While the banks are "carrying" the peanut farmers, pending their fall harvest, the activities of the "truckers" are at their height, so that the money loaned to one class of agriculturist is replaced by the deposits of the other class; and by the same token, of course, the peanut farmers are depositing money in the banks when the "truckers" want to borrow. This situation, one judges, is not found objectionable by Norfolk and Portsmouth bankers, and I have been told that, as a corollary, these banks have never been forced, even in times of dire panic, to issue clearing house certificates, but have always paid cash.

Norfolk has grown so fast and has so rapidly replaced the old with the new, that the visitor must keep his eyes open if he would not miss entirely such lovely souvenirs of an earlier and easier life, as still remain. Who would imagine, seeing it to-day, that busy Granby Street had ever been a street of fine residences? Yet a very few years have passed since the old Newton, Tazwell, Dickson and Taylor residences surrendered to advancing commerce and gave place to stores and office buildings—the two last mentioned having been replaced by the Dickson Building and the Taylor Building, erected less than fifteen years ago.

Freemason Street is the highway which, more than any other, tells of olden times. For though the downtown end of this lovely old thoroughfare has lapsed into decay, many beautiful mansions, dating from long ago, are to be seen a few blocks out from the busier portion of the city. Among these should be mentioned the Whittle house, the H.N. Castle house, and particularly the exquisite ivy-covered residence of Mr. Barton Myers, at the corner of Bank Street. The city of Norfolk ought, I think, to attempt to acquire this house and preserve it (using it perhaps as a memorial museum to contain historical relics) to show what has been, in Norfolk, as against what is, and to preach a silent sermon on the high estate of beauty from which a fine old city may fall, in the name of progress and commercial growth.

To the credit of Norfolk be it said that old St. Paul's Church, with its picturesque churchyard and tombs, is excellently cared for and properly valued as a pre-Revolutionary relic. The church was built in 1730, and was struck by a British cannon-ball when Lord Dunmore bombarded the place in 1776. Baedeker tells me, however, that the cannon-ball now resting in the indentation in the wall of the church is "not the original."

When I say that St. Paul's is properly valued I mean that many citizens told my companion and me to be sure to visit. I observe, however—and I take it as a sign of the times in Norfolk—that an extensive, well-printed and much illustrated book on Norfolk, issued by the Chamber of Commerce, contains pictures of banks, docks, breweries, mills, office buildings, truck farms, peanut farms, battleships, clubhouses, hotels, hospitals, factories, and innumerable new residences, but no picture of the church, or of the lovely old homes of Freemason Street. Nor do I find in the booklet any mention of the history of the city or the surrounding region—although that region includes places of the greatest beauty and interest: among them the glorious old manor houses of the James River; the ancient and charming town of Williamsburg, second capital of the Virginia colony, and seat of William and Mary College, the oldest college in the United States excepting Harvard; Yorktown, "Waterloo of the Revolution"; many important battlefields of the Civil War; Hampton Institute, the famous negro industrial school at Hampton, nearby; the lovely stretch of water on which the Monitor met the Merrimac[3]; the site of the first English settlement in America at Jamestown, and, for mystery and desolation, the Dismal Swamp with Lake Drummond at its heart. But then, I suppose it is natural that the Chamber of Commerce mind should thrust aside such things in favor of the mighty "goober," which is a thing of to-day, a thing for which Norfolk is said to be the greatest of all markets. For is not history dead, and is not the man who made a fortune out of a device for shelling peanuts without causing the nuts to drop in two, still living?

[3] The Merrimac, originally a Federal vessel of wooden construction, was sunk by the Union forces when they abandoned Norfolk. A Confederate captain, John M. Brooke, raised her, equipped her with a ram, and covered her with boiler plate and railroad rails. She is called the first ironclad. While she was being reconstructed John Ericsson was building his Monitor in New York. The turret was first used on this vessel. It is worth noting that at the time of the engagement between these two ships the Monitor was not the property of the Federal Government, but belonged to C.S. Bushnell, of New Haven, who built her at his own expense, in spite of the opposition of the Navy Department of that day. The Government paid for her long after the fight. It should also be noted that the Merrimac did not fight under that name, but as a Confederate ship had been rechristened Virginia. The patriotic action of Mr. Bushnell is recalled by the fact that, only recently, Mr. Godfrey L. Cabot, of Boston, has agreed to furnish funds to build the torpedoplane designed by Admiral Fiske as a weapon wherewith to attack the German fleet within its defenses at Kiel.

And yet the modernness on which Norfolk so evidently prides herself is not something to be lightly valued. Fine schools, fine churches and miles of pleasant, recently built homes are things for any American city to rejoice in. Therefore Norfolk rejoices in Ghent, her chief modern residence district, which is penetrated by arms of the Elizabeth River, so that many of the houses in this part of the city look out upon pretty lagoons, dotted over with all manner of pleasure craft. Less than twenty years ago, the whole of what is now Ghent was a farm, and there are other suburban settlements, such as Edgewater, Larchmont, Winona and Lochhaven, out in the direction of Hampton Roads, which have grown up in the last six or eight years. The Country Club of Norfolk, with a very pleasing club-house on the water, and an eighteen-hole golf course, is at Lochhaven, and the new naval base is, I believe, to be located somewhat farther out, on the site of the Jamestown Exposition.

Norfolk is well provided with nearby seaside recreation places, of which probably the most attractive is Virginia Beach, facing the ocean. Ocean View, so called, is on Chesapeake Bay, and there are summer cottage colonies at Willoughby Spit and Cape Henry. On the bay side of Cape Henry is Lynnhaven Inlet connecting Lynnhaven Bay and River with Chesapeake Bay. From Lynnhaven Bay come the famous oysters of that name, now to be had in most of the large cities of the East, but which seemed to me to taste a little better at the Virginia Club, in Norfolk, than oysters ever tasted anywhere. Perhaps that was because they were real Lynnhavens, just as the Virginia Club's Smithfield ham is real Smithfield ham from the little town of Smithfield, Virginia, a few miles distant. On the bank of the Lynnhaven River is situated the Old Donation farm with a ruined church, and an ancient dwelling house which was used as the first courthouse in Princess Anne County; and not far distant from this place is Witch Duck Point, where Grace Sherwood, after having been three times tried, and finally convicted as a witch, was thrown into the river.

The several waterside places I have mentioned are more or less local in character, but there is nothing local about Fortress Monroe, on Old Point Comfort, just across Hampton Roads, which has for many years been one of the most beautiful and highly individualized idling places on the Atlantic Coast.

The old moated fortress, the interior of which is more like some lovely garden of the last century than a military post, remains an important coast artillery station, and is a no less lovely spot now than when our grandparents went there on their wedding journeys, stopping at the old Hygiea Hotel, long since gone the way of old hotels.

The huge Chamberlin Hotel, however, remains apparently unchanged, and is to-day as spacious, comfortable and homelike as when our fathers and mothers, or perhaps we ourselves, stopped there years ago. The Chamberlin, indeed, seems to have the gift of perennial youth. I remember a ball which was given there in honor of Admiral Sampson and the officers of his fleet, after the Spanish War. The ballroom was so full of naval and military uniforms that I, in my somber civilian clothing, felt wan and lonely. Most of the evening I passed in modest retirement, looking out upon the brilliant scene from behind a potted palm. And yet, when my companion and I, now in our dotage, recently visited the Chamberlin, there stood the same potted palm in the same place. Or if it was not the same, it was one exactly like it.

The Chamberlin is of course a great headquarters for army and navy people, and we observed, moreover, that honeymooning couples continue to infest it—for Fortress Monroe has long ranked with Washington and Niagara Falls as a scene to be visited upon the wedding journey.

There they all were, as of old: the young husband scowling behind his newspaper and pretending to read and not to be thinking of his pretty little wife across the breakfast table; the fat blonde bride being continually photographed by her adoring mate—now leaning against a pile on the pier, now seated on a wall, with her feet crossed, now standing under a live-oak within the fortress; also there was the inevitable young pair who simply couldn't keep their hands off from each other; we came upon them constantly—in the sun-parlor, where she would be seated on the arm of his chair, running her hand through his hair; wandering in the eventide along the shore, with arms about each other, or going in to meals, she leading him down the long corridor by his "ickle finger".

* * * * *

I recall that it was as we were going back to Norfolk from Old Point Comfort, having dinner on a most excellent large steamer, running to Norfolk and Cape Charles, that my companion remarked to me, out of a clear sky, that he had made up his mind, once for all, that, come what might, he would never, never, never get married. No, never!



CHAPTER XXV

COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE

Forth from its scabbard all in vain Bright flashed the sword of Lee; 'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again, It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain, Defeated, yet without a stain, Proudly and peacefully.

—ABRAM J. RYAN.

