grieve for him; that Humphrey had a large family, entirely dependent on him for daily bread, and it was his duty to live if he could. And Smith, the simple country lad, on!y seventeen years old, the Hero without a peer on all Fame’s mighty scroll, took his seat on his rough box—and was shot. We might dwell for hours on the in cidents connected with the most frightful butchery of ancient or modern ages. But why go on ? The murder was done! The Confederate Government talked of demanding the murderer McNeil. Then a “memorial” was gotten up, and signed by two thousand Missourians, recom mending the accursed old monster, on account of his Palmyra massacre, to the special favor of Abe Lincoln. And lie was promoted to a Brigadier Generalship. The green sod of the Palmyra Fair Grounds long since drank up the life blood of ten innocent, heroic hearts. The melancholy elms wave their dark boughs peacefully over the scene of the terrible tragedy. The last time we saw the place the plough had turned up a part of the historic grounds, and the green corn glit tered in the sunlight where once the mur derers musket gleamed. All traces of the fearful crime had faded from the spot: and everything was quiet, serene and beautiful as of yore. But until the heavens are rolled away as a scroll, and the great Archangel sounds the knell of Time the Blood Spots of the Palmyra Massacre will stand out—deep, dark and ineffaceable —upon the records of Earth’s darkest horrors. Its Rightful memories can never, should never die ! Genera tion alter generation should repeat the story; mothers should tell it to their children. And the names of Butcher McNeil and all the signers of his black ‘ memorial” should be inscribed in letters of flame upon the gates of hell, and be damned with their owners to everlasting infamy, hatred and execration ! For the Banner of the South. THE SOUTH AND HER FUTURE, Editor Banner of the South : Four years have now been added to the annals of the past, since with a sad and depressed heart, the gallant Southern soldier-boy, “stacked” the arms which he had wielded so manfully in defence of his country, and surrendered to a vic torious foe. head whitened with the snows of more than seventy winters. Heroic old man! With his white hair streaming in the wind, he seated himself on his rude cof fin, and died without a shudder, refusing with his last breath to forgive his execu tioners, and swearing that he would “meet and torment them in hell, through all eternity!” There was that helpless, half idiot boy from Lewis county, who allowed himself to be blindfolded; then hearing Sidener and the others refuse, slipped up one corner of the bandage, and seeing the others with their eyes uncovered, removed the handkerchief from his own, and died as innocent as a lamb. There was Humstead, and Bixler, and McPheeters. And there was that most wonderful martyr of all—young Smith, of Knox county—who died for another man. His heart-broken wife, iu widow’s weeds, with her eight helpless little ones in deep mourning, that was only less black than the anguish they endured, or the heart of him to whom she appealed, rushed to the feet of NcNeil, and in accents so piteous, that a soul of adamant must have melted under it; besought him for tiie lives of her husband and father. She was brutally repulsed. But Stratch ham, the monster of Shelby county, whom the angel of God, a few months afterward, smote with Herodian rotten ness and worms—Stratcham, whose flesh literally petrified and fell from his living skeleton, at New Orleans—Stratcham, who has long been paying in the deepest, blackest, hottest hole in perdition, the penally of his forty-ply damnation-de serving crimes, was Provost Marshal. He saw the frantic agony of the woman; called her into his office; and told her that he would save her husband, if she would give him three hundred dollars, and then submit —but oh, humanity shudders, sickens, at the horrid proposal. The wretched, half-crazed, agonized wife, not knowing what she did, acceded, to save her husband’s life. And the next morning she was found lying insane and nearly dead, with her babe at iICF br D,Pst, near the public spring of Palmyra. After all this her husband was only re leased on condition that another should be shot in his place. Four long years have dragged their slow length along since the Southern patriots sang the funeral dirge and planted the weeping willow over the grave of our loved and lost Confederacy. During these years of disappointment and sorrow, we have submitted to perse cution, with the best possible grace, and have struggled hard by our peaceful submission, to appease the malicious ha tred of our persecutors. We have suf fered scoffs and insults which have galled our proud spirits, and have struggled to bury the tomahawk and resurrect the implements of industry ancf peace. Have our efforts been all in «ain ? We trust not—we believe note For, though we have not yet received political justice, we have bettered our in dustrial interest by our patience, arid our condition is, undoubtedly, better tiian it might have been had we nursed tl|: ha tred that wrangled in our bosom For by such a course we could not have accom plished anything of good. That ivould only have ealied down upon our defence less heads the malignity of our foes. Yes, we have done well to submit, with a commendable fortitude, to indignities which we dare not resist. ’Tis well that we a*re willing to place a seal upon the trials and hatreds of the past, and to work and look to the future. By nursing our vengence we could not have added a fresh laurel to the wreaths that encircle our departed heroes, but would only have called down the bitterest persecutions upon those whom they died to save. We can only claim the privilege of planting a floweret over the ashes of our loved and lost, and with this let us rest contented, trusting in an all-wise God to perpetuate the history of deeds that have rendered them so noble and so great. Let us now turn our attention to the Future and struggle to regain, b yf eace ful avocations, the national honor and glory which we have lost by war. In this way, onty, can we reprieve the country which these patriots died to save. “The sablest clouds of sorrow hath a a silver lining,” and the South is not to look forward to a dark and miserable fu ture. The dark clouds that now hover over our political horizon are not so impenetra ble that the bright rays of a summer’s sun may not pierce them. The smother ed hopes and aims of our country are not exterminated, but may again be re vived! What vve have lost is not lost forever! Let but the young men of the South, who fought so nobly on her hundreds of