  Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf October First Come on thy swaying feet, October Second 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 October Third What a brave splendour October Fourth At morn—at noon—at twilight dim— October Fifth Tormented sorely by the chastening rod, October Sixth Who said “false as dreams”? Not one who saw Henry Timrod dies, 1867 Nathaniel Bacon dies, 1676 October Seventh And the fever called “Living” Edgar Allan Poe dies, 1849 Battle of King’s Mountain, N. C., 1780 October Eighth 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 October Ninth 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 October Tenth 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 October Eleventh 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 October Twelfth 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 October Thirteenth 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 October Fourteenth 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 October Fifteenth THE CONFEDERATE VETERAN Let the autumn hoarfrost gather, October Sixteenth 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 John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, 1859 October Seventeenth 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 “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 October Eighteenth 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” October Nineteenth Float out, oh flag, from Freedom’s burnished lance. Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, 1781 Burning of the “Peggy Stewart” at Annapolis, 1774 October Twentieth 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 October Twenty-First 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 October Twenty-Second Oh, the rolling, rolling prairies, and the grasses waving, waving Samuel Houston inaugurated President of Texas, 1836 October Twenty-Third 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 October Twenty-Fourth IMMORTALITY Battles nor songs can from Oblivion save, October Twenty-Fifth 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 John P. Kennedy born, 1795 October Twenty-Sixth Give us back the ties of Yorktown! October Twenty-Seventh 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 October Twenty-Eighth 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 October Twenty-Ninth Swing, rustless blade, in the dauntless hand; Gen. N. B. Forrest dies, 1877 October Thirtieth 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 October Thirty-First 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 |
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