Though I had often heard, before going into the South, of the devotion of that section to the memory of General Robert E. Lee, I never fully realized the extent of that devotion until I began to become a little bit acquainted with Virginia. I remember being struck, while in Norfolk, with the fact that portraits of General Lee were to be seen in many offices and homes, much as one might expect, at the present time, to find portraits of Joffre and Nivelle in the homes of France, or of Haig in the homes of Britain. It is not enough to say that the memory of Lee is to the South like that of Napoleon I to France, for it is more. The feeling of France for Napoleon is one of admiration, of delight in a national military genius, of hero-worship, but there is not intermingled with it the quality of pure affection which fully justifies the use of the word love, in characterizing the feeling of the South for its great military leader—the man of whom Lord Wolseley said: "He was a being apart and superior to all others in every way; a man with whom none I ever knew, and very few of whom I ever read are worthy to be compared; a man who was cast in a grander mould and made of finer metal than all other men."

Nor is this love surprising, for whereas Napoleon was a self-seeking man, and one whose personal character was not altogether admirable in other respects, and whereas he could hardly be said to typify France's ideal of everything a gentleman should be, Lee sought nothing for himself, was a man of great nobility of character, and was in perfection a Virginia gentleman. At the end, moreover, where Napoleon's defeat was that of an aspirant to conquest, glory and empire, Lee's defeat was that of a cause, and the cause was regarded in the entire South as almost holy, so that, in defeat, the South felt itself martyred, and came to look upon its great general with a love and veneration unequaled in history, and much more resembling the feeling of France for the canonized Joan of Arc, than for the ambitious Corsican.

When, therefore, my companion and I heard, while in Norfolk, that Colonel Walter H. Taylor, president of the Marine Bank of that city, had served through the Civil War on General Lee's staff, we naturally became very anxious to meet him; and I am glad to say that Colonel Taylor, though at the time indisposed and confined to his home, was so kind as to receive us.

He was seated in a large chair in his library, on the second floor of his residence, a pleasant old-fashioned brick house at the corner of York and Yarmouth Streets—a slender man, not very tall, I judged (though I did not see him standing), not very strong at the moment, but with nothing of the decrepitude of old age about him, for all his seventy-seven years. Upon the contrary he was, in appearance and manner, delightfully alert, with the sort of alertness which lends to some men and women, regardless of their years, a suggestion of perpetual youthfulness. Such alertness, in those who have lived a long time, is most often the result of persistent intellectual activity, and the sign of it is usually to be read in the eyes. Colonel Taylor's keen, dark, observant, yet kindly eyes, were perhaps his finest feature, though, indeed, all his features were fine, and his head, with its well-trimmed white hair and mustache, was one of great distinction.

Mrs. Taylor (of whom we had previously been warned to beware, because she had not yet forgiven the "Yankees" for their sins) was also present: a beautiful old lady of unquenchable spirit, in whose manner, though she received us with politeness, we detected lurking danger.

And why not? Do not women remember some things longer than men remember them? Do not the sweethearts who stayed at home remember the continual dull dread they suffered while the men they loved faced danger, whereas the absent lovers were at least in part compensated for the risks they ran, by the continual sense of high adventure and achievement?

Mrs. Taylor was Miss Elizabeth Selden Saunders, daughter of Captain John L. Saunders of Virginia, who died in 1860, in the service of his country, a commander in the United States Navy. When the war broke out Miss Saunders, wishing to serve the Confederate Government, became a clerk in the Surgeon General's office, at Richmond, and there she remained while Colonel Taylor, whose training at the Virginia Military Institute, coupled with his native ability, made him valuable as an officer, followed the fortunes of General Lee, part of the time as the general's aide-de-camp, and the rest of the time as adjutant-general and chief of staff of the Army of Northern Virginia, in which capacities he was present at all general engagements of the army, under Lee.

On April 2, 1865, when Lee's gallant but fast dwindling army, short of supplies, and so reduced in numbers as to be no longer able to stand against the powerful forces of Grant, was evacuating its lines at Petersburg, when it was evident that the capital of the Confederacy was about to fall, and the orders for retreat had been despatched by Colonel Taylor, in his capacity as adjutant—then the colonel went to his commander and asked for leave of absence over night, for the purpose of going to Richmond and being married. He tells the story in his exceedingly interesting and valuable book, "General Lee—His Campaigns in Virginia":

At the close of the day's work, when all was in readiness for the evacuation of our lines under cover of the darkness of night, I asked permission of General Lee to ride over to Richmond and to rejoin him early the next morning, telling him that my mother and sisters were in Richmond and that I would like to say good-by to them, and that my sweetheart was there, and we had arranged, if practicable, to be married that night. He expressed some surprise at my entertaining such a purpose at that time, but when I explained to him that the home of my bride-elect was in the enemy's lines, that she was alone in Richmond and employed in one of the departments of the government, and wished to follow the fortunes of the Confederacy should our lines be reestablished farther South, he promptly gave his assent to my plans. I galloped to the railroad station, then at Dunlops, on the north side of the river, where I found a locomotive and several cars, constituting the "ambulance train," designed to carry to Richmond the last of the wounded of our army requiring hospital treatment. I asked the agent if he had another engine, when, pointing to one rapidly receding in the direction of Richmond, he replied, "Yonder goes the only locomotive we have besides the one attached to this train." Turning my horse over to the courier who accompanied me, with directions to join me in Richmond as soon as he could, I mounted the locomotive in waiting, directed the engineer to detach it from the cars and to proceed to overtake the engine ahead of us. It was what the sailors call a stern chase and a long one. We did not overtake the other locomotive until it had reached Falling Creek, about three-fourths of the distance, when I transferred to it and sent the other back to Petersburg. I reached Richmond without further incident, and soon after midnight I was married to Elizabeth Selden Saunders.... As will be readily understood, the occasion was not one of great hilarity, though I was very happy; my eyes were the only dry ones in the company....

The people of Richmond were greatly excited and in despair in the contemplation of the abandonment of their beautiful city by our troops. General Lee had for so long a time thwarted the designs of his powerful adversaries for the capture of the city, and seemed so unfailing and resourceful in his efforts to hold them at bay, that the good people found it difficult to realize that he was compelled at last to give way. There was universal gloom and despair at the thought that at the next rising of the sun the detested Federal soldiers would take possession of the city and occupy its streets. The transportation companies were busily engaged in arranging for the removal of the public stores and of the archives of the government. A fire in the lower part of the city was fiercely raging, and added greatly to the excitement.

Somewhere near four o'clock on the morning of the 3d of April I bade farewell to all my dear ones, and in company with my brother-in-law, Colonel John S. Saunders, proceeded toward Mayo's Bridge, which we crossed to the south side of the James, in the lurid glare of the fire, and within the sound of several heavy explosions that we took to be the final scene in the career of the Confederate navy, then disappearing in smoke on the James River, near Rockets.

Before we departed from the colonel's library, which we felt obliged to do much sooner than we wished to, owing to the condition of his health, he called our attention to an oil portrait of his old commander, which occupied the place of honor above the mantelpiece, and asked his daughters to let us see his scrap-book, containing personal letters from General Lee, Jefferson Davis, and other distinguished men, as well as various war documents of unusual interest.

We felt it a great privilege to handle these old letters and to read them, and the charm of them was the greater for the affection in which the general held Colonel Taylor, as evidenced by the tone in which he wrote. To us it was a wonderful evening.... And it still seems to me wonderful to think that I have met and talked with a man who issued Lee's orders, who rode forth with Lee when he went to meet Grant in conference at Appomattox, just before the surrender, who once slept under the same blanket with Lee, who knew Lee as well perhaps as one man can know another, and under conditions calculated to try men to the utmost.

As adjutant, Colonel Taylor took an active part in arranging details of surrender and parole. He says:

Each officer and soldier was furnished for his protection from arrest or annoyance with a slip of paper containing his parole, signed by his commander and countersigned by an officer of the Federal army.

I signed these paroles for all members of the staff, and when my own case was reached I requested General Lee to sign mine, which I have retained to the present time.

This document, with Colonel Taylor's name and title in his own handwriting, and the signature of General Lee, I am able to reproduce here through the courtesy of the colonel's daughters, Mrs. William B. Baldwin and Miss Taylor, of Norfolk. It is the only parole which was signed personally by General Lee.



On the back of the little slip, which is of about the size of a bank check, is the countersignature of George H. Sharpe, Assistant Provost Marshal general:



Following his parole Colonel Taylor rode with General Lee to Richmond. The general seemed to be in a philosophical frame of mind, but thought much of the future. The subject of the surrender and its consequences was about exhausted. The Colonel tells of one incident:

On the route General Lee stopped for the night near the residence of his brother, Mr. Carter Lee, in Powhatan County; and although importuned by his brother to pass the night under his roof, the general persisted in pitching his tent by the side of the road and going into camp as usual. This continued self-denial can only be explained upon the hypothesis that he desired to have his men know that he shared their privations to the very last.

This was perfectly in character with Lee. Throughout the War, we learn from Colonel Taylor's book, the general used the army ration, and lived the army life. He would not take up his quarters in a house, because he wished to share the lot of his men, and also because he feared that, in the event of the house falling into the hands of the enemy, the very fact of its having been occupied by him might possibly cause its destruction. It was only during the last year of the War, when his health was somewhat impaired, that he consented sometimes to vary this rule.

