The result of the policy of Mr. Davis justified the protest of the Georgians, but there is nothing to warrant the belief that Mr. Davis was moving toward military despotism or that he relished the continuance of strife. He saw that the South was in for the war. Desperate situations required desperate remedies. He grasped the government with a strong hand, and lacked neither nerve nor patriotism. The principles of this policy were unsound, but the motives of Jefferson Davis were pure. Nor was there reason to sustain the wholesale denunciation of West Point. That school of soldiers was the backbone of the army, and the fact that so many Southern men gave up commissions in the United States army and came South when their States seceded, overthrew the idea that they were tools of the general government and had lost identity or sympathy with people at home. But General Toombs was bold and impatient in his positions.

Equally opposed was he to the policy adopted in Georgia of recommending the planting of all grain and no cotton. From Richmond he wrote in March, 1864, directions to his brother Gabriel Toombs, who managed his plantations in Washington:

I do not care to change my crops. I wish to raise an abundant provision crop and then as much cotton as I can.... Brown's and Chambers' policy is all foolishness.... As to what I shall choose to plant on my own estates, I shall neither refer it to newspapers, nor to public meetings, nor to legislatures. I know what sort of people compose these classes. Let them take up arms and come with me to drive the intruders away from our soil, and then we will settle what sort of seed we will put into it.



CHAPTER XXIII.

WITH THE GEORGIA MILITIA.

General Toombs' next appearance in the field was as adjutant and inspector-general of General G. W. Smith's division of Georgia militia. He was present during the battles before Atlanta, the engagement at Peachtree Creek, and the siege of the city. General J. E. Johnston had just been relieved from command of the Confederate forces, and General J. B. Hood placed in charge. General Toombs wrote from Atlanta:

The tone of the army has greatly improved. We are now receiving reenforcements from the West. Davis, having kicked Johnston out, now feels obliged to sustain Hood, so the country is likely to get good out of evil. General Hood is displaying great energy and using his best exertions for success. I think very well of him. He is a most excellent man, and undoubtedly of great military talent. Whether equal or not to this great struggle, time must prove.

The militia are coming up finely. Twelve hundred of them arrived here this evening, armed and tolerably well equipped. Poor fellows! They are green and raw, undisciplined and badly officered. It keeps us at work day and night to bring order out of this confused mass, and we have but a poor chance. They march right into the trenches, and are immediately under the enemy's fire all day. We shall trust to a kind Providence alone to preserve them from a great disaster, and make them useful to the army and the country. The pressure is so great that we are compelled to put them to the work of veterans without an hour's preparation. I am doing my utmost to get them in the best possible position. Georgians are all coming up well except the cities.

Speaking of men who try to shirk duty, Mr. Toombs wrote, "Poor creatures! What do they want to live for?"

General Toombs had the task of organizing the recruits and getting them ready for the field. He writes to his wife: "Since I began this letter, the Yankees have begun an attack on a part of our line and I was obliged to ride with General Hood to look after our defenses." General Toombs alludes to General E. C. Walthall of Mississippi, as "a splendid officer and a gentleman." He says: "The enemy are evidently intending to starve us rather than to fight us out. I have, at the request of General Hood, not less than twenty letters to write on that very subject. Sherman shells the town furiously every day. Not much damage yet."

It has been customary to speak in light terms of the Georgia militia, who, late in the day, took the field to man the defenses when Sherman was marching to the sea. They were frequently made up of old men and boys who had been exempt from the regular service, and these were hurried into action with poor equipment and scant preparation. General Toombs, in a letter written to his wife, July 25, 1864, says:

The militia have behaved with great gallantry. This is sincerely true. They have far exceeded my expectations, and in the fight on Thursday equaled any troops in the line of battle. If they will stand and fight like men, our homes will be saved. God give them the spirit of men, and all will be well!

In another place he writes:

We have a mixed crowd, a large number of earnest, brave, true men; then all the shirks and skulks in Georgia trying to get from under bullets.

General Toombs commended and endorsed the policy of Governor Brown during his six years' administration of the office from 1857 to 1863. These two men were warm friends and political allies. When Governor Brown's third term was drawing to a close, he preferred the selection of General Toombs as his successor. But Toombs declined to make the race. His game now was war, not politics. He preferred the field to the Cabinet. He writes with considerable feeling this letter to his wife:

Whatever fate may befall me, I feel that this is my place, in the field and with the militia, with the men who own the country and who are struggling to preserve it for their children. I am truly thankful to God for the health he has given me to enable me to perform my part of this work.

He called all the sons of Georgia to come, even to "die together rather than let the Yankee overrun and conquer Georgia." He concludes a letter of appeal:

Better be Where the unconquered Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylae.

General Toombs' last military service, after the fall of Atlanta, was on the 20th of December, 1864, when as adjutant and inspector-general he served in General G. W. Smith's division, Georgia militia, at the siege of Savannah. General Dick Taylor, in his "Destruction and Reconstruction," gives a very graphic description of General Toombs' energy. The Georgia militia had left Macon for Savannah, and to avoid capture by the resistless column of Sherman's army, then marching to the sea, was shipped by way of Thomasville. The trains were sometimes slow in moving, and to General Taylor, who was anxious to mass all forces at Savannah, the delay was galling. When Toombs came up, he "damned the dawdling trainmen, and pretty soon infused his own nervous force into the whole concern. The wheezing engines and freight vans were readily put in motion, and Governor Brown's 'army' started toward Savannah." News reached General Taylor about that time that the Federal forces at Port Royal were coming up to capture Pocotaligo on the Charleston and Savannah road. This was a dangerous move, as General Taylor was anxious to hold this line for coast defense. He needed reenforcements to hold this point, and at once thought of "Joe Brown's Army." The position of Governor Brown was, however, as General Taylor understood it, that Georgia troops were to be held to guard Georgia soil. This was one of the points in his discussion with Mr. Davis. General Taylor consulted with General Toombs, however, and they arranged to have the Georgia militia "shunted off at a switch near Savannah and transported quietly to Carolina." At Pocotaligo these troops had a lively brush with the Union forces and succeeded in holding the railroad. The Georgians were plucky whether at home or abroad, but General Taylor declared that Toombs enjoyed his part in making them "unconscious patriots."

Sherman's march to the sea was the concluding tragedy of the Civil War. The State which had been at the forefront of the revolution had become the bloody theater of battle. From the Tennessee River to Atlanta, Sherman and Johnston had grappled with deadly fury down the mountain defiles; then Cheatham and Wheeler harassed him at Macon and united for a final siege of Savannah. The granaries and workshops of the Confederacy were gone when Georgia was devastated—as General Lord Wolseley said, Sherman's invasion was a swordthrust through the vitals of the young nation. Robert Toombs had followed his own idea of meeting the invader as soon as he struck an inch of State soil and fighting him as long as a man remained. From the fruitless defense of Savannah, Toombs hastened to discuss the situation with Governor Brown. He happened to be dining with him that April day when the news came of the surrender at Appomattox. The two men looked at each other intently, when they realized that all was over.

Toombs and Brown had been closely allied since the day that the latter was nominated for Governor in 1857. They had fought campaigns together. Toombs had sustained Governor Brown's war policy almost to the letter. Now they shook hands and parted. Henceforth their paths diverged. Days of bitterness put that friendship to an end. Both men worked his course during reconstruction as he saw fit. But political differences deepened almost into personal feud.

General Toombs repaired to his home in Washington and, on the 4th of May, 1865, Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet and staff, having retreated from Richmond to Danville, thence to Greensboro, N. C., and Abbeville, S. C., rode across the country with an armed escort to Washington, Ga. Here, in the old Heard House, the last meeting of the Confederate Cabinet was held. The members separated, and the civil government of the Southern Confederacy passed into history. There were present John C. Breckenridge, Secretary of War; John H. Reagan, Postmaster-General, besides the members of Mr. Davis' staff. The Confederate President was worn and jaded. He looked pale and thin, but was plucky to the last. After the surrender of Lee and Johnston, he wanted to keep up the warfare in the mountains of Virginia, and in the country west of the Mississippi, but he was finally persuaded that the Confederacy must cease to struggle. On the public square of Washington the little brick house, with its iron rail and its red walls, is still pointed out to the visitor as the spot where the Davis government dissolved. It was a dramatic fate which determined its dissolution at the home of Robert Toombs. He had been present at its birth. His had been one of the leading spirits of the revolution. He had served it in the Cabinet and field, he had been pressed for the position of its chief magistracy, and now in the shadow of his own rooftree its concluding council was held. General Reagan was a guest of General Toombs during his stay in Washington, as was General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses, who had been a member of Toombs' staff. In the evening General Toombs called General Reagan into a room by himself and inquired whether the latter needed any money. General Reagan said he had money enough to take him to Texas. Then General Toombs inquired after Mr. Davis, and asked whether he had any money. "I told him no," says General Reagan, "but that I had money enough to take us both West of of the Mississippi, and had told Mr. Davis so. I had no doubt but that he would rely on that." General Toombs then asked if Mr. Davis was well mounted. "I told him yes, that he had his bay horse Kentucky, and that after the surrender General Lee had sent his fine gray Traveler, by his son Robert, around through Lynchburg to Mr. Davis at Greenesboro, N. C." "Well," said General Toombs, with thoughtfulness, "Davis and I had a quarrel once, but that is over now. I am at home and can command money and men, and if Mr. Davis wants anything, I shall be glad to furnish it." General Toombs added that under terms of the convention between Sherman and Johnston, Mr. Davis was entitled to go where he pleased between that point and the Chattahoochee River. "I wish you would say to Mr. Davis," said Toombs, in his bluff way, "that, if necessary, I will call my men around me and see him safe to the Chattahoochee at the risk of my life."

