port. Fort Sumter has been rebuilt and Fort Moultrie is garrisoned with United States soldiers.

"As to whom the credit of firing the first gun on Sumter belongs there has been some discussion. 'Carleton,' the war correspondent of the Boston Daily Journal, said it belonged to Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia.

"A romantic story has been told in public print that the little daughter of Governor Pickens, of South Carolina, while held in the arms of General Beauregard, pulled the lanyard of the first gun fired on the fort.

"The little girl of this story, who became one of the most brilliant daughters of South Carolina, was born in St. Petersburg while her father was United States minister to the court of Russia. The Czarina was her godmother, and gave her the name of 'Douschka,' meaning "my darling."

"Her mother was a great belle when Governor Pickens sought her hand in marriage, and was a great favorite at court.

"The man who fired the first gun on Sumter was Major Wade Hampton Gibbes, of Columbia, S. C.

"While residing in Columbia I frequently met Major Gibbes and heard his account of that memorable firing, and from what I learned from other reputable men there is no doubt existing in my mind about the matter.

"It was not a subject of discussion at the clubs, but whenever there was any talk about it credit was given Major Gibbes for his performance.

Major Gibbes graduated from West Point in 1860, and while at home his State (South Carolina) seceded and he sent his resignation to Washington. He was a lieutenant in Captain James' company when General Beauregard ordered the captain to open fire on the fort.

"When the order was given Lieutenant Gibbes took the corporal's place and fired the gun that sounded the note of war. General Beauregard in military parlance reported that Captain James had performed this act, but it was given to his lieutenant to carry out the order.

"Major Gibbes did not attain high rank in the Confederate army."

[From the New York Herald, November 11, 1903.]

LAST CAPITOL OF THE CONFEDERACY AT

DANVILLE.

The recent serious illness of Mrs. Jefferson Davis has had the effect of creating much interest in the history of the Confederacy. Mrs. Davis is one of a very few now alive who were closely connected with the Confederate government. The history of Danville as a seat of the Confederate government, which is recalled by the mention of Mrs. Davis' name, has a unique interest. On Sunday, April

2, 1865, General Lee, in command of the forces defending Richmond, notified President Davis that the main line of his defences had been broken, that it would not be judicious for him to attempt to longer hold the fortifications guarding the city, and that it would be advisable for the government to evacuate simultaneously with him. The government, therefore, went South in the only direction open to it.

The party stopped at Danville because there were fewer Federal troops near there than any other place offering suitable accommodations that could be reached, and because President Davis thought that he could direct a military coup which he had planned to the best advantage from that point.

The president and other prominent government officials were upon their arrival at Danville carried to the residence of Major W. T. Sutherlin, commandant of the town. For a week thereafter the Sutherlin residence was the capitol of the Confederate States.

The occupancy of the capitol by the president and his cabinet members ceased even more abruptly than it began. On Monday morning, April 10, information reaached Danville of the surrender of Lee on the previous day. Circumstances made the immediate evacuation of the place necessary.

It is a historic landmark, that old mansion, and its appearance is in keeping with its history. A large, square stone structure, with wings on both sides, it is set far back in grounds having a frontage the width of an entire block. It looks at the same time neat, trim and substantial. It has an almost human expression of cold, aristocratic dignity, however, that cannot fail to impress even the most casual beholder.

ROBERT EDWARD LEE.

THE SPEECH OF HONORABLE DON P. HALSEY

On the Bill to Provide a Statue of Robert Edward Lee to be placed in Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington, Delivered in the Senate of Virginia, February 6, 1903.

[The preservation in these pages of this just and admirable exposition will be held in satisfaction, generally in this country, as well as in the broad domain of civilization. It would seem incredible to conceive of a dissentient to the meed due an exemplar of the noblest embodiment of the patriot, citizen and soldier, of which history has cognizance.

ED.]

MR. PRESIDENT:

In presenting the Bill now under consideration, I did so from no desire to offend Northern sentiment, or to re-open old wounds now happily healed. Rather I did so from entirely opposite motives, for, believing that the feeling of good will between the sections is now greater than ever before, I considered this an opportune time for Virginia to accept the invitation so long held out to her by the Federal Government, and place in the National Valhalla, by the side of her Washington, the figure of him whom she deems to be his peer, and the fittest of all her sons for this high distinction, thereby showing her good feeling towards the reunited nation of which she is a part.