Lee's chivalrous nature is well shown forth in his famous General Orders, No. 73, issued at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, a few days before Gettysburg.

After congratulating the troops on their good conduct the general continued as follows:

There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness on the part of some that they have in keeping the yet unsullied reputation of the army, and that the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.

The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country.

Such proceedings not only degrade the perpetrators and all connected with them, but are subversive to the discipline and efficiency of the army, and destructive of the ends of our present movement. It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies, and offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain. The commanding general, therefore, earnestly exhorts the troops to abstain with most scrupulous care from unnecessary or wanton injury to private property, and he enjoins upon all officers to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall in any way offend against the orders on this subject.

R.E. Lee, General.

Truly, a document to serve as a model for warriors of all future generations, albeit one showing an utter lack of "Kultur"!

Said Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts: "I doubt if a hostile force ever advanced into an enemy's country, or fell back from it in retreat, leaving behind it less cause of hate and bitterness than did the Army of Northern Virginia in that memorable campaign."

After the war, Colonel Taylor and his wife settled in Norfolk, where, within a very short time, a United States grand jury indicted Jefferson Davis and General Lee for treason—this, in the case of Lee, being in direct violation of the terms of surrender. When Grant learned of the shameful action of the grand jury he complained to Washington and caused the proceedings against Lee to be dropped.

In Colonel Taylor's scrap-book I found a letter written by Lee before the indictment had been quashed, referring to the subject:

Richmond, Va. June 17, 1865.

My dear Colonel:

I am very much obliged to you for your letter of the 13th. I had heard of the indictment by the grand jury at Norfolk, and made up my mind to let the authorities take their course. I have no wish to avoid any trial the government may order, and cannot flee. I hope others may be unmolested, and that you at least may be undisturbed.

I am sorry to hear that our returned soldiers cannot obtain employment. Tell them they must all set to work, and if they cannot do what they prefer, do what they can. Virginia wants all their aid, all their support, and the presence of all her sons to sustain and recuperate her. They must therefore put themselves in a position to take part in her government, and not be deterred by obstacles in their way. There is much to be done which they only can do.

Very truly yours, R.E. Lee.

As time went on, and the more gaping wounds began to heal, Colonel Taylor's letters from the general took in many cases a lighter and happier tone. After some years, when four daughters had been born to Colonel and Mrs. Taylor, while yet they had no son, the general chaffed them gently on the subject: "Give my congratulations to Mrs. Taylor," he wrote. "Tell her I hope that when her fancy for girls is satisfied (mine is exorbitant) she will begin upon the boys. We must have somebody to work for them."

One of the colonel's sons was present when I came upon this letter.

"And you see," he smiled, "my father obeyed his old commander to the last, for the next baby was a boy, and the next, and the next, and the next, until there were as many boys as girls in our family."

* * * * *

Colonel Taylor died at his home in Norfolk, March 1, 1916, and on the subsequent June 15, was followed by his wife.

His death leaves but three members of Lee's staff surviving, namely, Rev. Giles B. Cooke, of Portsmouth, Virginia, Inspector General; Major Henry E. Young, of Charleston, South Carolina, Judge Advocate General; and Colonel T.M.R. Talcott, of Richmond, Virginia, Aide-de-Camp. Of these officers only the first two surrendered with General Lee, Colonel Talcott having left the staff by promotion in 1863.

Yes, two of them surrendered, but if we are to believe Charles Francis Adams we cannot say that Lee and his forces were actually vanquished, for as the Massachusetts soldier-author put it:

"Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia never sustained defeat. Finally succumbing to exhaustion, to the end they were not overthrown in fight."



THE HEART OF THE SOUTH



CHAPTER XXVI

RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS

Jedge Crutchfield give de No'th Ca'lina nigger frown; De mahkets says ouh tehapin am secon'-rate, An' Mistuh Daniels, he call Raleigh his hum town. —I wondah what kin be de mattuh wid ouh State?

Just as it is the fashion in the Middle West to speak jestingly of Kansas, it is the fashion in the South to treat lightly the State of North Carolina. And just as my companion and I, long ago, on another voyage of discovery, were eager to get into Kansas and find out what that fabulous Commonwealth was really like, so we became anxious, as we heard the gossip about the "Old North State," to enter it and form our own conclusions. The great drawback to an attempt to see North Carolina, however, lies in the fact that North Carolina is, so to speak, spread very thin. It has no great solid central city occupying a place in its thoughts and its affairs corresponding to that occupied by Richmond, in its relation to Virginia. Like Mississippi, it is a State of small towns and small cities. Its metropolis, Charlotte, had, by the 1910 census, less than 35,000 inhabitants; its seaport, Wilmington, a little more than 25,000; its capital, Raleigh, less than 20,000; its beautiful mountain resort, Asheville, fourth city in the State, less than 19,000.

I hasten to add that the next census will undoubtedly show considerable growth in all these cities. In Raleigh I found every one insistent on this point. The town is growing; it is a going place; a great deal of new building is in progress; and when you ask about the population, progressive citizens are prepared to do much better by their city than the census takers did, some years ago. They talk thirty thousand, instead of twenty, and they are ready with astonishing statistics about the number of students in the schools and colleges as compared with the total population of the city—statistics showing that though Raleigh is not large she is progressive. Which is quite true.

I recollect that Judge Francis D. Winston, former Lieutenant Governor of the State, United States District Attorney, and the most engaging raconteur in the Carolinas, contributed a story to a discussion of Raleigh's population, which occurred, one evening, at a dinner at the Country Club.

"A promoter," he said, "was once trying to borrow money on a boom town. He went to a banker and showed him a map, not of what the town was, but of what he claimed it was going to be. 'Here,' he said, 'is where the town hall will stand. In this lot will be the opera house. Over here we are going to have a beautiful park. And on this corner we are going to erect a tall granite office building.'

"'But,' said the banker, coldly, 'we lend money only on the basis of population.'

"'That's all right,' returned the promoter. 'Measured by any known standard except an actual count, we have a population of two hundred thousand.'"

I shall not attempt to point this tale more than to recommend it to the attention of the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce in every city in the United States.

* * * * *

Raleigh is situated within seven miles of the exact center of North Carolina. The land on which the city stands was purchased by the State, in 1792, from a man named Joel Lane, whose former house still stands. The town was then laid out in a one mile square, with the site selected for the State Capitol directly at the center of it, and lots were sold off by the State to individuals, the proceeds of these sales being used to build the Capitol. As a result the parks, streets and sidewalks of the original old town still belong to the State of North Carolina, and the city has jurisdiction over them only by courtesy of the State government. Raleigh has, of course, much outgrown its original dimensions, and the government of the town, outside the original square mile at the center, is as in other towns.

While Raleigh has not the look of age which characterizes many old southern cities, causing them to delight the eye and the imagination, its broad streets have here and there a building old enough to remove from the town any air of raw newness, and to make it a homelike looking place. The sidewalks are wide; when we were in Raleigh those of the principal streets were paved largely with soft-colored old red bricks, which, however, were being taken up and replaced with cement. Not being a resident of Raleigh, and consequently not having been obliged to tread the rough brick pavements daily, I was sorry to witness this victory of utility over beauty.

One of the pleasant old buildings is the Yarborough Hotel, at which my companion and I stayed. The Yarborough is an exceedingly good hotel for a city of the size of Raleigh, especially, it may be added, when that city is in the South. The Capitol, standing among trees in a small park, also gathers a fine flavor from age. In one of the many simple dignified apartments of this building my companion and I were introduced to the gentleman who was governor of the State at the time of our visit. It seemed to me that he had a look both worn and apprehensive, and that, while we talked, he was waiting for something. I don't know how I gathered this impression, but it came to me definitely. After we had departed from the executive chamber I asked the gentleman who had taken us there if the governor was ill.

"No," he replied. "All our governors look like that after they have been in office for a while."

"From overwork?"

"No, from an overworked jest—the jest about 'what the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina.' Every one who meets the governor thinks of that joke and believes confidently that no one has ever before thought of this application of it. So they all pull it on him. For the first few months our governors stand it pretty well, but after that they begin to break down. They feel they ought to smile, but they can't. They begin to dread meeting strangers, and to show it in their bearing. When in private life our governor had a very pleasant expression, but like all the others, he has acquired, in office, the expression of an iron dog."

Raleigh's most widely-known citizen is Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, and publisher of the Raleigh "News and Observer." This paper, published in the morning, and the "Times," a rival paper, published in the afternoon, are, I believe, the only dailies in the city.

Mr. Daniels has been so much discussed that I was greatly interested in hearing what Raleigh had to say of him. Every one knew him personally. The men on his paper seemed to be very fond of him; others held various opinions.

