Some truths of history; a vindication of the South against the Encyclopedia britannica and other maligners

Front matter

i ^ 11 llli III 111.

!.i "'..iiJKlf'

iiiiilj|tiii||i {'

Prefatory Note

The following answer to the Encyclopedia Britannica's aspersion of the South, and accompanying comment in criticism of that encyclopedia, were first published in the form of articles in the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, in January, 1891. To refute the misrepresentation of the South by a book of world-wide circulation that was accepted as authority by so many people — to show that the stigma it places upon her is undeserved — and to further, to the extent at least of the circulation of the paper in which they were published, the establishing of the truth of history in place of the grossly false so-called history which ignorance and prejudice have so long and with so much detriment to the South, caused to be taken for the truth, was the object of these articles.

Shortly after their appearance in the columns of the Advertiser, an edition of the articles, under the title ''The Britannica Answered And The South Vindicated," was issued in pamphlet form, in compliance with requests so numerous as to indicate what seemed to be a very general desire. Many appreciative — and appreciated — expressions touching the pamphlet were received in personal letters from Boston to California, but the decision to issue another edition — the execution of which has been long delayed for a convenient season — ^was chiefly induced by the two following letters:

''M.VRIETTA, Ga., Nov. 20th, 1893. ''T. K. Oglesby, Esq., New Orleans.

*'My Dear Sir: I cannot undertake what I wish to say in regard to the pamphlet — 'The Britannica Answered and the South Vindicated' — with a pen. * * * I cannot write to you; I must converse with you.

*'In one sense your pamphlet gave me great comfort ; in another sense quite the reverse. Words cannot convey an idea of the goneness about my heart which has now existed for so many years, created by the realization, constantly kept alive by new discovery, that Mr. Stephens's great work, 'The War Between the States/ had fallen, as it were, 'still-born' from the press ; that it was unread at the South ; that the educated man at the South who knew anything of its contents was a 'rara avis.' That, however, was a work of two volumes ; but here — in the pamphlet — ^was a grouping of brief, lively articles brimful of thought and fact, which had appeared in a newspaper, and I, always eager to read anything defensive of the South, had never heard of them. So far as I was concerned — but for the incident which has brought us together — they might as well have been published in mid- Africa. Why were the articles not republished, at the time of their appearance, in some of the newspapers I am in the habit of reading? Why were they not thrown into all of our papers? Alas! alas! it is the same old story! The independent South has ceased to exist. The memory of the South is potent only in Confederate Veteran Associations. ******

' ' I observe that you placed your masterly and absolutely invaluable series of papers in aggregate form for the market. Am I venturing too far in asking what success you have met with — not with an eye to pecuniary profit — but to giving circulation to your work?

''My dear sir, as I continue to write, I feel the oppression growing heavier upon me that the pen (which I have come to wield so painfully and awkwardly) will not subserve my purpose. Do you not visit Georgia occasionally? Is it likely that you will be in Georgia soon? * * * * Most happy would I be to welcome you under my roof, and so soon as you can come. I feel that I must see you if that be possible. * * *

"Pray excuse my slovenly penmanship; * * * * * * and allow me to subscribe myself your sincere and admiring friend,

''Henry R. Jackson.^'

"Agricultural College, Miss., May 22, 1894. "Mr. T. K. Oglesby.

"My Dear Sir : I write to express my great appreciation of the pamphlet named 'The Britannica Answered and the South Vindicated,' which was published by you, and to express the hope that you will get out a new edition of it in order that the very valuable historical facts brought out in it may be further perpetuated, and placed on file in the libraries of the South. I consider the pamphlet one of the most complete and thorough vindications of the South that has been written by any one since the war. I prize it as the most valuable I have seen. I feel sure it will find a ready sale if reproduced, and I trust that you will have a new and enlarged edition published. * * * Your efforts in vindicating the South should have the thanks of every true Southerner. I am frank to say that I do not know of any one who has done more effective work in this direction than yourself. * ' With kind wishes, yours truly,