On his return to the hotel Mr. Reagan gave General Toombs' message to Mr. Davis, and told the latter of the inquiries and offers. "That is like Toombs," said Mr. Davis. "He was always a whole-souled man."

The four men whom the Washington government wanted to arrest and hold responsible for the war were Toombs, Davis, Slidell, and Howell Cobb. Their friends understood this perfectly, and each man was urged to make his escape. Jefferson Davis was arrested in Irwin County, Ga., on May 10. He was rapidly making his way to the West, and was trying to reach Texas. How General Toombs finally escaped must be reserved for a more extended recital.

General Toombs and Mr. Davis never met but once after the war. It was unexpected, dramatic. Some years after General Toombs had returned from his long exile, and Mr. Davis was just back from his trip to England, the ex-president visited Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, the guest of the poet Sidney Lanier. He here appeared at his best in the company of sympathetic and admiring friends, and charmed everyone by his polish and learning. The day before Jefferson Davis left, General and Mrs. Toombs arrived at the mountain. Mr. Davis was, at that time, absent on a horseback trip. He was fond of riding, and had gone over to see some of the fine views of the mountain and to inspect the fields where recent battles had raged with so much fury. The hotel was kept by a Northern man who knew nothing of the relations between Mr. Davis and General Toombs, and he believed the thing to do was to put General and Mrs. Toombs in a vacant room of the cottage occupied by Mr. Davis. It was a small house, with a piazza extending along the front. It so happened that the Toombses, who had just learned of Mr. Davis' presence at the hotel, were sitting on the piazza chatting with friends when Mr. Davis came up. Mr. Davis had also heard of General Toombs' arrival at the hotel, but neither knew that the other was domiciled in the same cottage. To General Toombs the appearance was as if Mr. Davis had come at once to make a cordial call. No one could be more hospitable and polite than Toombs, and this apparent challenge to friendship brought out the best side of his nature. The men met with considerable warmth. From General Toombs Mr. Davis advanced to Mrs. Toombs. Between these two the meeting was profoundly affecting. He embraced her tenderly. Toombs and Davis had been friends and neighbors years ago in Washington City, and Mr. Davis had been extremely fond of Mr. Toombs' family. The distinguished party soon fell into friendly conversation. Next day Mr. Davis left Lookout Mountain. He never met Robert Toombs again.



CHAPTER XXIV.

TOOMBS AS A FUGITIVE.

At the conclusion of the war, Secretary Stanton issued specific orders for the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, and Robert Toombs. Mr. Stephens was arrested quietly at his own home in Crawfordville on the 12th of May, 1865, two days after Mr. Davis had been overtaken. On the same day a squad of soldiers, most of them negroes, reached Washington, Ga. They were commanded by General Wilde, and their orders were to take General Toombs in charge. One of the colored troops marched up town with the photograph of Toombs, which they had procured to identify him, impaled upon his bayonet. General Toombs was, at the time, in his private office at his residence. Hearing the noise in his yard, he walked out of his basement to the corner of his front steps. There he perceived the squad and divined their purpose. "By God, the bluecoats!" was all he said. Walking quickly through his back lot, he strode across his plantation and disappeared. By this time the guard was clamoring at the front door, and Mrs. Toombs went out to meet them. "Where is General Toombs?" the commander asked. "He is not here," the lady answered firmly. A parley ensued, during which Mrs. Toombs managed to detain the men long enough to enable her husband to get out of sight. "Unless General Toombs is produced, I shall burn the house," retorted the officer. Mrs. Toombs blanched a little at this, but, biting her lip, she turned on her heel, and coolly replied: "Very well, burn it." Among the listeners to this colloquy was a young man just returned from the Confederate army. He was moved with indignation. He still wore the gray jacket, and was deeply anxious for the Toombs family. He had been a neighbor to them all his life, as had his father before him, and he shared the pride which the village felt for its most distinguished resident.

He was the son of Hon. I. T. Irvin, a prominent public man and lifelong friend of General Toombs. Preparations were made for the threatened fire. General Toombs did not come out. Furniture was moved and papers destroyed, but the young Confederate was soon convinced that the threat was a mere bluff. Relieved on that point, his loyal spirit yearned toward the fugitive. Charles E. Irvin was the name of the young man, and he had seen service in the artillery under Longstreet. Not yet twenty-one years of age, he was fired with ardor and devotion, and had already resolved to aid General Toombs in escaping.

Riding over to a neighbor's house, Mr. J. T. Wingfield, he failed to find his friend, but left word for General Toombs to let him know where to meet him with his horses. That night about two o'clock Lieutenant Irvin got word from General Toombs to bring his horse to Nick Chenault's by seven o'clock in the morning. This was a farm about eighteen miles from Washington, near the Broad River. Here General Toombs mounted his trusted horse and felt at home. It was the famous mare Gray Alice, which had carried him through all his campaigns. He had ridden her during the charges at Antietam, and she had borne him from the fire of the scouts the night he had received his wound. Once more he pressed her into service, and Robert Toombs, for the first time in his life, was a fugitive. This man, who commanded men and had gained his own way by sheer brain and combativeness, fled by stealth from a dreaded enemy. It was a new role for Toombs. His plucky young guide was resolved to accompany him in his flight—it might be to his death; it was all the same to Lieutenant Irvin. Riding swiftly into Elbert County, the two men crossed over to Harrison Landing, a picturesque spot on the Savannah River. Here dwelt an old man, Alexander LeSeur, who led something of a hermit's life. Before the war he had been a "Know-nothing," and had been exposed to Toombs' withering fire upon that class of politicians. LeSeur met the fugitive with a laugh and a friendly oath. "You have been fighting me for forty years," he said, "and now that you are in trouble, I am the first man you seek for protection."



General Toombs had not traveled too fast. The country was swarming with raiders. News of the capture of Davis and Stephens had fired these men with desire to overhaul the great champion of secession. A Federal major, commanding a force of men, put up at Tate's residence, just opposite the hermit's island. While there, a negro from the LeSeur place informed the officer that some prominent man was at the house. "If it ain't Jeff Davis, it is just as big a man," said he. The hint was taken. The island was surrounded and carefully watched, but when the party went over to capture Toombs, the game was gone.

General Toombs now started out carefully up the Savannah River. In Elbert, he was in the hands of his friends. This county, which had first encouraged the struggles of the young lawyer, which had followed him steadfastly in his political fortunes, which had furnished soldiers for his brigade, now supplied protectors at every step. Before leaving this county he was initiated into a Masonic lodge, and took the first degrees of the order. More than once the signs and symbols of the mystic brotherhood stood him in good stead on this eventful trip. He was afterward a high Mason, and remained to his death a devoted friend of the order.

Continuing his journey alone he stopped at the Tugaloo River in Habersham County, and remained at the house of Colonel Prather until Lieutenant Irvin, whom he had sent back to Washington with letters, could rejoin him with funds and clothing. Here his young companion soon found him, bringing, besides letters from home, some astonishing news.

"General," said Lieutenant Irvin, "what do you think? Your friend General Joseph E. Brown has sold out the State of Georgia, and gone over to the Republican party."

Toombs glared at him savagely.

"For the first time on this trip," says Lieutenant Irvin, "he looked like he wanted to kill me. He brought his fist down heavily upon the table and said: 'By God, I don't believe it!'

"'Well here it is in black and white.'"

Lieutenant Irvin gave him the paper in which was printed Governor Brown's famous address to the people of Georgia.

"This news," said Lieutenant Irvin, "absolutely sent the old man to bed."

Toombs remained a week at Colonel Prather's, and in the meantime sent Lieutenant Irvin to Savannah with important letters. He desired to escape, if possible, through the port of Savannah. The Savannah friends were not at home, however, and Lieutenant Irvin, bearing these important letters, actually fell into the hands of the enemy.

He was a high-strung, plucky young fellow, and was reproved by a Federal officer for continuing to wear brass buttons. Irvin retorted sharply, and was hurried into prison. Fearing that he would be searched and his papers found, he slipped them to a friend, undetected by the guard. After remaining in prison for several hours, Lieutenant Irvin was released and censured by the officer, who reminded him that there were bayonets about him.

"Yes," retorted young Irvin, "and brave men always avail themselves of such advantages."