In 1894 Mr. Daniels came from Washington, D.C., where he had been chief clerk in the Department of the Interior, when Hoke Smith was Secretary, and acquired the newspaper of which he has since been proprietor. In its first years under Mr. Daniels, the paper is said to have gone through severe financial struggles, and there is an amusing story current, about the way the payroll was met upon one occasion. According to this tale, the business manager of the paper came to Mr. Daniels, one day, and informed him that he needed sixty dollars more to make the payroll, and didn't know where he was going to get it. The only ready asset in sight, it is related, was several cases of a patent medicine known as "Mrs. Joe Persons' Remedy," which had been taken by the "News and Observer" in payment for advertising space. Mr. Daniels had a few dollars, and his business manager had a railroad pass. With these resources the latter went out on the road and sold the patent medicine for enough to make up the deficit.

Until Mr. Daniels was appointed Secretary of the Navy he seems to have been regarded by many citizens of Raleigh, as a good, earnest, hard-working man, possessed of considerable personal magnetism and a good political nose—a man who could scent how the pack was running, take a short-cut, and presently appear to be leading. In other words an opportunist. Though he has not much education, and though as a writer he is far from polished, it is said that he has written powerful editorials. "When his editorials have been good," said one gentleman, "it is because he has been stirred up over something, and because he manages sometimes to get into his writing the intensity of his own personality." His office used to be, and still is, when he is in Raleigh, a sort of political headquarters, and he used to be able to write editorials while half a dozen politicians were sitting around his desk, talking.

With his paper he has done much good in the State, notably by fighting consistently for prohibition and for greater public educational advantages. The strong educational movement in North Carolina began with a group of men chief among whom were the late Governor Charles B. Aycock, called "the educational governor"; Dr. E.A. Alderman, who, though president of the University of Virginia, is a North Carolinian and was formerly president of the University of that State; Dr. Charles D. McKeever who committed the State to the principle of higher education for women, and other men of similar high purpose. A gentleman who was far from an unqualified admirer of Mr. Daniels, told me that without his aid the great educational advance which the state has certainly made of recent years could hardly have been accomplished, and that the same thing applies in the case of prohibition—which has been adopted in North Carolina.

"What sort of man is he?" I asked this gentleman.

"He is the old type of Methodist," he said. "He is the kind of man who believes that the whale swallowed Jonah. He has the same concept of religion that he had as a child. I differ with his policies, his politics, his mental methods, but I don't think anybody here doubts that he is trying, not only to do the moral thing himself, but to force others to adopt, as rules for public conduct, the exact code in which he personally believes, and which he certainly follows. His mental processes are often crude, yet he has much native shrewdness and the ability to grasp situations as they arise.

"He does not come of the aristocratic class, which probably accounts for his failure, when he first became secretary, to perceive the necessity for discipline in the navy, and the benefits of naval tradition.

"He was an ardent follower—I might say swallower—of Bryan, gobbling whole all of the "Great Commoner's" vagaries. It has been said, more or less humorously, but doubtless with a foundation of fact, that he was "Secretary of War in all of Bryan's cabinets." That shows where Bryan placed him. Yet when Bryan broke with Wilson and made his exit from the Cabinet, Daniels found it perfectly simple, apparently, to drop the Bryanism which had, hitherto, been the very essence of his life, and become a no less ardent supporter of the President.

"When he was first taken into the cabinet he evidently regarded the finer social amenities as matters of no consequence, or even as effeminacies. He had but little sense of the fitness of things, and was, in consequence, continually making faux pas; but he is observant; he has learned a great deal in the course of his life as a cabinet member, both as to his work in the Department, and as to the niceties of formal social life."

At the time of our visit to Raleigh I had not met Mr. Daniels, nor heard him speak. Since that time I have heard him several times and have talked with him. Also I have talked of him with a number of men who have been thrown more or less closely in contact with him. As is well known, naval officers detested him with peculiar unanimity. This was true up to the time of our entering the War. Whether matters have changed greatly since then I am unable to say. One officer, well known in the navy, said to me quite seriously that he believed the navy would be better off without its two best dreadnoughts if in losing them it could also lose Mr. Daniels. Such sentiments were peculiarly unanimous among officers. On the other hand, however, a high officer, who has been quite close to the Secretary, informs me that it is indeed true that he has improved as experience has come to him. This officer stated that when Mr. Daniels first took office he seemed to be definitely antagonistic to officers of the navy. "He appeared to suspect them of pulling political wires and working in their own interests. That was in the days when he seemed almost to encourage insubordination among the enlisted men, by his attitude toward them, in contrast to his attitude towards their superiors. Of course it was demoralizing to the service. But there has been a marked change in the Secretary since Bryan left the Cabinet." From several sources I have heard the same evidence. I never heard any one say that Mr. Daniels was really an able Secretary of the Navy, but I have heard many say that he improved.

Personally he is a very likable man. His face is kind and gentle; his features are interestingly irregular and there are heavy wrinkles about his mouth and eyes—the former adding something to the already humorous twinkle of the eyes. His voice has a timbre reminding me of George M. Cohan's voice. He is hardly an orator in the sense that Bryan is, yet he is not without simple oratorical tricks—as for example a tremolo, as of emotion, which I have heard him use in uttering such a phrase as "the grea-a-a-at Daniel Web-ster!" Also, he wears a low turnover collar and a black string tie—a fact which would not be worth noting did these not form a part of what amounts almost to a uniform worn by politicians of more or less the Bryan type. Almost invariably there seems to be something of the minister and something of the actor in such men.

Once I asked one of the famous Washington correspondents what manner of man Mr. Daniels was.

"He's a man," he said, "that you'd like to go with on a hunting trip in his native North Carolina. He would be a good companion and would have a lot of funny stories. He is full of kind intentions. Had you known him before the War, and had he liked you, and had you wished to take a ride upon a battleship, he would be disposed to order up a battleship and send you for a ride, even if, by doing so, he muddled up the fleet a little. That would be in line with his fixing it for moving picture people to act scenes on a battleship's deck—which he permitted. He saw no reason why that was not proper, and the kind of people who admire him most are those who, likewise, see no reason why it was not proper. The great lack in his nature is that of personal dignity—or even the dignity which should be his because of his position. If you are sitting beside him and he is amiably disposed toward you, he may throw his arm over your shoulder, or massage your knee while talking with you.

"But if some friend of his were to go to him and convince him that he lacked dignity, he is the kind of man who, in my judgment, would become so much the worse. That is, if he attempted to attain dignity he would not achieve it, but would merely grow arbitrary. That, to my mind, shows his great ineradicable weakness, for it not only reveals him as a man too little for his job, but prevents his comprehending the basic thing upon which naval discipline is founded. Nevertheless, as a man you like him. It is as Secretary of the Navy, and particularly as a War Secretary, that you very definitely don't."

Some time after our visit to Raleigh my companion and I heard Secretary Daniels speak in Charleston. He told a funny story and talked generalities about the navy. That was before the United States entered the War. I do not know what he meant the speech for, but what it actually was, was a speech against preparedness. So was the speech made on the same occasion by Lemuel P. Padgett, chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs. It was a disingenuous speech, a speech to lull the country into confidence, a speech which, alone, should have been sufficient to prove Mr. Padgett's unfitness to serve on that committee. Mr. Daniels argued that "Germany's preparedness had not kept Germany out of war"; that seemed enough, but there was one thing he said which utterly dumbfounded me. It was this:

"The Southern statesman who serves his section best, serves the country best."

Let the reader reflect for a moment upon such an utterance. Carried a little farther what would it mean? Would it not be equally logical to say that the man who serves himself best serves the country best? It is the theory of narrow sectionalism, and by implication, at least, the theory of individualism as well. And sectionalism and individualism are two of the great curses of the United States.

Compare with Mr. Daniels' words those of John Hay who, veiling fine patriotism beneath a web of delicate humor, said:

"In my bewilderment of origin and experience I can only put on an aspect of deep humility in any gathering of favorite sons, and confess that I am nothing but an American."

Or again, compare with them the famous words of Patrick Henry:

"I am not a Virginian, but an American."

Clearly, one point of view or the other is wrong. Perhaps Mr. Daniels has more light on sectional questions than had Patrick Henry or John Hay. At all events, the Charleston audience applauded.



CHAPTER XXVII

ITEMS FROM "THE OLD NORTH STATE"

Two of the most interesting things we saw in Raleigh were the model jail on the top floor of the new County Court House, where a lot of very honest looking rustics were confined to await trial for making "blockade" (otherwise moonshine) whisky, and the North Carolina Hall of History, which occupies a floor in the fine new State Administration Building, opposite the Capitol. At the head of the first stair landing in the Administration Building is a memorial tablet to William Sidney Porter ("O Henry"), who was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, with a bust of the author, in relief, by Lorado Taft. Porter, it may be mentioned, was a connection of Worth Bagley, the young ensign who was the only American naval officer killed in the Spanish-American War. Bagley was a brother of Mrs. Josephus Daniels. A monument to him stands in the park before the Capitol. Aside from Porter, the only author well known in our time whom I heard mentioned in connection with North Carolina, was the Rev. Thomas Dixon, whose name is most familiar, perhaps, in connection with the moving-picture called "The Birth of a Nation," taken from one of his novels. Mr. Dixon was born in the town of Shelby, North Carolina, and was for some years pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, Raleigh.

