FALL

Sad-hearted Spirit of the solitudes,
Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods!
Gray-gowned in fog, gold-girdled with the gloom
Of tawny sunsets; burdened with perfume
Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist;
And all the beauty of the fire-kissed
Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way,
Odorous of death and drowsy with decay.
I think of thee as seated ’mid the showers
Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers—
The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June
Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune
A singer gives her soul’s wild melody—
Watching the squirrel store his granary.
Or, ’mid old orchards, I have pictured thee:
Thy hair’s profusion blown about thy back;
One lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black;
Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweet
The rosy russets tumbled at thy feet.
Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers?
Or heart-sick bird that sang of happier hours?
A cricket dirging days that soon must die?
Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?
Madison Cawein

November First

The white people owe a high duty to the negro. It was necessary to the safety of the State to base suffrage on the capacity to exercise it wisely. This results in excluding a great number of negroes from the ballot, but their right to life, liberty, property, and justice must be even more carefully safeguarded than ever. It is true that a superior race cannot submit to the rule of a weaker race without injury; it is also true in the long years of God that the strong cannot oppress the weak without destruction.

Charles B. Aycock

The New Constitution of Mississippi adopted, 1890

November Second

It becomes the duty of all States, and especially of those whose constitutions recognize the existence of domestic slavery, to look with watchfulness to the attempts which have been recently made to disturb the rights secured to them by the Constitution of the United States.

James Knox Polk

James Knox Polk born, 1795

November Third

FROM THE LAST-KNOWN DECLARATION OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS OF MAN! VIRGINIA, 1687

Man in marriage is said to repair his maimed side, and to regain his own rib. And the woman is then and thereby reduced to her first place.... From a rib to a helper was a happy change.

Col. John Page
(In “A Deed of Gift”)

November Fourth

NOVEMBER

’Neath naked boughs, and sitting in the sun,
With idle hands, because her work is done,
I mark how smiles the lovely, fading year,
Crowned with chrysanthemums and berries bright,
And in her eyes the shimmer of a tear.
Danske Dandridge

November Fifth

It came to pass that I was one of the few who witnessed the last descending glory of this attempted Republic, projected by men who considered that the only true and natural foundation of society was “the wants and fears of individuals,” but which was decided adversely to their interpretation of that natural law, by the God of battles.

Cornelius E. Hunt
(Of “The Shenandoah”)

[Learning Aug. 2, 1865, in the course of her cruising in the Pacific, that the Confederate government no longer existed, and knowing that they had been rated as “pirates” by Federal officials, the captain and crew determined to surrender their flag and commission in a foreign port, setting out forthwith for Liverpool, England.—Editor]

November Sixth

The First Lieutenant stood ... gazing at the flag under which he had so long done battle, and then turned away with tears coursing down his bronzed cheeks.

He was not alone in this exhibition of weakness, if such it was, for more than one eye, unaccustomed to weep, turned aside to conceal the unwonted drops, as at a silent signal, the quartermaster hauled down the Stars and Bars, thereby surrendering the Shenandoah to the British authorities.

Cornelius E. Hunt
(Of “The Shenandoah”)

The “Shenandoah” furls the last Confederate battle flag, 1865

November Seventh

A very shy fellow was dusky Sam,
As slow of speech as the typical clam.
He couldn’t make love to his Angeline
Though his love grew like the Great Gourd Vine;
So he brought the telephone to his aid
To assist in wooing the chosen maid:
“Miss Angeline? Dat you?” called he.
“Yas.—Dis Angeline—Dis me—”
“I—des wanter say—dat I does—love you—
Miss Angeline—does you love me, too—?”
“Why—yas—Of course I loves my beau—
Say what’s de reason you wants to know?”
“Miss—hold de wire—Will you marry me? True—?”
“Yas. Course I will——Say. Who is you?”
Martha Young

November Eighth

History will record the events attending this capture as a most extraordinary lapse in the career of a civilized nation—an instance where statesmen and Jurisconsults betrayed their country to administer to the passions of a mob. Edward Everett ... wrote for the newspapers, vindicating on principles of public law, the act of Captain Wilkes.

