Thrilling Adventures Of Daniel Ellis; 1861 1865

Front matter

THRILLING ADVENTURES OF DANIEL ELLIS

Danicl Ellis

Portrait of Daniel Ellis

CHAPTER XLVIII. Map of trail over the mountains

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

IN commencing this volume, I would remark that I feel very sensibly my inadequacy in appearing before the public in the capacity of an author, as I shall not presume to present any claim to those literary accomplishments which are usually boasted of by writers who are distinguished for elegance and refinement in composition. My education is not of that order which would justify such an assumption, and, therefore, I shall here lay no claim to profound acquisitions either in literature or natural science which I am conscious I do not possess. The only advantages in learning which I can boast of are those which are generally obtained in the “old field schoolhouse," where it is well known by all who have been initiated into the first elements of education at that sacred retreat of boyhood, that the student is scarcely ever annoyed with the intricate problems of Euclid or Hutton, nor his mind enlightened with the rich versification of Homer, of Virgil, or of Horace, nor perplexed with the logical subtleties of Socrates, of Plato, or of Aristotle. Instead of rummaging into volumes of black-letter lore, the student is only required to seek for the attainment of proficiency in the ordinary branches of English education; and all the acquirements which I pretend to claim are based alone upon the common branches of English learning.

I have thought it necessary to make these prefatory remarks, so that those who may peruse the pages of this volume may not indulge the expectation of being feasted at all times upon the bright and beautiful scintillations of genius, but, on the contrary, I would urge them to expect nothing more than a faithful detail of my adventures for a period, of nearly four years, written out in plain style, and unadorned with any unbecoming and fanciful flowers of rhetoric. And, what I consider very important, I will here assure all those who may give this volume a perusal, that they may rest certain they will find no incident herein contained, be it ever so thrilling and horrible, as to challenge the veracity of the writer or the unbelief of the reader, but what is strictly founded upon the eternal structure of reality and truth! I hope the reader will here indulge a short digression, while I give a very limited biography of myself, which I hope may be acceptable. I shall not annoy the reader with a recapitulation of any miraculous achievements on my part which would for a moment subject me to a charge of attempting se/f-praise; but believing that the public might probably be desirous of knowing something in regard to my previous life, has induced me to give a short history in allusion to it.

I was born on the 30th day of December, 1827, in Carter County, Tennessee, amid whose lofty and majestic mountains I have passed my life up to the present time. I was born to no proud titles or estates. The curse which was placed upon Adam, amid the delightful shades and fragrant groves of

Paradise, when he was told by his Maker, that “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” I must here acknowledge has adhered to me, as one of his degenerate offspring, with all the tenacity of the fabled shirt of Nessus I have been poor all my life, but have struggled on and on, buffeting the waves of adversity, endeavoring, as I passed along the dreary vale of life, always to observe that true honesty of purpose, which I always thought should be the great beacon light of human ambition. -I have the proud consolation of knowing that I have never coveted any mans “gold, silver, or apparel,” but, having been blessed with reasonable good health, I have always caused my “hands to minister to my necessities.” I am aware that the possession of wealth is a convenience in this, life, to some extent, but I can riot now say that I have ever entertained any extreme thirst for its possession beyond what would supply my immediate necessities. The great code of moral law informs us that “man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble,” and also, that “naked we came into the world, and naked we must go out of it,” and, therefore, I have always been unable to see any real propriety or true philosophy in bending all the energies with which we have been so munificently endowed by our Creator in the accumulation of the “sordid dust of earth!” I think that there was sound philosophy in the remark which Dr. Johnson made to David Garrick on one occasion, when they were upon great terms of intimacy.

Mr. Garrick, while Dr. Johnson was on a visit at his splendid residence, was conducting him through his magnificent parlors, which were furnished in the most gorgeous elegance, which manifested in the extravagant proprietor the most extreme love of the world and its vanishing levities. Dr. Johnson stood for some time, and gazed around in silent meditation, surrounded with this profusion of wealth, and, at length, turning to his friend, he calmly and very truthfully remarked, “Ah! David, this is what makes a death-bed terrible!” I never have believed that wealth could confer upon its possessor any true happiness, for that can never be purchased. Indeed, it is my belief that true happiness alone resides in those distant realms beyond the stars, where mind and matter are totally disconnected, and where the soul, the essence of mans immortality, released from its tenement of clay, is permitted to feast forever upon the ambrosial fruits of heaven in the presence of the Infinite Eternal. The happiness of earth, which is purchased with wealth, is too often, when attained, found to be like the fabled fruit, which always presented a most beautiful exterior appearance, but, when presented to the lips of the enraptured admirer, it would dissolve at once into ashes; or it may be likened to the shade of Anchises embraced by Eneas, who, hastening to enfold the dear form of his loved relative, found that he was embracing a form as impalpable as the viewless air! But I must hasten on to a conclusion of this sketch.