The Hall of History, containing a great variety of State relics, is one of the most fascinating museums I ever visited. Too much praise cannot be given Colonel Fred A. Olds and Mr. Marshall De Lancey Haywood, of the North Carolina Historical Society, for making it what it is. As with the Confederate Museum in Richmond, so, here, it is impossible to give more than a faint idea of the interest of the museum's contents. Among the exhibits of which I made note, I shall, however, mention a few. There was a letter written from Paris in the handwriting of John Paul Jones, requesting a copy of the Constitution of North Carolina; there was the Ku Klux warning issued to one Ben Turner of Northampton County; and there was an old newspaper advertisement signed by James J. Selby, a tailor, dated at Raleigh, June 24, 1824, offering a reward of ten dollars for the capture and return of two runaways: "apprentice boys, legally bound, named William and Andrew Johnson." The last named boy was the same Andrew Johnson who later became a distinctly second-rate President of the United States. Also there was a peculiarly tragic Civil War memento, consisting of a note which was found clasped in the dead hand of Colonel Isaac Avery, of the 6th North Carolina Regiment, who was killed while commanding a brigade on the second day at Gettysburg.

Tell my father I died with my face to the enemy.

These words were written by the fallen officer with his left hand, his right arm having been rendered useless by his mortal wound. For ink he used his own life blood.

Also in the museum may be seen the chart-book of Blackbeard, the pirate, who, one of the curators of the museum informed me, was the same person as Edward Teach. Blackbeard, who is commemorated in the name of Blackbeard's Island, off the coast of South Georgia, met his fate when he encountered a cruiser fitted out by Governor Spotswood of Virginia and commanded by Lieutenant Maynard. Maynard found Blackbeard's ship at Okracoke Inlet, on the North Carolina coast. Before he and his men could board the pirate vessel the pirates came and boarded them. Severe fighting ensued, but the pirates were defeated, Maynard himself killing Blackbeard in single combat with swords. The legend around Okracoke is that Blackbeard's bad fortune on this occasion came to him because of the unlucky number of his matrimonial adventures, the story being that he had thirteen wives. It is said also that his vanquishers cut off his head and hung it at the yard-arm of their ship, throwing his body into the sea, and that as soon as the body struck the water the head began to call, "Come on, Edward!" whereupon the headless body swam three times around the ship. Personally I think there may be some slight doubt about the authenticity of this part of the story. For, while from one point of view we might say that to swim about in such aimless fashion would be the very thing a man without a head might do, yet from another point of view the question arises: Would a man whose head had just been severed from his body feel like taking such a long swim?

And what a rich lot of other historic treasures!

Did you know, for instance, that Flora Macdonald, the Scottish heroine, who helped Prince Charles Edward to escape, dressed as a maidservant, after the Battle of Culloden, in 1746, came to America with her husband and many relatives just before the Revolutionary War and settled at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville), North Carolina? When General Donald Macdonald raised the Royal standard at the time of the Revolution, her husband and many of her kinsmen joined him, and these were later captured at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, in 1776, and taken as prisoners to Philadelphia. Yes; and Flora Macdonald's garter-buckles are now in the museum at Raleigh.

A portrait of Captain James J. Waddell, C.S.N., who was a member of a famous North Carolina family, recalls the story of his post-bellum cruise, in command of the Shenandoah, when, not knowing that the War was over, he preyed for months on Federal commerce in the South Seas.

The museum of course contains many uniforms worn by distinguished soldiers of the Confederacy and many old flags, among them one said to be the original flag of the Confederacy. This flag was designed by Orren R. Smith of Louisburg, North Carolina, and was made in that town. The journals of the Confederate Congress show that countless designs for a flag were submitted, that the Committee on a Flag reported that all designs had been rejected and returned, the committee having adopted one of its own; nevertheless Mr. Smith's claim to have designed the flag finally adopted is so well supported that the Confederate Veterans, at their General Reunion held in Richmond in 1915, passed a resolution endorsing it.

Also in the museum is the shot-riddled smokestack of the Confederate ram Albemarle, which was built on the farm of Peter E. Smith, on Roanoke River, and is said to have been the first vessel ever launched sidewise. The Albemarle, after a glorious career, was sunk by Lieutenant Cushing, U.S.N., in his famous exploit with a torpedo carried on a pole at the bow of a launch. It will be remembered that the launch was sunk by the shock and that only Cushing and one member of his crew survived, swimming away under fire.

North Carolina also claims—and not without some justice—that the first English settlement on this continent was not that at Jamestown, but the one made by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, under Amadas and Barlowe, which landed at Roanoke Island, August 4, 1584, and remained there for some weeks. The Jamestown Colony, say the North Carolinians, was merely the first to stick.

Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, across the sound from Roanoke Island, is the site of the first flight of a man in an aeroplane, the Wright brothers having tried out their first crude plane there, among the Kill-Devil sand dunes. A part of the original plane is preserved in the museum. Nor must I leave the museum without mentioning the bullet-riddled hat of General W.R. Cox, and his gray military coat, with a blood-stained gash in front, where a solid shell ripped across. General Cox's son, Mr. Albert Cox, was with us in the museum when we stopped to look at this grim souvenir. "It tore father open in front," he said, "spoiled a coat which had cost him $550, Confederate, and damaged his watchchain. Nevertheless he lived to take part in the last charge at Appomattox, and the watchchain wasn't so badly spoiled but what, with the addition of some new links, it could be worn." And he showed us where the chain, which he himself was wearing at the time, had been repaired.

I must say something, also, of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, an institution doing splendid work, and doing it efficiently, both in its own buildings and through extension courses. Fifty-two per cent. of the students at this college earn their way through, either wholly or in part. And better yet, eighty-three per cent. of the graduates stick to the practical work afterwards—an unusually high record.

The president of the college, Dr. D.H. Hill, is a son of the Confederate general of the same name, who has been called "the Ironsides of the South."

There are a number of other important educational institutions in and about Raleigh, and there is one which, if not important, is at all events, a curio. This is "Latta University," consisting of a few flimsy shacks in the negro village of Oberlin, on the outskirts of Raleigh.

"Professor" Latta is one of the rare negroes who combines the habit with white folks of the old fashioned southern darky, and the astuteness of the "new issue" in high finance. Years ago he conceived the idea of establishing a negro school near Raleigh, to which he gave the above mentioned name. He had no funds, no credit and little or no education. Nevertheless he had ideas, the central one of which was that New England was the land of plenty. With the "university" in his head, and with a miscellaneous collection of photographs, he managed to make a tour of northern cities, and came back with his pockets lined. As a result he procured a little land, put up frame buildings, gathered a few youths about him, and was fully launched on his career as a university president.

So long as the money held out, Latta was content to drift along with his school. When he came to the bottom of the bag he invested the last of his savings in another ticket north and, armed with his title of "president," made addresses to northern audiences and replenished his finances with their contributions.

Finally, as the great act of his career, Latta managed to get passage to Europe and was gone for several months. When he came back he had added a manuscript to his possessions: "The History of My Life and Work," which he published, and which is one of the most curious volumes I have ever seen.

It is illustrated—largely with photographs of the author. One of the pictures is entitled, "Rev. M.L. Latta when he first commenced to build Latta University." This shows Latta with the tips of his fingers resting on a small table. Another picture shows him posed with one hand raised and the other resting on what is unmistakably the same little table. The latter picture, however, has the caption, "Rev. M.L. Latta making a speech in Pawtucket, R.I., at Y.M.C.A." Both pictures were all too clearly taken in a photographer's studio. Another page shows us, "Rev. M.L. Latta and three of his Admirable Presidents." In this case Latta merely takes for himself the upper right-hand corner, the other eminent persons pictured being ex-Presidents Roosevelt, McKinley and Cleveland. The star illustration, however, is a "made up" picture, in which a photograph of Latta, looking spick-and-span, has been pasted onto what is very obviously a painted picture of a hall full of people in evening dress, all of them gazing at Latta, who stands upon the stage, dignified, suave, impressive, and all dressed-up by the brush of the "re-toucher." This picture is called: "In the Auditorium at London, in 1894." Similar artfulness is shown in pictures of the "university" buildings, where the same frame structure, photographed from opposite ends, appears in one case as, "Young Ladies' Dormitory," and in the other as, "Chapel and Young Men's Dormitory."

In his autobiography, Latta tells how, in the course of getting his own schooling, he raised money by teaching a district school during vacation. He says:

After paying my expenses, I had nearly a hundred dollars to return to school with. When I returned I was able to dress very neatly indeed, and the young ladies received me very cordially on the green during social hour. Before I taught school it was a common saying among the young ladies and young men "Latta"; but after I returned with a hundred dollars it was "Mr. Latta" all over the campus. I would hear the young ladies saying among themselves, "I bet Mr. Latta will not go with you—he will correspond with me this afternoon." I paid no attention to it. I said to myself, "Don't you see what a hundred dollars will do?"