James M. Mason

The English Royal Mail steamer “Trent” held up by the Federal war-ship “San Jacinto” and the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, arrested, 1861

November Ninth

I also propose that these surgeons shall act as commissaries, with power to receive and distribute such contributions of money, food, clothing, and medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of prisoners. I further propose that these surgeons be selected by their own Governments, and they shall have full liberty at any and all times, through the agents of exchange, to make reports, not only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of prisoners.

Robert Ould
(Agent of Exchange)

I need not state how much suffering would have been prevented if this offer had been met in the spirit in which it was dictated. In addition, the world would have had truthful accounts of the treatment of prisoners on both sides, by officers of character, and thus much of that misrepresentation which has flooded the country would never have been poured forth.... The acceptance of the proposition made by me, on behalf of the Confederate Government, would not only have furnished to the sick, medicines and physicians, but to the well an abundance of food and clothing from the ample stores of the United States.

R. R. Stevenson

A. P. Hill born, 1825

November Tenth

The verdict has been found, said they, and no appeal will be permitted. “Besides,” said many, “why stir up these old matters? Let them be; they will be forgotten within a generation.” But there are some yet living, in both the South and the North, who prefer truth to falsehood, even though the attainment of the former costs some trouble.

R. R. Stevenson

Major Henry Wirz, Commandant of Andersonville prison, hanged, 1865

Robert Young Hayne born, 1791

November Eleventh

“The report of Mr. Stanton, as Secretary of War, on the 19th of July, 1866, exhibits the fact that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands during the war, 22,576 died; while of the Confederate prisoners in Federal hands 26,436 died.”

[Since Dr. Stevenson wrote the above (1876), the figures on either side have been added to, but the proportion remains about the same. If nothing more, these figures of comparative mortality should be borne in mind in exoneration of Henry Wirz, and of those of greater responsibility who were accused with him, but who were neither executed nor even brought to trial. A number of gallant Federal officers, once prisoners at Andersonville, have in later years come forward to testify in book and monograph as to the true character of Major Wirz.—Editor]

November Twelfth

When it was ascertained that exchanges could not be made, either on the basis of the cartel, or officer for officer and man for man, I was instructed by the Confederate authorities to offer the United States Government their sick and wounded, without requiring any equivalents. Accordingly, in the summer of 1864, I did offer to deliver from ten to fifteen thousand of the sick and wounded at the mouth of the Savannah River, without requiring any equivalents, assuring, at the same time, the Agent of the United States, General Mulford, that if the number for which he might send transportation could not readily be made up from sick and wounded, I would supply the difference with well men. Although this offer was made in the summer of 1864, transportation was not sent to the Savannah River until about the middle or last of November.

R. R. Stevenson

November Thirteenth

In the summer of 1864, in consequence of certain information communicated to me by the Surgeon-general of the Confederate States as to the deficiency of medicines, I offered to make purchases of medicines from the United States authorities, to be used exclusively for the relief of Federal prisoners. I offered to pay gold, cotton, or tobacco for them, and even two or three prices, if required. At the same time I gave assurances that the medicines would be used exclusively in the treatment of Federal prisoners; and moreover agreed, on behalf of the Confederate States, if it was insisted on, that such medicines might be brought into the Confederate lines by the United States surgeons, and dispensed by them.

R. R. Stevenson

Texas declares her independence of Mexico, 1835

November Fourteenth

Were I to enter the Hall, at this remote period, and meet my associates who signed the instrument of our independence, I should know them all, from Hancock down to Stephen Hopkins.

