Part 22
Near by, in a corner of the garden of the Hermitage, the remains of President Jackson and his dear wife lie side by side, under a modest but beautiful marble tomb, prepared by him for their reception. In his later years the old General rarely exhibited the sterner side of his nature. He was mild and courtly in manner. His kindness was proverbial among his neighbors. He became deeply interested in religion. To please his devoted wife, he had a modest chapel erected near their home, and they were faithful attendants at all religious meetings held there.
[Illustration: JAMES K. POLK.]
By an act of the Legislature of Tennessee, the Ladies’ Hermitage Association, a society of patriotic ladies of Nashville, has charge of the Hermitage, its mansion and surroundings, and through their untiring devotion the historic old home and its many treasures are well preserved and cared for.
The residence of President James K. Polk still stands upon an elevated site in the center of the city of Nashville. It was a stately dwelling in its day, worthy to be the home of a President. His remains were deposited in a tomb of noble proportions erected in front of the mansion, but some years ago, by an act of the Legislature, they were removed to the grounds of the State Capitol.
The revered widow of President Polk survived him many years, and the old home and her gracious welcome added a charm to the social life of the city and attracted visitors from near and far.
It was not until the year 1843 that Nashville became the seat of government of the State of Tennessee. The city presented to the State the splendid grounds upon which its beautiful capitol building stands. The famed Acropolis at Athens did not afford a nobler site for its temples. The traveler can see it from afar, and from the broad porticos of the State House one can survey the winding Cumberland and the varied beauties of the surrounding hills.
[Illustration: TOMB OF JAMES K. POLK, NASHVILLE.]
Nashville continued to grow in importance and prosperity year by year, until the shadows of the great conflict between the States clouded its happy life. The hearts of the people were mainly in sympathy with the Southern cause. True to the history of the Volunteer State, its young men enlisted in the army, and its devoted women nursed the wounded in the hospitals.
Unhappily, Fort Donelson soon fell; the Federal gunboats steamed up the river; General Buell and his troops appeared on the north bank of the Cumberland, and in February, 1862, the proud city was forced to surrender to the Union army.
Nashville became a vast military camp. Federal brigades and divisions marched through its streets and camped in the beautiful woodland parks about the city. A cordon of elaborate forts and earthworks was built along the chain of suburban hills to the south and west. An imposing fortress soon encircled the stately Capitol building, in the very heart of the city, and towered threateningly above the homes of its people. Its battlements and sharp angles, the very porticos of the Capitol, bristled with cannon. It became the central citadel of Federal defence. The fierce cannonade that announced the bloody battle at Murfreesboro, thirty miles away, could almost be heard by the anxious mothers and friends within the walls at Nashville.
General N. B. Forrest, with his cavalry force, came and threatened the city for a time, but made no serious attack. Later, General Hood marched up from the south with a splendid army, reviving the hopes of the Confederates in Nashville; but the fatal disaster at Franklin, and the overwhelming defeat of the Confederates by General Thomas on the hills south of the city, shattered all hope, and left the Union forces in possession of the coveted prize until the close of the war.
[Illustration: THE STATE HOUSE.]
Ah! those were days that tore the heart-strings. East Tennessee had cast its affections and strength with the North, and remained loyal to the Union. Each section of the State had followed its convictions as to the right, and Tennessee may well be proud of her sons who fought on either side. Nashville was the home of gallant Frank Cheatham, of General William H. Jackson, General William B. Bate, General Rains, General Maney and a host of other Confederates who won honor and distinction in the Southern cause. Buell, Rosecrans, Thomas, Sherman, Grant, distinguished generals on the Federal side, had all held command there.
Happily, peace came at last, and the long-beleaguered city breathed more freely. The remains of the Confederates who fell in the battles about Nashville were lovingly gathered into the beautiful grounds of the “Confederate Circle” at Mt. Olivet. The Federals sleep peacefully in the National Cemetery not far away, under the kindly care of the government.