In another place the Professor reveals how he came to write his book: "Professor King, one of the teachers at Latta University said to me, 'If I had done what you have done I would have wrote a history of my life several years ago.'"

The best part of the book, however, gives us Latta's account of his doings in London:

Just before I left the city of London I was invited by a distinguished friend, a close relation to Queen Victoria, to make a speech. He told me there would be a meeting in one of the large halls in that city. I can't just think of the name of the hall. He invited me to be present. The distinguished friend that I have just mentioned presided over the meeting. There was an immense audience present. If memory serves me right, I was the only Negro in the hall. The gentleman came to me and asked if I would make a speech. I told him I had already delivered one address, besides several sermons I had preached, and I thought that I would not speak again during my stay. I accepted the invitation, however, and spoke.

The Professor then tells how he was introduced as one whose addresses were "among the ablest ever delivered in London." Also he gives his speech in full. Great events followed. His distinguished unnamed friend, the "close relation of the Queen," came to him soon after, he says, and asked him if he had "ever been to the palace."

Continues Latta:

He said to me, "If you will come over before you leave the city, and call to see me, I will take you to the palace with me and introduce you to the Queen." I told him I would do so, that I had heard a good deal about the royal throne, and I would be very much interested to see the palace. He said he thought I would, because the government was very different from ours.

I called at his residence as I had promised, and he went with me to the palace. The Queen knew him, of course. He was received very cordially. Everything shined so much like gold in the palace that I had to stop and think where I was. He introduced me to the Queen, and told her I was from North America. He told her that I spoke at a meeting he presided over, and he enjoyed my speech very much. He told her we had an immense audience, and all the people were well pleased with the speech. The Queen said she was more than glad to meet me, and she would have liked very much to have been present, and heard the speech that her cousin said I made.... She told me she hoped that would not be the last visit I would make to their city. I shook hands with her and bade her good-bye. The distinguished friend carried me and showed me the different departments of the palace, and I bade him good-bye.

In Raleigh, I think, they rather like Latta. It amuses them to see him go north and get money, and it is said that he appreciates the situation himself. He ought to. Not many southern negroes have such comfortable homes as "Latta University's" best kept-up building—the residence of the President.



CHAPTER XXVIII

UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES

And where St. Michael's chimes The fragrant hours exquisitely tell, Making the world one loveliness, like a true poet's rhymes.

—RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

It has been said—by Mrs. T.P. O'Connor, I think—that whereas twenty-five letters of introduction for New York may produce one invitation to dinner, one letter of introduction for Charleston will produce twenty-five dinner invitations. If this be an exaggeration it is, at least, exaggeration in the right direction; that is, along the lines of truth. For though Charleston's famed "exclusiveness" is very real, making letters of introduction very necessary to strangers desiring to see something of the city's social life, such letters produce, in Charleston, as Mrs. O'Connor suggests, results definite and delightful.

Immediately upon our arrival, my companion and I sent out several letters we had brought with us, and presently calling cards began to arrive for us at the hotel. Also there came courteous little notes, delivered in most cases by hand, according to the old Charleston custom—a custom surviving pleasantly from times when there were no postal arrangements, but plenty of slaves to run errands. Even to this day, I am told, invitations to Charleston's famous St. Cecilia balls are delivered by hand.

One of the notes we received revealed to us a characteristic custom of the city. It contained an invitation to occupy places in the pew of a distinguished family, at St. Michael's Church, on the approaching Sunday morning. In order to realize the significance of such an invitation one must understand that St. Michael's is to Charleston, socially, what St. George's, Hanover Square, is to London. A beautiful old building, surrounded by a historic burial ground and surmounted by a delicate white spire containing fine chimes, it strongly suggests the architectural touch of Sir Christopher Wren; but it is not by Wren, for he died a number of years before 1752, when the cornerstone of St. Michael's was laid. When the British left Charleston—or Charles Town, as the name of the place stands in the early records—after occupying it during the Revolutionary War, they took with them, to the horror of the city, the bells of St. Michael's, and the church books. The silver, however, was saved, having been concealed on a plantation some miles from Charleston. Later the bells were returned.

Pre-Revolutionary Charleston was divided into two parishes: St. Michael's below Broad Street, and St. Philip's above. Under governmental regulation citizens were not allowed to hold pews in both churches unless they owned houses in both parishes. St. Michael's, being nearer the battery, in which region are the finest old houses, had, perhaps, the wealthier congregation, but St. Philip's is, to my mind, the more beautiful church of the two, largely because of the open space before it, and the graceful outward bend of Church Street in deference to the projecting portico.

When the Civil War broke out St. Philip's bells were melted and made into cannon, but those of St. Michael's were left in place until cannonballs from the blockading fleet struck the church, when they were taken down and sent, together with the silver plate, to Columbia, South Carolina, for safe-keeping. But Columbia was, as matters turned out, the worst place to which they could have been sent. The silver was looted by troops under Sherman, and the bells were destroyed when the city was burned. The fragments were, however, collected and sent to England, whence the bells originally came, and there they were recast. Their music—perhaps the most characteristic of all the city's characteristic sounds—has been called "the voice of Charleston." Of the silver only a few fragments have been returned. One piece was found in a pawn shop in New York, and another in a small town in Ohio. Mais que voulez-vous? C'est la guerre!

In mentioning Charleston churches one becomes involved in a large matter. In 1801, when St. Mary's, the first Roman Catholic church in the city, was erected, there were already eighteen churches in existence, among them the present Huguenot Church, at the corner of Church and Queen Streets, which, though a very old building, is nevertheless the second Huguenot Church to occupy the same site, the first, built in 1687, having been destroyed in the great conflagration of 1796, which very nearly destroyed St. Philip's, as well. A number of the old Huguenot families long ago became Episcopalians, and the descendants of many of the early French settlers of Charleston, buried in the Huguenot churchyard, are now parishioners of St. Michael's and St. Philip's. The Huguenot Church in Charleston is the only church of this denomination in America; its liturgy is translated from the French, and services are held in French on the third Sunday of November, January and March. A Unitarian Church was established in 1817, as an offshoot of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, the old White Meeting House of which (built 1685, used by the British as a granary, during the Revolution, and torn down 1806) gave Meeting Street its name. Early in the history of the Unitarian Church, the home of which was a former Presbyterian Church building, in Archdale Street, Dr. Samuel Gilman, a young minister from Gloucester, Massachusetts, became its pastor. This was the same Dr. Gilman who wrote "Fair Harvard."

* * * * *

In only one instance did the letters of introduction we sent out produce a response of the kind one would not be surprised at receiving in some rushing city of the North: a telephone call. A lady, not a native Charlestonian, but one who has lived actively about the world, rang us up, bade us welcome, and invited us to dinner.

But she was a very modern sort of lady, as witness not only her use of the telephone—an instrument which seems in Charleston almost an anachronism; as, for that matter, the automobile does, too—but her dinner hour, which was eight o'clock. Very few Charleston families dine at night. Dinner invitations are usually for three, or perhaps half-past three or four, in the afternoon, and there is a light supper in the evening. I judge that this custom holds also in some other cities of the region, for I remember calling at the office of a large investment company in Wilmington, North Carolina, to find it wearing, at three in the afternoon, the deserted look of a New York office between twelve and one o'clock. Every one had gone home to dinner. Mr. W.D. Howells, in his charming essay on Charleston, makes mention of this matter:

"The place," he says, "has its own laws and usages, and does not trouble itself to conform to those of other aristocracies. In London the best society dines at eight o'clock, and in Madrid at nine, but in Charleston it dines at four.... It makes morning calls as well as afternoon calls, but as the summer approaches the midday heat must invite rather to the airy leisure of the verandas, and the cool quiescence of interiors darkened against the fly in the morning and the mosquito at night-fall."

The household fly is a year-round resident of Charleston, by grace of a climate which permits—barely permits, at its coldest—the use of the open surrey as a public vehicle in all seasons. Sometimes, during a winter cold-snap, when a ride in a surrey is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, when residents of old mansions have shut themselves into a room or two heated by grate fires, then the fly seems to have disappeared, but let the cold abate a little and out he comes again like some rogue who, after brief and spurious penance, resumes the evil of his ways.

The stranger going to a humble Charleston house will find on the gate a coiled spring at the end of which hangs a bell. By touching the spring and causing the bell to jingle he makes his presence known. The larger houses have upon their gates bell-pulls or buttons which cause bells to ring within. This is true of all houses which have front gardens. The garden gate constitutes, by custom, a barrier comparable in a degree with the front door of a Northern house; a usage arising, doubtless, out of the fact that almost all important Charleston houses have not only gardens, but first and second story galleries, and that in hot weather these galleries become, as it were, exterior rooms, in which no small part of the family life goes on. Many Charleston houses have their gardens to the rear, and themselves abut upon the sidewalk. Calling at such houses, you ring at what seems to be an ordinary front door, but when the door is opened you find yourself entering not upon a hall, but upon an exterior gallery running to the full depth of the house, down which you walk to the actual house door. In still other houses—and this is true of some of the most notable mansions of the city, including the Pringle, Huger, and Rhett houses—admittance is by a street door of the normal sort, opening upon a hall, and the galleries and gardens are at the side or back, the position of the galleries in relation to the house depending upon what point of the compass the house faces, the desirable thing being to get the breezes which are prevalently from the southwest and the westward.

