Part 28

Thomas Marshall Green, journalist and historian, was born near Danville, Kentucky, November 23, 1836, the son of Judge John Green, an early Kentucky jurist of repute, who died when his son was but two years old. Green was graduated from Centre College, Danville, in what is now known as the famous class of '55, which included several men afterwards distinguished. In 1856 Green joined the staff of the _Frankfort Commonwealth_, then a political journal of wide influence; and in the following year he became editor of that paper. He left the _Commonwealth_ in 1860, to become editor of the _Maysville Eagle_, of which he made a pronounced success, its screams smacking not at all of the dignified days of its first editors, the Collinses, father and son. His _Historic Families of Kentucky_ (Cincinnati, 1889), gave him a place among Kentucky historians, but the late Colonel John Mason Brown, of Louisville, gave to Green his greatest opportunity when he published his _The Political Beginnings of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1889). This work of Colonel Brown's was, in effect, an avowed vindication of the reputation of his grandfather, John Brown, first United States Senator from Kentucky, who, in the stormy days in which his lot had been cast, had been violently attacked for his alleged connection with the Spanish Conspiracy of Aaron Burr, which was charged in a controversy running through many years of violent disputation, to have been an attempt in connection with General James Wilkinson, Judges Sebastian, Wallace, and Innes of the Kentucky Court of Appeals and others to detach Kentucky from her allegiance to the United States, and annex her territory to the Spanish dominions of the South and South-west, through which the much-desired free navigation of the Mississippi would be assured. Colonel Brown was a brilliant man of unusual scholarly attainments and deeply read in American history. These qualities with his large legal training enabled him to present a strong case in the vindication of his grandfather's reputation. His arguments, theories, and proofs were illuminating, able, and to many minds most convincing, while they fell with small effect upon Green and many others who held the opposite view. For this reason Green wrote and published _The Spanish Conspiracy_ (Cincinnati 1891), a wonderfully well informed and clever work, and the one upon which he takes his place among Western historians. Students who would be fully informed as to the many phases--the charges and matter relied upon for defense, pro and con, in this bitter controversy which marshalled Kentucky into two hostile camps, whose alignments were more or less maintained through many strenuous years--must study these two books. They present the last word on either side. Colonel Brown's untimely death, which occurred in 1890, some months before the appearance of Green's book, probably lost Kentucky a reply to the Maysville historian that would have added to the flood of light thrown on this early and vital crisis. _The Spanish Conspiracy_ was supplemented and supported in its conclusions by Mr. Anderson C. Quisenberry's _The Life and Times of Hon. Humphrey Marshall_ (Winchester, Kentucky, 1892). Thomas M. Green died at Danville, Kentucky, April 7, 1904.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Biographical Encyclopaedia of Kentucky_ (Cincinnati, 1878); _Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1910, v, xv).

THE CONSPIRATORS[24]

[From _The Spanish Conspiracy_ (Cincinnati, 1891)]

The grief of the reader in learning from the _Political Beginnings_, that Humphrey Marshall was "violent, irreligious and profane," will be mollified by the assurance given in the same work that Harry Innes "was a sincerely religious man." It might with equal truth have been stated that Caleb Wallace, who had abandoned the Presbyterian pulpit to go into politics, kept up his church relations, and practiced his devotions with the utmost regularity. Sebastian also, who had cast off the gown of the Episcopal ministry in his pursuit of the "flesh pots of Egypt," continued, it is believed, the exercise of all religious observations, and, in the depth of his piety, deemed a treasonable overture entirely too good to be communicated to an infidel. While John Brown, who had absorbed faith as he sat under the very droppings of the sanctuary, it will be cheerfully conceded was the most devout of the four. On the other hand, John Wood, one of the editors of the _Western World_, whom they afterwards bought, was a reprobate; and young Joseph M. Street, whom they could neither bribe nor intimidate, and the attempt to assassinate whom proved a failure, was a sinner. It is distressing to think that, like Gavin Hamilton, the latter "drank, and swore, and played at cards." It may be that the wickedness of the editors of the _Western World_, and the contemplation of their own saintliness, justified in the eyes of the four Christian jurists and statesmen the several little stratagems they devised, and paid Littell for introducing into his "Narrative," in order to obtain the advantage of the wicked editors in the argument. The contrast of their characters made innocent those little mutilations by Innes of his own letter to Randolph! The same process of reasoning made laudable John Brown's suppression of his Muter letter, his assertion that it was identical with the "sliding letter," and his claim that the acceptance of Gardoqui's proposition would have been consistent with the alleged purpose to make some future application for the admission of Kentucky into the new Union! While the suppression of the resolution of Wallace and Wilkinson in the July convention, and the declaration that such a _motion never was made_, in order to prove the unhappy editors to be liars, became as praiseworthy as the spoiling of the Egyptians by the Israelites! The scene of those four distinguished gentlemen seated around a table, with a prayer-book in the center, planning the screen for themselves and the discomfiture of the editors, would be a subject worthy of the brush of a Hogarth.