Soon the wheels of industry began to revolve. New life and prosperity came. The heart of Cornelius Vanderbilt was warmed toward the desolated South, and a noble institution of learning was endowed in his name. The Trustees of George Peabody came to the rescue also, and founded the Peabody Normal College. The Jubilee Singers of Nashville sang Fisk University into life, and endowed a useful institution dedicated to the education of the colored race recently freed from slavery.
[Illustration: THE PARTHENON, NASHVILLE, TENN.]
A new Nashville has adjusted itself to the changed order of things in the South, and is assuming the appearance and proportions of a metropolis. Its borders have extended to the picturesque hills that circle the city. Its fame as an educational center perhaps more than rivals its importance in commerce and manufactures. More than five thousand students from other sections of the country are included in its scholastic population, and within the city limits there are not less than eighty schools and colleges--schools of theology, law, medicine, pharmacy, music and art. They are the glory of Nashville.
The throng of teachers and students help to give it the charm of a literary and intellectual atmosphere. Right justly may it be called the “Athens of the South.” Vanderbilt University and Peabody Normal College, with their beautiful parks and clusters of fine buildings, are institutions of which any city might be proud.
In 1880, Nashville celebrated its Centennial in honor of the founding of the city. It was an inspiring occasion, but the Centennial of the State of Tennessee, celebrated at the capital in 1896-’97, crowned the city with laurels that will long be remembered with honorable pride. It was a revelation,--a noble memorial of a century of statehood. The dream of James Robertson, the father and founder of Nashville, was more than realized. In a little more than a century of progress, the camp of the brave little colony on the bank of the Cumberland had grown into a splendid Southern city.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LOUISVILLE
THE GATEWAY CITY TO THE SOUTH
BY LUCIEN V. RULE
Beautiful of situation is Louisville, the metropolis of Kentucky, and the Gateway City to the South. Builded along the Ohio at the Falls, the river stretches away to the northeast in a sheet of water nearly a mile wide and six miles in extent with a scarcely perceptible current, making one of the finest harbors in the whole course of this “Rhine of America.” Circling hills surround the city, and the parks upon them are unsurpassed in this section of the country. The avenues are broad and well shaded, and while the residences are, as a rule, handsomely modern, many splendid specimens of Colonial architecture are to be seen. The homesteads in the suburbs are delightful, dreamy retreats, and the river valley is as fertile as that of the Jordan.
As the visitor approaches over any one of the railroads leading into Louisville and looks upon the charming scene just outlined, he may recall the historic associations connected with it. Here, in the long ago, Daniel Boone loved to linger and hunt. It was here that George Rogers Clark, the famous Indian fighter and leader of western civilization, first won renown. Here John Fitch studied the problem of steamboat navigation, anticipating Robert Fulton many years, and so far succeeded that Fulton acknowledged him the original inventor of steam craft. Here the fathers of ornithology in the new world, Alexander Wilson and John J. Audubon, resided and labored, the latter first awaking to a realization of his marvellous genius in the Kentucky wilds. In this vicinity Zachary Taylor spent his childhood, learned the art of war, and returned at intervals of peace to reside, after achieving notable triumphs for the Republic on the hard-fought fields of Mexico and elsewhere. It was here that George Keats, favorite brother of the poet, John Keats, came to live, bringing with him from old England an atmosphere of classic culture and refinement which influenced the development of intellectual Louisville. It was here, also, that Henry Clay often came to confer with his political colleagues, and to charm the people with his superb oratory. Here George D. Prentice, whose witty, trenchant paragraphs on the editorial page of _The Louisville Journal_ made it the most widely quoted American paper in foreign realms, wielded his wonderful influence as the champion of the great Pacificator of Ashland. Near this city General Robert Anderson, the fearless hero of Fort Sumter in 1861, was reared, and hither he returned after its surrender and received the welcome plaudits of all parties for his memorable loyalty to the Stars and Stripes. In this city many of the ablest Federal commanders first came into national notice during the Civil War; and here resides now Henry Watterson, whose patriotic pen and eloquent lips in recent years have dispelled the last feeling of prejudice between the once estranged sections of the Union, and who, speaking for his fellow citizens, cordially received the Grand Army of the Republic into the South on their first visit since they left its soil as conquerors.