Trudging back from Savannah, Lieutenant Irvin found General Toombs at the Rembert place, near Tallalah Falls. This was a beautiful home in a wild, picturesque country, where Toombs was less liable to capture than in middle Georgia, and where he was less known to the people. General Toombs had already procured the parole papers of Major Luther Martin, of Elbert County, a friend and member of his former command. He traveled under that name, and was so addressed by his young companion all along the route. General Toombs passed the time deer-hunting in Habersham. He had the steady hand and fine eye of a sportsman, and he was noted for his horsemanship and endurance.

Returning toward Washington through Elbert County, General Toombs decided to spend a night with Major Martin. Lieutenant Irvin stoutly opposed this and warned him that if the enemy were to look for him anywhere, it would certainly be at Martin's house. Turning down the road, he finally concluded to put up at the house of Colonel W. H. Mattox. It was well he did. That night a party of thirty soldiers raided the Martin plantation on a hot trail, and searched thoroughly for Toombs.

During his travels General Toombs did not wear a disguise of any sort. Dressed in a checked suit, and riding his gray mare, he was a prominent object, and to most of the people was well known. One day he wore green goggles, but soon threw them away in disgust. The nearness of troops forced General Toombs to abandon his plan of going home for his family before leaving the country. He dispatched Lieutenant Irvin to Washington with letters to his wife, telling her that he would not see her again until he had gone abroad, when he would send for her to join him. He himself passed through Centreville, twelve miles from his home, and directed his young guide where to meet him in middle Georgia. This Lieutenant Irvin found it very hard to do. General Toombs was very discreet as to whom he took into his confidence. Once or twice he cautioned his companion against certain parties, to the surprise of the young man. Toombs, however, read human nature pretty well, and, later, when the real character of these persons developed, Irvin understood the counsels of his older friend. So carefully did General Toombs cover his tracks that Lieutenant Irvin, after his detour to Washington, was a long time in overtaking him. Traveling straight to Sparta, Lieutenant Irvin called on Judge Linton Stephens and asked about the general. This shrewd Georgian came to the door and flatly denied knowing anything about Toombs.

"He questioned me closely," said Lieutenant Irvin, "and finding that I was really who I pretended to be, finally agreed to take me to Toombs. Riding down to Old-Town, in Jefferson County, we failed to find Toombs, but receiving a clew that he had passed through the David Dickson plantation in Hancock County, I accosted Mr. Worthen, the manager. 'Has an old man riding a gray horse passed this way,' Worthen was asked. He promptly answered, 'No.' Believing that he was deceiving me, I questioned him more closely."

Worthen tried to persuade the young man to get down and take some plums. He was evidently anxious to detain him. Finally he eyed the stranger more closely, and, convinced that he was the companion whom Toombs expected, he confessed that General Toombs had been at his place and was then at the home of Major Gonder in Washington County.

Lieutenant Irvin had ridden over two hundred miles in this search and lost two or three days out of his way. Toombs covered his trail so carefully that it was difficult even for his friends to find him. Small wonder that he was not captured by the enemy.

Lieutenant Irvin was not yet "out of the woods." Reaching the home of Major Gonder late in the evening, he rode up to the front fence, fifty yards from the dwelling. Mrs. Gonder and her daughter were sitting on the piazza. Lieutenant Irvin asked the usual question about the old man and the gray horse. The lady replied that she knew nothing about them.

Lieutenant Irvin said: "But I was directed to this place."

Mrs. Gonder: "I should like to know who sent you."

Lieutenant Irvin: "But has no one passed or stopped here, answering my description?"

Both ladies were now considerably worked up; the younger scarcely suppressed her amusement.

"Come, ladies," said Lieutenant Irvin, "I see you both know more than you will confess."

"If I do, I will die before I tell it," naively replied the elder.

"Now I know you know where General Toombs is."

"Then get it out of me if you can."

Finally the young man persuaded her that he was the friend of Toombs, and Mrs. Gonder reluctantly directed him to Colonel Jack Smith's over on the Oconee River.

Riding up to Colonel Smith's, his valiant pursuer spied General Toombs through the window. The head of the house, however, denied that Toombs was there at all.

"But that looks very much like him through the window," said Lieutenant Irvin.

"Young man," retorted Colonel Smith, "what is your name?"

Of course this disclosure led to the reunion of the fugitive and his friend.

Toombs realized that he was in almost as much danger from his own friends as from the enemy. He was careful to whom he disclosed his identity or his plans, for fear that they might indiscreetly comment on his presence or embarrass him even by their willingness to befriend him. So it was that he proceeded secretly, picking his way by stealth, and actually doing much of his travel by night.

At the home of Colonel Jack Smith, the two men remained a week to rest their horses and take their bearings. General Toombs spent much time on the Oconee trolling for trout, while bodies of Union cavalry were watching the ferries and guarding the fords, seining for bigger fish.

Passing into Wilkinson County, General Toombs stopped at the home of Mr. Joseph Deas. When Lieutenant Irvin asked if the pair could come in, Deas replied, "Yes, if you can put up with the fare of a man who subsists in Sherman's track."

A maiden sister of Deas lived in the house. With a woman's sensitive ear, she recognized General Toombs' voice, having heard him speak at Toombsboro seventeen years before. This discovery, she did not communicate to her brother until after the guests had retired. Deas had been discussing politics with Toombs, and his sister asked him if he knew to whom he had been talking all night? Deas said he did not.

"Joe Deas," she said, "are you a fool? Don't you know that is General Toombs?"

Strange to say, a negro on the place, just as they were leaving, cried out "Good-by, Marse Bob." He had driven the family to the speaking seventeen years before, and had not forgotten the man who defended slavery on that day.

"Good Lord!" said Toombs, "go give that negro some money."

This same negro had been strung up by the thumbs by Sherman's troops a few months before because he would not tell where his master's mules were hidden. He piloted General Toombs through the woods to the home of Colonel David Hughes, a prominent and wealthy farmer of Twiggs County. Colonel Hughes had been in Toombs' brigade, and the general remained with him a week.

General Toombs was sitting on the piazza of Colonel Hughes's house one afternoon when an old soldier asked permission to come in. He still wore the gray, and was scarred and begrimed. He eyed General Toombs very closely, and seemed to hang upon his words. He heard him addressed as Major Martin, and finally, when he arose to leave, wrung the general's hand.

"Major Martin," he said, brushing the tears from his eyes, "I'm mighty glad to see you. I wish to God I could do something for you."

At the gate he turned to Colonel Hughes and said: "I know who that is. It is General Toombs. You can't fool me."

"Why do you think so?" Colonel Hughes asked.

"Oh, I remember Gray Alice jumping the stone walls at Sharpsburg too well to forget the rider now."

"Colonel," he continued, "this morning a man near here, who is a Republican and an enemy of General Toombs, thought he recognized him near your house. He saw him two hundred yards away. I heard him say he believed it was Toombs and he wished he had his head shot off. I came here to-night to see for myself. You tell General Toombs that if he says the word, I will kill that scoundrel as sure as guns."

The veteran was persuaded, however, to keep quiet and do nothing of the sort.

It was at this time that Lieutenant Irvin found that the ferries of the Ocmulgee River were guarded from one end to the other. Near this place Davis had been captured and the Union troops were on a sharp lookout for Toombs. Convinced that further travel might be hazardous, General Toombs and his friend rode back to the mountains of North Georgia, and there remained until the early fall. It was in the month of October that the fugitives again started on their checkered flight. The May days had melted into summer, and summer had been succeeded by early autumn. The crops, planted when he started from home that spring day, were now ripening in the fields, and Northern statesmen were still declaring that Toombs was the arch-traitor, and must be apprehended. Davis was in irons, and Stephens languished in a dungeon at Fortress Monroe.

Passing once more near Sparta, Ga., Toombs met, by appointment, his friends, Linton Stephens, R. M. Johnson, W. W. Simpson, Jack Lane, Edge Bird, and other kindred spirits. It was a royal reunion, a sort of Lucretia Borgia feast for Toombs—"eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow we may die."

Traveling their old road through Washington County, they crossed the Ocmulgee, this time in safety, and passed into Houston County. The Federals believed Toombs already abroad and had ceased to look for him in Georgia. After the passage was made General Toombs said: "Charlie, that ferryman eyed me very closely. Go back and give him some money."

Lieutenant Irvin did return. The ferryman refused any gift. He said: "I did not want to take what you did give me." Irvin asked the reason. The ferryman said: "Tell General Toombs I wish to God I could do something for him."

General Toombs had a wide personal acquaintance in Georgia. He seldom stopped at a house whose inmates he did not know, and whose relatives and connections he could not trace for generations. Sometimes, when incognito, the two men were asked where General Toombs was. They answered, "Cuba."