These two letters, especially, constrained me to feel it a duty — which I thought to have performed before now — to issue another edition of the publication to which they refer in terms which I cannot but feel are far beyond its merits. They came from two of the most illustrious representatives of that Old South that held the goodliest fellowship of knightly men and loyal women whereof this world holds record; — that South (now dead, alas, forever!) whose memory, to all who ever felt its charm, to all who ever inhaled the aroma of its rare civilization, is ' ' dear as remembered kisses after death." It was to vindicate that South from the charge of barbarism made against it by such a book as the Encyclopedia Britannica that the pamphlet had been written, and it is with the desire that its facts "may be further perpetuated" — may be more widely circulated — that another edition is issued, under the present title, including, besides the original Advertiser articles and some additional matter incorporated into them, other articles contributed by the writer to the press, and other matter of a historical character, worthy of note and preservation.

One of the writers of the letters here quoted — General Henry R. Jackson, soldier, orator, poet, lawyer, diplomat and statesman — is now the ''breather of an ampler day" with the host of glorious immortals with whom, in this life, he illustrated the land they loved so well. ''Ah! few and far on Glory's slope their lessening numbers stand."

The other— General Stephen D. Lee — still lives, in hale old age, and will ever live in the hearts of his countrymen, for no brighter blade than his ever flashed in the battle's front to save their loved homes from war's desolation.

The first of these letters shows how intensely its distinguished writer felt with regard to whatever touched the name and fame of the South, and how deeply oppressed he was at the thought — forced upon him by so much that he saw and read — that ' ' the independent South has ceased to exist," and that "the memory of the South is potent only in Confederate Veteran Associations. ' ' His death soon after my return to Georgia from the Southwest prevented me (a misfortune I shall ever deplore) from having the pleasure and privilege of meeting and talking with General Jackson — or, rather, of hearing him talk, and tell of that historic past in which he lived and bore so distinguished a part. In a letter subsequent to the one here quoted he wrote that he had in mind the publication of a volume of personal recollections and reflections, and it is greatly to be regretted that he did not carry the purpose into execution, for there were few whose lives extended over a more interesting period than that during which he lived, and it would be hard indeed to find among the living the tongue and pen to speak and write with the eloquence of that widely accomplished man.

T. K. Oglesby.

Atlanta, Ga., January, 1903.

"We cannot too strongly urge upon our people the great importance of avoiding, as far as possible, the purchasing and disseminating of books and literature which are unkind and unfair to the South, which belittle our achievements, impugn our motives, and malign the characters of our illustrious leaders. An example of this kind of literature is the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which, while a work of exceptional merit in many particulars, abounds in such a distortion of historical facts in reference to the South as could have emanated only from ignorance or malignity. A yet more flagrant example of this kind is a reprint in part of that encyclopaedia, known as the R. S. Peale reprint (published by the Werner Company, of Chicago), now being advertised in Southern newspapers. * * Justice to the South requires that the entire field of history be explored and its neglected facts be faithfully gathered and portrayed. We need a 'renaissance'' of history throughout the South.'' — From the reports of the Historical Committee of the United Confederate Veterans, at Birmingham, Ala. , April 25th, 1894 ; Houston, Texas, May 23d, 1895 ; and Richmond, Virginia, June 30th, 1896.

SOME TRUTHS OF HISTORY.

A Vindication of the South Agfainst the Encyclopedia Britannica and Other Mali§fnefs»

I

** Since the Eevolution days the few thinkers of America born south of Mason and Dixon's line — out-numbered by those belonging to the single State of Massachusetts — have commonly migrated to New York or Boston in search of a university training. In the world of letters, at least, the Southern States have shone by reflected light; nor is it too much to say that mainly by their connection with the North the Carolinas have been saved from sinking to the level of Mexico or the Antilles. Like the Spartan marshaling his helots, the planter lounging among his slaves was made dead to art. It has only flourished freely in a free soil, and for almost all its vitality and aspirations we must turn to New England." — Encyclopedia Britannica {ninth edition), Volume 1, p. 719.