Right glad am I to feel that those who are the truest exponents of the sentiment of the North, sustain me in my belief that in this era of good feeling the statue of Lee may be thus placed without justly exciting passions of sectional animosity or tirades of bitter comment. I did not hope, of course, that the idea would meet with the approval of everybody-the man does not live who can win universal approbation, no matter how well he may deserve it, and neither can a proposition to do any act, no matter how meritorious, be made without there being some who will disapprove, and, perhaps, condemn it.

I recognize the fact that there are those in the North who are still irreconcilable as well as those in the South who are still unreconstructed"-to use that word in the Northern sense-but I take it also that the irreconcilable of the North are no more representative of the true sentiment of that section, than the unreconstructed are representative of the true sentiment of the South, and, therefore, I believe that the great heart of the North beats in unison with that of the South in honoring the memory of the great exponent of the chivalry and the glory and the true manhood of the South, just as I know that the South delights to honor the memory of his great adversaries, Lincoln and Grant, the first of whom pursued his course from a sense of duty as he saw it, "with charity towards all, and malice towards none," and the other of whom uttered those words"Let us have peace, which fell like a benediction upon the sore and wounded spirit of the South in the hour of her greatest tribulation and distress.

It is not as a representative of the spirit of secession that Virginia will offer the statue of Lee, nor as insisting that the right of secession now exists. Lee was never a secessionist, but, on the contrary he called secession "anarchy," and said that if he owned the four million slaves in the South he would give them all to save the Union. In a letter written to his son in January, 1861, he used these words: "I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than the dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation." Again, in a letter to his sister, he said: “We are now in a state of war which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn; and though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and would have foreborne and pleaded to the end for a redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native State." After the war his whole influence was used in the direction of peace and reconciliation, and his last years were spent in teaching by precept and example the loyal acceptance of the verdict of the war, and the duty of building up the reunited country. It is not, therefore, as typifying the doctrine of secession that Virginia will offer his statue, but only as her superbest example of manhood, believing that "in perfection of character, as tested by struggle, victory and defeat, he is unequalled in history," and that,' therefore, he, and no other, should be placed by the side of her

majestic Washington, that together they may stand through the centuries as chiefs of our grand army of immortals.

Neither do we offer Lee because we have no others worthy to stand in that congregation of the nation's great. It is rather from such a wealth of material that we must draw, that it constitutes an embarrassment of riches. Our Jefferson, our Mason, our Henry, our Madison, our Monroe, and our Marshall; all of these and many others are worthy of that great company, but having selected Washington for our representative of the Revolutionary time, it seems. that the most fitting selection we can now make is to take the other from a later time and that the most stirring period of our history, and surely none can be found more "worthy of this national commemoration" than the stainless chieftain, Robert Edward Lee.

Of the absolute legal right of Virginia to choose whom she will to represent her in statue in this National Pantheon, there can be no doubt whatever. The law gives palpable expression to this right in terms so clear and explicit that no room is left for any possible adverse construction. It is positively and unmistakably to the effect that every State shall have the right to select such two of its illustrious dead for this purpose as each State shall determine to be worthy of this national commemoration." It then goes on to provide that these statues when so furnished by the several States "shall be placed in the old Hall of the House of Representatives, in the Capitol of the United States, which is hereby set apart, or so much thereof as may be necessary, as a National Statuary Hall.” There is no provision in the law giving the authority to the President or anyone else, to either accept or reject these statues, and passing by the question of whether Virginia was in or out of the Union at the time that the law was passed and the invitation extended, I will only say that there is no question about her being in the Union now, and having the same rights under the laws of the Union as every other State. The only people, therefore, who have the right to say anything as to whose statues Virginia shall send are the people of Virginia themselves, who speak through their representatives in the General Assembly. If Kansas were to choose the statue of John Brown to represent her, would Virginia have the right to complain? Certainly not. It is the prerogative of both Virginia and Kansas to choose whom they will to represent them, and neither has the right to interfere with the choice of the other.

These are Virginia's places that Virginia is invited to fill as she herself shall determine, and no acceptance is necessary beyond the