[Illustration: GEO. D. PRENTICE.
FROM AN OLD PAINTING OWNED BY THE POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY OF KENTUCKY.]
In the evolution of nations struggle is unavoidable, but higher results ensue: and it is the peculiar pride of the State of Kentucky that though Lincoln and Davis, the two leaders of the Federal and Confederate governments while the fate of the Union was being decided on the bloody field, were her sons, nevertheless her conservatism, wise counsel and gentle forbearance--beginning in the speeches of Henry Clay long previous to the late unpleasantness, and continuing in the admirable efforts of Henry Watterson afterward--indicated the path to peace and prosperity. The motto of the Republic is “Many in one”; that of Kentucky, “United we stand, divided we fall”; and it has been the mission of our State to emphasize the vital political truth that many commonwealths with widely diverse institutions may safely unite in the formation of one strong central government; that a multiplicity of peoples with entirely different interests and pursuits may still be one in sympathy, purpose and hope. Situated midway between the North and the South, not only is her climate a delightful mingling of both extremes, but the temper of her inhabitants is a dignified reserve and a spontaneous fervor of feeling happily proportioned. Able, on the one hand, to appreciate the spirit of progress which makes the North impatient of those conditions and tendencies which the South has wisely altered with caution; and, on the other hand, apprehending the principle of personal independence which causes the South to suspect Northern counsel as impelled by a desire to interfere with individual liberty, she has long occupied a position similar to that of Tennyson’s sweet little heroine, Annie, who, sitting between Enoch and Philip, with a hand of each in her own, would weep,
“And pray them not to quarrel for her sake.”
Scarcely less sublime than Columbus pacing the deck of his ship at sea and looking wistfully westward in search of the new world he so faithfully sought, seems Daniel Boone, in 1769, venturing forth from the quiet valleys of the Yadkin in response to the promptings of his restless spirit, unconsciously going to prepare the way for the millions that were subsequently to follow him, and as if by magic to transform into fertile fields the pathless forests beyond the Alleghanies which he was the first to penetrate and explore.
[Illustration: DANIEL BOONE.
FROM A PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF COL. R. T. DURRETT, LOUISVILLE, KY.]
Dauntless, noble souls they were who created our commonwealth; and Byron, fascinated with the refreshing fame of Daniel Boone, which extended throughout Europe as well as America, celebrated him and his fellow Kentuckians in a number of fine stanzas in the eighth canto of _Don Juan_. Henry James, in his life of Hawthorne, laments the lack of historic inspiration for prose and verse in this country; yet Byron, sadly turning from the shams and hypocrisies of the Old World, which he scathingly satirized in his great production, burst into a beautiful strain of hope as he contemplated the uncorrupted heroes of the new world beyond the Atlantic. The description begins half humorously with the sixty-first stanza:
“Of all men saving Sylla the man-slayer, Who passes for in life and death most lucky, Of the great names which in our faces stare, The General Boon, backwoodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest among mortals anywhere; For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.”
The reader cannot help smiling at the poet’s mistake in leaving off the final letter of Boone’s name and calling him “General,” when all Kentuckians, even including the illustrious pioneer, are “Colonels”; but the spirit of a master interpreter of Nature is in the stanzas that follow.
[Illustration: GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
FROM A PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF COL. R. T. DURRETT, LOUISVILLE, KY.]