FOOTNOTE:

[24] Copyright, 1891, by Robert Clarke Company.

FORCEYTHE WILLSON

Forceythe Willson, "the William Blake of Western letters," was born at Little Genesee, New York, April 10, 1837, the elder brother of the latest Republican governor of Kentucky, Augustus E. Willson. When Forceythe was nine years old, his family packed their household goods upon an "ark," or Kentucky flatboat, at Pittsburgh, and drifted down the Ohio river, landing at Maysville, Kentucky, where they resided for a year, and in which town the future governor of Kentucky was born. In 1847 the Willsons removed to Covington, Kentucky, and there Forceythe's education was begun. The family lived at Covington for six years, at the end of which time Forceythe entered Harvard University, but an attack of tuberculosis compelled him to leave without his degree. He returned to the West, making his home at New Albany, Indiana, a little town just across the Ohio river from Louisville. A year later Willson joined the editorial staff of the _Louisville Journal_, and together he and Prentice courted the muse and defended the cause of the Union. Willson's masterpiece, _The Old Sergeant_, was the "carrier's address" for January 1, 1863, printed anonymously on the front page of the _Journal_. The author's name was withheld until Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes pronounced it the best ballad the war had produced, when Willson was heralded as its author. _The Old Sergeant_ recites an almost literally true story, and it is wonderfully well done. In the fall of 1863 Willson was married to the New Albany poet, Elizabeth C. Smith, and they removed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the future executive of the Commonwealth of Kentucky was a student in Harvard University. The Willsons purchased a home near Lowell's, and they were soon on friendly terms with all of the famous New England writers. In 1866 _The Old Sergeant and Other Poems_ appeared at Boston, but it did not make an appeal to the general public. Forceythe Willson died at Alfred Centre, New York, February 2, 1867, but his body was brought back to Indiana, and buried on the banks of the Whitwater river. Willson believed it quite possible for the living to hold converse with the dead, and this, with other strange beliefs, entered largely into his poetry.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. His authoritative biographer, Mr. John James Piatt, the Ohio poet, has written illuminatingly of this rare fellow, with his "almond-shaped eyes," as Dr. Holmes called them, and his Oriental look and manner, in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (March, 1875); _Lexington Leader_ (September 13, 1908). His brother, Hon. Augustus E. Willson, will shortly utter the final word concerning him and his work.

THE OLD SERGEANT

[From _The Old Sergeant and Other Poems_ (Boston, 1867)]

The Carrier cannot sing to-day the ballads With which he used to go, Rhyming the glad rounds of the happy New Years That are now beneath the snow:

For the same awful and portentous Shadow That overcast the earth, And smote the land last year with desolation, Still darkens every hearth.

And the carrier hears Beethoven's mighty death-march Come up from every mart; And he hears and feels it breathing in his bosom, And beating in his heart.

And to-day, a scarred and weather-beaten veteran, Again he comes along, To tell the story of the Old Year's struggles In another New Year's song.

And the song is his, but not so with the story; For the story, you must know, Was told in prose to Assistant-Surgeon Austin, By a soldier of Shiloh;

By Robert Burton, who was brought up on the Adams, With his death-wound in his side; And who told the story to the Assistant-Surgeon, On the same night that he died.

But the singer feels it will better suit the ballad, If all should deem it right, To tell the story as if what it speaks of Had happened but last night.

"Come a little nearer, Doctor--thank you--let me take the cup: Draw your chair up--draw it closer--just another little sup! Maybe you may think I'm better; but I'm pretty well used up-- Doctor, you've done all you could do, but I'm just a-going up!

"Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try--" "Never say that," said the Surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh; "It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!" "What you _say_ will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die."

"Doctor, what has been the matter?" "You were very faint, they say; You must try to get to sleep now." "Doctor, have I been away?" "Not that anybody knows of!" "Doctor--Doctor, please to stay! There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay!

"I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?--but it couldn't ha' been so-- For as sure as I'm a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh, I've this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh!

"This is all that I remember: The last time the Lighter came, And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same, He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name. 'Orderly Sergeant--Robert Burton!'--just that way it called my name.

"And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, Knew it couldn't be the Lighter--he could not have spoken so-- And I tried to answer, 'Here, sir!' but I couldn't make it go; For I couldn't move a muscle, and I couldn't make it go!

"Then I thought: It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore; Just another foolish _grape-vine_[25]--and it won't come any more; "But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before: 'Orderly Sergeant--Robert Burton!'--even plainer than before.