At Oglethorpe, in Macon County, General Toombs rode right through a garrison of Federal soldiers. As one of his regiments came from this section, General Toombs was afraid that some of his old soldiers might recognize him on the road. A Federal officer advanced to the middle of the street and saluted the travelers. Their hearts bounded to their throats, and, instinctively, two hands stole to their revolvers. Pistols and spurs were the only resources. Chances were desperate, but they were resolved to take them. The officer watched them intently as they rode leisurely through the town, but he was really more interested in their fine horses, "Gray Alice" and "Young Alice," than in the men. Jogging unconcernedly along until the town was hidden by a hill, General Toombs urged his horse into a run, and left "his friends, the enemy," far in the rear. It was a close call, but he did not breathe freely yet. There was possibility of pursuit, and when the party reached the residence of a Mr. Brown, a messenger was sent back to the town to mislead the soldiers should pursuit be attempted. From the hands of the enemy, General Toombs and his friend were now inducted into pleasanter scenes. The house was decorated with lilies and orange blossoms. A wedding was on hand, and the bride happened to be the daughter of the host. Brown was a brave and determined man. He assured General Toombs that when the wedding guests assembled, there would be men enough on hand, should an attack be made, to rout the United States garrison, horse, foot, and dragoons. At Dr. Raines' place, on the Chattahoochee River, a horse drover happened to say something about Toombs. He gave the statesman a round of abuse and added: "And yet, they tell me that if I were to meet General Toombs and say what I think of him, I would either have a fight or he would convince me that he was the biggest man in the world."

Tired of the long horseback ride, having been nearly six months in the saddle, the men now secured an ambulance from Toombs' plantation in Stewart County, and crossed the river into Alabama. His faithful mare, which he was forced to leave behind, neighed pathetically as her master rode away in a boat and pulled for the Alabama shore. At Evergreen they took the train, and it seemed that half the men on the cars recognized General Toombs. General Joseph Wheeler, who was on board, did not take his eyes off him. Toombs became nervous under these searching glances, and managed to hide his face behind a paper which he was reading. At Tensas Station he took the boat for Mobile. There was a force of Federal soldiers on board, and this was the closest quarters of his long journey. There was now no chance of escape, if detected. The soldiers frequently spoke to General Toombs, but he was not in the slightest way molested.

At Mobile General Toombs took his saddle-bags and repaired to the home of his friend Mr. Evans, about four miles from the city. There he was placed in the care of Howard Evans and his sister, Miss Augusta J. Evans, the gifted Southern authoress. Anxious to conceal the identity of their guest, these hospitable young people dismissed their servants, and Miss Evans herself cooked and served General Toombs' meals with her own hands. She declared, with true hospitality, that she felt it a privilege to contribute to the comfort and insure the safety of the brilliant statesman. She was a Georgian herself, and with her this was a labor of love.

These were among the most agreeable moments of General Toombs' long exile. He loved the companionship of intellectual women, and the conversation during these days was full of brilliant interest. Miss Evans was a charming talker, as bright as a jewel, and Toombs was a Chesterfield with ladies. The general would walk to and fro along the shaded walks and pour forth, in his matchless way, the secret history of the ruin of Confederate hopes.

General Toombs wrote home, in courtly enthusiasm, of his visit to Mobile. Mr. Stephens sent Miss Evans a warm letter of thanks for her attentions to his friend. "I have," said he, "just received a letter from General Toombs, who has been so united with me in friendship and destiny all our lives, giving such account of the kind attentions he received from you and your father while in Mobile, that I cannot forbear to thank you and him for it in the same strain and terms as if these attentions had been rendered to myself. What you did for my friend, in this particular, you did for me."

While General Toombs was in Mobile, General Wheeler called upon the Evans family and remarked that he thought he had seen General Toombs on the train. Miss Evans replied that she had heard General Toombs was in Cuba.

Lieutenant Irvin went to New Orleans and secured from the Spanish Consul a pass to Cuba for "Major Luther Martin." At Mobile General Toombs took the boat Creole for New Orleans. He seemed to be nearing the end of his long journey, but it was on this boat that the dramatic incident occurred which threatened to change the course of his wanderings at last. While General Toombs was at supper, he became conscious that one of the passengers was eying him closely. He said to Lieutenant Irvin: "Charlie, don't look up now, but there is a man in the doorway who evidently recognizes me."

"General, probably it is someone who thinks he knows you."

"No," replied Toombs quietly, "that man is a spy."

Lieutenant Irvin asked what should be done. General Toombs told him to go out and question the man and, if convinced that he was a spy, to throw him over the stern-rail of the steamer. Lieutenant Irvin got up and went on deck. The stranger followed him. Irvin walked toward the rail. The stranger asked him where he was from. He answered "North Carolina."

"Who is that with you?" he questioned.

"My uncle, Major Martin," said Irvin.

The man then remarked that it looked very much like Robert Toombs. Irvin answered that the likeness had been noted before, but that he could not see it.

"Young man," said the stranger, "I don't want to dispute your word, but that is certainly Toombs. I know him well, and am his friend."

Irvin then gave up the idea of throwing him overboard. Had the brave young officer not been convinced that the party questioning him was Colonel M. C. Fulton, a prominent resident of Georgia, he says he would certainly have pitched him into the Gulf of Mexico.

General Toombs, when informed of the identity of Colonel Fulton, sent for him to come to his room, and the two men had a long and friendly conversation.

Arriving at New Orleans General Toombs drove up to the residence of Colonel Marshal J. Smith. On the 4th of November, 1865, he boarded the steamship Alabama, the first of the Morgan line put on after the war between New Orleans, Havana, and Liverpool. A tremendous crowd had gathered at the dock to see the steamer off, and Lieutenant Irvin tried to persuade General Toombs to go below until the ship cleared. But the buoyant Georgian persisted in walking the deck, and was actually recognized by General Humphrey Marshall of Texas, who had known him in the Senate before the war.

"No," said Toombs to his companion's expostulations, "I want fresh air, and I will die right here. I am impatient to get into neutral waters, when I can talk. I have not had a square, honest talk in six months."

By the time the good ship had cleared the harbor, everybody on board knew that Robert Toombs, "the fire-eater and rebel," was a passenger, and hundreds gathered around to listen to his matchless conversation.

Lieutenant Irvin never saw General Toombs again until 1868. He himself was an officer of the Irvin artillery, Cutts' battalion, being a part of Walker's artillery in Longstreet's corps. Entering the army at seventeen years of age, Charles E. Irvin was a veteran at twenty-one. He was brave, alert, tender, and true. He recalls that when his company joined the army in Richmond, Robert Toombs, then Secretary of State, gave them a handsome supper at the Exchange Hotel. "I remember," said he, "with infinite satisfaction, that during the seven months I accompanied General Toombs, in the closest relations and under the most trying positions, he was never once impatient with me." Frequently, on this long and perilous journey, Toombs would say; "Well, my boy! suppose the Yankees find us to-day; what will you do?" "General, you say you won't be taken alive. I reckon they will have to kill me too."

General Toombs often declared that he would not be captured. Imprisonment, trial, and exile, he did not dread; but to be carried about, a prize captive and a curiosity through Northern cities, was his constant fear. He was prepared to sell his life dearly, and there is no doubt but that he would have done so.

During all these trying days, Toombs rode with the grace and gayety of a cavalier. He talked incessantly to his young companion, who eagerly drank in his words. He fought his battles over again and discussed the leaders of the Civil War in his racy style. He constantly predicted the collapse of the greenback system of currency, and speculated facetiously each day upon the chances of capture. He calculated shrewdly enough his routes and plans, and when he found himself on terra firma, it was under the soft skies of the Antilles with a foreign flag above him.



CHAPTER XXV.

WITHOUT A COUNTRY.

From Cuba General Toombs proceeded to Paris. It was early in July before he reached his new stopping place. He found himself somewhat restricted in funds, as he had not had time to turn his property into gold to make his trip abroad. It is related that just after the departure of the famous "specie train," through Washington in the wake of Mr. Davis' party, a Confederate horseman dashed by the residence of General Toombs and threw a bag of bullion over the fence. It was found to contain five thousand dollars, but Toombs swore he would not even borrow this amount from his government. He turned it over to the authorities for the use of disabled Confederate soldiers, and hurriedly scraped up what funds he could command in case he should be compelled to fly. Arriving in Paris, General Toombs succeeded in selling one of his plantations, realizing about five dollars an acre for it. He used to explain to the astounded Frenchmen, during his residence abroad, that he ate an acre of dirt a day.

General Toombs repaired to Enghien, where he took a course of sulphur baths for the benefit of his throat. Constant exposure with the army and in his flight had brought on his old enemy, the asthma. He had been a healthy man, having long passed the limit of manhood before he tasted medicine. Late in life, an attack of scarlet fever left his throat in a delicate condition.

Mrs. Toombs joined him in Paris in July, 1865, and he passed eighteen months quietly with her in Europe. It was in marked contrast to his tour in 1855, when, as United States Senator, he had gone from place to place, observed, honored, and courted. He was now an exile without a country. He had seen his political dreams wiped out in blood and his home in the hands of the enemy. From the dignity and power of a United States Senator and a possible aspirant to the Presidency, he had been branded as a conspirator, and forced, like Mirabeau, to seek shelter in distant lands.