If the sons and daughters of the South do not themselves uphold the truth of history, "the dust on antique time will lie unswept, and mountainous error be too highly heaped for truth to overpeer. ' ' As my mite towards averting a consummation so much to be deprecated, I desire to place before the public, through the columns of the Advertiser, in answer to the statements of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a summary of historical facts, showing that to the South, far more than to any other section, is this Union indebted for the genius, wisdom, enterprise, patriotism and valor that have given it so proud an eminence among the nations of the earth. I purpose to fix these facts in the firmament of truth, so grouped that the most careless observer of that field can easily see and comprehend them; and so that the children of the South can readily grasp them, and with them confound the maligners of their fathers and their native land whenever occasion calls for their defense. The material for this purpose being too abundant to be comprised in a single article of appropriate length for the columns of a daily paper, this will, if you please, be followed by other articles in refutation of the Britannica's slur upon the South, and exposing its general worthlessness as an encyclopedia for Americans, and especially for Southern people.

I will begin, then, the purposed refutation and exposure of the Britannica with the following simple statement of historic facts :

The first President of the United States, and the most illustrious American — "the man first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen;" the commander-in-chief of the army, under whose leadership the colonies won their independence, and on whom, by common acclaim, is bestowed the title, "the father of his country," — was a Southern man.

The commander-in-chief of the Continental navy in the war of the Revolution was a Southern man,^ so was the first President of the Continental Congress,^ and a Southern member of that Congress was the author and mover of the adoption of the resolution declaring the Colonies free and independent States.^

1. James Nicholson. 2. Peyton Randolph. 3. Richard Henry Lee.

The greatest American orator — the man whose words most inspired the American heart and nerved PaX^<-i<, the American arm in the struggle for independence — f/^vt/vM was a Southern man.

The world's greatest Democrat, the author of the Declaration of Independence — the most famous pro- Ja-^V^-*^'*" duction of an American pen — was a Southern man, and when the peoples of the United States met to celebrate the Centennial of that Declaration it was a Southern man who was selected to write the poem for the opening of that Centennial.^

''The father of the Constitution" was a Southern man;2 its greatest expounder — the greatest American jurist — was a Southern man f and when, in the fulness of time, the peoples of the Union came to celebrate the Centennial of that immortal instrument, it was a Southern man who was the chosen orator of that memorable and imposing occasion.*

For more than half the period of its existence the Government formed by that Constitution was administered by Presidents who were Southern men, and the years of their administrations mark immeasurably the happiest, most illustrious and beneficent eras of the Union. But nine men have been twice elected to the office of President of the United States; six of them were Southern men and six were slaveholders, and the only administration during which there was but one

1. Sidney Lanier. 3. John Marshall.

2. James Madison. 4. Samuel F. Miller.

defaulter — and he for a very small sum — was that of John Tyler, a Southern man.

It was the statesmanship of a Southern President,^ seconded by the ability of a Southern diplomat,^ that extended the boundary of the United States from the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean on the northwest, thus adding to them a territory greater in extent than their original limits; it was Southern valor and Southern statesmanship that carried the boundary on the southwest from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, and added Texas, New Mexico and California to the United States — an addition of 20,000 square miles more than the original thirteen States had; it was the prowess of a Southern soldier^ that secured to the Republic all that territory northwest of the Ohio river, of which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, were afterwards made ; the policy that made that territory public domain — the common property of all the States — was the policy that has done more than any other to build up the Union, and it is indebted for that policy to the wisdom and patriotism of the Southern States of Maryland and Virginia, — to Maryland for proposing and urging it, and to Virginia for acceding to it, for that territory belonged to her, and in giving it to the United States for the sake of the Union (the gift of the South to the North) Virginia furnished the crowning proof of her devotion to that Union and became

