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قراءة كتاب Uncle Daniel's Story Of "Tom" Anderson, and Twenty Great Battles

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Uncle Daniel's Story Of "Tom" Anderson, and Twenty Great Battles

Uncle Daniel's Story Of "Tom" Anderson, and Twenty Great Battles

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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south of us. The young men stepped out to see what the trouble was and in a very short time they returned greatly excited. A company of men were marching down the street bearing the American flag, when a number of rebel sympathizers had assaulted them with stones, clubs, etc., and had taken their flag and torn it to shreds. It seemed that a Mr. 'Dan' Bowen, a prominent man in that part of the State, had been haranguing the people on the question of the war, and had denounced it as 'an infamous Abolition crusade,' and the President as a villainous tyrant,' and those who were standing by the Union as 'Lincoln's hirelings, and dogs with collars around their necks.' This language stirred up the blood of the worst element of the people, who sympathised with secession, and had it not been for the timely interposition of many good and worthy citizens, blood would have been shed upon the streets."

Here Col. Bush asked:

"What became of this man Bowen?"

"I understand that he now occupies one of the highest positions the people of Indiana can give to one of her citizens. You see, my friends, that we American people are going so fast that we pass by everything and forget almost in a day the wrongs to our citizens and our country."

"But to return to what I was saying in connection with the young men. Tom Anderson was in a state of great excitement. He said he had almost been mobbed before leaving home for entertaining Union sentiments, and feared that he could not safely return with his family. My son Peter suggested that, perhaps, they (being young) owed a duty to their country and could not perform it in a more satisfactory manner than to enter the service and do battle for the old flag. To this suggestion no reply was made at the time. I said to them:

"'This seems to me a very strange condition of things, to see a Government like this threatened in its permanency by the very people that have controlled and profited most by it.' Tom replied:

"'Uncle, I have given a great deal of thought to this subject. You know I was born in Ohio. My father was an Episcopal minister, and settled in Mississippi while I was but a boy. My father and mother are both buried there, leaving me an only child. I grew up and there married my good wife, Mary Whitthorne. We have lived happily together. I have had a good practice at the law; have tried to reconcile myself to their theories of human rights and 'rope-of-sand' government, but cannot. They are very different from our Northern people—have different theories of government and morals, with different habits of thought and action. The Pilgrim Fathers of the North who landed at Plymouth Rock were men of independence of thought; believed in Christianity, in education and universal liberty. They and their progeny have moved almost on a line due west, to the Pacific Ocean, infusing their energy, their ideas of government, of civil liberty, of an advanced Christian civilization, with a belief in man's equality before the law. These ideas and thoughts have become imbedded in the minds of the Northern people so firmly that they will fight to maintain them; will make them temporarily a success, and would make them permanent but for their habit of moving so rapidly in the direction of business and the accumulation of wealth, which prepares the mind to surrender everything to the accomplishment of this single object. The Southern inhabitants are almost entirely descended from impetuous, hot-blooded people. Their ancestors that landed at Jamestown, and later along the Southern Atlantic coast within our borders, were of an adventurous and warlike people. Their descendants have driven westward almost on a parallel line with the Northern people to the borders of Mexico, occasionally lapping over the Northern line. Their thoughts, ideas, manners and customs have been impressed upon the people wherever they have gone, by the pretense, always foremost and uppermost, as if a verity, that they were the most hospitable and chivalric of any people in America. Their civilization was different. Their arguments were enforced by the pistol and bowie-knife upon their equals, and slaves subjected to their will by the lash and bloodhound—the death of a man, white or black, being considered no more than merely a reduction of one in the enumeration of population. They have opposed common schools for fear the poorer classes of whites might have an opportunity of contesting at some time the honors of office, that being the great ambition of Southern society. They would not allow the slave to be educated for fear he might learn that he was a man, having rights above the brute with which he has always been held on a par. The aristocracy only were educated. And this was generally done in the North, where the facilities were good; and by sending them from home it kept down the envy and ambition of the poorer classes, where, if they could have seen the opportunity of acquiring knowledge it might have stimulated them to greater exertion for the purpose of storing their minds with something useful in extricating themselves from an obedience to the mere will of the dominating class. Those people, one and all, no matter how ignorant, are taught to consider themselves better than any other people save the English, whose sentiments they inculcate. They are not in sympathy with a purely Republican system of Government. They believe in a controlling class, and they propose to be that class. I have heard them utter these sentiments so often that I am sure that I am correct. They all trace their ancestry back to some nobleman in some mysterious way, and think their blood better than that which courses in the veins of any Northern man, and honestly believe that one of them in war will be the equal of five men of the North. They think because Northern men will not fight duels, they must necessarily be cowards. In the first contest my judgment is that they will be successful. They are trained with the rifle and shotgun; have taken more pains in military drill than the people of the North, and will be in condition for war earlier than the Union forces. They are also in better condition in the way of arms than the Government forces will be. The fact that they had control of the Government and have had all the best arms turned over to them by a traitorous Secretary of War, places them on a war footing at once, while the Government must rely upon purchasing arms from foreign countries, and possibly of a very inferior character. Until foundries and machinery for manufacturing arms can be constructed, the Government will be in poor condition to equip troops for good and effective service. This war now commenced will go on; the North will succeed; slavery will go down forever; the Union will be preserved, and for a time the Union sentiment will control the Government; but when reverses come in business matters to the North, the business men there, in order to get the trade of the South, under the delusion that they can gain pecuniarily by the change, will, through some 'siren song,' turn the Government over again to the same blustering and domineering people who have ever controlled it. This, uncle, is the fear that disturbs me most at present.'"

"How prophetic," spoke up Dr. Adams.

"Yes, yes," exclaimed all present.

Col. Bush at this point arose and walked across the floor. All eyes were upon him. Great tears rolled down his bronzed cheeks. In suppressed tones he said:

"For what cause did I lose my right arm?"

He again sat down, and for the rest of the evening seemed to be in deep meditation.

Uncle Daniel, resuming his story, said:

"Just as Tom had finished what he was saying, I heard the garden gate open and shut, and David and Harvey appeared in the moonlight in front of the porch. These were my second and youngest sons. David lived some five miles from Allentown, on a farm, and Harvey had been staying at his house, helping do the farm work. They were both very much excited. Their mother, who had left. Mary Anderson in the parlor, came out to enjoy the

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