France was, at that time, in a state of unrest. Louis Napoleon was watching with anxiety the eagles of Prussia hovering over the German Confederation. Austria had already succumbed to Prussian power, and Napoleon had been blocked in his scheme to secure, from this disorder, his share of the Rhenish provinces. Toombs, who had fled from a restored Union in America, now watched the march of consolidation in Europe, and predicted its final success.

General Toombs was an object of interest in Europe. His position toward the American government prevented his public recognition by the rulers, but he used to relate with zest his interviews with Carlyle, the Empress Eugenie, and other notables. He was a man to attract attention, and his talk was fascinating and bright.

He was sometimes sought in a legal way by prominent financiers, who asked his opinions upon fiscal matters in America. There is no doubt but that, like Judah P. Benjamin, he could have built up a large practice abroad, had he cared to do so; but permanent residence away from home was entirely out of his mind.

In December, 1866, General and Mrs. Toombs received a cable message telling them of the death of their only daughter, Mrs. Dudley M. DuBose, in Washington, Ga. Mrs. Toombs at once returned home, leaving the grief-stricken father alone in Paris. Anxious to go back with her, he was advised that matters were still unsettled in the United States. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was in progress, and his conviction meant restored martial law for the South. So the days were full of woe for the lonely exile.

On December 25, 1866, he writes a beautiful and pathetic letter to his wife. While the denizens of the gay city were deep in the celebration of the joyous Christmas feast, the Southern wanderer, "with heart bowed down," was passing through the shadows, and suffering in silence the keenest pangs of affliction. Around him the votaries of fashion and wealth were flushed with gayety. Paris was in the ecstasy of Christmastide. But the depths of his soul were starless and chill, and in the midst of all this mirth one heart was tuned to melancholy. He writes to his wife:

The night you left I retired to the room and did not go to sleep until after two o'clock. I felt so sad at parting with you and could not help thinking what a long dreary trip you had that night. I shall have a long journey of five thousand miles to Havana, and do not know that I shall meet a human being to whom I am known, but if I keep well I shall not mind that, especially as I am homeward bound; for my hearthstone is desolate, and clouds and darkness hover over the little remnant that is left of us, and of all our poor friends and countrymen; and, when you get home, Washington will contain nearly all that is dear to me in this world. I remained alone yesterday after I got up and went to my solitary meal. I immediately came back to my room, and have seen nothing of Christmas in Paris.

On January 1, 1867, he writes:

This is the first of the new year. How sad it opens upon me! In a foreign land, with all that is dear to me on earth beyond the ocean, either on the way to a distant home or at its desolate fireside. Well, I shall not nurse such gloomy ideas. Let us hope that the new year may be happier and that we may grow better. God knows I cannot regret that 1866 is gone. I hope its calamities will not enter with us into 1867. I had hoped to hear from New York of your safe arrival on the other side of the ocean.

The loss of his daughter Sallie was a severe blow to General Toombs. But two of his children lived to be grown. His eldest daughter Louise died in 1855, shortly after her marriage to Mr. W. F. Alexander. General Toombs had a son who died in early childhood of scarlet fever. This was a great blow to him, for he always longed for a son to bear his name. Away off in Paris his heart yearned for his four little grandchildren, left motherless by this new affliction. He writes again from Paris:

I almost determined to take the steamer Saturday and run the gauntlet to New York. I would have done so but for my promise to you. I know everything looks worse and worse on our side of the ocean, but when will it be any better? Is this state of things to last forever? To me it is becoming intolerable.... Kiss the dear little children for me. Bless their hearts! How I long to see them and take them to my arms. God bless you! Pray for me that I may be a better man in the new year than in all the old ones before in my time.

Early in January General Toombs decided to sail for Cuba and thence to New Orleans. If he found it unsafe to remain in the South he concluded he could either go back to Cuba or extend his travels into Canada. He had promised his wife he would remain abroad for the present. But he writes:

The worst that can happen to me is a prison, and I don't see much to choose between my present condition and any decent fort. I feel so anxious about you and the children that it makes me very wretched.

From Paris, January 16, 1867, he writes:

My preparations are all complete, and I leave to-morrow on the New World for Havana and New Orleans, via Martinique. I am well; except my throat. I shall have a long and lonesome voyage, with not much else to cheer me but that I shall find you and our dear little ones at the end of my journey. If I am permitted to find you all well, I shall be compensated for its fatigues and dangers. God grant that we may all meet once more in this world in health!

Yours truly and affectionately, as ever, TOOMBS.

General Toombs returned to America and after a short residence in Canada went to Washington, where he had a long interview with his old senatorial colleague, President Andrew Johnson. He went home from Washington and was never again molested. He made no petition for relief of political disabilities. He was never restored to citizenship. When Honorable Samuel J. Randall proposed his General Amnesty Act in 1875, Mr. Blaine and other Republicans desired to exclude from its provisions the names of Davis and Toombs. The Democrats would not accept this amendment, and the bill was never passed. Once, when Senator Oliver P. Morton asked General Toombs why he did not petition Congress for pardon, Toombs quietly answered, "Pardon for what? I have not pardoned you all yet."



CHAPTER XXVI.

COMMENCING LIFE ANEW.

When General Toombs finally returned to Georgia it was with a great part of his fortune gone, his political career cut off by hopeless disability, and his household desolate. These were serious calamities for a man fifty-seven years of age. He found himself forced under new and unfavorable conditions to build all over again, but he set about it in a vigorous and heroic way. His health was good. He was a splendid specimen of manhood. His once raven locks were gray, and his beard, which grew out from his throat, gave him a grizzly appearance. His dark eye was full of fire and his mind responded with vigor to its new work.

When General Toombs arrived at Washington, Ga., he consulted some of his friends over the advisability of returning to the practice of law, which he had left twenty-five years before. Their advice was against it. Things were in chaos; the people were impoverished, and the custodians of the courts were the creatures of a hostile government. But Robert Toombs was made of different stuff. Associating himself in the practice of his profession with General Dudley M. DuBose, who had been his chief of staff, and was his son-in-law, an able and popular man in the full vigor of manhood, General Toombs returned actively to the practice of law. He was not long in turning to practical account his great abilities. Success soon claimed him as an old favorite. Business accumulated and the ex-senator and soldier found himself once more at the head of the bar of Georgia. Large fees were readily commanded. He was employed in important cases in every part of Georgia, and the announcement that Robert Toombs was to appear before judge and jury was enough to draw large crowds from city and country. His old habits of indomitable industry returned. He rode the circuits like a young barrister again. He was a close collector of claims, an admirable administrator, a safe counselor, and a bold and fearless advocate. In a short time General Toombs' family found themselves once more in comfort, and he was the same power with the people that he had always been.

Cut off from all hope of official promotion, scorning to sue for political pardon, he strove to wield in the courts some of the power he forfeited in politics. He figured largely in cases of a public nature, and became an outspoken tribune of the people. He did not hesitate to face the Supreme Court of Georgia, then made up of Republican judges, and attack the laws of a Republican legislature. Among the bills passed at that time to popularize the legislature with the people, was a series of liberal homestead and exemption laws. They were the relief measures of 1868. By these schemes, at once rigorous and sweeping, millions of dollars were lost in Georgia. They were intended to wipe out old debts, especially contracts made during the war, and Governor Bullock had appointed a Supreme Court which sustained them. These laws were abhorrent to Toombs. He thundered against them with all the powers of his learning and eloquence. When he arose in court, there stood with him, he believed, not only the cause of his client, but the honor of the whole State of Georgia. It was much easier to seduce a poverty-stricken people by offering them measures of relief than to drive them by the bayonet or to subject them to African domination. In the case of Hardeman against Downer, in June, 1868, he declared before the Supreme Court that these homestead laws put a premium on dishonesty and robbed the poor man of his capital. "But we must consider the intention of the Act," said the Court. "Was it not the intention of the legislature to prevent the collection of just such claims as these you now bring?" "Yes, may it please the Court," said Toombs, shaking his leonine locks, "there can be no doubt that it was the intention of the legislature to defraud the creditor; but they have failed to put their intention in a form that would stand, so it becomes necessary for this Court to add its own ingenuity to this villainy. It seems that this Court is making laws rather than decisions."

In one of his dissenting opinions upon these laws, Justice Hiram Warner declared that he would not allow his name to go down to posterity steeped in the infamy of such a decision. General Toombs lost his case, but the decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The times were full of evil. The legislature was dominated by adventurers and ignorant men, and public credit was freely voted away to new enterprises. The State was undeveloped, and this wholesale system of public improvement became popular. Unworthy men were scrambling for public station, and the times were out of tune. In the midst of this demoralization Toombs was a pillar of fire. He was tireless in his withering satire, his stinging invective, his uncompromising war upon the misgovernment of the day.

Here was a fine field and a rare occasion for his pungent criticism and denunciation. His utterances were not those of a political leader. He was not trimming his sails for office. He did not shape his conduct so as to be considered an available man by the North. He fought error wherever he saw it. He made no terms with those whom he considered public enemies. He denounced radicalism as a "leagued scoundrelism of private gain and public plunder."