After I had received the rudiments of a common English education I concluded to learn a trade, which I suspected would be the surest guarantee for supplying future wants. I therefore selected the trade of a wagonmaker, which occupation was most congenial to my taste when making choice of a handicraft. I therefore engaged with a workman in that employment, and remained in his service until I thought that I was proficient enough to obtain wages, or open a shop for my own personal emolument. I continued to work at this business for a number of years, until war was declared by the United States against Mexico. When a call for troops was first made in East Tennessee I at once volunteered in the service of my country, and marched onward beneath its cherished flag, to meet and to assist in chastising the enemy upon a foreign soil. The toils and hardships of the Mexican campaign were very severe, but I endured them as best I could, being urged forward by that steadfast love of country which has always animated my exertions while fighting against a foreign or an intestine foe, I found the climate of Mexico to be very unfavorable to my health, as it also proved to be to the health of most of the soldiers who had volunteered in the upper portion of East Tennessee. Many of the poor fellows who were taken sick in Mexico died in that distant southern clime, away from home and from friends, and a great many died as they were homeward bound, inspired to the last with the hope of once more being permitted to see their families; but, alas! that hope was vain and illusory, for they died often with the dear word of home, wife, or children lingering upon their quivering lips.

During the Mexican campaign I was made acquainted with the monstrous horrors of war.. All that I knew previously was only from information which I had derived from history, which was only a theoretical knowledge, and which I found to be entirely different from personal observation; for one may read an account of the most wretched and barbarous massacre, and yet will not appreciate it fully in all the terrors portrayed, as he would if personally present and witnessing the occurrence. I became convinced, during my stay in Mexico, that the cruelties and the horrors of war were by far more terrible and deplorable than I had ever formed any conception of. I thought that it was no wonder that war, by common, consent, had always been justly considered as occupying the foremost rank in the three greatest calamities which has at various times scourged and desolated the nations of the earth since the foundation of the world. The three great national calamities referred to are war, pestilence, and famine; and well may it be considered that war has the more dreadful effects upon any nation which is cursed by it than either of the preceding national afflictions. "War unhinges society; it poisons the fountain of national happiness, and pours into its delicious waters libations of wormwood and gall; it tears up the sylvan shades of peace with its terrible engines, and plants thorns and briers where the most lovely flowers were wont to bloom, and scattered their fragrance upon the air; it overturns the proud fabrics of civil jurisprudence, and discord, with all its attendant evils, runs riot throughout the ill-fated nation which is cursed by its awful presence; it severs the cord of human friendship; man loses respect for his fellow-man, as his nature becomes changed to that of an incarnate devil, the goddess of virtue is ostracized, and vice is worshiped in her absence. Indeed, I must confess that I am totally incapable of employing language sufficient to describe the horrors of war and its dreadful concomitants; blessed, and doubly Messed, is that nation which moves on in the even tenor of its way without engaging in direful conflicts of arms.

I remained in Mexico until the bright sunlight of peace had dispelled the dark and dismal cloud of war which had arisen over that distracted and unstable government, and immediately after the suspension of hostilities I returned to my native land, and, through the mercy of a kind Providence, I was again permitted to reach my home and family amid the mountains of my native county. For some time after my return I felt very seriously the disastrous effects upon my constitution, superinduced by the great exposurewhich. I had endured during the terrible campaign which I had passed through, and, in fact, I have never since been able to recover the healthful energies of my system, which I lost during my stay in the malarious and sultry climate of Mexico. After I had witnessed the horrors of a dreadful war in my expedition into Mexico, I sincerely hoped that I should never again, witness such terrible scenes of desolation and distress. Little did I then think that the next theatre in which I should be called upon to witness a repetition of the same awful tragedies which I had seen displayed would be in my own native and beloved country, in my own native State of Tennessee, and in my own dear native county. Little did I then imagine that the period was rapidly approaching when I, my neighbors, and my relatives, would be hunted and shot at like the wild beasts of the mountains, just because we were opposed to a mushroom “Southern Confederacy” supplanting and eliminating the best form of government which has ever been devised by the wisdom of man upon the whole face of the earth.