Charles Carroll
(Of Carrollton, at 90 years of age)

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, dies, 1832

November Fifteenth

In other words, a veteran of our civil strife, General Sherman advocated in an enemy’s country the sixteenth century practices of Tilly, described by Schiller, and the later devastation of the Palatinate policy of Louis XIV, commemorated by Goethe. In the twenty-first century, perhaps, partisan feeling as regards the Civil War performances having by that time ceased to exist, American investigators, no longer regardful of a victor’s self-complacency, may treat the episodes of our struggle with the same even-handed and out-spoken impartiality with which Englishmen now treat the revenges of the Restoration, or Frenchmen the dragonnades of the Grand Monarque. But when that time comes, the page relating to what occurred in 1864 in the Valley of the Shenandoah, in Georgia, and in the Carolinas,—a page which Mr. Rhodes somewhat lightly passes over—will probably be rewritten in characters of far more decided import.

Charles Francis Adams
(Massachusetts)

Sherman begins his march from Atlanta to the sea, 1864

November Sixteenth

HENRY WIRZ, THE UNFORTUNATE SWISS-AMERICAN COMMANDANT AT ANDERSONVILLE

On the evening before the day of the execution of Major Wirz a man visited me, on the part of a Cabinet officer, to inform me that Major Wirz would be pardoned if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in the cruelties at Andersonville....

When I visited Major Wirz the next morning he told me that the same proposal had been made to him.

F. E. Boyle
(Priest in attendance upon Major Wirz)

Some parties came to the confessor of Wirz, Rev. Father Boyle, and also to me, one of them informing me that a high Cabinet officer wished to assure Wirz, that if he would implicate Jefferson Davis with the atrocities committed at Andersonville, his sentence would be commuted. He, the messenger, or whoever he was, requested me to inform Wirz of this.

Lewis Schade
(German-American Attorney to Major Wirz)

November Seventeenth

Sad spirit, swathed in brief mortality,
Of Fate and fervid fantasies the prey,
Till the remorseless demon of dismay
O’erwhelmed thee—lo! thy doleful destiny
Is chanted in the requiem of the sea
And shadowed in the crumbling ruins gray
That beetle o’er the tarn. Here all the day
The Raven broods on solitude and thee:
Here gloats the moon at midnight, while the Bells
Tremble, but speak not lest thy Ulalume
Should startle from her slumbers, or Lenore
Hearken the love-forbidden tone that tells
The shrouded legend of thine early doom
And blast the bliss of heaven forevermore.
John B. Tabb

First American Monument erected to the memory of Edgar Allan Poe dedicated in Baltimore, 1875

November Eighteenth

POE—He is the nightingale of our Southern poets—singing at night, singing on nocturnal themes, but with all the passionate tenderness and infinite pathos of his own angel Israfel, “whose heart-strings are a lute.”

Oliver Huckel
(Pennsylvania)

November Nineteenth

The election of 1873 was the culmination of the evil effects of reconstruction. The rule of the alien and the negro was complete, with the latter holding the lion’s share of the offices. The lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, superintendent of education, and commissioner of immigration and agriculture, all were negroes; both houses of the legislature had negro presiding officers; in the senate ten negroes held seats; of the seventy-seven Republicans in the house, fifty-five were negroes and fifteen were carpet-baggers; the majority of the county offices were filled by negroes, 90 per cent. of whom could neither read nor write.

Dunbar Rowland
(Mississippi in “Reconstruction”)

November Twentieth

Fleet on the tempest blown,
Far from the mountain dell,
Rose in their cloudy cone,
Elfin and Spell;
Woo’d by the spirit tone,
Trembling and chill,
Wandered a maiden lone,
On the bleak hill:
Mau-in-waun-du-me-nung,
Trembling and chill.
Joseph Salyards

November Twenty-First

Low in the moory dale,
Green mossy waters flow,
Under the drowsy gale,
Moaning and slow;
There in her snowy veil,
Bleeding and bound,
Lay the sweet damsel pale,
On the cold ground,
Mau-in-waun-du-me-nung,
On the cold ground.
Joseph Salyards

November Twenty-Second

The history of that period, of the reconstruction period of the South, has never been fully told. It is only beginning to be written.