1. Thomas Jefferson. 2. James Momroe. 3. George Rogers Clark.

the ' ' mother of States ' ' as she was already the ' ' mother of statesmen ' ' ; and the men who blazed the way for civilization in that vast region beyond the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains — the most famous American explorers and adventurers — were Southern men. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Virginians — Southerners — both, w^ere the first white men who crossed the continent of North America, — "the first to break into the world-old solitudes of the heart of the continent." Writing of them, Noah Brooks, the historian, says : * * Peaceful farms and noble cities, towns and villages, thrilling with the hum of modern industry and activity, are spread over the vast spaces through which these explorers threaded their toilsome trail, amid incredible privations and hardships, showing the way westward across the boundless continent which is ours. Let the names of these two men long be held in grateful honor by the American people ! ' '

For nearly two-thirds of the period of its existence has the Supreme Court of the United States — the sheet-anchor of the government — been presided over by Southern men, and their decisions constitute by far the wisest, purest and most luminous pages of the record of that august tribunal.

The writer of our national anthem was a Southern man ;^ of the three contemporary American statesmen known as "the great trio,"^ two were Southern men, and it was one of these two whose statesmanship and

!• Francis S. Key.

2* Clay, Calhoun, and Webster.

patriotism twice saved the Union from dismemberment.

The author of the Emancipation Proclamation was of Southern birth and lineage, and his biographer, who was his intimate friend and law partner, records that Abraham Lincoln said that all his better qualities came from his Southern ancestry.^

The first shot in the second war of the United States with England was fired by a Southern man,- the most distinguished soldiers of that war were Southern men, the most complete and overwhelming defeat that any English army has ever experienced was inflicted by Southern troops commanded by a Southern man;^ the man who performed what Admiral Nelson called "the most daring act of the age," and who received the thanks of all Europe for overthrowing the Barbary powers and putting an end to their inhuman cruelties, was a Southern man;^ the most distinguished soldiers of the war with Mexico were Southern men, and it was a Southerner who, amid unutterable cold and hunger and desolation, with his Fahrenheit thermometer at 49° below zero, planted the "Star-Spangled- Banner" nearer the North Pole than any other mortal has ever

1. "He said, among other things, that she (his mother) was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter, and he argued that from this last source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him from the other members and descendants of the Hanks family. His theory in discussing the matter of hereditary traits had been, that, for certain reasons, illegitimate children are sometimes sturdier and brighter than those born in lawful wedlock; and in his case he believed that his better nature and finer qualities came from this broad-minded, unknown Virginian." — Herndon's Life of Lincoln, vol. 1, p. 3,

2. Capt. John Rodgers, of Maryland.

3. Andrew Jackson.

4. Stephen Decatur.

carried it, and wrested from England an honor she had held for three centuries — the honor of having reached the "furthest north/ '^

Seven times did the Abolition party during its existence make Presidential nominations;^ five of these times (including the only times when it was successful) was its standard bearer a Southern man; of the two vice-presidents elected by it one was a Southern man f of its other vice-presidential candidates one was a Southerner* and the other — who was one of the founders and leaders of the "Free-soil" party and vice-president of the first National Convention of the Republican party — while not a native of the South, was the son of a Southern woman.^ The organizer and the first president of the "Underground Railroad" were Southern men,^ the publisher of the first abolition journal in America was a Southern man, who was the real pioneer of American abolition^ (notwithstanding Henry Ward Beecher's quoted declaration that John Rankin — another Southerner — "was the father of abolitionism, the Martin Luther of the cause") ; and for several years during the first quarter of the nineteenth century the only periodicals devoted exclusively to the cause of abolitionism were published in the South,® during all of which time neither the pa-