Little did I then think that my own native hills would, in the course of a few years, be infested by gangs of murderous desperadoes, whom it were “base flattery to call villains,” destitute of mercy, and without remorse of conscience, prowling through the country, insulting virtue and exalting vice by their lewd and infamous conduct, and seeking to bathe their hands in the blood of innocence. Little did I imagine then that in a few revolving years my own country would present the scene of an unholy, unjust, and internecine civil strife, for which ancient or modern history could furnish no parallel; where blood was to flow in torrents, and where the lives of hecatombs of human beings would be sacrificed at the shrine of the terrible Moloch which would be erected through the evil machinations of ambitious, base, and designing demagogues. Ah! little did I then think that thousands upon thousands of my own countrymen and fellow-citizens would, in so short a period, be forced to engage in the awful conflict of arms, and fall upon the gory field and die beneath the raging storm of battle; be butchered in cold blood by heartless murderers, and starved to death in loathsome prisons, in order “to make a villain great.” But it is even so; for it is well known that the infamous “Southern Rebellion” was conceived and matured by a set of vile and seditious politicians, and that, thousands of their misguided followers rushed precipitately into the strife of arms, and fell as victims in the unholy cause of endeavoring to elevate an impulsive and ambitious individual, in the person of Jeff. Davis, to the chair of state in the “Southern Confederacy.” I shall not presume to say what his dismal reflections have been since his imprisonment in the cells of Fortress Monroe; I should at least think that his nightly dreams have been greatly disturbed by visitations of the ghastly ghosts of his deluded followers, to whom he could not justly say,

"Shake not your gory locks at me, Thou canst not say I did it,”

for they might abruptly deny his assertion, and more promptly assail him with the deep damnation of their taking off,” than did the pale ghosts which appeared to old Richard III the night preceding the battle of Bosworth Field. They might in all truth say to him, it was you that occasioned the winged messengers of death to snatch away our lives, and hurry our unprepared souls into the presence of the great Eternal, with “all our imperfections on our heads.” It was you that caused the early mildew to blanch and destroy the young buds of our lives, and sent us to our final reckoning in the very blossoms of our sins, “unhouseld, disappointed, and unaneled!” These, and more than these, have doubtless been the horrible controversies which have been experienced by Jeff Davis amid the dismal hours of night while resting upon his couch, until the dreadful nightmare was driven away and prevented from returning by his waking meditations.

It is quite possible, notwithstanding, that Jeff Davis, the great high-priest who filled the presidential chair in the so-called “Southern Confederacy” during the dark and gloomy period when our beloved country was deluged with fraternal blood, may yet be acquitted of his monstrous offenses against the laws, the peace, and happiness of the United States; for it is too true that

“In the corrupted currents of this world, Offenses gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft tis seen, the wicked prize itself Buys out the law.”

But he may truthfully say, in the language of the wretched King of Denmark, when he was deploring the foul and miserable crime of murdering his own brother,

“But tis not so above; There is no shuffling; there the action lies

In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence!”

He may also exclaim with truth, in the language of his ancient counterpart in sin and iniquity, the deformed and brutal King of England, Richard IIL, after he had been frightened in his midnight slumbers by the pale and ghastly apparitions of his innocent murdered victims,

“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain!

Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree; Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree; All several sins, all used in each degree, Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!”

None of the reckless scoundrels who so earnestly labored to destroy our country, and to tear down the beautiful edifice of public freedom which had been erected by our forefathers, have been rewarded with that degree of punishment which the malignity of their crimes so justly merits. The government has been extremely lenient in extending pardons to the base and infamous rebels who, for several successive years, were industriously engaged in hurling their poisoned javelins of malice and hatred at the very vitals of the republic. It would probably be a safer guarantee for the future welfare of our country if a different line of policy had been pursued. I would have a solemn, inflexible will possessing the nation, to punish crime, whether little or gigantic, with a temperate vigor that should offer no hope of escape to the criminal, from the relentings of a false arid selfish sentimentalism. Justice is sinned against by unseasonable and excessive lenity, almost as harmfully as by over-severity. Neither whimsical philanthropy nor devilish revenge should interfere with our award of retribution to the criminal. Even-handed justice, administered with obedient regard to the will of God, revealed in Scripture and in Providence, this is the solemn spirit in which public opinion should affirm the sentence of lawful punishment against crime. There is a painting by Raphael, whose profound genius is at all times exhibited in his numerous and inimitable artistic designs, which represents, the, Archangel Michael slaying that old serpent, which is the devil. The fiend under his feet, turns his face upward toward the minister of doom, grinning with all the spiteful malevolence of hellish hate. Above him, soaring on heavenly pinions, floats the archangel, his countenance betokening neither compassion nor revenge, but placid in an ineffable expression of pure, passionless, peaceful sympathy with the divine behest, which he is obediently fulfilling. Such is the ideal of that retributive justice which should be ceremoniously meted out to all the despoilers of our national happiness, for it is a duty which we owe to ourselves as a people and a government, in order to defend ourselves against a like future calamity as that which the nation has providentially succeeded in defeating. The unsuccessful attempt which was made by the leaders and their cohorts in the late gigantic rebellion to establish a government upon anarchy and independence, upon the positive slavery of the poor and indigent classes of its white, as well as its colored population, and glory upon the most incredible shame, will most unquestionably be assigned to that infamy in history which it so justly deserves, and henceforth will doubtless be associated most naturally in the thoughts of men with the nakedness of a crime which can but freeze the blood of humanity with the most profound indignation and horror forever.