In opposing the issue of State bonds to aid a certain railroad, he declared that if the legislature saddled this debt upon the taxpayers, their act would be a nullity. "We will adopt a new constitution with a clause repudiating these bonds, and like AEtna spew the monstrous frauds out of the market!"

"You may," he said, "by your deep-laid schemes, lull the thoughtless, enlist the selfish, and stifle for a while the voices of patriots, but the day of reckoning will come. These cormorant corporations, these so-called patriotic developers, whom you seek to exempt, shall pay their dues, if justice lives. By the Living God, they shall pay them."

"Georgia shall pay her debts," said Toombs on one occasion. "If she does not, I will pay them for her!" This piece of hyperbole was softened by the fact that on two occasions, when the State needed money to supply deficits, Toombs with other Georgians did come forward and lift the pressure. Sometimes he talked in a random way, but responsibility always sobered him. He was impatient of fraud and stupidity, often full of exaggerations, but scrupulous when the truth was relevant. Always strict and honorable in his engagements, he boasted that he never had a dirty shilling in his pocket.

The men who "left the country for the country's good" and came South to fatten on the spoils of reconstruction, furnished unending targets for his satire. He declared that these so-called developers came for pelf, not patriotism. "Why, these men," he said, "are like thieving elephants. They will uproot an oak or pick up a pin. They would steal anything from a button to an empire." On one occasion he was bewailing the degeneracy of the times, and he exclaimed: "I am sorry I have got so much sense. I see into the tricks of these public men too quickly. When God Almighty moves me from the earth, he will take away a heap of experience. I expect when a man gets to be seventy he ought to go, for he knows too much for other people's convenience."

"I hope the Lord will allow me to go to heaven as a gentleman," he used to say. "Some of these Georgia politicians I do not want to associate with. I would like to associate with Socrates and Shakespeare."

During his arguments before the Supreme Court, General Toombs used to abuse the Governor and the Bullock Legislature very roundly. The Court adopted a rule that no lawyer should be allowed, while conducting his case, to abuse a coordinate branch of the government. General Toombs was informed that if he persisted in this practice he would be held for contempt. The next time Toombs went before the Court he alluded to the fugitive Governor in very sharp terms. "May it please your Honors, the Governor has now absconded. Your Honors have put in a little rule to catch me. In seeking to protect the powers that be, I presume you did not intend to defend the powers that were."

The papers printed an account of an interview between General Gordon and Mr. Tilden in 1880, Gordon told Tilden that he was sorry he could not impart to Tilden some of his own strength and vitality. "So my brother told me last year," answered Mr. Tilden. "I have since followed him to the grave." Toombs read this and remarked that Tilden did not think he was going to die. "No one expects to die but I. I have got sense enough to know that I am bound to die."

On one occasion Toombs was criticising an appointment made by an unpopular official. "But, General," someone said, "you must confess that it was a good appointment." "That may be, but that was not the reason it was made. Bacon was not accused of selling injustice. He was eternally damned for selling justice."

General Toombs was once asked in a crowd in the Kimball House in Atlanta what he thought of the North. "My opinion of the Yankees is apostolic. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works." A Federal officer was standing in the crowd. He said: "Well, General, we whipped you, anyhow." "No," replied Toombs, "we just wore ourselves out whipping you."

He spoke of the spoliators in the State Legislature as "an assembly of manikins whose object is never higher than their breeches pockets; seekers of jobs and judgeships, anything for pap or plunder, an amalgamation of white rogues and blind negroes, gouging the treasury and disgracing Georgia."

He was a violent foe of exemptions, of bounties, and of all sorts of corruption and fraud. He was overbearing at times, but not more conscious of power than of honesty in its use. He was generous to the weak. It was in defense of his ideas of justice that he overbore opposition.

General Toombs kept the issues before the people. He had no patience with the tentative policy. He forfeited much of his influence at this time by his indiscriminate abuse of Northern men and Southern opponents, and his defiance of all the conditions of a restored Union. He could have served his people best by more conservative conduct, but he had all the roughness and acerbity of a reformer, dead in earnest. It was owing to his constant arraignment of illegal acts of the post-bellum regime that the people finally aroused, in 1870, and regained the State for white supremacy and Democratic government. He challenged the authors of the Reconstruction measures to discuss the constitutionality of the amendments. Charles J. Jenkins had already carried the cause of Georgia into the courts, and Linton Stephens, before United States Commissioner Swayze in Macon, had made an exhaustive argument upon the whole subject. Toombs forced these issues constantly into his cases, and kept public interest at white heat.



CHAPTER XXVII.

DAYS OF RECONSTRUCTION

In July, 1868, the people of Georgia made the first determined stand against the Republican party. John B. Gordon was nominated for Governor, and Seymour and Blair had been named in New York as National Democratic standard-bearers. A memorable meeting was held in Atlanta. It was the first real rally of the white people under the new order of things. Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and Benjamin H. Hill addressed the multitude. There was much enthusiasm, and crowds gathered from every part of Georgia. This was the great "Bush Arbor meeting" of that year, and old men and boys speak of it to-day with kindling ardor. "Few people," said Toombs in that speech, "had escaped the horrors of war, and fewer still the stern and bitter curse of civil war. The histories of the greatest peoples of earth have been filled with defeats as well as victories, suffering as well as happiness, shame and reproach as well as honor and glory. The struggles of the great and good are the noblest legacies left by the past to the present generation, trophies worthy to be laid at the feet of Jehovah himself. Those whose blades glittered in the foremost ranks of the Northern army on the battlefield, with a yet higher and nobler purpose denounce the base uses to which the victory has been applied. The old shibboleths of victory are proclaimed as living principles. Whatever else may be lost, the principles of Magna Charta have survived the conflict of arms. The edicts of the enemy abolish all securities of life, liberty, and property; defeat all the rightful purposes of government, and renounce all remedies, all laws.["]

General Toombs denounced the incompetency of the dominant party in Georgia—"In its tyranny, its corruption, its treachery to the Caucasian race, its patronage of vice, of fraud, of crime and criminals, its crime against humanity and in its efforts to subordinate the safeguards of public security and to uproot the foundations of free government it has forfeited all claims upon a free people."

Alluding to General Longstreet, who had been a member of the Republican party, General Toombs said: "I would not have him tarnish his own laurels. I respect his courage, honor his devotion to his cause, and regret his errors." He denounced the ruling party of Georgia as a mass of floating putrescence, "which rises as it rots and rots as it rises." He declared that the Reconstruction Acts "stared out in their naked deformity, open to the indignant gaze of all honest men."

The campaign at that time was made upon the illegality of the amendments to the Constitution. Enthusiasm was fed by the fiery and impetuous invective of Toombs. The utterances of most public men were guarded and conservative. But when Toombs spoke the people realized that he uttered the convictions of an unshackled mind and a fearless spirit. Leaders deprecated his extreme views, but the hustings rang with his ruthless candor.

The conclusion of his Bush Arbor effort was a fine sample of his fervid speech: "All these and many more wrongs have been heaped upon you, my countrymen, without your consent. Your consent alone can give the least validity to these usurpations. Let no power on earth wring that consent from you. Take no counsel of fear; it is the meanest of masters; spurn the temptations of office from the polluted hands of your oppressors. He who owns only his own sepulcher at the price of such claims holds a heritage of shame. Unite with the National Democratic party. Your country says come; honor says come; duty says come; liberty says come; the country is in danger; let every freeman hasten to the rescue."

It was at this meeting that Benjamin H. Hill, who made so much reputation by the publication of a series of papers entitled, "Notes on the Situation," delivered one of the most memorable speeches of his life. It was a moving, overmastering appeal to the people to go to the polls. When this oration was over, the audience was almost wild, and Robert Toombs, standing on the platform, in his enthusiasm threw his hat away into the delighted throng. A young bright-faced boy picked it up and carried it back to the speakers' stand. It was Henry Grady.

The defeat of the National Democratic party in 1868 disheartened the Southern people, and the old disinclination to take part in politics seized them stronger than before. In 1870, however, General Toombs delivered, in different parts of Georgia, a carefully prepared lecture on the Principles of Magna Charta. It was just the reverse in style and conception to his fervid Bush Arbor oration. It was submitted to manuscript and was read from notes at the speakers' stand. With the possible exception of his Tremont Temple lecture, delivered in Boston in 1856, it was the only one of his public addresses so carefully prepared and so dispassionately delivered. In his opinion the principles of free government were drifting away from old landmarks. The times were out of joint, the people were demoralized. The causes which afterward led to the great revolt in the Republican ranks in 1872 were already marked in the quick perception of Toombs, and this admirable state paper was framed to put the issue before the public in a sober, statesmanlike way, and to draw the people back to their old moorings. This lecture was delivered in all the large cities and many of the smaller towns of Georgia, and had a great effect. Already there had been concerted appeal to Georgians to cease this political opposition and "accept the situation." Even statesmen like Mr. Hill had come round to the point of advising the people to abandon "dead issues." The situation was more desperate than ever.