* * * * *

Charleston is very definitely two things: It is old, and it is a city.

There is the story of a young lady who asked a stranger if he did not consider it a unique town.

He agreed that it was, and inquired whether she knew the derivation of the word "unique."

When she replied negatively he informed her that the word came from the Latin unus, meaning "one," and equus, meaning "a horse"; otherwise "a one-horse town."

This tale, however, is a libel, for despite the general superstition of chambers of commerce to the contrary, the estate of cityhood is not necessarily a matter of population nor yet of commerce. That is one of the things which, if we were unaware of it before, we may learn from Charleston. Charleston is not great in population; it is not very great, as seaports go, in trade. Were cities able to talk with one another as men can, and as foolishly as men often do, I have no doubt that many a hustling middle-western city would patronize Charleston, precisely as a parvenue might patronize a professor of astronomy; nevertheless, Charleston has a stronger, deeper-rooted city entity than all the cities of the Middle West rolled into one. This is no exaggeration. Where modern American cities strive to be like one another, Charleston strives to be like nothing whatsoever. She does not have to strive to be something. She is something. She understands what most other American cities do not understand, and what, in view of our almost unrestricted immigration laws, it seems the National Government cannot be made to understand: namely, that mere numbers do not count for everything; that there is the matter of quality of population to be considered. Therefore, though Charleston's white population is no greater than that of many a place which would own itself frankly a small town, Charleston knows that by reason of the character of its population it is a great city. And that is precisely the case. Charleston people are city people par excellence. They have the virtues of city people, the vices of city people, and the civilization and sophistication of those who reside in the most aristocratic capitals. For that is another thing that Charleston is; it is unqualifiedly the aristocratic capital of the United States; the last stronghold of a unified American upper class; the last remaining American city in which Madeira and Port and noblesse oblige are fully and widely understood, and are employed according to the best traditions.

I have been told of a lady who remarked that Charleston was "the biggest little place" she ever saw. I say the same. The littleness of the place, it is sometimes pointed out, is expressed by the "vast cousinship" which constitutes Charleston society, but it is to my mind expressed much better in the way bicyclists leave their machines leaning against the curb at the busiest parts of main shopping streets. Its bigness, upon the other hand, is expressed by the homes from which some of those bicyclists come, by the cultivation which exists in those homes, and has existed there for generations, by the amenities of life as they are comprehended and observed, by the wealth of the city's tradition and the richness of its background. Nor is that background a mere arras of recollection. It exists everywhere in the wood and brick and stone of ancient and beautiful buildings, in iron grilles and balconies absolutely unrivaled in any other American city, and equaled only in European cities most famous for their artistry in wrought iron. It exists also in venerable institutions—the first orphanage established in the United States; the William Enston Home; the Public Library, one of the first and now one of the best libraries in the country; the art museum, the St. Cecilia Society, and various old clubs. More intimately it exists within innumerable old homes, which are treasure-houses of fine old English and early American furniture and of portraits—portraits by Sir Joshua, by Stuart, Copley, Trumbull, and most of the other portrait painters who painted from the time the Colonies began to become civilized to the time of the Civil War—among them S.F.B. Morse, who, I believe it is not generally known, made a considerable reputation as a portrait painter, in Charleston, before he made himself a world figure by inventing the telegraph.

Even without seeing these private treasures the visitor to Charleston will see enough to convince him that Charleston is indeed "unique"—though not in the sense implied in the story—that it is the most intimately beautiful city upon the American continent.

To call Charleston "unique," and immediately thereafter to liken it to other places may seem paradoxical. These likenesses are, however, evanescent. It is not that Charleston is actually like other places, but that here in a church building, there in an old tile roof, wrought iron gate, or narrow cobbled street, the visitor will find himself delicately reminded of Old World towns and cities. Mr. Howells, for example, found on the East Battery a faint suggestion of Venetian palaces, and in the doorway and gates of the Smyth house, in Legare Street, I was struck, also, with a Venetian suggestion so strange and subtle that I could not quite account for it. At night some of the old narrow streets, between Meeting Street and Bay, made me think of streets in the old part of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine; or again I would stop before an ancient brick house which was Flemish, or which—in the case of houses diagonally opposite St. Philip's Church—exampled the rude architecture of an old French village, stucco walls colored and chipped, red tile roof and all. The busy part of King Street, on a Saturday night when the fleet was in, made me think of Havana, and the bluejackets seemed to me, for the moment, to be American sailors in a foreign port; and once, on the same evening's walk, when I chanced to look to the westward across Marion Square, I found myself transported to the central place of a Belgian city, with a slope-shouldered church across the way masquerading as a hotel de ville, and the sidewalk lights at either side figuring in my imagination as those of pleasant terrace cafes. So it was always. The very hotel in which we stayed—the Charleston—is like no other hotel in the United States, though it has about it something which caused me to think of the old Southern, in St. Louis. Still, it is not like the Southern. It is more like some old hotel in a provincial city of France—large and white, with a pleasing unevenness of floor, and, best of all, a great inner court which, in provincial France, might be a remise, but is here a garden. If I mistake not, carriages and coaches did in earlier times drive through the arched entrance, now the main doorway, and into this courtyard, where passengers alighted and baggage was taken down. The Planter's Hotel, now a ruin, opposite the Huguenot Church, antedates all others in the city, and used to be the fashionable gathering place for wealthy Carolinians and their families who came to Charleston annually for the racing season.

The fact that Charleston has a rather important art museum and that its library is one of the four oldest town libraries in the country, no less than the fact that the city was, in its day, a great racing center, contribute to an understanding of the spirit of the place. The present Charleston Library is not the first public library started in the city. Not by any means! For it was founded as late as 1748, and the original public library of Charleston was the first one of the kind in the country, having been started about the beginning of the 18th century. Old records of this library still exist, showing that citizens voted so many skins to its support. Probably the most valuable possession of the present library are its files of Charleston newspapers, dating from 1732 to the present time, including three files covering the War of 1812, and two covering the Civil War. These files are consulted by persons from all over the United States, for historical material. The library has recently moved into a good modern building. In the old building there was a separate entrance at the back for ladies, and it is only lately that ladies have been allowed full membership in the Library Society, and have entered by the front door. The former custom, I suppose, represented certain old-school sentiments as to "woman's place" such as I find expressed in "Reminiscences of Charleston," by Charles Fraser, published in 1854. Declares Mr. Fraser:

The ambition for literary distinction is now very prevalent with the sex. But without any disposition to undervalue their claims, whenever I hear of a female traveler clambering the Alps, or describing the classic grounds of Greece and Italy, publishing her musings in the holy land, or revealing the mysteries of the harem, I cannot but think that for every success obtained some appropriate duty has been neglected.

I except the poetess, for hers are the effusions of the heart and the imagination, prompted by nature and uttered because they are irrepressible. Many females travel for the purpose of writing and publishing books—whilst Mrs. Heman's, Mrs. Osgood's, and Mrs. Sigourney's volumes may be regarded as grateful offerings to the muse in return for her inspiration.

It is hard not to be irritated, even now, with the man who wrote that, especially in view of the fact that the two most interesting books to come out of the Carolinas of recent years are both by women: one of them being "Charleston—the Place and the People," by Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, a volume any chapter of which is worth the whole of Mr. Fraser's "Reminiscences," and the other "A Woman Rice-Planter," by "Patience Pennington," otherwise Mrs. John Julius Pringle (nee Alston), who lives on her plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina.

The Carolina Jockey Club subscribed regularly to the support of the library, and now that that club is no more, its chief memorial may be said to rest there. This club was probably the first racing club in the country, and it is interesting to note that the old cement pillars from the Washington Race Course at Charleston were taken, when that course was abandoned, and set up at the Belmont Park course, near New York.

The turf history of Carolina began (according to the "South Carolina Gazette," dated February 1, 1734) in that same year, on the first Tuesday in February. One of the prizes was a saddle and bridle valued at L20. The riders were white men and the course was a green at Charleston Neck, near where the lower depot of the South Carolina Railroad now stands. In a "History of the Turf in South Carolina," which I found in the library, I learned that Mr. Daniel Ravenel bred fine horses on his plantation, Wantoot, in St. John's Parish, as early as 1761, that Mr. Frank Huger had imported an Arabian horse, and that many other gentlemen were importing British running horses, and were engaged in breeding. The book refers to the old York Course, later called the New Market Course. A long search did not, however, enable me to establish the date on which the Jockey Club was founded. It was clearly a going institution in 1792, for under date of Wednesday, February 15, in that year, I found the record of a race for the Jockey Club Purse—"four mile-heats—weight for age—won by Mr. Lynch's Foxhunter, after a well contested race of four heats, beating Mr. Sumter's Ugly, who won the first heat; Col. Washington's Rosetta, who won the second heat; Capt. Alston's Betsy Baker," etc., etc.