The defeat and overthrow of the rebellion has, I most fondly hope, forever exploded the three great pernicious theories which were urged with the most remarkable vehemence by the advisers and the promoters of the civil strife which at once arrayed the North and the South against each other, and rushed them on to engage in the bloody strife of battle. The mischievous theories which I allude to are nullification, secession, and the right of revolution in a republican form of government. Nullification and secession are both most atrocious political heresies, differing, of course, to some extent from each other. The doctrine of nullification, as expounded in 1831 and 1832, is, that a state has the right to nullify an act of Congress, and yet remain in the Union; that a state is its own judge of the constitutionality of the laws passed by Congress, etc. The infamous and preposterous theory of secession recognizes the right of a state to withdraw from the general government, absolving itself from its allegiance thereto. The first of these outrageous theories did not reach the culminating point, owing to the compromise which was agreed upon in 1833. The last one had a most frightful culmination, as four years of a most desolating and bloody war sadly attests. Some of the Southern States, urged on by vile and mischievous politicians, concluded to try the experiment of secession, and the result is now seen by the nations of the earth. May we not now hope and believe that these two destructive theories are dead, beyond the possibility of future revival?

The remaining theory referred to is one which can never fail to have the most mischievous tendency, especially in a form of government like that of our own. The adherents of this spurious dogma falsely reasoned that, in certain contingencies, even in a republican government, the inalienable right, of revolution exists, and should be exercised. Believing that one of these contingencies had occurred, some of our leading politicians in the State of Tennessee at once favored the practical assertion of the right of revolution. Among those who expounded the oracles given out by the hidden high-priests of secession to their deluded followers in Tennessee, I might mention the names of John Bell, Neil S. Brown, and others. "They pretended to entertain great abhorrence for secession and its practical results, but seemed to glory in being revolutionists! They denied that the Constitution of the United States gives to a state-the right to secede, but openly and boldly declared the right of revolution above the Constitution! One thing is quite plain to my mind, and, I think, should be just as self-evident to every person of a rational mind who can properly appreciate the ordinary deductions of plain and simple logical conclusions, and that is, that the right of revolution should never be exercised unless the revolution is known to be incontestibly right. The right does not nor can not otherwise possibly exist in any emergency whatever. The circumstances which make a revolution right and proper are entirely essential to the creation of the right of revolution.

It requires no enthymemes or intricate logical syllogisms to establish this truth to the satisfaction of every one who will give the subject that just and proper reflection which its importance demands. I concede that under monarchical and aristocratic governments—that is to say, where the rights of the people are not properly recognized, and where oppressive burdens are imposed on them, the right of revolution does then exist, and should be exercised; for in its exercise resides the only hope of relief of the oppressed millions who have no voice or take no part in the affairs of government. But in a republican government I earnestly contend that the right of revolution does not exist. And why do I say so? Because it is the peoples government; and if they wish at any time to change, alter, or amend the principles of government which they have established for their own benefit, they are fully at liberty to do so. If they do not desire a change, they can suffer it to remain as it already stands. There is no sense or reason in resorting to the very dangerous and destructive policy of revolution, if the majority at any time desire to amend their form of government, for they have the power to make such amendments as they may desire without resorting to revolution. The majority of the people in a republican form of government can never be under the disagreeable necessity of becoming revolutionists; for the undeniable fact that they are the true and correct source of all power, at once precludes the-possibility of any such necessity existing. If this supposition be correct, what is the conclusion which must follow? Evidently, that if the right of revolution exists at all, that right resides in the minority. This is altogether absurd; for republican governments only recognize the right of the majority to govern, and there is a total disregard of this important right whenever the minority exhibit an unwillingness to yield to the wishes of the majority, and an attempt at revolution is plainly and palpably an attempt to annihilate one of the very fundamental principles of republicanism. If these premises are correct, it certainly follows that the right of revolution does not and can hot exist in a republic. To allow its existence is at once equivalent to the very false and ruinous concession that the minority may rule in a republican government. This concession is repugnant to all human experience in the affairs of well-ordained government, and opposed to the best interests of organized society, and, in reality, constitutes an enormity in political science which I can never be induced to sanction.