It was not until 1778 that LouisVille, as it was then called, was founded, George Rogers Clarke being a resident of Harrodsburg, Ky., during the years 1776 and 1777. The incidents connected with the settlement he established at the Falls are memorable in the annals of the West. The British leaders were seeking to strike an effectual blow at all the American frontier fortresses, and with this end in view were enlisting the sympathies and co-operation of the Indian tribes. Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and similar British stations were well fortified, and plans were speedily forming for a descent on the unprepared and unsuspecting pioneers in the Ohio Valley. Clark instinctively discerned this scheme and secretly but courageously determined to thwart it. He accordingly went to Williamsburg, Va., in November, 1777. The news of Burgoyne’s surrender had inspired the Virginia authorities with patriotic enthusiasm, and Governor Henry sanctioned Clark’s proposal to raise a sufficient force to proceed against the British in the Northwest. Orders were issued and Clark was put in command of the expedition. Six thousand dollars in colonial currency were voted him, and with the rank of Colonel he set out for Pittsburg. After much discouragement he secured three companies of volunteers and a number of adventurers and continued his journey down the river to the Falls. The fort that he built on his arrival furnished a nucleus around which the village subsequently sprang up.
Thirteen families remained at the Falls while Clark and his men went on against Kaskaskia. The campaign was a brilliant success. One post after another fell into the hands of the fearless Kentuckians, and the whole of the Northwest Territory was opened to emigration. It is said that when Clark and his followers appeared before the astonished garrisons during these operations, the red-coats almost imagined a force had dropped from the skies, so inaccessible had they deemed their strongholds to be, and so suddenly had their conquerors come upon them. It was not strange, therefore, that the eloquent John Randolph of Roanoke spoke of Clark in after years as the “American Hannibal, who, by the reduction of those military posts in the wilderness, obtained the Lakes for the northern boundary of our Union at the peace in 1783.”
If the visitor desires to see the location of the first settlement at the Falls let him stand upon the Fourteenth Street Bridge and look down the river. To the right is the main current of the Ohio as it plunges roaring over the Falls, and to the left is the island on which Colonel Clark and his men built a fort when they arrived in the spring of 1778. This was called “Corn Island,” from the fact that a crop of corn was planted by the risky pioneers around the fortress, and carefully cultivated, notwithstanding they were hourly exposed to Indian attacks.
Either in the autumn of 1778 or the spring of 1779 (history is not certain which), the garrison on Corn Island went ashore and laid the foundation of the future city of Louisville. Huts, blockhouses and stockades were erected, and the Indians saw that the intruders had come to stay. During the year 1779, Colonel Clark directed his energies against the British post Vincennes, and easily captured it.
[Illustration: BLOCKHOUSE AND LOG CABINS ON CORN ISLAND, 1778.
FIRST SETTLEMENT OF LOUISVILLE, KY.
_From an old print in the possession of Col. R. T. Durrett, Louisville, Ky._]
In May, 1780, the Virginia Legislature passed an “Act for Establishing the Town of Louisville at the Falls of Ohio.” The population of the place had increased to six hundred; but the increase of strength rendered the pioneers careless, and as a consequence the Indians on several occasions surprised and captured parties beyond the protection of the fort and escaped with them across the river, or into the wilderness to the south, almost before an alarm could be given. Colonel Clark, in order to ward off the attacks of the red men, constructed a unique sort of gunboat supplied with four-pound cannon. It was the first actual vessel of war ever seen on the Ohio, and though some chroniclers are disposed to make light of its actual utility as a means of defence, it kept the insidious savages from crossing the river in its vicinity.
This period in the history of Kentucky (1780-1800) was admirably portrayed by the facile pen of Washington Irving after his literary tour of the West in 1834, when he visited Louisville and took notes for future sketches. An eccentric though shrewd character of the day, William P. Duval, whose career as a pioneer lawyer, and whose adventures as an Indian commissioner under Monroe gave him fame scarcely second to that of George Rogers Clark, inspired those two narratives in _Crayon Papers_, called “The Early Experiences of Ralph Ringwood,” and “The Conspiracy of Neamathla.” Mr. Irving’s humor is at its best in the first of these and his picture of primitive people is unsurpassed. James K. Paulding likewise wrote of Governor Duval in a novel called _Nimrod Wildfire_.