1. Lieutenant James B. Lockwood.

3. Andrew Johnson, a North Carolinian.

4. Thomas Morris.

5. George W. Julian.

6. Vestal Coffin, Levi Coffin (of North Carolina).

7. Charles Osborn, of North Carolina.

8. In Tennessee.

pers nor their publishers and editors were interfered with in any manner. On the contrary, they met with more success than similar publications in the North had experienced, and their first encounter with mob violence was when they went North. The only antislavery societies that were really active at that period were the manumission societies in the South. It was the denunciatory violence and incendiary fanaticism of the disunion abolitionists of the North, who, later on, under the lead of Garrison, Phillips, Parker and others, made war on the Constitution of the United States, denounced it as ''a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, ' ' vowed they would not regard it, and repeatedly and persistently violated it, with the sanction and encouragement of their State governments, — this it was that balked the movement for abolition in the South, deluged the land with blood and billowed it with graves, and destroyed the Union created by the Constitution which they so denounced — the Constitution made by the Revolutionary fathers, with Washington at their head.

The first public or circulating library in America was in the South,^ a Southern State was the first to secure religious liberty by organic law,- the first Sunday-school established in America was in a Southern State,^ the first native Methodist itinerant in America was a Southern man,* a Southern man was

1. At Annapolis.

2. Maryland.

3. At Savannah, Georgia.

4. William Watters, of Maryland and Virginia.

the founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New England/ the first American to establish schools exclusively for the education of young women was a Southern man,^ the first female college in the world was and is in a Southern State,^ the first post-graduate medical school in this country was established by a Southern physician and surgeon,* the first college of dental surgery in the world was in a Southern city,^ the first man in the United States who received the degree of doctor of medicine was a Southern man,^ and so also was the first professor of pathological and surgical anatomy;'^ the first agricultural journal in this country was established by a Southern man,^ the first successful commercial paper in the United States was a Southern publication,** and I quote the words of that gifted and famous English woman and authoress, Harriet Martineau, in saying that, for more than fifty years after the Eevolution days, ''the best specimen of perioiical literature that the country afforded was the Souhern Review, published at Charleston" — CharlestoQ of the Old South.

The man who first gave a complete description of the Gulf Stream — who first marked out specific routes to be f olloT^ed in crossing the Atlantic — who first insti-

1. Jesse Lee, of Virginia. He was "the Apostle of Methodism" in New England.

2. John Lylej of Virginia.

3. The Wesle.'an Female College, Macon, Georgia.

4. The New 'ork Polyclinic and Hospital, by Dr. John A. Wyeth, of Alabama, former ^resident of the New York State Medical Association.

5. Baltimore.

B6. Dr. John Acher, of Maryland.

, 7, Dr. John Wigner, of South Carolina.

1 8. The Americin Farmer, by John L. Skinner, of Maryland.

tuted the system of deep-sea sounding — who first suggested the establishment of telegraphic communication between the continents by cable on the bed of the ocean, and who indicated the line along which the existing cable was laid — whose Treatise on Navigation has been a text-book in the United States navy — who was declared by Humboldt to be the founder of a new and important science, and on whom France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, Holland, Bremen and the Papal States bestowed orders of laiighthood and other honors — was a Southern man ;^ and a Southern man originated the plan for splicing the cable in mid-ocean. -

It was a Southern man who was declared by the French Academy of Sciences to have done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man,^ the inventor of the Gatling gun was a Southern man,* and so was the inventor of the machinery th/it first propelled a boat by steam ;^ it was the inventif)n of a Southern man^ that made the Parrott gun elective, the first steamship that crossed the Atlantic w^nt from a Southern city, whose name it bore, and T^iose citizens had it built,^ and its engine was constriicted by a Southern man;^ and when the great inter-cbntinental railroad — the Three Americas Railway, wiich is to unite, by one continuous line. North, Qntral and

1. Matthew Fontaine Maury.

2. Dr. James C. Palmer, of Maryland.

3. Cyrus H. McCormick.

4. Richard J. Gatling, of North Carolina.

5. James Rumsey, of Maryland.

6. Dr. John Brahan Read, of Alabama.

7. Savannah. 8. Daniel Dod, of Virginia.

South America — has been built, history will record the name of a Southern man as its projector— as the one who will be known as the father of that far-reaching, colossal enterprise.^ The first act by a corporate body in the world adopting the locomotive engine as a tractive power on a railway for general passenger and freight transport, was by the board of directors of the South Carolina Railroad, and the first locomotive engine built for railway service in the United States was built for that road.