I have extended this research into politics much farther than I intended at the outset; but I hope that my readers will pardon me, for the subject of the infamous rebellion, and the causes which urged it on the country is a very prolific subject, and it is hard to restrain the utterance of sentiments of disgust and disapprobation which revolve in the mind whenever our most casual meditations are permitted to rest upon that subject.

Previous to the foregoing digression, I was indulging in an incidental narrative in regard to Jeff. Davis, of “Southern Confederacy” notoriety, whose infamy and moral turpitude I am altogether unable to employ language to describe. I doubt not that, since his downfall and capture, he has experienced a variety of times what one of the ancient poets terms “a dreadful living death!” If he could have a pyramid erected, composed of the bleached bones of his deluded followers who offered up J their lives at the shrine of his unhallowed ambition, 11 doubt not but that he would then be thoroughly convinced of his own exalted wickedness, and he would then see and feel what it costs to endeavor to destroy a great I and good government. If the ghastly skeletons could arrange themselves before him whose uncontrollable ambition consigned them to an untimely grave, he might then-correctly appreciate the horrors of a civil commotion and a strife of arms which he assisted in promoting for his own personal aggrandizement, and for his own political exaltation.

But I must refrain from pursuing this subject any farther. If the, government thinks it best to acquit him and turn him loose again, the people would probably be satisfied. It is true, the idea of vindictiveness being displayed by a great and magnanimous government is absurd as well as unpopular. It is true, his case has been settled by the result of the rebellion; and I presume that the time has already passed by when this great nation should think of wreaking its vengeance upon a political criminal. If he had been at once killed when he was first captured, no fault whatever could have been attached to his slayer, for he deserved death in any form in which it could have been inflicted upon him. But the tocsin of war has ceased to reverberate through the nation, and the white wings of peace again-overspread the land. While wars dread pinions waved over our devoted country, murdering human beings seemed to be a fashionable occupation, and life was estimated at a very low rate. But, thanks to kind Providence, the reign of terror has passed away with, the suppression of the Southern rebellion, and I do sincerely, hope that our government may never be again called upon to raise its strong arm for the suppression of another vile and infamous internal strife; but I hope that it may be permitted to move on in the accomplishment of the welfare and happiness of its citizens until the wings of time itself shall become weary in its perpetual flight, and until the archangel shall place one foot upon the sea, and the other upon the land, and proclaim that the affairs of earth must be suspended;

“When, wrapp'd in flames, the realms of ether glow, And Heavens last trump shall shake the world below!”

During one of the campaigns of Alexander he met: with the philosopher Callisthenes, who was renowned for his extensive erudition, and for his splendid rhetorical accomplishments. At one of the convivial festivals furnished by Alexander the philosopher was present, and was requested, when the cup was presented to him, to pronounce a eulogium upon the Macedonians extempore, which he did with so much eloquence that the guests, beside their plaudits, rose up and covered him with their garlands. Upon this Alexander said, in the words of Euripides,

“When great the theme, tis easy to excel.”

“But show us now,” continued he, “the power of your rhetoric in speaking against the Macedonians, that they may see their faults and amend.” The orator then took the other side, and spoke with equal fluency against the encroachments and other faults of the Macedonians, as well as against the divisions among the Greeks, which he showed to be the only cause of the great increase of Philips power, concluding with these truthful words:

“Amid seditions waves The worst of mortals may emerge to honor!”

This was quite a severe rebuke to extravagant ambition, which drew upon himself the implacable hatred of the Macedonians, and the severe censure of Alexander himself, for he doubtless very sensibly felt the exceeding appositeness of the sentiment expressed by the philosopher.

The dark and boisterous waves of sedition ran high during the Southern rebellion, but, even amid their terrible commotion, Jeff Davis did not succeed in attaining to any position which could be designated as a position of honor; but, on the contrary, I think that the position which he occupied will be looked upon in the future of American history as a most infamous position, which he obtained by the most scandalous and infamous agencies.