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK ON THE INDIANA SHORE, OPPOSITE LOUISVILLE.
FROM AN OLD PRINT IN THE POSSESSION OF COL. R. T. DURRETT, LOUISVILLE, KY.]
With the old-style method of travel by keel-boat and barges (1780-1810), going down the river was easy enough, but ascending stream was indeed difficult. A mile an hour was the maximum rate of progress, and if the wind and tide chanced to be unfavorable, many days were lost in waiting. Then, again, the craft was likely to strike a snag or run aground, and the strength and patience of the crew would be completely exhausted ere another start could be effected. Sometimes the men became so exasperated that they would leave the boat or barge _en masse_ and return afoot whence they had started. It required three and often four months to come up to Louisville from New Orleans. Nor was this all. Bands of desperadoes infested the forest on either shore, and would hold up a boat or barge,--prototypes of the notorious train robbers of later days. The records of river navigation are filled with thrilling incidents and studies of unique character.
But notwithstanding these difficulties European tourists ventured into the wilds in search of novelty or on business speculations. One of these came to the Falls city as early as 1806, and afterwards, in writing his impressions of the place, said: “I had thought Cincinnati one of the most beautiful towns I had seen in America, but Louisville, which is almost as large, equals it in beauty and in the opinion of many exceeds it.”
Robert Fulton and Daniel French went into the steamboat-building business at Pittsburg, after the trip of the _Orleans_ in 1811; and a few years later better facilities were afforded for travel on the Ohio. The Eastern visitor to Louisville should by all means come from Cincinnati, or even Pittsburg, by boat in order to study the historic scenes and associations of the “Rhine of America.” Distinct epochs in American literature have arisen from the inspiration and suggestion given by this celebrated stream and life along its course to the various writers who travelled its waters.
First and foremost among these was John J. Audubon who came in 1809, previous to the opening of navigation by steamboat. Reports of the happy wilds of Kentucky had reached him in his Pennsylvania home subsequent to his return from Paris, where he had been sojourning as an art student. His passion for ornithology drove him to the West, and the hour he left Pittsburg marked the beginning of a new era in his wonderful career as a naturalist. The Ohio charmed him, and, locating at Louisville, he collected specimens of every bird that could be found in forest or field. In 1810, Alexander Wilson, the distinguished Scotch-American ornithologist, traversed the Ohio and Mississippi valleys on a mission similar to Audubon’s. Stopping for a season at the Falls city he chanced to become acquainted with Audubon, and in the course of conversation the two exchanged ideas and were astonished to discover that they were pursuing the same line of work. This meeting was memorable, for it awakened Audubon to a full realization of his genius and helped Wilson unspeakably. Indeed, so far-reaching were its results that in order to appreciate them one has first to familiarize himself with some of the subtlest tendencies and movements of the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: THE CITY HALL.]
When steamboat navigation began on the Ohio (1812-16) the rush of emigration commenced anew. Thirty-nine English families sent Henry Bradshaw Fearon over in 1816 to make a careful study of places and people in the Ohio Valley. He was an intelligent, practical observer, and his descriptions of the inhabitants and social conditions of Louisville are strikingly suggestive of Dickens. There is a vein of sarcasm in his observations, due to the fact that he has little sympathy with the commercial ambition that seemed to possess the people to the exclusion of higher pursuits. Every one seemed self-absorbed and bent on money-making; even the best hotels were conducted on the crowding policy. The people had unparalleled appetites, according to Mr. Fearon, for his description of a tavern meal in Louisville is similar to Dickens’s report of the fast-eating Americans he met while among us.