battle-fields, apply themselves as earnest ly to her industrial pursuits, and devote themselves with the same spirit to her educational advantages and the develop ment of her vast resources of hidden wealth, and all will yet be well. Let but the heroes of those well fought battle-fields deport themselves with the same indomitable spirit, and strive with the same undaunted soul, in our avocations of peace, and we dare express the firm conviction that, in this struggle they may be much more success ful than in the last. Before us stretches our country, fer tile in soil, rich in minerals, and salu brious in climate. Our Southern lauds are still our own, and our Southern cot ton fields may be made as fertile iu pro ducts as before; our western valleys will yield as luxuriant harvests of grain, our water courses are as limpid, pure, and as majestic; our hills and valleys are as beautiful; our maidens are as chaste and constant, and our hearts are as true, wo trust, as they were ten years ago! Then, what more can we ask to assist in recuperating our fallen estate 'l We only need men of unflinching determina tion and with true hearts, ready “To will and to do.” We only want our men to lay hold of these natural advantages and turn them to their own as well as to the common good of the country. Let but our men of intellect and means devote themselves to the duties that lie before them, and they may hope to accomplish much good for our stricken land. All must be aware of the immense re sources in our midst, of the wealth that tho projection of our railways offer, ot the valuable arts that lie buried in our soil, of the value of our agricultural and manufacturing interests, and of the nu merous other sources of employment that our country offers, where "young men may do themselves and their coun try much credit. And by constant ap plication and energy, may hope to raise the South to a state of wealth, that will secure to her that independence and high place among nations which she so well deserves, but has unfortunately lost. Rally to your country’s defence, noble patriots of the fcouth, and enlist in peace ful avocations calculated to work cut the same nobie end for which you once so zealously battled. Beize upon the natural ad van tages which oar country offers a apply yourselves with interest, and l . assured that Providence will assist in your noble work, and that the dJ° U not far distant when the bright J/ independence and prosperity w illV °‘ upon us, with all its resplendent bdf liancy, and, at the name of America* foreign powers will again bow down witl’ reverence. A Fri End Athens, Ga, July. 1869. [From the Southern Metropolis ] MASSACHUSETTS AND PEACE, The Bay State is famous for patriotic demonstrations. Its love for the Geneva! Government has always been remarkable The first insurrection against the United States occurred in 1786, and was cop fined to Massachusetts. The same dear State gave another specimen of its loy alty in resisting the embargo of lgOs During the war of 1812 it was not Spar ' iug of its aid and comfort. The Bv Lights and Hartford Convention of that period are indelible memorials of its i a tense love of country. Its Legislature in its abhorrence of the contemplated annexation of Texas, passed the first se . cession resolutions ever adopted in tlii ■ country. Asa further mark of respect for national legislation, a law of Con gress could only be enforced in Boston by the presence of United States troops Is not a state so brimful of patriotism as this a most fitting one to start a peace festival ? A state that delights to honor Sumner with his foreign war policy Hoar with his domestic war opinion, and Butler with his humane views of recon struction ? The Sumner speech, the Hoar opinion, and Butler resolutions would have been admirable accompani ments to the musical outbursts of the Boston peace revelers. With the South between Yankee anvil and the Yankee hammer, with England to be beaten out by the same process, the anvil chorus and its ten thousand jarring shriekers, were not out of place. What a happy inspiration it would have been, if the pen of some intensely lovai New England poet had furnished the Boston jubilators with an ode commem orative of the peaceful sentiments of their peaceful leaders, Sumner, Hoar and Butler ? An interlude like this would have made the Jubilee more intelligible, its purposes more transparent, than they could have been made by any other medium o. explanation, It would then have been plain enough to see that with peace men of such a stripe there must have been something behind this frolic besides the mere mockery of a peace festival. It would have been plain enough to all un derstandings that the Jubilee was a false pretense, a money scheme—as much so as wooden nutmegs or sanded sugar Upon the whole, then, the Peace Jubilee was what all Yankee projects are intend ed to be —a stone for the South, and bread for brother Jonathan. Confederate Archives. —We under stand that the archives of the Confederate Government are about to be thrown open to the public under certain restrictions They have heretofore been under con trol of the War Department, and all ap plications to examine them have been relused. This determination on the part of President Gram will contribute some thing to the public curiosity, and wifi add, we trust, m ore interest, if not mate truth, works being issued from day to day connected with the late war. Wilmington , N. C. Journal , July 3 Put a Hole Through it. —One mgfb Gen. was out on the line. He ou served a light on the mountain opposite Thinking it was the signal light ot the enemy, he told his artillery officer that a hole could be easily put through u Whereupon the officer turning to to ‘ corporal in charge of the gun tnt J “Corporal do you see that ligut t “Yes sir.” “Put a ho!'* through it. The corporal sighted the gun, ami when all was ready, hv looked up ■* said : “General, that’s the moon. “Don’t care a darn; put a hole through it any wav.” * •/ Another Arrival of s"' l - 3 1m GRANTS.—borne sixty Swiss brought over through the ag Eastern North Carolina linuiigra-*'»u - - sociation, arrived a. G vdsoogo , on / r ’ the 2d inst., and were distributed i pally to the counties of \\ ilsoo, pL combe and Pitt—Wik • n reexu ' n S . half the lot. Th se t Bdg .■■■'/ ty arrived on Saturday at J ' Wilson Plauulc der say-: - n gatur- Soon after their arrival day,the rites of matrimony wert o; . .|j,> between three couples, by a • ■‘“‘"hie t eace, and as me parties j u ter speak English, it was Vt _ r e cession of an interpreter uu“ ’“,; eu]o oy declared “man and wile. _j J ar the was performed at Lutt >O, in . re-• -■ crowd.