The Civil War practically ended the Jockey Club, though a feeble effort was, for a time, made to carry it on. In 1900 the club properties and the funds remaining in the club treasury were transferred as an endowment to the Charleston Library Society. The proceeds from this endowment add to the library's income by about two thousand dollars annually. Other items of interest in connection with the Carolina Jockey Club are that Episcopal Church conventions used to be held in Charleston during the racing season, so that the attending parsons might take in the races; that the Jockey Club Ball used to be the great ball of the Charleston season, as the second St. Cecilia Ball became later and now is; that the Charleston Club, a most delightful club, founded in 1852, was an outgrowth of the Jockey Club; and that the Jockey Club's old Sherries, Ports and Madeiras went to New York where they were purchased by Delmonico—among them a Calderon de la Barca Madeira of 1848, and a Peter Domecq Sherry of 1818.

Mr. S.A. Nies, one of the old employees of Delmonico's, tells me that the Calderon de la Barca of the above mentioned year is all gone, but that Delmonico's still has a few bottles of the same wine of the vintage of 1851.

"This wine," Mr. Nies said, "is listed on our wine card at $6.00 per bottle. It is not the best Madeira that we have, although it is a very fine one. Recently we served a bottle of Thompson's Auction Madeira, of which the year is not recognizable on the label, but which to my knowledge was an old wine forty years ago. This wine brought $25.00 a bottle and was worth it.

"The Peter Domecq Sherry of 1818 does not figure on our wine list as we have but a few bottles left. It is $20.00 a bottle.

"The prices brought to-day by old Madeiras and Sherries do not represent their real values. One has but to look at the compound interest of savings banks to realize that these wines should be selling at four times the price they are; but unfortunately, since the advent of Scotch whisky in the American market, the American palate seems to have deteriorated, and if the wines were listed at the price they ought to bring, we could not sell them. As it is, the demand for the very rare old wines is irregular and infrequent. We keep them principally to preserve our reputation; not for the money there is in it."



CHAPTER XXIX

HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY

The cool shade of aristocracy....

—SIR W.F.P. NAPIER.

Just now, when we are being unpleasantly awakened to the fact that our vaunted American melting-pot has not been doing its work; when some of us are perhaps wondering whether the quality of metal produced by the crucible will ever be of the best; it is comforting to reflect that a city whose history, traditions and great names are so completely involved with Americanism in its highest forms, a city we think of as ultra-American, is peculiarly a melting-pot product.

The original Charleston colonists were English and Irish, sent out under Colonel Sayle, in 1669, by the Lords Proprietors, to whom Charles II had granted a tract of land in the New World, embracing the present States of Georgia and North and South Carolina. These colonists touched at Port Royal—where the Marine Barracks now are (and ought not to be)—but settled on the west side of the Ashley River, across from where Charleston stands. It was not until 1680 that they transferred their settlement to the present site of the city, naming the place Charles Town in honor of the King. In 1671 the colony contained 263 men able to bear arms, 69 women and 59 children. In 1674, when New York was taken by the English from the Dutch, a number of the latter moved down to the Carolina colony. French Protestants had, at that time, already begun to arrive, and more came after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. In 1680 Germans came. By 1684 there were four Huguenot settlements in Carolina. In 1696 a Quaker was governor for a short time, and in the same year a body of New Englanders arrived from Dorchester, Massachusetts, establishing a town which they called Dorchester, near the present town of Summerville, a few miles from Charleston. At that time a number of Scottish immigrants had already arrived, though more came in 1715 and 1745, after the defeat of the Highlanders. From 1730 to 1750 new colonists came from Switzerland, Holland and Germany. As early as 1740 there were several Jewish families in Charleston, and some of the oldest and most respected Jewish families in the United States still reside there. Also, when the English drove the Acadians from Canada in 1755, twelve hundred of them immigrated to Carolina. By 1790, then, the city had a population of a little more than 15,000, which was about half the number of inhabitants then contained in the city of New York. In the case of Charleston, however, more than one half her people, at that time, were negroes, slavery having been introduced by Sir John Yeamans, an early British governor. By 1850 the city had about 20,000 white citizens and 23,000 blacks, and by 1880 some 7,500 more, of which additional number two thirds were negroes. The present population is estimated at 65,000, which makes Charleston a place of about the size of Rockford, Illinois, Sioux City, Iowa, or Covington, Kentucky; but as, in the case of Charleston, more than half this number is colored, Charleston is, if the white population only is considered, a place of approximately 30,000 inhabitants, or, roughly speaking, about the size of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., or Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In area, also, Charleston is small, covering less than four square miles. This is due to the position of the city on a peninsula formed by the convergence and confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, which meet at Charleston's beautiful Battery precisely as the Hudson River and the East River meet at the Battery in New York. The shape of Charleston, indeed, greatly resembles that of Manhattan Island, and though her harbor and her rivers are neither so large nor so deep as those of the port of New York, they are altogether adequate to a considerable maritime activity.

The Charleston Chamber of Commerce (which, like everything else in Charleston dates from long ago, having been founded in 1748) quotes President Taft as calling this port the most convenient one to Panama—a statement which the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce is in position to dispute. The fact remains, however, that Charleston's position on the map justifies the Chamber of Commerce's alliterative designation of the place as "The Plumb-line Port to Panama." This is so true that if Charleston should one day be shaken loose from its moorings by an earthquake—something not unknown there—and should fall due south upon the map, it would choke up the mouth of the Canal, were not Cuba interposed, to catch the debris.

Before the Civil War, Charleston was the greatest cotton shipping port of the country, and it still handles large amounts of cotton and rice. Until a few years ago South Carolina was the chief rice producing State in the Union, and history records that the first rice planted in the Carolinas, if not in the country, was secured and sown by an early governor of Carolina, Thomas Smith, who died in 1694. It may be noted in passing that this Thomas Smith bore the title "Landgrave," the Lords Proprietors, in their plan of government for the colony—which, by the way, was drawn up by the philosopher Locke—having provided for a colonial nobility with titles. The titles "Baron" and "Landgrave" were hereditary in several Charleston families, and constitute, so far as I know, the only purely American titles of nobility that ever existed. Descendants of the old Landgraves still reside in Charleston, and in at least one instance continue to use the word "Landgrave" in connection with the family name.

The prosperity of Charleston since the Civil War has depended more, perhaps, than on any other single product, upon the trade in phosphate, large deposits of which underlie this region.

The real wonder of Charleston, the importance of the place among American cities, cannot, however, be said to have resulted primarily from commerce (though her commerce is growing), or from greatness of population (though Charleston is the metropolis of the Carolinas), but is involved with matters of history, tradition and beauty. The mantle of greatness was assumed by this city in colonial times, and has never been laid aside. Among the most distinguished early Americans were many Charlestonians, and in not a few instances the old blood still endures there, and even the old names: such names as Washington, Pinckney, Bull, Pringle, Rutledge, Middleton, Drayton, Alston, Huger, Agassiz, Ravenel, Izard, Gadsden, Rhett, Calhoun, Read, De Saussure, Lamar and Brawley, to mention but a few.

* * * * *

Charleston's early history is rich in pirate stories of the most thrilling moving-picture variety. Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet and other disciples of the Jolly Roger preyed upon Charleston shipping. Bonnet once held a Mr. Samuel Wragg of Charleston prisoner aboard his ship threatening to send his head to the city unless the unfortunate man should be ransomed—the demand being for medicines of various kinds. Colonel Rhett, of Charleston, captured Bonnet and his ship after a savage fight, but Bonnet soon after escaped from the city in woman's clothing. Still later he was retaken, hanged, as he deserved to be, and buried along with forty of his band at a point now covered by the Battery Garden, that exquisite little park at the tip of the city, which is the favorite promenade of Charlestonians. In another fight which occurred just off Charleston bar, a crew of citizens under Governor Robert Johnson defeated the pirate Richard Worley, who was killed in the action, and captured his ship, which, when the hatches were opened proved to be full of prisoners, thirty-six of them women. Even as late as the period of the War of 1812—a war which did not affect Charleston save in the way of destroying her shipping and causing poverty and distress—a case of brutal piracy is recorded. The daughter of Aaron Burr, Theodosia by name, was married to Governor Joseph Alston. After her father's trial for high treason, when he was disgraced and broken, she tried to comfort him, for the two were peculiarly devoted. Intending to visit him she set sail from Charleston for New York in a ship which was never heard from again. Somewhere I have read a description of the distraught father's long vigils at New York, where he would stand gazing out to sea long after all hope had been abandoned by others. Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel tells us in her charming book, that thirty years later an old sailor, dying in a village of the North Carolina coast, confessed that he had been one of a pirate crew which had captured the ship and compelled the passengers to walk the plank. This story is also given by Charles Gayarre, who says the pirate chief was none other than Dominick You, who fought under Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, and is buried in that city. The husband and father of Mrs. Alston were spared the ghastly tale, Mrs. Ravenel says, since both were already in their graves when the sailor's deathbed confession solved the mystery.