Thomas Nelson Page

Convention in Louisiana disfranchising ex-Confederates, 1867

November Twenty-Third

But talkin’ the way I see it, a big feller and a little feller, SO-CALLED, got into a fite, and they fout and fout a long time, and everybody all round kep’ hollerin’ hands off, but kep’ helpin’ the big feller, until finally the little feller caved in and hollered enuff. He made a bully fite, I tell you, Selah. Well, what did the big feller do? Take him by the hand and help him up and brush the dirt off his clothes? Nary time! No, sur! But he kicked him arter he was down, and throwed mud on him, and drug him about and rubbed sand in his eyes, and now he’s gwine about hunting up his poor little property. Wants to confiscate is, SO-CALLED. Blame my jacket if it ain’t enuff to make your head swim.

Bill Arp
(To Artemus Ward)

November Twenty-Fourth

PROTEST AGAINST THE TARIFF, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1832

The majority in Congress, in imposing protecting duties, which are utterly destructive of the interests of South Carolina, not only impose no burthens, but actually confer enriching bounties upon their constituents, proportioned to the burthens they impose upon us. Under these circumstances, the principle of representative responsibility is perverted into a principle of representative despotism. It is this very tie, binding the majority of Congress to execute the will of their constituents, which makes them our inexorable oppressors. They dare not open their hearts to the sentiments of human justice, or to the feelings of human sympathy. They are tyrants by the very necessity of their position, however elevated may be their principles in their individual capacities.

George McDuffie
(Address to the People of the United States)

Ordinance of Nullification passed by South Carolina, 1832

Battle of the Clouds, Lookout Mountain, 1863

November Twenty-Fifth

PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR OF 1812, NEW ENGLAND

The call of the Secretary of War for the militia of the States met blunt refusal from the Governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The Assembly of the latter State sustained its Executive in a formal address which denounced the war and declared Connecticut to be a free, sovereign, and independent State, and that the United States was not a national but a confederated republic. President Madison was held up as an invader of the State’s authority over her militia.

Henry A. White

Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863

November Twenty-Sixth

THE HOMESPUN DRESS

Oh, yes! I am a Southern girl,
And glory in the name,
And boast it with far greater pride
Than glittering wealth or fame.
I envy not the Northern girls
Their robes of beauty rare,
Though diamonds grace their snowy necks
And pearls bedeck their hair.
Hurrah, hurrah!
For the sunny South so dear.
Three cheers for the homespun dress
The Southern ladies wear.

November Twenty-Seventh

But know, ’twas mine the secret power
That waked thee at the midnight hour
In bleak November’s reign:
’Twas I the spell around thee cast,
When thou didst hear the hollow blast
In murmurs tell of pleasures past,
That ne’er would come again.
Washington Allston

November Twenty-Eighth

The cruel fire that singed her robe died out in rainbow flashes,
And bright her silvery sandals shone above the hissing ashes!

Organization of Legislature in Carolina Hall after the election of General Hampton as Governor of South Carolina, 1876

November Twenty-Ninth

My fellow-people, let me, in conclusion, congratulate you on having a Governor once more as is a Governor. Oh, there is life in the old land yet, and by and by we’ll transport them black Republicans into the African desert, and put ’em to teaching Hottentots the right of suffrage. Winter Davis could then find a field of labor sufficient for the miserable remnant of his declining years. He is the winter of our discontent, and we want to get rid of him.

Bill Arp
(On Hampton’s Election)

November Thirtieth

Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight,
Nor Time’s remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory’s light
That gilds your deathless tomb.
Theodore O’Hara
(From “The Bivouac of the Dead”)

General Patrick R. Cleburne killed at Franklin, Tenn., 1864