The inventor of the first comprehensive system of ciphers used by the Associated Press,^ and of the first pyrotechnic system of signals in the United States,^ and of the original fire extinguisher,* and the author of international fog-signals^ — each of these was a Southern man; and no less an authority than Rear Admiral George E. Belknap, of the United States ' navy, says that, for the ease and accuracy with which ^ the depths of the sea are now measured, the world is indebted primarily to the invention of John M. Brooke ; , — that to-day the machines in use the world over for | deep sea sounding, of whatever name or description, I are but modifications or adaptations of that invention. I To this statement of Rear Admiral Belknap I add | that John M. Brooke is the discoverer of the utility ^j of the air-space in cannon, that he is the inventor of | the Brooke gun, that he and John L. Porter devised ^

1. H. R. Helper, of North Carolina.

2. Alexander Jones, M. D., of North Carolina.

3. Henry J. Rogers, of Maryland.

4. William A. Graham, of Virginia.

5. Samuel P. Griffin, of Georgia.

I 26 Some Truths of History.

and constructed the first iron-clad warship in the world's history, that he received from King William (Emperor William I.) of Prussia the gold medal uf science awarded by the Academy of Berlin, and that ; he is a Southern man, and was an officer in the Con- ! federate States navy, as was John L. Porter, who shares with him the honor due the genius that planned and constructed the ship that revolutionized the navies of the world. This is an appropriate place, too, for mention of the fact that the founder and organizer of the United States Naval Academy was another Southern man, who was also an officer in the Confederate States navy;^ and of the further fact that the organizer and constructor of the United States Naval Observatory — which he made one of the best in the world — was a Southern man, — the same who was the first constructor of a working astronomical observatory and the first publisher of a volume of \ astronomical observations in the United States.^

That which has been pronounced the most original discovery ever made in physical science by an American was made by a native of the South ;^ the man who first used sulphuric ether to produce anaesthesia for surgical operations,^ the successful performer of the first operation for extirpation of the ovary on record — ''the father of ovariotomy,"^ the first who

1. Franklin Buchanan, of Maryland.

2. James Melville Gilliss.

3. The discovery of oxygen in the sun by photography, by Henry Draper, native of Virginia.

4. Dr. Crawford W. Long, of Georgia.

5. Ephraim McDowell, of Virginia.

performed the hip-joint amputation (one of the verygravest of surgical operations) in the United States/ the physician and surgeon to whom the world is indebted for one of the most notable modern advances in the art of surgery ("the bloodless method of Wyeth" as applied to the hip-joints and shoulderjoints),^ the man distinguished as the greatest lithotomist of the nineteenth century,^ and the world's greatest gynecologist/ — were all Southern men.

The most learned American mineralogist/ the greatest American naturalist/ the most famous American musician/ the artist known as ''the American Titian/'^ the greatest American architect/ and the world's greatest chess player/^' were all Southern men, as are the greatest American tragedian/^ and the most noted American dramatist/^ and the first Greek scholar in America to-day.^^

The first woman in the world who received a col-

2. Dr. John A. Wj'eth, of Alabama, who was a soldier in the Confederate army.

3. Benjamin W. Dudley, of Virginia.

4. J. Marion Sims, of South Cai'olina.

5. John Lawrence Smith, of South Carolina. He was employed by the Turkish government to explore its mineral resources, and it still derives part of its income from his discoveries. He received the order of Nichan Iftabar and that of the Medjidieh from that government, and the order of St. Stanislas from Russia, and the cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon IIL He was also inventor of the inverted microscope.