"That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light, And I stood beside the River, where we stood that Sunday night, Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite!--

"And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, And I heard a Bugle sounding, as from some celestial Tower; And the same mysterious voice said: 'It is the eleventh hour! Orderly Sergeant--Robert Burton--it is the eleventh hour!'

"Doctor Austin!--what _day_ is this?" "It is Wednesday night, you know." "Yes--to-morrow will be New Year's, and a right good time below! What _time_ is it, Doctor Austin?" "Nearly Twelve." "Then don't you go! Can it be that all this happened--all this--not an hour ago!

"There was where the gunboats opened on the dark rebellious host; And where Webster semicircled his last guns upon the coast; There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghosts-- And the same old transport came and took me over--or its ghost!

"And the old field lay before me all deserted far and wide; There was where they fell on Prentiss--there McClernand met the tide; There was where stem Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut's heroes died-- Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died.

"There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin, There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in; There McCook sent 'em to breakfast, and we all began to win-- There was where the grape-shot took me, just as we began to win.

"Now, a shroud of snow and silence over everything was spread; And but for this old blue mantle and the old hat on my head, I should not have even doubted, to this moment, I was dead-- For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead!

"Death and silence! Death and silence! all around me as I sped! And behold, a mighty Tower, as if builded to the dead-- To the Heaven of the heavens, lifted up its mighty head, Till the Stars and Stripes of Heaven all seemed waving from its head!

"Round and mighty-based it towered--up into the infinite-- And I knew no mortal mason could have built a shaft so bright; For it shone like solid sunshine; and a winding stair of light, Wound around it and around it till it wound clear out of sight!

"And, behold, as I approached it--with a rapt and dazzled stare-- Thinking that I saw old comrades just ascending the great Stair-- Suddenly the solemn challenge broke of--'Halt, and who goes there!' 'I'm a friend,' I said, 'if you are.' 'Then advance, sir, to the Stair!'

"I advanced! That sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballantyne! First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the line! 'Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! Welcome by that countersign!' And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine!

"As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the grave; But he smiled and pointed upward with a bright and bloodless glaive: 'That's the way, sir, to Head-quarters.' 'What Head-quarters!' 'Of the Brave.' 'But the great Tower?' 'That,' he answered, 'Is the way, sir, of the Brave!'

"Then a sudden shame came o'er me at his uniform of light; At my own so old and tattered, and at his so new and bright; 'Ah!' said he, 'you have forgotten the New Uniform to-night-- Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o'clock to-night!'

"And the next thing I remember, you were sitting _there_, and I-- Doctor--did you hear a footstep? Hark! God bless you all! Good by! Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack, when I die, To my Son--my Son that's coming--he won't get here till I die!

"Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before-- And to carry that old musket"--Hark! a knock is at the door! "Till the Union--" See! it opens! "Father! Father! speak once more!" "_Bless you!_"--gasped the old, gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more!

FOOTNOTE:

[25] Canard.

W. C. P. BRECKINRIDGE

William Campbell Preston Breckinridge, orator and journalist, was born at Baltimore, Maryland, August 28, 1837, the son of Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge (1800-1871), and an own cousin of John C. Breckinridge (1821-1875). He was graduated from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, in the famous class of '55, after which he studied medicine for a year, when he abandoned it to enter the Louisville Law School. Before he was of age he was admitted to the Fayette County Bar, and he was a member of it when he died. In July, 1862, he entered the Confederate Army as a captain in John Hunt Morgan's command; and during the last two years of the war was colonel of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry. The war over, Colonel Breckinridge returned to Lexington and became editor of _The Observer and Reporter_, which he relinquished a few years later in order to devote his entire attention to the law. In 1884 Colonel Breckinridge was elected to the lower House of Congress from the Ashland district, and he took his seat in December, 1885, which was the first session of the Forty-ninth Congress. One of his colleagues from Kentucky was the present Governor of the Commonwealth, James B. McCreary; another was John G. Carlise, who was chosen speaker over Thomas B. Reed of Maine. Colonel Breckinridge served ten years in the House, closing his career there in the Fifty-third Congress. In Washington he won a wide reputation as a public speaker, being commonly characterized as "the silver tongue orator from Kentucky." In 1894, after the most bitter congressional campaign of recent Kentucky history, he was defeated for re-election; and two years later as the "sound money" candidate he again met defeat, Evan E. Settle, who was also known in Congress as a very eloquent orator, and who hailed from the Kentucky county of "Sweet Owen," triumphing over him. Colonel Breckinridge was never again a candidate for public office. In 1897 he resumed his newspaper work, becoming chief editorial writer on _The Lexington Herald_, which paper was under the management of his son, Mr. Desha Breckinridge, the present editor. During the last eight years of his life Colonel Breckinridge achieved a new and fresh fame as a writer of large information upon State and national affairs. Simplicity was the goal toward which he seemed to strive in his discussions of great and small questions. His articles upon the Goebel tragedy were really State papers of importance. Upon more than one occasion his editorial utterances were wired to a New York paper, appearing simultaneously in that paper and in his own. He declined several offers to become editor of metropolitan newspapers. While at the present time Colonel Breckinridge is remembered by the great common people as an orator of unsurpassed gifts, and while a great memorial mass of legends have grown about his name, it is as a writer of real ability, who had all the requisites and inclinations of a man of letters save one of the chief essentials: leisure. When his speeches and writings are collected and his biography written his true position in the literature of Kentucky will be more clearly and generally appreciated than it now is. Colonel Breckinridge died at Lexington, Kentucky, November 19, 1904.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. The eulogy of John Rowan Allen is the finest summing up of Colonel Breckinridge's life and labors (_Lexington Leader_, November 23, 1904); _Kentucky Eloquence_, edited by Bennett H. Young (Louisville, Kentucky, 1907). His papers, together with those of his grandfather and father, are now in possession of the Library of Congress.