In his Magna Charta lecture Mr. Toombs said that Algernon Sidney had summed up the object of all human wisdom as the good government of the people. "From the earliest ages to the present time," said he, "there has been a continued contest between the wise and the virtuous who wish to secure good government and the corrupt who were unwilling to grant it. The highest duty of every man, a duty enjoined by God, was the service of his country." This was the great value of the victory at Runnymede, with its rich fruits—that rights should be respected and that justice should be done. "These had never been denied for seven hundred years, until the present evil days," said Toombs. Magna Charta had been overridden and trampled underfoot by brave tyrants and evaded by cowardly ones. There had been ingenious schemes to destroy it. The men of '76 fought for Magna Charta. These principles had been prominent in our Constitution until a Republican majority attempted destruction and civil war. Kings had made efforts to destroy its power and subvert its influence. Not a single noble family existed in England but which had lost a member in its defense. Society was organized to protect it, and all good and true men are required to maintain its teachings. "The assassins of liberty are now in power, but a reaction is coming. Stand firm, make no compromise, have nothing to do with men who talk of dead issues. It is the shibboleth of ruin. Push forward, and make a square fight for your liberties."

The plain but powerful summary of public obligation had a more lasting effect than his more fiery appeals. General Toombs was a potent leader in the campaign, though not himself a candidate or even a voter. General D. M. DuBose, his law partner, was elected to Congress this year, and the Democratic party secured a majority in the State Legislature. Among the men who shared in the redemption of the State Robert Toombs was the first and most conspicuous.

Some of the best speeches made by General Toombs at this time were delivered to the farmers at the various agricultural fairs. These were frequent and, as Judge Reese declared, abounded with wisdom which caused him years of reflection and observation. He had been reared upon a farm. His interests, as his sympathies, were with these people. He remained in active management of his large plantation, Roanoke, in Stewart County, during the period when he was a member of Congress and even when he was in the army. Two or three times a year he made visits to that place and was always in close communication with his overseers. He loved the work and was a successful farmer. A fondness for gardening and stock-raising remained with him until his last years. Even in a very busy and tempestuous life, as he characterized it in speaking to Judge Reese, a spacious garden, with orchards and vineyards, was to him an unfailing source of recreation and pleasure.

He writes to his wife of the disasters of the army at Orange Court House, Va., but finds time to add: "The gardens and fruit are great additions to the family comfort, and every effort should be made to put them in the best condition." Writing from Richmond of the condition of Lee's army in March, 1862, he does not forget to add: "I am sorry to know that the prospects of the crops are so bad. One of the best reliances now is the garden. Manure high, work well, and keep planting vegetables." From Roanoke, in 1863, he writes; "My plantation affairs are not in as good condition as I would wish. I have lost a great many sheep, have but few lambs and little wool; cattle poor—all need looking after." In the midst of the shelling of Atlanta in 1864, he writes from the trenches to his wife: "Tell Squire to put your cows and Gabriel's in the volunteer oatfield. Every day we hear cannonading in front."

It was in 1869 that General Toombs made one of his great speeches at the State fair in Columbus, in the course of which he used this expression; "The farmers of Georgia will never enjoy general prosperity until they quit making the West their corncrib and smokehouse." It was in that same speech that Toombs said, referring to the soldiers of the South; "Liberty, in its last analysis, is but the sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave." Most of the great men in Georgia have been reared in the country. There seems to be something in the pure air, the broad fields, and even the solitude, conducive to vigor and self-reliance. Attrition and culture have finished the work laid up by the farmer boy, and that fertile section of middle Georgia, so rich in products of the earth, has given greatness to the State.

In August, 1872, General Toombs was invited by the alumni of the University of Georgia to deliver the annual address during commencement week. A large crowd was in attendance and the veteran orator received an ovation. He departed from his usual custom and attempted to read a written speech. His eyesight had begun to fail him, the formation of a cataract having been felt with great inconvenience. The pages of the manuscript became separated and General Toombs, for the first time in his life, is said to have been embarrassed. He had not read more than one quarter of his speech when this complication was discovered, and he was unable to find the missing sheets. Governor Jenkins, who was sitting on the stage, whispered to him; "Toombs, throw away your manuscript and go it on general principles." The general took off his glasses, stuffed the mixed essay into his pocket, and advanced to the front of the stage. He was received with a storm of applause from the crowd, who had relished his discomfiture and were delighted with the thought of an old-time talk from Toombs. For half an hour he made one of his eloquent and electric speeches, and when he sat down the audience screamed for more. No one but Toombs could have emerged so brilliantly from this awkward dilemma.

General Toombs opposed the nomination of Horace Greeley for President by the National Democratic convention in 1872. Mr. Stephens edited the Atlanta Sun, and these two friends once more joined their great powers to prevent the consummation of what they regarded as a vast political mistake. Greeley carried the State by a very reduced majority.

In January, 1873, when Mr. Stephens was defeated for the United States Senate by General John B. Gordon, General Toombs called a meeting of the leaders of the eighth district in his room at the Kimball House in Atlanta, and nominated his friend Alexander Stephens for Congress. He needed no other indorsement. He was elected and reelected, and remained in Congress until he resigned in 1882, to become Governor of Georgia. Toombs and Stephens never lost their lead as dictators in Georgia politics.

The man in Georgia who suffered most frequently from the criticism of General Toombs during this eventful period was ex-Governor Joseph E. Brown. His position in taking his place in the Republican party, in accepting office, and separating himself from his old friends and allies, brought down upon him the opprobrium of most of the people. It was at a time when Charles J. Jenkins had carried away the great seal of Georgia and refused to surrender it to a hostile government. It was at a time when Linton Stephens, the most vigorous as the most popular public man during the reconstruction period, was endeavoring to arouse the people. Governor Brown's apostasy was unfortunate. No man was then more execrated by the people who had honored him. His name, for a while, was a byword and a reproach. Mr. Stephens defended his position as conscientious if not consistent, and gave Governor Brown the credit for the purity as well as the courage of his convictions. Governor Brown bore the contumely with patience. He contended that he could best serve the State by assuming functions that must otherwise be placed in hostile hands, and his friends declare to-day that in accepting the amendments to the Constitution he simply occupied in advance the ground to which the party and the people were forced to come. But his position did not compare favorably with that of the prominent Georgians of that day.

The relations of Governor Brown and General Toombs continued strained. The latter never lost an opportunity to upbraid him in public or in private, and some of his keenest thrusts were aimed at the plodding figure of his old friend and ally, as it passed on its lonely way through the shadows of its long probation.

On one occasion in Atlanta, in July, 1872, General Toombs among other things referred to a lobby at the legislature in connection with a claim for the Mitchel heirs. Governor Brown had remained quiet during his long political ostracism, but he turned upon his accuser now with unlooked-for severity. He answered the charge by declaring that if Toombs accused him of lobbying this claim, he was an "unscrupulous liar." The reply did not attract much attention until it became known that General Toombs had sent a friend to Governor Brown to know if the latter would accept a challenge. Colonel John C. Nicholls was the friend, and Governor Brown returned the answer that when he received the challenge he would let him know. General Toombs did not push the matter further. The affair took the form of a newspaper controversy, which was conducted with much acrimony on both sides. Colonel Nicholls stated in print his belief that Governor Brown would not have accepted a challenge but would have used it to Toombs' injury before the people. The prospect of a duel between these two old men created a sensation at the time. It would have been a shock to the public sense of propriety to have allowed such a meeting. It would never have been permitted; but Governor Brown seems to have been determined to put the issue to the touch. He had prepared his resignation as a deacon of the Baptist Church, and had placed his house in order. He seemed to realize that this was the turning-point of his career, and there is no doubt that General Toombs gave him the opportunity to appear in a better light than he had done for a long time; this incident was the beginning of his return to popularity and influence in Georgia. General Toombs was censured for provoking Governor Brown into the attitude of expecting a challenge and then declining to send it.

Both General Toombs and Mr. Stephens were believers in the code of honor. Mr. Stephens once challenged Governor Herschel V. Johnson, and at another time he called out Hon. Benjamin H. Hill. General Toombs peremptorily challenged General D. H. Hill after the battle of Malvern Hill. In 1859, when United States Senator Broderick was killed by Judge Terry in California, Mr. Toombs delivered a striking eulogy of Broderick in the United States Senate. He said; "The dead man fell in honorable contest under a code which he fully recognized. While I lament his sad fate, I have no censure for him or his adversary. I think that no man under any circumstances can have a more enviable death than to fall in vindication of his honor. He has gone beyond censure or praise. He has passed away from man's judgment to the bar of the Judge of all the Earth."



CHAPTER XXVIII.

HIS LAST PUBLIC SERVICE.