"IS NOT THIS THE CARPENTER'S SON?"

[From _The Lexington Herald_ (Christmas Day, 1899)]

"And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." And this has been the universal truth since those days--the one unchangeable, pregnant, vital truth of development, of progress, of civilization, of happiness, of freedom, of charity. The perpetual presence, the ceaseless personal influence, the potent force of His continual association alone renders human history intelligible or makes possible the solution of any grave problem which man meets in his upward march to better life and more wholesome conditions. And to-day the accepted anniversary of the birth of the "carpenter's son" is the one day whose celebration is in all civilized nations, among all independent people and in all learned tongues. The world has not yet accepted Him; there are nations very large in numbers, very old in histories, very devout in their accepted religions, which have not accepted His claim to be divine, nor bowed to the reign of His supreme authority. And the contrast between such nations and those who have accepted His claim and modeled their laws upon His teachings form the profoundest reason for the verity of that claim and the beneficence of those teachings.

Millions to-day will assemble themselves in their accustomed houses of worship, and with songs and instruments of music, with garlands and wreaths, with glad countenances and uplifted hearts, render adoration to the carpenter's son of Nazareth; adoration to the lowly Jew who was born in a manger and died upon a cross. Many millions will not attend worship, but still render unconscious testimony to the wondrous power which He has exercised through the centuries in the glad happiness which springs from conditions which are only possible under His teachings and by the might of His perpetual presence. They will not know that "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by," but the day is full of joy, the homes are radiant with happiness, the cheer is jovial and the laughter jocund, the eye brightens under the glances of loved ones--because He has passed by and scattered love and charity with profuse prodigality along the pathway He trod.

He has walked through the gay hearts of little children, and joy has sprung up as wild flowers where His footsteps fell; He has lingered at the mother's bedside and ineffable love has filled the heart of her who felt His gentle presence. In carpenter shops like unto that in which He toiled for thirty years, in humble homes, in the counting rooms of bankers, in the offices of lawyers and doctors, in the charitable institutions which are memorials of His teachings, He has passed by; those within may not have been conscious thereof; they were possibly too absorbed to feel the sweet and pervading fragrance of the omnipotent force which He always exerts; yet over them and their thoughts He did exert that irresistible power; and to-day the world is better, sweeter, more joyful, more loving, because of Him.

It is in its secular aspect that we venture to submit these thoughts; it is His transforming power secularly to which we call attention this sweet Christmas morning. "Christ the Lord Has Risen," but it is Jesus the man--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the carpenter, the new teacher of universal brotherhood, the man who went about doing good; the obscure Jew who brought the new and nobler era of charity and forgiveness and love into actual existence that _The Herald_, a mere secular paper, desires to hold up.

And peculiarly to that aspect of His life that was social; the friend of Lazarus; the diner at the table of Zaccheus; the pleased and kindly guest at the wedding of Cana; the man who leaned His head on the breast of His friend, the simple gentleman who took little children in His arms and loved them; the obedient son, the loyal friend, the forbearing associate, the forgiving master, the tender healer of disease, the loving man who was touched with a sense of all our infirmities.

To-day with jollity let us turn the water of our common lives into the wine of sweet domestic happiness; let us take the children of misfortune to our breast; let us be loyal to our weaker friends; let us share our fullness with our brethren who are lean in this world's goods, and, shedding smiles and kind words, and pleasant phrases through the day, it may be that some stricken heart made glad may say: "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by."

BASIL W. DUKE