One of the reforms advocated by General Toombs upon the return of the white people to the control of the State Government was the adoption of a new State Constitution. He never tired of declaring that the organic law of 1868 was the product of "aliens and usurpers," and that he would have none of it; Georgia must be represented by her own sons in council and live under a constitution of her own making. In May, 1877, an election was held to determine the question, and in spite of considerable opposition, even in the Democratic party, the people decided, by nine thousand majority, to have a constitutional convention.

On July 10, 1877, that body, consisting of 194 delegates, assembled in Atlanta to revise the organic law. Charles J. Jenkins was elected president of the convention. He had been deposed from the office of Governor of Georgia at the point of the bayonet in 1866. He had carried the case of the State of Georgia before the national Supreme Court and contested the validity of the Reconstruction measures. He had carried with him, when expelled from the State Capitol, the great seal of the State, which he restored when the government was again remitted to his own people, and in public session of the two houses of the General Assembly, Governor Jenkins had been presented with a facsimile of the great seal, with the fitting words cut into its face, "In Arduis Fidelis." These words are graven on his monument to-day. He was more than seventy years of age, but bore himself with vigor and ability. There was a strong representation of the older men who had served the State before the war, and the younger members were in full sympathy with them. It was an unusual body of men—possibly the ablest that had assembled since the secession convention of 1861. General Toombs, of course, was the most prominent. He had been elected a delegate from his senatorial district—the only office he had occupied since the war. His activity in securing its call, his striking presence, as he walked to his seat, clad in his long summer duster, carrying his brown straw hat and his unlighted cigar, as well as his tireless labors in that body, made him the center of interest. General Toombs was chairman of the committee on legislation and chairman of the final committee on revision. This body was made up of twenty-six of the most prominent members of the convention, and to it were submitted the reports of the other thirteen committees. It was the duty of this committee to harmonize and digest the various matters coming before it, and to prepare the final report, which was discussed in open convention. General Toombs was practically in charge of the whole business of this body. He closely attended all the sessions of the convention, which lasted each day from 8.30 in the morning to 1 o'clock P. M. The entire afternoons were taken up with the important and exacting work of his committee of final revision. Frequently it was far into the night before he and his clerk had prepared their reports. General Toombs was in his sixty-eighth year, but stood the ordeal well. His facility, his endurance, his genius, his eloquence and pertinacity were revelations to the younger men, who knew him mainly by tradition. General Toombs proposed the only safe and proper course for the convention when he arose in his place on the floor and declared; "All this convention has to do is to establish a few fundamental principles and leave the other matters to the legislature and the people, in order to meet the ever varying affairs of human life." There was a persistent tendency to legislate upon details, a tendency which could not be entirely kept down. There was an element elected to this convention bent upon retrenchment and reform, and these delegates forced a long debate upon lowering the salaries of public officers, a policy which finally prevailed. During the progress of this debate General Toombs arose impatiently in his place and declared that, "The whole finances of the State are not included when we are speaking of the Governor's salary, and you spend more in talking about it than your children will have to pay in forty years."

Occasionally he was betrayed into one of his erratic positions, as when he moved to strike out the section against dueling, and also to expunge from the bill of rights all restrictions upon bearing arms. He said: "Let the people bear arms for their own protection, whether in their boots or wherever they may choose."

But his treatment of public questions was full of sound sense and discretion. He warned the convention that those members who, from hostility to the State administration, wished to wipe out the terms of the office-holders and make a new deal upon the adoption of the new constitution, were making a rash mistake. They would array a new class of enemies and imperil the passage of the new law. He advocated the submission of all doubtful questions, like the homestead laws and the location of the new Capitol, to the people in separate ordinances. He urged in eloquent terms the enlargement of the Supreme Court from three justices to five. Having been a champion of the law calling that Court into being forty years before, he knew its needs and proposed a reform which, if adopted, would have cut off much trouble in Georgia to-day.

General Toombs was an advocate of the ordinance which took the selection of the judges and solicitors from the hands of the Governor and made them elective by the General Assembly. A strong element in the convention wanted the judiciary elected by the people. A member of the convention turned to General Toombs during the debate and said; "You dare not refuse the people this right to select their own judges." "I dare do anything that is right," replied Toombs. "It is not a reproach to the people to say that they are not able to do all the work of a complex government. Government is the act of the people after all." He reminded the convention that a new and ignorant element had been thrown in among the people as voters. "We must not only protect ourselves against them, but in behalf of the poor African," said he, "I would save him from himself. These people are kind, and affectionate, but their previous condition, whether by your fault or not, was such as to disqualify them from exercising the right of self-government. They were put upon us by people to make good government impossible in the South for all time, and before God, I believe they have done it."

In answer to the argument that those States which had given the selection of judges to the people liked it, General Toombs replied that this did not prove that it was right or best. "It is easy to take the road to hell, but few people ever return from it." General Toombs prevailed in this point. He was also the author of the resolution authorizing the legislature to levy a tax to furnish good substantial artificial limbs to those who had lost them during the war.

General Toombs declared frequently during the debate that one of his main objects in going to the convention, and for urging the people to vote for the call, was to place a clause in the new law prohibiting the policy of State aid to railroads and public enterprises. He had seen monstrous abuses grow up under this system. He had noticed that the railroads built by private enterprise had proven good investments; that no railroad aided by the State had paid a dividend. He declared that Georgia had never loaned her credit from the time when Oglethorpe landed at Yamacraw up to 1866, and she should never do it again. He wanted this license buried and buried forever. His policy prevailed. State aid to railroads was prohibited; corporate credit cannot now be loaned to public enterprises, and municipal taxation was wisely restricted. General Toombs declared with satisfaction that he had locked the door of the treasury, and put the key into the pocket of the people.

During the proceedings of this convention an effort was made to open the courts to review the cases of certain outlawed bonds, which the legislature had refused to pay, and which the people had repudiated by constitutional amendment. Impressed by the conviction that certain classes of these bonds should be paid, the venerable president of the convention surrendered the chair and pled from his place on the floor for a judicial review of this question.

No sooner was this solemn and urgent appeal concluded than General Toombs bounded to the floor. He declared with energy that no power of heaven or hell could bind him to pay these bonds. The contract was one of bayonet usurpation. Within a few days the legislature had loaded the State down with from ten to fifteen millions of the "bogus bonds."

The term "repudiation" was distasteful to many. The bondholders did not relish it; but he thought it was a good honest word. No one was bound by these contracts, because they were not the acts of the people. "I have examined all the facts pertaining to these claims," said Toombs, "and looking to nothing but the State's integrity, I affirm that the matter shall go no further without my strenuous opposition. The legislature has again and again declared the claims fraudulent. The people have spoken. Let the bonds die." The convention agreed with Toombs.

On the 16th of August the convention, then in the midst of its labors, confronted a crisis. The appropriation of $25,000 made by the legislature to meet the expenses of the convention had been exhausted, and the State Treasurer notified the president that he could not honor his warrants any further. This was a practical problem. The work mapped out had not been half done. Many of the delegates were poor men from the rural districts and were especially dependent upon their per diem during the dull summer season. To proceed required about $1000 per day. To have crippled this body in its labors would have been a public calamity. To check upon the public treasury beyond the limit fixed by law involved a risk which the State Government, not too friendly toward the convention at best, declined to assume. To raise the money outside by a private loan presented this risk, that in the case of the rejection of the constitution, then in embryo, the lender might find himself the holder of an uncertain claim. The convention, however, was not left long in doubt. With a heroic and patriotic abandon, General Toombs declared that if Georgia would not pay her debts, he would pay them for her. Selling a dozen or two United States bonds, he placed the proceeds to the credit of the president of the convention, who was authorized in turn to issue notes of $1000 each and deposit them with General Toombs. The act was spontaneous, whole-souled, dramatic. It saved the convention and rehabilitated the State with a new constitution. By a rising and unanimous vote General Toombs was publicly thanked for his public-spirited act, and the old man, alone remaining in his seat in the convention hall, covered his face with his hands, and shed tears during this unusual demonstration.

When the convention had under review the bill of rights, General Toombs created a breeze in the proceedings by proposing a paragraph that the legislature should make no irrevocable grants of special privileges or immunities. The proposition received a rattling fire from all parts of the house. Governor Jenkins assailed it on the floor as dangerous to capital and fatal to public enterprise. It was argued that charters were contracts, and that when railroads or other interests were put upon notice that their franchise was likely to be disturbed, there would be an overthrow of confidence and development in Georgia. This was the first intimation of the master struggle which General Toombs was about to make, an advance against the corporations all along the line. It was the picket-firing before the engagement.

General Toombs had made a study of the whole railroad question. He was a master of the law of corporations. He maintained a peculiar attitude toward them. He never invested a dollar in their stock, nor would he accept a place at their council boards. He rarely ever served them as attorney. When the General Assembly resolved to tax railroads in Georgia, the State selected General Toombs to prosecute the cases. In 1869 he had argued the Collins case against the Central Railroad and Banking Company, in which the court had sustained his position that the proposed action of the Central Road in buying up the stock of the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad, to control that road, was ultra vires. He had conducted the case of Arnold DuBose against the Georgia Railroad for extortion in freight charges.